The WAWG Blog

Rove Mocked Spending on Flu Preparedness – Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending — stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.” What nefarious programs were Democrats trying to insert? Among other things, Rove cited $900 million for “pandemic flu preparations.” The $900 million Rove rebuked was killed when House and Senate negotiators met to iron out differences of the stimulus package between the two chambers.

Tea Party Death Threats – Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, was arrested by FBI agents who identified him as the Twitter user CitizenQuasar. In a series of tweets beginning April 11, CitizenQuasar vowed to start a “war” against the government on the steps of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, the site of that city’s version of the national “Tea Party” protests promoted by the conservative-leaning Fox News.

“START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!,” read a tweet at 8:01 PM that day. “After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!,” he added five minutes later. Then: “Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads [sic} and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps.”

Hayden’s MySpace page is a breathtaking gallery of right-wing memes about the “New World Order,” gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama’s covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Takes Washington Money – When it’s for His Campaign – Rick Perry has railed against Washington, but when it comes to campaign cash, the governor has raised far more than rival Kay Bailey Hutchison from the nation’s capital. The governor’s financial support from the Beltway undercuts efforts to distance himself from the nation’s capital by painting himself as the candidate of Texas-style government and Hutchison as the candidate of Washington, which recently landed Perry in the national spotlight amid talk of Texas secession.

“Governor Perry has built a fundraising mechanism well beyond the boundaries of Texas,” said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign money. “He has been very successful with special interest groups inside the Beltway.”

Republican Kit Bond Misrepresents the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Torture – The following exchange took place on Fox News Sunday:

Senator Kit Bond: First Carl I would say that there’s a very strong dissent from five members of your committee who said that your report was fallacious, it’s counter productive and your report itself was the one that offers the greatest opportunity for negative publicity and the high level abusive techniques that you talk about.
[…..]
Senator Carl Levin: I’ve got to answer that one thing because I’m chairman of the committee. There was no objection to this report. Seven Republicans were there when we voted on it. Not one dissented. We had months and months of opportunity for any dissenting views. That’s the report. It’s a unanimous report of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham and other Republicans specifically were there when this approved. Had every opportunity to file a dissent. Did not do that and it seems to me that it is clearly the action of a bi-partisan Senate Armed Services Committee.

Why Do Conservatives Hate America So Much to Call Our Great Country a “Banana Republic” – It doesn’t make sense anyhow:

Sean Hannity argues in favor of investigations and prosecutions of past administrations — as long as the past administrations are Democratic administrations. But they say that investigations into whether laws were broken under a Republican administrations equates America to a banana republic. That’s what the conservative media consists of: partisans offering inconsistent, insincere, and nonsensical arguments on behalf of torture and the depraved thugs who authorized it.

US Firms Have Offshored 22,000 Green Technology Jobs to India Since January 1, 2009 – US firms have offshored 22,000 green technology jobs to India since January 1, 2009, Doug Brown, co-author of the influential 2009 Green Outsourcing Report. Noting an interesting irony the authors of the report say, “In the US, green stimulus plan is creating low-wage installation and construction jobs.” But, in India, which is usually associated with cheap and low-skill work, “…New green jobs include higher dollar engineers, strategic business management and support technicians charged with designing innovative environmental friendly solutions,” they add. Green offshoring is creating demand for sustainability engineers, marketing and business development executives, data center management engineers, utilities and electric engineers and quality specialists in India, Brown informed TNIE.

Regards,

Jim

At Least 110,600 Iraqis Have Died in Violence Since the 2003 U.S.-Led Invasion – Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths – people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.
And conservatives claim that life is better in Iraq now that Sadam is gone.

Dick Cheney is Trying to Distract Us From the Important Questions – Dick Cheney claims that waterboarding saved thousands of lives and was worth it. That is the wrong debate. It’s a question as relevant to American democracy as appointing a blue-ribbon commission to study what advantages and efficiencies we might achieve by repudiating the Declaration of Independence and rejoining the British Empire.

Netflix Commercial (video related to the above post)

Here’s a video showing how to handle the discussion

Global Warming Skeptics Claim About Sun Proven False – I am sure you have heard the many Global Warming deniers that claim that the reason for the Earth’s warming is the Sun’s cycles of activities. Well, new scientific studies show that the Sun has been unexpectedly quiet lately, but the Earth is still getting warmer. The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares – and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.

The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period. Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

Prof Lockwood was one of the first researchers to show that the Sun’s activity has been gradually decreasing since 1985, yet overall global temperatures have continued to rise. “If you look carefully at the observations, it’s pretty clear that the underlying level of the Sun peaked at about 1985 and what we are seeing is a continuation of a downward trend (in solar activity) that’s been going on for a couple of decades. “If the Sun’s dimming were to have a cooling effect, we’d have seen it by now.” He added that the current slight dimming of the Sun was not going to reverse the rise in global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels. “What we are seeing is consistent with a global temperature rise, not that the Sun is coming to our aid.”

Rising Sea Level Forcing Eskimos to Abandon Village – The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground. Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges. The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes.

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch Has Grown to Twice the Size of Texas – Currently, scientists believe the world’s largest garbage dump isn’t on land…it’s in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches from the coast of California to Japan, and it’s estimated to be twice the size of Texas. Years of bottles, bags, toys, packaging and plastic trash from all corners of the Earth are swirling in a plastic whirlpool in the North Pacific. Discarded water bottles from Iowa, takeout containers from New York City, flip-flops from California and plastic debris from the world over make their way from land into storm drains, streams, rivers and other waterways. They are carried out sea, where they get trapped in swirling ocean currents – forming a giant, floating trash dump of enormous proportion. There are 46,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile. Videos at the links.

Regards,

Jim

Glenn Beck Expresses ‘Erotic’ Joy From Caller Hunting And Cutting Down Trees On Earth Day – It turns out that the unrelenting insanity that I had hoped Glenn Beck might put on display on Teabag Day, he saved in reserve for Earth Day! On Beck’s radio show, Beck talked to some forest manager, who was going to be cutting down trees for some hunter.

“This is like Nirvana here,” he said, “This is not only going to hack off all the environmentalists but all the PETA people as well. I need some Barry White music!” Beck exclaimed, “This is almost full-fledged light some candles! This is eroticism!” (Every time Glenn Beck speaks, a demon gets it’s wings.)

Conservatives Use Tortured Logic About Torture – In response to the revelations about the use of torture, conservatives like Cheney, Rove, Hannity, O’Reilly and other talking heads still claim that our immoral acts kept us safe for eight years. Really? I am reminded of Red Buttons’ story of a man standing on a corner, repeatedly clicking his fingers. When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I’m keeping the elephants away.” The questioner shockingly replied, “But there are no elephants around here.” The man responded, “See, it works.”

U.S. Soldier Killed Herself — After Refusing to Take Part in Torture – Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”

Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU reported:

Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.

She was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” documents disclose. Here’s what Kayla Williams, a woman who served with Alyssa, told Soledad O’Brien of CNN : “I was asked to assist. And what I saw was that individuals who were doing interrogations had slipped over a line and were really doing things that were inappropriate. There were prisoners that were burned with lit cigarettes.”

To Republicans , Torture = Safety, but Healthcare = End of the World – More than half a million people will die from cancer this year. Many more from other diseases. Your chances of being killed at the hands of a terrorist, on the other hand, are comparatively remote. Some estimates show the odds at one in 9.3 million.

Why, then, are Republicans — from the very serious moderates to the buggy-eyed Glenn Beck spasmodics — embracing the broadly condemned and immoral act of government sponsored torture, while, often in the same talk radio segment, predicting the end of the world due to government plans guaranteeing that Americans will be able to afford healthcare? Somehow, irrational fear wins the day once again over a very rational desire to be treated for an illness without going broke.

[Authoritarians use physical punishment to teach right from wrong and use more severe punishment for those who refuse to learn their right from wrong. Authoritarians are also strong individualists – for those that can’t solve their own problems, like taking care of one’s health, are “on their own.”]

Host of Fox and Friends, “feel[s] better” knowing that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was “waterboarded 183 times” – Brian Kilmeade, host of Fox and Friends, “feel[s] better” knowing that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was “waterboarded 183 times.” During the Cuban Missile Crisis, it might’ve felt good to preemptively launch a few warheads, but cooler — moral — heads prevailed. It might feel good to walk into your office this morning and punch your boss in the mouth. But civilizations practice restraint because, more often than not, the alternative is unspeakably evil.

Hostile Questions at General Electric Shareholders Meeting Were From Fox News Associates – At the GE (parent of NBC and MSNBC) shareholders meeting, company brass were hit with questions from some shareholders critical of an alleged leftward political slant at MSNBC. First up was a woman asking about a reported meeting in which CEO Jeff Immelt and NBC Uni CEO Jeff Zucker supposedly told top CNBC executives and talent to be less critical of President Obama and his policies. Immelt acknowledged a meeting took place but said no one at CNBC was told what to say or not to say about politics.

Other questions came from Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Action Fund and a four-year critic of Immelt. A Google search showed that Borelli has appeared on Fox News more than once. Further, the previously unidentified woman who asked a question is Borelli’s wife.

Another one of the questions came from Jesse Waters, a producer on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Waters apparently did not publicly identify himself as a Fox employee. Waters has built a reputation as an ambush interviewer, specializing in on-the-street confrontations. But this is arguably the boldest move by a Fox newsie to utilize the tactic inside their chief rival’s tent, as it were. GE pointed out that Waters had Fox News cameras waiting outside the Orlando meeting.

Rep. Joe Barton Makes Himself Look Stupid on YouTube – Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)–the ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee–says on Twitter, “I seemed [sic] to have baffled the Energy Sec with basic question – Where does oil come from?” Barton was so proud that he thinks he baffled the Nobel-Prize winning scientist that he posted a video of the exchange on YouTube. Just four problems for Joe: (1) The answer is not simple, and (2) Barton only gave Secretary Chu only six seconds to respond, and (3) Secretary Chu’s response was correct and (4) Barton is not smart enough to know it. You see, conservatives like really simple answers where everything has direct, simple cause and effect relationships. They want that “obvious” answer, as Barton called it. Real science is just too complicated.

Regards,

Jim

RE: Recently Released Bush II Torture Memos

Mr. President,

I agree with not prosecuting the lower level CIA employees for their part in implementing bad policies produced by Bush II and company. These torture policies built a bad barrel that took these good people and made them do bad things – turned them into “bad apples.”

I also ask that you back up your words with your action. Show that you mean what you say you believe …

Pardon the only American’s that fell victim to these torture memos. Pardon those “bad apples” from Abu Ghraib. Pardon Sgt. Ivan Frederick and the others ‘framed’ by the bad barrel created by these torture memos.

More on bad barrel’s:
– The Lucifer Effect
– The Stanford Prison Experiment

Mr. President,

I agree with not prosecuting the lower level CIA employees for their part in bad policies produced by Bush II and company. These torture policies built a bad barrel that took these good people and made them do bad things – turned them into “bad apples.”

I also ask that you back up your words with your action. Show that you mean what you believe …

Pardon the only American’s that fell victim to these torture memos. Pardon those “bad apples” from Abu Ghraib. Pardon Sgt. Ivan Frederick and the others ‘framed’ by the torture memos.

More on bad barrel’s
– The Lucifer Effect:
– The Stanford Prison Experiment:

More on Sgt. Frederick:

Pardon The Abu Ghraib 11

Abusive Tactics Used to Seek Iraq-al Qaida Link According to Report – The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

“There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people to push harder,” he continued.

Secession-Sympathizing Hannity Attacks Obama’s Patriotism, Suggests Obama Should Be Investigated By DHS – One night after Sean Hannity enthusiastically endorsed Gov. Rick Perry’s threat of secession, Hannity, without a moment of irony, was viciously maligning President Barack Obama’s patriotism, even going so far as to suggest Obama should be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security. Hannity’s chief gripe was that Obama didn’t show enough love for his country. But that didn’t stop Patriot Policeman Hannity from spewing a non-stop stream of hatred toward his president, his president’s administration, his country’s policies, and his fellow citizens who are liberal, all the while accusing THEM of being angry. In fact, it was hard to find a good word for his country in the entire 8:45 opening segment of the 4/17/09 edition of Hannity.

Planning for FreedomWorks’ 9/12 Rally Began Hours Before Glenn Beck Introduced His 9/12 Project on the Air – FreedomWorks began planning for a Washington rally over a month ago. Specifically, based on timestamps on their message board, they began applying for permits for a September 12th rally in the early afternoon of March 13th, 2009. March 13th sounded familiar last night, but I didn’t make an important connection.

As it turns out that, March 13th was also the day that Glenn Beck took to Fox News for his “We Surround Them” special. That night, he introduced his 9/12 project. There was an air of mystery surrounding Beck’s special. Fox News had organized national viewing parties in anticipation of a big announcement on the program. What he would say was not public (ahead of time).

Yet, somehow, FreedomWorks had a heads up. They applied for a permit for the same day, on the same day. Yet, still they deny the obvious coordination at the top of their recent tantrum. I’m not sure that Fox and FreedomWorks can sustain that position any more.

(What a great name for this web site about the tea parties – It’s called “Save the Rich!”)

Regards,

Jim

What is a grassroots movement?
From Wikipedia:

A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the constituents of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it is natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

__________________________________

From The Alvin Sun:

The Alvin Area Republican Women, PAC, will host a Tax Tea Party on Wednesday, April 15. …

The Tea Party effort is just a small piece of a much larger movement aimed at restoring the basic free-market principles that the United States was built on. Members of the Alvin Area Republican Women believe that the Constitution, for the most part, is being ignored by the current government. The group hopes to work together to correct the problem.

The Tea Party effort is a grassroots, collaborative volunteer organization made up of every day American citizens from across the country. The group takes pride in the fact that a 50 state network of leaders and activists has been built using nothing more than the internet, a few websites and a burning desire to restore freedom.

__________________________________

If you visit the Tax Day Tea Party web site, you will find the exact same words as in the last two paragraphs of the above local newspaper article, showing that this is a top-down, orchestrated national effort.

Also, the Tax Day Tea Party web site lists the following official sponsors (Explanations from Wikipedia):

GOPUSA – A virtual organization with no physical office space or newsroom, Talon News was owned by a conservative activist group called GOPUSA. Robert Eberle, the president and CEO of GOPUSA, held both titles for Talon News as well. Talon News became newsworthy in January 2005 because alleged irregularities in the background of its chief correspondent, known as Jeff Gannon.

Smart Girl Politics – Juliana Johnson is the Communications Director for the National DontGo Movement, the National Communications Director for the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Parties, and the Communications Director for the Lake County Young Republicans. The DontGo Movement, Top Conservatives on Twitter, and Smart Girl Politics teamed together to throw the numerous rallies.

DontGo Movement – DontGo founders Odom and Ruffini intended for their website to work as a clearinghouse of information for the Republicans. The name came from conservatives who had asked the House not to shut down for their annual summer break in 2008.

Michelle Malkin – In June 2004 she launched a political blog which quickly became a popular conservative blog.

American Solutions for Winning the Future – created by former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. (That’s funny because Gingrich said on Fox News that these parties “sprang up almost unexpectedly over the last two months, as a spontaneous effort across the country”, but now we see that his group is a listed sponsor.)

PajamasTV – In January 2009, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (commonly referred to by the moniker “Joe the Plumber” during the 2008 Presidential election in which he became a minor celebrity) became a “war correspondent” for Pajamas Media.

FreedomWorks – a conservative non-profit organization based in Washington D.C that trains volunteer activists and wages campaigns to encourage them to mobilize, engage fellow citizens, and influence their political representatives. Several of Freedomworks’ campaigns have been described as “astroturfing,” a controversial political tactic. It is chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Publisher Steve Forbes serves as Vice Chairman of the FreedomWorks Foundation.

Americans for Limited Government – a conservative, libertarian think tank.

Tammy Bruce – an on-air contributor to Fox News Channel.

Jim Demint – a Republican U. S. Senator

RFC Radio (Radio for Conservatives)

On the website’s Contact page:

National Organizers
Eric Odom (Director of the DontGo Movement)
Michael Leahy (Founder & Director of “Top Conservatives on Twitter”)
Stacy Mott (Co-Founder & Director of Smart Girl Politics)

__________________________________

And Fox News labels the Tax Tea Parties as “”FNC Tax Day Tea Parties”, where FNC stands for Fox News Channel.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Women’s Newsletter Spreads False Information – The Spirit of Freedom Republican Women’s Club (Ft. Bend County, TX) newsletter contains the following misinformation:

Scariest Quote of the Day….
Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income. …
She quotes…” We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income, (didn’t Marx say something like this?), in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest.” (I am not rich, are you?)

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied: “We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as ‘Americans’.”

However, Nancy Pelosi never said any such thing.

You can send a polite note to the newsletter editor asking for a public retraction and an apology:

Spirit of Freedom Republican Women
Lifted Lamp Newsletter
1934 Crisfield Dr.
Sugar Land, TX 77479
E-mail: lisa@rickert.com
Source:

A Look Back at Bush’s Economic Missteps – George Bush made some economic calls that don’t look smart today. Here are eight of them.

1. The Return to Deficits
2. Iraq Cost a Lot
3. Tax Cuts for the Rich
4. Financial Regulation Not Enforced
5. Telling Us to Go Shopping
6. Energy Policy (for the oil companies, but not for the country)
7. A State of Denial (Just tell me what I want to hear)
8. The Muddled Bailout (just give out the money)

Pat Robertson urges his callers to crash Homeland Security hotline – Pat Robertson, on The 700 Club yesterday, got in on the collective right-wing teeth-gnashing over that Department of Homeland Security bulletin on the threat posed by right-wing extremists in America. You know, the controversy that’s been demonstrated to be a lot of hot air — not to mention a terribly revealing one about how mainstream right-wingers see themselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to do something about it. If that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what would. And I want you to call a number. This is the Department of Homeland Security. [Reads phone number]

Texas Governor Rick Perry Pals Around With Domestic Terrorists – Texas Governor Rick Perry’s comments suggesting that Texas could secede from the union, made at a Tea Party protest on last Wednesday, have been widely discussed in the media. However, what has not been fully vetted is the Governor’s relationship with extreme secessionist groups.

On April 9, 2009, Governor Perry appeared at a press conference in support of HCR 50, which states:

“The 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

“That this serve[s] as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”

The press conference was also attended by members of the Texas Nationalist Movement, a secessionist group led by Daniel Miller, who was formerly president of a violent anti-government organization called the Republic of Texas.

A video of the press conference can be found on YouTube and prominently displayed on the Texas Nationalist Movement website. Photographs of members attending the press conference also appear on their site.

The Texas Nationalist Movement has a long violent history from bomb threats, to kidnapping, to planning attacks using biological weapons. Some examples:

In 1997, Richard McLaren, former president of the Republic of Texas, kidnapped his neighbors leading to a week-long standoff between the police and “antigovernment separatists.” The standoff ended when McLaren and his four followers surrendered. “After the surrender, a sixth Republic member [was] killed in a gun battle with police, while a seventh elude[d] authorities for four months before being captured.”

During the standoff, McLaren told the New York Times: “We are at war with the United Nations and all foreign entities. We are not at war with the American people, but we are at war with the Federal agencies which have no jurisdiction here.” Another Republic of Texas member, who identified himself as Lieut. Richard Keys of the Republic of Texas Defense Forces, said the hostages “were prisoners of war, held under provisions of the Geneva Convention.”

Prior to the standoff in 1997, the New York Times reported that the Republic of Texas demanded “$92 trillion in ‘war reparations’ from the Federal Government, and it has ‘ordered’ Gov. George W. Bush and all state legislators to vacate the Capitol building in Austin, none of which seems likely to happen any time soon….The members have passed at least $3 million of worthless but official-looking Republic of Texas checks, and they are simply ignoring state-ordered fines and orders to cease and desist…This month state officials shut two public buildings in Austin because of a bomb threat that they said was linked to the group.”

In 1998, according to SPLC, “Leaders of the so-called Republic of Texas, an antigovernment separatist group whose leader ha[d] been sentenced to serve 111 years in prison, tried to purchase a four-story building and compound to serve as the group’s ‘capital,’ officials [said]. An IRS spokesman [said] Jacques Jaikaran, who face[d] up to three years in prison and $75,000 in fines on a tax evasion conviction, tried to arrange the purchase of a building near Houston that feature[d] machine-gun turrets, a bomb shelter and an operating room.”

Also in 1998, the Republic of Texas plotted to assassinate President Clinton using biological weapons. According to the SPLC, “Officials [said] the men planned to use a cactus thorn coated with a toxin like anthrax and fired by a modified butane lighter to carry out the murders. One man [was] acquitted of the charges, but Jack Abbot Grebe, Jr., and Johnnie Wise – a 72-year-old man who attended meetings of the separatist Republic of Texas group – eventually [were] sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.”

In addition, “according to an affidavit, Wise and Grebe told an FBI informant that they planned to modify a cigarette lighter so it would expel air instead of propane in order to fire a cactus needle tipped with anthrax, botulism or the AIDS virus.”

In 2000, members of the group planned an attack on the Houston Federal building. The SPLC reported, “Federal agents arrest[ed] Mark Wayne McCool, the one-time leader of the Texas Militia and Combined Action Program, as he allegedly [made] plans to attack the Houston federal building. McCool, who was arrested after buying powerful C-4 plastic explosives and an automatic weapon from an undercover FBI agent, earlier plotted to attack the federal building with a member of his own group and a member of the antigovernment Republic of Texas, but those two men eventually abandoned the plot. McCool, however, remained convinced the un [sic] had stored a cache of military materiel [sic] in the building. In the end, he [pled] guilty to federal charges that [brought] him just six months in jail.”

Regards,

Jim

CIA Waterboarded Al Qaeda Suspect 183 Times in 1 Month, Memo Reveals – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (still in U.S. custody) was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah (the man who allegedly fears insects) was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

This insane frequency would seem to make (even more) self-evident the fact that waterboarding is not an effective anti-terror tool. Putting aside the moral and legal outrages for a moment, these statistics do not show waterboarding to be the ace in the hole “enhanced” technique Bush et al. claimed it was. Quite the opposite.

Torture Memos Were Written to Provide Legal Immunity for Illegal, Immoral Acts – To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity. Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history.

These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values.

It sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director and, most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Karl Rove Creeps Out Meghan McCain – Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, loves Twitter — except for the “creepy people.” Like Karl Rove. In a blog post for the Daily Beast published Monday, McCain says the social networking site has been a “liberating” experience for her — if only her dispatches weren’t being read by the former Bush advisor. “Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy,” she said.

McCain also said that Ann Coulter is “overly partisan and divisive.” She insisted that “most of our nation wants our nation to succeed” – a pretty clear dig at the now-infamous remarks of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

As for the GOP establishment, McCain described it as a “party that was thriving at one point on a few singular issues” but could no longer “see long-term success.”

“We’ve seen how it has contributed to some serious problems in our nation and world,” McCain said, in an apparent reference to the government under GOP control. “Let me be blunt, you can’t assume you’re electing the right leaders to handle all the problems facing our nation when you make your choice based on one issue. More and more people are finally getting that.”

“I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes,” said McCain. “There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being ‘more’ conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. “Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will.

Ron Paul Defends Secession as “Very Much American” – Rep. Ron Paul released a video on Sunday offering support for the principles of secession, calling them “very much American.” And he described Perry’s recent talk about pulling Texas out of the union a discussion worth having. (Sure Ron, there’s nothing more American than not wanting to be part of America. -JLV)

Fox News Know the Opinions They Want – Conservative Michael Smerconish reveals he received the following e-mail from Fox News:

Wanted to see if you’re available today at 4:05 for Neil’s show today. The topic is on Obama and his cockiness. We’re looking for someone who will say, yes, he’s cocky and his cockiness will hurt him.

When Smerconish declined, he got this second e-mail from Fox News:

What about a debate off the top on the show on whether or not Hillary is trustworthy? We have someone who says she is and we’re looking for someone who says she isn’t.

Rep. Harman Promised to Intervene for AIPAC According to Wiretap Sources – Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.
In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

As Their Costs Fall, Internet Companies Push to Raise Prices – Internet service providers want to end the all-you-can-eat plans and get their customers paying à la carte. Critics say cable and phone companies are already charging far more than Internet providers in other countries. Some also wonder whether the new price plans are meant to prevent online video sites from cutting into the lucrative revenue from cable TV service.

Comcast has introduced a new 50-megabit-per-second service at $139 a month, compared with its existing service that costs about $45 a month for 8 megabits per second. Time Warner just announced it will charge $99 for 50 megabits per second.

By contrast, JCom, the largest cable company in Japan, sells service as fast as 160 megabits per second for $60 a month, only $5 a month more than its slower service.

Regards,

Jim

Besides being 99 percent caucasian, these fellow citizens are … Well, here is what John Dean said about them in Conservatives Without Conscience

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result. … And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

Conservatives are about “me” – not “we.”