FISA Fight: The House Holds The Cards

We have to work on the House Members who we can bring over to the NO AMNESTY camp, listed in this article.

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It's All About [Them] Him

Bill Kristol tries to wring a few drops of legitimate Barack Obama criticism out of the wet and bloody rags of his reportage, and fails.

We can look forward to some real media circus acts between now and 2016.

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Rule by fear or rule by law?

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non-citizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S.

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Obama Crushes Clinton in Wisconsin

The only question now is how destructive the Clintons will be on their way down. Will they take Obama with them?

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Workers see inflation-adjusted earnings fall 1.2% for year

Forget relying on Wall Street executives heading up Treasury and the Fed to "fix" the economy.Real wages are falling for middle and lower income workers. We need to "fix" the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department: the economic managers of this war on the working class.

According to CJR

Workers are already getting slammed, according to the Associated Press. It reports that inflation-adjusted earnings have fallen 1.2 percent in the last year, including a scary half-percent plunge in January from the month before. A good part of that pinch is coming from energy prices, and oil hit another non-inflation-adjusted record yesterday of $101.32 a barrel before settling at $100.74.

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Letter to the International Herald Tribune

Paying the Price
When the Axis powers surrendered to the United Nations in 1945, there was a widespread expectation of peace and prosperity.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, there was anticipation of a large "peace dividend."

But the peace dividend has not been a savings and reprioritizing of expenses for the American people. We're not beating our swords into plowshares.

Instead, the peace dividend has proven to be a windfall for a few special interests--a handful of people connected to the energy and military industries.

From the cold war, Korea and Vietnam to Latin America and the Middle East, the peace dividend has brought neither peace nor prosperity.

Instead, oureconomy is teetering on the worst recession in at least a century, with budget cuts affecting the services that working families need and depend on.

We're borrowing $343 million every day (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-murtha/hidden-costs-to-the-war-i_b_83544.html) to pay for a war that our leaders fooled and frightened us into fighting at a current cost of $338 million per day (http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?cat=15).

Gasoline prices are close to double what they were before the war began.

The American people need to enforce the peace on the wealthy, privileged and powerful interests who--in collaboration with some of our elected officials--are stealing our peace dividend.

EPA abdicates oversight role in Florida

“For all intents and purposes, EPA has ceased to exist in Florida...” --Jeff Ruch, Executive Director, Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

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There's Nothing Mainstream About the Corporate Media

The MSM is the "Corporate Media," far right of mainstream and always protecting corporate interests above those of the American people. They serve their parent companies as three ring circuses that distract the public from performing any critical scrutiny of the real business of industry and government.

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Senate Votes to Give FISA Retroactive Immunity for Telecoms

Let there be no doubt: a majority of senators, and a large number of Democrats, think the telecoms should not suffer the hazard of accountability for cooperating with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Screw you Dems who crossed the aisle!!

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Bush's 2009 Budget & Military Contractors

Think Progress has an entry on budget and what it will mean for the Contractors.

Last week, President Bush submitted his $515.4 billion defense spending budget for FY ‘09. Contained within that budget is a windfall for defense contractors — “$104.2 billion for weapons procurement and nearly $80 billion for research and development.” This budget is 7.5 percent higher than the current year’s.

Where does the money go? Ask USAspending.org.

InfraGard or "How To Disempower the Population of a Democcracy"

InfraGard is a network for security and intelligence sharing that is being set up by the FBI to protect the infrastructure of the United States.

It was not created by Congress.

As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”

To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant.

Matthew Rothschild breaks the story at the Progressive.

Pirate Bay/Jobs endorse Obama, Clinton linked cable outages?

An amazing day for the political election, as Obama got the double-whammy endorsement from The Pirate Bay crew as well as Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Recent evidence also links the recent undersea cable damage in the Middle East to the Clinton Campaign. After a weak showing on Super Tuesday, Ron Paul also may be considering dropping out of the election.

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U.S. Acknowledges Use of Waterboarding

The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that waterboarding was used on three terror suspects. Senate Democrats are demanding a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators.

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The Surrender is Working: U.S. Cedes Town to 'Al Qaeda in Ir

"Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" retakes strategic town south of Kirkuk.

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The World's Dump: Ocean Garbage from Hawaii to Japan

Ocean garbage. It's a story that, unfortunately, is growing.

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What's Really in the U.S. Military Budget?

The US spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined! Here's a breakdown of the reported $515 billion figure, and why it should actually be $713 billion.

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Transposing Wars

Pentagon Papers Revealed Government Lies

I was struck by the ocean of disconnect between what was being reported by the U.S. press, still largely touting the official line that progress was being made in the war, and what I was witnessing at the time.

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Bush Unveils "Fiscal" 2009 "Budget"

"We've seen this script before," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). "The President proposes more of the same failed fiscal policies he has embraced throughout his time in office -- more deficit-financed war spending, more deficit-financed tax cuts tilted to benefit the wealthiest, and more borrowing from foreign nations like China and Japan. The result can only be the same -- a further explosion of debt and the undermining of our nation's economic security."

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