Current Events in Govt

[Pic0o]

While Tv news seems to be far more fascinated with Paris' skankness, then Gov't events, I figured a quick blurb on the state of our favorite privacy murdering Pres and VP earned it's way on here.

 

Bad Bad Bad.

 

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy yesterday issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice-President and the National Security Council asking for documents relating to the committee's inquiry into warrant less wiretapping and how such wiretaps were authorised.

 

Leahy's letter said: “Over the past 18 months, this committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program. All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection."

 

So everyone, please remember that no one is supposed to be above the Law. I'd like to congratulate Bush and Cheney on being right on point, for being the worst people to ever enter the Oval Office. If you bought Halliburton Stocks, I'd rethink your strategy.

 

At least now it's on paper, why my generation will have no retirement, Uncle Sam's International Penis Envy.

 

(Renamed Topic for Easy Finding)

Edited August 30, 2007 by Pic0o

[Pic0o]

Speaking of Media Fuzz, here are some real casualty stats.

 

As recently as July 2, 2007, the media continued to incorrectly report casualty statistics as less than 30,000.

 

The under-reporting is intentional, as the Pentagon misleads us about the human costs in order to maintain the dwindling Congressional and public support for the lost Iraq War fiasco.

 

The military misleads the press, public, and Congress by narrowly defining casualties as only those "wounded" while excluding our injured and ill.

 

The true facts reveal the number of battlefield casualties, defined as "killed, wounded, injured, or ill," from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars escalated to 65,278, as of June 30, 2007, according to official documents obtained by Veterans for Common Sense from the Department of Defense (DoD) using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

 

If you go by TV News, you are riding high on the blinders. Proof of this is all the Shank Hilton coverage on TV, while Impeachment Proceedings are all but in action.

 

Let me know if they give TV Time to the 5 Year Guantanamo Bay Detainee

FIFTEEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS WATCHED over a man, shackled to a seat in the cargo bay of a C-17 Globemaster -- the Air Force workhorse that usually moves Abrams tanks, Chinook helicopters or infantry vehicles. Wearing goggles that shut out all light, a soundproof headset and a mask that covered his mouth so he could not speak, spit or bite, the prisoner arrived at Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, under the tightest security. The plane had burned through 36,000 gallons of jet fuel and had refueled in flight. During the seventeen-hour ride, the prisoner was provided with neither food nor water. Nor was he allowed to stretch his legs or relieve himself.

 

This was how what had been the world's greatest democracy when George W. Bush took the presidential oath in 2001 repatriated an innocent man who'd never represented a security threat to the United States. Murat Kurnaz was nineteen when he was taken off a bus in Peshawar, Pakistan. He had, as many first- or second-generation Muslims in Europe do, turned to a religion his family had abandoned when they emigrated from their native land. His religious awakening put him in proximity to Islamic fundamentalists: sufficient justification for detention by American forces, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, as a supposed member of Al Qaeda.

 

Kurnaz was twenty-four and had been the last European held at the American prison camp in Cuba when the Globemaster touched down in Kaiserslautern in August 2006. He didn't know he'd been returned home to Germany until an American enlisted man removed his goggles and he saw three German policemen standing outside the airplane.

 

"He was dumped on German soil like some sort of alien," said Bernhard Docke, one of Kurnaz's attorneys, from the north German city of Bremen.

 

So many liberties thrown away in the name of ignorance and fear.

[Pic0o]

Quite honestly, I think the current phobia of constant attack from all directions is the worst form of terrorism. When you build hollow walls to give the illusion of defense you are doing nothing more then showing that you are scared, but not serious enough to spend a couple more minutes working on a long term, secure solution.

 

Case and Point right here about the current 'effectiveness' of those TSA screenings.

 

Federal inspectors were able to slip a bomb past the TSA 5 out of 7 times, according to the Albany Times-Union. Here's the best part: One fake bomb was placed in the same bag as a bottle of water. The TSA opened the bag, took the water, and let the bomb on the plane.

 

What do you say to that? I left a bottle of water in my bags @ the Airport, and it was delivered to my Apt. ~ 2 days later. God Forbid they actually look for shit that could harm people.

 

While I'm showing some examples of paranoia overrunning common sense and civil rights, check out the EFF's findings on abuse of National Security Letter Authority. I think I found our Charity to donate to this year.

 

These findings were, unfortunately, not surprising to critics of the Bureau's NSL power. Before the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001, the FBI could unilaterally issue these demands only to obtain the records of suspected terrorists or spies. Under the changes made by the controversial anti-terrorism law, however, the FBI can now use NSLs to get telephone, Internet, financial, credit, and other personal records about anybody -- without any court approval -- as long as it believes the information could be “relevant” to an authorized terrorism or espionage investigation. (The House of Representatives is considering a bill that would add independent oversight to the NSL process, but the legislation hasn't moved since March.)

 

In the wake of the inspector general's report, EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking fundamental information about the FBI's misuse of the NSL authority, and a federal judge recently ordered [PDF] the Bureau to release information responsive to EFF's request on a rolling basis.

 

If you live in the United States, and have ever used a Phone, Computer, or other electronic device that accepts input, you should really make time to be informed on how the walls of privacy are being destroyed, all in the name of 'Democracy', something that seems to have evacuated the White House, many years ago.

 

Let's not turn the US into Europe, isn't that kinda why the US was formed in the first place? Hell, most of Europe agrees that being associated with the US in it's current state is not the smartest and safest call.

[Pic0o]

The Surgeon General was quite manipulated as well.

 

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

Skip to next paragraph

Related

Text: Dr. Richard Carmona’s Prepared Testimony (pdf)

Times Topics: Richard H. Carmona

 

Richard H. Carmona

 

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

 

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

 

So much for good of the people.

[Pic0o]

Man, sometimes, it takes more then just guns to defend yourself. Ask the Military

 

Yeah, they left classified documents on a FTP server, and left the password for those 'protected files' on the same server. I Rofl'ed my ass awake, especially since it seems the FTP did not even have any user pass credentials.

 

The documents include blueprints of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq, together with geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad.

 

Plans for a new fuel facility at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan are also accessible online.

 

The documents were found on Army servers and those of their contractors. Much of it was stored on unlisted FTP sites, which some contractors believed made the documents impossible to find.

 

Dear God, wake up and leave the early 90's. :lol:

[Pic0o]

Today's Winner of the Day: 'New' Osama footage from 2001. (Best URL on Earth)

 

Sorry, but the real threat to national security sits in Washington.

 

The Associated Press ran the tape as a top story on Saturday under the headline "Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video".

 

Euro News, the propaganda arm of the European Union broadcast in dozens of countries around Europe, described the footage as "apparently new".

 

"Possible New Message From Osama Bin Laden," reported ABC News, noting that "a brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden is contained in a new al Qaeda videotape," when in reality the graying in Bin Laden's beard was exactly the same as when he appeared in a 2001 videotape, while also wearing the exact same jacket.

 

The footage was not new and any small amount of cursory research would have verified that fact, and yet the media went full board with the story, creating the illusion that it was new, while rabid Neo-Cons lauded the tape as another reason for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq while fearmongering about upcoming terror attacks at home.

 

Look at the images in the article, and tell me it's just a fluke that all the crap is the same. I gotta say, these guys get mad free publicity.

 

If you have a stray dog that keep showing up on your porch every night, leaving a bowl of food out for it, is sure as hell, not going to encourage it to stop coming.

[Pic0o]

Well, if anyone had questions about the Pres and his distaste for integrity, look no further.

 

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

 

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

 

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

 

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

 

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

 

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

 

I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."

 

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

 

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."

 

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn't matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine ­ in the end ­ if something is legal or right.

 

This Country is currently run by a Madman Terrorist, and a bad-shot, money sucking Demon. Hopefully America comes back, and removes these parasites from office.

 

I'll be voting next year, for the candidate who had intelligence, humanity, and does not own or run a weapon or oil company. If the site goes MIA for a few days, you know why. :lol:

[Pic0o]

I have an Idea of where our money should go... to those computer things, that house legions of personal data on everyone.

 

Personal details of over half a million US service personnel and their relatives may have been compromised by a Pentagon contractor.

 

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500 tech-services provider, announced on Friday that:

 

"Personal information of certain uniformed service members, family members, and others was placed at risk for potential compromise while being processed by SAIC."

 

The risk of compromise was incurred because the relevant data was sent over the internet without use of any encryption. There is no special reason to believe that it was intercepted, but "the possibility cannot be ruled out".

 

SAIC said it was notifying 580,000 households, some with more than one person affected. Different information may have been compromised for different individuals, but the data included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and "limited" health information. The data was held under a health benefits programme for the uniformed services and their families.

 

Interestingly, the Associated Press reports that SAIC first became aware of the leak after being notified by US Air Force personnel in Europe that they had detected sensitive information being transmitted in clear across the net.

 

What the Fuck?!?

 

How anyone cannot see this as a gigantic issue is beyond me, especially since this is faaaar from the first time a Gov't house with no regard for confidentiality, has exposed Americans.

 

It's in plain sight that gigantic computer networks are this countries weakest perimeters. Let's just suck it up, and pay some people to do the shit right, instead of paying your brother-in-law, the old accountant with no IT Training, to run your IT Network.

[Pic0o]

Today's Info of the Day comes from the Reg.

 

The current attempts to legitimize the Domestic, Warrant-Free Wiretappings has failed, and that is a good thing.

 

The bad, is the bottom of the Article, that does happen to be extremely true to what is currently possible here in the States.

 

Almost regardless of all this, a further continental-US bombing, hijacking, or other outrage is probably inevitable at some point. Even if the tiny jihadi minority among Muslims can somehow be suppressed, or anyway flagged up by supercomputer whenever they try anything, another homegrown-in-the-US-of-A Timothy McVeigh is bound to come along sooner or later.

 

Based on the measures which have come in since 9/11, and those now in the works, it seems safe to say that a sufficiently murderous McVeigh imitator - whose attack would of itself be an insignificant pinprick on the mighty USA - could turn America into a total police state. ®

[Pic0o]

In a nice confirmation that not everyone in the US is still rocking some huge blinders, a Poll has shown that right around 50% of folks feel the media, is completely detached to the viewers, and voice of the United States (the people, not the Meth-induced administration).

 

More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.

 

And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news -- roughly one quarter of all Americans -- were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.

 

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don't care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.

 

That crap might has worked to obscure the public back in the 80's, but most Internet-based Americans tend to be more informed then the media, who seems to care more about some jacked-up celebrity's, then the voice of the people, who in turn (should be), the ones who result in their paycheck.

 

The whole media and administration needs a reboot to get the garbage out of the system. If we could get folks to work for more then just the $$$ (that magically seems to be rapidly depreciating), that would help too. Put a little heart into what you do, before you lose your Souls to the $.

[Pic0o]

Gonzales Resigns, Done on 9/17.

 

Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting attorney general, Bush said, until a nominee has been confirmed by the Senate.

 

Earlier in Washington, Gonzales announced his resignation, saying, "I have lived the American dream."

 

The first Latino to helm the Justice Department said his "worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days." Video Watch Gonzales on his "worst days" as top prosecutor »

 

Gonzales described public service as "honorable and noble" and thanked Bush for his friendship.

 

"Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government services as attorney general of the United States effective September 17."

 

Good Riddance, Bush and Cheney should be next in line. Let's bring America back from the Ashes.

[Pic0o]

All stuff should be merged to this Single Topic Now.

 

Today's 'Gem' is info on Halliburton (KBR I guess):

 

Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents.

 

Company e-mails and other internal communications reveal that before KBR dispatched the convoy, a chorus of security advisors predicted an increase in roadside bombings and attacks on Iraq's highways. They recommended suspension of convoys.

 

" think we will get people injured or killed tomorrow," warned KBR regional security chief George Seagle, citing "tons of intel." But in an e-mail sent a day before the convoy was dispatched, he also acknowledged: "Big politics and contract issues involved."

 

KBR was under intense pressure from the military to deliver on its multibillion-dollar contract to transport food, fuel and other vital supplies to U.S. soldiers. At Baghdad's airport, a shortage of jet fuel threatened to ground some units.

 

After consulting with military commanders, KBR's top managers decided to keep the convoys rolling. "If the [Army] pushes, then we push, too," wrote an aide to Craig Peterson, KBR's top official in Iraq.

 

The decision prompted a raging internal debate that is detailed in private KBR documents, some under court seal, that were reviewed by The Times.

 

One KBR management official threatened to resign when superiors ordered truckers to continue driving. "I cannot consciously sit back and allow unarmed civilians to get picked apart," wrote Keith Richard, chief of the trucking operation.

 

Six American truck drivers and two U.S. soldiers were killed when the convoy rumbled into a five-mile gauntlet of weapons fire on April 9, 2004, making an emergency delivery of jet fuel to the airport. One soldier and a seventh trucker remain missing.

 

Recriminations began the same day.

 

Violence had surged throughout the region. The mutilated bodies of American contractors had just been removed from a bridge in Fallouja. The military was battling simultaneous Shiite and Sunni uprisings.

 

It would turn out to be one of the deadliest months of the war for American soldiers and contractors -- and KBR's truck drivers were caught in the crossfire. Trucking program chief Richard fired off e-mails to superiors in Houston and Kuwait describing the growing risks to his drivers.

 

"One of my convoys was hit with 14 mortars, 6 RPGs, 5 IEDs and small arms fire," Richard wrote April 7. Senior KBR management in Iraq suspended travel, with Richard telling one colleague in an e-mail that the roads were "too dangerous."

 

Several convoys were canceled that week. Delayed shipments contributed to spot shortages when many supplies were needed most.

 

KBR -- then part of Halliburton Co., the company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney -- delivered 80% to 90% of the military's fuel, according to one senior logistics officer.

 

That meant that if KBR didn't move, neither could the U.S. Army. Unlike soldiers, contractors don't have to follow orders.

 

"We had to get food to the soldiers. We had to get fuel to the soldiers," the officer said. "This was a war."

 

For the families and drivers of the Good Friday convoy, however, KBR provided few details. The company has never made public its own investigation. Its attorneys have fought to keep internal communications under seal, arguing that they contain national security secrets.

 

In 2005, the families filed their wrongful death suit against KBR in Texas.

 

Last September, U.S. Dist. Judge Gray H. Miller dismissed the lawsuit under a rule that bars courts from jurisdiction in cases related to the routine exercise of military orders.

 

"Is it wise to use civilian contractors in a war zone? Was it wise to send the convoy along the route [to Baghdad airport] on April 9, 2004?" Miller wrote. "Answering either question and the many questions in between would require the court to examine the policies of the executive branch during wartime, a step the court declines to take."

 

Lawyers for the families contend that KBR retained full authority over its civilian convoys and have appealed.

 

There are 5 pages of this stuff. I'm sadly shocked that Gov't contractors, also seem to be exempt for accountability, for obviously poor and reckless choices, that directly lead to the death of US Civilians.

[Pic0o]

It might seem sensationalist, but I have a hard time not believing it. Post Labor Day 'War is Awesome' Push.

 

Buried in the New Yorker and yet uncovered by Paul Joseph Watson is an item by George Packer about “instructions” handed-down from on-high by Cheney’s office—call it Neocon Central—to sell the attack of Iran to the American people. Packer quotes Barnett Rubin, described as having “connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington,” and this institution, likely the American Enterprise Institute, where Bush gets his criminal “minds,” has instructed the complaisant corporate media to sell the attack.

 

“They [the source’s institution] have ‘instructions’ (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day,” Packer quotes Rubin, “it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is ‘plenty.’”

 

Let's hope a mandate about never letting someone who owned a Military Supply and Development Corporation become VP, comes into play. I think we all know who the Harbinger of Doom is (Hint: He's a Dick, who does not care about you).

[Xerxes]

Just thought a video would be appropriate here Pic0o

 

[Pic0o]

Just thought a video would be appropriate here Pic0o

 

 

:lol:

 

So, when are you moving to the U S of Murder for $$$?

:shank: