pat tilman murdered

Was Tillman Murdered? AP Gets New Documents
Published: July 26, 2007 11:30 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003617692

Generation Chickenhawk: With The College Republicans

Found this today, thought it was worth taking a look at the next generation of those who support war without being willing to sacrifice anything for it. Makes you want to laugh and cringe at the same time to hear the lame excuses these students give and the word for word regurgitation of GOP talking points. Seems like a lot of waste of college educations on people who obviously aren't learning to think critically.

Another Failure in the Senate

Link to : http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/ROLLCALL.html?currentChamber=Senate&currentSession=1¤tCongress=110&currentRoll=252nk to see how our Senator voted on a deadline for starting withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Didn't reach the needed 60 votes.

Habeas Corpus, Bill Kristol is INSANE, and It's all About the Money.

So Isabelle was incensed that so few Congressmen had signed on to impeach Cheney, well I'm amazed at how many Democratic Senators aren't standing up to defend Habeas Corpus. This is Habeas Corpus people! This should not be a controversial position that should lose you support with the American people at large! Really, how far has our country's sense of direction slipped into the unreal, when this many Democratic Senators can ignore the destruction of one of our most cherished principles.

Next up: Bill Kristol, in this piece in the Washington Post proves he's delusional, claiming that no, really, the Bush presidency will, in the end be considered a success. I even love the title: Why Bush Will Be A Winner...hmmm...because he and his cronies will rig any contest that says he's not a winner?

29% approval ratings folks. Enough said.

And finally, Democrats are looking good in the fund-raising game, out-raising the Republicans, that's hopeful right? Yes, unless of course, you still had the faintest little hope deep down in your idealistic self that maybe, one day, it wouldn't be just about the money.

Only 14 dem congressmen sign on to impeach CHENEY!!

So, Kuccinich presented a proposal to impeach Cheney - you know, the guy that had an approval rating under 18% TWO YEARS AGO ( way below : 1. the number of Americans that believe that Elvis lives 2) those who believe that the US government is run by extraterrestials = wackos.) Apparentely more than 50% ( somehting like 56%) of polled people in the US believe the guy should be impeached, and close to 75% of Democrats - so WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR? Only 14 congressment have signed on (including MINE - guys- MINE has signed on) - not even Conyers has signed yet. !!!
Yellow, yellow, Dem congressmen, ASK your representatives to SIGN ON like MINE!

The link to THE NATION article is:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=213909

Obama at his best at NAACP conference

The article this links to in The New Republic states that Obama soared once more at the NAACP conference, way over contenders Clinton and Edwards.
And that in the recent past this has not always been the case ( is he suffering from nicotine withdrawal?)

Having heard the man speak in person, I can testify that he is a tremendous speaker ( at tleast when he is "on") and thinks outside of the box on many issues - and states those positions clearly. You eally get the impression he is not just campagining.-
But it seems that he has been irregular lately. Since he is raising money more quickly than Hillary, and Hillary is a known hawk - I kinda hope that he can beat her at the primaries - if enough people hear him talk on good days, for me there is no doubt he will.

Kuccinich, by the way, is not raising much money at all, not even in Ohio.......

The link
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w071607&s=cohn071607

John Edwards' Fortress

July 15, 2007
The bulk of John Edwards' wealth is invested in, his recent income derives from, and his biggest contributors are employed by Fortress Investment Group. Fortress, which paid Edwards almost half a million dollars to advise them, deals in hedge funds and private equity. Its private equity holdings have not been reported on. (Where is journalism when there's no sex involved?) Its hedge funds invest in, among other things, publicly traded companies. Those are reported to the SEC, most recently on May 15th in this filing: http://tinyurl.com/ytzlba

The list of companies invested in is large, but presumably well known to Edwards as a result of his well-paid advising and his massive investment in Fortress. It includes companies from a variety of industries, creating all sorts of conflicts of interest for a would-be public official. Just in the 'A's in the list we find: Advanced Medical Optics Inc., and Applera Corp. (medical); Aetna Inc., Amerigroup Corp., and Assurant Inc. (health insurance); Abbott Labs, Alpharma Inc., and Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (pharmaceuticals); Altria Group (parent of Phillip Morris, cigarettes); American International Group (insurance); Amgen Inc. (biotech); Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Apache Corp., Arena Resources Inc., Atlas America Inc., Atmos Energy Corp., and Avista Corp. (oil and gas); Autonation Inc. (cars); Anheuser Busch Cos. Inc. (beer), and many others.

Glancing through the full alphabet of companies, it is immediately apparent that Fortress represents the polar opposite of an ethical investment opportunity. Some names jump out at you as surprising companies for a Democratic presidential candidate to sink his fortune into, such as Wal Mart Stores Inc. There are a lot of telecom companies, like Verizon, in the list, lots of oil companies like Exxon Mobil, weapons companies like Lockheed Martin, big agricultural companies like Monsanto, a great many lending companies including several well known for predatory lending practices such as Wells Fargo, and numerous media corporations including Clear Channel. m

What if our mercenaries turn on us?

Chris Hedges is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and won a Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times

Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America's first modern mercenary army.

There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military "contractors" who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.

"We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). "How in the hell do you justify that?"

The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070603_What_if_our_mercenaries_turn_on_us_.html

US Social forum in Atlanta supports new investigation of 911

Monday, July 2 2007
U.S. SOCIAL FORUM SUPPORTS CINDY SHEEHAN'S CALL FOR A NEW INDEPENDENT AND INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES AND CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

During June 27th to July 1st, approximately 9,400 people from across the America, and beyond, gathered in Atlanta for the historic, first-ever United States Social Forum. Thanks to donations from some of our generous supporters, 911Truth.org was there, together with about 15 other 911Truth activists from Georgia, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington DC, and Maryland. We went with the idea we'd work to "convince" people to look at the need for a real investigation into the crimes of 9/11. After all, the various issues and causes represented by this diversity of People were predicated, to such a strong degree, upon the events of 9/11, and it made sense that if presented with the information, we'd win some allies.

We were wrong. What we found, instead, was that nearly everyone we spoke with was already aware of at least some questions about 9/11 and agreed with us! The People, in spite of resistance we've heard from many of their organizational "leaders," are already with us. see full text of resolution : http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20070702180355632

More Moore on Health Care Debate

Michael Moore debated with CNN's "medical Advisor" on Larry King Live - and won hands down. Transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/10/lkl.01.html

This is exciting - and Moore is definitely helping to stir up the health care debate in the US of A. GOOD FOR HIM!!

Here comes a test for the House

Harriet Miers didn't show, when called to testify before the Judicial Committee of the house on the Justice Dept attorney firings. She should be held in contempt. Will she? This is Conyers who chairs the committee, none the less. If in spite of this, if she is not held in contempt and packed off to jail there is no hope whatsoever for the Dems. Link at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070712/fired-prosecutors/

GE Shareholder Takes a Different Approach to Media Dissatisfaction

I'm not sure I'm confident that the approach of Brent Budowsky - building a coalition of shareholders to express their discontent with the parent company and propose an alternative business plan - will work. But it's nice to see someone trying to find a new way to challenge the media bias in the U.S. I'm doubtful because, in the end, I figure the people holding enough shares to be influential are too rich, and too entrenched in the interests of the people the media bias serves to want to change it, but hey, maybe not. Here's a bit from Brent's challenge:

My proposal, and if necessary challenge, would be based on traditional principles of fiduciary responsibility of public companies, to maximize value, and traditional principles of capitalist business, currently violated not only at MSNBC but throughout the current alignment of cable news services.

For example, if Keith Olbermann’s show is dramatically more successful than others at MSNBC, shouldn’t more programming be based on a Keith Olbermann model?

If Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher attract exponentially more viewers than current programs on MSNBC, shouldn’t more programming be based on their model?

Awww, it just sounds too idealistic...and that coming from me!

Cindy Takes on Pelosi on Impeachment

Found this on Michael Moore's web site:
July 8th, 2007 9:12 pm. Sheehan considers challenge to Pelosi
By Angela K. Brown / Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized the anti-war movement, said Sunday that she plans to seek House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.
Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.
"Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "We hired them to bring an end to the war. I'm not too far from San Francisco, so it wouldn't be too big of a move for me. I would give her a run for her money."
Messages left with Pelosi's staff were not immediately returned. The White House declined to comment on Sheehan's plans.
She plans her official candidacy announcement Tuesday. "

Pelosi's from SF: Cindy could pull it off if she set her mind to it.

Michael Moore's CNN interview on health care and the War

PLEASE, please go to Michael Moore's web page at http://www.michaelmoore.com/ to see the Moore Blitzer interview - DO NOT MISS THIS. And don't miss the Jon Stewart interview either

Una ministra de Sarkozy dice que es "posible" que Bush esté detrás del 11-S

Published last friday in Diario ADN, free newspaper given out in madrid:
Mathieu de Taillac / Esteban Gómez (vídeo), Madrid
No es nada raro encontrar en la web teorías que pongan en duda la versión oficial sobre los atentados del 11 de septiembre. Pero que sea una ministra de un gran país europeo quien sostenga parecida opinión ya es más extraño. Si además dice que es “posible” que el propio presidente de Estados Unidos esté detrás de los atentados contra las torres gemelas, entonces es único.

Pero la actual ministra francesa de Vivienda y Urbanismo, la conservadora Christine Boutin, no se corta. Le preguntan en una entrevista si cree que Bush “puede estar en el origen del 11-S” y ella contesta que “sí, es posible

http://www.diarioadn.com/internacional/detail.php?id=33395

NY times officially calls for withdrawal from Iraq

And I quote: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit." A bit late, after helping the country get INTO the war in the first place. But noteworthy. OFFICIAL EDITORIAL at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08sun1.html

Bush finally losing his base

This article in the Washington Post points out something that I read about yesterday. Harry Reid thinks that in the fall a fair number of Republican senators may be willing to change course on the War. In this article they say the same thing- The fall will be an important moment to put pressure on the Dems to Do something, to take leadership.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602003.html?nav=hcmodule

Executive abuse of power

Found this great Editorial via Truthout about congress vs. unitary executive.

Abuse of Executive Privilege
The New York Times Editorial

After six years of
kowtowing to the White House, Congress is finally challenging President Bush's
campaign to trample all legal and constitutional restraints on his power.
Congressional committees have issued subpoenas for
documents and witnesses in two major cases and have asked for the first - and
likely not the last - criminal investigation of an executive branch official who
might have lied to Congress.
Predictably, the White
House is claiming executive privilege and refusing to cooperate with the
legitimate Congressional investigations, one springing from Mr. Bush's decision
to spy on Americans without a warrant and the other from the purge of United
States attorneys.
The courts have recognized a
president's limited right to keep the White House's internal deliberations
private. But it is far from an absolute right, and Mr. Bush's claim of executive
privilege in the attorneys scandal is especially ludicrous. The White House has
said repeatedly that Mr. Bush was not involved in the firings of nine United
States attorneys. If that's true, he can hardly argue that he has the right to
conceal conversations and e-mail exchanges that his aides had with one another
and the Justice Department...

Frank Rich's op ed from today's NY Times on Cheney

July 1, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
When the Vice President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal
By FRANK RICH
WHO knew that mocking the Constitution could be nearly as funny as shooting a hunting buddy in the face? Among other comic dividends, Dick Cheney's legal theory that the vice president is not part of the executive branch yielded a priceless weeklong series on "The Daily Show" and an online "Doonesbury Poll," conducted at Slate, to name Mr. Cheney's indeterminate branch of government.
The ridicule was so widespread that finally even this White House had to blink. By midweek, it had abandoned that particularly ludicrous argument, if not its spurious larger claim that Mr. Cheney gets a free pass to ignore rules regulating federal officials' handling of government secrets.
That retreat might allow us to mark the end of this installment of the Bush-Cheney Follies but for one nagging problem: Not for the first time in the history of this administration — or the hundredth — has the real story been lost amid the Washington kerfuffle. Once the laughter subsides and you look deeper into the narrative leading up to the punch line, you can unearth a buried White House plot that is more damning than the official scandal. This plot once again snakes back to the sinister origins of the Iraq war, to the Valerie Wilson leak case and to the press failures that enabled the administration to abuse truth and the law for too long.
One journalist who hasn't failed is Mark Silva of The Chicago Tribune. He first reported more than a year ago, in May 2006, the essentials of the "news" at the heart of the recent Cheney ruckus. Mr. Silva found that the vice president was not filing required reports on his office's use of classified documents because he asserted that his role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, gave him an exemption.
This scoop went unnoticed by nearly everybody. It would still be forgotten today had not Henry Waxman, the dogged House inquisitor, called out Mr. Cheney 10 days ago, detailing still more egregious examples of the vice president's flouting of the law, including his effort to shut down an oversight agency in charge of policing him. The congressman's brief set off the firestorm that launched a thousand late-night gags.
That's all to the public good, but hiding in plain sight was the little-noted content of the Bush executive order that Mr. Cheney is accused of violating. On close examination, this obscure 2003 document, thrust into the light only because the vice president so blatantly defied it, turns out to be yet another piece of self-incriminating evidence illuminating the White House's guilt in ginning up its false case for war.
The tale of the document begins in August 2001, when the Bush administration initiated a review of the previous executive order on classified materials signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. The Clinton order had been acclaimed in its day as a victory for transparency because it mandated the automatic declassification of most government files after 25 years.
It was predictable that the obsessively secretive Bush team would undermine the Clinton order. What was once a measure to make government more open would be redrawn to do the opposite. And sure enough, when the White House finally released its revised version, the scant news coverage focused on how the new rules postponed the Clinton deadline for automatic declassification and tightened secrecy so much that previously declassified documents could be reclassified.
But few noticed another change inserted five times in the revised text: every provision that gave powers to the president over classified documents was amended to give the identical powers to the vice president. This unprecedented increase in vice-presidential clout, though spelled out in black and white, went virtually unremarked in contemporary news accounts.
Given all the other unprecedented prerogatives that President Bush has handed his vice president, this one might seem to be just more of the same. But both the timing of the executive order and the subsequent use Mr. Cheney would make of it reveal its special importance in the games that the White House played with prewar intelligence.
The obvious juncture for Mr. Bush to bestow these new powers on his vice president, you might expect, would have been soon after 9/11, especially since the review process on the Clinton order started a month earlier and could be expedited, as so much other governmental machinery was, to meet the urgent national-security crisis. Yet the new executive order languished for another 18 months, only to be published and signed with no fanfare on March 25, 2003, a week after the invasion of Iraq began.
Why then? It was throughout March, both on the eve of the war and right after "Shock and Awe," that the White House's most urgent case for Iraq's imminent threat began to unravel. That case had been built around the scariest of Saddam's supposed W.M.D., the nuclear weapons that could engulf America in mushroom clouds, and the White House had pushed it relentlessly, despite a lack of evidence. On "Meet the Press" on March 16, Mr. Cheney pressed that doomsday button one more time: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." But even as the vice president spoke, such claims were at last being strenuously challenged in public.
Nine days earlier Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency had announced that documents supposedly attesting to Saddam's attempt to secure uranium in Niger were "not authentic." A then-obscure retired diplomat, Joseph Wilson, piped in on CNN, calling the case "outrageous."
Soon both Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Congressman Waxman wrote letters (to the F.B.I. and the president, respectively) questioning whether we were going to war because of what Mr. Waxman labeled "a hoax." And this wasn't the only administration use of intelligence that was under increasing scrutiny. The newly formed 9/11 commission set its first open hearings for March 31 and requested some half-million documents, including those pertaining to what the White House knew about Al Qaeda's threat during the summer of 2001.
The new executive order that Mr. Bush signed on March 25 was ingenious. By giving Mr. Cheney the same classification powers he had, Mr. Bush gave his vice president a free hand to wield a clandestine weapon: he could use leaks to punish administration critics.
That weapon would be employed less than four months later. Under Mr. Bush's direction, Mr. Cheney deputized Scooter Libby to leak highly selective and misleading portions of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to pet reporters as he tried to discredit Mr. Wilson. By then, Mr. Wilson had emerged as the most vocal former government official accusing the White House of not telling the truth before the war.
Because of the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation, we would learn three years later about the offensive conducted by Mr. Libby on behalf of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush. That revelation prompted the vice president to acknowledge his enhanced powers in an unguarded moment in a February 2006 interview with Brit Hume of Fox News. Asked by Mr. Hume with some incredulity if "a vice president has the authority to declassify information," Mr. Cheney replied, "There is an executive order to that effect." He was referring to the order of March 2003.
Even now, few have made the connection between this month's Cheney flap and the larger scandal. That larger scandal is to be found in what the vice president did legally under the executive order early on rather than in his more recent rejection of its oversight rules.
Timing really is everything. By March 2003, this White House knew its hype of Saddam's nonexistent nuclear arsenal was in grave danger of being exposed. The order allowed Mr. Bush to keep his own fingerprints off the nitty-gritty of any jihad against whistle-blowers by giving Mr. Cheney the authority to pick his own shots and handle the specifics. The president could have plausible deniability and was free to deliver non-denial denials like "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." Mr. Cheney in turn could delegate the actual dirty work to Mr. Libby, who obstructed justice to help throw a smoke screen over the vice president's own role in the effort to destroy Mr. Wilson.
Last week The Washington Post ran a first-rate investigative series on the entire Cheney vice presidency. Readers posting comments were largely enthusiastic, but a few griped. "Six and a half years too late," said one. "Four years late and billions of dollars short," said another. Such complaints reflect the bitter legacy of much of the Washington press's failure to penetrate the hyping of prewar intelligence and, later, the import of the Fitzgerald investigation.
We're still playing catch-up. In a week in which the C.I.A. belatedly released severely censored secrets about agency scandals dating back a half-century, you have to wonder what else was done behind the shield of an executive order signed just after the Ides of March four years ago. Another half-century could pass before Americans learn the full story of the secrets buried by Mr. Cheney and his boss to cover up their deceitful path to war.

this is a trial run