Red State Renegade

Tell the Democratic Movement that you are sick of their spinelessness!

Are you on the email lists of MoveOn, Edward Kennedy, John Edwards or (gasp) John Kerry? Perhaps you receive email (or regular mail) asking you to sign petitions, or ’send a message’ to someone regarding an issue that bothers progressives?

I just received a message from Edward Kennedy (www.democraticmajority.com) regarding Dick Cheney’s snub of Executive Order 12958, requiring accounting of classification of documents by the executive branch, which Cheney openly has ignored since 2003 and now claims his office does not fall under.

The message includes references to his other violations:

“Under Dick Cheney’s watch, some of our country’s most disgraceful moments have happened — from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib. Because of him, the Bush administration started in secrecy, marched to war in secrecy and will end in secrecy, all with great damage to our Constitution, to our government and to the American people.”

It asks me to sign (yet another) petition to:
“Tell Vice President Cheney he’s not above the Constitution. He can’t rewrite the Constitution to suit himself.”

Supposedly they will send a copy of the Constitution to Mr. Cheney along with all our signatures.

Well if Mr. Cheney is in violation of the Constitution, why are we sending him letters? We’ve been doing that for seven years now and he’s just sneering at them and piling them up in his Mosler safes so that he’ll have something to wipe his ass with when hes done wiping with the Constitution!

Cheney was blatantly and openly challenging the law here. And when the federal agency responsible for enforcing the law went after him, he officially suggested abolishing the agency!

I am SICK of hearing that all we can do is write letters or petitions. That’s pathetic (or as Alberto Gonzales said of the Geneva Conventions, that’s “quaint”).

So this time, rather than sign the letter (like a good little Dem), I unsubscribed to Kennedy’s emails, and explained why in a short letter:

I AM the democratic majority. But I am sick of this congress backing down when it comes to matters of the war, matters involving torture, wiretapping. Why would impeachment be off the table when these guys have very likely broken many laws? Let’s stop writing letters and petitions to these crooks and start investigating and indicting them. Have a spine, congress! That’s what we thought we would get when we elected you!

Maybe if we all start rebelling in this way they will actually get scared and do something.

What do you think?

New information released this week should be GIANT news!

In the ‘more-ahead-of-it’s-time-than-we-could-have-ever-imagined’ department, Michael Moore’s highly controversial documentary Farenheit 9-11 made some startling (but later proven) claims that are well documented on his website:

“The White House approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis…At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the bin Ladens out of the U.S. after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country.”

The organization Judicial Watch has fought for several years to gain access to the FBI documents regarding these flights. Such documents, obtained early on by Judicial Watch and turned over to the 9-11 Commission, represented the first official government admission that such flights even existed.

Earlier versions, however, were heavily redacted by the FBI.

Lawyers for the group believed, based on unredacted footnotes (oddly enough), that the blacked out names included references to Osama Bin Laden himself.

They pressed the issue in court and in 2006, the FBI was ordered to re-release the documents.

The un-redacted documents were released this week and plainly state:

“THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN”

What can you say?

It is ABSOLUTELY INSANE that the FBI had previously redacted Osama bin Laden’s name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.” (And that the media is barely reporting this new admission).

The other aspect of the story has to do with just how much these planes were searched or the passengers interviewed.

The 9-11 Commission report said: “We found no evidence of political intervention” to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals” and that “Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.”

Yet the newly released documents show that the FBI work relating to these flights was shoddy at best. The documents claim (eight days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. History) that not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value, and that they were freed because none of the names showed up on terrorism “watch lists.”

Judicial Watch also points out numerous errors and inconsistencies within the FBI reports, further questioning the caliber of the investigative work:

“For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight (commonly referred to as the “Bin Laden Family Flight”). On another document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 of 22 passengers on the same flight.”

Al needs to run!

Frankly, I don’t know what to do if the Republicans (party of torturers and pedophiles) win the next election.

So, yeah, I would in fact back Hillary/Edwards/Obama if that was the option for 2008. But honestly, I am not yet crazy about the dems in general (especially after they caved on the troop withdrawal bill) or, for that matter, any of the democrats who are likely to be up front.

If you feel, as I do, that Al Gore NEEDS to run for president take a few seconds of your time and sign this petition to draft Al Gore.

He may be just the man to (as a friend of mine says) ‘right this sinking ship’

Is this for real?

Yes it’s true, there is a Creation Museum. Someone (supposedly an exhibit director at Universal Studios) blew millions of dollars to honor a fairy tale by creating this park/museum in Kentucky (”deliverance” music starts to play…).

I will be spending a week in Cincinnati this summer and thought I might impersonate a believer and check it out, but alas, someone has done this work for me, and I won’t be needing to go anymore…

One interesting update: When I was researching this, I did a google search for “fairy tale museum,” thinking that one must exist somewhere, and that I could cleverly (and cynically) compare the two for this post. Most of the ‘hits’ were reviews and critiques of the Creation Museum in which the writers had the same impression I did!

Iraqi legislators pass a law designed to (possibly) end the occupation of their country

How does this go unreported?

What kind of fucking proof is needed that this occupation is not desired (as claimed) by the Iraqis!

Long story short: A bill passed this week by the Iraqi parliament requires their government to seek parliamentary permission for asking the United Nations to extend the mandate of U.S.-led forces in Iraq when the existing request expires in December.

It reflects growing disenchantment with the U.S.-backed government, and particularly Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. How odd that the democrats are too paralyzed with fear to get us out, yet a contentious, 2 year old parliament may come to the rescue.

It may not be making ANY news now, but let’s see what happens in December…

Speaking of ‘Crazies’ seeking war…(see previous post, below this one)

The above is an actual headline on the ABC news website.

The third paragraph, however, shows (to anyone with at least the mental capacity of Terri Schiavo) the whole premise to be questionable (or, at least nothing new):

“Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence ‘of the involvement of the Iranian government in support of the Taliban.’”

Well… would that not put the “red-handed” claim to bed for the moment?

Apparently not. The article goes on to make a number of dubious statements, almost all attributed to “a senior coalition official” (not named, of course):

“Clear evidence of Iran’s involvement…”

“Part of a considered policy…”

“Clear indications that [munitions recovered in two Iranian convoys] originated in Iran…”

“Iran has provided (lethal EFPs, or explosive formed projectiles, the roadside bombs) to Iraqi insurgents with deadly results…”

“These clearly have the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution Guards”

The only other comments are from some closet neo-con wingnut at the Rand Institute who seems to make a living writing about the projection of American power abroad.

Wow. after all the flak about Iraq I would expect the lapdogs to be a little subtler this time around.

But the ‘hopeful’ part is in the comments ABC received. Maybe the party’s over for this kind of reporting?

Almost all the comments I read attacked the sensational headline and lack of real sources:

“Please don’t become part of the new neo con push for a new war in Iran. Check and double check your sources. We had far too much of the media serving as the mouthpiece for this administration leading up to the Iraq war. We don’t need another media encouraged disaster.”

“As soon as I see this reported by a reputable source that is not a member of the United States corporate media, I’ll start believing it. ABC News, like the rest of the American media, helped the Bush Administration lie us into the quagmire in Iraq. The RAND Corporation, who they quote so freely, is run by people who stand to make BILLIONS off of the next war that we are lied into. Let me hear this from someone who doesn’t stand to make a profit off of the next military misadventure.”

“If the report has evidence that the Iranian government is behind it, then, sure, make that headline, but hiding behind “Report says” and analysis of unnamed official without evidence should no longer be acceptable reporting in this country…Not after similar reporting contributed to the war in Iraq.”

“Read the article three or four times. You will see that both sources are SPECULATING that the Iranian government is inolved. COMPLETELY SPECULATING. So why does ABCNEWS say Iran was caught ‘red handed’? Why is this disinformation being used on the American public? For what purpose are we being lied to? Why are the powers that be trying so hard to get another diastrous war started?”

Write to ABC news. Let ‘em know how shameless they are, or go to the article above and post a comment (It takes 5 seconds).

UPDATE (6/7/07) - NATO Force General debunks claims:

Another news article out today centers on a direct rebuttal from U.S. Army General Dan McNeill, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. Interesting, as the ABC news site specifically attributed the ‘red-handed’ discovery to NATO:

Although he confirmed that NATO did intercept two convoys of weapons, he said there is no clear evidence that Iran is supplying the Taliban with weapons, and that it is common in Afghanistan to encounter weapons that originate in other countries.

General McNeill mentions the finding of mortar rounds of Iranian origin in one convoy, as well as explosives similar to the U.S.-made C-4 in the other.

“Beyond that, there’s not much significant to report on these two convoys,” he said.

From reuters (check it out) an account of an interview with the head of the IAEA.

Remember this the next time you see the administration and the media banging the drums for war, and using IAEA reports as ‘evidence.’

And if you really care, instead of just accepting what they tell you an IAEA report claims about Iran, try to get your hands on one, read it with some skepticism, and determine for yourself if the report truly supports what they say it does.