Iran vows to retaliate against U.S. bases in Gulf if attacked

Excerpt:

Iran's top military commander said Saturday that his forces would retaliate against American military bases in the Persian Gulf if they are involved in any possible future attack on Iran.


Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told Al-Jazeera television that it is Iran's "natural right to respond" if attacked by land or air.


But he assured Arab Gulf countries - some of whom are home to U.S. military bases - that only American forces would come under counterattack.


"We realize that there is worry among neighbouring countries - Muslim countries whose lands host U.S. military stations," Jaafari said. He spoke in Farsi, which the network dubbed over in Arabic.


"However, if the U.S. launches a war against us, and if it uses these stations to attack Iran with missiles, then through the strength and precision of our own missiles, we are capable of targeting only the U.S. military forces who attack us," he told the station.

***

Western Civilization Lacks Morality

From Rense.com:

"The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction." --Five Western military leaders.

I read the statement three times trying to figure out the typo. Then it hit me, the West has now out-Orwelled Orwell: The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! In Westernspeak, the West nuking other countries does not qualify as the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The astounding statement comes from a paper prepared for a NATO summit in April by five top military leaders ­ an American, a German, a Dutchman, a Frenchman, and a Brit.

The paper, prepared by men regarded as distinguished leaders and not as escapees from insane asylums, argues that "the West's values and way of life are under threat, but the West is struggling to summon the will to defend them." The leaders find that the UN is in the way of the West's will, as is the European Union which is obstructing NATO and "NATO's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan."

And that's a serious matter. If NATO loses its credibility in Afghanistan, Western civilization will collapse just like the Soviet Union. The West just doesn't realize how weak it is. To strengthen itself, it needs to drop more and larger bombs.

The German military leader blames the Merkel government for contributing to the West's inability to defend its values by standing in the way of a revival of German militarism. How can Germany be "a reliable partner" for America, he asks, if the German government insists on "special rules" limiting the combat use of its forces in Afghanistan?

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund and a former US State Department official, welcomed the paper as "a wake-up call." Asmus means a call to wake-up to the threats from the brutal world, not to the lunacy of Western leaders.

Who, what is threatening the West's values and way of life? Political fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, and the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, answer the five asylum escapees.

By political fanaticism, do they mean the neoconservatives who believe that the future of humanity depends on the US establishing its hegemony over the world? By religious fundamentalism, do they mean "rapture evangelicals" agitating for Armageddon or Christian and Israeli Zionists demanding a nuclear attack on Iran? By spread of nuclear weapons, do they mean Israel's undeclared and illegal possession of several hundred nuclear weapons?

No. The paranoid military leaders see all the fanaticism, religious and otherwise, and all the threats to humanity as residing outside Western civilization (Israel is inside). The "increasingly brutal world," of which the leaders warn, is "over there." Only Muslims are fanatics. All us white guys are rational and sane.

There is nothing brutal about the US/NATO bombing of Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, or the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, or the genocide Israel hopes to commit against Palestinians in Gaza.

All of this, as well as America's bombing of Somalia, America's torture dungeons, show trials of "detainees," and overthrow of elected governments and installation of puppet rulers, is the West's necessary response to keep the brutal world at bay.

Brutal things happen in the "brutal world" and are entirely the fault of those in the brutal world. None of this would happen if the inhabitants of the brutal world would just do as they are told. How can the civilized world with its monopoly on morality allow people in the brutal world to behave independently? I mean, really! God forbid, they might attack some innocent country.

The "brutal world" consists of those immoral fanatics who object to being marginalized by the West and who reply to mass bombings from the air and to the death and destruction inflicted on them through myriad ways by strapping on a suicide bomb.

Unable to impose its will on countries it has invaded with conventional arms, the West's military leaders are now prepared to force compliance with the moral world's will by threatening to nuke those who resist. You see, since the West has the monopoly on morality, truth, and justice, those in the outside world are obviously evil, wicked and brutal. Therefore, as President Bush tells us, it is a simple choice between good and evil, and there's no better candidate than evil for being nuked. The sooner we can get rid of the brutal world, the sooner we will have "freedom and democracy" everywhere that's left.

Meanwhile, the United States, the great moral light unto the world, has just prevented the United Nations from censuring Israel, the world's other great moral light, for cutting off food supplies, medical supplies, and electric power to Gaza. You see, Gaza is in the outside world and is a home of the bad guys. Moreover, the wicked Palestinians there tricked the US when the US allowed them to hold a free election. Instead of electing the US candidate, the wicked voters elected a government that would represent them. The US and Israel overturned the Palestinian election in the West Bank, but those in Gaza clung to the government that they had elected. Now they are going to suffer and die until they elect the government that the US and Israel wants. I mean, how can we expect people in the brutal world to know what's best for them?

The fact that the UN tried to stop Israel's just punishment of the Gazans shows how right the five leaders' report is about the UN being a threat to Western values and way of life. The UN is really against us. This puts the UN in the outside world and makes it a candidate for being nuked if not an outright terrorist organization. As our president said, "you are with us or against us."

The US and Israel need a puppet government in Palestine so that a ghettoized remnant of Palestine can be turned into a "two state solution." The two states will be Israel incorporating the stolen West Bank and a Palestinian ghetto without an economy, water, or contiguous borders.

This is necessary in order to protect Israel from the brutal outside world.

Inhabitants of the brutal world are confused about the "self- determination" advocated by Western leaders. It doesn't mean that those outside Western civilization and Israel should decide for themselves. "Self" means American. The term, so familiar to us, means "American-determination." The US determines and others obey.

It is the brutal world that causes all the trouble by not obeying

The Boondocks Episode that BET don't want you to see

This is the anti Black Entertainment Television (BET) clip from The Boondocks. I heard BET is trying to get Adult Swim, the network that airs The Boondocks, to pull the episode.

THE UNITED STATES PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Excerpt: The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, but we incarcerate 25% of all the prisoners in the world. We leave China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and all the other nations we like to look down our noses at far in the dust. We not only lockup more of our citizens than all totalitarian nations, we even lockup more people than China which has more than 4 times the number of Americans, and India which has almost 4 times the number of Americans, and Iran COMBINED. The US not only leads in the numbers of prisoners but far outpace China when measured per capita. We rank 1st among all nations with 715 prisoners per 100,000 people. China, ranks 71st with 119 prisoners per 100,000 people.

According to a report released by the Bureau of Prison Statistics, one out of every 32 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole at the end of 2005.

US leaders love to point out China as a violator of human rights and their penchant for slave and prison labor. While it’s principled to point out abuses by the Chinese, Americans should also recognize that slavery is not only legal in the US, it’s also practiced. The 13th Amendment authorizes it, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The key word here is “except” and being convicted of a crime in the United States is that exception.

In today’s America, drug laws have become the new Jim Crow laws, the prison/industrial complex has become the new plantation, and the warden has become the new overseer. America’s newest slaves aren’t picking cotton. They’re assembling computers, making women’s lingerie, booking airline flights over the phone, telemarketing for major corporations, and doing all kinds of tasks that free Americans used to be employed at doing. What appeared to be a normal plant closing by U.S. Technologies when it sold its electronics plant in Austin, was actually the company relocating its operations to a nearby Austin prison. One hundred and fifty “free” employees lost their jobs to the new slaves.

African-Americans are the most loyal constituency the Democratic Party has, but the Democratic Party will not adequately address this critical issue for fear of being seen as “soft on crime.” Thus, the Democratic Party itself perpetuates the stereotype. The biggest explosion of Americans going to prison happened under Bill Clinton. Under Clinton, more people went to federal and state prisons than under any president in American history. Clinton also signed a bill that prevented U.S. Sentencing Commission amendments to equalize the penalties for crack and powder cocaine from taking effect.

The disparities in sentencing and probation are well-known and were certainly known to Bill Clinton. Then Attorney General Janet Reno said the sentencing disparity is unfair. "Clearly I think should be equalized with respect to possession offenses," she said. "And equally clearly, I don't think the 100-to-1 ratio is fair." She also said that people who provide powder cocaine to those who cook it into crack should get "the more appropriately stiff sentence than the person who distributes the crack.” Under Clinton, the federal 3 strikes law was enacted and many states soon followed with similar legislation of their own.

A Memo To: William Jefferson Clinton From Those of us with a memory

From Smirking Chimp

Listen big guy, we really need to talk.

Over the last few weeks we've seen you lose your cool as you campaign for your wife.

Knock it off!

You need a long overdue reality check, dude. You are the last person in the country who should be indignantly lecturing anyone. Why?

Oh, let us count the whys:

1) In part -- how large a part we can argue another time -- the presidency of George W. Bush is your fault. That's right, your fault. By the time your second term was over your juvenile, self-indulgent, adulterous behavior had rendered you so radioactive Al Gore was unable to leverage the many positive things you did while in office. Your embarrassing behavior nearly got you impeached, invigorated the sheep on the religious right, virtually handing the keys to Oval Office to the Neo-cons we've had to endure for the past seven years.

Deny that at your own peril, Bill. Bush's margin of "victory" in 2000 says otherwise. No reasoning person could believe that tens of thousands of folks who would have voted for Gore didn't because of the stain (pun intended) your behavior left on the Clinton/Gore administration.

2) Your misbehavior also served to lower the bar to the US Presidency. Your behavior so diminished the grandeur of the office of President of the United States that a half-wit blowhard like George W. Bush suddenly became electable. He wasn't electable because he offered solutions, vision or substance, but because he reassured voters he'd "restore dignity to the Oval Office."*

*(Translation: "I won't get hummers in the Oval Office from bimbo-interns.")

3) In late 1993 I was covering the White House for Mother Jones magazine for a story on campaign finance reform. I was invited to interview your point man on that issue, Michael Waldman. (Read that story here) Reforming the corrupt campaign finance system had been a central plank of your campaign and hopes were high that someone was finally going to do something about it. But when I got to the Executive Office Building to interview Mike I found his office empty. When I inquired where he was I was told he had been taken off campaign finance reform and transferred to the administration's current priority -- getting NAFTA passed. I could not even talk to Mike because he was sequestered in the White House "NAFTA War room."

So, great. We didn't get campaign finance reform but we did get NAFTA. Have you checked lately how that's worked out? Not well. Not well at all. We've taken note of that.

4) Hillary's failed healthcare reform efforts were directly related to the above. Even after NAFTA passed you guys didn't return, in any real way, to campaign finance reform. Why? And you guys also didn't return, in any real way, to healthcare reform either. Why? Because the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries let you know they'd gotten "the message."

What message?

The message that, if power in Washington is about anything, it's about the protection rackets. Big healthcare got that message and started paying you guys protection money. Proof? Today your candidate-wife is among the top beneficiaries of healthcare and pharmaceutical money in this campaign.

Coincidence? Forget about it. No one is going to buy that after one look at the hard (money) facts. Any reasonable observer will conclude that that's why you two lost interest in reforming either the campaign finance system or national healthcare. As a result you and Hillary never took another real swipe at the healthcare/pharmaceutical industries. And thanks to that no fewer than 10 million additional Americans are today without healthcare coverage.

Sure, you did a lot of good things during your two terms. You balanced the budget, fairly taxed the rich and left a surplus in the bank for the next guy. Had you not disgraced yourself during your second term you'd have every right to wag your finger and lecture others.

Instead you acted like a horny teenage boy, treating OUR Oval Office as though it was a private booth in some seedy porno shop. Then, when caught, quite literally with your pants down, you looked the whole world in the eye, your nose turned monkey-butt red, you shook your finger in our faces -- and you lied.

True, unlike the lies of our current President, your lies didn't directly get anyone killed. But a reasonable argument could be posed that, in the run of events since, your lies did get people killed. President Al Gore would not have taken us into Iraq. And, had Gore been able to enthusiastically associate himself with the sound economic and domestic policies of the Clinton/Gore years, he would have won the 2000 election -- likely with by a healthy margin to boot.

But Gore couldn't associate himself with your good deeds without being tarnished by your personal flaws. So we got George W. Bush -- and all the misery that has followed, and will follow for years, maybe decades, to come.

Will America elect a white woman or a black man? America has already answered that question

Excerpt:

Corporate media idiots regularly ask the question: "Who would America elect first for President, a woman or someone who is Black?" History has already answered. Sixteen white women currently serve in the U.S. Senate, versus one lone Black, and "thirty white women have served as state governors compared to two Black men since Reconstruction." Every indicator shows white women are "the second most privileged category of human in the US." White America poses questions that history has already resolved, while seeking absolution (through Barack Obama) for past and present injustices that many deny occurred. The real question raised amidst the din of unreality is: "Are white liberals and progressives truly committed to social and racial justice?"

Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list

Excerpt:

Omar Khadr's lawyers say they can't understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

Khadr -- a Canadian citizen who was just 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan more than five years ago and taken to Guantanamo -- has claimed that he has been tortured at the prison. Now, CTV News has obtained documents that put Guantanamo Bay on a torture watch list.

Khadr's U.S. military lawyer says the new documents contradict Harper's assurances that his client is receiving fair treatment.

"Omar has certainly been abused, his rights have been violated under international law, and apparently the Canadian government has reason to believe that's true, and yet, they've acted not at all to assist him," William Kuebler told CTV News.

***


Damn, what does that say about America when our allies don't even trust us with their citizens. Being put on a torture watch list puts the US in the company of countries like Iran, Syria, Egypt etc.

Michael Savage Hates Muslims

The vile Michael "Weiner" Savage a Right-Wing radio talk show host, expresses his views about his feelings towards muslims. This fascist pig has 8 million listeners around the country. This is truly disgusting.

Run Negro Run - A Bob Johnson smackdown

Black preacher critcize Barack Obama while Idolizing the Clintons

What the fuck is going on in the African American community? I swear the old heads, the old so called black leaders need to step to the side because their time has passed. It's been a long time since I've heard anything so ignorant. He don't understand why blacks are supporting Obama because in his words Obama is half white but yet he still idolizes Bill and Hillary who is all white. Now if that aint a Willie Lynch slave mentality, I don't know what is.

Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11

Official Account of 9/11: “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Total B.S.”, “Ludicrous”, “A Well-Organized Cover-up”, “A White-Washed Farce”

Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the government’s story.

Read More

You know the Corporate Media can try to continue to black out the 9/11 story but people are asking question not just ordinary Joes but more and more credentialed people are asking questions about the official story of what happened on 9/11. The truth will come out.

BET founder takes a cheap shot at Obama

Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET), decided to join the Hillary Clinton campaign and while on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton he decided to take a cheap shot about Barack Obama's admitted drug use as a teenager. Bob Johnson made the following statement, you can also veiw the video below:

And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved,” added Johnson.

Now for you all that don't know, Bob Johnson has made a fortune with BET by airing some of the most degrading and mysogonistic black videos and television shows of black people. BET is aired in numerous of countries around the world, the negative images that were portrayed by BET of black people has impacted the way the different races and people around the world veiw black people in this country. Bob Johnson played apart in shaping that negative image of black people in this country with his network. To the black community, Barack Obama is a role model, Barack is someone the African American community is extremely proud of and for the Clinton's to bring out Bob"Uncle Tom"Johnson to try to tear down Barack is unacceptable IMHO.

Dave Chapelle skit - Black Bush

This is some funny shit from the Dave Chapelle show. Can you imagine if Bush was black? Do you think he would have gotten away with the lies and deception he has been allowed to get away with by getting us into Iraq?

Killings by war veterans on the rise

AP Story

At least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing or been charged in one in the United States after returning from combat, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The newspaper said it also logged 349 homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans in the six years since military action began in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. That represents an 89-percent increase over the previous six-year period, the newspaper said.

About three-quarters of those homicides involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the newspaper said. The report did not illuminate the exact relationship between those cases and the 121 killings also mentioned in the report.

***
The 121 killings ranged from shootings and stabbings to bathtub drownings and fatal car crashes resulting from drunken driving, the newspaper said. All but one of those implicated was male.

About a third of the victims were girlfriends or relatives, including a 2-year-old girl slain by her 20-year-old father while he was recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq.

A quarter of the victims were military personnel. One was stabbed and set afire by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

This is another hidden cost of Mr. Bush's wars. They train these guys to be cold blooded killers, then they are placed in a pressure cooker like Iraq and some eventually snap. Since money is so tight, due to the fact all the money in the war budget is needed in the warzone, soldiers are being discharged without the proper mental health treatment they should be provided. So you have war veterans being released back into the community and some are mentally unstable. In other words it is a tragedy waiting to happen.

Clinton's attack on Obama are upsetting some black voters

Excerpt:

Sharp criticism of Barack Obama and other comments about Martin Luther King Jr. — all from people associated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — have generated resentment among some black S.C. voters.

The furor comes just two weeks before those voters will have a significant say in who wins the Jan. 26 primary here.

The Clinton-Obama battle has the potential to become a wrenching divide for black voters. Historically those voters have been strong backers of Bill and Hillary Clinton. But many black voters now are drawn to the prospect of a black man winning the presidency.

Those on both sides say watching the battle unfold in the Palmetto State, where black voters could cast half of the votes in the Democratic primary, won’t be pretty.

***

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., had pledged to remain neutral as Democrats competed for votes in the state’s primary.

But the state’s only African-American congressman was quoted in The New York Times Friday saying he is reconsidering that stance in light of comments from Clinton.

She raised eyebrows in New Hampshire when she credited President Lyndon Baines Johnson, not the assassinated John F. Kennedy or King, for passing civil rights legislation.

“It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those,” Clyburn told the Times. “That bothered me a great deal.”

***

GROWING SPLIT

A generational divide has opened among black S.C. political leaders that matches a key difference between Clinton and Obama.

Older, more experienced black elected officials, including Jackson and state Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, back Clinton. Younger politicians — including Steve Benjamin and Rick Wade, who both made high-profile runs for statewide office, and state Reps. Bakari Sellers and Todd Rutherford — support Obama.

Rutherford bristles at the notion, offered up by some of Clinton’s supporters, that it is foolish to back a relatively young black man for an office that no black ever has held.

“If they are going to call themselves black leaders, and people are running by them to vote for Obama and they are standing there and pointing in the other direction, then maybe they need to be replaced,” Rutherford said.

***

Despite broad popularity among blacks, the Clintons are employing a risky strategy in sharply criticizing Obama, said Marcus Cox, director of the African-American Studies Department at The Citadel.

African-Americans liked what they knew of Obama in the early months of the campaign, Cox said. But they wondered if white voters would support him. Now, after Iowa, some of those doubts are gone, and many black voters have come to see Obama as their best chance to have one of their own capture the White House.

Anyone who tries to get in the way of that, particularly anyone who is not black, will spark some anger, Cox said.

Hip Hop Steps up to protest Guantanamo Bay

You know I was kind of suprise and proud at the same time when I read the article over at HipHopDX.com website which says that some individuals in the hip hop community is standing up to protest the US Government treatment of prisoner at the gulag in Guantanamo Bay.

From HipHopDX.com

The American Civil Liberties Union is marking the sixth anniversary of the arrival of prisoners—or as the government calls them, “detainees”—at Guantanamo Bay with a call for a nationwide protest.

Today, thousands of people across the country and throughout the world will wear orange “to symbolize their sadness and disgust with the national shame that is Guantánamo Bay.”
Many celebrities, including those in the Hip Hop community have thrown their support behind the ACLU, who are calling for Guantanamo to be closed after allegations—and photos—of prisoners being tortured surfaced in 2005.

"Everybody has the right to be treated justly and the injustices and corruption of this facility has already been exposed,” One Be Lo says of the situation.

Rasco, one half of Cali Agents, echoed the sentiments of many that preserving human rights is a key to protecting humanity. “I wanted to get involved with this cause because I feel no matter the situation, Human Rights come first,” the Northern California MC said.

In May of 2005, 60 Minutes interviewed Sgt. Erik Saar, a soldier who spent several months at Guantanamo. Saar—a military translator—described several incidents of questionable interrogation tactics on the part of US soldiers.

He spoke of one situation in which a “high priority” prisoner’s interrogation by a female soldier.

"As she stood in front of him, she slowly started to unbutton her Army blouse. She had on underneath the Army blouse a tight brown Army T-shirt, touched her breasts, and said, 'Don't you like these big American breasts?'" he said of the interrogation. "She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her."

According to Saar, during the next encounter, the soldier went a step further.

"She started to unbutton her pants and reached and put her hands in her pants and then started to circle around the detainee. And when she had her hands in her pants, apparently she used something to put what appeared to be menstrual blood on her hand, but in fact was ink.”

Sarr also added that the interrogator later told the prisoner she was “menustrating right now” and wiped the ink on the prisoner’s face.

According to the ACLU web site, more than 100,000 pages of documents exist outlining the conditions prisoners were subjected to at Guantanamo. The human rights group also filed a complaint in 2006 in federal court on behalf of nine prisoners.

Hillary shits on Martin Luther King's Legacy

It's seems Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is getting a little desparate in her attempt to slow down the momentum of rival Barack Obama. It seems Barack has knocked her off her game big time:

From Daily Kos

In her efforts to take a leak on the idea of hope--because it benefits Barack Obama--Hillary Clinton decided that she needed to minimize the role that Martin Luther King Jr., and by extension African-Americans, played in securing their own civil rights.

The context, of course, lies in Clinton's regrettable statement from last Saturday's debate:

"We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."

Obama, not being a stupid politician, pounced.

Obama challenged Clinton's claim in a weekend debate that he was raising "false hopes" about what he could deliver for the country. Obama told his audience that hope made President Kennedy aim to put a man on the moon and Martin Luther King Jr. to imagine the end of segregation.

"If anything crystallized what this campaign is about, it was that right there," Obama said of Clinton's comment in the debate. "Some are thinking in terms of our constraints, and some are thinking about our limitless possibilities."

Well, Clinton had her chance to respond, and oh boy did she deliver up a doozy:

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done. The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president capable of action."

Just how awful is this, on so many levels? "It took a President to get it done?"

NO.

It took a nation to get it done. It took a mass uprising to get it done. It took brave men and women to brave Bull Connor's thugs, firehoses, and dogs. It took an overriding popular will to see it throught. It took courage. It took inspiration. It took the the blood of martyrs and patriots.

It took a movement.

And the implication here is that African-Americans didn't make it happen, but rather that the nice white father figure in Washington got it done for them.

Get her off the national stage before she disgraces herself any further.

Hollywood snubs The Wire

First, I got to say, the HBO series The Wire is hands down my favorite TV program. It's somewhat disheartening that the show doesn't get the attention from Hollywood that it should. It just doesn't receive the accolades that the HBO series The Sopranos received, even though it's just as good if not better. Many fans think it has to with the fact that the show has a majority black cast. The show creator David Simon let his feelings be known about the blatant snup from Hollywood in a CNN article:


From CNN

HBO's "The Wire," which opened its fifth season Sunday, has gotten little recognition in Tinseltown. Executive producer David Simon says that's fine with him. The series has been acclaimed by critics and has a cult-like following -- but has earned just one Emmy nomination in four seasons. Simon and George Pelecanos were nominated for writing in 2005 but lost.

"I don't give a (expletive) if we ever win one of their little trinkets," Simon told Newsweek. "I don't care if they ever figure out we're here in Baltimore.

"Secretly, we all know we get more ink for being shut out. So at this point, we wanna be shut out. We wanna go down in flames together, holding hands all the way."

Each season of "The Wire" has focused on a different aspect of the grit and blight of an American city in decline. Simon feels the show doesn't get credit for its diverse cast, nearly all of whom had no high-profile prior credits.

"Let me indict Hollywood as much as I can on this one," Simon said. "We have more working black actors in key roles than pretty much all the other shows on the air. And yet you still hear people claim they can't find good African-American actors. That's why race-neutral shows and movies turn out lily-white."

Black TV anchor turns white

You may not have heard of the disease called vitiligo because it's very rare. You may recalled back in the 90's Michael Jackson revealed that he had the disease and it was the reason behind his skin color changing over the years. Personally I thought Mike was bullshitting at the time but now another case of the disease has been discovered, The Associated Press has a story on this black TV Anchor that has the disease.

Excerpt

Lee Thomas' skin is betraying him. His once brown, even complexion is now mottled with pale patches around his eyes and mouth, along his nose and on his ears; his arms, shoulders and chest are speckled and blotched.

"I'm a black man turning white on television and people can see it," says Thomas, an anchor and entertainment reporter for the local Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate. "If you've watched me over the years, you've seen my hands completely change from brown to white."

Thomas has vitiligo, a disorder in which pigment-making cells are destroyed. White patches appear on different parts of the body, tissues in the mouth and nose, and the retina.

"There is no cause. There is no cure, and it's very random," Thomas says. "I could turn all the way white or mostly white."

As many as 65 million people worldwide have the disorder, including up to 2 million in the United States.

Few people, outside medical professionals and those with the disease, had heard the term "vitiligo" until Michael Jackson revealed in the early 1990s that the disorder was behind his skin turning brown to white.

It's not fatal, but experts say vitiligo robs people of self-confidence, evokes ridicule and unpleasant stares, and pushes some into unforced seclusion.

Are you ready for the Great Depression of 2008?

Are you ready for the upcoming Great Depression of 2008? If not, I advise you to start preparing for it because it is coming folks. Leon Fisher over at Unknown News has the perfect solution that will help you through the upcoming economic calamity that this country is facing. He writes the following:

Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to bring you a revolutionary new product, the Great Depression of '08 Survival Kit, from the same folks who gave your grandparents the Great Depression of 1929.

A consortium of prestigious Wall Street investment firms with decades of experience between them, the Great Depression of '08 Company offers the support and enthusiasm of our wonderful, caring, representatives in Washington DC. We have come together to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in your future. Do not hesitate to take advantage of this great offer, as every passing day brings our blessed Nation closer and closer to economic ruin.


Do not get caught short like the folks back in '29, be ready when your job goes overseas, when the bank forecloses on your home, and repossesses your SUV. No reason for concern, simply break out your Great Depression of '08 Survival Kit and put your mind to rest.

The Great Depression of '08 Survival kit contains everything a penniless, homeless, out of work American family will need to cope with the ravages of economic deprivation. The centerpiece of the Kit contains a high quality, made in China topless 55 gallon drum, perfect for burning most combustible materials quickly and efficiently, keeping you, your family, and your neighbors warm even on the coldest nights.

But that's not all, the Great Depression of '08 Kit also includes a pair of tough brown workman's gloves, the fingers of which having already been removed saving you the time and trouble to concentrate on begging and scrounging for food. And that's not all. folks, the Great Depression of '08 Kit also contains luxury living quarters, nothing less than a spacious heavy duty cardboard refrigerator carton, top notch shelter for you and your family.

Just think of it, the Great Depression of '08 deluxe refrigerator carton will not only keep you and yours dry, but will bring all your family members closer together, just like the old days.

Wait a minute, there is much more! The Great Depression of '08 Company has thought of everything. We at Great Depression of '08 understand that there will be moments of doubt and pain during these uncertain times, so we have thoughtfully provided a bottle of muscatel, along with a handy brown paper carrying bag in the deal, free of charge. And, as the owner of the prestigious Great Depression of '08 Survival Kit, not only will you be surviving in style, but will be the envy of your less fortunate fellow citizens living under bridges or down by the river, who foolishly passed up this wonderful once in a lifetime offer.

And if you act now, we'll throw in a refurbished shopping cart with original chrome finish, plus a list of all the local soup kitchens and charitable organizations in your area. Unbelievable!

So call our special toll free number now, 1800-NWO-4-YOU. Our operators are standing by to take your order. Cash or money order only! Sorry, no haggling!

Marxism is starting to make sense

I always wondered, why is Marxism demonized and considered an evil economic system? Marxism is totally against the exploitation of the masses by the dominate class. Capitalism, on the other hand, is the direct opposite, it's an economic system in which the business and wealth of a country is contolled by a few, the dominate class. Capitalism is now the dominate economic system around the world where most of the worlds wealth and resources are being controlled by a few. Kathy Fisher over at Unkwown News wrote a good article in which she says the following:

The capitalists are never dying to be rich, they let other people's children do the dying for them. The same way they hire slave labor to do the hardest dirtiest work, then they clame the fruits of someone else's labor. They will tout that if not for them there would be no jobs for people to go to. They steal the land, they steal the money, and then they grab a nation's people by the balls.

Many people will point to the old Soviet Union and it's failures as a reason to reject Marxism and support Capitalism but Ms. Fisher has a different take on that:

These idiots that thought the old Soviet Union was true communism and Marxisn were dead wrong. Once again they had the masses brainwashed. Just because their leaders let a stature of Marx stand in the town square! That doesn't mean shit.

***

Putin embraces capitalism. The truth is the Soviet Union leaders were always Closet Capitalists. Not a Marxist or communist among them. They ruled with an iron fist. They forced a set of rules on the people they themselves would never live by. They sold the people a pack of lies. It was all a charade and they had their people imprissoned. I ask you, would a Marxist communist country have a media that was catered to, given the best apartments the highest salaries (Pravda)? Just like our media is. Of course not.

She goes on further to write about the downside of Capitalism by saying the following:

Ultra rich and dirt poor, you have to be kidding me! And nothing in between, and that's exactly where our leaders have taken us. That's NOT Marxism.

Unionized societies are hated by CAPITALISTS. The Capitalist's motto is Don't love your brother, take his job, take his oil, take his country as if it was your God given right. Our leaders lied to the people to when they constantly said 'We are fighting Communism.'' That was pure Bullshit! They were stealing and plundering other countries' resources and using its people for slaves of their new stolen empires. Cruel Business as Usual. The French and the Dutch did the same thing. In the name of GREED and Capitalism.

Now they lie again and say they are fight TERRORISM. No, it's more conquest. More stealing other nations resources. It's capitalism with a big jackbooted helping of in your face Fascism. They work their dirty deeds with the help of their paid shills who spread Propaganda for them.

As for me, I have no country. There is nowhere to go, and nowhere to run to and live free. You need the capitalists form of freedom, THE ALMIGHTY MONEY RULES EVERTHING AND EVERY ONE! Where can the common people live, whose hearts are not filled with greed and dog eat dog mentallity? Where do people go whose only want and desire is to be treated equal?

The Capitalists have created so many hellholes around the world that America still looks safe and good. This shit called Capitalism is like a plague, once it grabs hold of a people it chokes the life out of them. And it has spread to just about everywhere. Can you afford to live in Spain? Or Norway? Can you just pick up your family and your belongings and go off to live in another country? Do we now become nomads? Are we supposed to roam from place to place like cattle?

The fat cat Capitalists can, but why would they leave? They've got it made off the backs of the salt of the earth. Our Sweat, our labor is their victory. The last time I counted there was more of Us than Them. We must take a stand and fight for our lives, our decent way of life. This is our last chance.

Mitt Romney: People want change in Washington but not the Whitehouse

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on CBS The Toay Show that the American people only want change in Washington but not the Whitehouse. WTF is Mitt smoking, I mean who is advising this clown? Why is he sucking up to Mr. Bush who's got 25% approval rating. Do he honestly beleive the american people are satisfied with Bush and Cheney? I guess in Mitt's world we should make Bush and Cheney a lifetime dictatorship.

Video - 39 Seconds

O'Reilly gets rude treatment at Obama Rally

Fox News propagandist Bill O'Reilly showed up at a Barack Obama campaign rally in New Hampshire and wasn't treated to kindly by some of the people at the rally. According to John Dickerson over at Slate.com some of the people were really rude to the creep and deservedly so. John Dickerson describe the situation like this:

You know when a celebrity television personality like Bill O'Reilly arrives at a political event because they always have a retinue and because people turn their cameras and camera phones from the candidate to capture the famous face. When the popular Fox News entertainer arrived at the Obama event in Nashua, people turned to him but not always approvingly. "Hey O'Reilly," yelled a man. When O'Reilly turned he got a single-finger salute. A few people approached Bill to shake his hand but the overwhelming sentiment was unfavorable. "O'Reilly hatemonger," yelled a woman. A few other people gave him the bird. "I hate you Bill," yelled a man. "You can't stop us Bill," yelled another. I thought someone might brain him with one of those Obama "Hope" signs.

A number of people shouted falafel, the word O'Reilly used in a racy set of telephone conversations with a young woman he was trying to seduce as he described a shower they might take together. He meant loofa, which is not a Middle Eastern delicacy but a bath item.

The retinue that followed O'Reilly included men in suits, perhaps accountants under whose jackets rested tiny little cash registers ringing up the profits that come from O'Reilly's ability to stir just this kind of anger.

I say good, we should start showing more of those Corporate media whores masquerading as journalist, how we feel about their dishonesty. To me, people like Bill O'Reilly is an enemy to the people of this country, people like him are the ones that are helping to destroy this country.

Is Mike Huckabee Insane?

It seems the Republican Party is going through a little turmoil right now. For years the Republican Party establishment courted the Evangelical Christians for their votes. The Republican party would always use wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion to get the Evangelical fired up during election but once the Republican candidate was elected it was basically business as usual, the Republican party's main concern was taking care of big business and the "moral" issues that concern the Evangelicals were ignored. Now the Evangelicals have one of their own, Mike Huckabee, at the top of the Republican ticket for president and that's got the big money folks in the Republican party a little bit nervous. Now theres somewhat of the a divide in the republican party between the big business, big money economic republicans versus the Christian Right and Social Conservatives. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone breaks it down like this:

But all the attention on his salesmanship skills obscures the real significance of his rise within the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new -- a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.

But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from "primates" and thinks America wouldn't need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket.

All of which begs the question: If this religious zealot's rise represents the end of corporate dominance of the Republican Party, is that a good thing? Or is the real thing even worse than the fraud?

So you can look for the the big money people in the Republican Party to come out against Huckabee because he is obviously a threat to the status quo of the Republican Party establishment.

Ol' Crazy McCain says we should occupy Iraq for a 100 years

Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain along with his war mongering, neocon buddy Joe Lieberman at a campaign event in New Hampshire. What I would like to tell old man McCain is if you want to be in Iraq for a hundred years, go to Iraq, get citizenship and move the hell over there. You can stay as long as you want. Oh yeah and take Lieberman and the rest of the cowardly neocons with you. Good Riddance!!!!

Man these old white guys is something else. They actually think that they have the god giving right to just take over someones country and just stay there as long as they want regardless of what the occupied people want. Those arrogant assholes need to be chased out of Washington.

Fighting them here - Toon

Comic by Ted Rall

NEWS BELOW THE RADAR: 3 US troops killed, Calls for impeachment grows, 9/11 Investigations obstructed, Israel and US Election, Christian Extremism.

Three US soldiers killed in Iraq
Three US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the US military announced on Thursday, making them the first American casualties of the new year. A military statement said two soldiers were killed in a small-arms fire attack while conducting operations in Diyala province on Thursday. Another soldier was wounded.

Move to Impeach Cheney Gains Support in Congress
A House Resolution to impeach U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Dennis Kucinich's H.R. 333, is gathering more support. The national impeachment continues to grow and generate increasing interest since being referred to the House Judiciary Committee last month, a Kucinich spokesperson said.

9/11 Investigation obstructed by the CIA and Bush Officials
The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

Election power of the Israel lobby
pro-Israeli groups are set to play a major role in the forthcoming election battle, both in terms of funding candidates and by publicly criticising any candidate critical of Israel or the US's relationship with it.

Christian extremism raises alarm
A hate-crime trial reconvenes Friday in a case that's dividing Sacramento and drawing attention from organizations that monitor extremists. Alex Shevchenko has been arraigned for a hate crime tied to the assault and eventual death of Satender Singh in July. According to prosecutors, Mr. Shevchenko and Andrey Vusik taunted Mr. Singh in a park because they thought he was gay.

The reason I'm against the Death Penalty

I am against the death penalty for a couple of reasons, one being there are flaws in our legal system. For instance there is an AP story
today in which a Texas man was freed after being in jail for 26 years. The entire time he was in, he maintained his innocence. Here is a piece from the story:

A man who contended throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped a woman who lived five houses down from him was freed Thursday after a judge recommended overturning his conviction.

Charles Chatman, 47, was released on his recognizance as several of his eight siblings cheered. He was freed on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I'm bitter. I'm angry," Chatman told The Associated Press during his last night in jail Wednesday. "But I'm not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge."

****

Chatman was 20 when the victim, a young woman in her 20s, picked him from a lineup. Chatman said he lived five houses down from the victim for 13 years but never knew her. At the time the woman was assaulted, Chatman said he didn't have any front teeth; he had been certain that feature would set him apart from the real assailant.

Now I know this was not a death penalty case but what if it was? What if the victim would've been killed in the process, being in Texas, who lead the nation in executions every year, He would've been most likely tried and put to death. Mr. Chapman would've been able to appeal for a few years but the appeal process would not have been allowed to go on for 26 years. He would have most likely been put to death before his innocence was proven and the case would have been closed.

Another reason I'm against the death penalty is because it's not handed out equally. If a rich man and a poor man both were charged with first degree murder, who do you think is most like to be sentenced to death? I doubt the rich man will because he can go hire a team of high priced lawyers and get off on some technicality or get the sentenced reduced where as, the poor man would get some lawyer appointed and probably end up on death row.

So the reason I'm against the death penalty is because there are holes in the legal system which could lead to innocent people being put to death and the class issue. The death penalty is overwhelmingly handed out to people that can not afford descent representation.

Immortal Technique - The Cause of Death

Another one those revolutionary rap videos, this time it's from Immortal Technique. Dude is nice with the lyrics check it out, he is like the ultimate conspiracy theorist he don't beleive a damn thing the government says.

Ice Cube - Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It (Official Video)

Check it out, I found this new video by Ice Cube, and it has a polical edge to it. I would say the song and video has a pretty good concept to it. It's like he's holding a mirror up to america's face and saying "look Mofo don't don't blame Hiphop for all of america's ills , there's been bad shit going on in america way before hip hop came along".

The big question, Will Whites vote for Obama?

In deed that's the big question that people are wondering. The test for Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama will come tomorrow night in Iowa which is one of the whitest states in the nation. It's one thing for white people to tell pollsters that race doesn't matter but once they get in the privacy of the voting booth normally it's a different story. Earl Ofari Hutchinson breaks it down this way:

Put bluntly Obama is an African-American, and the conventional thinking and reality is that white Americans might publicly swear that color doesn’t matter to them when it comes to voting for a candidate, but then suddenly develop an acute case of voting booth conversion on Election Day. That meant that once inside the cozy and very private confines of the voting booth they punch the ticket for a white candidate in a head to head contest with a black candidate. The campaign trail is strewn with the wreckage of the campaigns of black candidates that held leads, in some instances substantial leads, over white opponents, and then went down to flaming defeat on Election Day.

That's my concern also. Tomorrow night will be a test to see if America has turned the corner and really put race behind, deep down inside I just don't think they have. White supremacy is a habit that's hard to kick.

Later in the article Mr. Hutchinson sound a bit more optimistic about Obama chances by comparing Obama's candidacy to that of Deval Patrick's, who is black, recent governor's seat victory in Massachusetts:

The two tips that Obama could escape their fate was the victory of Deval Patrick who won the Massachusetts's’s governor’s seat in 2006. He had even less political experience than Obama, had less money, and was up against a seasoned office holder. He won anyway, and he won with white votes.

The even bigger tip that things might be different with Obama is Obama himself. He plays hard on his multi-racial upbringing and heritage, can raise bushels of campaign cash, is a centrist politician that gets high marks as a consensus builder during his stint in the Illinois state legislature, and is not typed as a race card player ala Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

So it's up in the air and we will see tomorrow whether or not America has turned the corner or just continuing to go around in circles, stay tuned.

What Europe thinks of our candidates Clinton, Obama and Giuliani

Since George Bush has caused so many problems around the world with his cowboy-like foreign policy, he's caused problems not only for us here in the US but also in Europe. So you better believe people in Europe are following our Presidential elections closely, their anxious to know who will we choose to replace George Bush who's been nothing but a disaster. Paul Jenkins wrote an interesting article today on The Huffington Post. In the article he writes the following:

After a couple of years of political transition that have seen Europe's own warmongers/Bush poodles (Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi) and corrupt leaders (Jacques Chirac) retiring or kicked out of office, there is eager anticipation for the departure of George W. Bush. That he may be replaced by a Clinton (and a woman and that), or an African-American, or the former mayor of New York adds to the curiosity.

Then he goes on to write that the Europeans are somewhat astonished that in the 21st century America seems to be adopting a medieval European line of succession in nominating our presidents:

The affection many Europeans still hold for Bill Clinton doesn't precisely translate to Hillary, although it doesn't appear to be anything personal: it's more astonishment that the 21st Century United States may be in the process of adopting a medieval European line of succession. This is understandably strange to a people who managed about a century ago to root out all political power from their own royal families, and to generally pick leaders with working or middle-class backgrounds. In the meanwhile, Americans' recent nominations for president have included the son of a former president (Bush), the son of a former senator (Al Gore) and a descendant of one of the country's wealthiest families, married to a billionaire (John Kerry).

Based on what goes on in Europe with their own Ethnic minority communities being completely shut out from the political process and America's own history of racism, it's hard for him to imagine America will pick an African American. Sad but true:

Conversely, after decades of being taught from the youngest age about American racism, many Europeans find it hard to believe that an African-American candidate has a good shot at the Democratic nomination and the presidency. This may, in fact, have more to do with what they see in their own backyards: countries with sizable ethnic minorities of African or Asian descent nearly completely shut out of the political and electoral process. The prospect of an ethnically Arab French president or of a German foreign minister of Turkish descent would currently be laughable, in a sad kind of way. And so the fact that a man named Obama is a contender in America is still hard for many in Europe to fathom.

And about Rudy Giuliani and religion in American politics he writes:

For all his international fame, Giuliani is the subject of a refreshingly accurate assessment by a number of Europeans: while in the US outside of New York, he is credited with having saved the city from its criminal underclass and 9/11 terrorists, in Europe he is as likely to be seen as the petty, brutal dictator that he was (in one not particularly liberal Brit's words: "he's the guy who hated black people, right?"). Why this would qualify him for the presidency is as much a question mark for Europeans as it is for New Yorkers.

An anecdotal survey on the ground in Europe reveals other aspects of the US presidential campaign that are more baffling than the selection process itself. The focus on religion in US elections is always intriguing to European voters, but this round has included debates about whether Mormons are devil-worshippers, the Bible should be taken literally and evolution is a fact. These are not normally topics that, say, Germans expect their potential chancellors to address. That said, religion has not been completely excluded from European campaigns: a debate about Muslim girls' and women's wearing of headscarves has featured in elections in France and the UK, among others

There you have it, a European view of our celebrity candidates and our political process. You can read the rest of the article he goes on to comment about other issues we seem to be focused on here in the US. He basically ends by hoping we put some thought into electing our next president, basically we need to look past the entertainment value and pick someone that's competent and capable of dealing with issues the world faces.

Haaretz: Israel ranks the presidential candidates

The candidates are ranked by Haaretz on a scale of 1-10 based on whether the candidate is good or bad for Israel. In other words the candidates that most likely will blindly support Israel at all cost is at the top of the list:

1. Rudy Giuliani 8.37
2. Hillary Clinton 7.62
3. Michael Bloomberg 7.25
4. John McCain 7.12
5. Bill Richardson 6.75
6. Fred Thompson 6.50
7. Mitt Romney 6.50
8. Mike Huckabee 6.00
9. John Edwards 5.87
10. Joe Biden 5.62
11. Chris Dodd 5.62
12. Barack Obama 5.00

Now if Giuliani and Clinton win their parties primaries we'll know who's really running politics in america.
Link

Al Qaeda does not exist and never has

The basic truth is that Al Qaeda does not exist and never has. Al Qaeda is a manufactured enemy who was created by the Bush Administration in order to have an excuse to wage a war for the control of the world’s oil resources.

Did an American even hear the words “Al Qaeda” before 9-11? Or were we told that its alleged leader Osama Bin Laden has family who themselves have personal business relationships with George W. Bush’s family and that both families had financially profited considerably from the “War on Terror”?

If “Al Qaeda” was such an organized group terrorists as we are being told then why weren’t we the people notified of this evil threat when the US Cole was bombed a few months before 9-11? “Al Qaeda” is nothing more than a broad euphemistic umbrella classification used to group any Middle Eastern fighter under the Sun as an enemy. The most diabolical aspect of this public relations stunt is that it enables the current Administration to label any group it feels necessary to attack to appear to be related to an unprovable organized enemy while at the same time actually increasing its approval ratings by exploiting the basic primal fears of the American public. Furthermore when one realizes the questionable motivations that this Administration has used previously to attack an enemy, as what is now surfacing about the Iraq War, one begins to get the strange feeling that this Orwellian double-speak is nothing more than a smoke and mirror illusion whose true intentions would of made Goebbels himself jealous.

Think about it: How could a bunch of technologically unadvanced group of people from third-world nations such as “Al Qaeda” ever have any real central organization structure? If they had any real organization they would have most certainly attacked us again after September eleventh. Where are all the terrorist cells in this country? Contrary to what has been implicitly presented in the media there HAS NEVER been a single domestic terror cell caught since Bush has been in office! The majority of suspects that have been arrested and detained in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 with the exception of a handful have not been charged with crimes in anyway associated with terrorism. All of their crimes are minor and for the most part are ! related to immigration violations of some sort. There is some ambiguity in all of this though because to this day the Ashcroft Justice Department has been less than forthcoming with the specifics of these arrests. Why would this be the case if the justifications for these arrests were really legitimate? We have been bombarded by the media with every indignity from the duck-tape chronicles to the crop dusting threat. You would think that with all this seeming sensitivity by our government about informing the general populace about possible terror threats, especially when some of their sources came from “unnamed and confidential secondary sources”, that the Ashcroft Justice Department would have gone out of it’s way to mention to the public any terrorist connections that the people detained after 9-11 had and would of sworn by it on a stack of Bibles.

To date the only really suspicious activity of people detained after 9-11 were a group of Israelis who were caught in Jersey City, New Jersey filming themselves in the foreground of the burning World Trade Center with “looks of jubilation on their faces”. It was later confirmed that two of the gentlemen detained had known Mossad ties. While they were detained it is of no matter now as they were subsequently released from jail a few! weeks later and were allowed to go back to Israel with no questions asked by the direct authorization of the Justice Department. I guess they were just dropping off a box of cigars to Governor McGreevy?

What is even more illuminating about all of this is that to this day nobody has taken responsibility for the attacks of 9-11, including “Al Qaeda”. The only thing to link these attacks to anyone is the video tape of Osama Bin Laden that was conveniently found in a cave in Afghanistan that had him talking about the physical structure of the World Trade Center and the plane strike. The audio quality of this tape is so poor that any objective Arab-speaking analyst who was asked to give their opinion was unable to do so! as they claimed that just about all the words on it were inaudible. I believe an objective investigation into this original tape’s authenticity could verify if this admission is in fact genuine and could shed some light on the truth of the existence of “Al Qaeda”. But even if this tape is genuine what would this really prove? As I have already mentioned it is common knowledge that Osama Bin Laden is connected to George W. Bush’s family by a minimum of two degrees of separation. So in the grand scheme of things what does this really matter? That the Cobra Commander said he did it?
Source

Clinton, Obama claim $100 million raised

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton will have raised more than $100 million this year for her presidential campaign, aides confirmed Monday evening, setting a historic new threshold in fundraising.

Rival Barack Obama's campaign indicated it had reached that record-setting mark as well. In a Power Point presentation to supporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, said the campaign would need "at least $100 million" to compete in the first 26 primary and caucus states. "Obama will have the financial resources," Plouffe said.

****

Clinton and Obama have been locked in a fundraising race, with both already breaking fundraising records. Obama, of Illinois, had total receipts of more than $80 million at the end of September, and had raised more money for the primary contests than Clinton had.

In his presentation to supporters, Plouffe said Obama had 472,630 unique donors as of Sunday evening.

At the end of September, Clinton and Obama each reported more than $30 million in cash available for the primaries.

John Edwards, who has trailed Obama and Clinton fundraising but is in a three-way competition for the Iowa caucuses, was expected to report between $4 million and $5 million raised in the quarter. Edwards has qualified for $8.8 million in public matching funds, bringing his total for the year to about $44 million.

On the Republican side, dark horse Ron Paul was reporting having raised $19.5 million during the final three months of the year, a sharp increase from the $5.2 million he raised during the previous.

That would bring Paul's total raised this year to more than $27 million. Paul's fourth-quarter haul would surpass the third quarter fundraising by each of his Republican rivals.

Paul has caught fire on the Internet, attracting a national following among donors drawn to his opposition to U.S. troops in Iraq and his libertarian views

Source

******************************************************************************

Damn our political system is broken, candidates are bought off before they're even sworn in to office. Doners that are writing those huge checks are not doing it for nothing, they have special interest that these candidates will be obligated to take care of first. That means you and me, the voters, come second. Our interest and needs will be pushed to the backburner.

What’s behind the American Gangster?

Black Entertainment Television (BET) has won higher ratings and critical acclaim for its “American Gangster” series on the rise and fall of Black criminals. But in the wake of the docudramas and a hit movie of the same name, many are concerned about the portrayal of Blacks and images they believe help inspire youth to destructive behavior.

BET initially indicated the show’s purpose was to “explore without glorifying and investigate without celebrating” the criminal minds of the infamous men featured during the weekly, one-hour shows, which are broadcast at several different times.

According to executive producer Nelson George, dope dealers and criminals like “Freeway” Ricky Ross, Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, Troy and Dino Smith, the Chambers Brothers and Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols were chosen because of legendary crimes with national and sometimes international dimensions.

BET’s “American Gangster” debuted last November with the second best numbers in the network’s history with a 1.6 rating and 1.6 million viewers in 1.3 million households, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“American Gangster” the movie, starring award-winning actor Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas, a 1970s New York drug kingpin, opened number one in November with $16.5 million.It ranked seventh among the all-time top 10 openings for R-rated films and by its first weekend, brought in more than $47 million, despite being released early via the Internet and bootlegged DVDs, which were of unusually high quality.

“Someone high in that access wanted this to be widely seen amongst people, who maybe couldn’t have afforded to go and see it in a first run theater, not only amongst the national populations but in particular amongst the so-called urban or ghetto youth,” said Keidi Obi Awadu (aka the Conscious Rasta), of LIB Radio, an internet broadcasting company and media literacy organization.

Mr. Awadu believes the American media is obsessed with the notion of a “Black gangster.” People should remember that historically Black heroin distributors were working in league with White drug lords, but were given license to operate only if their lethal products were distributed to Black people, he said.

The lack of visible, vocal protest against the project’s negative impact on Black male youth was suppressed by love for the movie’s leading man, Mr. Awadu argued.“We know that the choice of Denzel Washington as the character to play this is going to make us particularly vulnerable to assault.We loved Denzel Washington in his portrayal of Malcolm X, Steven Biko—two characters in our pantheon of heroes,” he said. That love and credibility transfers even when he portrays lesser characters, such as those in “American Gangster” and “Training Day,” where Mr. Washington won an Oscar for his portrayal of a crooked cop, argued Mr. Awadu.

“American Gangster” the series, proves now that BET is White-owned, it will continue to undermine the core fundamental values of Black youth, critics charge.

Five minutes of fame on TV and in movies is enough glory for young men thirsty for attention, no matter how they achieve it, said Fareed Thomas, who was recently released from a California penitentiary. The BET episodes showcase the money and so-called good times the gangsters enjoyed, but a fraction of the time was spent on how they went to jail, Mr. Thomas said.

Historically, American gangsters have been European and portrayed in films like “The Godfather,” “Scarface,” “Bugsy,” “King of New York,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York” and “Good Fellas.”

The problem, said Mark, a L.A.-based gang member, comes with the BET series singling out Black men and ignoring the criminal history of gangsters of various ethnicities.

“It is hypocritical to a point.If BET just didn’t do it as Black, that would be one thing, but if you’re going to showcase one gangster, then showcase them all.Why is BET only stopping at the Black gangster?Do only Black gangsters go to prison?” he said.

Read More

*******************************************************************************

Hillary Signals Free Pass for Bush

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is signaling that a second Clinton presidency will follow the look-to-the-future, don’t-worry-about-accountability approach toward Republican wrongdoing that marked Bill Clinton’s years in office.

That was the significance of former President Clinton’s remarkable Dec. 17 comment that his wife’s first act in the White House would be to send Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush on an around-the-world mission to repair America’s damaged image.

“The first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again,” said Bill Clinton, who has accompanied the senior Bush on international humanitarian missions over the past several years.

What was perhaps most stunning about the remark was its assumption that Americans would be impressed that the country’s two dominant political dynasties would team up in early 2009 to tidy up some of the mess created by the headstrong son of the senior dynasty, the Bush Family.

The Bushes and the Clintons – who have held pieces of the nation’s executive power for more than a quarter century dating back to George H.W. Bush’s election as Vice President in 1980 – essentially would be keeping matters within the board rooms of the Washington Establishment.

In responding to Bill Clinton’s remark, George H.W. Bush issued a statement making clear he would not join in any slap at his son’s foreign policy. That also means Hillary Clinton’s “first thing” is unthinkable if her new administration were trying to exact any accountability from George W. Bush for his wrongdoing.

So, to get the senior Bush’s cooperation on the worldwide tour, there would have to be an implicit understanding that the second Clinton administration wouldn’t investigate the younger Bush’s crimes – from authorizing torture, ordering warrantless wiretaps, exposing CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity, waging war under false pretenses and other abuses of executive powers.

If Hillary Clinton does get elected, you can expect to hear lots of talk about “leaving that one for the historians” or about the danger of increased partisanship if the Democrats were viewed as trying “get even” by exposing Bush’s offenses.

Read more

****************************************************************************

Why in the hell is Bill Clinton acting all buddy buddy with the criminal Bush Sr. anyway? If Bill Clinton had allowed the investigation of Bush Sr. to go forward with that Iran contra scandal maybe the american people would be so turned off by Bush Sr. that they never would've elected the son. Hillary will be status quo president so I hope like hell she gets defeated in the primaries.