PATH: BS | Government | Insatiable Hubris

NOAA Chief Resigns; Funding Cut, Except To Party Planners

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The Federal Government has cut $700,000 from the NOAA's budget for hurricane research and instead, decided to spend more than $4 Million on advertising hawking the 200th anniversary of the NOAA. The Director and Deputy Director of the government's weather service have resigned in disgust.

Seriously... what is this administration going to do next? Shut down all the VA hospitals and instead launch an ad campaign promoting the 250th anniversary of soldiers being buried?

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Sicko Administration Trumps Up Charges Against Michael Moore

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Michael Moore's new documentary, "Sicko" premiers next week at the Cannes Film Festival. In honor of his expose of the problems with healthcare in the United States, the U.S. Government is trying to put him in jail for visiting Cuba.

READ MORE | 5 comments since 2007-05-18 16:41:47 | Comment on this Article

Katrina: The Screw-Up That Keeps Getting More Screwed Up

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Hurricane Katrina, the overplayed pop song of natural disasters, was the most devastating bitch-slap ever delivered to America. From personal experience (I live here) the region is not even close to recovering. Why is that? Racists think it's black people. Other racists think it's white people. Municipal politicians blame state politicians. State politicians blame federal politicians. Federal politicians blame black people (just kidding--they blame the state and municipal politicians, of course). It's not any of that--that is a distraction. I'll boil it down for you in one word--money. Here's some more: moolah, greenbacks, cheddar, dough, cash, a wad, bread, and that sign you make when you rub your index finger and thumb together. The Gulf Coast is broke. We need cash from any and all sources. Seeing the great need for recovery in this culturally rich region, the federal government has taken the important step of turning down, wasting, or just ignoring over $800 million in aid. Say what?

READ MORE | 5 comments since 2007-05-15 00:42:00 | Comment on this Article

US Releases Terrorist From Jail

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Cuba has slammed the US over what it says is a double standard on terrorism after a US federal judge ordered the release of an anti-Castro activist convicted in the deadly downing of a Cuban jet.

"The court ruling is yet another confirmation of the George W Bush Administration's double standard on its alleged war on terror," the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

The ruling by a federal judge in Texas does not necessarily mean former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, 79, will leave jail immediately, since he could be arrested by US immigration officials who have a deportation order for him.

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Busting The Whole Thing Wide Open

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Rep. Henry Waxman has sent a letter requesting the pleasure of the Secretary of State's company in April to testify before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which he chairs. The purpose of her little visit will be to discuss the claims by the administration that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger prior to our invasion. These claims were later discovered to have been based on forged documents. The reason this is a big deal is that it violates two Executive Orders and a section of the United States Code. But who would prosecute such a crime?

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Baghdad Is Now Safe! (According To John McCain)

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[Liars]
During an interview on "The Situation Room" this afternoon, John McCain told Wolf Blitzer that he needs to "get up to speed" and stop reporting three-month-old news from Iraq. According to McCain, the surge is working and the streets of Baghdad are safe for Americans to go strolling down.

The only problem? Michael Ware, who is, ya know, in Baghdad, says McCain hasn't a clue…

UPDATE: McCain goes to Baghdad.. kind of like Debbie Does Dallas except more people get screwed.

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Former Reagan Administration Budget Director Indicted For Fraud

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U.S. prosecutors on Monday charged David Stockman, a former chief executive of Collins & Aikman Corp, and other former executives of fraud.

Stockman, a former Reagan administration budget director, and the other ex-Collins & Aikman executives are accused of misleading the company's investors to hide its true financial condition, according to the indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

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Gov. Goes After Man Running Car On Vegetable Oil

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[Environment]
79-year old David Wetzel has been doing his bit to keep expenses down and leave a smaller environmental footprint, starting with his 1986 Volkswagen Golf, that he converted to run on recycled vegetable oil.

So imagine Mr. Wetzel's surprise when two agents from the Illinois Department of Revenue showed up and demanded that he pay a tax on the vegetable oil he's been using for his car! Not only that, should his taxes be the same as on diesel fuel? Oh no, he has to pay five times higher taxes!

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2007-03-08 17:30:14 | Comment on this Article

Kids Arrested For Enforcing The Law

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[Activists]
Los Angeles County officials are undecided whether to prosecute two 18-year-olds for apparently trying to enforce a city ordinance in Glendora, Calif.

Keleigh Marshall and Christina Giammalva were arrested Feb. 19 for placing stickers on yard signs for Glendora City Councilman Gary Clifford, a candidate for re-election next Tuesday.

Glendora law prohibits placing political campaign signs on public property.

The stickers read: "This sign violates Glendora city ordinance."

Clifford confronted Marshall and Giammalva and demanded they remove the stickers, the Los Angeles Times reported. When they refused, he called the police -- who showed up in four cars.

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A Totally Different Kind Of Power Struggle From Cheney

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It would seem to make sense that the operating budget of the Vice President would pay the utilities for the Vice President's official residence (located at 666 4th Circle Of Hell Street). Not so, says the Bush administration. A recent attempt by a Demo representative to keep it that way met with some remarkably stiff opposition, but bitter debate in the House is not that weird--the weird part is who is going to foot the bill now.

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When Officials Are Hopeful You Know You're Totally Screwed

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[Military]
On a one-day unannounced trip to Baghdad (worst. vacation. ever.) over the weekend, Condoleezza Rice (bane of spellcheckers in any language) said she saw "new hope" in Iraq after the launch of a US-led security plan. No one told the bad guys, however, as on Sunday a marketplace bombing killed 60 people just minutes after a US sweep of the area. So Iraqis, if I were you, I'd do my hoping under my bed. In a bunker. Far away from Iraq.

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Has Dick Cheney Lost His Marbles?

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In the face of seemingly crazy characterizations of the "enormous successes" in Iraq, Washington Post reporter, Dan Froomkin is wondering, is Dick Cheney unravelling, or as we here at BSA wonder, has he completely lost his mind?

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2007-01-30 16:47:03 | Comment on this Article

US Solution To Global Warming: Block The Sun

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[Environment]
The US government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday.

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Keith Olbermann On Bush's Credibility

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[Pundits]
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann outlines the history of the Bush administration's claims and accuracy when examining the validity of George W's current plan for a "surge" in Iraq. Check out the video!

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2007-01-13 14:48:28 | Comment on this Article

If We Know Who Visits The White House...The Terrorists Win!

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The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House complex are not subject to public disclosure….

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

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Bush Looks To Cook Books

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Now that he's lost control of both Houses of Congress, President Bush has decided that balancing the budget and stopping federal pork is a good idea, according to his Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal today. Only 6 years after he got elected it is apparently time "to set aside politics and focus on the future." Whew.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2007-01-04 13:24:16 | Comment on this Article

Saddam Hussein: Created Then Destroyed By America

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Hussein's execution will be remembered as a case of America destroying an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington.

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold -- that crack of the neck at the end of a rope -- than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed -- by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans -- on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2007-01-01 20:30:27 | Comment on this Article

The Liberty Amendment: Let's Make the U.S. A 4th World Country

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Forget third-world country, let's go for a fourth-world country. Some boneheads in corporate America have created this initiative called the "Liberty Amendment," which proposes to ensure the government doesn't compete with any private business interest--and they call that "liberty." This amendment is currently being considered in Congress, and if it actually passes, you should be able to sit by and watch your entire society degenerate into a Mad-Max style fourth world controlled exclusively by a few select corporations.

READ MORE | 4 comments since 2008-10-19 13:34:15 | Comment on this Article

State Department Googles Sanctions Against Iran

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When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft.

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way -- by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as "Iran and nuclear," three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations.

READ MORE | 2 comments since 2006-12-11 20:27:31 | Comment on this Article

State Senator's Wife Hiding To Avoid Deportation

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[Outsourcing]
If you're a state senator and you're an outspoken proponent of immigration issues, one thing you might want to do is check to make sure your wife isn't an illegal alien. Georgia's State Senator Curt Thompson has found himself in an uncomfortable situation now that the authorities, in what looks more like a witch hunt, are going after his wife trying to have her deported.

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Bush In Vietnam: We'll Succeed If We Don't Quit

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I honestly don't mean to appear to be some sort of cheerleader for Keith Olbermann, but he does make many excellent points, and due to the "biased liberal media," he's largely alone in the mainstream world of news when it comes to discussing U.S. history and the implications of the future based on the past and present.

In light of Bush's trip to Vietnam, Olbermann launches another tirade, pointing out the irony of Bush's current policies all the while dancing across the hallowed ground where a predecessor's lie got 58,000 American troops killed, and then has the audacity to comment about Iraq policy and the importance of not withdrawing.

Olbermann points out that the threat of communism taking over the world if we don't stop North Vietnam, didn't exactly pan out as President Lyndon Johnson claimed it would, and Bush has his own spin on the very same agenda with Iraq.

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Bush's Plan For Stopping Iraq Waste? Shut Down Oversight Office!

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A new battle is brewing in Congress over how the US government monitors the billions of dollars it spends on the reconstruction of Iraq. The Bush administration and leading Congressional Republicans are trying to close the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The special agency has uncovered several cases of waste and abuse, and has helped indict several American officials on charges of corruption.

The termination order comes in an obscure provision attached to last month's defense authorization bill. It says the Inspector General's office must close on October 1st of next year. The language was inserted by Congressmember Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who currently leads the House Armed Services Committee.

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U.S. Committed To Battling Global Warming, Except When It's Not

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[Environment]
The head of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. climate conference in Nairobi (motto: "Good GOD it's hot") says that the U.S. is committed to battling "the serious global challenge of climate change." This after Secretary General Kofi Annan told the conference that those who would deny global warming (*cough*America*cough**hack*) and delay acting are "out of step" and "out of time," and that there's a frightening lack of international leadership on the issue. The U.S., one of two industrialized nations not to sign the Kyoto protocols and with an outgoing Congress that believes global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people", is committed to battling global warming, for sure, as long as it doesn't affect the economy.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2006-11-19 22:02:08 | Comment on this Article

Election Dirty Tricks Get Even Nastier

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As if it weren't possible, some groups are not playing fair, intimidating voters, and deploying various dirty tricks to affect the vote. (This article is going to be continually updated with more news, so be sure to bookmark it.)
  • In an apparent violation of FCC rules, conservative talk radio station KFBK 1530 AM in Sacramento transmitted a paid political advertisement to an unknown number of other stations in the area using the Federal Emergency Alert System (EAS), thus automatically forcing the ad onto the stations' airwaves.

  • Republican Senate candidate from Maryland Michael Steele and Republican Gubenatorial candidate Robert Erlich crank out a fake "democrat voting guide" with bogus endorsements to mislead the other party's voters into thinking they're democrats when they're really republicans.

  • Tim Daly from Clarendon, Virginia got a call on his voicemail saying that if he votes Tuesday, he will be arrested. There are also widespread reports of calls from election "volunteers" telling VA voters that polling locations have changed that are completely bogus.

  • "Phone Spam" by Republicans pretending to be Democrats: There are reports from at least seven states of voters being harassed by multiple phone calls with recorded messages--"robocalls"--that appear to be a devious manipulation of voter's pre-election advertisement overload. A typical example was described in Pennsylvania's hotly contested 6th Congressional District, in the Philadelphia suburbs, where incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach is locked in a statistical dead heat with challenger Lois Murphy. The calls begin by offering "important information about Lois Murphy," leading voters to assume the call is from her campaign. Most recipients slam down the phone before finding out otherwise--and then call to complain. A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist did some researching and found that in fact the calls were being paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which spent over $21,000 in the past week alone on anti-Murphy phone bank expenses. NRCC spokesman Ed Petru readily admitted the scheme, noting that they wouldn't be spending money on robocalls if they weren't working. He added, no doubt with a straight face, "We don't think there's such a thing as an overinformed voter."

  • The Democratic Voter Protection Hotline is being flooded by prank phone calls - a tactic, no doubt by a few mean-spirited activists who want to disrupt complaints of voter suppression reports.

    Remember to vote Tuesday!

    Bring a video camera if you can to catch what's going on. Preserve America's democracy!

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2006-11-13 09:28:04 | Comment on this Article

ATF Director Abuses His Position to Help Out His Nephew

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In response to an anonymous tip that the then-director of the ATF had abused his position, hired an unqualified former colleague, and made expensive design changes to his new office, the Office of the Inspector General began an investigation. Regarding those charges, the OIG found that the director had in fact shown poor judgement, but did nothing not within his discretion. However, during the course of the investigation, the OIG heard another complaint that the director had used ATF equipment, employees, and time (upwards of 50 man-hours over 10 months) to help his nephew with a video project for high school. The director resigned before the report was released, but at least the nephew got an 'A'!

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Answers From Bush

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[Humor]
There are some gems among the new wave of political ads... Check these out.

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Media Continues To Mislabel Foley & Hastert

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[News Media]
What happens when your political party seems to be completely filled with pedophiles and those who protect them? What can you do with an election looming?

If you're the sleazy, irresponsible mainstream media, you can do what Associated Press, Fox, and others have done--claim these scumbags are Democrats and hope it sticks.

You know things are bad for the Republican party--whenever one of them gets in trouble, their friends in the "liberal media" label them as being Democrats! Foley is a Republican!

READ MORE | 2 comments since 2006-10-06 14:43:21 | Comment on this Article

Evidence Mounts of GOP Attempted Cover-Up of Masturgate

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[Pubic Relations]
Congressman Tom Reynolds' (R-NY) chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, tried to broker a secret deal last Friday to get ABC News to cover up the worst part of the Foley child predator scandal, the lurid five-plus-page instant message chat in which Foley asked a child to measure his penis and then led the child into a detailed discussion of masturbatory techniques.

The scandal, now dubbed "Masturgate" is spreading across the net like fire, even though the mainstream media continues to turn a hairy palm and blind eye to the details that high ranking officials knew about the congressman's activities and tried to cover it up for more than FIVE YEARS!

And what's Foley done in the wake of the scandal? The standard celebrity & conservative escape hatch made famous by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Mel Gibson: blame it on alcohol and check yourself into rehab.

But wait, we have more, oh so much more, including double video goodness.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2006-10-03 01:02:52 | Comment on this Article

Transcripts of Mark Foley's Lurid Chats w/Congressional Pages

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[Pubic Relations]
Brace yourself for this... ABC got some transcripts of the claimed chat sessions between Republican Congressman Mark Foley and the young boys he had been trying to seduce... there's not much ambiguity here in this Congressman's intent and you will see from the files...

READ MORE | 2 comments since 2007-07-08 11:34:12 | Comment on this Article

Second Rule of Congress: No Sexy Homo E-Mail Advances

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[Pubic Relations]
Rep. Mark Foley, R-Florida, submitted a letter of resignation from Congress on Friday in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former 16-year-old male page, according to a congressional official. Foley, 52, had been considered a shoo-in for re-election until the e-mails surfaced in recent days.

So what kind of republican starts creeping out a 16-year-old boy by talking about "sexual organs and acts?" The one that's the Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Missing & Exploited Children.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2006-09-30 14:27:03 | Comment on this Article

First Rule of Congress: Don't Choke Your Mistress!

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[Beating Dead Horses]
You know...if you're a Pennsylvanian Congressman who constantly touts the conservative party line and spouts about "family values", it might be a bad idea, at 60, to be exposed for having an affair with a woman more than half your age for more than half a decade, and then trying to strangle her. Don't ya think?

READ MORE | 2 comments since 2007-07-29 11:16:48 | Comment on this Article

Chavez Brings Noam Chomsky Back To Life (and Best-Seller Status)

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[Viral Marketing]
At a news conference after his spirited address to the United Nations on Wednesday, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela expressed one regret: not having met that icon of the American left, the linguist and MIT Institute Professor Noam Chomsky, before his death.

Providing Chavez can last after calling George W. Bush the devil, his wish may be granted because Chomsky is very much alive, and quite amused at the Venezuelan President's remarks. But also pleased that Chavez promotion of his book, “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” has propelled it to best-seller status. By the way, this is a great book if you haven't read it. Read more of this article for links on free downloads of Chomsky podcasts.

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2006-09-23 21:49:25 | Comment on this Article

Senator Tries To Sabotage Public Access To Gov. Spending Info

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Senators Tom Coburn and Barak Obama have proposed S.2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, legislation that would create a single website with access to information on nearly all recipients of federal funding. The bill cannot proceed, however, because one or more Senators placed a "secret hold" on it. Some say this attempt to bury the legislation prior to a vote is unconstitutional, in addition to downright un-American, un-democratic, and stupid.

Regardless of your political affiliation, the idea of a central web site where you can find out how your tax dollars are being spent seems like a good idea... a good idea to everyone except Alaskan Senator Ted "Internet is a series-of-tubes", "bridge to nowhere" Stevens! He seems to think such a resource would be a waste of taxpayer dollars!

Is there anyone in Alaska who isn't ashamed of this sorry excuse for a human being, Ted Stevens?

By the way, Mr. Stevens was also a principal architect of the Telco Act of 1996 which screwed over the public communications systems and paved the way for the consolidation of corporate media.

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Congress Recognizes Wine Anniversary; Katrina Who?

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[Mean People]
In August 2006, the U.S. Senate unanimously agreed to a House resolution introduced by Congressman Mike Thompson (D-Napa Valley), passing the resolution recognizing the significance of the Napa Valley victory at the 1976 Paris Wine Tasting, 30 years ago. House Concurrent Resolution 399 recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of those who created the winning wines and the many successes of the California wine industry in the intervening thirty years.

A similar resolution to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall failed to pass the House of Representatives--perhaps because it contained language suggesting that the government was committed to rebuilding New Orleans, only a year too late for most residents and business owners. (Better late than never, right? But then again, the non-binding resolution didn't pass.)

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American Bar Association: Bush Is Violating The Law

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About two weeks ago, on July 26, 2006, the American Bar Association issued a report condemning President Bush's use of "signing statements." These statements are essentially a "P.S." written underneath his signature on a piece of legislation that states how he interprets and intends to enforce the law.

The ABA had this to say:
"Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush’s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers... To address these concerns, the task force urges Congress to adopt legislation enabling its members to seek court review of signing statements that assert the President’s right to ignore or not enforce laws passed by Congress, and urges the President to veto bills he feels are not constitutional."

Are we actually going to see any legislation to curtail the executive's overrun of all other branches of government? Expect this bill to be lost in committee by the totally neutered senate.

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Will The Real Deficit Please Stand Up?

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The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

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US Government Sues Missouri To Keep Wiretap Data Quiet

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The U.S. government, citing national security concerns, on Tuesday sued Missouri officials for demanding that AT&T Inc. disclose whether it gave customer data to the government's spying program.

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Congress: Pay Raises For Us, Not For You!

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Lawmakers are currently creating a smokescreen, aided by mainstream media like CNN, via the "American Values Agenda," which among other things wants to "protect the Pledge of Allegiance from attacks by activist federal judges seeking to rule it unconstitutional".

Meanwhile members of Congress displayed a double standard when they gave themselves a pay raise while refusing to allow the minimum wage to rise.

Apparently the "American Values Agenda" really has to do with the values of people in Congress (who make $165,000+/year), and not the actual working-class American people, who won't see an increase in minimum wage even after NINE years. But rest easy knowing your congressman will get a pay raise for all the great work they've been doing keeping guys from kissing in public.

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Administration Makes Themselves Immune To Investigation

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The NSA has denied clearance to the DOJ, in an effort to investigate the Bush administration's illegal use of wiretaps. It appears that the NSA now has a sort of pocket veto power when it comes to any investigation involving domestic(or otherwise) spying albeit legal or not.

Leave it to the Bush administration to come up with creative and new ways to avoid getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. This latest one involves them merely denying security clearance to investigators trying to find out the details of a massive, illegal wiretap operation on almost all Americans. Apparently only one company refused to cooperate: Qwest Communications.

Update: T-Mobile appears to also be taking a stand along with Qwest to fight illegal government snooping. Rumors are flying around that all cell calls are also being monitored.

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All Other Problems Solved; Congress Tackles The National Anthem

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Since we're doing so well economically and militarily, the United States Senate has decided to spend its time and resources addressing the next, very critical issue facing the American people: Whether the National Anthem should exclusively be sung in English.

These guys apparently didn't notice that the national motto, "E Plurbus Unum" is in Latin.

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E-Mail From the Edge of Disaster

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The Center For Public Integrity, in a Freedom of Information Request has now obtained even more e-mails from FEMA director Michael Browne giving us a glipse of the mind of this "leader" during a national crisis, as well as the priorities of various elected leaders.

On the day Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, a former U.S. senator who had become a registered lobbyist was trying to get the nation's top emergency manager to schedule a meeting to complain about a no-bid contract that was heading to his client's competitor.

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Bush Calls War on Terrorism "World War III"

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US President George W. Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III."

There are a few problems with this however. First, Congress didn't declare war, Second, a war on a concept seems inappropriate, and most importantly, the rest of the world wants to have nothing to do with Bush's arbitrary agression against select oil-bearing nations.

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Colbert Skewers President While Neutered News Media Gape

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[News Media]
The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner was televised on C-Span Saturday evening. Featured entertainer Stephen Colbert delivered a biting rebuke of George W. Bush and the lily-livered press corps. He did it to Bush's face, unflinching and unbowed by the audience's muted, humorless response.

Click here for the "must see" video!

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Ding, Dong, The Witch is Dead

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So ends an era of unbridled corruption, as Tom DeLay decides not to run again for his Senate seat in the face of widespread scandal and looming felony charges.

He claims he's doing it "for the good of the Party," to allow a Republican untainted by scandal (if there is such a thing) to defeat his Democratic challenger. Apparently, the polls showed that he might--gasp!--lose if he ran. And if there's one message that America's youth needs to learn, it's that if you can't win, you shouldn't play.

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Dick Cheney's Tour Rider

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[Vanity]
It may or may not surprise some that not unlike other rock star divas, Vice President Dick Cheney has his own "rider", a set of rules governing the conditions of his suite at hotels where he stays. And yes, he does demand that "all televisions be turned to Fox News."

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Alaskan Government Refuses To Release Election Records

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The state Division of Elections has refused to turn over its electronic voting files to the Democrats, arguing that the data format belongs to a private company and can't be made public.

The Alaska Democratic Party says the information is a public record essential for verifying the accuracy of the 2004 general election and must be provided.

You know something is seriously wrong when the evidence of citizens' voting records is owned by Diebold and they refuse to make it public!

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A Tale Of Two News Stories

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[News Media]
On January 21, The Washington Post first broke the Monica Lewinsky story regarding Bill Clinton.

On December 16 the initial disclosure of the Bush administration's use of the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct domestic surveillance that has been widely described as an illegal, was made public.

MediaMatters has provided an interesting, well-researched piece showing how the major newspapers and mainstream media treated each story. How many articles were written in each case, where did they appear and how much content was publicized on the stories? The results are surprising.

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The Counter to Bush's "Talking Points"

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[Liars]
As the Mainstream Media reports on a number of scandals that are appearing involving the President and his administration, they will be repeatedly responding with pre-fabricated talking points based on the idea, if they say them enough (regardless of whether they're true), people will start to believe them. Please pass this around so you and your friends can be "innoculated" with the truth about the issues that various media and pundits will be ranting about.

In Summary (with details links and references later) here are the talking points and the truth:

Bush did not violate the FISA. (Yes he did)

Bush did not break the law. (Yes he did)

History shows Presidents have the power to violate the law, especially in times of war. (No it doesn't)

History shows that other Presidents like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did the same by overriding FISA. (No it doesn't)

Secret warrantless spying of Americans was/is required for national security reasons, since FISA was inadequate, and secret spying could have prevented 9/11. (No it wasn't/isn't and probably couldn't)

The secret spying only focused on Al Qaeda, terrorists and their supporters and one end of the intercepted communications was always in foreign soil. (Uh...No)

The leak to the New York Times, of Bush's secret spying on Americans, was a crime and had nothing to do with whistleblowers. (Rubbish)

Bush's critics are just partisan political hacks. (Takes one to know one...but wrong again)

Top Democrats in Congress supported the illegal spying. (No they didn't)

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Bush's Bizzarro World Photo Op

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[Beating Dead Horses]
Behind the President is his failed Supreme court nomination-Harriet Miers. Next to her is Karl Rove, the man who might be indicted next by Fitzmas for his involvement with the Plame investigation. On his left is the author of the torture memos-Alberto Gonzales. To his right is Michael Chertoff, the guy who fell asleep during Hurricane Katrina and wonders if New Orleans should even exist.

The president is surrounded by his top advisors. Any chance the American people and the GOP can figure out why some people might be a bit upset with the state of government today????

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Louisiana Mayor Under Investigation After Dad's Land Grab

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[Get-Rich-Quick]
Kenner Mayor Phil Capitano initially implied that he didn't see it as any conflict-of-interest or ethics issue when his father managed to snap up almost all tax delinquent properties in his county, at least 40 homes, for around $10,000, with virtually no competition or bidding process.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee and many others do have a problem, including some who showed up to participate in a bidding process on the property only to be told the lots were sold to the Mayor's dad. Too bad! What? You mean this is an ethics violation? No way! This couldn't happen in Louisiana?!?

Wait, it gets better. The Kenner mayor defended his dad's "first-come-first-served" land grab by claiming the Parish's computer system can't handle multiple bidders!

READ MORE | 1 comment since 2005-12-30 23:09:17 | Comment on this Article

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