Look for new terror from our Fascist government soon!

Read Molly Ivins:

AUSTIN, Texas -- State of play in the Middle East: Lebanon, extensively damaged plus a half-million refugees; Syria, tired of being dissed; Israel, disproportionate. Are you kidding? Did it work last time they occupied Lebanon? Condi Rice, undercut by neocons at home? Iraq, completely fallen apart. Iran, only winner? Everybody else, mad at Bush. Most under-covered story, collapse of Iraq.

And what do I think this is? A media story, of course.

From the first day of 24/7 coverage, you could tell this was big. By the time Chapter 9,271 of the conflicts in the Middle East had gotten its own logo, everyone knew it was HUGE. I mean, like, bigger than Natalee Holloway. Then anchormen began to arrive in the Middle East and people like Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson -- real experts. Then Newt Gingrich -- and who would know better than Newt? -- declared it was World War III. Let's ratchet up the fear here -- probably good for Republican campaigning.

By then, of course, you couldn't find a television story about the back corridors of diplomacy and what was, or more importantly, what was not going on there. Between Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson, it was obviously World War III, and besides, there were a bunch of American refugees in Lebanon who couldn't get out, and so, elements of the Katrina story appeared, Thank God Anderson was there.

Meanwhile, people who should have known better were all in a World III SNIT over Chapter 9,271. Actually, they all knew better, but it was a better story if you overplayed it -- sort of like watching a horror movie that you know will turn out OK in the end, but meanwhile you get to enjoy this delicious chill of horror up your spine. … What if it really was The End? I mean, any fool could see it could easily careen out of control, and when George W. Bush is all you've got for rational, fair-minded grown-ups, well, there it is.

If I may raise a nasty political possibility. One good reason for the Bush administration to leave Chapter 9,271 to burn out of control is that this administration thrives on fear. Fear has been the text and the subtext of every Republican campaign since 9/11. Endless replay of the footage from 9/11 has graced every Republican campaign since. Could it be that 9/11 is beginning to pall, to feel as overplayed as Natalee Holloway? Fear is actually more dangerous than war in the Middle East. For those who spin dizzily toward World War III, the Apocalypse, the Rapture -- always with that delicious frisson of terror -- the slow, patient negotiations needed to get it back under control are Not News.

All we have to fear, said FDR, is fear itself. And when we are afraid, we do damage to both ourselves and to the Constitution. Our history is rank with these fits of fear. We get so afraid of some dreadful menace, so afraid of anarchists, Reds, crime or drugs or communism or illegal aliens or terrorists that we think we can make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free. We damage the Constitution because we're so afraid. We engage in torture and worse because we're afraid. We damage our standing in the world, our own finest principles, out of fear. And television enjoys scaring us. One could say cynically, "It's good for their ratings," but in truth, I think television people enjoy scary movies, too. And besides, it makes it all a bigger story for them.

What's fascinating about this as a media story is how much attention can be given to one story while still only about a fifth of it gets told. The amount of misinformation routinely reported on television is astounding. For example, "Israel is our only democratic ally in the Middle East…" How long has Turkey been a real republic and ally?

The more surprising development is how completely one story drives out another. At other times, the collapse of Iraq would have been news.

To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

 

We have a choice this election Fascism or Democracy.~ Hello in there

 The main reason for voting Democratic this year is to restore some perspective to our political dialogue.Our government was organized on an assumptiuon that there is a balance in at least one of the three branches of our governement. Of course, right now, all are controlled by one party. This can hardly be construed as representational. The entire body of our House of Representatives is up for grabs this year. The re-districitng has been a poly-partisan effort.  I think it is vitally importnat, in the absensce of a strong third or fourth party, for everyone, even Republicans, to vote Democratic this year. ~Tucker from Fort Worth

Read this on voting DEMS '06

http://www.thomhartmann.com/

"The nation I love is confronting a crisis no smaller than those faced by Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington: a crisis that will determine if American democracy survives to the next generation. So-called `conservatives' are turning our government inside out, trying, as they say, `to drown it in the bathtub,' killing off regulatory agencies, ripping up the Constitution, cutting funding to social services, and turning pollution controls over to industry. Government expenses in the trillions of dollars are being shifted from us, today, to the shoulders of our children, who will certainly have to repay the deficits Bush's so-called `tax cuts' (which are really tax deferrals) are racking up. War is being waged in our name and without our consent.

"And, most disconcerting, the leadership of this administration is made up of blatantly profiteering CEOs, former defense industry lobbyists, and failed hack politicians so outside the mainstream that one -- Ashcroft - even lost an election in his home state against a dead guy.

"Unlike most other modern democracies, our American electoral system only allows for two political parties, at least at the national level. So, given that the rich, the polluters, the paranoid, and the zealot war-mongers got to the Republicans first, we have no choice but to take back the Democratic Party, reinvigorate it, reorient it, and lead it to success in 2004. We may not be able to stop Bush now, but we sure as hell can throw him out of office next year at the ballot box."

But what, some have said in response, about the corporate-controlled media?

That was the same problem faced by the Christian Right 25 years ago, when the coverage they could get was of Tammy Faye Bakker scandals. But once they'd taken over the Republican Party, the press could no longer ignore them, and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are now regulars on network TV.

Another person answered my now-form-email by saying, "I want to participate in producing a detailed plan for the future of America, rather than just joining a corrupt and tired-out political party."

My response was that if there were enough of us in the Democratic Party, it could become a cleaned-up and powerful activist force. It's possible: just look at how the anti-abortion and gun-nut folks took over the once-moribund Republican Party.

Another said, "But what about their rigged computer-controlled voting machines?"

My answer is that only a political party as large and resourceful as the Democrats could have the power to re-institute exit polling, and catch scams like the voter-list purges Jeb Bush used to steal the 2000 and 2002 elections for himself and his brother.

And the Democratic Party can only do it if we, in massive numbers, join it, embrace it, and ultimately gain a powerful and decisive voice in its policy-making and selection of candidates.

 Thom Hartmann is the author of over a dozen books, including Unequal Protection and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

The President has claimed that his stem cell research veto is about values - but you and I know these are far from the real values that most Americans share.

Instead, the President has adopted the extreme so-called "values voter" agenda of right-wing ideologues like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson.

While the President's misguided veto was a momentary victory for the religious right, your incredible work on this issue showed that they have a serious fight on their hands. From the Senate's overwhelming passage of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, to the tens of thousands of emails sent to the President prior to his veto, DefCon members led this fight for health and hope.

Now, you can count on us - DefCon - to continue this critical fight. But we need your help. Become a DefCon Defender today.

While the religious right was able to hold sway over the President, defeating our stem cell effort, the truth is their agenda is failing. Instead of focusing on critical issues for America like the war in Iraq, the energy crisis, and serious environmental concerns like global warming, they are throwing out smokescreen "value votes" like flag burning and gay marriage. And they are losing. They are losing because a majority of Americans do not support their extreme right-wing agenda.

Now is the time when we can most effectively fight their stranglehold on America.

Over the next few months, we plan an all-out assault - DefCon's REAL American Values Campaign. We plan to wage a full-scale, aggressive campaign to counter and combat the religious right at every level including:

• continuing our fight for stem cell research at the state level;
• defending sound science education, including fighting intelligent design in states like Kansas;
• continuing our aggressive media campaign to expose the religious right's agenda and their improper influence over our elected officials;
• continuing to mobilize the tens of millions of Americans opposed to the religious right, and working to draft them into our Army of DefCon defenders; and
• organizing local counter events to the upcoming right-wing focused Values Voters Summit in Washington D.C this September (more on this soon!).

But we need you to join our fight. Help us rescue America from the extremists who are masquerading as patriotic Americans. It's time for people like you and me - people with real American values - to topple the Religious Right.

Join the fight today.

Sincerely,
Jessica, Clark and the rest of the DefCon Team

 

Today George Bush chose political posturing over human life, denying hope to millions of Americans, their families and loved ones who are affected by debilitating diseases. He used his first-ever veto to stop the discovery of new cures for diseases like juvenile diabetes, leukemia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and many others. More than 70% of Americans from every walk of life -- whether in the faith community, the science lab, the hospital or at the bedside of a sick relative -- and majorities in both chambers of Congress disagree, but that didn't stop him. The bill he vetoed wasn't a sweeping change -- it was a small, practical measure that would have made a big difference for medical research based on sound science. But the consequences are sweeping: the proposed law would have allowed research on excess embryos generated during processes like fertility treatments -- embryos that would otherwise simply be discarded. Now is the time to speak out. Send a message to your representatives letting them know that you support cure discovery now: http://www.democrats.org/curediscovery

Every election since 2000 has been stolen,

hacked and the 2006 elections will be too,

we have a tyranny of the minority that is

leading us into doom~ Hello in there

RFK Jr. Blows the Whistle on Diebold

By John Ireland, In These Times
Posted on July 21, 2006, Printed on July 21, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39152/

On July 13, the Pensacola, Fla.-based law firm of
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a "qui tam" lawsuit
in U.S. District Court, alleging that Diebold and
other electronic voting machine (EVM) companies
fraudulently represented to state election boards
and the federal government that their products were "unhackable."

Kennedy claims to have witnesses "centrally
located, deep within the corporations," who will
confirm that company officials withheld their
knowledge of problems with accuracy, reliability
and security of EVMs in order to procure
government contracts. Since going into service,
many of these machines have been linked to allegations of election fraud.

The Growing Threat of Right-Wing Christians

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet. Posted July 19, 2006.

"New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard is the pastor there. He has a call with the White House every single week. Other churches are networked in through the Family Research Council in D.C. It's run by Tony Perkins who has these conference calls ...

He's literally relaying marching orders from Washington, D.C."

Michelle Goldberg says progressives need to wake up and pay attention to the enormous -- and growing -- influence of the radical Christian right.

"I don't want to be alarmist, but this is actually quite alarming," Michelle Goldberg said. She was referring to the subject of her new book, "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism," which chronicles the steady rise of the neocons of Christianity.

Whether she's attending a Ten Commandments conference or joining Tony Perkins' conference calls to listen in on what D.C. agenda will be passed on to congregations, Goldberg's reporting offers insight into a movement that has reshaped the nation's political and cultural landscape. Goldberg did not go undercover, nor wear any disguise. Rather, she simply showed up, listened and learned. And what she has learned is definitely alarming.

Traveling around the country on her book tour, Goldberg notes that many people have approached her with stories that illustrate the religious intolerance that is the hallmark of an aggressive Christian movement. On a muggy day in Brooklyn, Goldberg sat down with me to discuss the need for Americans -- particularly progressives and liberals -- to recognize the sophisticated intellectual structure of Christian Nationalism, and how it has succeeded in constructing a parallel reality based on Biblical rhetoric and revisionist history. 

BREAKING: DNC'S VOTING RIGHTS INSTITUTE ISSUES STATEMENT CALLING FOR 'MANUAL COUNT' OF ALL BALLOTS IN BUSBY/BILBRAY ELECTION!
Denounces Adminstrative Failures, Irregularities, Security Breaches and Diebold Voting Machine 'Sleepovers' in Bellwether June 6th U.S. House Special Election!
Announcement Comes as DNC Chair Howard Dean Set to Address Activist, Election Integrity Convention in San Diego!

Filed by Brad Friedman from San Diego…

In a harshly worded statement, the DNC's Voting Rights Institute has issued a statement condeming the adminstration of the recent U.S. House race between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray joining a growing national outcry in calling for "a swift and verifiable 'manual count' of all 150,000 ballots cast in California's 50th District's 'bellwether' June 6th special election."

"This is no longer about whether or not Busby or Bilbray won the election on June 6th," the just-issued statement reads, "This is about the importance of verifying the facts related to election and voting machine irregularities in this race and the need to ensure an accurate count of all votes cast in this election so that the electorate may have confidence in the announced results in future elections."…

Click here to read the statement from the Democrats’ Voting Rights Institute: http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/07/dnc_voting_righ.php

Diebold Variations

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Religious fundamentalists believe God gave us a brain, but doesn’t want us to use it.  Political fundamentalists believe the founders endorsed free speech, but didn’t want us to practice it.  Free market fundamentalists believe there should be no interference with markets, except by CEOs of gigantic corporations.

This is one book on my summer reading list.

We have to wake up and smell the bullshit.

The right wing Fishkins are a powerful lot

of assholes. They call themselves Christian.

Or The Religious Right. They are not truly

religious and they are not right. They are

dead wrong. , They call themselves the moral

majority, they are an immoral minority,

 a hate-filled buch of bigots, what we have now

is a tyranny of the minority, A new Megachurch is

built every 2 days ~ Hello In There

read/hear interview on Democracy Now,

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism In her book, "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism," author...
Friday, July 7th, 2006

Read the review by Thom Hartmann

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism - Thom Hartmann's "Independent Thinker" Book of the Month Review
http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/06/07/har06007.html

 

A film playing this July 28,

I'll be there in Austin ~ Hello In There

America: from Freedom to Fascism

Dear Lovers of Liberty: Click the link below to sign this petition and demand that the United States Congress: Sign Here Now! Immediately shut down the Federal Reserve System Restore money creation to Congress as mandated in the U. S. Constitution Protect American national sovereignty and stop its head-long rush into world government

Sign up now to join us in the fight to keep America a free country.

Primary Objectives Stop the polarization of America Stop the domination of the Democratic and Republican parties over our political system Shut down the Federal Reserve system Return America's gold to Fort Knox and have it audited Have Congress and the IRS, in a public forum, reveal the law that requires Americans to pay a direct, unapportioned tax on their labor. Make computerized voting illegal in all 50 states Keep the internet free and out of the control of large institutions Rescind the law called the Real ID Act so Americans never have to carry a National ID Card Make it illegal to implant RFID chips in human beings Educate juries to the fact that they have the right to determine the law as well as the facts of a case Educate juries to the fact that they are not obligated to follow the instructions of a judge Stop Globalization because it is the path to a one world government Protect our borders Restore the environment Put an end to the Patriot Act Sign up millions of Americans so we can accomplish our objectives

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

This Week's Top Ten Conservative Idiots 7/10

 

The stolen election of 2004
Columbus Free Press - Columbus,OH,USA
... 2004 presidential contest between Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry and the Republican incumbent, President Bush Jr., amounted to another stolen election ...

The Next Stage of the 9/11 Truth Movement
Bay Area Indymedia - San Francisco,CA,USA
... The 2nd stolen election created a greater movement for 'real' election reform, and greater awareness of the ability of the press to censor vital information ...

Election Issues

The Democrats must now say "We Do Not Concede" in the U.S. as it's being said in Mexico
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
July 9, 2006

Lopez Obrador is saying in Mexico what the Democratic Party should have been saying in the United States since November 2000: WE DO NOT CONCEDE. And no Democrat should ever again be nominated for any public office without first pledging to guarantee a full and thorough recount, as is being attempted in Mexico.

We do not yet know the final official outcome of the Mexican presidential election. We do know the vote casting and counting have been plagued with some of the same kinds of intimidation, theft, fraud and electronic manipulation that have become the staples of Rove-run elections here in the United States.

Published on Monday, July 3, 2006 by the Progressive Put Away the Flags by Howard Zinn   On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power. National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves. Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. That self-deception started early. When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession." When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day." On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country." It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war. We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people. As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness." We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture. Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies. How many times have we heard President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"? One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq. And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail last year that God speaks through him. We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history. We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation. Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, is the author of the best-selling "A People's History of the United States" (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). Email to: pmproj@progressive.org © 2006 The Progressive

Published on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 by the Boston Globe Understanding the Meaning of Freedom by George Lakoff   Not since the Civil War has America been more divided politically. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom in America was to be. The issue was in the open for all to see: human slavery, the bluntest effrontery to the idea of freedom. The Culture War today is once more about the question of what freedom is to be in America. But it is subtler. No slaves. Instead, ``detainees" in Guantanamo, held without due process; more than a million young African-Americans in US prisons, many held for nonviolent or victimless crimes; torture in Abu Ghraib and at secret destinations in Egypt and Syria; government spying on ordinary citizens. No slaves. Instead, illegal immigrants who want to come here to do back-breaking work for low pay and few rights. Remarkably, all this is in the name of ``freedom." It is a right-wing conservative conception of freedom and it flies in the face of the freedoms declared by the Founding Fathers and expanded upon since.   Read more...

POAC ENDORSED: The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022 

 

Greg Palast

STEALING IT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES

Matt Pascarella in Mexico City
Greg Palast in London
Monday, 3 July for The Guardian
Dispatch from Mexico City

Gore v. Bush.
Kerry v Bush.
Lopez Obrador v Calderon.

As in Florida in 2000, as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate, but the race is “officially” too close to call.

But they will call it — after they steal it. Reuters News agency reports that, as of 8pm Eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls show Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the “left-wing” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN).

We’ve said again and again: Exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can’t tell pollsters if their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science — and Calderon’s ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.

Calderon’s election is openly supported by the Bush Administration…

This past Friday, we reported that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained Mexico’s voter files under a secret “counterterrorism” contract with database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia. (See BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY “FLORIDIZE” MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.)

The FBI’s contractor states that, following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican
government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter’s right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting.

It is, of course, impossible to know if the FBI destroyed its own copy of the files of Mexico’s voter rolls obtained by Choicepoint or if these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy.
But we can see the results: as in the US, first in Florida then in Ohio, the exit polls are at odds with “official” polls…

Our democracy hasn’t been in this much danger since we fought the Redcoats.
Rolling Stone

The 2004 Election

Kennedy report ignites controversy

During a White House press briefing on June 8th, a tough question caught Tony Snow off guard. "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written an article in Rolling Stone which revisits the Ohio vote in 2004," a Baltimore radio reporter asked Bush's spokesman. "Does the president believe Kennedy has raised any new evidence of voter fraud?"

Snow tried to deflect the question with a joke, suggesting that the reporter should serve as Bush's "emissary from Rolling Stone." But many citizens, journalists and elected officials are taking our four-month investigation of vote-rigging in Ohio far more seriously ["Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" RS 1002]. The debate began online, where the story set off a firestorm. More than 700,000 people logged on to rollingstone.com to read the story, and thousands of bloggers posted heated entries about Kennedy's report.

The online furor caught the attention of some in the mainstream press, which has long downplayed the evidence of vote tampering…

Even Democrats who have been slow to question the election results were convinced by Kennedy's exhaustive report…

Kennedy, meanwhile, is preparing to up the ante on those he believes abetted the GOP's electoral theft. In July, the outspoken attorney plans to file "whistle-blower" lawsuits against two leading manufacturers of electronic voting machines. According to Kennedy, company insiders are prepared to testify that the firms knowingly made false claims when they sold their voting systems to the government -- misrepresenting the accuracy, reliability and security of machines that will be used by 72 million voters this November…

TIM DICKINSON