[click image, video, hour and a half]Open your eyes.
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[click image]Dear 99,
It turns out the Bush years were far worse than we ever imagined - and we were not shy in our imaginings.
Previously classified internal legal memos released by the Obama administration earlier this week demonstrate that the Bush administration acted under the belief that it had virtually unchecked power after 9/11. The combined effect of the memos, which in theory gave the president the power to deploy the military on our soil, ignore Fourth Amendment protections of our privacy, and even proscribe First Amendment freedom of speech protections, led writer Scott Horton to declare that in the post-9/11 era "this country was a dictatorship."
American Freedom Campaign co-founder Naomi Wolf wrote a powerful piece for Huffington Post conveying her initial reaction to the contents of the memos. She concluded, "We need to stare [the memos] in the face and understand them: they are evidence that the groundwork was laid out that gave the president the legal power to effectively subvert the Republic."
While we are outraged by these memos, we do want to highlight one positive note. The American Freedom Campaign, led by members like you, helped to reverse one of the most objectionable policies - a memo declaring that the president had the power to deploy the military on our soil, a practice long prohibited under federal law. At the end of September 2008, a couple of small media outlets reported that President Bush had assigned the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team to be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army component of Northern Command (NorthCom). In response, AFC helped raise awareness about the potential dangers involved and encouraged members to take action. Just days later, the administration drafted a memo [pdf] repudiating the earlier memo's authorization of far-reaching domestic military operations.
But certainly the news is not all positive. If you continue to be outraged and disgusted by the actions of Bush administration officials, including John Yoo, who wrote a number of the administration's most notorious memos, such as those authorizing torture, you can take action through existing actions on the AFC Web site. Here are two options:
Send an E-mail to Attorney General Eric Holder, urging him to launch a full criminal investigation of Bush administration activities -- from torture to warrantless wiretapping and beyond -- with prosecutions where it is found that the laws of the United States have been violated. Click here to take action:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26685
Send a strongly worded E-mail to Christopher Edley, Jr, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, urging the dismissal of John Yoo. While the pre-written E-mail on the site is torture-specific, the sentiment remains the same. Here is the link to that action:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24188
We do not intend to let Bush administration officials ride off into the sunset after their widespread assault on our laws and our Constitution. We hope that you will join us as we continue to push for serious accountability.
Naomi Wolf, and her compatriots, among whom I want to be counted, are doing their best to sound the alarms and push for the America we all grew up believing... knowing... we were born in. Not only should we be signing all these things they put out for us, but as noted here at my blog before and now, even at P U L S E, we need to take this to a level that cannot be outright ignored or dismissed as a circus easily crushed by nasty "riot police".

Clinton speaks up for Abbas, and aid for Gaza
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH – 2 hours ago
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised personal involvement in stalled Mideast peace efforts Wednesday and expressed concern about the supply of humanitarian aid to a recovering Gaza.
On her first Mideast visit as secretary of state, Clinton also displayed strong support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Standing next to him, she told a news conference the Palestinian Authority is the "only legitimate government of the Palestinian people."
Abbas has steadily lost support at home, particularly after a year of inconclusive peace talks with Israel. His Islamic militant Hamas rivals, who seized Gaza from him in 2007, are widely seen as emerging stronger from Israel's recent military offensive against them.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu said Clinton's statement "was a slap in the face of those who were expecting changes in America foreign policy. She did not bring anything new. Instead, her statements show bias to the Zionist enemy."
In violence Wednesday, two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in an Israeli airstrike after sundown in northern Gaza, Palestinian security and health officials said. The Israeli military said the target was a senior Islamic Jihad militant who was involved in firing rockets at the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Gaza has been under a blockade since the Hamas takeover, but both Abbas and international aid officials say its borders need to reopen to make reconstruction possible after Israel's offensive ended in January.
"We want humanitarian aid to get into Gaza in sufficient amounts to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza," Clinton said, but she stopped short of calling for a full opening of the border crossings.
Israel allows in several dozen truckloads of aid every day, but bars the entry of concrete, pipes and other materials that it fears Hamas could seize.
Talking to reporters after meeting Clinton, Abbas criticized Iran, one of the main Hamas supporters, for trying to deepen the Palestinian divide. "Iran needs to take care of its own issues and stay away from intervening in Palestinian affairs," he said.
Clinton signaled that she'd be heavily involved in the region, and said her special envoy, George Mitchell, would return soon.
"The Obama administration will be vigorously engaged in efforts to forge a lasting peace between Israel, Palestinians and all of the Arab neighbors," she said.
On Tuesday, Clinton met with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
But Clinton said Tuesday that working toward the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a peace agreement with Israel "seems inescapable."
Netanyahu also supports the expansion of Israeli settlements on war-won land claimed by the Palestinians, including the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In recent days, Israel has issued orders for the demolition of dozens of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem, saying the homes were built illegally.
Palestinians say they cannot receive proper building permits from Israeli authorities, and the planned demolitions are means to assert Israel's control.
Clinton said the demolitions are "unhelpful" to peace efforts.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area. But the annexation is not internationally recognized, and the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as capital of a future independent state.
Despite unbiased and credible sources insisting that Hamas was duly elected in an impeccable exercise in real democracy, plus reports of their increasing probity with respect to rule of law and other matters of good governance, we vicious puppets of the Holocaust Industry insist on elevating that good-only-for-betraying-Palestine fucker: Abu Mazen. And Hillary is clearly enjoying it.
We don't seem to be able to stop being gleefully filthy disrespecters of human rights no matter what we do, or whom we elect.
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[my favorite picture of Brad because he looks so studious, so like he knows what he's talking about]
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No one has to "marry" anyone else politically; no one has to embrace every tenet or belief that an anti-imperialist ally might hold. You simply have to say: "All of us, regardless of our other views, believe this truth to be self-evident: dismantling the empire will bring immediate and enormous benefits to our nation and to the world."





















If in your travels you meet the Buddha, throw him through your tv set.
—Davis Fleetwood

I've found that culture, however useful and important, is neither the foundation nor the ceiling of human experience, even if it is commonly used for walls.












I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States. —Hillary Clinton






