Who Pays for Rudy's Mistresses?

Video from Brave New Films.

*smiles sweetly*

There's more...

Cheney Wants Iran Attack. Lies About WMDs.

“Bomb, bomb, bomb... Bomb Iran.”

Evil Dick (the current Dick, not the smelly nasty dead Dick) wants to off Iran.

Don't matter our very own Department of State wants to play nice.

The Office of the Vice President wants to blow the ever-loving-shit out of them Arabs (Really they're mostly Persians but that's a level of subtly you can't expect from an Administration that can't tell a Sunni from a Shiite), blow the fucking shit out of the Arabs, anyone associating with the Arabs, anyone that looks like an Arab and their mangy mutts too.

(Pop quiz, hotshot: What's the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni -- prep material. And here's the quiz.)

A nice glaze surface glowing shiny like a firefly in the night would be fine. See that shine from space. Teach everyone -- don't try and sell oil for nothing but dollars. Nothing but net? Fuck that.

OIL: Operation Iraqi Liberation. Reusable too 'cause Dirty Dick is campaign-dollar Haliburton green. Operation Iran Liberation. Oil me up & oil me down. I'm the OIL man. Can you dig it? We're OIL.

Oil will keep sellin' for greenbacks. The Iranian Oil Bourse can go fuck itself.

(We've got a whole post coming on Oil, the U.S. dollar, and the coming great Chinese Depression. Hold on to your organs of reproduction kiddies. Life as you know it is a'changing.)

But not tonight. Tonight we're posting other stuff. Like that Israeli Bombing Run into Syria?

First it was nukes. You knew they were lying, but they kept talking and talking -- nukes, nukes, nukes. Hmmm... where have I heard that bullshit before and from whom?

Fucking Cheney wants to hit Iran and he doesn't care how he does it. Check this:

NY Daily News

Cheney allegedly considered asking Israel to do the dirty work of attacking a central Iranian nuclear facility in hopes of inciting a war, Newsweek magazine reported yesterday.

The revelation of the White House's alleged hawkish behind-the-scenes thinking comes just days after Iran's deputy air force commander warned his country was prepared to retaliate if Israel "makes a silly mistake."

Still, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the annihilation of Israel, publicly rejects the notion his country is headed for a faceoff with the United States.

"It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing," Ahmadinejad said in an interview aired last night on CBS' "60 Minutes."

When asked if he was hellbent on getting a nuke, Ahmadinejad answered with a "firm no."

"You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb," said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York yesterday to speak at the UN General Assembly. "We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?"

U.S. officials have suggested Iran's main goal is to develop killer nukes while hiding behind a bogus claim that its uranium-enrichment program is for civilian energy purposes only.

The White House has also accused Iran of supplying Iraqi militants with training and weapons to fight American troops.

Newsweek reported that Cheney's former Middle East adviser David Wurmser told a small group several months ago that the vice president had brainstormed ways to quash Iran's nuclear hopes by luring it into war.

"Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and, perhaps, other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out," Wurmser, who stepped down from his advisory post last month, reportedly told the group.

Such a strike would give the White House an excuse to launch attacks against military and other nuclear targets in Iran.

Citing two unidentified sources, Newsweek claimed it has corroborated Wurmser's remarks.

Wurmser's wife, Meyrav Wurmser of the neoconservative Hudson Institute think tank, told the magazine its claims were untrue.

The networks don't even want Condoleezza Rice on their Sunday blow-me shows any more.

Cheney's war-mongers have an edge over State in the propaganda wars.

Has the President sided with Cheney? Not yet. 'Cause Cheney keeps fucking up the spin. The truth is getting out WAY too fast to stick past the 25% born fanatics. (Born fanatic = born-again. Duh.)

GWB is totally & completely drunk all the time freakin' about his "place in history" with Bush 41 and worse, Mummy, whispering in his ear about being bad.

You know it's a hard day for America (and the rest of the world) when our best hope of avoiding Dirty "why it's just like a penis, but smaller" Dick's palace coup is Barbara "I'm his wife, dammit, not his mother" Bush. When we lived in New Hampshire in 91-92, we used to travel up to the coast of Maine. Some nights my wife and I would drink in town just a few miles from the summer White House. You hear stories when people are drinking. Of her. Servants displeasing her and... Look, there's no way to prove anything and she's the former First Lady. All I'm saying is, people say some of the hired help never came home after her parties. And Mrs. Bush knows how to work the wood chipper.

Dirty Dick simply doesn't have the backing yet to pull a war off. The Chiefs are completely against yet a third war. So is State. So is Defense (separate from the Chiefs.) So is Homeland Security. And the incoming AG. The entire fucking Cabinet minus "his" guys, the kool-aid drinkers. Cheney's only hope is his very own Gulf of Tonkin. Like a boy, playing with fancy toy Tonkin trucks. Which is precisely what he's trying to do -- get Israeli to start something we'll finish or get a young pilot of ours to blunder into an attack and trigger an Iranian response.

Everyone knows what Cheney's up to. What does a teenage boy want? Duh. What does Dick Cheney want? Fucking duh.

People (bloggers, hurray!, and the traditional media) are all over big Dick's lies like a condom on my daughter's boyfriend. As in damn straight & every single time. (You hear me girl? No, not you; the other daughter. [Multitasking Daddy™ from Mattel. "That was such über-pwnage." Mad skillz. Kekeke!!!])

Raw Story

Israel did not strike a nuclear weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 6, instead striking a cache of North Korean missiles, current and former intelligence officials say.

American intelligence sources familiar with key events leading up to the Israeli air raid tell RAW STORY that what the Syrians actually had were North Korean No-Dong missiles, possibly located at a site in either the city of Musalmiya in the northern part of Syria or further south around the city of Hama.

While reports have alleged the US provided intelligence to Israel or that Israel shared their intelligence with the US, sources interviewed for this article believe that neither is accurate.

By most accounts of intelligence officials, both former and current, Israel and the US both were well aware of the activities of North Korea and Syria and their attempts to chemically weaponize the No-Dong missile. It therefore remains unclear why an intricate story involving evidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program and/or enriched uranium was put out to press organizations.

The North Korean missiles -- described as "legacy" by one source and "older generation" by another -- were not nuclear arms.

Vincent Cannistraro, Director of Intelligence Programs for the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan and Chief of Operations at the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center under President George H. W. Bush, said Sunday that what the Israelis hit was "absolutely not a nuclear weapons facility."

The No-Dong 1 missile is a redesigned SCUD-C, which the Syrians are alleged to have acquired in the mid-1990s according to some estimations, while others say perhaps as late as 2000. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the No-Dong has a potential range/payload capacity of 1,000-1,300 km/700-1,000 kg.

The chemical explosion is believed to have included a Sarin nerve agent and made the area around the blast dangerous even after the fire from the explosion had been extinguished. The United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention treaty of 1993 outlawed the stockpiling of Sarin, but neither Syria nor North Korea are signatories to the treaty.

Some believe that the Office of the Vice President is continuing to battle any attempts at diplomacy made by the US State Department in an effort to ensure no alternative but a military solution to destabilize and strike Iran, using Syria's alleged nuclear weapons program and close relations with Iran as a possible pretext.

A Sept. 16 piece in the London Sunday Times alleged the attack proved Israel could penetrate Iran's air defenses.

"By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake," reporter Uzi Mahnaimi wrote. "The Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence [sic] system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites."

One more time please.

It therefore remains unclear why an intricate story involving evidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program and/or enriched uranium was put out to press organizations.

Sing it again now...

It therefore remains unclear why an intricate story involving evidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program and/or enriched uranium was put out to press organizations.

It answers itself, doesn't it. Not a question.

Dick Cheney wants to off Iran.

Lying about WMDs worked once. Why not again?

There's more...

Depraved Indifference

NYPD Cops Out of Control

Cops in New York do what they want.

The NY Civil Liberties Union released a harshly critical study, Mission Failure, which says even the vaunted Civilian Complain Review Board rolls over and spreads them for the cops.

NYCLU

"I've seen the CCRB’s failure firsthand and up close. Civilian oversight is a formality at best," said Sheena Otto, a one-time veteran investigator at the CCRB. "We can do better, and the City certainly deserves better."

Joining members of the NYCLU staff at a news conference announcing the release of the report were Otto; representatives of Make the Road by Walking, a community advocacy organization in Brooklyn; and officials with three police organizations: the Guardians Association, the National Latino Officers Association and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. All were highly critical of the CCRB’s failings and of the police department’s role in undermining the civilian oversight agency."

As an officer, when you walk into the average Black or Latino community, there is always animosity toward the police. The CCRB does nothing to address that," said Charles Billups, chair of the Grand Council of Guardians. "These communities are suffering from unnecessary police hostility, and the CCRB is just looking the other way."

"When a cop abuses his authority and disrespects or injures a civilian, it diminishes respect for all cops," added Marq Claxton, a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. "The CCRB is not working. As a result, the people of this city have lost confidence in and respect for the police."

Newsday

The city's Civilian Complaint Review Board, which is empowered to investigate allegations of police misconduct, fully investigates fewer than 50 percent of complaints and finds police at fault in 5.2 out of every 100 cases, according to the report titled "Mission Failure: Civilian Review of Policing in New York City."

That is far below the 10 to 13 percent average found at similar boards across the United States, the report says.

"We know the department frustrates those complainants. They make it very hard to file [a complaint] and frequently toss them out," said the report's author, civil liberties union staff member Robert A. Perry.

"Even when cops are found guilty ... the punishment is shockingly lenient."

According to the report, allegations of undue force by officers are up 117 percent in the last six years, and abuse-of-authority complaints are up almost 200 percent.

But the number of cases in which officers face serious consequences for such violations is down dramatically. In 2000, 34.2 percent of officers found guilty were punished with loss of vacation time or a suspension; in 2006, that punishment was meted out only 5.2 percent of the time.

Verbal warnings from supervisors, however, have risen from 23 percent in 2000 to 73.8 percent last year.

In several dramatic examples given in the report, officers who had beaten, strip-searched, pepper-sprayed and falsely arrested innocent people were given verbal admonishments by supervisors. Those officers also could have faced criminal and civil suits. The officers were not named in the report.

"These cases summarize serious acts for which you or I would face serious criminal violations and possible incarceration," Perry said.

"It's absolutely clear that the punishment the PD hands down has been dramatically reduced. Recently we've seen them giving no punishment at all in a large number of our cases."

Didn't have to reach all the way back to the guy who got 41 bullets pumped through him coming out of a night club.

This was just there waiting. Another week, another case of NY Cops out of control:

NY Daily News

A disabled former Parks Department enforcement officer has filed a complaint against cops who he says snatched him off his toilet and dragged him out of his apartment.

Dominick Walters, 38, said he and his elderly mother feared for their lives when six city cops busted into their home on July 28 and arrested him.

"I was on the toilet, and they busted through the door," said Walters.

"My mother was screaming and trying to tell them that I am disabled, but they didn't listen," he continued. "One of the police officers karate-chopped me with his hand between my shoulder and neck. Then they beat my a-- from the top of the steps to the bottom."

Walters' attorney, Jayne Pickup, said her client was taken to St. Barnabas hospital on July 28 after he passed out in police custody.

She said one of his legs was swollen to twice its usual size, his arm was numb and he was in severe pain.

NYPD spokesman John Kelly referred all questions to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, where spokesman Andrew Case said his office is investigating the matter.

Walters was injured in the line of duty on July 25, 2003 when he was stabbed by a deranged man hiding in a Hudson River Park bathroom stall. He underwent three surgeries.

It takes six cops to arrest one guy on the toilet?

No. This was personal. They were teaching this guy a lesson about messing with the police, confident no one can touch them back.

In New York, keep your damn mouth shut and do what the cops tell you without back talk, but make certain you don't surrender your rights even if, especially if you're busted.

"To Protect and to Serve." And to kick the crap out of anyone in our way.

Sounds like a gang to me.

There's more...

KBR Cover-up Continues

Civilian Convoy Hit Hard in 2004, Six Die
REMF Dismisses Case in 2006

U.S. Dist. Judge Gray H. Miller appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006, dismissed the case by the families and survivors of a slaughtered civilian convoy moving on Army orders.

Judge Gray said, "Is it wise to use civilian contractors in a war zone? Was it wise to send the convoy along the route [to Baghdad airport] on April 9, 2004?" Miller wrote. "Answering either question and the many questions in between would require the court to examine the policies of the executive branch during wartime, a step the court declines to take."

Defense contractor KBR's job was to supply fuel and other critical supplies to the US Army, then engaged in active combat. The problem? KBR's trucks aren't combat rated. Their drivers are civilians. And the highway between their depot and the airport -- death on a stick. Squared.

On the day in question the road had been opened and closed repeatedly. The KBR manager who'd been in control of operations for damn near forever had threatened to resign if his drivers were ordered to push a load through. Yet after a while, there the order came... push through.

LA Times

"[I] think we will get people injured or killed tomorrow," warned KBR regional security chief George Seagle, citing "tons of intel." But in an e-mail sent a day before the convoy was dispatched, he also acknowledged: "Big politics and contract issues involved."

KBR was under intense pressure from the military to deliver on its multibillion-dollar contract to transport food, fuel and other vital supplies to U.S. soldiers. At Baghdad's airport, a shortage of jet fuel threatened to ground some units.

After consulting with military commanders, KBR's top managers decided to keep the convoys rolling. "If the [Army] pushes, then we push, too," wrote an aide to Craig Peterson, KBR's top official in Iraq.

One KBR management official threatened to resign when superiors ordered truckers to continue driving. "I cannot consciously sit back and allow unarmed civilians to get picked apart," wrote Keith Richard, chief of the trucking operation.

Six American truck drivers and two U.S. soldiers were killed when the convoy rumbled into a five-mile gauntlet of weapons fire on April 9, 2004, making an emergency delivery of jet fuel to the airport. One soldier and a seventh trucker remain missing.

Recriminations began the same day.

"Can anyone explain to me why we put civilians in the middle of known ambush sites?" demanded one security advisor in an e-mail. "Maybe we should put body bags on the packing list for our drivers."

Another wrote, "I cannot believe this has happened; the ones responsible should be held accountable for this."

The previously undisclosed documents raise new questions about the U.S. military's growing reliance on civilian contractors to help fight wars.

Selected e-mails, some of them excerpts, were cited in a May 22 letter to the Justice Department by lawyers suing the Houston-based giant on behalf of the dead drivers' families. The families and most of the survivors of the convoy seek a federal criminal probe of KBR's role in the episode.

[Much more at LA Times]

The Army refused to let a full investigation be completed.

Last fall Federal Judge Gray Miller (thanks GWB for the nomination to the Bench) ordered the lawsuit shut down, records sealed. Covered up. The case is on appeal. The families wait.

The mess in Iraq is the result of Donald Rumsfeld's active incompetence and arrogance. His determination to move into Iraq with less troops -- Thomas Friedman of the NY Times calls The Rumsfeld Doctrine "just enough troops to lose" -- specifically with about half as many combat and support troops as previously thought necessary, resulted in Theater Commanders having to rely on civilian contractors for necessary supplies, not just for routine operations but for combat critical needs in the heat of battle. This caused trouble. Got people killed.

To contrast (with how it should work), during the Battle of the Bulge, General Patton disengaged his Third Army, turned it 90 degrees and moved two divisions 100 miles through a blizzard, attacking on the line with troops and tanks, all their ammunition and fuel. Patton could do this because he understood as Rumsfeld does not, that war is first a matter of logistics.

By screwing over his combat commanders with not enough combat support personal and supplies, Rumsfeld left them no choice but to hand over logistical control of fuel and ammunition to civilians. I'd rather go into combat with less shooters than give up logistical control. If you can't control your supply chain, you really are fucked.

The Army tried to treat KBR like soldiers. To the credit of KBR's drivers, they responded like soldiers and pushed out. To the discredit of KBR's managers, they're not soldiers and failed to say "no", which would have protected their drivers who shouldn't have been put on the line absent an absolutely secure road. No secure road, no supplies.

As a medic I've let people die many times while I waited two blocks away for the scene to be secured. The first rule is come home alive at the end of your shift. Same for drivers. Their managers failed them and so did the Army.

One of the reasons we are failing today in Iraq is because the Army still depends on civilian logistics. Till we go back to old-school Army control of our own combat support, we remain vulnerable in the worst way, not just to civilian casualties but to failure of mission. The kind of failure that leaves a division without beans, fuel or bullets and buried in the shit.

Reason #213 why we need to leave Iraq: War is a matter of logistics. We don't control ours.

There's more...

“Hey Dubya! Nixon Called! He Says You're A Crook!”

“You know, just when I think you're the shallowest man I know, you somehow manage to drain a little bit more out of the pool.”—Seinfeld, Episode #59, “The Implant”

As bad as things are right now—with the willful debacle that is Iraq, with the warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, and the general perversion of the Justice Department—beyond all of that subterranean, Nixon-on-steroids level evil, if you can believe it, a new nadir has been reached by the Bush administration in the last week.

Seriously. We know that we've surpassed Watergate's levels of chicanery a long time ago. What took place this past week involving the cover-up of the cover-up of Army Corporal Pat Tillman's "friendly fire" death, via the citing of "Executive Privilege”, goes miles past being merely impeachment-worthy.

It's worthy of any evil—any imaginable evil you can wish upon its perpetrators. Get out your garlic and Holy Water:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred Fielding saying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting "implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests."

Get your wooden stake too:

“Two influential lawmakers investigating how and when the Bush administration learned the circumstances of Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death and how those details were disclosed accused the White House and Pentagon on Friday of withholding key documents and renewed their demand for the material.

The White House and Defense Department have turned over nearly 10,000 pages of papers mostly press clippings but the White House cited "executive branch confidentiality interests" in refusing to provide other documents.”

_________________________________________________

“Although Pentagon investigators determined quickly that he was killed by his own troops, five weeks passed before the circumstances of his death were made public. During that time, the Army claimed he was killed by enemy fire.
Tillman's family and others have said they believe the erroneous information peddled by the Pentagon was part of a deliberate cover-up that may have reached all the way to President Bush and then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. The committee said Friday it had scheduled a second hearing on Tillman's death for Aug. 1, this time to probe what senior Pentagon officials knew and when.”

And pray that someone can use whatever weapons they have at their disposal to defeat the beasts:

On Friday, July 13, Chairman Waxman and Ranking Minority Member Tom Davis sent letters to the White House and the Department of Defense objecting to the withholding of documents related to the death of Corporal Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. Chairman Waxman also wrote the Republican National Committee to request communications about Corporal Tillman’s death by White House officials using e-mail accounts controlled by the RNC.

• The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
Former Secretary of Defense
• Gen. Richard B. Myers (Retired)
Former Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Gen. John P. Abizaid (Retired)
Former Commander, U.S. Central Command
• Gen. Bryan Douglas Brown (Retired)
Former Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command
• Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger, Jr. (Retired)
Former Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command
• Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Commander, Joint Special Operations Command

Because that's what we're dealing with here—beasts.

When I think of Watergate, and I do quite often with the myriad scandals this administration is mired in this Summer, I remember how evil, and republic-threatening it seemed at the time. There was a break-in at opposition headquarters, an illegal campaign slush-fund, and a failed attempt to subvert the Justice Department.

It all seems so very small when you look at what's going on now. Leaking CIA agents, a patently illegal war, successful subverting of the Justice Department, and so on, and so on, and scooby-dooby-doo.

This situation with the declaring of “Executive Privilege” in the Pat Tillman incident, though....if you really look at it, trumps almost anything in Watergate's sordid mudpile of misdeeds.

Tillman was killed in Afghanistan is the Spring of '04 after having walked away from his lucrative NFL career and contract to sign up with the Army to fight in the single sane prong of the so-called "War on Terror”. He was killed in a "friendly fire" incident while on patrol, and that fact was known to his superiors almost immediately, but for five weeks the military and the government spun his death as coming at the hands of faceless Taliban attackers—ostensibly to put a good gloss on the unfortunate mishap, and rather obviously, to rally folks 'round the flag via the lionizing of a "tragic" hero.

His uniform was burned and his body armor was destroyed almost immediately after his death to cover up the nature of how he died. Military superiors ordered witnesses to lie about how Tillman died, under threat of official punishment. But eventually, it got out those many weeks later about just what happened in that deadly mountain pass—as did the tale of the low-level portion of the cover-up.

It's the high-level—no, let me get it right.—highest, pinnacle, desperately hidden levels of the cover -up that has brought this administration down to common decency levels that would damn near make a Manson blush. It is APPARENT...BRUTALLY APPARENT that the order to turn Tillman's death into a P.R. football (pun not intended) came from the very highest levels of the government. The order to lie to the family, lie to the country and world, and even create a "manufactured narrative" came...from the very top echelons of U.S. government. And we know this because White House Counsel Fred Fielding has cited "Executive Privilege" as the reason for blocking the release of information pertaining to the government's immediate handling of Cpl. Tillman's death.

Ask yourself WHY? Why would they stonewall the release of those documents?

What could there possibly be to cover up?

We know lies were told. One could almost understand the need to manage the P.R. on the death delicately. Some massaging of the facts can almost be excused to put a better face on the then nascent war effort. But this wasn't just "massaging". It was a whole-cloth, made-up, LIE. What was the need for that? And since we know what actually happened, and already know the fact that lies were told—what else could there possibly be to cover up?

Here's what: The exposure OF THE FACT that for all the mealy-mouthed, wet-eyed platitudes about support for American troops, this government—IN THE HIGHEST ECHELONS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH DO NOT GIVE SO MUCH AS A RAT'S ASS ABOUT IT'S FIGHTING FORCES. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

The troops are literally pawns in Bush's hands. Chips to gamble. Non-entities. And this government not only considers them to be such, but evidently discusses them as such in privileged communications.

Living, breathing people. With families, who if you're not going to give them the unvarnished, soul-wounding truth, deserve at the least, common, human respect. And these documents that this government will not release, I'm sure detail the callousness and craven levels of manipulation used to further the administration's goals. They don't want it to get out that they are willing to absolutely wipe their asses with those of us who make the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Because once that depth of their utter unfeeling and cheap skullduggery becomes fully known, there is no reason for anyone to believe a single word they'd say on anything.

Nothing on Nixon's tapes is as ugly as that. For all his personal hatred, and recorded dirty-tricks-ism, and paranoia, there is nothing in those tapes or "expletive deleted" documents that is as raw a "fuck you" as what those Tillman documents would inadvertently expose. That they ("they" meaning the administration, safe in Washington D.C. with access to fallout bunkers and all manner perks you the citizens will NEVER have) will use, and manipulate, and lie about you (the public/non-connected populace) in any way they deem fit, so long as it aids in the implementation of whatever the plan/policy-of-the-day is.

It is so close to a “Manchurian Candidate” type of hierarchical structure that it would make the blood run cold of anyone who ever found out about it. Which is why they don't want anyone to find out about it.

It is in a word, criminal.

And people at the very least see their careers end over self-serving lying like this.

"YPSILANTI, Mich., July 16 — Six months after a female student was raped and killed in her dormitory room, Eastern Michigan University said today that it had fired three administrators, including its president, who are accused of covering up the fact that a crime had been committed.

The president, John A. Fallon III, was ousted exactly two years into his five-year contract with the university. The board of regents also dismissed the vice president for student affairs, James Vick, and the campus police chief, Cindy Hall, and reprimanded the general counsel, Kenneth McKanders.

The actions follow lengthy reports by the Department of Education and investigators at a local law firm that said school officials had violated federal law by not disclosing campus security information after waiting more than two months to tell other students that Laura Dickinson, 22, had been killed. The university had insisted that foul play was not suspected, even as the authorities investigated several suspects, and it revealed the true circumstances of Ms. Dickinson’s Dec. 12 death only after another student was arrested in February.

A high-profile death. A self-serving lie and cover/up. Utter disregard of the family and public. Putting spin and damage control ahead of truth and simple humanity. The same Goddamned ingredients—except in the Eastern Michigan case, the truth eventually came out. In the Tillman case, the government is actively blocking the truth's coming out. The revulsion people feel upon hearing about the University's evil ass-covering, should be equally imparted to the Bush administration for its EQUAL level of duplicity.

This is a big deal.

Contact your local Congressperson and tell that person that YOU WILL NOT TOLERATE the Administration's stonewalling the facts on this cover-up, NO MATTER HOW HIGH UP IT GOES.

Here's the House of Representatives switchboard number: 202-225-3121, and here's how to reach them by e-mail

And get on the Senate's ass as well. Here's their switchboard number: 202-224-3121, and e-mail contact info.

They are playing with the death of a U.S. Army soldier. They said "fuck you” to his family, and threatened anyone who told the truth with punishment. His life meant nothing to them—his demise was a P.R. element to be twisted, puffed full of air, and then floated before our eyes to distract and manipulate.

These are not regular people we're dealing with. They are devils. Beasts. Literal Death-Eaters .

And they make Nixon, bad as he was—look like a fucking piker.

Take. Them. Down.

There's more...

Bushites Screw Public Health

Great Job, Richard

Here we see Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona in happier times. This photograph was taken March 22, 2002 at his Nomination Ceremony to be Surgeon General of the United States. Dr. Carmona is from Tucson where to this day he remains widely liked. He served with Special Forces in Vietnam, earned two purple hearts, was a police office and SWAT team member, and a nurse. He was the 1993 Physician of the the Year for Pima County, Arizona, and before he was Surgeon General, was a Trauma Surgeon, as well as Clinical Professor of Surgery, Public Health, and Family and Community Medicine at the University of Arizona, as well as Chairman of the State of Arizona Southern Regional Emergency Medical System.

Short version: Had I stayed in Tucson as a paramedic, he'd have ended up my boss. He was one of the good guys in Tucson, even if I don't agree with all his political views and he ended up working for the worst President in U.S. history. He was ignorant of national politics. When the President asked him to serve, he was excited; he thought he could make a difference.

Dr. Carmona isn't politically ignorant now. New York Times:

Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

Dr. Carmona is one of a growing list of present and former administration officials to charge that politics often trumped science within what had previously been largely nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

His testimony comes two days before the Senate confirmation hearings of his designated successor, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. Two members of the Senate health committee have already declared their opposition to Dr. Holsinger’s nomination because of a 1991 report he wrote that concluded that homosexual sex was unnatural and unhealthy. Dr. Carmona’s testimony may further complicate Dr. Holsinger’s nomination.

In his testimony, Dr. Carmona said that at first he was so politically naïve that he had little idea how inappropriate the administration’s actions were. He eventually consulted six previous surgeons general, Republican and Democratic, and all agreed, he said, that he faced more political interference than they had.

On issue after issue, Dr. Carmona said, the administration made decisions about important public health issues based solely on political considerations, not scientific ones.

“I was told to stay away from those because we’ve already decided which way we want to go,” Dr. Carmona said.

He described attending a meeting of top officials in which the subject of global warming was discussed. The officials concluded that global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said.

“And I said to myself, ‘I realize why I’ve been invited. They want me to discuss the science because they obviously don’t understand the science,’ ” he said. “I was never invited back.”

Dr. Carmona wanted to address the controversial topic of sexual education, he said. Scientific studies suggest that the most effective approach includes a discussion of contraceptives.

“However there was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to preach abstinence only, but I felt that was scientifically incorrect,” he said.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." -- Abraham Lincoln

Doctors by their training, want to tell the truth. Way to go Dr. Carmona. Tucson welcomes you home.

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Stop Snitching

Yo! Y'all didnt think my hommes was doing time didya?!?!??!

SUCKAZ!

Why you think my boyz was out making the call for the Pardoné....

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