Waxman To Hold Mulkasey In Contempt?

Oh, Big Deal. Until this bunch is arrested and tried for crimes against the constitution and war crimes, I can't get all that fired up.

Sometimes I think that the Democrats are just killing time, until they win the White House and then it will all be forgotten, just as Iran/Contra was by Clinton.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Amy Weiss

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has ignored a subpoena issued June 16 by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asking for documents relevant to its Valerie Plame leak investigation, including FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Committee Chair Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent Mukasey a letter July 8 informing him that the Committee would vote July 16 on whether or not Mukasey will be found in contempt of Congress.

Waxman said, in order to accommodate Mukasey's assertion of "core Executive Branch confidentiality interests and fundamental separation of powers principles," the Committee would no longer seek President Bush's interview. However, Vice President Cheney's must be produced. Libby had told the FBI it was "possible" Cheney instructed him to inform members of the press about Plame's identity.

Executive Privilege? Privilege to do what? Cover up treason?

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Scooter Libby trial, responded to the Committee's requests for documents and told Waxman he knew of no agreement that would prevent the interviews from being shared with the Committee:

I can advise you that as to any interviews of either the President or Vice President not protected by the rules of grand jury secrecy, there were no "agreements, conditions and understandings between the Office of Special Counselor the Federal Bureau of Investigation" and either the President or Vice President "regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews."

The Committee's renewed investigation comes after Libby's FBI interview and Scott McClellan's tell-all book. As Waxman wrote to Mukasey on June 3, the leak allegations "cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President's FBI interview."


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Maliki Wants Us Out! Pelosi says:

On Maliki’s Call for a Timetable on U.S. Troops Withdrawing from Iraq

July 8th, 2008 by Speaker Pelosi

President Bush refuses to heed the clear warnings of our military leaders about the harmful impact the war in Iraq is having on the readiness of our armed forces and our country’s ability to fight the real war on terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world.

A bipartisan majority in Congress—representing the wishes of the American people — supports a timetable for redeployment as an essential step in ending the Iraq war, refocusing on the real war on terrorism, rebuilding our military and reinvesting in job creation and other critical priorities here at home. The President has refused to even consider taking steps toward ending a war that has now cost more than 4,100 American lives, seriously wounded tens of thousands of our troops, and cost taxpayers trillions of dollars.

President Bush refuses to listen to Congress or the American people, but he cannot support Iraqi political reconciliation and security and ignore Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s call for a timetable for the withdrawal.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Obama's Crowds

Submitted by Chad on Tue, 07/08/2008 - 11:42am. Be-Elected

_{all the photos taken by me. This is approximately the view Barack Obama had that day.}

Bruce Springsteen. Rolling Stones. U2. How many major rock acts play football stadiums anymore? Barack Obama is not a major rock act, and there is no opening band. But for one night only, Obama will play Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver, home of the NFL Broncos. And unlike Springsteen, the Stones, and U2, you won't have to mortgage your house to see the show.

But at least everyone in that appearance will have a seat. The other major crowd of that size where Obama spoke, well, didn't have nearly as much room.

On my vacation, I happened to be in Portland, Oregon. My friend from college who lives there is about to have a baby, and I hadn't really explored the Pacific Northwest. But I couldn't resist one temptation: I wanted to see the space where Obama drew a huge crowd along the Willamette River.

You think it would be easy to find a space where 75,000 people gathered in Portland, but as you walk along the riverfront, it was difficult to find the space. There were no obvious markers. No established stage, no logical spot. In fact, I had a few people point to the wrong space because perhaps they weren't even sure.

I saw the hill where I figured the gathering must have been. I asked the same question that others have asked: "how did you fit 75,000 people in this space?"

_{What it looks like from the back of the crowd.}

They were setting up for the blues festival when I was there. A blues fest on the July 4 weekend would draw a huge crowd, perhaps several thousand on that specific grassy knoll. But I knew they wouldn't have had 75,000 people in that space.

Summer festivals attract a number of people, but the mindset is to have your space, space to move around, but not be too close to your neighbors. But the Obama speech in Portland was unique. It was almost as if the people wanted to be as close to their neighbor as possible, to make sure as many people got to see Obama as could fit in that space.

So when you ask how that many people could fit into that space, it requires knowing that a distinct atypical mentality had to be present. It is that sway and charm that made the Obama experience in Portland that much more amazing.

_{Looking out to the Willamette River.}

Yes, some were in crafts along the river. But as you watch the video, you see people very close together. And as popular as Springsteen, the Stones, and U2 are, I still can't see even their fans crowding together as much as the Obama supporters did that afternoon in Portland.

I have followed politics all my life, and I have grown cynical in my approach to the topic. But to stand in that space, and imagine the possibilities, not just of the specific people there in Portland that afternoon, but of the mentality of a truly shared experience, perhaps there is a redeeming shot.

_{On this day, it was a hill where two young kids could run.}

Those who are cynical speak of Obama and his speeches, but presidents who have been able to inspire have ended up getting more done in their time in the White House. And that is a good thing, since there is a lot to do.

So moving the nomination acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center (capacity approx. 19,000) to Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium may be more than a symbolic gesture. It may be a sign of the potential of the American spirit that always seemed to be there, but didn't quite know how to express itself. That spirit, if Obama is elected, needs to be utilized well beyond January 20, 2009. But it's good to know that spirit exists. Standing in that empty grassy knoll, you see the possibilities.

We could not agree more!


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

McCain and The Disaffected Demsbulbs?

John McCain just can't catch a break.( Could it be that he is a Republican, the party of deception and terrorism?)

Rarely has a presidential candidate traveled the campaign trail facing such bleak odds of victory, what with his party's unpopular wars, unpopular economy and even more unpopular president. Add to that McCain's unpopularity within his own party, and one wonders what gets him going in the morning.

Amphetamines? They worked for Hitler, not to mention our troops?

But his party happens to be shrinking, so McCain has gone hunting where he hopes the ducks are: among independents. As the Washington Post summarized his now familiar position: "Since clinching the nomination he has often reminded voters of his more moderate stances while professing his fealty to conservative positions."

Whoa! My head is spinning!

His other hope, of course, is that those hidebound conservatives to whom he professes may yet come home in November. It's hard to say at this point if they will, but McCain can only naturally assume that they're not so suicidally reckless as to help install in the Oval Office a liberal Democrat over the candidate who is, after all, a conservative Republican. Surely, only the pettiest of the petty would be so foolish.

Of course, they will stay home or vote for Obama. McCain is a disaster for them.

But, praise their little activist hearts, that's precisely what they intend to do, at least for the summer's balance. Reports the Post piece quoted above: "Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. John McCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping to prevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research and campaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declaration of principles" -- that anachronism of modern politics known as the party platform.

Say what? This sounds a little psychotic, but what hasn't in the last 6 years?

Said, for instance, Jessica Echard, executive director of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum: "Our job is to make sure that the grassroots continue to have a say" -- even, I guess, if that means the conservative grassroots will have absolutely no say in the next government.

It's a puzzler. A real puzzler. And McCain must be stumped more than anyone.

McCain doesn't give a damn about abortion or the Christian Right. Neither did Bush, except for their votes. Junior was taught how to speak fundy, McCain is having a harder time with that.

Why, he is most certainly asking himself, can't my own party's base see the same electoral realities that everyone else sees? My only hope is to barely eke out a victory through some combination of a reasonably respectable turnout among the base, plus some marginal support by independents in the purple states, which I'll secure only by straying from the official party line.

Independents who support this man ought to be horse whipped!

Yet the Eagle Forum and its ideological ilk just won't leave well enough alone. They intend, it appears, to pester McCain right into defeat. They'd rather be right than in power. Many may still turn out for him, but with far lesser (*) enthusiasm and all its overall number-depressing consequences.

Even more stunning, however, is the flipside to all this -- the side on which Phyllis Schlafly's counterparts seem determined to rob its own candidate of a massive victory and therefore solid mandate.

Massive victory? Oh, Pulleeze!

Here we are, finally, with a virtually in-the-bag election. So what must Barack Obama suffer from his base? Why, sniper fire, of course -- just like McCain.

And frankly, I'm beginning to think that a few among the progressive grassroots would -- much like the Schlaflyites -- rather be absolutely right than in power. I'm beginning to think power -- the actual means to accomplish something -- scares the bejesus out of them. For they'd then have to perform and deal with all the problematic compromises that political reality serves up daily, rather than carp with self-satisfied superiority from the ineffectual sidelines.

(Me thinks they would rather be right than wrong. Power has little to do with it, but it muddies the waters just the same.)

They may, in fact, be quite few indeed. It may well be that much of the progressive unrest we read and hear about is largely a ghost of this week's media narrative -- spooky and exciting as hell, but not really all that real.

That would be my guess.

And there's no doubt, or at least I strongly suspect, that much of the vocal unrest comes merely from the scattered but intensely malcontented windbags of Clintonland, still fighting the last battle and still trying their best to be as obnoxious as politically and humanly possible. But those particular dead-enders are fewer and fewer by the day indeed; so let them be, if such behavior amuses.

They, The Clintonites, are GOOPER LITE.

What worries are those progressives -- small in numbers, perhaps, but destructively vocal -- who prefer to dwell exclusively in the uncorrupted light of the political empyrean; who much prefer, that is, to throw tomatoes from the bleachers rather than wield power, because deep down they're frightened to death of what actual power implies. It's so damn messy.

fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

What's Up With Obama And Abortion?

Hey Michelle! Do something about you husband!


Let me be honest up front here:


I am pro-life in the very essence of the word.


This means that I am essentially against abortion. I can, however, envision situations where a pregnancy should be terminated, if it is the will of the parents, especially the mother whose status and wishes must over-ride any other consideration. It is between the mother and her physician


Actually, I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion. I have many friends who are pro-choice, but who are not pro-aborton.


Certainly we can agree that a pregnancy resulting from incest or rape should be terminated if it is the mother's will. Should a young woman be forced to carry to term a fetus resulting from incest or rape?


There are situations in which tests show a fetus not to be viable long past birth. Why should a woman be forced by law to carry a fetus to term, knowing that the baby will not live?


Talk about state sponsored torture!


I don't believe in abortion as a form of birth control. I don't know anyone who does. Women take abortion very seriously. It is a procedure that no one I know takes lightly. Anyone who does would make a terrible parent.


Nevertheless, no one I know wants the federal government passing laws that continuously chip away at Roe v. Wade, either. No one wants the federal or state government limiting their civil rights.


As I say, I am pro-life, which means I do not support executions. I do not support treating criminals in an inhumane way, unless they behave as animals of a lower class than humans. I have a thing about quality of life as well as life.


A prison staff could take any one of us and turn us into monsters, in 6 months or less. Think it can't happen? Think again!



I refuse to support war, especially one based on organized deception involving fear-mongering.



Deception and fear-mongering: The Two Forgotten Deadly Sins.



If there is a real threat to our country then I will fight, myself. No doubt about it.



I don't see any threats except those caused by the Neoconservative ideology which is driving our foreign and domestic policy. These people are a great danger to life and quality of life and should be arrested for war crimes and attacks on our constitution.


I don't care whether the dead are American babies or Iraqis and their babies. My feelings are the same.


Can the Fundamentalists say the same? If not, they are not pro-life. They are only pro-American fetus. You know, that tiny being who, according to them, is sinful even in the womb.


They say that abortion is the murdering of the innocent. They also say that we are all born in sin and must be baptized and accept Jesus Christ as our savior in order to be saved from original sin.


I doubt many fetuses can do all that.


A continuous flow of money helps much, of course. The Roman Catholic Church has made quite a lot of money off the MAFIA and, probably, government officials, just to name a few.


Other denominations of the so-called Christian faith prey on the elderly and the infirm. Anyone who is close to death's door, or wish they were, are ripe for the "prayer club," or whatever scheme/scam is going today. These modern-day faith healers have been making out like Flint since 9/11, which they perceive as the beginning of the end.


The end is a good thing is their collective mind because they get to go to heaven. What is even better is that anyone who does not believe as they do will be cast into the lake of fire, to burn forever. Glory Hallelujah !



There's nothing quite so heavenly as watching your perceived "enemies" burn.



What a totally screwed up theology! It is so twisted and has nothing to do with the authentic teaching of the Christ.



Thank God for the 60s. I have yet to see a documentary that covers this aspect of the era known as the 60s, but there was a major spiritual movement that surfaced in those days. Various kinds of Yoga and Buddhism came to those who were seeking truth. Some Seekers went to find truth in foreign lands. They walked the "Happy Hippie Trail," as it was called, which circles the planet; some came home, some did not. The Trail, I hear, is no more, because of the wars we are fighting.



Truth be told, it was that movement, the spiritual one, that scared the fundamentalist more than what happened in Chicago, at the Democratic Convention in 1968. The violence, though disturbing, was a distraction. It scared the living beejesus out of conservatives everywhere and across the board. It scared other people as well. The independent masses grew. Many could see that the two major political parties were....well....full of it.



It is interesting that only the violent horror in the streets of Chicago and Birmingham and the Hippies at the Woodstock Festival, in The Haight and at Altmount made it onto our TeeVee screens.


Rarely is anything mentioned about some of those Hippies. Those who saw other realities and set about achieving states of consciousness that were quite expanded, legally. There is Holotropic breath-work and many types of mediation. One is no better than another, generally. Particularly, one may be very good for me and terrible for you. We are different, ya know.


(One thing I do know for sure is this: Those old Hippies who chose the spiritual path are still around today. You will recognize them only by their presence. They wear no uniforms.)


One size really does not fit all, or even half.


Different strokes for different folks, as the song goes......


Say what?


Here's one for you to think about:

Parental notification: What if the father of the girl is also the father of her child? Think it doesn't happen? Think again, Dear Reader. It happens far more than one might expect and not just in West Virginia, as some of us would like to believe.

Posted July 6, 2008 10:17 AM

by Frank James, updated at 5:37 pm with Obama campaign response.

Does Sen. Barack Obama really mean to say he supports new restrictions on late-term abortions that would effectively weaken Roe v Wade?

That's the huge question that remains following the Democratic presidential candidate's statement yesterday that he doesn't believe a pregnant woman's "mental distress" should be considered a sufficient exception to bans against late-term abortions.

As Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC News legal correspondent so ably points out in her Legalities blog, Obama's response yesterday to a reporter's question in which the senator sought to clarify his earlier remarks on the issue, left open the possibility that he actually supports a significant narrowing of abortion rights.

This, of course, would come as a shock to his liberal supporters and many of those voters who backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries, voters Obama is now trying to win over. Many of those voters very much support abortion rights.

Attempting to clarify comments he made during an interview in Relevant magazine in which he seemed to strongly indicate that he supported a late-term abortion exception for the physical-health of the mother but left the impression he might not support a mental-health exception, Obama yesterday told reporters on his campaign plane that he, indeed, supported mental-health exceptions. Such exceptions were acceptable so long as they were for clinically-diagnosed conditions, he indicated.

What he did not support was the idea of exceptions that would allow late-term abortions based on "mental distress." "It is not just a matter of feeling blue," Obama said.

I'm not too proud to say that answer was enough to throw this non-lawyer off the scent but it didn't Jan, a University of Chicago trained lawyer. That's why when she worked with us at the Chicago Tribune where she covered the Supreme Court, her nickname was Justice Greenburg, because of her detailed knowledge of the high court and her probing mind.

Here's her cogent analysis of Obama's answer which points to why the senator is going to be forced to address this issue again:

So Obama, it seems to me, still is backing away from what the law says--and backing away from a proposed federal law (of which he is a co-sponsor) that envisions a much broader definition of mental health than the one he laid out this week.

That proposed federal legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, refers to the key Supreme Court case on the issue, which was decided the same day as Roe v. Wade in 1973. In that case, Doe v Bolton, the Court said a doctor could decide to perform an abortion based on "all factors--physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age--relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health."

Subsequent cases in the Supreme Court and lower courts have said states cannot ban abortions where the doctor deems them necessary to protect a woman's physical and mental health. Lower courts have taken that to mean a state cannot prohibit an abortion--even one post-viability--if the woman would suffer severe emotional harm without it.

Nowhere do those cases impose criteria of "serious clinical mental health diseases."

That's not what the law is today. The Court has said the Constitution prohibits states from banning post-viability abortions unless those laws contain a broad mental health exception---one that includes mental distress and severe emotional harm. Abortion rights groups have fought for decades to preserve these exceptions, and I'm awfully curious what they will think about limiting them to women with mental disease or mental illness. (A good question for Monday, when we're all back in the office.)

Safe to say that abortion-rights supporters are not going to be satisfied with vagueness from Obama on this issue. Indeed, they may find added causes for concern in the "clarification" he provided Saturday.

Take Obama conscious or not use of the language of abortion opponents in his answer to the reporter.

Here's what he said at one point:

"My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously," Obama continued.

The term "partial-birth abortion" is how abortion foes describe a particular and rarely performed late-term abortion procedure. Doctors refer to it as intact dilation and evacuation. Abortion-rights activists generally despise the partial-birth abortion term.

In a 2004 National Press Club speech, Kate Michelman, then NARAL Pro-Choice America's president, referred to the term dismissively as "so-called 'partial-birth abortion.' That is a political, not a medical, term. No one knows quite what it means..."

That would be the same Michelman who endorsed Obama in February right before Super Tuesday.

So what are we to make of this? Does Obama really mean what he said about "mental distress" not being an acceptable reason for an exception to late-term abortion bans, in which case, it's probably an understatement to say he's going to have a major problem with a big part of his base?

Was he just being lax with his language, a dangerous mistake on an issue as deeply felt and contested as abortion?

Is he trying to send a signal to voters in swing states, like working-class whites, especially Catholics in Ohio and Michigan, by cunningly infusing his comments to reporters with the language of the anti-abortion movement?

The Obama campaign schedule indicates the senator is back in Chicago with no public events today. That should give him some time to rehearse his thoughts on abortion since reporters are likely to try and pin down precisely where he stands in the coming days.

Updated at 5:37 pm:

Linda Douglass, a senior campaign spokesperson for the Obama campaign provided this statement.

Senator Obama has always fought for a women's right to choose and has consistently opposed efforts to pass measures lacking a health exception. Also, Senator Obama recognizes that some people view these health exceptions not as exceptions, but as a way around these restrictions. Senator Obama believes that while "mental distress" or simply "feeling blue" should not be covered by a health exception, there will be cases where carrying to term a pregnancy may seriously damage a woman's mental health and those cases should be covered. During an interview with Relevant Magazine, Senator Obama made the point that we can craft well-defined health exceptions - as pro-choice legislators have tried in Congress and in state legislatures - that address those concerns.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bushlies Cause Main Ally, Britain, Embarassment

Bushlies have caused us all embarrassment, if not worse!

By David Connett
Sunday, 6 July 2008

GETTY

'David Miliband persistently gave me the brush-off, saying we could rely on US assurances': Andy Tyrie, Conservative MP on the Foreign Secretary

MPs are to launch an investigation into US activities on Diego Garcia after accusing Washington of lying about extraordinary rendition flights from the British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean. They described false assurances given by the US about its use of Diego Garcia for the controversial flights as "deplorable".

Following one of the strongest British condemnations of the US rendition policy, by which terror suspects are sent overseas for interrogation, the influential Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) plans to scrutinise Whitehall's supervision of US activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced from there.

The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was forced to apologise to the Commons in February after it was revealed that two US "extraordinary rendition" flights had landed on UK territory in 2002. Britain had previously been told that no such flights had passed through its territory.

His apology came after the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, admitted that two suspects had been on flights to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002 that had stopped to refuel on Diego Garcia. In a report published today, the MPs conclude that it is "deplorable that previous US assurances about rendition flights have turned out to be false. The failure of the US administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK government inadvertently misleading our select committee and the House of Commons."

Andy Tyrie, a Tory MP, welcomed the report last night. Mr Tyrie, chair of the parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, said: "In October 2007, I started asking questions about Diego Garcia. I was very concerned that Britain and British territory could have become complicit in America's programme of extraordinary rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured. The Foreign Secretary persistently gave me the brush-off. He said we could rely on US assurances. My allegations were correct. The Foreign Secretary's brush-off was not just misplaced, it was a disgrace."

He continued: "We must get to the bottom of British involvement in rendition. The Foreign Secretary's latest attempt to do so is wholly inadequate. We must have confidence that the US has not been using our airports to service their planes to or from a rendition, but the Foreign Secretary has refused to even ask the Americans if this is the case. This is yet another issue on which a weak and indecisive Prime Minister should have given leadership."

The FAC said the Government should also do more to support exiled inhabitants who were forcibly removed from Diego Garcia and adjoining islands when the US established a military base there.

In addition, it called for a public inquiry into allegations of official corruption in the Turks and Caicos islands, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. MPs who visited the islands described the allegations as "very serious", saying they had experienced "a palpable climate of fear" while there, and warning they would take action against anyone who tried to intimidate witnesses who had spoken to them.

They also demanded evidence from the Foreign Office that it was fully investigating allegations of corruption in Bermuda and Anguilla, accusing the Foreign Office of being "too hands-off" in its administration of overseas territories.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Compromising The Constitution

Hey Congress, Just Say No!!!!

July 8, 2008

Editorial, NYT

Congress has been far too compliant as President Bush undermined the Bill of Rights and the balance of powers. It now has a chance to undo some of that damage — if it has the courage and good sense to stand up to the White House and for the Constitution.

The Senate should reject a bill this week that would needlessly expand the government’s ability to spy on Americans and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of President Bush’s unlawful wiretapping.

The bill dangerously weakens the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Adopted after the abuses of the Watergate and Vietnam eras, the law requires the government to get a warrant to intercept communications between anyone in this country and anyone outside it — and show that it is investigating a foreign power, or the agent of a foreign power, that plans to harm America.

The FISA law created a court to issue those warrants quickly, and over 30 years, the court has approved nearly 20,000 while rejecting perhaps a half-dozen. In any case, the government can wiretap first and get permission later in moments of crisis.

Lawmakers are already justifying their votes for making major changes to that proven regime by saying that the bill is a reasonable compromise that updates FISA technologically and will make it somewhat harder to spy on Americans abroad. But none of that mitigates the bill’s much larger damage. It would make it much easier to spy on Americans at home, reduce the courts’ powers and grant immunity to the companies that turned over Americans’ private communications without a warrant.

It would allow the government to bypass the FISA court and collect large amounts of Americans’ communications without a warrant simply by declaring that it is doing so for reasons of national security. It cuts the vital “foreign power” provision from FISA, never mentions counterterrorism and defines national security so broadly that experts think the term could mean almost anything a president wants it to mean.

Supporters will argue that the new bill still requires a warrant for eavesdropping that “targets” an American. That’s a smokescreen. There is no requirement that the government name any target. The purpose of warrantless eavesdropping could be as vague as listening to all calls to a particular area code in any other country.

The real reason this bill exists is because Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was above the law. When The Times disclosed his warrantless eavesdropping, Mr. Bush demanded that Congress legalize it after the fact. The White House scared Congress into doing that last year, with a one-year bill that shredded FISA’s protections. Democratic lawmakers promised to fix it this year.

Bush decided that along before 9/11. He just needed 9/11 to get away with crime after crime and a limp-wristed congress who is either scared to stand up for the people or who are conspirators after the fact. Let the trails begin.

Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold, Christopher Dodd and Jeff Bingaman plan to offer amendments to do that, but there is little chance they will pass. The Senate should reject this bill and start over with modest legislation that makes the small needed changes and preserves Americans’ fundamental protections.

Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, has supported the weakening of FISA. Senator Barack Obama vowed in January (when he was still fighting for the Democratic nomination) that he would filibuster against immunity. Now he says he will vote for an “imperfect” bill and fix it if he wins. Sound familiar?

Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.

Restoring some of the protections taken away by an earlier law while creating new loopholes in the Constitution is not a compromise. It is a failure of leadership.

Amen!

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

This has Stunk Of Deception From The Beginning....

There is too much about this that causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up; a typical reaction to yet another Bushlie! Something is rotten, but it ain't in Denmark

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher- Buzzflash

July 8, 2008

A report from Swiss public radio that $20 million was paid to release three American hostages, Ingrid Betancourt, and 11 Colombian soldiers and police officers is being pretty much roundly ignored in the United States.

Not so the case in the UK, where the Times reported the allegation on July 4th:

But while she [Betancourt] was still in the air, the Swiss radio station RSR broadcast a report questioning the official version of the operation to free Ms Betancourt and 14 other hostages – saying that money, not cunning, had clinched their freedom.

According to Bogota, the hostages were freed in an elaborate ruse by Colombian intelligence agents who had infiltrated the Marxist Farc rebels holding them.

But RSR said that the 15 hostages “were in reality ransomed for a high price, and the whole operation afterwards was a set-up". Citing a source "close to the events, reliable and tested many times in recent years", it said that the United States – which had three citizens among those freed – was behind the deal and put the price at $20 million.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry furiously denied the allegations, with a spokesman calling them "completely false." He added: "They are lies".

General Freddy Padilla, head of the Colombian military, categorically denied they had paid "a single peso" to Farc.

"As the General Commander of the Armed Forces and on my military honour, I deny that the Colombian Government has paid a single peso, a single cent," he said.

Please note the plausible deniability in the statement of the Colombian Armed Forces Commander. One, if the U.S. paid the money, then he is correct to say that Colombia did not pay it. Two, the money may not have been paid directly to FARC, but paid through an intermediary, or paid as a bounty fee to defectors.

Far be it from BuzzFlash to claim first hand knowledge of such a $20 million dollar pay-off. But it wouldn't be the first time that the Bush Administration has claimed that it won't negotiate with terrorists and then paid ransom money behind the scenes.

The rescue also comes at a curiously propitious time for the Bush Adminsitration and its "made man" in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe. He is seeking to pass a plebiscite to allow him an unprecedented third term. Furthermore, Uribe is being used by the U.S. as a proxy opponent to Chavez in terms of leadership in South America. In addition, let's not forget that the controversial Columbia "Free Trade Pact" is stalled in Congress. Finally -- and most curiously -- John McCain inexplicably showed up in Colombia around the time of the "rescue."

This is reminiscent of our hostages being released on the day Reagan was sworn in as president, Great political theater; until it all unravels years later, when no one cares anymore. Americans had better develop a finer sense of history. A country with no past has no future. If Americans had any sense of history at all and a working knowledge of the present, George W. Bush would have been laughed out of the presidential race in 2000.

BuzzFlash wants to make it clear that FARC is a motley and dreadful "guerilla force" that is as corrupt and reprehensible as the right wing Colombian death squads who are killing trade unionists -- with a wink and a nod from the government -- in that nation. We share in the joy of anyone receiving their freedom, particularly given the length some of these hostages were imprisoned in dire and harsh circumstances.

But the fact that the American media has once again unquestionably advanced a made-for-tv-movie narrative of the rescue proves, yet again, that our media -- particularly television -- has pretty much abandoned probing news for entertaining, government story lines. There are far too many unexplored details in the official Colombian-American-French rescue account, and no indication that the American press is exploring any of them to any significant degree.

That is a dereliction of journalistic duty.

One of the few exceptions regarding the ransom allegations was the LA Times, which posted an article on July 7th:

Colombian authorities sought over the weekend to discredit a Swiss academic and former intermediary in talks with a left-wing rebel group who has been linked to a disputed report that officials paid $20 million for last week's release of 15 high-profile hostages.

(Left wing? Sounds like they are born-killers and totalitarians. That doesn't sound like the so-called "Left-wing here.)

A Colombian government official who asked to remain unnamed said Sunday that authorities suspect Geneva-based Jean Pierre Gontard was the source for the Swiss radio report last week stating that officials paid a ransom for the release of the hostages.

Officials have denied any ransom was paid and said the rescue was based on subterfuge and infiltration of the rebel high command. The notion of paying ransom is extremely sensitive here, since U.S. and Colombian authorities have labeled the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a terrorist group and have ruled out payments to terrorists.

Meanwhile, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told the newspaper El Tiempo that captured rebel computer files name Gontard as the courier for $480,000 seized by Costa Rican police at the behest of the Colombian government this year from a FARC hide-out in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital.

What's interesting about the last paragraph, which we first saw in a Chinese publication of all places, is that the Colombian government is now trying to impugn the apparent source of the ransom allegation, even though he was apparently a sanctioned go-between at one time.

Finally, in an online New Zealand publication, we found this tidbit:

The French online news daily MediaPart yesterday contradicted the account put forward by the Colombian government, that its agents had infiltrated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and freed Betancourt and 14 other hostages through a clever ploy.

MediaPart reported that it had learned that the hostages had actually been freed through an agreement between Bogota and the Farc, in exchange for political asylum for Farc members in France and the payment of a ransom.

"Shock and awe," "Made for TV Rescues," "Jessica Lynch Heroic Action Figure Tales": is there any difference between fictional war flicks and manufactured news anymore?

We can't conclusively say, because the corporate media isn't doing its job; it's just providing us with government-issued story lines that hold our interest by entertaining us with "heroic feats."

But what if the heroic feats are as finely tuned as a Hollywood script, but financed by our government -- as they publicly espouse the hypocrisy of not negotiating with "insurgents" -- instead of some LA moguls?

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

So, Who Made the Satanic Bargain?

Seems like the answer should condemn members of both parties.

A Devil's Bargain

Thursday 03 July 2008

by: Carolyn Eisenberg, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Carolyn Eisenberg argues that with Congress granting $162 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a major rallying call should be issued for greater grassroots efforts to shatter the silence over holding elected officials accountable and getting the US out of Iraq. (Photo: PDXPeace.org)

With the president's signature now affixed to the bill, the clever deal is done. In exchange for another "blank check" for a year of war, the Democrats have wrested from their Republican colleagues and the White House a host of domestic benefits - tens of billions of dollars in educational funding for returning GIs, a thirteen-week extension of unemployment insurance, millions for Midwest flood relief and other laudable projects. "This shows that even in an election year, Republicans and Democrats can come together," George W. Bush boasted.

Depending on their source of news, few Americans may be aware that Congress has now allocated another $162 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until next summer. In many media outlets, the only coverage pertained to the new educational benefits for soldiers. But even when the war funding received nominal attention, one would be hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media, or for that matter in the halls of Congress, any critical discussion of this political deal.

With more than 60 percent of the country opposed to the Iraq war and significant majorities saying they want the troops out within a year, this Congress has handed over to President Bush and his successor the right to persist in this failed enterprise. Or, to put the matter bluntly, Congress has just agreed to keep our soldiers in harm's way for another twelve months, killing and dying for no achievable end. Is this worthy of some attention? Perhaps even distress? Should it be a bland assumption, rather than a horrifying fact, that to get the government to provide adequate veterans' benefits, extended unemployment insurance and relief from summer floods, another year of senseless war is approved?

The reality of this dirty Washington trade is far removed from the inspirational rhetoric on the campaign trail. Whether on the stump or in formal debates, the Democrats reliably bring down the house when they denounce the Iraq war and promise to bring the troops home. Such things were also said in 2006, and two years later a Democratic-controlled Congress cannot even agree to a non-binding "goal" for troop withdrawal, let alone a binding deadline.

If challenged, members of Congress may point to the domestic benefits ("a lot of veterans are going to be happy with the United States Senate," claims Senator Jim Webb) and the need to provide support for US soldiers in the field. None of this justifies or explains the failure of Congress to insist upon a plan for taking the troops out of Iraq.

While the mass media have anesthetized the broader public to this moral collapse, there is a parallel numbness among committed antiwar people. The two are related. For years, there has been a virtual blackout of the grassroots organizing all across this country to get Congress to stop the war. Apart from the occasional story about mobilizations on the internet, one would never know about the thousands of local initiatives that have occurred - the vigils on street corners, the sit-ins at Congressional offices, the petitioners in the mall, the lobby visits, phone calls, public forums and confrontations at legislative hearings. Even the progressive media have tended to downplay these developments. Without sufficient news about a vibrant national effort, many individuals who might be inclined to participate feel discouraged and remain at home, while those who have been organizing feel less sense of accomplishment.

Also muffled are the positive results. Paradoxically, this month's vote on war funding holds significance because there were real choices. In actuality, it was not "the Democrats" who produced the recent debacle, but the Congressional leadership and some individuals from both parties. Twenty-six senators voted against war funding, as did one hundred and fifty-five members of the House. That reflected the largely unreported efforts of activists, who relentlessly pressured these legislators to take a firm stand.

As disheartening as the final result might be, it underscores the need for greater grassroots efforts, not less. All government officials, including a future president, will be affected by the unintended consequences of this administration's mistakes. An American withdrawal from Iraq is likely to mean a reduction of influence in a region of vital economic and strategic importance to the United States. Such a choice runs against the historic temptation to rely on military solutions, even when military activity has been demonstrably futile.

Unintended mistakes? I wonder....

I wish I could make as much money off my mistakes as they have theirs.

The only hope for a wiser policy is an aroused public, determined to cut American losses and to hold elected officials accountable for what they do. In an electoral season, we have our work cut out for us. Support for a GI bill or flood relief is no substitute for ending the war - that devil's bargain, which has so far escaped scrutiny. Herein lies the educational task, which can be accomplished. Congressional incumbents have made their record and many count on public ignorance to keep them afloat. To quote a presidential candidate, "not this year, not this time." A crucial task for the peace movement is to shatter the silence.

Carolyn Eisenberg is a professor of US foreign policy at Hofstra University and co-chair of United for Peace and Justice Legislative Working Group. Contact her at hiscze@aol.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Torture For Airline Passengers

Damn, we can't make this stuff up!

Want some torture with your peanuts?

www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/aviation-security/2008/Jul/0...

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. This bracelet would: • take the place of an airline boarding pass • contain personal information about the traveler • be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage • shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes. The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it is referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.”


According to a letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development, to the inventor whom he had previously met with, he wrote, “To make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in…the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal.”

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Iran Prepared to Attack Isarel and U.S. interests, If Attacked.

Iran: Attack us and U.S. interests will 'burn'

Aide to top cleric warns that Tel Aviv, American ships will also be targeted

MSNBC Reports


If attacked, Iran is pledging that we can expect WWIII. They plan on using oil as a weapon against the U.S.. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that a break in the oil supply now would be deadly to the U.S. economy.


Can Iran use oil to gain allies like Russia and China; Iran being their major supplier?


It must be clear to even the blindest of idiots by now that invading Iraq has put us in more danger than we were the day after 9/11. The rigid and goofy ideology of the Neocons has put this nation in more danger than we have been in since, possibly, the Cuban Missile Crisis.


Unfortunately we don't have JFK in the White House. Instead we have two men, both of whom have committed themselves and this nation to following the plans outlined in the PNAC document even if that plan is wrecking the economy, slowly destroying the military and the nation itself. With their party in shambles, leaving the next administration, whom they assume will be Obama and a Democratic Congress, with a huge mess by striking Iran would be a good thing for them. Whatever happens as a result of their Strangelovian policies, the American public, with the attention span of a gnat, will blame the Democrats. At least that is probably what they think. I'm not so sure. The people may well blame both major political parties unless we are given a very good reason not to. There has never been a better time to throw our energy into building alternative parties. Of course, that will take time. In the mean time, my energy will go to supporting Democrats in 2008.



Bush and Cheney need to be warned that an attack on Iran without the permission of Congress and the clear will of the people is an impeachable offense. It seems clear that the plan to attack Iran now involves Israel making the first strike. If Iran retaliates in any way, Bush and Cheney intend to launch a major air offensive, leaving our over-extended troops in Iraq wide open for slaughter.



(Bush is always quick to point out that Israel has a right to defend herself. Doesn't Iran have the same right?)



Surely not, you may think. Surely they would not do such a thing. Every time I have thought that, they have done exactly what I thought they surely wouldn't. If there is one thing we should all know by now, it is that Bush, Cheney and their minions in every executive agency will do whatever they please, because for some reason, no one seems to be willing or able to stand up to them and for America. I can only speculate as to why that is is the situation in D.C.

That speculation, however, in for another post.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Real Cause For Alarm

July 5, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

By BOB HERBERT

Beaches, barbecues and flags as big as baseball fields. Fireworks as loud as thunder, lighting the nighttime sky. Hot fun, as Sly & the Family Stone would say, in the summertime.

Friday was the 232nd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations were ubiquitous. HBO offered a marathon telecast of its John Adams series. Bands of wildly varying quality, from one coast to the other, let loose with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

It was a July Fourth like many others. There was nothing overt to signal anything was wrong. The Red Sox had traveled from Boston to play a weekend series against the Yankees in the Bronx. In Washington, the National Independence Day Parade made its way along Constitution Avenue.

And yet, there was an undercurrent of anxiety in the land. Vacations have been curtailed because of the price of fuel. Since the holiday fell on a Friday, the monthly unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were released a day early, on Thursday. They weren’t good. The Times summed things up with a Page 1 headline:

“Outlook Darker as Jobs Are Lost and Wages Stall.”

The high and the low were being buffeted. The bad news bears were loose on Wall Street, and the prospects for the summer employment of teenagers were abysmal. The national employment rate for teens in June was the lowest in 60 years.

But the anxiety seems more intense than the usual concern for a cyclical economic downturn. Something fundamental seems to have gone haywire. David Boren, a former U.S. senator who is now president of the University of Oklahoma, has written a short book that he called, “A Letter to America.”

His sense of alarm in the opening paragraph could not have been clearer. “The country we love is in trouble,” he said. “In truth, we are in grave danger of declining as a nation. If we do not act quickly, that decline will become dramatic.”

I couldn’t agree more. The symbols of patriotism — bumper stickers and those flags the size of baseball fields — have taken the place of the hard work and sacrifice required to keep a great nation great.

You know that matters have gotten out of hand when, as we learned this week, American instructors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, gave classes on torture techniques used by the Communists to extract false testimony from American prisoners during the Korean War.

Talk about defining deviancy down! As Al Gore reminds us, this is the first time in American history that “the executive branch of the government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a prohibition established by Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War.”

There are signs galore of the nation’s turn for the worse. We are fighting a debilitating war in Iraq without any idea of how to pay for it — or how to end it. No one has any real idea about how to cope with the devastating energy crisis, or how to turn the economy around.

The airline industry is a first-class mess and the knees of the General Motors colossus have buckled. Locks are being changed on foreclosed homes across the country and working families lucky enough to meet their mortgages are watching the value of their homes decline.

We can build spectacular new stadiums for football and baseball teams (the Yanks, the Mets, the Giants and the Jets are all getting ready to move into staggeringly expensive new homes) but we can’t rebuild New Orleans or reconstruct the World Trade Center site destroyed almost seven years ago.

This year’s presidential election is the perfect opportunity to place the truth before the American public in the form of a realistic examination of the state of the nation, and an honest consideration of creative ideas for moving forward. Instead, we’re getting hour after hour and day after day of trivia: Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s patriotic? Who’s not?

Mr. Boren believes that the combination of unrestrained partisanship and the corrosive influence of big money have all but paralyzed the political process. He worries about the neglect of the nation’s infrastructure, about the growing divide between the very wealthy and everyone else, and about “the catastrophic drop in the way the rest of the world views us.”

Sounds like a recipe for a major revolution in this country. The only question remaining is whether we can make the changes which need to be made without resorting to violence. If the coming revolution (already underway, but not yet in an organized way) turns violent, it may well bring about change, but we will again be stuck with our violent nature as we see that non-violence no longer works and that the people no longer have access to non-violent methods for change. The change brought about by violent revolution will probably bear little resemblance to the needed changes as we view them, now. Nevertheless, something has to give in this country. We are headed for disaster on every front.

The U.S., with its enormous economic and military power, is still better-positioned than any other country to set the standards for the 21st century. But that power and leadership potential were not granted by divine right and cannot be wasted indefinitely.

Enormous economic power? What economic power? We can't or won't take care of our own people. Where is the money for universal health-care? Where is the money for a good education, cradle to grave, for everone? Where is the money for re-building the infrastructure. Where is the money for research and development of alternative energy and I'm not talking about corn, for God's sake, or any other fuel for machines that is food for bodies. That is an incredibly stupid idea that will, in the long run, keep us dependent on oil, as the process of converting corn to ethanol is more expensive and, some say, more polluting than converting oil to gasoline.

Patriotism has its place. But waving a flag is never a good substitute for serious thought and rolling up one’s sleeves.

We couldn't agree more!

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush Family-Nazi Link (Better Believe it!)

In case you missed it!

If you feel as if your head might explode.......

....Far be it from us to advise.....LOL


by John Buchanan, The New Hampshire Gazette, October 10, 2003

WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.

The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.

What's War Got To Do, Got To Do With It?

No Story?

For six decades these historical facts have gone unreported by the mainstream U.S. media. The essential facts have appeared on the Internet and in relatively obscure books, but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes. This story has also escaped the attention of "official" Bush biographers, Presidential historians and publishers of U.S. history books covering World War II and its aftermath.

The White House did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

The Summer of '42

The unraveling of the web of Bush-Harriman-Thyssen U.S. enterprises, all of which operated out of the same suite of offices at 39 Broadway under the supervision of Prescott Bush, began with a story that ran in the New York Herald-Tribune on July 30, 1942. By then, the U.S. had been at war with Germany for nearly eight months.

"Hitler's Angel Has $3 Million in U.S. Bank," declared the headline. The lead paragraph characterized Fritz Thyssen as "Adolf Hitler's original patron a decade ago." In fact, the steel and coal magnate had aggressively supported and funded Hitler since October 1923, according to Thyssen's autobiography, I Paid Hitler. In that book, Thyssen also acknowledges his direct personal relationships with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess.

The Herald-Tribune also cited unnamed sources who suggested Thyssen's U.S. "nest egg" in fact belonged to "Nazi bigwigs" including Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, or even Hitler himself.

Business is Business

The "bank," founded in 1924 by W. Averell Harriman on behalf of Thyssen and his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V. of Holland, was Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York City. According to government documents, it was in reality a clearing house for a number of Thyssen-controlled enterprises and assets, including as many as a dozen individual businesses. UBC also bought and shipped overseas gold, steel, coal, and U.S. Treasury and war bonds. The company's activities were administered for Thyssen by a Netherlands-born, naturalized U.S. citizen named Cornelis Lievense, who served as president of UBC. Roland Harriman was chairman and Prescott Bush a managing director.

The Herald-Tribune article did not identify Bush or Harriman as executives of UBC, or Brown Brothers Harriman, in which they were partners, as UBC's private banker. A confidential FBI memo from that period suggested, without naming the Bush and Harriman families, that politically prominent individuals were about to come under official U.S. government scrutiny as Hitler's plunder of Europe continued unabated.

After the "Hitler's Angel" article was published Bush and Harriman made no attempts to divest themselves of the controversial Thyssen financial alliance, nor did they challenge the newspaper report that UBC was, in fact, a de facto Nazi front organization in the U.S.

Instead, the government documents show, Bush and his partners increased their subterfuge to try to conceal the true nature and ownership of their various businesses, particularly after the U.S. entered the war. The documents also disclose that Cornelis Lievense, Thyssen's personal appointee to oversee U.S. matters for his Rotterdam-based Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., via UBC for nearly two decades, repeatedly denied to U.S. government investigators any knowledge of the ownership of the Netherlands bank or the role of Thyssen in it.

UBC's original group of business associates included George Herbert Walker, who had a relationship with the Harriman family that began in 1919. In 1922, Walker and W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin to set up the German branch of their banking and investment operations, which were largely based on critical war resources such as steel and coal.

The Walker-Harriman-created German industrial alliance also included partnership with another German titan who supported Hitler's rise, Friedrich Flick, who partnered with Thyssen in the German Steel Trust that forged the Nazi war machine. For his role in using slave labor and his own steel, coal and arms resources to build Hitler's war effort, Flick was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The Family Business

In 1926, after Prescott Bush had married Walker's daughter, Dorothy, Walker brought Bush in as a vice president of the private banking and investment firm of W.A. Harriman & Co., also located in New York. Bush became a partner in the firm that later became Brown Brothers Harriman and the largest private investment bank in the world. Eventually, Bush became a director of and stockholder in UBC.

However, the government documents note that Bush, Harriman, Lievense and the other UBC stockholders were in fact "nominees," or phantom shareholders, for Thyssen and his Holland bank, meaning that they acted at the direct behest of their German client.

Seized

On October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized UBC and liquidated its assets after the war. The seizure is confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley.

In August, under the same authority, Congress had seized the first of the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entities, Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126, also signed by Crowley. Eight days after the seizure of UBC, Congress invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act again to take control of two more Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses - Holland-American Trading Corp. (Vesting Order No. 261) and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp (Vesting Order No. 259). In November, Congress seized the Nazi interests in Silesian-American Corporation, which allegedly profited from slave labor at Auschwitz via a partnership with I.G. Farben, Hitler's third major industrial patron and partner in the infrastructure of the Third Reich.

The documents from the Archives also show that the Bushes and Harrimans shipped valuable U.S. assets, including gold, coal, steel and U.S. Treasury and war bonds, to their foreign clients overseas as Hitler geared up for his 1939 invasion of Poland, the event that sparked World War II.

That's One Way to Put It

Following the Congressional seizures of UBC and the other four Bush-Harriman-Thyssen enterprises, The New York Times reported on December 16, 1944, in a brief story on page 25, that UBC had "received authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway." The Times story did not report that UBC had been seized by the U.S. government or that the new address was the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian. The story also neglected to mention that the other UBC-related businesses had also been seized by Congress.

Still No Story?

Since then, the information has not appeared in any U.S. news coverage of any Bush political campaign, nor has it been included in any of the major Bush family biographies. It was, however, covered extensively in George H.W. Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. Chaitkin's father served as an attorney in the 1940s for some of the victims of the Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

The book gave a detailed, accurate accounting of the Bush family's long Nazi affiliation, but no mainstream U.S. media entity reported on or even investigated the allegations, despite careful documentation by the authors. Major booksellers declined to distribute the book, which was dismissed by Bush supporters as biased and untrue. Its authors struggled even to be reviewed in reputable newspapers. That the book was published by a Lyndon LaRouche's organization undoubtedly made it easier to dismiss, but does not change the facts.

The essence of the story been posted for years on various Internet sites, including BuzzFlash.com and TakeBackTheMedia.com, but no online media seem to have independently confirmed it.

Likewise, the mainstream media have apparently made no attempt since World War II to either verify or disprove the allegations of Nazi collaboration against the Bush family. Instead, they have attempted to dismiss or discredit such Internet sites or "unauthorized" books without any journalistic inquiry or research into their veracity.

Loyal Defenders

The National Review ran an essay on September 1 by their White House correspondent Byron York, entitled "Annals of Bush-Hating." It begins mockingly: "Are you aware of the murderous history of George W. Bush - indeed, of the entire Bush family? Are you aware of the president's Nazi sympathies? His crimes against humanity? And do you know, by the way, that George W. Bush is a certifiable moron?" York goes on to discredit the "Bush is a moron" IQ hoax, but fails to disprove the Nazi connection.

The more liberal Boston Globe ran a column September 29 by Reason magazine's Cathy Young in which she referred to "Bush-o-phobes on the Internet" who "repeat preposterous claims about the Bush family's alleged Nazi connections."

Poles Tackle the Topic

Newsweek Polska, the magazine's Polish edition, published a short piece on the "Bush Nazi past" in its March 5, 2003 edition. The item reported that "the Bush family reaped rewards from the forced-labor prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp," according to a copyrighted English-language translation from Scoop Media (www.scoop.co.nz). The story also reported the seizure of the various Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

Still Not Interested

Major U.S. media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, have repeatedly declined to investigate the story when information regarding discovery of the documents was presented to them beginning Friday, August 29. Newsweek U.S. correspondent Michael Isikoff, famous for his reporting of big scoops during the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair of the 1990s, declined twice to accept an exclusive story based on the documents from the archives.

Oh Screw the MSM, Cabal News and many, many other spewers of lies and witholders of truth. (Deception is a cardinal sin, don't ya know? Actually, it is so prevalent that the Christian Church does not recognize it as deadly, only venal a venal sin. Nevertheless, it is recognized by the mystical sects of all three major Abrahamic religions as a deadly or cardinal sin.)

If any should wonder at this, just take a look at our nation and the world. Take a long look at what the deception of the American people (not all of us) has done to our country, the Iraqis and the people of Afghanistan.

Unfortunatley, those of us who were not deceived by the Bush Family Evil Empire were not strong enough in number nor poltical power to stop the disaster in Iraq and elsewhere.

Will we be strong enough to stop the attack on Iran? If not, will we be ready to take action should such an attack occur?

Aftermath

After the seizures of the various businesses they oversaw with Cornelis Lievense and his German partners, the U.S. government quietly settled with Bush, Harriman and others after the war. Bush and Harriman each received $1.5 million in cash as compensation for their seized business assets.

In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past. There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.

One has to wonder how this is possible? One has to wonder how this bunch can commit crime after crime against the constitution and international crimes of untold horror and rest assured that Congress will do nothing. That is a question I would like to see answered.

John Buchanan is a journalist and investigative reporter with 33 years of experience in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Miami. His work has appeared in more than 50 newspapers, magazines and books. He can be reached by e-mail at: jtwg@bellsouth.net.

Source:

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi%20Link

Related Links:

Bush-Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951 - Federal Documents
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/bushnazidealingscontinueduntil1951.htm

Bush's Grandfather Was Director Of Bank Affiliated With Hitler
by John Buchanan, The New Hampshire Gazette
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031019/frontpage/127827.shtml

Bush Grandfather Director Of Bank With Hitler Ties
by John Buchanan, October 17, 2003
http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.asp?id=B4991F07-2A7B-49BC-A470-D14A355D2C9A

Bush Ancestor's Bank Seized By Government
by Jonathan D. Salant, Associated Press Writer
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V8053.AP-Prescott-Bush-N.html

President's Family Had Links To Bank With Ties To Hitler Supporter
by Jonathan Salant, Washington D.C., October 21, 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/20/1066631359649.html

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.