The return of the Yahoo! freep

Someone did this once upon a time, I always thought it was a great idea, so I’ve decided to make a more frequent contributions now that school is winding down.  Why do I like this idea?  It gives you a great list of important stories (on Yahoo!) and empowers you to make them front page worthy or hide them in the other news.  The effect can be small or large.

Using the new Yahoo! News Beta service I’ll brief the stories and link to them below, then if you want to, you can link, read, and vote…

I’ll post the first comment below for other stories to read and freep as they come, or as somebody else finds one I missed.  Which is bound to happen.  Polls are fair game in the first comment’s thread as well.  Comments, if any, I envisioned keeping them out of this first comment thread…

these go up (5)

Insurgent Attacks Kill at Least 20 in Iraq

This should look good on front page with the recent violence in Iraq.

Bush says US making ‘really good progress’ in Iraq

And now the stories I dont like:

Gov’t money goes to arms traffickers in China

It’s true, $29 million for weapons for the new Iraqi army.  This in the same company that most right-wingers were smearing Kerry over a visit in the 90’s on a trade mission.  As well as Clinton earlier:

note: CITIC is known as a front for the munitions manufacturer Poly Technologies Corp

The photo shows Kerry, an unnamed Chinese government official and Paul Marcus, the head of Boston Capital & Technology. Marcus also refused to provide details of the China trip, including the time and date, whether the senator took money for his services, or the identity of the Chinese officials with whom Kerry met. “I am not doing an interview with you, and please don’t call me again,” Marcus declared.

more on this here.

Continuing…

Poly Technologies was run by international arms dealer Wang Jun and his “princeling” friend, the powerful He Ping, son-in-law of long-time Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The Rand Corporation noted that “Wang Jun is both director of CITIC and Chairman of Poly Group, the arms-trading company of the General Staff Department.”

In 1996, Poly Chairman Wang Jun met with President Bill Clinton inside the White House with convicted Chinagate figure Charlie Trie, who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign from Red Chinese sources. The Democratic Party later returned much of this donated money.

(blaa blaa blaa)

John Kerry frequently has stated that he has had contacts with high-ranking officials of foreign governments. Yet, the Kerry campaign is refusing to answer any questions about the candidate’s privately sponsored trade trip to China or his relationship with Marcus. But it would appear that the presidential candidate has many friends at high levels in Beijing. The Chinese official Internet news outlet of the People’s Daily, official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, recently endorsed the senator from Massachusetts for president of the United States.

More on CITIC/Poly Technologies

While CITIC is reported by U.S. military authorities to be involved in the international sale of illegal arms it also is interested in obtaining advanced U.S. technology. The Boston Capital Website notes that the firm has been involved with the transfer of advanced U.S. space technology to China. Such references are viewed in the arms trade to have missile applications.

This company is known to provide arms to the world and also our cities.

A wholly-owned U.S. subsidary[sic] of Poly Technologies, Dynasty Holding Company of Atlanta, was charged in the March 18, 1996, seizure of 2,000 AK-47s illegally shipped from China into Oakland, Calif. Dynasty Holding Co. is now defunct but its president, Bao Ping “Robert” Ma, a former Chinese army general who’s a fugitive believed to be in China, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also was indicted.

But if the price is right….We’ll take it!

The U.S. Army has approved the purchase of more than $29 million worth of weapons for the new Iraqi army from a Chinese state-owned company that’s under indictment in California for trying to smuggle 2,000 AK-47 automatic rifles into the United States.

Army Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Warren, Mich.-based U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, approved the contract with Poly Technologies to help equip the new Iraqi army after a check into the company’s background.

Poly Technologies of Beijing is to deliver 2,369 light and heavy machine guns, 14,653 AK-47 assault rifles and 72 million rounds of ammunition worth $29.3 million by Saturday, according to a Pentagon statement.

It isn’t clear whether the deal, which comes as the Bush administration is pressing the European Union to maintain an embargo on high-tech arms sales to China, was discussed or approved by higher ranking officials at the State and Defense Departments. Hungary, Poland and Romania, all members of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq could supply the same weapons. China opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Poly Technologies won the competitively bid $29.3 million contract to help equip the Iraqi army in February from The International Trading Establishment, a Jordan-based consortium that the U.S. Army selected to supply Iraq’s fledgling security forces with as much as $174.4 million worth of radios, night vision equipment, weapons and ammunition.

New pro-Bolton website [action alert] [includes poll]

http://www.confirmbolton.com/

This is a short diary, I’m sorry it’s exam week…

Just saw this over at bennelli brothers blog (which is a bi-partisan blog but the righty is an operative of the Christian Coalition).  Anyway, the righty has a post up that links to a new Bolton site made by RNC operatives such as:

  • Michael Ledeen
  • Joel Mowbray
  • Frank Gaffney
  • David Frum
  • Anne Bayefsky
  • David Keene
  • Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
  • Cliff May
  • Andrew Cochran
  • Gary Bauer

I suggest that we make our voices heard in the la-la land that would include a website that fights for this bush appointee.  Here are some quotes from this newly created site:

For example, it appears that Lynne Finney, one of Bolton’s accusers, is less than a reliable source. Do check out her web site.
It also seems more obvious than ever, based on a Salon article dated July 16, 2003, that “the complaints about Bolton’s demeanor and temperament are simply a smokescreen for ideological objections to his pro-American worldview.”

The reason the White House is so worried about pushing the confirmation hearing back to May 12th is that they must believe that the Dems want to defeat Bolton more than the White House wants him confirmed. While it’s encouraging to see Cheney — a bona fide Bolton backer — speaking publicly, his remarks were fairly tepid, especially when compared to the VP’s repeated savaging last fall of Kedwards. All Cheney could muster was saying that there’s no evidence to substantiate the Dems’ claims; a better way to put it would have been the most honest: the Dems are lying. What the White House must do is launch a counteroffensive every bit as aggressive — and loud — as the Dems’ smear campaign. But in order for that to happen, the White House has to want Bolton confirmed more than the Dems want him sunk. Do they?

The White House is now worried that the new scheduled date for a committee vote, May 12, could give the smear campaign enough time to convert fiction into “fact.” But how did we get to this point? Simple. The White House dropped the ball. Chances are high — very high — that no one from the White House bothered to pick up the phone and talk to Voinovich. Had they taken 2 minutes to do so, they would’ve known that he played the part of stereotypical Senator who had no clue what was going on. The White House could’ve done whatever it took to assuage his concerns, and then we would’ve been having an entirely different conversation today.

Remember to sterilize your computer after leaving http://www.confirmbolton.com/

Wake-Up, BushCo!!!

This post originated here.

I saw this article from the AP today.  It is basically a look at energy costs and Mr. Bush, a look into his energy policy.  Towards the end of the piece, Bush is quoted as follows:

Bush said high prices are “like a foreign tax on the American dream.” He challenged Congress to send him an energy bill by August and described the proposal as making energy “more affordable and secure” in the future.

I’ll go easy on him first.  I have no problem with securing energy sources,  OIL is not secure.  In fact the scarcity of oil, oil that will be all but gone in my lifetime, makes pursuing oil sources and not alternatives indicates a warped idea of security.  It stinks of greed.

Now for the American dream part.  This statement is

  •  Arrogant.
  •  Ignorant.
  •  and disconnected from reality.

In fact, I believe that Americans need the wake up from that dream and get serious.  If anything, America gets a huge hand-out on energy (at least oil) when compared to the rest of the world.

The article continues stating correctly that his drive for cheap oil has been “complicated by his own actions.”  He attacked Iraq and soured relations with many in the free world, primarily Venezuela.

Then Bush is quoted blaming the Clinton Administration, saying Clinton “must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices.”

It ends with

Jerry Taylor, an energy analyst at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank that advocates less government regulation, said the idea that “jawboning OPEC or arranging for nice relations with OPEC will somehow get us more oil is utter illusion.”

“The Saudis will produce as much oil as they think is necessary to maximize revenue. Period,” Taylor said.

We need to wake up this president, this population.  Not for politics but for our future…

In JOHN GRAHAM ALTMAN’s words

Hello everyone,

Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Altman.  He has been in the news over at here on dKos and here in SC news.

Madd?

Well I’ve put together a time Capsule…

John Altman this is your life:

March 2002—during debate on an MLK holiday (SC was last in the nation to legislate a state King holiday)…

On the house floor, Altman quoted passages from a King bio claiming King had extramarital affairs and plagiarized parts of his college papers. Altman:

“You can run from the real Martin Luther King, but you can’t hide from him.”

In May 2003, he reiterated his feelings in a phone interview with WIS.

“Martin Luther King was in fact a womanizer and he did in fact cheat his way through college.”

Oh my, I got many, many more…

After house members – members of the “Men’s Caucus” – circulated a memo in 2001 advising female pages to wear skimpy clothes, and telling them underwear was optional—-all 124 members were asked to attend a two-hour class on gender, racial and ethnic sensitivity. The class was to be held at the start of the 2002 session.

Altman:

“I won’t be able to attend. I forgot to pack a dress.”

May 2003—after the house voted down a bill sponsored by democrat Leon Howard that would prohibit restaurants from handing out unwrapped drinking straws, Howard confronted Altman on the house floor. A story described it as “an angry, finger-pointing clash that included profanity and a challenge to “step outside” the chamber. Howard was restrained by house members. He said his anger stemmed from Altman’s “consistent disrespect for african-american leaders in this state.”

Anyone thinking Zell Miller?

Later, Altman told a TV station:

“Leon Howard, like so many black politicians I regret to say, not the black community, but black politicians, think if you disagree with them, you must be a racist.”

(undated) After a federal judge rules a “Choose Life” license plate would be a violation of the first amendment because it provides only one political viewpoint, Altman proposes a “Choose Death” plate. Quote:

“My bill is simply a reaction to the abortionists. They’re pro-choice. Well, they’ve got a choice–whether to buy (the tag) or not.”

April 2005—during debate on an anti-gay marriage amendment:

Altman refers to “homos wanting to bugger each other.”  (What???)

(undated) During vote on the state’s interracial marriage ban….Altman supported keeping the ban in place as a reminder of the “brutality of our past.”

According to the Point newspaper…Altman, during his years on the Charleston County school board, tried to ban dragons in children’s books because he considered them to be mystical symbols.

(undated) Altman introduced a bill, H. 4417, that would repeal an amendment (16-25-90) which allows battered women who have been convicted of a violent crime against their abusive partner, and who are serving time for the crime, to have their case heard annually by the parole board.

(undated) Altman introduced H. 3204, what some referred to as the “No Bull Bill”. It would prohibit sales of malt liquor in containers larger than 32 ounces.

Altman worked against legalizing tattoos, which he called a “young person’s vice.”

“I’m sure no one has ever said let’s go down to the social security office, and then get our first tattoo on the way home.”

Altman worked to defeat a hate crimes bill. He accused supporters of “spreading drivel” and said “This bill will make white heterosexuals second-class citizens.”

When ETV made plans to air “Corridor of Shame”….Altman introduced a bill to fire the seven member ETV board. He had also been highly critical of the network’s 2004 decision to broadcast a program about gay life called “We Are Your Neighbors.”

Altman called that program “socialist, leftist propaganda.”

Quote:

“They were actively promoting homosexuality as an OK thing to do.”

In an article about manners, written by retired Navy chaplain Lt. Cmdr. Furniss B. Harkness, Altman is quoted as follows:

“It doesn’t cost anything to say please, excuse me, and thank you. There are so many bad manners in the world. If we can be an oasis of decent manners, so be it.”

During debate over the mandatory seat belt law, John Graham Altman said this:

“I never know what I’m going to say until I say it, so I am kind of interested in hearing what I think.”

Sally Amos, a former Charleston teacher who worked as an organizer with the NAACP, on John Graham Altman:

He is “Lester Maddox without the charm and wit.”

and finally!

(…drummrole…)

April 2005: Rep. Altman proposes that Charleston County secede from the state of South Carolina on tax issues. He introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow counties to break away from the state for purposes of tax valuations.

and a few more…

House judiciary committee…1/22/97—issue:confederate flag

“Quit looking at the symbols. Get out and get a job. Quit shooting each other. Quit having illegitimate babies. Let’s move on from here.”

etter to Education Secy. Barbara Nielsen, who supported removing the flag from the dome…Dec. 1997.

“The kindest help I can offer you on any level is to try to get you quickly qualified for the Federal Witness Protection Program.”

Later, referring to Nielsen, he told a reporter: “That girl’s nuts.”

And Now ACTION!

Showdown at High Noon Tuesday, April 26th

Across from 77 Folly Road, in the Earthfare parking lot across from Altman’s home.

Charleston, SC

Visit Wake Up & Act for updates…

CIA and Drugs Revisited

Throughout history, profitable proceeds obtained through the drug racket were sought out by governments for economic benefit and/or a discrete cash flow.  From the Opium Wars between Europe and China to the current narcoterrorists of South America, the revenue from drug trafficking and sales offer opportunities for the oppressed and the super power.  Two recent abuses by CIA operatives using drug profits to fund covert wars at the expense of American soldiers and citizens deserve to be visited, as current situations in the world may lead to a similar case in the future.  Presented below is a look into CIA operations in South East Asia before and during the Vietnam War, and in Central America as a part of the Iran-Contra scandal.  The conclusion contains points aimed at hinting toward another possibility of prior and present US Government complicity in, or willful ignorance of drug trafficking out of Afghanistan.

CIA involvement in the South East Asian drug trade traces its roots to the 1950’s.  They took over operations after the French colonial administration withdrew from Indochina.  This spawned the creation of Laos, Cambodia , the pro-West state of South Vietnam and the Communist North Vietnam which would become a major battle ground for the American war on Communism in the 50’s and 60’s.  In the earliest phases of the Vietnam War, before the formal beginning of the war, heroin sales used as a means to raise funds to fight between political and ideological lines was common.  “That our Laotian allies were in the illegal drug business did not come as a shock.” wrote Joseph J. Trento “…the CIA had been allowing [the] rebel armies it supported and dictators it backed to engage in drug dealing to finance operations”.  

In the 50’s the CIA supported a pointless war backing Chiang Kai-Sheck’s Kuomintang (KMT) in attempt to retake mainland China.  The KMT took refuge in nearby Burma where they persuaded locals to grow raw materials for drug production rather than food.  Using incoming Civil Air Transport (CAT) planes, run by Sea Supply, Inc. (which later became Air America), transporting food to Burma and weapons to the KMT, the returning planes were filled with opium for sale and distribution in Taiwan and Thailand.    This was all coordinated and funded by the CIA and the American taxpayer.

The proliferation of drug funded wars in Southeast Asia spread through Burma and northern Thailand into Laos, a region known as the Golden Triangle for its lucrative poppy production and the effects of these processed poppies on the population.   In 1954, heroin exports were moving through Saigon, no action was made to do anything as to protect the anti-Communist mafia in South Vietnam and their source of revenue.  According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), “the policy was not to stop the drug business in Vietnam but to win the war.”  In the early 60’s Air America began providing free transportation for Vietnamese groups as a reward for loyal service and bravery.   Air America became the most efficient means of transportation for regional drug trade.  By the mid 60’s intelligence reports indicated drug trade was a supplement for anti-communist activities.  

The combination of covert activities and drug trafficking led to problems within the Air America ranks and into the military forces fighting the Vietnam War by introducing two powerful forces into the soldier population, drugs and money.  The man who served as paymaster for the favored anti-communist Vietnamese groups, William Corson, is quoted by Joseph Trento:

“I can tell you that we had Air America pilots who were tempted by the money.  During the war, the CIA faced the same corruption we see in drug enforcement today.  There was just too much money involved.”

Corson’s colleague and friend Robert Crowley remembers many events where Air America pilots became extremely intoxicated and violent and one event where two pilots shot it out, the dead pilot was buried on the grounds of the CIA station in order to limit public attention.   The drug problem was visible in the local Vietnamese population and soon affected large numbers of American soldiers.   The problem of drug trafficking soon reached American soil, turning Dover Air Force Base in Delaware into a port used for the importation of illegal drugs, as well as fallen soldiers.  The main way of smuggling these drugs into the country was concealing them within the thousands of caskets arriving from the war.

The Vietnam War invited drug abuse levels in veteran circles that some will defend as being equal in number to use in mainland US.  I find that line of reasoning troublesome, for the percentage of veterans serving in the military during the Vietnam War abusing drugs matching the percentage of users not serving, back in the mainland US displayed lack of discipline and oversight of our nations prized army.  Heroin abuse peaked in 1971; however 88% of Vietnam Veterans that were said to be addicted to heroin showed no addiction three years after returning from service.   Supporting the effect that war has on humans, causing then to seek mood enhancement or isolation through drugs, as well as the difference in availability in SE Asia and mainland US; this drug supply was supported by Air America, the CIA, and other government organizations.

Despite the CIA’s obvious involvement in drug trade before and during the Vietnam War, proper action was all but avoided.  In 1957, the laws pertaining to Air America pilots was such that someone found to be holding drugs would be removed from the flight at the nearest airfield, this law was enforced entirely by the pilot.  Once the Air America crews began trafficking the drugs, the law had no effect.  In 1972, revelations put forth in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Alfred McCoy caused the investigation of CIA activities in the 50’s and 60’s.  Although the investigation cleared the CIA and any of its top officials of permitting drug trafficking “as a matter of policy” blaming the overall problem on an individual, case-by-case discipline issue which is the most common way for military to cover-up wrongdoing.  The negative publicity was enough to force the CIA to set up the Security Inspection Service to monitor operations .  The use of drug money by the CIA to support covert operations in Southeast Asia was the first known and well documented instance of CIA and government mismanagement and corruption involving drugs; it would not be the last.  

The campaign against communism continued in the 70’s in Central America.  Cuba, Hispaniola, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua all saw US Government involvement in anti-communist activity beginning in the 50’s.  The most notable event of this period was the Iran-Contra scandal.  Conspiracy theories surrounded the scandal until it came to a head in the summer of 1987 with televised hearings regarding the matter.  The following joint congressional report while quite large, “withholds the full story,” wrote Jonathan Marshal citing the lack of key issues such as the question of `conscious choice’ or ignorance, the resistance of congress to glaring accusations of wrongdoing or the willingness of the Reagan administration to lie, the contradictions between covert activity and a democratic society, the role of Israel, and the role of drug money.  Marshal continues:

The most glaring operational embarrassment neglected by the report is the role of drug trafficking in financing the Contras and the logistic operations that supplied them.  […]  Ample and convincing evidence points to the existence of a “guns-for-drugs” network that brought cocaine and marijuana into the United States at the price of running arms down to Central America.  The joint committee itself heard testimony from three government witnesses that high-ranking Contra leaders trafficked in cocaine.

Again the media let the story slip into a conspiracy coma where it sat for almost a decade.  In the summer of 1996 San Jose Mercury News reporter Garry Webb authored a series of articles linking the Contras and the CIA to the Los Angeles crack epidemic of the 80’s.

The main roots of the drug connection arose out of Nicaragua and the fall of the Somoza dictatorship to the leftist opposition Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front) usually referred to as simply the Sandinistas or FSLN.  Anastasio Somoza was a heavy handed but anti-communist ruler who received large amounts of aid from the US from the Nixon/Ford administration.  This lasted until the late 70’s when the Carter administration “…went on a human rights crusade, complaining publicly that the longtime dictator was just too dictatorial, and that his Guardia was wantonly killing people.”   So funding slowly dwindled causing Somoza’s power to fade, introducing an opportunity for the Sandinistas to take over which they did in the late 1970’s.  Somoza’s remaining followers spread out into neighboring nations, northern South America, and the southern US.

One of the first things the incoming Reagan-Bush administration did was cut ties their ties with the Sandinista Government and instructed the CIA to seek to undermine the government and their operations in Latin America.  The policy that came with the Reagan administration towards Iraq differed greatly from Carter administration.  Gary Webb wrote,

When Reagan and Bush looked at Nicaragua, they didn’t see a populist uprising against a hated and corrupt dictatorship, as did most of the world.  They saw another Cuba taking root in their backyard, another clique of Communists who would spread their noxious seeds of dissent and discord throughout the region.  And when they looked at the Contras, they didn’t see the remnants of Somoza’s brutal Guardia, or mercenaries doing hired killings and robberies.  They saw plucky bands of freedom fighters.

CIA operations scoured the US, Mexico, and Central America looking for anti-Sandinista groups.  These groups were funded and supported by the CIA and eventually became the Contras.

The remnants of the Somocistas contained a number of businessmen and drug traffickers.  A number of which developed and funded Central American counter-revolutionary organizations, some using drug money.  Throughout the early 80’s the Contras sustained their activities with aid from the US Congress and Drug money from displaced Somocistas.  As the guerilla war raged and the cooperation increased between the CIA and counterrevolutionaries which were now semi organized into the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN).   In 1981 the US Congress granted the Contras a measly $20 million to “…overthrow the Sandinista.  It called for the CIA to conduct a variety of covert operations.   In 1983, the Congress stopped aid to the Contras, citing human rights violations and terrorist acts.  This forced the Reagan administration to seek other means of funding for their Contras, such as funneling proceeds from illegal weapon sales to Iran or drug trafficking.   The Iran-Contra scandal focused on Oliver North and his dealings with Iran, mentions of large scale operational drug trade was limited.  Even with Senator John Kerry’s report of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of the Foreign Relations clearly stating:

…individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.

However, the findings were left unreported.  Just before the funding was pulled on the contras, The Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Casey, received a memo from the Attorney General including this text:

In light of these provisions, and in view of the fine cooperation the Drug Enforcement Administration has received from CIA, no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures.

This `free pass’ for the CIA to illegally fund their militias resulted in an increase from 80 metric tons of cocaine imported in 1979 to 600 metric tons in 1987.

The subject wasn’t mentioned in the main stream media until a series of columns appeared in the 1996 San Jose Mercury News (and later the book, Dark Alliance) by Gary Webb, where he claimed that the CIA peddled drugs to gangs in LA.  He wrote on 3 October 1996:

The Oct. 23, 1986, affidavit identifies former Nicaraguan government official Danilo Blandon as “the highest-ranking member of this organization” and describes a sprawling drug operation involving more than 100 Nicaraguan contra sympathizers.

The affidavit of Thomas Gordon, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics detective, is the first independent corroboration that the contra army – the Nicaraguan Democratic Force – was dealing “crack” cocaine to gangs in Los Angeles’ black neighborhoods. Known by its Spanish initials, the FDN was an anti-communist commando group formed and run by the CIA during the 1980s.

Gordon’s sworn statement says that both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI had informants inside the Blandon drug ring for several years before sheriff’s deputies raided it Oct. 27, 1986. Gordon’s affidavit is based on police interviews with those informants and one of the DEA agents who was investigating Blandon.

The damage caused by the influx of cocaine into our cities affected millions and is quite possibly a catalyst of the gang wars that rage in urban areas of the US in the 80’s and 90’s.  

There is no doubt in my mind that there were and are other instances of misuse of drug money in our government.  Many former members of Police Departments across the country have come forward with information that leads to the conclusion that Congresswoman Maxine Waters shares with many Americans, “…that the CIA, DEA, DIA, and FBI knew about drug trafficking…” and “[t]hey were either part of the trafficking or turned a blind eye to it, in an effort to fund the Contra war.”  Many theories exist, most recently they surround Afghanistan.  The soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent assistance to the Arab resistance coincided with an increase in US consumption of Afghan heroin from 0% in 1979 to 40% in 1985 – 1986.  Before the 2001 US invasion the UN estimated the production of opium in Afghanistan to be 3276 tons, in 2001 it had dropped to 185 tons, 90% of it coming from land controlled by the Northern Alliance.  Ex-LAPD narcotics detective Michael Ruppert claims that the CIA may use drug money to pad the US economy citing a June 1999 AP article where the New York Stock Exchange chief flew to Columbia to meet with FARC leaders to request their investment of funds in the US stock market.  Ruppert also notes that the World Bank launders $1.5 billion every year, $500 to $600 billion is drug money.   But these are just theories, conspiracy theories; as most stories pointing at government corruption begin.

The Iraqi Resistance [! UPDATE !]

Update [2005-4-16 16:32:27 by hfiend]: Networks are now reporting that there is a joint operation being carried out by Iraqi and US forces.

This is a new tactic for Iraq. They used to kidnap someone or some group of people usually Iraqi police or Shia’. Now they have taken a town and the resulting rescue, if it gets out of hand, could be a lot of bad press for the occupation from any point of view.

An entire city just got snatched by an insurgent army…

Sunni insurgents have taken at least 60 people hostage in the town of Madaen near Baghdad and are threatening to kill them unless Shi’ites leave, a Shi’ite official who said he had been contacted by residents there said.

“People from the town called me begging the Iraqi government to save their relatives, who are hostages. They told me there are at least 60 hostages,” the Shi’ite official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. (LINK)

and not to long ago…

Insurgents with heavy weapons appeared to have taken control of the mixed Sunni and Shi’ite town of Madaen, just south of Baghdad, and no police or government forces were in sight, said the official. (LINK)

That’s my post…

But let me add a brief snip of the DoD propaganda website right NOW!

“It’s particularly important today … because the American people need to know the full story,” said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “because it is going to be their resolve that is so critical to our ability to confront the extremist threat.” (LINK)

Not that our soldiers are doing excellent work, but this story hasn’t made front page of one news service, I got this through the Swiss Media.

So as you wish sir, here is the real Iraq.

Live Blogging from the Al Franken Show in SC

Liberal voice from Charleston, SC.

  •  Joe Lieberman
  •  James Clyburn
  •  Lindsey Graham
  •  Mayor Joe Riely
  •  Alex Sanders

So far he has attacked Strom, DeLay, Lott, and Newt

Chartleston was the most populated southern city…

in the 1800’s.  (Ha!)

[I’ll continue to update as the show progresses]

Alos at DKos
[1230] – really on DeLay now, talking about his ethics and how he gets around his issues.

Now, the House needs new management, and that is Republican management. In my opinion, it will not do any good to get rid of the present Speaker or the present leadership, because what will happen is more will come in and it is the arrogance of power that we are talking about here. What is going on here is arrogance of power. We need a change in management…

The Democrats could offer us another candidate, but it just will not change the system. Only when the public and Republican pressure becomes so great does the Democrat leadership act. We need new leadership which will act because it is right, not because they have been caught in cover-ups and scandals.

From this post.

Although he read more, waiting for first guest…

[1240] – oooppps!  it’s the oy, oy, oy show

ripping on Southern slave trade…

Joe is next (on the phone), It is going to be hard to clap for him!

[1250] – Joe is on the phone…

what a tool…

Update [2005-4-14 13:1:55 by hfiend]:

Joe on S.S.

<Lp>
Are dems offering solutions to the S.S. <s>Crisis</s&gt issue?

*  He basically said we need more suggestions, nothing about the president’s plan.  He did note that Medicare is a bigger problem than S.S.

*  Joe  “prez. Is smart, he went to Yale…”

Bankruptcy Bill

*  He supported a vote of cloture but doesn’t like the bill, anyone have a problem with that?  He says the vote was lost, but I still have a problem with caving.

Franken “It doesn’t sound that bad I thought it was a crisis.”

Update [2005-4-14 13:9:52 by hfiend]:

Mayor Joe riely

30 years of mayor of Charleston, a true southern Dem

“America is an urban nation…we rely on our cities…The city is a great place for people to live, for the heart to sing

On first responders…

Joe – we haven;t been fully backed-up re. homeland security

Charleston is a huge port city, feds not doing their job

Update [2005-4-14 13:39:4 by hfiend]:

Graham isn’t here…yet!  Waiting for a backbone…he’s on the phone.

first thing out of Graham’s mouth, “while in town spend $ we need it…”

Image hosted by Photobucket.comGraham just said basiclly that 2/3 of congress is copupt, not just Delay

I like Graham, sorry everyone…But he is on republican talking point today.  Meaning he is not being openminded.

Update [2005-4-14 14:6:42 by hfiend]:

Should be Alen Sanders, James Clyburn, he ran against Graham for Strom’s spot.

Don’t know much about Clyburn, my congress person in Henry Brown, who is a peice of $hit

Now… Here is Alex Sanders, next…

Alex Sanders is great, great speaker, great personality and a sane member of the Charleston community. Former C of C president and all-round great guy. I may be taking a poly-sci class with him next semester…

I think alex is funnier than Al…

Nope, he is…

Liberals want to burn the flag, Repubs want to bun the bill of rights.

What should the Dems do? (Sanders)
* Keep hope alive…
* The bus will come back around
* The Repubs were gone at one point, but they came back. So will the Dems.
* Keep hope up for the great nation of America!

Let gays get married and you won’t have them having sex!!

I hope someone enjoyed this…signing off.

A Great Essay

[Cross Posted at dKos]

My mother cut this out for me out of the AARP magazine not to long ago.  Usually when I get these things I barely look at it.  But once I saw who the author was I had to read, and I was quite happy I did.

I’ve written many papers about the rise of Israel in biblical and modern terms, often using Karen Armstrong as one or more of my sources.  I find her views based in reality and easily accepted for a non-spiritual person as myself despite her prior profession as a nun.

Anyway one great quote and the full text below the fold…

Yet such religiously inspired hatred represents a major defeat for religion. That’s because at their core all the great world faiths – including Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam – agree on the supreme importance of compassion. The early sages and prophets all taught their followers to cultivate a habit of empathy for all living things.

Why then do supposedly religious leaders declare war in God’s name? Why do some people use God to give a sacred seal of approval to their own opinions?

Enjoy and peace!
This link was the top link when I googled it…

Compassion’s Fruit

OUR DIFFERENCES DEFINE US, BUT OUR COMMON HUMANITY CAN REDEEM US. WE JUST HAVE TO OPEN OUR HEARTS

Karen Armstrong, AARP

Psychologist Carl Jung once said that a great deal of institutional religion seems designed to prevent the faithful from having a spiritual experience. Instead of teaching people how to live in peace, religious leaders often concentrate on marginal issues: Can women or gay people be ordained as priests or rabbis? Is contraception permissible? Is evolution compatible with the first chapter of Genesis? Instead of bringing people together, these distracting preoccupations actually encourage policies of exclusion, since they tend to draw attention to the differences between us and them.

These policies of exclusion can have dramatic consequences. Most notably they have given rise to the militant piety that we call fundamentalism, which erupted in every major world religion during the 20th century. Every fundamentalist movement, whether in Judaism, Christianity or Islam, is convinced that the modern secular establishment wants to destroy it. Fundamentalism is not inherently violent. Most fundamentalists simply want to live what they regard as a good religious life in a world that seems increasingly hostile to faith.

But when a conflict has become entrenched in a region (as in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Chechnya, religious fundamentalists have gotten sucked into the escalating violence and become part of the problem. Even in the United States, members of the Christian Right believe that their faith is in jeopardy and that they have a sacred duty to protect it by attacking their liberal opponents. When people feel that their backs are to the wall, they often lash out aggressively. Hence the hatred that continues to cause so much turmoil around the world.

Yet such religiously inspired hatred represents a major defeat for religion. That’s because at their core all the great world faiths – including Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam – agree on the supreme importance of compassion. The early sages and prophets all taught their followers to cultivate a habit of empathy for all living things.

Why then do supposedly religious leaders declare war in God’s name? Why do some people use God to give a sacred seal of approval to their own opinions?

I would argue that these people have forgotten what it means to practice compassion. The word compassion of course does not mean to feel sorry for someone. Like sympathy, it means to feel with others, to enter their point of view and realize they have the same fears and sorrows as yourself.

The essential dynamic of compassion is summed up in the Golden Rule, first enunciated by Confucius in the year 500 BC: “Do not do unto others as you would not have done to you.” Confucius taught his disciples to get into the habit of shu: “likening to oneself.” They had to look into their own hearts, discover what gave them pain and then rigorously refrain from inflicting this suffering upon other people.

The Buddhists also taught a version of the Golden Rule. He used to advise his monks and lay followers to undertake meditative exercises called The Immeasurables. They had to send out positive thoughts of compassion, benevolence and sympathy to the four corners of the earth, not omitting a single creature (even a mosquito) from this radius of concern. They would thus find that once they had gone beyond the limiting confines of egotism and self-interest, their humanity had been enhanced. They would even have intimations of infinity.

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, taught the Golden Rule in a particularly emphatic way. One day a heathen asked him to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn it.” This is an extraordinary statement. Hillel did not mention any of the doctrines that seemed so essential to Judaism – such as belief in one God, the Exodus from Egypt, and adherence to the complexities of the Law of Moses.

Jesus taught the Golden Rule in this way: he told his followers to love even their enemies and never to judge or retaliate. If someone struck them on the face, they must turn the other cheek. In his parable of the “last day,” when the King comes to judge the world, those who enter the kingdom do not do so because they have adopted orthodox theology or observed the correct sexual mores, but because they have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty and visited the sick and the criminals in prison. St. Paul agreed: Christians could have a faith that moved mountains; but if the people lacked charity, it was worth nothing.

Islam is also committed to the compassionate ethic. The bedrock message of the Koran is an insistence that it is wrong to build up a private fortune, and good to share your wealth fairly in order to create a just and decent society where poor and vulnerable people are treated with respect. On the last day, the one question that God will ask Muslims is whether they have looked after the widows, the orphans and the oppressed. If they have not, they cannot enter Paradise.

Why was there such unanimous agreement on the primacy of compassion? Truly religious people are pragmatic. The early prophets and sages did not preach the discipline of empathy because it sounded edifying, but because experience showed it worked. They discovered that greed and selfishness were the causes of our personal misery. When we gave them up, we were happier. Egotism imprisoned us in an inferior version of ourselves and impeded our enlightenment. The safest way of combating ego was to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and replace us with others.

Human beings by nature seek ecstasy. If we do not find ecstasy in religion, we turn to art, music, dance, sports, sex, even drugs. But such rapture can only be temporary. Religious leaders claim that the practice of the Golden Rule can give us an experience of ecstasy that is deeper and more permanent. If every time we are tempted to speak unkindly of an annoying colleague, a sibling or an enemy country, we asked ourselves how we would like such a thing said of ourselves and as a result of this reflection, desisted, in that moment we would transcend our ego. Living in this way day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, we would enjoy a constant slow-burning ecstasy that leaves the self behind. The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once remarked that when we put ourselves at the opposite pole to ego, we are in the place where God is.

The practice of compassion has to be consistent. It does not work if we make it selective. As Jesus explained, if we simply love those who are well disposed to us, no effort is involved; we are simply banking up our own egotism and remain trapped in the selfishness we are called to transcend. That is why Jesus demanded that his followers love their enemies. They were required to feel with people who would never feel affection for them, and extend their sympathy without expecting any return benefit for themselves.

Does that mean we’re supposed to “love” Hitler or Osama Bin Laden? The practice of compassion has nothing to do with feelings. According to 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas, what we call love simply requires that we seek the good of another human being. If we allow our hatred and rage to fester, this would not hurt our enemies – it would probably gratify them! – but we ourselves would be diminished. Anger is what the Buddha called an “unskillful emotion.” Feelings of rage are natural. But if they are indulged they are unhelpful since they often proceed from an inflated sense of self-importance.

I have noticed that compassion is not a popular virtue. Where is the fun of religion if you can’t disapprove of other people? I suspect there are some people who would feel obscurely cheated if, when they finally arrive in heaven, they found everybody else there as well! Heaven would not be heaven unless those who reached it could peer over their celestial parapets and watch other unfortunates roasting below! We need training in compassion because it does not come to us naturally…. The history of each faith tradition represents a ceaseless struggle between our inherent tendencv to aggression and the mitigating virtue of compassion. Religiously inspired hatred has caused unimaginable suffering around the world, but secularism has had its failures too. Auschwitz, the Gulag, and the regime o Saddam Hussein show the fearful cruelty to which humanity is prone when all sense of the sacred has been lost.

None of these atrocities could have taken place if people were properly educated in the simplest of all principles, the Golden Rule. We live in one world. We have to learn to reach out in sympathy to people who have different opinions, at home and abroad. We need the ethic of compassion more desperately than ever before.

Repubs flip-flop’n on Iraq [a list, please add]

Yet another Republican has feelings about the misinformation campaign waged by neo-con war mongers in Washington.  US Representative Walter Jones, a conservative Republican, in his own words

  •  “If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn’t have voted for that resolution. Absolutely not,” he said Thursday in an interview.
  •  “To me, there should be somebody that is large enough to say, ‘We made a mistake’,” Jones said, almost in tears with frustration. He said he and other lawmakers want to ensure they are never again asked to authorize a war with bad information.

Walter Jones joins this brief list, please add to it in comments…
Rep. Doug Bereuter retiring republican from Nebraska:

  •  “I’ve reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action, especially without a broad and engaged international coalition,”
  •  “The cost in casualties is already large and growing, and the immediate and long-term financial costs are incredible.”
  •  “Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action,”
  •  He said the administration was wrong to disband the Iraqi army — because so many of its members joined forces with the insurgents — and was wrong to rely on the Defense Department instead of the State Department to spearhead reconstruction and the interim government.
  •  He also said the administration was wrong to ignore military leaders who warned many more troops would be needed in Iraq to maintain the postwar peace.
  •  “Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world,”
  •  Bereuter said it was important for the executive and legislative branches of government to learn from the “errors and failures” relating to the war in Iraq and its aftermath.

All joining the once lone dissenter Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.