Faithful rendition

I can't not put this on The River.

"Working Class Hero," Marianne Faithful covering the classic Lennon tune.

And surpassing the original. By far. Powerful, powerful performance. Ominous arrangement, befitting the lyrics that Faithful correctly delivers as someone watching her last obsessively tended flame of hope sputter and die. Someone defiantly standing in the ashes, delivering the truth. Someone who knows.



Happy Friday, ya'll.

via Listics


PS: Although I don't own it, I understand she recorded the song for 1990's Broken English album.

Impeach

Call Senator John Conyers today to support impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.

Via Listics, I learned this morning that:

On Monday, July 23rd, the fifth anniversary of the meeting that produced the Downing Street Minutes, Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Ann Wright, Debra Sweet, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin, Kevin Zeese, and Tina Richards will lead a march to [Judiciary Committee] Chairman Conyers office and not leave until he agrees to begin impeachment proceedings.

I also found advice on what to do, and I have already done it. Please consider:

If you cannot be there, you can take two minutes on Monday and do two things: phone Chairman Conyers at 202-225-5126 and ask him to start the impeachment of Dick Cheney; and phone your own Congress Member at 202-224-3121 and ask them to immediately call Conyers’ office to express their support for impeachment. Your Congress Member might be one of the three needed, not just to keep impeachment activists out of jail but to keep this nation from devolving into dictatorship.

"When President Nixon ignored Congressional subpoenas during the Watergate investigation, Democrats introduced Articles of Impeachment to tell Nixon that ignoring subpoenas was an impeachable offense. Now George Bush is behaving just like Nixon, and Democrats should once again introduce Articles of Impeachment."

-- democrats.com

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment, H.Res. 333:

In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has

1. purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests

2. purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests

3. openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States

Wherefore Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

No Jail Time for Libby? It's Impeachment Time for Cheney and Bush!

An insider comes forward

Paul Craig Roberts, who has been a consistently compelling commentator on the Internet these past two or three years, was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is compelling because he is independent, analytical, and smart. He has written a piece that should get the attention of every aware, progressive person in this country.

His remarkable essay, published yesterday, is about the situation we're in, and how it has been and will continue to be -- if we let it -- powered by false-flag operations.

I found this via 911blogger.com. A great blog.

Here's an excerpt:

Lately, the administration has switched to blaming Iran for the war in Iraq. The US Senate has already lined up behind the latest lie with a 97-0 vote to condemn Iran.

Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.

Many Americans dismiss suspicion of their government as treasonous, and most believe conspiracy to be impossible “because someone would talk.”

There is no basis in any known fact for this opinion.

more

More questions

Tell me, my friends, as Americans, does this bother you?

Do you think, as a political issue that needs to be brought to public attention, it's more important than John Edwards' haircut?

Does WTC 7 bother you?

Does the report in the Scottish newspaper Sunday Herald [link is dead, sorry] quoting Benjamin Netanyahu saying on the morning of September 11:

“It’s very good. Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans].”

bother you?

The question is, who is occupying whom, and for what end?

Who pulled off 9/11? (don't answer, you don't know; which should bother you). Who is benefitting from it? Israel and its Neocon fellow-travellers. Accident? Lucky break?

Not likely.

It's time for a declaration of independence from Israel, as Chris Hedges has written, and it's time for citizens to step up 9/11 investigations.

One more to disturb your sleep:


(larger graphic here)

via

Pop quiz

How is U.S. foreign policy different from Israeli foreign policy?

Answer: it isn't.

Essay question

Describe the mechanics, the extent, and the consequences of Israel's influence on the U.S. government.

Answer: It's Time for a Declaration of Independence From Israel, By Chris Hedges

Delusions of Democracy

My title for a brilliant post that I started to excerpt but wound up copying almost all of. But since that would be cheating, instead here is the first paragraph.

We can try to articulate, though it's very near the futile edge, why Bush's pardon of Libby is a wrong thing, and we should. So here. Because it is the stunning hammer, the blunt instrument, the immediate weapon visited upon our hope for a brighter future. "Our" meaning something that doesn't hold Libby and Bush as essential. "Our" meaning something that is kept by, or caught by, or at the mildest impeded by what these men are in the world as we live in it now.


informant38

Absurd

Report: Al Qaeda may use Iraq
CNN International - 9 hours ago
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Al Qaeda will try to tap its allies and resources in Iraq in its efforts to exact another terrorist attack on US soil, according to a top government intelligence report released Tuesday.

I love checking Google News. It's surreal. Especially since the Neocons and their apparatchiks began hyping the new Al Qaeda threat over a week ago. And you thought new products and new TV shows didn't debut until September. Desparate times, and all that.

The only solution, obviously, is to bomb ourselves, since we control Iraq and are therefore harboring Al Qaeda.

Perhaps they can use the "located in ungoverned areas" dodge that they're using for Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Of course, bombing ourselves just might work. We did it once before, after all. The key is to blame it on Al Qaeda. Yes, that's the answer...Quick, call the Mossad. Chertoff?!

WTC 7

Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has an excellent presentation on WTC 7 on the 911 Blogger site.

Some select points from the video:

90 percent of our evidence is not attacking the NIST report or the FEMA report but showing the evidence of demolition, which is undeniable.

FEMA only had $600,000 in funding and was the only report on WTC collapse from the government until 2004-5. Not a serious effort to get the truth. FEMA admitted fire and complete collapse has a low probability of occurring and that the cause remained unknown after three years of study.

As in a court case, there are experts on all sides. You have to decide who is lying and who is telling the truth.

We have to deal with this.

Watch the video

The art of the rant

President Bush has a very bad plan that will result in his final victory. In his own mind he will go down in history is being even more awesomer than the fully awesome Ronald Reagan. How will he achieve this gigantic kickass feat of mutually assured delusion? By doing what he's always done: pretending. He's going to become a hero by pretending to be one.

It's hard to overstate the awsesomeness of President Bush. Here's a man who sucks at everything, but absolutely rules when it comes to bullshitting himself.

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--

One look around and it's plain to see who sets the total agenda in this country: The voters who send pro-business, pro-theocracy, pro-empire, anti-Constitutional zealots to Washington, D.C.. The mass media, being capital-based, belongs to them. It's their echo chamber. Liberals ceded that ground a long time ago. We don't even try to compete against it.

But, hey, we've got The Blogosphere, where people who already know they're continuously being lied to can go and read all about it.

Every.

Single.

Day.

Democratic politicians don't even have to be brought to heel by The Right, as they have been more than adequately leash-trained over the last quarter century or so. It's always 1980 at the DNC, where "populism" is synonymous with "Reaganite lynch mob" instead of universal healthcare or education for all or a living wage.

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Nail, meet hammer

Yes, we can get out of this without violence, and that's by opening our mouths to our Congressmen and Senators about the evil that placing Israel before America creates.

Everyone is afraid of being labeled anti-semitic. The fear of the label is greater than loss of American lives. It's stunning. Even when someone like Norman Podhoretz writes in the WSJ that "As an American and a Jew, I pray to God that Bush will [bomb Iran.]" He prays to God? For Israel! Not for America! For another foreign country with a paranoid fear of something being developed in the future that should its enemy be suicidal might be used against it.

And our reaction?

Silence. Absolute utter silence in this country. We cried over Paris Hilton instead and gave Podhoretz a pass. And the WSJ had the temerity to reprint that treasonous screed originally written for Podhoretz's Commentary rag.

The one thing Israel hasn't counted on is the American populace. Israel doesn't understand what 300 million people can do when the 7/8 asleep in this country wake up to nuclear devastation on these shores because a bunch of Zionist intellectuals and ex-bouncers running Israel placed this nation in mortal peril with their police state BS. Fox News wont be able to talk their way out of this one. Too many poobahs have declared that we are going to war in Iran for Israel -- nothing else, just Israel -- including the President. Too many Israeli Generals have written that 'we must influence Hillary Clinton' and secretly get the Americans to go to war for us, and pay for it. Too much hyperbole about imaginary threats has been written from a nation that is not being threatened except by its own stupidity, violence, lies, and arrogance. And we buy into this crappola that the world revolves around this postage-sized oligarchy in the desert?

The real anti-semitism that Israel will create if it urges the US to bomb Iran in its name will be staggering.

And the inane remarks I've read recently around the web that the US is using Israel and secretly wants to eliminate it by provoking war with Iran is just that: inane. Like the Israelis are a bunch of idiots with their thumb in their bum and their brain in neutral. One word from Israel to Aipac to 'cut it out' and this threat would be gone.

-- Comment on Paul Craig Roberts' latest at Information Clearinghouse, Impeach Now, Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy

"If the administration's charade starts to unravel, Bush will need a good man like Chertoff in place to go "Code Red" and announce the transition to martial law."

-- Mike Whitney, January, 2005.

Summer blockbuster

I don't like the looks of this. Yahoo's featured news story:

The return of al-Qaida

U.S. intelligence reports al-Qaida is at its strongest since before 9/11.

This was news two days ago. That it's still "featured" and that it's nicely slugged (on the Yahoo home page) for movie-like consumption is not a good sign.

As many in the blog neighborhood have pointed out, this looks like propaganda groundwork for a false-flag attack, nicely drawn out in drips and drabs.

And although I avoid broadcast media, it appears from the links at the bottom of the AP story that ABC is revving up the terror show:

Growing Threat From Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda is reportedly back to its pre-9/11 operational capacity.

-- ABC News video

Extra-Vigilant Homeland Security
Intelligence officials are working hard to prevent a possible terror attack.

-- ABC News video

And right on time: Senators Lieberman, McCain, Kyl, Graham, and Coleman today introduced a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, confronting the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran over its proxy attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. They are all quoted, and they sound like children who've been told they can't have a toy.

Harford Courant's report: Lieberman Leads Way In Warning To Iran

Senate Shows Support In 97-0 Vote

I feel ill.

It's official

Lenin of Lenin's Tomb is not a loon. We repeat: NOT a loon.


This is a Loon

In his recent post addressing 9/11, he makes it clear he is also not: augmenting a "narcissistic personality disorder" or enganged in a "collosal globalisation" of his ego. Nor is he giving "free reign to personal obsessions, paranoid delusions of persecution, teenage bullying, hokey mysticism, fantasies of omnipotent power and despotism, and languorous self-adoration." Nor "lurid self-display with outrageous self-promotion."

9/11 an inside job? Tosh, says Lenin. You can't prove it and it wouldn't matter if you could, because then you'd be left with disempowerment and despair (as opposed to?).

He concludes with the "this is just a distraction" theory, much like George Monbiot.

The main focus of the left in my view," writes Lenin, "should be first and foremost on what the US state and its principle constitutency - the American capitalist class - is definitely, obviously doing to the people on this planet and has been doing for more than a century now.

What he doesn't get is that 9/11 is of a piece with that, and its exposure as a fraud would help millions see, as in understand, what the perpatrators -- the "American capitalist class" -- are doing right now, and what their ilk have done "for more than a century."

Wars, like leaders, have to be justified. Remove the justification -- 9/11 -- and you do the most good to stop the war and remove the leaders.

Good discussion in the comments to the post.

9/11 mastermind to be brought to justice?

"Thoughts on the Eve" points to Dave Lindorff's article on the growing trend toward impeachment:

Despite a corporate media blackout on impeachment that means almost nobody in the country knows that there is already a Cheney impeachment bill in the House with 14 co-sponsors (HR 333), over half the country nonetheless wants Cheney to get the boot.

Speaking of "Thoughts", Bill contributed his on 9/11. Not much discussion generated, but at this point, I suppose we aren't shocking anyone with 9/11 inside job accusations. If Bill were writing for Time magazine, it might be a different story. At any rate, Bill recommends David Ray Griffin's lastest book as a good starting point for investigation.

And speaking of both 9/11 criminals and impeachment, Marc Lord is. Speaking. Of those things.

Go read good writing over at his site, where he asks, what did Wolfowitz know and when did he know it? Seems Wolfie had some prescient words for West Point's graduating class of 2001 in his commencement address in June of that fateful year.

Finally, as if the two fine bloggers above weren't enough, I'm also serving up today a recommendation for Mike Golby's post on AFRICOM, which covers both the beginning -- the catalyzing event both planned (possibly if not plausibly) in and for the WTC -- and the end -- America coming to Africa "militarily" -- through analysis of the unvarnished (because not in the political sphere, per se) psychopathic musings of Thomas P.M. Barnett.