"At a press conference somebody finally stood up to Bush: a bird shit on him. Here's what is wrong with this man: he looked at it, and then wiped it off with his bare hand. And this is the guy who doubts that he descended from an ape." ---Bill Maher, via DailyKos

Rudy Giuliani's mistress (maybe)

Bush's detention facilities

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005.

This is not from some nutty leftwing conspiracy site. It's from a nutty rightwing conspiracy site WorldNetDaily, written by Swiftboater Jerome Corsi.

Fitzgerald says Valerie Plame was Covert

In January, 2002, she was working for the agency “as an operations officer” in the Directorate of Operations’s Counterproliferation Division (CPD) and serving as “chief” of a unit with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq. In that capacity, he added, she traveled overseas in an undercover capacity.

“She traveled at least seven times to more than 10 countries,” the document states. “When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity….At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employe for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”

Iran: The Drums of War are getting louder

Norman Podhoretz: The Case for Bombing Iran

In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force—any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.

It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

John Bolton: We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb

A nuclear Iran would be as dangerous as “Hitler marching into the Rhineland” in 1936 and should be prevented by Western military strikes if necessary, according to a leading hawk who recently left the Bush administration.

U.S. SPACE FIRST STRIKE PROGRAM WELL UNDERWAY

Disguised as "missile defense" the Pentagon's Star Wars program is all about offense and global control and domination. The planned deployments in Europe are just one more piece in the military space architecture that would give the U.S. "full spectrum dominance."

In a recent article Conn Hallinan, an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, writes "Anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM) have a dark secret: They are not supposed to stop all-out missile attacks, just mop up the few retaliatory enemy missiles that manage to survive a first strike. First strikes - called 'counterpoint' attacks in bloodless vocabulary of nuclear war - are a central component in U.S. nuclear doctrine."

Muqtada al Sadre appears publicly in Iraq, denouncing the United States and insisting we leave.
Juan Cole notes He preached in his kafan, or burial shroud, a sign of defiance and willingness to be martyred.

U.S. funding Mexico's wiretaps

Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with U.S. on law enforcement.

The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend Mexico's constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases.

Mexican authorities have been able to wiretap most telephone conversations and tap into e-mail for years, but the new $3 million Communications Intercept System being installed by Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency would expand its reach.
The system will allow authorities to track cellphone users as they travel, according to the contract specifications. It would include extensive storage capacity and allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation within the next month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems, a politically connected company based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance.

Mexico will undoubtedly share the results of this surveilance with the United States, including communications between people in Mexico and in this country.

This story gives us an idea as to the surveilance being conducted in this country as well. The US Government is likely using the same companies and the same technologies, if anything on an even larger scale.

The specific company mentioned, Verint Systems, describes its work for national security agencies on its website:

Verint helps national security agencies generate actionable intelligence via a unified platform for the mass interception, filtering, and analysis of voice and data.

Sophisticated Probe and Filter Technology for Mass Interception

Verint’s sophisticated probing technology is designed to collect maximum communications pertaining to specific areas of interest.

Verint’s real-time filtering mechanisms extract essential information from the large volumes of intercepted data.

This image from their brochure gives an idea as to their range of surveillance capabilities:


So why don't I feel safer?

Bird poops on President Bush (from Raw Story - I understand there's video)

Cheney clearing path to bomb Iran

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President.

WASHINGTON – A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc.

Claims of 9/11 conspiracy have suspect running scared

A former Federal Emergency Management Agency videographer accused of killing his wife in Denver is seeking political asylum in Argentina, claiming the U.S. government wants him silenced for what he saw in the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers after 9/11.

In other interviews with Argentine media, Sonnenfeld is quoted as saying, "What I saw (at 9/11) leads me to the terrible conclusion that there was foreknowledge of what was going to happen - the precautions that were taken to save certain things that the authorities there considered irreplaceable or invaluable.

"For example, certain things were missing that could only have been removed with a truck. Yet after the first plane hit one of the towers, everything in Manhattan collapsed and no one could have gotten near the towers to do that."

Sonnenfeld is quoted as saying documentation was removed from U.S. intelligence agencies in the World Trade Center, including the CIA, prior to the attacks. He did not specify how he could have known that.

Introducing the iGasm

COMPUTER giants Apple are really worked up—over an Ann Summers sex toy that hooks up to your iPod.

The neon-pink ads feature a curvaceous girl with wires coming OUT of her MP3 player and INTO her knickers. And it's definitely turned on.

Our breaking news from Nathans Restaurant Q&A with the “DC Madam” this afternoon:

Montgomery Blair Sibley, the civil lawyer for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, told a packed house that he could not confirm, nor deny, that Dick Cheney’s phone numbers from when he was the CEO of Halliburton are included in Palfrey’s 10,000 escort service records.

An interview with Sibel Edmonds

Sibel names names. Grossman, Feith, Perle, Hastert.

My case has been known to a certain degree because of the activities that I have been engaging in, in terms of going to courts, going to Congress, etc. There are similar cases we are not hearing about. For example, the Larry Franklin case, with the espionage case that they pursued with AIPAC. And what the American public doesn’t know is the fact that there were other counter-intelligence operations within the FBI that obtained far more information not only limited to Mr. Franklin. Other operations were shut down in 2000 and 2001 because they ended up going to higher levels and involving way too many people. I’m talking about individuals who are breaking the law, misusing the trust and abusing their power, and in some cases I would even say engaging in treason.

Sibel tells us what motivates her. When she became a citizen some 18 years ago she took an oath, as do all new citizens, to "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic". It seems she takes that oath seriously. The people who have gagged her have taken similar oaths, which they have betrayed.
Sibel Edmond's website

Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq

According to senior US officials that is. If they had any actual evidence of this it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned.

Any US decision to retaliate against Iran on its own territory could be taken only at the highest political level in Washington, the official said. But he indicated that American patience was wearing thin.

Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan & 9/11: foreknowledge of an attack?

According to the former prison guard at Corcoran, Sirhan Sihan, did something in the months before 9/11 he had not done at any other time during his decades of incarceration – he ordered a television set for his cell. Interestingly, he showed no interest in watching television, only to occasionally check to make sure that the TV worked.

Then, on September 10, 2001, Sirhan Sirhan did something else he had not done before – he shaved his head. Although he was always a “clean cut” inmate according to this prison guard, he had never shaved his head. According to the prison guard, inmates in California often shave their heads immediately before their gangs go to war against other factions to show their solidarity and support.

Then, on the morning of 9/11 Sirhan was up early in his cell watching his TV for the first time when the news broke about the planes hitting the World Trade Center. In some manner, it is obvious that Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 33 years after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and a guest of the California prison system, had advance knowledge of the events of September 11, 2001.

Supposedly, according to this guard, Sirhan "Sirhan Sirhan received a lot of mail from addresses in the Middle East, almost all written in Arabic." I guess this is how he was supposed to have received advanced knowledge of Sept. 11.

This seems like complete bullshit to me, if not deliberate disinformation. The article is published on the website of something called the Northeast Intelligence Network, which offers "terrorist news information and analysis". The notion that al Qaeda would compromise the 9/11 operation by revealing it to Sirhan Sirhan is ridiculous.

Vicious rumors about George W

...the photo ops with black children were curtailed because his handlers felt he showed inappropriate sexual interest in these children and appeared on videotapes with them making inappropriate and weirdly adult remarks...

So says blogger Valdron who ought to be ashamed of his or her self. Put up or shut up Valdron. Let's see those photos and videos, if they exist. A quick search on my part brings up only these two innocent photos of the President and his little friends. Who wouldn't want to fondle that little smooth head or kiss those sweet little lips?

Messiah mystery follows death of mystical rabbi

Revered Israeli apocalyptic kabbalah leader shocks Jews, Christians with name 'Yeshua'

A controversy is raging in Israel, in evangelical circles in the U.S. and on kabbalah web forums worldwide following the posthumous release of what a revered Sephardic rabbi claimed to be the name of the Messiah.

When Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri died in February 2006, somewhere between the age of 106 and 117, 300,000 attended his funeral in Jerusalem.

The Baghdad-born kabbalist had gained notoriety around the world for issuing apocalyptic warnings and for saying he personally met the long-awaited Jewish Messiah in November 2003.

Before Kaduri died, he reportedly wrote the name of the Messiah on a small note, requesting it remained sealed for one year after his death. The note revealed the name of the Messiah as "Yehoshua" or "Yeshua" – or the Hebrew name Jesus.

In 1990, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson told Kaduri that he would live to see the coming of the Messiah.

Also in September 2005, Kaduri said: "The Messiah is already in Israel. Whatever people are sure will not happen is liable to happen, and whatever we are certain will happen may disappoint us. But in the end, there will be peace throughout the world."

A few months before his death, Kaduri gave a Yom Kippur address in which he gave clues as to how to recognize the Messiah. He told those gathered for the Day of Atonement in his synagogue the Messiah would not come until former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dies.

“Are they making a monkey out of you?”

This is the question being asked by a Minn.-based Christian organization that just launched a billboard campaign attempting to point to holes in evolutionary thought.

Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis: Multiple shooters possible, study says

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Richard Perle on George W. Bush:

"He came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it."

Perle was bound to be right about something one day.

John Bolton: We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb

Iran has "clearly mastered the enrichment technology now...they're not stopping, they're making progress and our time is limited", he said. Economic sanctions "with pain" had to be the next step, followed by attempting to overthrow the theocratic regime and, ultimately, military action to destroy nuclear sites.

The military system of determining whether detainees are properly held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, includes an unusual practice: If Pentagon officials disagree with the result of a hearing, they order a second one, or even a third, until they approve of the finding.

The detainees are not allowed to have their attorneys at the hearings or to hear the evidence against them.

Our Fearless Leader

Personal Update: I have not been blogging much of late, for personal reasons. Briefly, last Monday I almost lost my 18-year old daughter Tara. I prefer to keep the details private, particularly because I blog under my real name. She is doing fine and is expected to go home Wednesday. We are expecting a full recovery. The last week has been a difficult one, and I have had neither the time nor inclination to follow the news, much less blog about it.

CNN: Bush Resigns

If only this were true. But Cheney first please.

From Piglipstick

Hi everybody. I am sorry that I haven't been blogging much lately but I have been dealing with a family crisis. Things are getting better and gradually getting back to normal.

New Home Movie of Dallas 11/22/63

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association or has rooms full of historic films about Alaska. For a fee, it also transfers film to video or DVDs for clients, normally working home videos of family gatherings, or events.

But recently those routine dubs turned extraordinary with the discovery of a film shot Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17-year old Iraqi Kurdish girl of the Yezidi sect was beaten, kicked, and then stoned to death for the "crime" of loving a Sunni boy. Armed security forces watched but did nothing. Video is available on the internet. I watched it. I wish I hadn't.

Wal-Mart labels nuns a security threat

The corporate giant reportedly labeled the nuns a security threat after they raised questions about Wal-Mart's business practices.

The sisters have raised questions on wages, human rights, health care and the pay disparity between CEOs and workers. They believe that's why Wal-Mart has launched a surveillance operation on the small church group.

As reported earlier:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been recruiting former military and government intelligence officers for a branch of its global security office aimed at identifying threats to the world's largest retailer, including from "suspect individuals and groups".

Update: Raw Story has the video

OH MY GOD! After Bush says "either we'll succeed" he utters what Raw Story calls a "chuckle". I don't know what the hell it is--it seems to come out in a strange spasm as Bush struggles to regain control. This man is losing it. You must watch this.

"Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed."

And this gem: "I'm the Commander guy."

Read the whole incoherent messs.

Iraq Generals to President: You've Failed Us

Today, two retired Generals who led troops in Iraq expressed outrage at the President's veto of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act.

The President vetoed our troops and the American people. His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration.--Maj. Gen. John Batiste, USA, Ret.

This administration and the previously Republican controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America's Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever apparent, only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war - alone, without their President's support.--Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.

The Confession of E. Howard Hunt

Hunt: "I heard from Frank that LBJ had designated Cord Meyer, Jr. to undertake a larger organization while keeping it totally secret. Cord Meyer himself was a rather favorite member of the Eastern aristocracy. He was a graduate of Yale University and had joined the Marine Corps during the war and lost an eye in the Pacific fighting.

I think that LBJ settled on Meyer as an opportunist (unintelligible) like himself (unintelligible) in a man who had very little left to him in life ever since JFK had taken Cord's wife as one of his mistresses. I would suggest that Cord Meyer welcomed the approach from LBJ who was after all only the Vice President at that time and of course could not number Cord Meyer among JFK's admirers; quite the contrary.

As for Dave Philips, I knew him pretty well at one time. He worked for me during the Guatemala project. He made himself useful to the agency in Santiago, Chile where he was an American businessman. In any case, his actions, whatever they were, came to the attention of the Santiago station chief and when his resume became known to people in the Western Hemisphere division he was brought in to work on Guatemalan operations.

Sturgis and Morales and people of that ilk, stayed in apartment houses during preparations for the big event. Their addresses were very subject to change so that where a fellow like Morales had been one day, you'd not necessarily associated with that address the following day. In short it was a very mobile experience.

Let me point out at this point, that if I wanted to fictionalize of when I'm in Miami and elsewhere during the run up for the big event, I would have done so. But I don't want any unreality to tinge this particular story or the information I should say. I was a benchwarmer on it and I had a reputation for honesty. I think it's essential to refocus on what this information, that I've been providing you and you alone by the way, consists of.

What is important in the story is that we backtrack the chain of command up through Cord Meyer and laying the doings at the doorstep of LBJ. He in my opinion, had an almost maniacal urge to become President. He regarded JFK, as he was in fact, an obstacle to achieving that. He could have waited for JFK to finish out his term and then undoubtedly a second term. So that would have put LBJ at the head of a long list of people who were waiting for some change in the executive branch."

Seymour Hersh on Bush, Iraq and the neocon cult that has taken over our government.

Howard Hunt on the "Big Event" (Dallas Nov. 22, 1963)

Saint John Hunt said that shortly before his death, his father had felt "deeply conflicted and deeply remorseful" that he didn't blow the whistle on the plot at the time and prevent the assassination, but that everyone in the government hated Kennedy and wanted him gone in one way or another. Kennedy's promise to "shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter the remnants to the wind" was being carried out and this infuriated almost everyone at the agency.

Hunt puts LBJ behind the assassination. He says he had "an almost maniacal urge to become president." He also implicates Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips and David Morales. The recording was made in January 2004 and Hunt is obviously coherent and rational.

listen here

Christians Demand Bush be Impeached for Worshiping Satan

A Christian based group known as the Christian’s Liberation Movement has concluded that George W. Bush is a fake Christian and worships Satan. The group is demanding his impeachment not only for his crimes against humanity but for lying to the American people about his worship of Satan. It is highly doubtful that George W. Bush would have been elected President two times had the American people known about his secretive worship of Satan. Although this claim might seem difficult to believe, when one looks at the secret societies that George W. Bush has been involved with it becomes clear that George W. Bush is anything but a good Christian man.

"There is no question that George W. Bush worships Satan," proclaims Lee Rogers spokesman for the group.

It goes on about Skull and Bones and the Bohemian Club.

It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq.

--William F. Buckley