Lieberman campaign files forms to run as petitioning candidate
Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman filed paperwork Mondaythat will allow him to collect signatures to petition his way onto the November ballot if he loses an August primary.
Lieberman's campaign announced the move in an e-mail to reporters
Lieberman also filed papers with the secretary of the state's office Monday to create a new party called Connecticut for Lieberman.
2nd Ney Aide Subpoenaed to Talk in Probe
A second member of embattled Republican Rep. Bob Ney'sstaff has been subpoenaed to testify in the Justice Department's investigationof influence-peddling in Congress.
John Bennett, who works in Ney's eastern Ohio district office, notifiedHouse Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., of the subpoena with a letter readMonday into the Congressional Record.
Bennett was subpoenaed less than two weeks after another employeein Ney's Ohio office, District Director Matthew Parker, was ordered to testify.Ney himself was subpoenaed in November.
White House asks for dismissal of NSA wiretap suit
The Bush administration on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, arguing that defending the four-year-old wiretapping program in open court would risk national security.
In arguments before U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday renewed its call for a court order that would force the government to suspend its program of intercepting without a court order the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens.
But the U.S. Justice Department has asked federal judges in Detroit and New York to throw out the landmark challenges to the eavesdropping program.
"If the court accepts the state-secret argument, we are truly facing a constitutional crisis in this country," Michael Steinberg, legal director for ACLU Michigan, told reporters after the hearing.
Dissident CIA faction 'exposed'
A HIGH-ranking Republican congressman has exposed what he sees as a dissident faction within the CIA that he says "intentionally undermined" the policies of US President George W Bush.
Rumours about the existence of such a group have circulated in the US capital for a long time, but the comments by Representative Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, marks the first time they were confirmed by an official with intimate knowledge of the intelligence community. "
In fact, I have been long concerned that a strong and well-positioned group within the agency intentionally undermined the administration and its policies," Mr Hoekstra wrote in a letter to Mr Bush dated May 18, and made public today.
The CIA has refused to comment on the charge.
The allegations stem from a Central Intelligence Agency leak investigation that centred on former CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, made a 2002 trip to Niger to check on reports that Iraq had secretly tried to purchase uranium ore there.
"More scapegoating of others to cover for thier failures...All totalitarian governments have had their purges and see what it got them..." - Nobody
Detainee Rights Create a Divide on Capitol Hill
The Supreme Court decision striking down the use of military commissions to bring terrorism detainees to trial has set off sharp differences among Republicans in Congress over what kind of rights detainees should be granted and how much deference should be shown the president in deciding the issue.
The debate is expected to consume the rest of the summer in Congress as lawmakers head into an election season expected to be dominated by issues of national security. The issue reflects the difficult legal, diplomatic and political choices the government faces in dealing with terrorism suspects.The divisions do not fall strictly along traditional partisan lines and are as much within the parties as between them, particularly for Republicans. On one side of the debate are Republicans who believe Congress should give the president the authority to set up the kind of military commissions that were struck down by the court. Such commissions would sharply curtail defendants' rights.
On the other side are those who say the trials should be modeled on the military system of courts-martial, an approach that would give detainees more due-process rights than would the commissions. In between, many Republicans and Democrats alike argue for starting with the military judicial system and tweaking it to reflect the differences of trying terrorism suspects.
Report on Guantanamo torture is released by Center for Constitutional Rights
The 51 page "Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba" is drawn from primary accounts given by current detainees and their American attorneys at the Guantánamo Bay prison. It catalogues conduct by U.S. officials in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which the Supreme Court recently applied to detainees in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision.
Guantanamo prisoners won't be moved to US: White House
Criticism of the treatment of detainees has led to international calls to close Guantanamo, where three prisoners committed suicide on June 10. The White House says Guantanamo cannot be closed until its prisoners are either repatriated or tried.
Report on Torture at Gitmo
Iraqis, US military see possible pullout: senators
Iraqi leaders and U.S. military commanders there anticipate that American troops could start withdrawing this year, two Democratic U.S. senators who favor such a move said on Saturday after a visit to Iraq.
"The commanders on the ground, and Iraq's political leaders, suggest that it is appropriate to begin a redeployment of American forces as early as some time this year," said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
"I asked the prime minister (Nuri al-Maliki) directly, whether it would be feasible and desirable, and he in so many words said yes, that it is something that they anticipate," Reed said.
Reed and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware spoke to reporters in a telephone conference call after returning from Iraq where they met Maliki, other Iraqi officials and top U.S. military brass in the country -- including top commander Gen. George Casey and ground forces commander Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli.
Reed, a former Army officer who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Casey told them he sees a possible reduction of an unspecified number of troops starting this year.
Iraq says to ask U.N. to end US immunity
Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.
Ground commanders' questions about detainee treatment went unanswered
Gulf war vet shoots four
David Bradley, 40, used a handgun with a silencer to avoid alerting his next victim.
He crept up behind each in turn at their home, blasting them in the back of the head at close range.
The ex-soldier then spent the night with the bodies before confessing to cops.
Victim was just 14 when she was raped and killed by US soldiers
The young Iraqi woman who five US soldiers are accused of raping and killing on March 12 was 14 years old, not over 20, as US officials have said.
US court documents described Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, who was shot dead along with her sister and parents, as an "adult female" and estimated her age as 25. Local officials and relatives had said she was 15 or 16, but her identity card and a copy of her death certificate show she was born on August 19, 1991 in Baghdad.
Her identity card, issued in 1993, features a photograph of her at 18 months, wide-eyed and with a lick of dark hair over her brow. A copy of her death certificate gives the same birth date.
She was found at home by a relative on March 12 and had died from "gunshot wounds to the head, with burns", said the document, signed by doctor Wael Habib and a registrar.
Newsweek's Man in Baghdad: Iraq Is "Doomed," Bush "Manages the News"
Rod Nordland, the chief foreign correspondent for Newsweek magazine and their Baghdad bureau chief from 2003 to 2005, gave an interview to Foreign Policy magazine in which he declared that "It's a lot worse over here [in Iraq] than is reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news." He claimed individual reporters have been "blacklisted" because the military wasn't happy with their stories while they were embedded. He also suggested many in the military don't want to see how awful it is in Iraq because they're wishful thinkers, they don't want to see a "doomed enterprise," and are "victims of their own propaganda."
Juan Cole And Time Magazine On Israel & Gaza
The recent Israeli actions are ensuring that terrorists will unleash a devastating attack on the U.S. on U.S. soil. The actions are violating the Just War principles of proportionality of response and the avoidance of damage to civilians. Israel is becoming like the old drunken friend who is constantly getting into fights with other bar patrons whenever one hangs out with them. Fights that you are always drawn into. Eventually you have to let the friend know that you are fucking tired of defending their friendship with your face.
BOY DIES IN GAZA
A PALESTINIAN boy of 11 died yesterday after being shot in the chest in Israel's military operation in Gaza.
Israeli Savagery in Gaza
People and governments of the world would be wise to heed the words of Pope Paul IV, "If you want peace, work for justice". As long as Israel is committed to ethnic cleansing, Palestinians will continue to fight for their survival.And what sane, honest and moral human being can truly blame them? Bishop Desmond Tutu once said: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
Israel bars Palestinian Americans for first time since 1967
For the first time since 1967, Israel is preventing the entry of Palestinians with foreign citizenship, most of them Americans.
Most of those refused entry are arriving from abroad, but have lived and worked for years in the West Bank.
The Interior Ministry and Civil Administration made no formal announcement about a policy change, leaving returnees to discover the situation when they reach the border crossings.
Olmert to press ahead with Gaza raids
Olmert, speaking to foreign media, said operations in Gaza to press for the soldier's release and an end to cross-border rocket attacks against Israel would continue indefinitely.
Mexico Candidate Heads to Electoral Court
Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador headed to court Sunday evening to present 800 pages of purported evidence of fraud that he hoped would overturn his conservative rival's razor-thin preliminary victory.
Lopez Obrador said his lawyers would give the Federal Electoral Court evidence of fraud, including computerized manipulation of the results, a day after he called for continued hope from supporters at a mammoth rally in Mexico City's historic center.
The legal appeal would seek not to annul the July 2 election, but to force authorities to conduct a manual recount of all 41 million ballots.
``This was a very irregular election and we are asking that they count vote by vote to legitimize the president elect,'' Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, said outside the tribunal Sunday night as he waited for lawyers to arrive.
"The recount is guaranteed by their constitution...but we also know that constitutions and the laws don't seem to mean much to the right wingers on this planet any more." - Nobody
Christian Group Becomes Force in Major Legal Battles
A 29-foot war memorial shaped like a cross should be allowed to remain on public land. A teacher should be able to emphasize references to God in the Declaration of Independence. Protesters should be permitted to approach women near the doors of an abortion clinic.
These courtroom fights and dozens of others pending across the country belong to the portfolio of the ambitious Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium. It spends $20 million a year seeking to protect what it regards as the place of religion -- and especially Christianity -- in public life.
Considering itself the antithesis of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Scottsdale-based organization has used money and moxie to become the leading player in a movement to tug the nation to the right by challenging decades of legal precedent. By stepping into the nation's most impassioned debates about religion in the public sphere, the group aims to bring law and society into alignment with conservative Christianity.
Dominionismand the Rise of Christian Imperialism
Dominionism in brief
Throughout the 2000 year history of Christianity there has always been a vein of dominionism embedded in the strata of doctrines. This seam has ebbed and flowed for 20 centuries, sometimes submerged, sometimes exposed. Whenever out in the open, it has given rise to horrible abuses done in the name of Christ. In the early 21st century, once again this vein is now showing and active. Keep in mind:
Dominionism is always an aberration of true Christian theology.
A remnant of believers has always opposed it, often suffering a martyr’s fate at the hands of intolerant dominionists.
Dominionism and Dominion Theology
Dominionism and Dominion Theology are not denominations or faith groups. Rather, they are interrelated beliefs which are followed by members of a wide range of Christian denominations.
In his article on dominionism, researcher and author Chip Berlet credits sociologist Sara Diamond with popularizing the term dominionism as "a growing political tendency in the Christian Right." Diamond defined dominionism in 1995 as:
Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns--and there is no consensus on when that might be.
The Despoiling of America
How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
The First Prince of the Theocratic States of America
It happened quietly, with barely a mention in the media. Only the Washington Post dutifully reported it.[1] And only Kevin Phillips saw its significance in his new book, American Dynasty.[2] On December 24, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his position as President of the Christian Coalition.
Behind the scenes religious conservatives were abuzz with excitement. They believed Robertson had stepped down to allow the ascendance of the President of the United States of America to take his rightful place as the head of the true American Holy Christian Church.
Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence
Overview and Roots
The Christian Right has shown impressive resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the failed presidential bid of Pat Robertson. (But) In the 1990s, Christian Right organizing went to the grassroots and exerted wide influence in American politics across the country.
There is no doubt that Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition gets much of the credit for this successful strategic shift to the local level. But another largely overlooked reason for the persistent success of the Christian Right is a theological shift since the 1960s. The catalyst for the shift is Christian Reconstructionism--arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right in the 1990s.
The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance. Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold Reconstructionist ideas. Because as a theology it is controversial, even among evangelicals, many who are consciously influenced by it avoid the label. This furtiveness is not, however, as significant as the potency of the ideology itself. Generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law." Reconstructionism would eliminate not onlydemocracy but many of its manifestations, such as labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools. Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.
"BURN THE WITCH!...BURN THE WITCH!...(just practicing in case I need to blend in long enough to escape to the hills)" - Nobody
Pot church takes a hit
PIMA — The Church of Cognizance, which has quietly operated here since 1991, has an unusual tenet — its worshippers deify and use marijuana as part of their faith.
Until federal authorities charged them with possessing 172 pounds of their leafy green sacrament earlier this year, church founders Dan and Mary Quaintance say they smoked, ate or drank marijuana daily as a way of becoming more spiritually enlightened.
"I thought that this was already settled by the supreme court...guess not..." - Nobody
Federal Court Rules in Favor of Ayahuasca-using Church
Members of the ayahuasca-using religious group known as the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), won a major legal victory on Monday (August 12, 2002), when a federal court ruled that the group’s use of ayahuasca was likely protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Ayahuasca (also known as hoasca) is a visionary tea that serves as the sacrament of the UDV religion. In May 1999, US Customs agents seized several bottles of ayahuasca imported from Brazil for use by members of UDV's US Branch headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
According to the US government, ayahuasca is an illegal controlled substance in the same class as LSD, because it contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT) a “hallucinogenic” drug under the US Controlled Substance Act (CSA). In Brazil, ayahuasca is legal and is expressly recognized as the sacrament of several Brazilian-based churches, including the UDV.
After seizing the tea, the US government failed to file criminal charges but refused to return the tea to the UDV. As a result, the UDV filed a lawsuit alleging that the government’s seizure and continued holding of its sacrament was unconstitutional and also violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as international laws and treaties.
Economic Gains Widen Pay Gap
Wages are rising more than twice as fast for highly paid workers in the Washington area as they are for low-paid workers, an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post shows.That means the spoils of the region's economic expansion are going disproportionately to workers who are already well-paid, widening a gap between rich and poor in a place where it is already wider than in most of the country.
"Edit in progress" - Nobody
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