SHIRAZ UNIVERSITY - POLICE BRUTALITY - AGAINST - VEILED WOMEN

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12:42 PM ET -- The world is watching. The people fight back against the Basiji (the citizen-militia)





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IRAN - FIERCE CLASHES IN TEHRAN ----- 5-MINUTE VIDEO INSIDE!

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VIDEO - via BBC


Someone's "Putting the Hammer Down" --- But It Ain't Gonna Be By The Iranian Security Forces.

No, I Believe The Fury Of The Beast For Change Has Been Aroused - FOR GOOD! --- The Crowd (There's Simply Too Many Damn Demonstrators - Will Force The Authorities To Knuckle Under In The End - That & World Attention!]





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VIDEO --- POEM FOR THE ROOFTOOPS OF IRAN

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VIDEO --- The poem says it all - (2 min./25-seconds long).



Cut & Paste The Link Below Into A New Browser Window [NOTE: You might need to install latest version of Flash Player if video fails to start]


http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=t0rinutgrue5



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IRAN - AFTER DARK - SHOUTING FROM THE ROOFTOPS - "Allahu Akbar" - God Is Great

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ONE VIDEO --


Iranians Shouting From The Rooftops!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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IF IT'S THURSDAY - WE MUST BE IN TEHRAN

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VIDEO - a grainy video of good street coverage of the march to Imam Khomeini square in Tehran






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WEDNESDAY - ONE VIDEO OF IRAN - VERY LONG LINE OF MARCHERS

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IRAN - THEN (1979) --- & --- NOW!

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1979 ---



















2009 ---


















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IRAN - "WHERE IS MY VOTE" --- SOUNDS LIKE 2000 & 2004 - USA!!!

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Image - Lots of Folks In The Street
















1st VIDEO ---

Signs reading "Where Is My Vote" - [What Happened Here In The U.S.A. in 2000 AND 2004?]






Image - The Young Man Who Climbed The Freedom Tower --- ("Detained" By Police)




















2nd VIDEO --- The Young Man Who Climbed The Freedom Tower - Tehran






3rd VIDEO --- The Shock Troops - Billy Club Swinging Tehran Police - Clubbing Even Women






4rd VIDEO --- Doctors & Nurses Protesting






5th VIDEO --- Tehran's Garbage Men Join the Demonstrations




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PRESIDENT OBAMA SPEAKS OUT ON IRAN THIS AFTERNOON

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Image - Freedom Tower/Tehran - Protester Climbing Up Its Side



















VIDEO - President Obama's Statement On Iran - Monday/June 15, 2009

IRAN - SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL --- 5-MILE LONG MARCH THROUGH TEHRAN

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This Blog Has 2 "Images" & 5 "Videos".


The number "hundreds of thousands" of street demonstrators doesn't quite do justice to what is happening in Iran today, Monday, June 15, 2009. Put the number more closely in the "millions" - give or take!


Image - War Memorial/Tehran



















Image - Mir Hossein Mousavi - The Reformist Candidate & Apparent Loser To President Mamoud Ahmadinejad - Up In The Middle Of Large Crowd in Tehran - Monday - June 15, 2009
















Video - Mir Hossein Mousavi Speaks To The Crowd - Monday - Tehran - June 15, 2009






Video - In Front Of The War Memorial/Tehran ---
8-Minutes Long - BUT --- Great Footage of the Memorial - "Fast-Forward" If You Must!






Video - Iranian Citizens Are Risking Arrest Just By Being Out In Large Numbers In The Street - The Government Warned Them To Stay Home!






Video - Millions Protest In Iran






Video - As You Can See - One Gets The Impression That The Entire City of Tehran Is At A Virtual Standstill - People Just Milling About In The Streets During Mid-Day!

IRANIAN PROTESTORS - SHOUTING THEIR DEFIANCE FROM THE CITY'S ROOFTOPS - SUNDAY!

This video of Iranians shouting their dissent from Tehran's rooftops was published to YouTube on Sunday, June 14, 2009.

DAY 2 - THE NEW FACE OF IRAN - THE SAGA CONTINUES! - (7 VIDEOS)

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7 Short Videos To Follow Here:


Night Time Protestor Gathering






Another Night Time Protestor Gathering






VICE-PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN - ON "MEET THE PRESS" - THIS MORNING/SUNDAY

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Also, here's video of protests at Khaje Nasir University in Tehran from today, via reader Alex:






Appears That The Protestors Are Slowly Forcing Police Backwards -
Esfehan After Iranian Election - Riot Police - RUNNING AWAY!!!:





A Young Woman Is Clubbed By One Of The Iranian Police "Storm-Troopers":

THE NEW FACE OF IRAN - JUNE 12, 2009

YOU MAKE THE CALL - CHICAGO CUBS PITCHER CARLOS ZAMBRANO - DID HE GET THE RUNNER OUT OR NOT @ HOME PLATE?

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The Chicago Cubs pitcher - CARLOS ZAMBRANO - was defending home plate when he got the throw to tag out the runner coming in from third base. The following video shows the event.

WHAT DO YOU THINK. IS THE RUNNER SAFE OR NOT.

ZAMBRANO is no "shrinking violet" --- he gets ejected - AND THEN SOME!

TIM CARPENTER FOR SINGLE PAYER - ON - FOX NEWS!

MATTHEW ALEXANDER ON TORTURE --- VIDEO of the Former Senior Military Interrogator - His Rebuke of Dick Cheney for His Torture Speech

Matthew Alexander - the senior military interrogator in Iraq - interviewed by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Studios.


The VIDEO segment that follows is 3 minutes, 37-seconds long. Alexander completely destroys Dick Cheney's arguments for torture!


I've extracted the following from an email I received from Robert Greenwald (along with thousands of other recipients) that I received - Tue, 26 May 2009 10:31 am.


Matthew Alexander was the senior military interrogator for the task force that tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and, at the time, a higher priority target than Osama bin Laden. Mr. Alexander has personally conducted hundreds of interrogations and supervised over a thousand of them.


"Torture does not save lives. Torture costs us lives," Mr. Alexander said in an exclusive interview at Brave New Studios. "And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool...These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse....literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives."






You Decide!

THE CIA AIN'T THE YMCA - TORTURE, DRUGS - LONG HISTORY - SINCE 1949

This is "extracted" from www.bradblog.com [Brad Friedman - Election Integrity blog site] - his May 21, 2009 weblog item -----

History of CIA Torture: Unraveling the Web of Deceit, Part III


For the direct link:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7118#more-7118


Component of Empire, Distance through Surrogates & Reagan's Duplicity...
Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning


- Part III of a Four-Part Special Series (Part I is here. Part II is here.)

"The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system --- whether political, religious or economic --- that is rejected by large numbers of people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain 'indicator species'..., torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections." - Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (2007)

ERICH "MANCOW" MULLER - RIGHT-WING CHICAGO RADIO HOST - VOLUNTEERED TO BE WATER BOARDED - HE LASTS 6 SECONDS! --- FRIDAY - MAY 22, 2009

Conservative CHICAGO radio hosts gets water boarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself water boarded to prove the technique wasn't torture

THE ROAD TO TORTURE IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS!

Dandy Dick is on his Torture Tour trying to sell the idea of the "Goodness" behind the torture done on our behalf during the Bush Administration.

He was on the airwaves yet again yesterday morning at the same time that President Obama himself was delivering an extremely eloquent address at the National Archives on the whole torture and enemy combatant/detainee saga. I listened to both and it was a stark contrast to say the least. The president couldn't have been more cogent, concise, measured and searing in his overall assessment of the "mess" he has inherited from the Bush Crime Family.

Let's face it, Dick likes to break bones. He doesn't make any "bones" about that. He doesn't have any real cajones of his own so this is his way of acquiring any sense of manhood. For Dick, it's a matter of let's have a beer and break some bones. That'll learn those commie/Muslim-loving /liberal/ latte/ sushi/ Gucci/ chardonnay/ West Wing/ granola/ yogurt-gulping/ book-reading/ cardigan sweater-wearing/ post-graduate/ Volvo-driving/ NPR-listening types.

There's a constitutional law principle involved here. You might be familiar with it from one of your college classes in Con Law - "Clear And Present Danger." Dick Cheney and his ilk represent precisely that.

In a sense Cheney's public address yesterday brings to mind two prior sad episodes in American history that confronted a sitting president involving a similar chain-of-command dilemma now facing President Obama, i.e. how to deal with a "loose caboose" or "misguided missile" public figure. In April 1951 General Douglas MacArthur was finally fired by President Harry Truman for insubordination. It seems that General MacArthur wanted to go north of the 38th parallel in North Korea in defiance of President Truman's explicit orders to the contrary. Going back further in American history Franklin Delano Roosevelt finally had to deal with Democratic Senator Huey Long of Louisiana. In a national radio address on February 23, 1934, in the depths of the depression, Senator Long unveiled his “Share Our Wealth” plan that was nothing short of rampant demagoguery.

We are faced with a similar situation today in the person of Dick Cheney and it's worse this time around because it actually involves BOTH insubordination and demagoguery. It's time for this sitting president to make Darth Vader/Dick Cheney understand in no uncertain terms: I'm the president and you're not, Dickie boy and your steppin' where you best not be steppin'. Frankly, it's time for a little Whoop-Ass for the "Dick."

Dick Cheney is a Clear And Present Danger!

CALL IT ENHANCED INTERROGATION - IT'S STILL TORTURE!

I considered placing an image of water boarding in this blog entry but I think we all know by now what the CIA has been up to over the last few years. Far and away the most recently discussed abhorrent technique employed by our intelligence services during the post-9/11 period has been water boarding. The actual journey into this new and uncharted territory coincided with the verbal go-ahead given in July 2002 by then-acting Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. Ms. Rice afterwards lapsed into amnesia and could not recall ever making such a decision, either verbally or in writing. My, what a web we weave when we first deceive.

The two poster boys used for the justification of water boarding by the Bush Administration are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind behind 9/11 - by his own admission and Abu Zubaydah, a small-time operative in Al-Qaeda. Both were water boarded numerous times. In fact, KSM, as Mohammad is commonly referred to, was water boarded 183 times in one month. Zubaydah had the dubious distinction of undergoing that torture process a mere 83 times.

Where has this left the United States. In moral shambles, that's where. To the proponents of torture who say it elicited valuable intelligence (like our former Vice-President Dick Cheney) - I have just one word. Poppycock! To date there is absolutely no evidence that either of these men gave any intelligence remotely useful to the CIA regarding Al-Qaeda or its secrets. Virtually all experts skilled in the art of interrogation have said that the information extracted from torture is unreliable since it is given merely to appease the torturers and as such cannot be considered reliable in any sense of the word.

My advice to the powers-that-be is simply this: Appoint an independent prosecutor immediately! Don't wait until later on this year as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggests pending the completion by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its own investigation into this heinous chapter in our nation's history.

Justice must be swift but fair. What is undeniable at this juncture after the release of the 4 torture memos and the report by the Senate Armed Services Committee is that the orders and the origin behind this torture program emanated from the White House, specifically the Office of the Vice President and the President. It was in turn set in motion by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld under the false legal premises provided by the torture memo authors, John Yoo and Jay Bybee. William Haynes, acting General Counsel to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served as the liaison between the White House/Justice Department and the Pentagon in his capacity as the personal conduit for delivery to Rumsfeld of the torture memo legal opinions.

Anyway you slice it or dice it this nation is guilty in the eyes of the world, with or without a special prosecutor or independent commission.

The horse is out of the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube.

I'm just waiting for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo and Haynes to meet the same fate as was faced by the Nazi war criminals we prosecuted at the Nuremberg trial in 1946. Perhaps we should make sure they're not walking around with a potassium cyanide capsule like Goering at Nuremberg.

TORTURE-KILLERS FROM BUSH ADMINISTRATION - STILL ON THE LOOSE!

Most of you probably recognize ALL of the "first" 3 suspects here:

(1) George W. Bushwacked
(2) Dick (Just Plain The "Dick") Cheney
(3) Donald Rumpsfeld (sorry, Rumsfeld)


But alas, the "final" 3 might stump a few of you out there in blog-land!

They are: (4) John Yoo [now a professor of law at U.C. Berkeley - although he might be on leave] - one of the Justice Department attorneys who composed the infamous Torture Memos; (5) Jay Bybee [a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit] - the other Justice Department attorney who assisted Yoo in the composition of the Torture Memos; and (6) William Haynes [currently employed as an executive at the Chevron facility, Richmond, CA) - the General Counsel to then-Secretary of Defense, Donald RumTumsFeld.

Can we all get "jiggy-with-it"!

These M_____ F_____s should be hauled before a Nuremberg-style court and charged with murder and crimes of torture and crimes against humanity.

William Haynes is the "final link" in this chain of command, ultimately. As Rumsfeld's General Counsel at the Pentagon it was he who received these Torture Memos and presented them to Rumsfeld. He played a significant part in seeing to it that they were acted upon by the Defense Secretary.

Before you get on your high horse and say that's "all in the past" - in 1946 at the real Nuremberg trials they put Germany's highest jurists (judges) on trial and found all of them guilty of sanctioning war crimes and subsequently sentenced them to prison!

Acquiescence is tantamount to acceptance. That was the real crime in Nazi Germany on the part of the population at large. Let us not allow this stain upon our nation's honor to remain without rendering true justice. These men cannot be allowed to remain at large and subject to no judgment.

If we do nothing it is very possible that the matter will be taken out of our hands and instead taken up by the World Tribunal. The Spanish judge who brought Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet to justice is now in hot pursuit of these very 6 men from the Bush Administration. [Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998]

America must handle this matter herself. It would be a fall from grace for this country if it were left up to a Spanish judge and the World Court to do it for us!

TATUM CHRONICLES - "CHIP" TATUM - EX-CIA - COCAINE TRAFFIC - TASK FORCE 160 - BY CIA

Meet The Face Of Ultimate Duplicity - Joseph J. Cassano - AIG's In-House Credit Default Swap Guru!

Joseph J. Cassano, president of AIG's financial products division and its financial products guru and the man behind the ultimate downfall of AIG was himself a personal favorite of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG and the man credited with building up AIG into a global powerhouse. He admired Cassano's aggressiveness even if he didn't understand exactly what it was that he did.

Cassano began his fateful tenure at AIG in 2000 and reigned as the president of AIG's financial products division until late 2008. Reportedly, Cassano is said to have told management that he, Cassano would run his shop and they, management would run their shop and that neither should ever involve itself with the other. In effect, Cassano had a virtual free hand in running his division for eight years and he apparently made good use of that freedom.

Cassano's division has its roots dating back to 1987 when a handful of traders from Drexel Burnham Lambert, the same firm that spawned disgraced junk bomb trader Michael Milliken, eventually migrated over to AIG and successfully won Greenberg over to their high-flying ways of doing business.

Credit Cassano with taking former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's former firm's (Goldman Sachs) practice of purchasing insurance on the investments they made and applying that same technique upon assuming control of the financial products division at AIG. During his eight-year tenure, Cassano's department sold huge amounts of insurance - credit-default swaps (CDS's)to prospective investors anxious to cover their losses on the risky investment instruments they held known as collateralized debt obligations (CDO's). Investors had every reason to be nervous about these CDO's as they were merely bundles of different types of loans - some good - some horrible - all wrapped up together in one investment instrument.

Unfortunately for AIG and the rest of the planet, Cassano's division gladly took in the hefty monthly premiums they charged for insuring these risky CDO's but in reality AIG provided no real insurance for these companies as the assets kept on hand by AIG for such purpose were only a mere fraction of the total amount of assets at risk.

Cassano's division packaged these CDO's in layers of loans with the top layer being the most credit-worthy. These were then shopped around to the credit rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poors and based upon just the top layer's credit-worthiness - a AAA-rating was literally assigned to the ENTIRE CDO - the bad layers notwithstanding.

To complete the economic catastrophe this entire operation was managed by the little known federal agency Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) that was nowhere equipped to play such a role. In fact a GAO report noted that the entire OTS had only one insurance specialist on staff — and this despite the fact that it was the primary regulator for the world's largest insurer!

These CDO's turned out to be very profitable for AIG as it in turn extended a steady stream of credit-default swaps insurance to provide the supposed insurance to safeguard these CDO's. By 2005 AIG's profit from this line of financial products had risen to $3.2 billion, up from $773 million in 1999.

However, in February 2008 AIG posted a $11.5 billion annual loss and Cassano resigned shortly afterwards. In spite of this, he was able to keep $34 million in bonuses and in addition he continued to collect $1 million a month in consultant fees until the end of September 2008. During his eight years at AIG, Cassano earned $280 million. Over the past seven years, his unit's employees were paid a total of $3.5 billion. Yes, that's a "b" for billion!

The unit itself was a very small part of AIG, comprised of no more than 400 employees. Needless to say there was no oversight or supervision of any kind. The looseness of financial control was such that just a few weeks before the bailout in 2008 when senior executives at AIG were questioned by outside consultants about how much exposure AIG had to the residential-mortgage these very same executives were unable to supply that information.

Joseph J. Cassano is my nomination for Schmuck of the Century. He had help along the way but he, more than any other single individual, put in place the scenario for our current financial cesspool.

WENDY'S HAMBURGERS - NOW WITH LIVE ORGAN MUSIC!

Check out the Video of the Organ Music Guy @ Wendy's. They've come a long way from "Show Me The Beef" to now it's - "Show Me The Beat".


Yes, Virginia - there is a free lunch somewhere in America - (or at least free music to go with that lunch).


81-year old Gil Glad, a former elementary school teacher and principal is now playing organ music at the Wendy's in Grand Island, Nebraska Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. On Sunday, he's back playing for the lunch time crowd at the Wendy's in his hometown of Central City, Nebraska.


Enjoy!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pete/Marin

CHUCK NORRIS FOR PRESIDENT OF TEXAS!

CHUCK NORRIS - FOR PRESIDENT OF TEXAS!


ARMED INSURRECTION - BY THE RIGHT WING-NUTS IS AFOOT!


CAN YOU BLAME THEM, THE COUNTRY'S GOING TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET, OR A TISKET-TASKET.


No, I ain't making this up. Apparently, from Philly.com is the following "excerpt". Yes, I've lifted the whole thing from that site - for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure as the case may be).

NOTE: The video is something I just threw in for further amusement - the intended excerpt is merely the highlighted text that follows the video.

So to quote from that site VERBATIM..................









"That was fast. It was just one year ago that right-wing martial arts guru Chuck Norris was a sought-after "get" for the GOP presidential candidates like Mike Huckabee, who paraded the star of "Walker, Texas Ranger" around the nation after the anti-abortion actor endorsed him in the primaries.

But now it's 2009, Barack Obama is in the White House, and the inventor of chun kuk do is preaching the martial art of insurrection against the U.S. government. He also wants to run for -- and no, I'm not making this up -- "the president of Texas.":

The call by some right wing leaders for rebellion and for the military to refuse the commander in chief’s orders is joined by Chuck Norris who claims that thousands of right wing cell groups have organized and are ready for a second American Revolution. During an appearance on the Glen Beck radio show he promised that if things get any worse from his point of view he may “run for president of Texas.” The martial artist/actor/activist claims that Texas was never formally a part of the United States in the first place and that if rebellion is to come through secession Texas would lead the way.

Norris really comes close to crossing a line with this:

Norris claims that; “Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation.” The right wing cells will meet during a live telecast, "We Surround Them," on Friday March 13 at 5 p.m.

He closes with the words of Sam Houston followed by a plug for his next martial arts event.

“We view ourselves on the eve of battle." "

All I can say is, "Say it ain't so, Chuck!"

Sleep tight everybody, Chuck's taking control, everything's going to be okie-dokie. Welcome to the Kung-Fu Constitutional Insurrection.



Pete/Marin

REPUBLICANS - THE PARTY WITHOUT A COUNTRY!

In case you haven't heard, the Republican Party has gone the way of the Edsel.

When you get to the point of having the RNC Chairman [Michael Steel] trying to hold on to his turf from the likes of a fat radio personality pig [Rush Lintbag] only to apologize to him for daring to stand up to him, well it's time to write the obituary for the GOP.

Rush wants to see Obama fail. Rush wants to see everything fail, including the Republican party. He will get his wish. Rush personifies everything afflicting the conservative movement and the process of self-cannibalization has just begun.

We have a major realignment taking place in this country and because of the dire straits we find ourselves in - economically - the time is ripe for a complete upheaval of the conservative movement and the corporate status quo as we have come to know it in our lifetime.

How low can the Dow go - pretty low, apparently. How big can the implosions be among the corporate elites - apparently humongous. Even such a premiere company like GE is reputedly on the verge of being the next AIG fatality.

Capitalism has proven itself to be incapable of sustaining itself by subscribing exclusively to the profit motive. It has too many inherent contradictions that will prevent it from escaping the punishing effects of what is going on today.

So what does this bode for the future. Quite simply: a mixed economy, equal parts public sector spending and private/individual consumer spending. The 2/3 consumer - 1/3 government spending model of the past will not hold up any longer. Our world is simply way too complicated and interconnected to continue any longer with a consumer-driven economy. It must be an equal partnership between the public sector and the private sector.

Which leads the discussion back to where this post began, the death of the Republican Party. If there is any one guiding principle espoused by that party it is the notion of free enterprise - or the free market. This concept has morphed unalterably and the mixed economy model is here to stay. The Republican party - as we know it - will fade away and be replaced in time by another competing voice.

When your philosophy gets shoved down your throat you don't have a leg to stand on. That is where the GOP find themselves today and there is nothing that can revive that party. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Rush can bray all he wants but he only drives home the point of Republican/conservative obsolescence ever so emphatically. But then this should not be all that surprising for the Republican party has never really been about governing at all but rather the accumulation and exercise of raw, naked power for the monied class.

The money changers have been toppled and with it their mouthpiece - Republicanism.

BONEHEAD AWARD OF THE WEEK GOES TO - WHO ELSE - REPUG HOUSE MINORITY LEADER - JOHN BOEHNER OF OHIO - [MY HOME STATE -EEEE-GAWWWDS!]

Is Boehner [aka "Boner" - a Putz or What?]


The eldest of 11 kids - from a big Catholic family back in Ohio, his old man was a tavern owner. Believe he hails from Troy, Ohio - [you know the folks that make those industrial-strength commercial dishwashers - Hobart]. Boehner and those dishwashers have one thing in common - they both operate perfectly under hot air conditions. Only Boehner can generate a lot more "blather."

The video clearly shows the disarray the Repugnants find themselves in these days. They're reduced to throwing stacks of paper on the floor of the House of Representatives. Talk about a hissy-fit. These guys are not your father's Repugnant Party.

Barry Goldwater should reach down from the heavens and strike these A___Wipes with a couple of bolts of lightning.



Pete/Marin

SHOULD WE STIMULATE - OR JUST PLAIN TRIANGULATE?

I will keep this post brief after my last one ran longer than usual - [BUSH IN THE DOCK - INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL].

Should we stimulate this economy now? Most democrats say a resounding yes. Should we quibble over the details, most democrats again probably look at the broad outlines and say just ram this puppy through.



[LINK TO OBAMA'S ECONOMIC STIMULUS SPEECH TODAY] ---- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/obama-time-for-action-is_n_164317.html


What should we do if we can't even get 2 or 3 moderate Repugnants to join the 58/59 Dems in the Senate and ram this thing through? A Jihad on the Repugnants? Have a mass food fight? Revoke their Costco privileges?

If Nancy Pelosi is right, without this economic stimulus package we're looking at the prospect of losing 500 million jobs (that's right - in her own words from yesterday). Now folks, that's a lot of jobs. I personally believe the figure is closer to 5 million jobs which is still an enormous figure.

In all honesty, I think it's time for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go after the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and just plain duke it out on the Senate floor. Last man standing wins.

I give a slight edge to Reid as I think he is a bit more shifty and dodgy than McConnell although McConnell may have a better backbone and upper bite.

As Judy Collins sang, "....send in the clowns ....."

In closing, there are about 8 Democratic senators who could turn out to be problematic. If anyone is so inclined you might give them a call tomorrow (assuming they don't vote on the economic stimulus package tonight - Thursday, February 5th).

The problem democrats are:


1. Ben Nelson, Nebraska (202) 224-6551

2. Kent Conrad, North Dakota (202) 224-2043

3. Kay Hagan, North Carolina (202) 224-6342

4. Herb Kohl, Wisconsin (202) 224-5653

5. Mary Landrieu, Lousisna (202) 224-5824

6. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas (202) 224-4843

7. Bill Nelson, Florida (202) 224-5274

8. Mark Pryor, Arkansas (202) 224-2353



Of the above names the worst offenders by far are: Mark Pryor/Arkansas and Ben Nelson/Nebraska.


Take your pick/picks.


Rock-On!



Pete/Marin
[Rock-The-Boat & Get Out The Vote]

BUSH IN THE DOCK OF THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL? MR. "MISUNDERESTIMATED" GUILTY OF MISDIRECTION AND MISINTERPRETATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS!

The embedded video below captures George Bush recounting what he knew and when he knew it regarding the attack on the Twin Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.

Bush states, while appearing in public at a speaking event almost three months after the attack, that he saw an attack on the World Trade Center on television while standing outside of the elementary school he was appearing at. Yes, Virginia there just happened to be a television close at hand at that very moment for our former "Dear Leader" to witness the momentous event in New York City.

The only problem with this scenario is that the official White House version has it that Bush was unaware of any such attacks on the World Trade Towers until he was told of the "2nd" attack while sitting down in one of the school's classrooms. In addition, no one saw the "1st" attack on television on September 11, 2001. The videotape of that "1st" attack was not available for viewing until the next day.

So how in the hell did George Bush know that there was an attack - BEFORE he was even told about ANY such attacks?

Huh!!!!

We're just starting out on the long road that lies ahead to bring Bush - as happened with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - to ultimate justice and a date with a tribunal for crimes against humanity.





If we just stick with War Crimes that would be enough to bring George W. Bush to the Bar of International Justice. We're way beyond Impeachment, folks!

Launching an illegal war against Iraq (he did not go back and get the consent of the United Nation's Security Council as required in the October 2002 Authorization for the Use of Force) under false pretenses (the White House lied outright about the certitude of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) and then wreaking torture and havoc on any and all detainees/enemy combatants (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Black Sites around the globe) and awarding billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to U.S. contractors to squeeze out every single dollar of profit on the backs of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens alike.

We have only scratched the surface here and perhaps the best place to start would be with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who personally gave the order to authorize torture at Guantanmo Bay, no doubt basing his directive on John Yoo's infamous 2003 memo on torture which legally sanctioned such practice by using twisted or "tortured" logic.

Apparently John Yoo wrote the March 14, 2003 memo wherein he stated that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He went on to say that the 5th and 8th amendments do not apply to alien enemy combatants held abroad. Going still further the memo states that federal criminal statutes covering bodily and physical assaults against detainees do not apply to authorized military interrogations overseas and that statutes that do apply to such conduct impose only a limited obligation on interrogators to not use bodily harm.

I stand corrected, before we deal with Rumsfeld perhaps we should instead haul John Yoo before an International Tribunal. Currently he is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Yoo wrote the key torture memo for William Haynes who was himself the Pentagon's general counsel at the time. Haynes, himself, said that there could be no acquittals in the military commission trials. It was Mr. Haynes who in turn brought the memo to Rumsfeld's attention.

To summarize - Bush "misdirected" completely on September 11, 2001. He saw the plane crash into the World Trade Center as it happened. Or, if not, he fully expected such an occurrence to happen and allowed it to happen.

John Yoo paved the way for torture and the degradation of our foreign policy and standing in the world with his infamous torture memo.

William Haynes - as general counsel of the Pentagon and acting directly underneath Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - gave Rumsfeld exactly what he needed, the green light for torture on detainees.

Finally, we return to Rumsfeld himself. He gave the actual order to authorize torture. A case in point involves Mohammed al-Qahtani (Kahtani), the so-called 20th hijacker. According to a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, Secretary Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in the interrogation of al-Qahtani (Kahtani) who was forced to endure privations such as 48 days of severe sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, threats with military dogs and prolonged stress positions.

Gitanjali S. Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization defending al-Kahtani (Qahtani) said in a sworn statement that his client was subject to months of torture authorized directly from Rumsfeld either through verbal or written communication.

Last but not least, we now know that Bush himself recently admitted that he did in fact support torture and gave his full support to its implementation. In a January 11, 2009 interview with Brit Hume of Fox (Faux) News Bush stated that he personally sanctioned the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and sought authorization for the use of water boarding on Mr. Mohammed.

Mr. Bush you have been misunderestimated for the last time, you will no longer misinform, misdirect or misinterpret. Your water boarding days are over. To quote from Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech - "... we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

That would be the ultimate water boarding - true justice meted out to the most heinous president in the history of this republic from an international court of law that would seal his fate in the eyes of history for all eternity.

Mr. Bush, you will ultimately be held accountable. You can run, but you can't hide.

THE 22-PERCENT SOLUTION - (YES, THAT'S BUSH'S FINAL APPROVAL RATING - CBS NEWS/NY TIMES POLL

Bush Shoe Game - video powered by Metacafe



Okay, I'll keep this short and sweet, after my previous blog - which covered some 18 points highlighting (or low-lighting) the disastrous 8 years of the Bushed Administration.

As the lead title suggests, George Bush is departing office at historic low levels of popularity (22 percent approval rating - CBS News/New York Times poll). The embedded video pretty much tells the story for future generations as to why this man could be so reviled by his own countrymen!

Enjoy the video - an animated recap of the infamous Baghdad shoe throwing incident while Bush was giving a press conference alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on December 14, 2008.

Sometimes, pictures/animation make the point much more powerfully than any blogger could possibly come up with.

Enjoy!


Pete/Marin

BUSH - NEVER READY FOR PRIME TIME - NOW ASKS FOR PRIME TIME ON THURSDAY - THE NERVE OF THIS GUY!

As this is being written - the "Great One" will be smirking back at us on all three TV-networks. Kind of a Swan Song for Mr. Misunderestimated - aka George W. Bushed.

The networks should tell this pretender to pound sand and take his finger (and the rest of his carcass) back to Tobacco Road! What could Bush possibly invoke on Thursday before the American public to salvage his tattered presidential tenure? Some things are best left unsaid and this is such a time. If George W. had any class he would have left D.C. by now and volunteered for a Mother Theresa soup kitchen in Calcutta, India to redeem what is left of his soul.

Let's just go through the litany of Bush disasters starting in January 2001:

1. Presidential Daily Brief in late January, 2001 - the schedule includes among other things to be discussed - IRAQ - the case for invasion.

2. No Child Left Behind - (or no Child's Behind Left). This is generally conceded to have been a colossal failure in every respect.

3. Tax cuts - (originally intended to be made permanent) for capital gains and for the uber-wealthy. We went from a $300 billion surplus upon Clinton's departure from the Oval Office to an astronomical figure at present - in large part because of these mindless measures.

4. Presidential Daily Brief, dated August 6, 2001 - states that Bin Laden is determined to strike in the U.S. Bush completely ignores this and goes on clearing brush at his Hollywood-set ranch in Crawford, Texas.

5. September 10, 2001 - a message intercepted by the NSA with the code words - ‘The Match Begins Tomorrow’ and ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour'. Unfortunately no one was available to translate it from Arabic on September 11, 2001. The NSA claimed that the message was not translated until September 12th.

6. September 11, 2001 - Curious George continues to read "My Pet Goat" at a small elementary school in Florida after getting word that the second tower of the World Trade Center has been attacked.

7. The White House spends all of 2002 sending surrogates (Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Rove, Libby) out on the Rubber-Chicken Circuit to beat the drums of war against Iraq.

8. In late October 2002 Bush rams through his U.N. Resolution for the Authorization of the Use of Force against Iraq. The understanding on this resolution is that it is not to be implemented until FINAL APPROVAL by the U.N. based upon the results of the weapons inspection in Iraq. Unfortunately, Bush had other plans and on March 20, 2003 the invasion of Iraq began.

9. Then there is the State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003 wherein Bush proclaims - in those famous "sixteen words" - that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium yellowcake from an African nation (Niger) in order to procure a nuclear weapon.

10. Former ambassador Joe Wilson (Valerie Plame's husband) published an op-ed piece in the New York Times on July 6, 2003 rebutting this fallacious claim by pointing out that he had been to Niger and that no such event ever took place.

11. Cheney unleashes the "Dogs of War" - i.e., I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby & Karl Rove against Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame - a non-official cover (NOC) officer on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations. She just happened to be tasked with dealing with Iran and its quest to acquire weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear capability.

12. Valerie Plame's career is torn to shreds, Joe Wilson is pilloried by the Bush White House and the press just does a shrinking violet act.

13. Fast forward to Fall 2004 and Bush & Co. simply eviscerate any potential Democratic voter, especially in Ohio where some 350,000 votes are just plain "lost." Bush's main enforcer, Karl Rove, roams the country and ensures that full-throttled voter suppression is carried out from Coast-to-Coast. Michael Connell, the GOP IT Guru who just died this past December, was Karl Rove's right-hand fixer - just ask fellow GOP IT computer security expert, Stephen Spoonamore.

14. Of course, I can't leave out the Bush Administration's attempt to gut Social Security or its end-run around Medicare (the ill-fated prescription drug bill for senior citizens).

15. One of the worst transgressions on our national honor was Bush's choice to pack the Supreme Court with a bunch of original intent goons - Alito and Roberts. I just can't even work up the energy to include their first names, why bother - they're interchangeable. They both have steel trap minds and would just as well strangle any reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, a document that is supposed to be a living, breathing written instrument as opposed to something carved in stone.

And the price paid for the elevation of these right-wing Nazis was the capitulation by the Democrats not to ever threaten to wage a filibuster again in the future. Basically the Republicans agreed to retain the right of the judicial filibuster of judicial nominees but it was only to be exercised in "extraordinary circumstances". In essence, the Democrats spared this parliamentary weapon from extinction but only if they agreed never to really use it.

16. November 2006 and the Democrats, thanks to Howard Dean, actually cleaned house - literally - by taking back control of the House of Representatives and working to a virtual tie with the Repugs in the Senate. Joe Lieberman did his best to try and push the Dems back over the cliff.

17. In January 2007 Barack Obama is off and running. The next 18-months are a blur as both the Bush Administration and John McCain as its stand-in wage all out war against Democrats - even questioning whether they are really bonafide citizens of this country or some Fifth Column subversive wave of "fellow travelers". Even Obama's own citizenship came into question. Something to do with his birth certificate.

18. Last but not least, on December 14, 2008 Bush is attacked by a shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist while appearing alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad. How fitting this turned out to be as the irate journalist called Bush a "Dog" - the vilest insult in the Arabic language.

All's well that ends well. On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama reclaims the country from the Bush Thugocracy and, at least temporarily, gives our nation a badly-needed respite from the Bush nightmare and a chance to recapture its democratic footing.

God, I sure hope so.



Pete/Marin