I AIN'T MUCH FOR POLLS

except when the results are so overwhelming that the BS is outshone by the Truth.
No I am not talking about the Glorious Leader's dismal polling at 34% approval.
He still has his base. Here and there (mv) (QT here) (RP here) (56k mv here)

I am talking about the 72% of the United States Military currently based in Iraq who think they should withdrawl by the end of the year.

One Tin Soldier Rides Away <--- clicky for youtube vid

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.

words and music by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter
Copyright © 1969 by ABC / Dunhill Music, Inc.
Performed by Coven

THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS DON

JULY 21, 1924 - FEBURARY 24, 2006

Few television actors enjoy a greater fan-base or name recognition than Don Knotts, and most everyone knows of his portrayal of the inept but loveable deputy Barney Fife on the “Andy Griffith Show.” From 1960-1965, Knotts gave the world a true “anti-hero,” and the world embraced that character. But few know that Don had many other acting triumphs in a career that spanned nearly 60 years.

Jesse Donald Knotts was born on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia. True to most of his television and movie personas, Don was a shy and somewhat introverted child, prone to illness and episodes of depression. He was also bitten by the “acting bug” at an early age, and through this medium, grew in both confidence and self reliance. By the time Don was in high school, he had created a ventriloquist act, with his “dummy partner” Danny.

At the age of 19, with an interest in acting but with no real prospects, Don enlisted in the army. Upon his separation from the service, Don decided to give radio a try, and a year later, he auditioned for a local theater company. In the mid 1950s, Don landed a small but significant role in a Broadway production entitled “No time for Sergeants” with Andy Griffith. In 1958, he raised his sights, auditioned for the movie version of the play, and easily landed the part. The movie proved to be a major “career vehicle” for Andy Griffith, and he cashed in on his success by creating the role of Sheriff Andy Taylor for an upcoming television show. Griffith quickly recruited Don for a regular spot on the program. “The Andy Griffith Show” launched in 1960 and immediately became a hit. Throughout the show’s run, Don played an intricate part of the its success and garnered 5 Emmys for his work.

Drawing on a vast reserve of comedic genius, Don parlayed his “supporting actor” status into major stardom. He displayed a true gift for portraying the nervous, hypertensive fall guy, and the motion picture industry was quick to take advantage of the fact. In 1964, Don debuted in his first starring role in a picture called, “The Incredible Mr. Limpet.” This was followed by a string of pictures, including “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (1966), “The Reluctant Astronaut” (1967), “The Shakiest Gun in the West “(1968 remake of a Bob Hope classic), an “adult comedy” feature entitled “The Love God” (1969), and “How to Frame a Figg” (1971). During this run of successful movies, Don was signed by a major television network to host his own variety show. The show aired in 1970 and had a limited run of 24 episodes.

In 1975, Don signed with Disney and made a string of films, including “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo,” and a pair of highly successful projects with Tim Conway, entitled “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides, Again.” He teamed with Conway again in two non-Disney films, “The Prize Fighter” and “The Private Eyes.” In all, Don made 41 films and elevated the role of the “inept, nervous type” to an art form.

In 1979, Don returned to television with a stint on the ABC sitcom “Three’s Company.” Again, he played an accident prone, neurotic, “sidekick” character. The show enjoyed a successful run until 1984. It was in 1984 that Don recreated the role of the inept lawman in the movie “Cannonball Run II.” In the 1980s, Don teamed again with Andy Griffith in several episodes of “Matlock.”

Although Don’s storied career was nothing short of incredible, his private life was somewhat less than blessed. Don married the beautiful Kathryn Metz in 1947. The marriage produced two children, Karen and Thomas. Contrary to Don’s on-screen image, he was considered somewhat of a ladies’ man in Hollywood and was often seen in the company of beautiful starlets at various parties. His marriage to Kathryn ended in divorce in 1964 and people who claimed “inside information” cited Don’s flamboyant lifestyle as the primary reason.

Don spent the next few years enjoying his success, both on and off screen and eventually remarried in 1974 to Loralee Czuchna. The marriage lasted 9 years although the reasons for the divorce were allegedly far different this time. It was rumored that Don had become obsessive regarding his health and was prone to debilitating episodes of depression. His number of public appearances also dropped dramatically during this period of his life. Don made a rare public appearance in 2000 at an antique show in his native West Virginia. For several hours, he signed autographs and posed for photos with the crowd. Throughout the afternoon, people stood in line, some as long as two hours, just to get Don’s autograph. END.

Human says - The Incrediable Mr. Limpet is one of my favorite all time movies. I lived for Maybury. My thoughts are with his family. Goodbye Don.

2 ARTICLES : FASCISM DOWN UNDER AND CHRISTIANS CONTINUE THEIR STAND AGAINST THE BUSH REGIME

Put Out More Flags: The Making of Another America

US Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War

What they got planned for us.

From the good folks at truthout.org

Army Regulation 210-35
The Army's Civilian Inmate Program. (PDF)

Prove It.

Just how does one "prove" something? In political discourse, "proving" serious accusations is very hard. That does not mean that it is a hard sell. Especially by today's standards. From the Boston Massacre to Cheney's shooting of another, facts are hard to come by. Even more so when at the start of an event(whether planned or accidental) the management of the event is of what's primary importance to the players. The outcome and portrayal are all to often the goal and not a reasonable query of the facts to ascertain the truth of cause and effect. The main motivating force is either to deny responsibilities, put it on others or claim some accomplishment all the while showing the best face possible.

It has worked well for the American body Politic for over 200 years. But, like all things, there comes a time where the importance of collective mortal cost outweighs the well, same old crap.

With today’s threats of neverending War and planetary annilation we can not afford to let others have the same political power that they have had for a long time. Some people as you know just cannot be trusted.

The power can only be reclaimed if we have a informing knowledge of the facts. And the fact is
that a Government by and for the People is what we need to survive. It is what we lack. To get it we have some very formidable opponents. They are the richest people. Ever. Living above the Law while making new ones up. Starting Wars for more Power and Profit. They do not have one principle. Save one. Anything goes.

I think there is no better example of what type of people we are up against then their actions concerning their grab for Power. For it is in their illegitimacy, that there Achilles’ heal is.

How do I "prove" that The Bush Regime is illegitimate? Well, by what standard? A court of Law? If I had the powers of a Federal Prosecutor and with the help of a Grand Jury I think I could get a couple of people to squeal on how the 2000 election was stolen. But I am not a Cop, FBI agent or the AG of the USA. I am just an individual who tries to use my common sense to further my goal of survival. Lucky for me and you there are others who have investigated the facts. So to "prove" that the Bush Regime stole the election in 2000 all I really can do is point to the work of Greg Palast. The film and the book Titled "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" is recommendation.

What follows is an article by Mr. Palast that 1st appeared in Dec. 2000. Following that is a link to a short vid. on the stole election and then another article on how E-voting in Fla. circa 2000

Florida's flawed "voter-cleansing" program - Salon.com's politics story of the year
www.Salon.com
Monday, December 4, 2000

If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.

Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters.

But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors. The company acknowledged the error, and blamed it on the original source of the list -- the state of Texas.

Florida officials moved to put those falsely accused by Texas back on voter rolls before the election. Nevertheless, the large number of errors uncovered in individual counties suggests that thousands of eligible voters may have been turned away at the polls.

Florida is the only state that pays a private company that promises to "cleanse" voter rolls.The state signed in 1998 a $4 million contract with DBT Online, since merged into ChoicePoint, of Atlanta. The creation of the scrub list, called the central voter file, was mandated by a 1998 state voter fraud law, which followed a tumultuous year that saw Miami's mayor removed after voter fraud in the election, with dead people discovered to have cast ballots. The voter fraud law required all 67 counties to purge voter registries of duplicate registrations, deceased voters and felons, many of whom, but not all, are barred from voting in Florida.

In the process, however, the list invariably targets a minority population in Florida, where 31 percent of all black men cannot vote because of a ban on felons. In compiling a list by looking at felons from other states, Florida could, in the process, single out citizens who committed felons in other states but, after serving their time or successfully petitioning the courts, had their voting rights returned to them. According to Florida law, felons can vote once their voting rights have been reinstated.

And if this unfairly singled out minorities, it unfairly handicapped Gore: In Florida, 93 percent of African-Americans voted for the vice president.

In the 10 counties contacted by Salon, use of the central voter file seemed to vary wildly. Some found the list too unreliable and didn't use it at all. But most counties appear to have used the file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters. Counties that did their best to vet the file discovered a high level of errors, with as many as 15 percent of names incorrectly identified as felons.

News coverage has focused on some maverick Florida counties that decided not to use the central voter file, essentially breaking the law and possibly letting some ineligible felons vote.

On Friday, the Miami Herald reported that after researching voter records in 12 Florida counties -- but primarily in Palm Beach

But Palm Beach and Duval weren't the only counties to dump the list after questioning its accuracy. Madison County's elections supervisor, Linda Howell, had a peculiarly personal reason for distrusting the central voter file: She had received a letter saying that since she had committed a felony, she would not be allowed to vote.

Howell, who said she has never committed a felony, said the letter she received in March shook her faith in the process. "It really is a mess," she said.

"I was very upset," Howell said. "I know I'm not a felon." Though the mistake did get corrected and law enforcement officials were quite apologetic, Howell decided not to use the state list anymore because its "information is so flawed." She's unsure of the number of warning letters that were sent out to county residents when she first received the list in 1999, but she recalls that there were many problems. "One day we would send a letter to have someone taken off the rolls, and the next day, we would send one to put them back on again," Howell said. "It makes you look like you must be a dummy."

Dixie and Washington counties also refused to use the scrub lists. Starlet Cannon, Dixie's deputy assistant supervisor of elections, said, "I'm scared to work with it because of lot of the information they have on there is not accurate."

Carol Griffin, supervisor of elections for Washington, said, "It hasn't been accurate in the past, so we had no reason to suspect it was accurate this year."

But if some counties refused to use the list altogether, others seemed to embrace it all too enthusiastically. Etta Rosado, spokeswoman for the Volusia County Department of Elections, said the county essentially accepted the file at face value, did nothing to confirm the accuracy of it and doesn't inform citizens ahead of time that they have been dropped from the voter rolls.

"When we get the con felon list, we automatically start going through our rolls on the computer. If there's a name that says John Smith was convicted of a felony, then we enter a notation on our computer that says convicted felon -- we mark an "f" for felon -- and the date that we received it," Rosado said. "They're still on our computer, but they're on purge status," meaning they have been marked ineligible to vote.

"I don't think that it's up to us to tell them they're a convicted felon," Rosado said. "If he's on our rolls, we make a notation on there. If they show up at a polling place, we'll say, 'Wait a minute, you're a convicted felon, you can't vote. Nine out of 10 times when we repeat that to the person, they say 'Thank you' and walk away.

They don't put up arguments." Rosado doesn't know how many people in Volusia were dropped from the list as a result of being identified as felons.

Hillsborough County's elections supervisor, Pam Iorio, tried to make sure that that the bugs in the system didn't keep anyone from voting. All 3,258 county residents who were identified as possible felons on the central voter file sent by the state in June were sent a certified letter informing them that their voting rights were in jeopardy. Of that number, 551 appealed their status, and 245 of those appeals were successful.

Some had been convicted of a misdemeanor and not a felony, others were felons who had had their rights restored and others were simply cases of mistaken identity.

An additional 279 were not close matches with names on the county's own voter rolls and were not notified. Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.

Iorio says local officials did not get adequate preparation for purging felons from their rolls. "We're not used to dealing with issues of criminal justice or ascertaining who has a felony conviction," she said. Though the central voter file was supposed to facilitate the process, it was often more troublesome than the monthly circuit court lists that she had previously used to clear her rolls of duplicate registrations, the deceased and convicted felons. "The database from the state level is not always accurate," Iorio said. As a consequence, her county did its best to notify citizens who were on the list about their felony status. "We sent those individuals a certified letter, we put an ad in a local newspaper and we held a public hearing. For those who didn't respond to that, we sent out another letter by regular mail," Iorio said. "That process lasted several months."

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

While there was much about the lists that bothered Iorio, she felt she didn't have a choice but to use them. And she's right. Section 98.0975 of the Florida Constitution states: "Upon receiving the list from the division, the supervisor must attempt to verify the information provided. If the supervisor does not determine that the information provided by the division is incorrect, the supervisor must remove from the registration books by the next subsequent election the name of any person who is deceased, convicted of a felony or adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting."

But the counties have interpreted that law in different ways. Leon County used the central voter file sent in January 2000 to clean up its voter rolls, but set aside the one it received in July. According to Thomas James, the information systems officer in the county election office, the list came too late for the information to be processed.

According to Leon election supervisor Ion Sancho, "there have been some problems" with the file. Using the information received in January, Sancho sent 200 letters to county voters, by regular mail, telling them they had been identified by the state as having committed a felony and would not be allowed to vote. They were given 30 days to respond if there was an error. "They had the burden of proof," he says.

He says 20 people proved that they did not belong on the list, and a handful of angry phone calls followed on Election Day. "Some people threatened to sue us," he said, "but we haven't had any lawyers calling yet."

In Orange County, officials also sent letters to those identified as felons by the state, but they appear to have taken little care in their handling of the list. "I have no idea," said June Condrun, Orange's deputy supervisor of elections, when asked how many letters were sent out to voters. After a bit more thought, Condrun responded that "several hundred" of the letters were sent, but said she doesn't know how many people complained. Those who did call, she said, were given the phone number of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement so that they could appeal directly to it.

Many Orange County voters never got the chance to appeal in any form. Condrun noted that about one-third of the letters, which the county sent out by regular mail, were returned to the office marked undeliverable. She attributed the high rate of incorrect addresses to the age of the information sent by DBT, some of which was close to 20 years old, she said.

Miami-Dade County officials may have had similar trouble. Milton Collins, assistant supervisor of elections, said he isn't comfortable estimating how many accused felons were identified by the central voter file in his county. He said he knows that about 6,000 were notified, by regular mail, about an early list in 1999. Exactly how many were purged from the list? "I honestly couldn't tell you," he said. According to Collins, the most recent list he received from the state was one sent in January 2000, and the county applied a "two-pass system": If the information on the state list seemed accurate enough when comparing names with those on county voter lists, people were classified as felons and were then sent warning letters. Those who seemed to have only a partial match with the state data were granted "temporary inactive status." Both groups of people were given 90 days to respond or have their names struck from the rolls.

But Collins said the county has no figures for how many voters were able to successfully appeal their designation as felons.

ChoicePoint spokesman Martin Fagan concedes his company's error in passing on the bogus list from Texas. ("I guess that's a little bit embarrassing in light of the election," he says.) He defends the company's overall performance, however, dismissing the errors in 8,000 names as "a minor glitch -- less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the electorate" (though the total equals 15 times Gov. George W. Bush's claimed lead over Gore).

But he added that ChoicePoint is responsible only for turning over its raw list, which is then up to Florida officials to test and correct.

Last year, DBT Online, with which ChoicePoint would soon merge, received the unprecedented contract from the state of Florida to "cleanse" registration lists of ineligible voters -- using information gathering and matching criteria it has refused to disclose, even to local election officials in Florida.

Atlanta's ChoicePoint, a highflying dot-com specializing in sales of personal information gleaned from its database of 4 billion public and not-so-public records, has come under fire for misuse of private data from government computers.

In January, the state of Pennsylvania terminated
a contract with ChoicePoint after discovering the firm had sold citizens' personal profiles to unauthorized individuals.

Fagan says many errors could have been eliminated by matching the Social Security numbers of ex-felons on DBT lists to the Social Security numbers on voter registries. However, Florida's counties have Social Security numbers on only a fraction of their voter records. So with those two problems -- Social Security numbers missing in both the DBT's records and the counties' records -- that fail-safe check simply did not exist.

In its defense, the company proudly points to an award it received from Voter Integrity Inc. on April 1 for "innovative excellence [in] cleansing" Florida voter rolls. The conservative, nonprofit advocacy organization has campaigned in parallel with the Republican Party against the 1993 motor voter law that resulted in a nationwide increase in voter registration of 7 million, much of it among minority voters. DBT Online partnered with Voter Integrity Inc. three days later, setting up a program to let small counties "scrub" their voting lists, too.

Florida is the only state in the nation to contract the first stage of removal of voting rights to a private company. And ChoicePoint has big plans. "Given the outcome of our work in Florida," says Fagan, "and with a new president in place, we think our services will expand across the country."

Especially if that president is named "Bush." ChoicePoint's board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

And Republican power lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber lobbies for ChoicePoint in Washington. Just before his death in 1998, Rick Rozar, president of a Choicepoint company, CDB Infotek, donated $100,000 to the Republican Party.

(Alicia Montgomery, Daryl Lindsey and Anthony York contributed to this story.)
GregoryPalast@Guardian.co.uk

Original article - http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html

Short vid on stolen election(realplayer) - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3187.htm

E-Voting Fla. -
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm

A GUEST POST

By my good friend Roundearther -

As an upholder of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, I have an idea that may be full of irony, yet I need to express it as a way of analyzing it. So, here goes

If, and almost certainly when, the Congress awakes to the facts of the true State of the Union, there will be an impeachment of this administration. When pResident Bush is convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors (maybe also treason?), it would make a great deal of sense to remove his appointees, and any of the neo-conservative movement’s adherents, from whatever positions they have attained in the government due to his administration’s ascent to power.

Neo-conservativism admits no boundaries in it’s recognition of the power of the Executive. The founding of the neocon movement in America can trace its roots to the early 20th century European experiment in polity. Czars overthrown, Kaisers dismissed, Kings deposed. In this era of revolution, many political philosophers were heard, and many were dismissed by the great majority of the people. Fascist voices were heard and heeded by many seemingly intelligent people. The Italians had Mussolini, the Germans had Hitler, Spain had Franco. In the 21st century, America has Bush. Characteristic of all of these men is the fact that they were extremely powerful rulers, whose ascension to power was (is) clouded by the debris of lies and untruths. None of these guys felt any remorse for their lies and misdirection. Hitler rose to absolute power after the burning of the Reichstag, an event he himself created. Bush’s rise to power was just as incendiary, though the flames didn’t come till later. When the SCOTUS decides who gets to be President by stopping a legal vote count, there is ample reason to get alarmed. Nonetheless, America got pResident Bush. Nine months later, the pResident consolidated his power in the most seditious way. There is more than enough evidence to go to court and win a conviction. His treason was to allow an attack on American soil, which killed more than three thousand immediately, with many more dying in the years immediately following 9/11/01.

It is my contention that this is being done to bring about the destruction of the United States by the only means possible. The national leadership of the US is attempting to destroy our country. How else to explain the results of six years of one party dominance, with no checks and balances, in contravention of our Constitution? We have been lied to by the clumsiest of buffoons. As he’s lying to us, and distracting our attention, his friends have defrauded the nation of trillions of dollars. How else to explain the dire straits our national economy is in? What excuse for allowing our nation to slide into disarray? Where is the respect for laws, and ideas backed with facts; where is there any sense of realism in our national discourse? How is it that America has fallen from “Beacon of Democracy and Freedom”, to the status of “Rogue Nation”? Hubris. Arrogance. Greed.

Hubris. The assumption that we are the best. The belief that Americans, and thus their country, have found the best way to live, the best way to think, the best way to feel. We can claim that we have found the best way to govern. Yet this is only true when we are governed by people who have the best of intentions for our country. It goes without saying (I used to think) that that government must be truthful with the governed, and work within the laws of the US to advance the agenda of the US. It also is imperative that the governed be satisfied that the government has legitimate goals. The best way to gain that satisfaction is to ensure the transparency of the governing process. I submit that pResident Bush has no good intentions for the US. He has abandoned, in thought and deed, the very people who make this country work. He has done everything in his power to obscure the process by which he is governing, actively and passively. He has lied, bullied, cheated, and defrauded the people, while making sweet heart deals with his supporters.

Arrogance. We have allowed, in our name, the blatantly unfair exportation of cut-throat capitalism. We have been told the lies that we are trying to bring freedom and prosperity to subjugated peoples by exporting our way of life. In reality, the US exploits the cheapest labor on the planet, and has no problems with killing inconvenient peoples to achieve its goals. Usually, though, all that’s needed is a few well placed bribes to the proper people, and the killing can be kept to a minimum. Look into Barrick Corp. and the Tanzanian miners. Then check to see who is on the Board of Barrick Corp. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. There are so many examples of this policy in action. I may expand on these, but feel no need to do so right now.

Greed. Avarice. Never satisfied. Always wanting more. Perhaps the basic engine for capitalism, we have developed into a nation of consumers, and lost our status as producers. Heavy production industries have fled American shores, and foreign producers sell in America’s markets now. The unreality of the world economy is reflected in the fact that the American marketplace is the richest in the world, and yet the American state is the biggest debtor nation in the world. So we borrow in order to consume, and have to continue to borrow to pay the interest on the principle. The American paper held by the rst of the world is approximately 8.1 trillion dollars. This is a staggering sum, that can’t be paid off, even with drastic effort, for at least two generations, probably many more. When our debt holders call in these notes, America is either going to have to declare bankruptcy, or maybe attempt to militarily enforce a settlement. Either way, someone is going to pay for our greed.

RALLY ROUND THE FLAG

When you hear about any justification for an attack on Iran, please remember the "facts" that were used to start the continuing American - Iraq War. Please remember who promoted the attack based on those "facts".

What extent do you think the Bush Regime and its Allies will go to succeed in their plan to
attack Iran? Will they lie about the threat Iran poses? Will they use their highered "Journalists"
to promote their propaganda? Will they fund "Opposition" groups who will provide "Intell" that will be used to further justify their War Aims?

Basing their actions and their thought processes on the recent past would they maybe use a False Flag OP to justify an attack on Iran?

View this and then discuss, please.

HOBART

Up on the roof........

Left Veg Drunk

has started his South East Asia trip. For his 1st report fly over here.

Since Attorney General

Gonzalez was not put under oath for his "testimony" the following is a point by point discussion on its relevancy-










End.
Please feel free to disparage any of my thought provoking points.

LANCE CORPORAL BLAKE MILLER

"I too cannot wait until the "people" rise up, declare the Revolution, and take to the streets in armed struggle.
In other words, I hope I live to see the day these evil bastards are gunned down like rabbits."

" By evil bastards being gunned down, I of course meant all hippies, commies, and militants of all ages, gender roles, and ethnicities."

"OK. Who just got "frog-marched" here? Rove? Or Sheehan?
Gotta love this circus we call the progressive movement."

"But the peace protestors have no audience. They aren't violent enough. code pink? raging grannies? Useless isolationists who have no solutions other then to do nothing. They leach on other people to do the actual work of civilization for them, while they hoot from the stands."

Who's balls are bigger? The guy who blows up one reactor or the guy who takes out the whole damned country?
"
"The wiretap thing is good."

"So far, I like what I hear, and I like that GWB wasn't wishy-washy about Iran.
I hope he doesn't trust the Russians or Chinese to be sincere negotiators."

"Iran must come to and END!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSS"

No these are not quotes from Lance Corporal Blake Miller.

These are quotes culled from the comments section from the sickest of far right blogs.

Little Green Footballs.

Blake Miller sits with his wife, Jessica, and Candi at the home where she grew up in Virgie, Ky. The couch is theirs, the flag blanket from his grandmother Mildred. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor


Blake Miller, who received an honorable discharge after two tours of duty in Iraq, walks the property he grew up on in Jonancy, Ky., a small town in the eastern part of the state. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor


Miller helps put new wheel bearings on wife, Jessica’s, car with the help of his father, Jim, inside his dad’s garage. Miller was an auto body specialist before joining the Marines. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor


Miller has reduced his habit to a pack-and-a-half a day, the same as before the military. He increased to two-and-a-half packs right before going to Iraq and more than five in the battle zone. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor.

"I mean, how would we feel if they came over and started something here?" he asked. "I'm glad that I fought for my country. But looking back on it, I wouldn't do it all over again." LANCE CORPORAL BLAKE MILLER



"When I was in the service my opinion was whatever the Commander-in-Chief's opinion was. But after I got out, I started to think about it. The biggest question I have now is how you can make a war on an entire country when a certain group from that country is practising terrorism against you. It's as if a gang from New York went to Iraq and blew some stuff up and Iraq started a war against us because of that." LANCE CORPORAL BLAKE MILLER

Short story.

Long story.

WHAT DOES THE BUSH REGIME HAVE AGAINST DEMOCRACY?

DA LINKS - As Alito takes Supreme Court seat, Ohio GOP guts election protection

PAO4 BLUE IS ON THE JOB - Tell Allegheny County to say no to Diebold

The Bush Regime owns the machines that counts our votes.

The Bush Regime stole Ohio 2004.
Bold is Human's
GAO report upholds Ohio vote fraud claims

By Joe Baker, Senior Editor

As if the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby wasn’t enough to give the White House some heavy concerns, a report from the Government Accounting Office takes a big bite out of the Bush clique’s pretense of legitimacy.

This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.

The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.

Almost a year ago, Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the GAO to investigate the use of electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That request was made as a flood of protests from Ohio and elsewhere deluged Washington with claims that shocking irregularities were common in that vote and were linked to the machines.

CNN said the Judiciary Committee got more than 57,000 complaints after Bush’s claimed re-election. Many were made under oath in a series of statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations carried out in Ohio by the Free Press and other groups seeking to maintain transparent elections.

Online Journal.com reported that the GAO report stated that “some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.”

This is the only democratic nation that permits private partisan companies to count and tabulate the vote in secret, using privately-held software. The public is excluded from the process. Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have declared that “public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines.” The makers of nearly all electronic voting machines are owned by conservative Republicans.

The chief executive of Diebold, one of the major suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren “Wally” O’Dell, went on record in the 2004 campaign vowing to deliver Ohio and the presidency to George W. Bush.

In Ohio, Bush won by only 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Honest election advocates contend that O’Dell’s statement to hand Ohio’s vote to Bush still stands as a clear indictment of an apparently successful effort to steal the White House.

Some of the GAO’s findings are: 1. Some electronic voting machines “did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected.” In short, the machines; provided a way to manipulate the outcome of the election. In Ohio, more than 800,000 votes were cast on electronic voting machines, some registered seven times Bush’s official margin of victory.

2: the report further stated that: “it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works, so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate.” Very many sworn statements and affidavits claim that did happen in Ohio in 2004.

Next, the report says, “Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level.” The GAO found that falsifying election results without leaving evidence of doing so by using altered memory cards could easily be done.

The GAO additionally found that access to the voting network was very easy to compromise because not all electronic voting systems had supervisory functions protected by password. That meant access to one machine gave access to the whole network. That critical finding showed that rigging the election did not take a “widespread conspiracy” but simply the cooperation of a small number of operators with the power to tap into the networked machines. They could thus alter the vote totals at will. It therefore was no big task for a single programmer to flip vote numbers to give Bush the 118,775 votes.

Another factor in the Ohio election was that access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user ID, coupled with easy-to-guess passwords. Even amateur hackers could have gotten into the network and changed the vote.

System locks were easily picked, and keys were easy to copy, so gaining access to the system was a snap.

One digital machine model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary manner that if one machine experienced a power failure, the entire network would go down. That is too fragile a system to decide the presidency of the United States.

Problems obviously exist with security protocols and screening methods for vendor personnel.

The GAO study clearly shows that no responsible business would operate with a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one used in the 2004 election.

These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign. Far from the conclusion of anti-fraud skeptics, the GAO’s findings confirm that the network, which handled 800,000 Ohio votes, was vulnerable enough to permit a handful of purposeful operatives to turn the entire election by means of personal computers using comparatively simple software.

One Ohio campaign operative, Tom Noe, a coin dealer, was indicted Oct. 27 for illegally funneling $45,400 to Bush by writing checks to others, who then wrote checks to Bush’s re-election campaign, allegedly dodging the $2,000 limit on contributions by an individual.

“It’s one of the most blatant and excessive finance schemes we have encountered,” said Noel Hillman, section chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s public integrity section, as quoted in the Kansas City Star.

In the 2000 election, Florida was the key; in the 2004 election, Ohio was the key.
From the Nov. 2-8, 2005, issue. End. Original article.

So what are you going to do about it?

While the "Congress" stands and cheers the Commander-in-Thief?

Dick Cheney Vice Puppeteer:
"You know in all this excitement I don't know if we burned 9 0r 10 Amendments................... So tell me Punk, do you feel lucky?........... about 2006?