Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 09:25 - Category: Unfiled ;
I helped John Amato start CrooksandLiars. He virtually invented online news video blogging, gets a zillion hits a day, and has worked real hard to make C&L the great blog that it is. Way to go, pal!
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 08:51 - Category: Anti-war ;
French told CIA of bogus intelligence
The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before the war that there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ex-officials say.
More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.
The repeated warnings from France’s Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure did not prevent the Bush administration from making the case aggressively that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons materials.
It was not the first time a foreign government tried to warn U.S. officials off of dubious prewar intelligence.
And it was not the first time the Bushies ignored the truth, and just made shit up as their jusatification for war.
In the notorious "Curveball" case, an Iraqi who defected to Germany claimed to have knowledge of Iraqi biological weapons. Bush and other U.S. officials repeatedly cited Curveball’s claims even as German intelligence officials argued that he was unstable and might be a fabricator.
An unstable fabricator? Was the German official referring to Dubya?
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
It’s a poverty draft. The military targets people of color in working class areas for recruitment. This ANSWER LA Youth and Student rally was held at the Military Entrance Processing Center in the heavily Black and Latino South LA. It’s no accident this is recruiting HQ for all of L.A.
Two speakers said that they’d been at this very building eleven years ago, how recruiters pursued them, fed them a string of lies about how wonderful things would be in the Army. (Imagine what the recruiting lies are like now.) Both eventually saw through the ruse and said no. But too many others say yes, and some of them are coming home in body bags now.
One fascinating note: Generally when we have a street corner demo, at least some driving by will scream insults at us. That didn’t happen this time. Lots of people honked in support and no one, absolutely no one, was hostile…
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
The Army Corps agrees in an initial study that the New Orleans (levee) system was probably overtaxed.
In a stunning burst of intellectual prowess and deduction, Col. Fred "Bulldozer" McCarthy said preliminary data indicated the levees failed because "there was too much water", but that complete confirmation of this would require a comprehensive study costing ten million dollars and that if "stupid, poor people" had only lived on higher ground, "none of this would have happened." The solution he said, was to "bulldoze the city into submission, that it was necessary to destroy the city to save it."
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Federal prosecutors have all but finalized a plea agreement with a second business partner of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for cooperation in the ongoing criminal investigations of Abramoff, congressional aides and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), lawyers in the case said yesterday.Adam Kidan, a longtime confidant of Abramoff’s, has agreed to testify against Abramoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., next month when he is to face trial on fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with their purchase of a fleet of Florida casino boats. A Kidan plea would tie Abramoff’s legal troubles in Florida more closely to the Washington investigation into his lobbying practices, pressuring Abramoff to reach a deal of his own that could implicate members of Congress and other government officials, lawyers involved in the case said.
"Adam will testify against Abramoff and Ney if he is given an opportunity to do so," said Joseph Conway, an attorney for Kidan.
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:11 - Category: Anti-war ;
Lowell Weicker may return to politics over Lieberman’s support of war
No politician in Connectict has greater stature than Lowell Weicker, who once ran as an independent for governor - and won.
"When you’ve become the president’s best friend on the war in Iraq, you should not be in office, especially if you’re in the opposing party," Mr. Weicker, 74, said in a phone interview from his home in Essex, Conn. "I’m going to do everything I can to see that Joe Lieberman does not get a free pass."
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:11 - Category: Torture ;
An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US intelligence agencies.
Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA’s network of ‘black sites’.
In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.
A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in ‘deep crisis’ following last week’s international political storm over the agency’s practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. ‘The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,’ he said. ‘They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don’t have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they’re thinking about trying to resign altogether.’
For those who think Valerie Plame worked for a honorable agency or that somehow what she did is worth defending, well, this is what the CIA does. May the whole twisted lot of deranged, corrupt thugs who apparently run DC rip each other to shreds in their panic to avoid prison. The world will be a better place after they’ve been driven from power. And they will be driven from power.
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:10 - Category: Torture ;
Poland’s prime minister said Saturday he has ordered an investigation into whether the CIA ran secret prisons for terror suspects in the country - an allegation the government repeatedly has denied.
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said a "detailed" probe would be conducted to "check if there is any proof that such an event took place in our country. It is necessary to finally close the issue because it could be dangerous to Poland."
So, the Polish government is launching an investigation into something they denied happened so they can "close the issue." Uh huh. I’m guessing the official conclusion will be everyone was blameless, blameless I tell you, and no prisons ever existed so stop asking.
Bob Morris @ Dec 11th 2005 00:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
Authorities in Los Angeles are concerned about possible rioting if the co-founder of the Crips street gang, Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
Robin Toma, executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said the organization had received "credible" threats of violence if Williams is put to death.
There are also fears that Williams’ execution could cause unrest in the prison system.
Subscribe
