shouldn’t we be able to do it in Washington, D.C.?

A Texas grand jury has issued indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney general Alberto Gonzalez over abuse at privately run prisons, court documents showed.

The three-page indictment Tuesday alleges that Cheney profited from the abuse because he invested 85 million dollars in a mutual fund company which holds shares of for-profit prisons.

It said this is a “direct conflict of interest” because Cheney had influence over the federal contracts awarded to the prison companies.

The indictment also accused Cheney of committing “at least misdemeanor assaults” of inmates by allowing other inmates to assault them.

The indictment further alleges that Gonzalez “participated by further having used his position … to stop the investigations as to the wrong doings which includes the assaults committed in the prison for profit in Willacy County, Texas.”

Cheney and Gonzalez were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.

Music to my ears.

I know what Obama said, that prosecutions for torture are not on his to-do list. But to say otherwise while Bush still has the power to pardon everyone in his whole goddamn administration would be stupid. And he said nothing about war crimes, which would include, of course, the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

If Obama fails to bring justice for the 1,000,000 Iraqis who have died as a result of BushCo’s murderous gambit, we’ll just have to make sure that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfled, Gonzales et al. take a vacation in one of the many countries that are parties to the Geneva Conventions.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

The CIA can hide statements from imprisoned suspected terrorists that the agency tortured them in its set of secret prisons, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review the government’s assertions that the allegations of torture from men held in the CIA’s black site prisons — whether truthful or not — would put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.

“The Court, giving deference to the agency’s detailed, good-faith declaration, is disinclined to second-guess the agency in its area of expertise through in camera review,” Lamberth wrote, referring to a procedure where a judge looks at evidence in his chamber without showing it to the opposing side.

So the CIA says it doesn’t torture, and despite evidence to the contrary this judge depends on the Agency’s “good-faith declaration” and won’t even look at the detainees’ assertions of torture to determine if the CIA had a bona fide National Security claim (which one has to assume could not be based on the security implications of revealing of torture techniques, since torture is illegal).

But the CIA also says the detainees are lying about torture, so why not allow the release of at least the lies? How does that hurt national security? How can lies (at least detainees’ lies) be a matter of national security that needs to be classified?

The CIA made a point of noting that some of the allegations of torture were untrue, but had to be redacted anyways, because blacking out the truth and allowing false statements would let a clever prisoner paint an inverse picture of CIA torture techniques.

Judge Lamberth deferred to that argument.

“Improbable though this might seem, it is conceivable,” Lamberth wrote.

So a detainee is going to lie about torture techniques in such a way that future terrorist detainees can get a hold of the ACLU report, before they’re captured, and tell by the “untrue” reports of torture techniques what the actual enhanced interrogation techniques are used, and then steel themselves against those techniques?

The CIA obviously thinks we’re all as stupid as Sarah Palin.

Least surprising of all the above:

Judge Lamberth also served as the presiding judge of the nation’s secret spying [FISA] court from 1995 to 2002. He was reportedly the first judge to learn that the Administration was spying on Americans without following the law, but says there’s nothing to worry about.

We are so full of shit as a country it’s a wonder the rest of the world doesn’t band together to eliminate the stench.

We can’t stop working on November 5. We have to push Obama to redeem this country by reversing BushCo’s cynical and devastating culture of torture, lies and secrecy.

Approving all FOIA requests related to torture, black sites and illegal wire taps during the last 8 years would be a great place to start. What do you think, Senator Leahy?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.
…
The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a propaganda market dominated by al-Qaeda, whose media operations include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. “We’re being out-communicated by a guy in a cave,” Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.

But Defense Department officials think their own products have become increasingly imaginative and competitive. Military and contractor-produced media campaigns, spotlighting killings by insurgents, “helped in developing attitudes” that led Iraqis to reject al-Qaeda in Iraq over the past two years, an official said. Now that the insurgency is in disarray, he said, the same tools “could potentially be helpful” in diminishing the influence of neighboring Iran.

Remember when I said they weren’t incompetent, that all of the disasters of BushCo had a sick, cynical motive behind them?

Jeebus, maybe they really are as deep and thoughtful as Sarah Palin.

We invaded and overthrew a rigidly secular Sunni minority dictator in a majority Shiite country. During the first Gulf War we saw Shia slaughtered by the tens of thousands, with the lucky ones - the refugees - driven into the welcoming arms of their fellow Shia in Iran.

We have propped up a Shiite puppet, al-Maliki, whose government gets overt aid and comfort from the government of Iran.

The man who made Bush’s prima facie case for war, Ahmad Chalabi, openly feeds information to Iran.

But a few million dollars of happy horseshit propaganda is going to “diminish the influence” of Iran?

Maybe I was right and they’re not incompetent after all. Maybe this $300 million in propaganda is brilliant reverse-psychology. Maybe Cheney’s grand plan is a merged Shiite super-state to take on Wahhabist Sunni Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, a World War this time centered in the Middle East - and if the war moves north to Russia, so much the better.

When the smoke clears, and all those pesky towel-heads have killed each other, we can finally rescue our precious oil that they’ve been squatting over these last hundred years.

Or, maybe Cheney’s just Goldfinger:

James Bond: Yes, well, I’ve worked out a few statistics of my own. 15 billion dollars in gold bullion weighs 10,500 tons. Sixty men would take twelve days to load it onto 200 trucks. Now, at the most, you’re going to have two hours before the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines move in and make you put it back.

Auric Goldfinger: Who mentioned anything about removing it?
…
James Bond: You plan to break into the world’s largest bank, but not to steal anything. Why?

Auric Goldfinger: Go on, Mr. Bond.

James Bond: [thinking] Mr. Ling, the Red Chinese at the factory, he’s a specialist in nuclear fission… but of course! His government’s given you a bomb.

Auric Goldfinger: I prefer to call it an “atomic device.” It’s small, but particularly dirty.

James Bond: Cobalt and iodine?

Auric Goldfinger: Precisely.

James Bond: Well, if you explode it in Fort Knox, the… the entire gold supply of the United States would be radioactive for… fifty-seven years.

Auric Goldfinger: Fifty-eight, to be exact.

James Bond: I apologize, Goldfinger. It’s an inspired deal! They get what they want, economic chaos in the West. And the value of your gold increases many times.

Auric Goldfinger: I conservatively estimate, ten times.

James Bond: Brilliant.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

I thought at the time there was something hinky going on, but I didn’t know the specifics about this until Mike Malloy mentioned it last night:

The exposure of New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s tryst with a luxury call girl had little to do with the Bush administration’s high moral standards for public servants… Timing suggests that Spitzer was likely a target of a White House and Wall Street operation to silence one of its most dangerous and vocal critics of their handling of the current financial market crisis.
…
On February 14, the Washington Post published an editorial by Spitzer titled, “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers,” which charged, “Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”
…
The editorial appeared the day after Spitzer’s ill-fated rendezvous with the prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel. With that article, some Washington insiders believe, Spitzer signed his own political death warrant.

On March 4, 2008, Spitzer furthermore proposed legislation that would have imposed penalties for mortgage fraud and predatory lending.

From Spitzer’s editorial:

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders.
…
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
…
[W]hen the dust settles, [the Bush Administration] will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

I had little sympathy for Spitzer then, and I still think he was an idiot, despite the fact that he was obviously targeted by BushCo for political assassination.

Spitzer, like John Edwards, has more than his family to answer to for his horrific bad judgment. He was elected precisely because the people of New York wanted this sort of protection from their governor - the same kind of fraud prosecution that protected New Yorkers when Spitzer was the state’s 2-term Attorney General. We all deserve better than public servants who incinerate our opportunities for a better country with their own selfish need for illicit sex.

But read Spitzer’s entire editorial and try to believe for one second that Bush, Paulson and Bernanke have the country’s best interests in mind when they make their ridiculous demands.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

From Roll Call this morning:

The White House today is drumming up extraordinary pressure on Congress to approve its plan to enact a $700 billion mortgage bailout fund, suggesting the markets cannot wait much longer and dispatching Vice President Cheney and other top officials up Pennsylvania Avenue to jawbone lawmakers.
…
But Bush himself continues to do little to explain his plan, and he has refused to be questioned about it.
…
Paulson said Congress and the administration must move rapidly.

…“The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to U.S. taxpayers.”

[White House spokesman Tony] Fratto said it would be “unthinkable” for Congress not to pass legislation this week, asserting the result would be a “very, very serious situation” for the U.S. economy.
…
Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
…
Fratto noted that some firms holding troubled securities are otherwise successful. “They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful how you deal with them,” he said.

Yup, this is Cheney’s and Paulson’s baby - and it’s been in the hopper for “months” (24?), waiting for the moment to drop it like a bomb on Congress.

h/t to emptywheel for the catch.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

that Henry Paulson gave up his position at Goldman Sachs in order to be in the position to take the economic reigns at precisely this moment in history, to be able to bail out the system - at taxpayer expense - that he helped bankrupt?

Why would the man known as “The Hammer” give up CEO compensation of $38 million a year (making in two days his current annual salary as Treasury Secretary) if it was not to (1) protect his own vast wealth and (2) bail out the banking system he spent the last ten years helping to drill into this hole?

Paulson made more $38 million in 2005, according to Goldman’s proxy statement, with most of that, $30.1 million, coming from restricted stock awards, and stock options valued at $7.3 million. He got $29.2 million in stock grants in 2004 and $20.8 million in 2003, on top of his base pay of $600,000 each of the last three years.

That’s a lot of stock value to protect.

Paulson worked in the Nixon Administration at the same time as Dick Cheney - they’re old pals. Paulson’s hiring, and his proposed monarchical 3-page bailout package, have Cheney’s bloody fingerprints all over them.

Please, call your Senators and Representative - or email if you can’t call - and tell them that their constituents’ economic future is worth a few more days of consideration and negotiation.

Wall Street can wait.

Congress main line:
(202) 224-3121

Write your representative

Write your senators

Harry Reid
(202) 224-3542
Write Reid

Nancy Pelosi
(202) 225-4965
Write Pelosi

Steny Hoyer
(202) 225-4131
Write Hoyer (use zipcode 20770)

I was gratified this morning when Maria Cantwell’s line was too busy for me to speak to an actual person - I left a message - and to find that Patty Murray’s mailbox was full. I hope they’re getting the message loud and clear.

If you can’t get through on the phone, send an email.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Amy Goodman discusses her arrest along with some other news people arrested outside of the RNC. Too bad it wasn’t Charlie Gibson or Tom Brokaw, maybe then enough attention would be garnered to stop what is happening to America. But by the time that happens, it will be too late…

OpEd News has a poll regarding a boycott of Minneapolis, St Paul until something substantial is done to recify the fascist behavior of their police force.

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

Related articles

• Tyranny on Display at the Republican Convention
• FSTV: Amy Goodman Speaks about Being Arrested at RNC

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Minneapolis in September, perhaps?

SEOUL, South Korea - Police fired water cannons at thousands of protesters Tuesday as President Bush got a volatile reception in South Korea at the start of his three-nation Asian trip.

Some 18,300 police were on high alert with riot gear and bomb-sniffing dogs to maintain order during Bush’s brief visit, the National Police Agency said.
…
As evening approached, an estimated 20,000 anti-Bush protesters gathered nearby. Police turned water cannons on them as they tried to move onto the main central downtown boulevard, telling the crowd that the liquid contained markers to tag them so they could be identified later.

Our allies are so awesome. They torture our prisoners for us and model the latest in crowd control/surveillance techniques.

Bonus Bush stupidity:

“Iraq has changed — a lot — thanks to the bravery of people in this hangar and the bravery of troops all across our country. The terrorists (are) on the run. The terrorists will be denied a safe haven, and freedom is on the march. And as a result, our children are more likely to grow up in a peaceful world.”

For the millionth time, you hairless son of a bald monkey: Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until you opened the door for them; “freedom” is just another word for 1 million civilian dead (and counting); and our children will only be more likely to grow up in a peaceful world once you and your criminal cohort are out of Washington and out of power, forever.

But enjoy your valedictory tour, Dummy - especially since the repression and surveillance activities of the regimes you are visiting have gained so much legitimacy during your tenure.

Asshole.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

No? Maybe just a little preemptive strike, then?

Bush has made me so gun-shy that even Obama’s Pax Americana talk is starting to scare me:

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

Instead of the world’s policeman, why don’t we try a few decades as the world’s Shriner clown? We can pick up all the shit our military has dropped over the last hundred years as it has paraded through countries that caused us no harm. We could build a few hospitals, entertain the people, and never kill or maim a soul.

We may think such a role is beneath us, but just think about all those old guys bellydancing down Main Street in their fezzes: they may look ridiculous, but they do a lot of good. And they clean up after themselves.

We could reduce our expenditures on military hardware and personnel so that we have only twice or three times what the next largest national military has, instead of ten times our nearest competitor. And we could use the “peace dividend” that results to retire our massive and unprecedented national debt, rebuild the dollar, pay reparations to the Iraqis and help get their country truly back on track, and reduce the amount of hatred and anger the world feels for the U.S.

Domestically, we could fully fund the care and education of our returning veterans and still have money left over for universal single-payer healthcare, free college education for all qualifying citizens, and the biggest infrastructure construction and rebuilding investment since the Great Depression.

We could invest in green technologies and wean ourselves off fossil fuels within ten years.

We could reduce green house emissions and invest in reforestation projects around the globe to trap decades of the carbon that we have released into our atmosphere.

But, with talk like Obama’s in Berlin, it looks like we’ll stay in the Big Stick business whether Obama wins or loses.

And that’s is something we should all grieve. Because while we do have the power to be the world’s policeman, with a change of motivation from fear and nationalism to compassion and humanism, we could build a global commonwealth of true freedom: political, social and economic.

But being the world’s policeman makes us feel much better about our national penis size - and keeps the GEs and Halliburtons of the world fat and greedy - so rational change is unlikely.

And that is the type of terrorism we should be fighting.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

So glad I never watch any of this brainwashing on TV. Just this video makes me want to barf and angry (yes angry Fox propagandists, oh my!) that we don’t have a government that properly regulates this trash. Fox has the legal right to espouse their views but without a competitive mix of major networks and media outlets throughout the country, there is never a chance that enough air/cable time will be devoted to refuting and correcting this endless drivel. And why people watch any of this is something I will never completely understand.

Sorry FOX, we won’t let you trash Michelle Obama

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

I know we are 3 days past the Fourth, but since Patriotism is the cheesy plastic hurdle that gets reset in the mud of every election year, I have to get this off my chest.

First, as an illustration of my larger point, it is typical - but nonetheless ridiculous - that so many on the right are lionizing Jesse Helms and expounding on the “appropriateness” of his Independence Day passing.

In my mind, his death on the 4th of July would only be “appropriate” if the Declaration of Independence itself grabbed a stiletto and did the deed, in order to redeem its original promise:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

Nope. Can’t see old Jesse signing on to that.

But back to Patriotism. The shocker?

I do not love my country. I do not love the flag of the United States of America.

I do not love any country or any flag.

I love my family, my friends and my pets. I love my tae kwon do school. I love my neighborhood. I love the taste of an exceptional port or a great rare steak or a large wedge of lemon-vanilla cheesecake. I love my artist mother-in-law’s paintings. I love the writing of Michael Chabon and Jim Harrison, and I love the fact that I can express myself and read the impassioned opinions of others on the internets. I love to be at the beach - any beach - with the sun beating down on me and blue water beckoning. And I love most of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

All of these things have a direct connection to me and mine, and enrich my life over and over.

But my country only enriches me because of an accident of birth. Had employment prospects and antisemitism not driven my ancestors to leave their birthplaces, I could have been Canadian or British or Czech - or the family line may simply have stopped around 1944, thanks to the Holocaust.

But even great-great-great-grandfather Jacob P.’s emigration and escape from modern European history makes it hard to find gratitude for my U.S. citizenship: How many of Jacob’s Sudatenland nieces, nephews and cousins died at Terezin because the U.S. refused them visas, just two decades after Jacob’s arrival in New York? And how many families like mine have lost the thread of their Jewish heritage because their ancestor, fleeing antisemitism only to confront it afresh in New York Harbor, discarded that identity in favor of Catholicism or another Christian (and therefore acceptable) sect?

Now, despite that heritage, I am seen as part of the white, Protestant, prosperous top 20%; I have neither paid for my country’s transgressions nor earned the rewards I reap simply by being the white daughter of a successful white man.

My country has only grudgingly granted equality to its non-white, non-male, non-straight, non-Christian citizens, and has yet to do so completely, or with anything approaching generosity or a recognition of past wrongs. My country continues to assert its primacy in the world based on the accepted exceptionalism of its white, straight, Christian males, enforcing that primacy through force of arms and killing millions without justification beyond its own greatness. My country regrets little and repents nothing.

And my country’s flag is nothing but a symbol, and too often an artifact of patriotic artifice, an easy pass-key into the cynical black heart of American politics.

Certainly, there are those who believe in the flag and “all it represents” with purest sincerity, but those good and trusting citizens are not the ones wielding the political and economic power in this country; they are not the ones who downsize and outsource and warmonger. They are the ones being told to hate their Hispanic neighbor, to hate the Iraqis, to hate the gays and the atheists and the feminists. They are the ones who hold tight to the flag, because its fleeting promise is the only hope that remains. And they are the ones being asked to volunteer themselves, and their sons and daughters, to the nation’s armed forces and whatever our government chooses to do with them.

“Patriotism” hides so much craven opportunism that even if I did love this country, I could not easily call myself a patriot.

Perhaps it is correct, then, that Jesse Helms be crowned as the quintessential American Patriot; he fought all his life for the privileges of his white, straight, Christian male cohort and its right to step over anyone, invade any country, steal any resource in the name of the American exceptionalism.

Is it any wonder few others love our country as much as our own American Patriots?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

I just called Baird’s office and asked his position on the FISA vote. “He hasn’t made his position public.” WHAT ARE WE PAYING HIM FOR?

I told the intern to mark me as a NO, and that with Bush at 24% Baird shouldn’t even be saying gesundheit when Dummy sneezes.

Please call Brian Baird (and/or your Congressperson) NOW and tell him/her to vote NO. Here are toll free numbers for the Capitol switchboard (courtesy of Thom Hartmann’s CallCongress.org):

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

I will use all my ~*psychic powers*~ to make you have a lousy weekend if you do not do this. I may even make it rain….

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

4 Comments

• At June 20, 2008, bushtool wrote:

  If my memory serves me right, Baird indicated on KPOJ back the last time the fascists wanted to pass retroactive immunity for illegal wiretapping that he favored doing this. They all have to protect each other, otherwise they all will end up in jail. That's the only explanation I can come up with that makes sense.

• At June 20, 2008, robert wrote:

  Vote results at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

  Baird voted Yea

• At June 20, 2008, bushtool wrote:

  Of course he did. And he needs to be replaced ASAP.

  Cheryl Crist wants to replace him

• At June 20, 2008, bushtool wrote:

  Are the Democrats Worse Than the Republicans?

  We are doomed... Hartmann cries out today to "get active" in the Democratic Party. If our representatives will not represent us and the voters keep re-electing them, what good will showing up at Democratic Party meetings and complaining do?

  We need an Article V Convention.

The dems have achieved yet another mobius reach-around, servicing the Republicans while the GOP fucks the rest of us:

Breaking months of acrimonious deadlock, House and Senate leaders from both parties have agreed to a bill that gives the nation’s spy agencies the power to turn a wide swath of domestic communication companies into intelligence-gathering operations, and that puts an end to court challenges to telecoms such as AT&T that aided the government’s secret, five-year warrantless wiretapping program.
…
The deal marks a huge, though belated, victory for a lame-duck White House, which fought a pitched, hyperbolic battle to expand its legal wiretapping powers after being busted targeting Americans without warrants.
…
The bill could be voted on as soon as Friday in the House, given its backing by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who in February organized a high-stakes showdown with the president over a substantially similar bill. The Senate would likely also quickly pass the bill, despite already vocal opposition from the ACLU, left-leaning bloggers, as well as Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).

Do none of these assholes read the paper?

24%, bitchez!!!!

What part of EVERYONE HATES GEORGE BUSH don’t you understand?

Kudos, of course, to Dodd, Leahy and Feingold, but what in the name of Christ’s holy hamstring are Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid smoking?

It’s a gorgeous afternoon here and now I just want to scream FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK at the top of my lungs.

I think a few phone calls are in order. You know the drill.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza - who blames multi-culturalism for America’s decline and godless liberals for the 9-11 attacks - will be speaking at Skyview High School as part of WSU’s Public Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series.
From the Columbian:

D’Souza is the latest in a line of prominent speakers to deliver the annual WSU Vancouver lecture, which rotates between conservative and liberal speakers. Previous lecturers include former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu (2004), Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean (2005), former Attorney General John Ashcroft (2006) and investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (2007).He will speak at 7:30 p.m. April 9 on “The Crisis at Home and Abroad: Is Religion the Problem?”
D’Souza, 46, was born in India and came to this country when he was 17, initially through a Rotary International program. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1983 and later worked as a policy analyst in the Reagan administration.

D’Souza is best known for his volatile positions and his eight books, some of which have been New York Times best sellers.
…
D’Souza, in his 2007 book “The Enemy at Home,” wrote that “the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world” and bears direct responsibility for the terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

“The Enemy at Home” was widely panned by reviewers. Alan Wolfe, writing in The New York Times, opined that the book is “a national disgrace, a sorry example of a publishing culture more concerned with the sensational than the sensible.”

D’Souza also has taken contentious positions on gay and lesbians, African-Americans, affirmative action, feminism, religion and other issues.

And if liberals need any more reason to despise him, D’Souza years ago dated fellow conservative author Ann Coulter.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At March 11, 2008, JW wrote:

  Should be interesting... More information about D'Souza's lecture is at http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/events/dsouza/

Who runs Bartertown?:

The FBI Deputizes Business

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.

InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm….

…FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”

He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”

Found at The Progressive

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At February 8, 2008, bushtool wrote:

  Watch what you say. Ari Fleischer