Interior Secretary Ken Salazar vowed Friday to re-open the Statue of
Liberty's crown to sightseers in New York Harbor. Closing it for security
was a mistake. If we had some people on lookout up there we might have
seen the Wall Street crash coming."
- Argus Hamilton
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We're Lettin' You Out....
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/la/2009/la090128.gif
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Iraq Won't Allow Blackwater To Operate In Country
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
Iraq will not allow Blackwater Worldwide to continue providing security
protection for U.S. diplomats in the country, Iraqi and U.S. officials
said Thursday, a move that would deprive U.S. officials of their primary
protection force.
Blackwater's image in Iraq was irrevocably tarnished by the September 2007
killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square. Five former Blackwater
guards pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 in federal court in Washington to
manslaughter and gun charges in that shooting.
Even before the shooting, Blackwater had a reputation for aggressive
operations and using excessive force in protecting American officials, an
allegation the company has disputed. ...
[Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim] Khalaf said Blackwater
employees who have not been implicated in the 2007 shooting have the right
to work in Iraq but must find a different employer.
"We sent our decision to the U.S. Embassy last Friday," Khalaf told The
Associated Press in a phone interview. "They have to find a new security
company." ...
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"President Obama gave an interview to Arab TV network Al-Arabiya.
Ironically, he was referred as Hussein more often in Fox news than during
that interview."
- Pedro Bartes
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Google Maps finally shows a clear overhead image of the official residence
of the Vice President at the National Observatory, which had been obscured
while Dick Cheney was living there.
There's a whole lot less sulphur and smoke than I had expected.
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"Moving out, Dick Cheney hurt his back. Did you hear about this? He was
packing up his junk and moving out of his office, and he hurt himself. So
apparently, the door did just hit him in the ass on the way out."
- David Letterman
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"Laura Bush visited her new house in North Dallas Saturday. The city
closed the street with a security gate. The neighbors don't mind the gate
but they're not that happy with their phone lines being routed through the
former president's guard shack."
- Argus Hamilton
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"The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist."
- Marshall McLuhan
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Thank You For Your Support....
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/cwjmo/2009/cwjmo090125.gif
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"I don't think that there's going to be a prosecution, quite frankly.
Because again, these activities.... They were authorized, they were
supported by legal opinions at the Department of Justice."
- Former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales
http://tinyurl.com/bzk38s
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In Some Alternate Universe ...
http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2009/01/in_some_alternate_universe.html
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Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo
By JOHN YOO
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123318955345726797.html
During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama
ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special
authority to interrogate terrorists.
While these actions will certainly please his base -- gone are the cries
of an "imperial presidency" -- they will also seriously handicap our
intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks. In issuing
these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law
enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11,
2001. He's also drying up the most valuable sources of intelligence on al
Qaeda, which, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, has come largely
out of the tough interrogation of high-level operatives during the early
years of the war. ...
What such a review would have made clear is that the civilian
law-enforcement system cannot prevent terrorist attacks. What is needed
are the tools to gain vital intelligence, which is why, under President
George W. Bush, the CIA could hold and interrogate high-value al Qaeda
leaders. On the advice of his intelligence advisers, the president could
have authorized coercive interrogation methods like those used by Israel
and Great Britain in their antiterrorism campaigns. (He could even
authorize waterboarding, which he did three times in the years after
9/11.) ...
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John Yoo's War Crimes
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/02/yoo/
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"...the civilian law-enforcement system cannot prevent terrorist attacks."
You mean like....
Millenium Attacks on the L.A.X.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/ops/millenium-plot.htm
Terrorist Plot to Bomb Holland Tunnel
http://tinyurl.com/75wfsh
Project Bojinka
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/project_bojinka.htm
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December 1, 2005
Doug Cassel, Notre Dame law professor: "If the president deems that he's
got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the
person's child, there is no law that can stop him?"
John Yoo: "No treaty."
Doug Cassel: "Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the
August 2002 memo [while Yoo was a Justice Department attorney]."
John Yoo: "I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do
that."
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"You know, torture is the method of choice of the lazy, the stupid and the
pseudo-tough."
- Rear Adm. John Hutson [USN-Ret.]
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Obama Must Prosecute Rumsfeld for War Crimes
http://www.progressive.org/node/125118
If I were Donald Rumsfeld, and what a horrible thought that is, I wouldn't
be traveling abroad any time soon. And I might be out looking for a
disguise here at home.
Because Rumsfeld stands before the world as an unindicted war criminal for
ordering torture while he was Bush’s Secretary of Defense.
No less a figure that the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture said on CNN
Monday that "Rumsfeld clearly authorized torture methods." The Rapporteur,
Manfred Nowak, said the United States has an "obligation" to investigate
this, and he has passed his recommendation on to the United Nations.
The smoking gun is a December 2, 2002, directive Rumsfeld issued that
ordered sensory deprivation, stress positions, isolation, and the use of
dogs on prisoners.
He also admitted hiding at least one detainee from the Red Cross, which
violates the Geneva Conventions. ...
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The White House Announced Today....
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/crsbe/2009/crsbe090127.gif
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"Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials
shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the
citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be
imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is
the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the
whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government
becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to
become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ..."
- USSC Justice Louis Brandeis
Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928)
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Fill It Up Again!
http://cagle.com/working/090128/billday.jpg
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"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is
now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced
psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of
fear."
- Gen. Douglas MacArthur
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"Al Qaeda has unleashed a stream of verbal attacks against President
Obama, calling him names and saying his policies will all end in failure.
Well, who do these people think they are, Rush Limbaugh?"
- Jay Leno
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Guantanamo Case Files In Disarray
http://tinyurl.com/bjz96p
President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245
terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the
military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and
national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from
examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there
were no comprehensive case files on many of them.
Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered
throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said.
The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within
one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately
will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the
corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.
Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are
incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling
together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They
said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share
information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and
interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower
priority. ...
Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, who served as deputy assistant defense
secretary for detainee affairs in 2006-2007, said he had persistent
problems in attempts to assemble all information on individual cases.
Threats to recommend the release or transfer of a detainee were often
required, he said, to persuade the CIA to "cough up a sentence or two."
..
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Stimulus Planning
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/01/28/fiorestimulus2.DTL
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"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore
their government to it’s true principles. It is true that in the mean time
we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war &
long oppressions of enormous public debt... If the game runs sometimes
against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall
have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this
is a game where principles are the stake."
- Thomas Jefferson
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"U.S. officials admitted Tuesday the Bush administration's warning about a
Somali terror threat on Inauguration Day was a hoax. They couldn't resist
They didn't want to miss one more chance to extend their perfect record of
being wrong about everything."
- Argus Hamilton
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Oh my, but the reich wing has been in a tizzy!!!
OBAMA SNUBS NATION'S HEROES
Becomes the First President to Skip Ball Honoring Medal of Honor
Recipients in Over 50 Years
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/8627
Barack Obama may have stumbled over his words briefly during his
inauguration, but he made an even bigger blunder later Tuesday evening.
The newly sworn-in President opted not to appear at what should have been
one of the most important Balls on his agenda that evening -- The Salute
to Heroes Inaugural Ball.
The Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball was begun in 1953 for President Dwight
Eisenhower's inauguration. The event recognized recipients of the Medal of
Honor, the nation's highest military award. There were 48 Medal of Honor
recipients in attendance, who were undoubtedly disappointed by the
Commander-in-Chief's failure to show. Over the past 56 years and 14
inaugurations, no President has skipped this event -- until now. ...
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American Legion Response On 'Salute To Heroes' Ball
http://www.allmilitary.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=21498
The American Legion, as it has on every inauguration evening since 1953,
hosted the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Banquet & Ball on January 20th. The
quadrennial event is co-sponsored with fourteen veterans service and
military service organizations and honors recipients of the Medal of
Honor. Forty-seven of these heroes attended this year's event which was
held in the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel.
President Obama was invited but did not attend. Vice-President Joe Biden
did appear, however, and was very warmly received. The new President's
absence was understandable considering the unprecedented logistical
challenges presented by the vastly increased number of visitors to this
inauguration and the necessary attendant security measures. The American
Legion, as an organization, does not feel offended or "snubbed."
Thank you,
Craig Roberts
Media Relations Manager
The American Legion
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"Former Pres. Jimmy Carter says he could get North Korea to back away from
their desire to have nuclear weapons.... now if he could only get the
peanut butter factories in Georgia to scrape the mildew off their
equipment."
- Jerry Perisho
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"President Barack Obama has also signed an executive order officially
banning torture in the United States. There goes Dick Cheney's retirement,
huh? What is he supposed to do now?"
- Jay Leno
*********************
Remember That "End Of The Tunnel" Thing?
http://cagle.com/working/090127/zyglis.gif
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