Waving Goodbye to Neorepublican Corruption in Ohio
Hot Links
Prissy's friend, Victoria Parks is singer and songwriter of Bye-bye Blackwell. Listen, her song tells the story. Waving Goodbye to Ken Blackwell
In fact, a small group of Ohio women find it so funny they intend to perform this song, complete with white gloves and pill box hats for Ken as a parting gift. Or would that be more like a parting shot? ;-)
Our turn to point and laugh, Ken. That will teach you to cheat us out of our vote. Enjoy the show
Acers Now ATTN: TOP SUPER DUPER SECRET EXTRA for General Peter Pace and the Iraqi Survey Group ONLY PROPOSED LAWSUIT FOR A PEACEFUL, JUST AND TIMELY U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
ACERSNow has prepared a draft lawsuit, which will be filed if the key elements of the Proposed Plan for a Peaceful, Just and Timely U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq are not initiated.
•Proposed Lawsuit for a Peaceful, Just and Timely U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq (revised 1 Dec 2006) [pdf]
Nothing in this document is intended to be a criticism of our courageous U.S. Military troops.
Skeleton Project 10 films the US Government would rather you not see.
1) Why We Fight 2) The Fog of War 3) The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream 4) America: From Freedom to Fascism 5) Loose Change 6) 1984 7) V for Vendetta 8) An An Inconvenient Truth 9) Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers 10) The Corporation
Films or trailers available on site. Prissy doesn't really know if Uncle Sam doesn't want you to see them. But if he doesn't all the more reason to be curious...
One commenter wrote: I would add “The Power of Nightmares” by Adam Curtis and the BBC. This documentary traces of roots of the American Neoconservative Movement alongside the rise of radical Islam. It’s excellent and freely available at the Internet Archive
MSN News Secret US military documents, ASDF training program leaked online
The leaked U.S. documents describe the number of goods containers at bases in Iraq and Kuwait. The documents were dated June and July this year, and were marked secret when they were sent to multinational forces.
The leaked ASDF documents contain information on an anti-guerrilla training program, reports by nine ASDF members who took part in the Iraqi reconstruction mission and preparatory material for an anti-ballistic missile training session.
"I don't think the leakage of U.S. military documents will have a serious effect on current operations because the situation has changed," a top ASDF official said. "However, it could damage our relationship with the U.S. military."
CNN DHS official admits taking bribes to fake documents
A federal immigration official pleaded guilty Thursday to receiving more than $600,000 in bribes for falsifying documents for illegal immigrants.
Robert Schofield, 57, could face 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in February.
He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to issuing fraudulent documents to at least 184 illegal immigrants who falsely received U.S. citizenship.
"The breadth and scope of Mr. Schofield's fraud and corruption are truly stunning," said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.
CNN another worthless Bush administration official and former insurance defrauder turned national security advisor Stephen Hadley Hadley: Bush knows changes needed in Iraq
• National security adviser says Donald Rumsfeld memo "useful" • Rumsfeld presented options in controversial memo, Hadley says • Iraq Study Group to present its recommendations this week • Bush unlikely to act on any recommendations for weeks, Hadley says
Ex-CIA Worker Pleads Guilty To Burglary
See why it takes Prissy so long between posts! For all her blogging friends. Hat tip to justice blogger S-Q.A CIA employee for nearly 20 years admitted breaking into 10 homes near the spy agency's headquarters about a year ago and taking valuables and other items.
George C. Dalmas III, 48, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the burglaries, which each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Dalmas, who had no prior criminal record, has been fired from his CIA job as a mid-level administrator.
During the daylight burglaries in the McLean area, Dalmas took valuable items including Camp David cuff links, Cartier hoop earrings, a Tiffany gold scarab ring and a sapphire-diamond necklace. But the most curious objects from Dalmas' burglary expedition were less valuable - women's panties.
UK Times an interesting development Dead Russian spy to be buried as a Muslim
Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent poisoned in London, is to be buried according to Muslim tradition after converting to Islam on his deathbed.
The spy's father, Walter Litvinenko, said in an interview published today that his son - who was born an Orthodox Christian but had close links to Islamist rebels in Chechnya - made the request as he lay dying in University College Hospital.
"He said ’I want to be buried according to Muslim tradition’," Mr Litvinenko told Moscow's Kommersant daily.
"I said, ’Well son, as you wish. We already have one Muslim in our family - my daughter is married to a Muslim. The important thing is to believe in the Almighty. God is one.’
Bellaciao by Michael P Wright Brother of University of Oklahoma Bombe Joel Hinrichs Arrested for Threat
The Associated Press reports that the brother of a University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up last year on campus is now facing federal charges in Colorado. Thomas Hinrichs was charged Tuesday in Denver federal court with threatening to assault or murder an FBI agent. Review: Joel Hinrichs Most Likely Intended to Commit Mass Murder in October 2005
In a broadcast two weeks after Joel Hinrichs exploded the bomb and killed himself last October on the OU campus during a football game, CNN security analyst Pat D’Amuro pointed out that the FBI and ATF had agreed that "any bombing that took place would be presumed a terrorist attack until proven differently."
After the explosion, OU president David Boren got it backwards. Framtic to protect sales of football tickets, Boren "presumed" that the bombing was just a "lone suicide" by an "emotionally troubled" student, and he was broadcasting that message to the world within a few hours after the event.
Supreme law.org NOTICE AND DEMAND TO CONVEY VERIFIED CRIMINAL COMPLAINT, ON INFORMATION TO LAWFULLY CONVENED FEDERAL GRAND JURY
Greetings Mr. Fitzgerald:
In the course of reviewing standing court decisions which have been issued in litigation involving the federal criminal statutes at 18 U.S.C. sections 1504 and 3332, my office was very pleased to discover the correct and well documented decision In re Grand Jury Application, 617 F.Supp. 199 (USDC/SDNY 1985).
We regard this decision as binding judicial precedent throughout the judicial district of New York State, and therefore in lower Manhattan. See 28 U.S.C. 112.
A few of the most pertinent abstracts, as published in the United States Code Annotated (“USCA”) and United States Code Service (“USCS”), now follow, to wit:
Private litigant may obtain writ of mandamus to compel U.S. attorney to present facts concerning alleged criminal wrongdoing to grand jury.
By enacting 18 U.S.C. 3332(a) ... Congress intended to remove prosecutor’s discretion in deciding whether to present information to grand jury; he retains discretion with respect to how he acts and what he recommends concerning that information.
Plaintiffs were entitled to writ of mandamus to compel U.S. Attorney to present facts concerning alleged criminal wrongdoing of certain named defendants to grand jury, considering that grand jury statute [18 U.S.C. 3332(a)] gave plaintiffs a clear right to relief sought, that U.S. Attorney had duty to do the act in question, and that no other adequate remedy was available.
A fellow blogger reminds Prissy... the Wilsons' are using Fitz's filings, findings, and Fitz's press conference from the leak case and as precedent for their civil lawsuit.
Along with the Bolton resignation today, this is more good news! We'll see what comes of this interesting case. In a declaration this month, Fitzgerald said the statute of limitations “on certain substantive offenses that the grand jury is investigating” will expire on Dec. 3 and Dec. 13 of this year. (According to a Forbes article, Fitz complained these expiration dates were leaked)
New Haven Advocate Are George W. Bush lovers certifiable?
Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.
Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.
But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.
“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”
Forbes Sailor Pleads Guilty to Espionage
A sailor accused of stealing a Navy laptop and peddling its classified contents to an undisclosed foreign government pleaded guilty Monday to espionage, desertion and other charges.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann, 22, of Salem, Ore., faces a sentence of life in prison without parole, a dishonorable discharge from the Navy and forfeiture of all pay.
Stupid kid-and why is it an "undisclosed foreign government" when even Granny knows it was Israel and Russia? The Navy let it slip months ago...
Time Losing Lebanon
Lebanon wasn't supposed to turn out this way. In March of last year, President George W. Bush was hailing Lebanon as a shining beacon of his Administration's "democracy agenda" for the Middle East. Close to 1 million Lebanese had flooded into Beirut to demand that Syria pull its troops out of Lebanon and end its 29-year domination of the country. The U.S. State Department coined the protests the Cedar Revolution, a more folksy title than the Lebanese term, Independence Intifadeh, which smacked of radicalism. But with six ministers having resigned since Nov. 11, sectarian tensions rising and government officials fearing for their lives, the vision of a new Lebanon is dimming fast--and with it, the Administration's bid to build a positive legacy in the Middle East beyond the wreckage of Iraq.
Smirking Chimp It's time, yet again, to call bullsh*t on Bush.
According to an Associated Press report, the president is bitter, "deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."
"They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate...this stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation," he said.
Bullsh*t.
Bolton was forced to cut and run, a victim of his own inability to function as a tactful and patient diplomat, a fact recognized by both parties who let his appointment as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations die on the vine and force his resignation.
Salon A vote for more cooked intelligence?
But in the rush to discharge Rumsfeld, the Senate may not fully explore a blemish in Gates' dossier that seems particularly relevant now. A close examination of Gates' record, including little-known documents obtained by Salon from the National Security Archive, shows that as Gates was rising through the echelons of the CIA in the late 1980s to be CIA director in 1991, he was involved in the trafficking of intelligence reports that relied on compromised sources to show an exaggerated foreign threat. With the U.S. struggling for an exit strategy from Iraq and eyeing adversaries like Iran, President Bush has selected a man to head the Pentagon who was once in charge during an intelligence fiasco not unlike the one that unleashed the Iraq war.
In September 1995, CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz recommended that Gates be held accountable for his role in hyperbolic intelligence reporting on the danger posed by the Soviet Union. In those reports, the CIA relied on sources the agency knew or should have known had been under Moscow's influence, Hitz found. At that time, though, a robust Soviet threat was music to the ears of some hard-liners in Washington, and the trumped-up intelligence made it into the hands of the president and Pentagon leaders.
When confronted with Hitz's findings in 1995, Gates, who had since left the agency, deflected responsibility by pointing to his former employees' errors. In an Oct. 30, 1995, letter from Gates to then-CIA director John Deutch, Gates responded to the findings by blasting subordinates, while conceding that the flawed reports were "a serious breach of the integrity of the intelligence process." In that letter, Gates expressed his "unhappiness" with lower-level CIA officials who, in Gates' view, failed to "characterize accurately these source problems both to the CIA senior officials and to those in the policy agencies who received the intelligence reports." The letter was cosigned by two other former CIA directors also fingered by the inspector general: William Webster and James Woolsey. Deutch, who now supports Gates for secretary of defense, ultimately sided with Gates over the inspector general.
The CIA has never released the 1995 inspector general report. But in an interview, Hitz said that Gates should have been held accountable, because he was in charge. "The top guys at that period of time, in my opinion, were not held accountable for what happened on their watch," said Hitz, now a lecturer at the University of Virginia law school. "My theory is that if you are going to make sure everyone operates with integrity, you have to hold the heads of the organization responsible," he explained. "We can't have reports going forward to the president of the United States that were being fed to us by our chief enemy."
Quotes of the Day
”If there is no struggle there is no progress… Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground… They want rain without thunder and lightning… They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters… Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” --Frederick Douglass
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.--Franklin D. Roosevelt
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.--Plato
"A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: Duh."--Conan O'Brien
"If you ever see me getting beaten by the police, put down the video camera and come help me."--Bobcat Goldthwait
