The Vidiot's weekly blog:

What pissed me off this week? 12/6/2004

(updated every Monday at some point during the day)

...'cause I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me...

List of Voter Fraud Stories

Media Contacts

Track your congresscritters here!

Mirror (in case geocities is wacky or, in case of trouble in New York, check it for messages): http://129.79.148.33/vidiotcontact/

Programming Note: No update next week. 10-page final due. Arggggh.

I'm sure we've all been watching the Ukrainian situation with a sort of abject jealously. Wow. Do those people know how to fight for their democracy or what? (Guess they've not been softened by years of exposure to consumer-driven media like us 'mericans.) There was the initial thronging and (their "Kerry" stayed to fight). And then, much hypocrisy from the US ensued. But they did it. They forced a re-vote. My congratulations to them. (My favorite story from the Ukraine: Pens with disappearing ink.)

Oh, and why did the US pressure for a re-vote (their guy was the opposition leader, Putin's was the declared leader)? Control of the Caspian Sea Basin oil, that's why.

Where's the outrage, people?

Must-read of the week: "Escalation"

Legal List of the Week: Built-in Marriage Rights

Blog of the Week: Greg Palast

Criminal site of the week: Tom DeLay

Disturbing video of the Week: Depleted Uranium in Iraq

Simplified Living Site of the Week: New Dream

Time Waster of the Week: The Ultimate Jukebox

Randi Rhodes Mentioned Site of the Week: Google's Unclesam (searches government sites)

Cool Site of the Week: Worldometers

Draft-Age Useful Site of the Week: Be a Conscientious Objector

Movie Clip of the Week: Peter King in August of 2003.

Consumer Activism Site of the Week: Choose the Blue!

Call your critters (Switchboard: 202.224.3121). When you're done, call Hastert, Hoekstra, Harman, Collins and Lieberman. Here are the talking points:

1. Keep the anti-immigrant and anti-civil liberty
   provisions that Representative Sensenbrenner supports out of
   the intelligence reform bill.
2. The Senate-led compromise that came out of the
   conference committee includes immigration and border
   security provisions that will make us safer.
   (See AILA's press release that lists these provisions).
3. The measures that Representative Sensenbrenner
   supports are extreme, not part of the 9/11 Commission
   recommendations and are not supported by the 9/11
   Commissioners, and would not enhance our security.
4. I urge you to enact the real recommendations of the
   9-11 Commission.

Josh Marshall mentioned the whole Cheney's shoe size getting bigger thing and thought it might have something to do with foot swelling and congestive heart failure.

Excerpt:Here's why I say this. Swollen feet is a symptom of congestive heart failure, particularly when the enlargement is in both feet (thus signaling a systemic cause.) It is by no means the only thing it can mean. Ankle and foot swelling can also be caused by fluid build-up due to renal insufficiency, among other causes. And, of course, even later in life one's shoe size can simply change for entirely benign reasons.

I have a friend with congestive heart failure and I can tell you his feet are ENOURMOUS.

But here's something Mr. Marshall failed to mention: Swollen genitals can ALSO be a sign of congestive heart failure (I even confirmed it with my brother-in-law, Dr. Dan. ) So this picture of Cheney's "scud missile in his pants" has a whole new relevance, doesn't it?

Will we see Jeb in 2006 (as a replacement for Cheney)?

Excerpt: Jeb is head and shoulders above this field. He's the popular governor of a crucial state. Fluent in Spanish, married to a Mexican, the darling of the Cuban community, he has vast appeal to the constituency the GOP most covets: Hispanics. He's conservative on social issues but comes across as less regional and ideological than his brother George. Jeb is a Southern Republican who sounds like a Democrat. In 2002, he won reelection in Florida, an evenly split state, by 13 points.

I've given much thought to the gift-giving holidays this year and I've decided on no purchased gifts for anyone but children. If I do purchase anything, it will be "politically correct" meaning I won't buy from large chains. I'll only purchase locally. Period. That's it. I'm sick of what the holiday's have become. I used to love them. The decorating, the gifts, the music. But not anymore. Especially since the war in Iraq, I just can't wrap my head around a holiday that's supposed to be about "Peace on Earth" when our country is running around the globe waging war on anybody and anything. I guess that makes me too sensitive or too serious or something. But so be it. I've decided to simplify my life and vote with my dollars.

Excerpt: Voluntary Simplicity allows you to sustain your vision, giving you ways to survive in the current culture while working to change it. Conventional wisdom says we give up our ideals when faced with the realities of making a living. But don’t these “realities” define the system we are working to change? By living simply now we can show others what the future could be like.

Money seems to be the only thing anyone understands anyway.

Excerpt: One is people have to develop an understanding of what the current economy is actually doing. People in the United States tend to have much more confidence in the economy than is actually warranted. But more and more people are seeing that the emperor has no clothes, that globalization as currently practiced is an empty promise of lots of money that delivers only to a select few. Yet people cling to it as they do not yet have confidence that it can be replaced without bringing real hard times.

I'm not bright enough to understand what this means.

Excerpt: This means, as 'citizens,' we are assets of the corporation. It doesn't matter who is in office, the board of directors and the shareholders own and run the country - just as in any other corporation.

A must-read series about how the fraud for election 2004 may have been financed. There might be a Saudi connection.

Excerpt: According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush.

More on the Saudi connection:

Excerpt: Additional information on the buying of vote riggers with Saudi and former Enron funds has been obtained. The epicenter for the vote rigging operation is Dallas, Texas, and the operation may involve retired FBI agents who used a well-established "good ole boy" network to arrange for access to polling precincts by electronic voting machine technicians who took advantage of various November 2 security "lockdowns" to illegally alter the tabulation of votes in favor of Bush. Some of the retired agents may have used courtesy credentials issued upon retirement to fool unsuspecting polling place workers.

And more:

Excerpt: Five Star Trust, the entity that, according to well-placed business and U.S. intelligence sources, is tied to the financing of a scheme to pay individuals posing as U.S. law enforcement and electronic voting machine technicians to rig the vote in favor of George W. Bush in at least four key states–Florida, Texas, Ohio, and California—represents a Byzantine network of offshore shell corporations and individuals tied to various Bush and Saudi-connected business enterprises.

And this week's installment :

Excerpt:The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.

How to Use the Bible in Your Political Arguments

Excerpt: So here's what you need to remember in a nutshell:  there is a difference between claiming that a text is authoritative, and saying that it is foundational.

If it's posited by Robert Novak, it must be crap.

Excerpt: Sentiment in conservative circles strongly favors promoting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to chief justice if ailing William Rehnquist leaves the nation's top judicial position.

Why does this man still have a job? (Though, honestly, Thomas as chief justice makes sense. He's younger and would therefore have the position longer. Even though he's grossly incompetent.)

The BBC just covered this story about orphans in NYC being used as testing monkeys in NYC for AIDS drugs.

Excerpt: GNNer Liam Scheff’s investigation into the forced drugging of children in New York City (andnationally) as part of NIH clinical trials was featured in a BBC television report Tuesday. According to Scheff, the UK crew filmed several interviews with mothers who have lost custody of their children for refusing to drug them with chemotherapy drugs such as AZT, and potent cell-killing drugs like Nevirapine. Scheff is credited as providing the original research for the project.

If you read this blog regularly, you already knew about this (from 7.15.04) 4 month lag time. Hmmm....

If we switch to biofeuls, what about feeding people?

Excerpt: If the same thing is to happen all over Europe, the impact on global food supply will be catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people.

Don't know whether to believe the "whitehouse insider" guy, but I sure do like reading what he has to say.

Excerpt: The staff here is breathing more comfortably now that the Mighty Mandate has been achieved. It means they don't have to worry about Bush's being told about the 9/11 attack in specific detail, for his arrest record for drugs and "strange" public conduct, his very sticky fingers as far as money is concerned (George will steal the pennies of dead peopleís eyes if he can) and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

If this surprises you, then you've not been paying attention.

Excerpt: The U.S. government knew of an imminent plot to oust Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, in the weeks prior to a 2002 military coup that briefly unseated him, newly released CIA documents show, despite White House claims to the contrary a week after the putsch.

The Pentagon Report we'll never see reported on TV 'cause it blames particular people in the administration for 9/11

Excerpt: Late on the Wednesday afternoon before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Defense Department released a report by the Defense Science Board that is highly critical of the administration's efforts in the war on terror and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Book burning. It's a classic!

Excerpt: An Alabama legislator wants to ban public and university libraries from buying books with gay characters — unless they're depraved.

If you can't destroy the environment out in the open, just do it in secret!

Excerpt: Rules Made in Secret Would Affect More Than a Dozen Park Service Areas

Actually. It's not so secret. And it's more frightening than you think.

Excerpt: I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the international policy network, which is supported by Exxon Mobile and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising," scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."

And the definition of hubris? With regards to The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment that basically said things are totally FUBAR...

Excerpt "My biggest concern is that people are going to use this so-called study to try to influence the way and standard of living that occurs within the United States," Young said.
"I don't believe it is our fault. That's an opinion," Young said. "It's as sound as any scientist's."

All that tax relief you wanted? Well, the money has to come from somewhere.

Excerpt: "There is a property tax crisis," says Myron Orfield, a property tax expert at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "It's especially bad in states like New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, and Illinois, which are property-tax dependent."

We're so much safer with GW in office.

Excerpt: At least two-thirds of the nation's fire departments are understaffed, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which sets firefighting codes and standards. The shortage is worst in rural volunteer departments that have trouble recruiting new members. But many big and medium-size cities that are more likely to be terrorist targets are also short-handed.

And if you fall for lies like these again, I will personally come out there and bitch-slap each and every one of you.

Excerpt:The interception of technology shipments to Iran is fueling U-S suspicions that Tehran officials are trying to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Oh yeah. And the efficacy of Stem cells is just a myth.

Excerpt: A South Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood.

An update on the fight for the DNC

Excerpt: So Michigan's Democratic Party chief says the following Democrats have been making calls to DNC members gauging support for a run: ousted Rep. Martin Frost, former Clark campaign manager Donnie Fowler, businessman Leo Hindery, and Howard Dean. Donnie Fowler is looking to run from the Reform wing of the Democratic Party. Democrats must stand up for our beliefs and take risks.  Democrats must be defiant in defeat.  When we lie down, we get run over [...]

Time for a phone campaign. Start calling the DNC members to voice your preference (Mine, of course, is Howard Dean.)

There's a foe the Neocons understand.

Excerpt:The Russian Air Force is prepared to strike foreign bases it suspects of serving terrorists, the force’s commander in chief has announced.

Well, let's see: We have Russia aligning itself with Brazil, and China aligning itself with Argentina, so that means we'll have to build up our bases in Columbia. Ka-ching! More $$ for Halliburton on Carlyle!

With war crimes like these

Excerpt:A confidential Red Cross report detailing interrogation techniques "tantamount to torture" at the United States-run prisoner camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, offers the latest evidence that the Bush administration is systematically flouting international law as it battles the war on terrorism, says one legal expert. "All of this looks pretty clearly like a deliberate policy to create prisons at which all kinds of interrogation techniques can be used and remain unfettered by law," says Leila Sadat, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and vice-president of the American branch of the International Law Association.

Who wants an International Criminal Court?

Excerpt: The Republican-controlled Congress has stepped up its campaign to curtail the power of the International Criminal Court, threatening to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to governments that refuse to sign immunity accords shielding U.S. personnel from being surrendered to the tribunal.

As pissed off as I am at Kerry for conceding so quickly, at least he has a heart.

Excerpt;Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) (D-MA), lays flowers on the casket of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel during his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004.

Unlike anyone in the present administration who uses form letters with digital signatures to notify a parent of their child's death in Iraq.

Excerpt: And now, apparently, Rumsfeldís obsession with machines and their efficiency has translated into his using one to replace his own John Hancock on KIA (killed in action) letters to parents and spouses. Two Pentagon-based colonels, who've both insisted on anonymity to protect their careers, have indignantly reported that the SecDef has relinquished this sacred duty to a signature device rather than signing the sad documents himself.

This is the most apt description I've seen on why people trust our government and why they're not out there protesting the fraudulent election.

Excerpt: I believe that religions are ultimately debilitating to the spirit, because they try to make us believe things that we know are not true, and in accepting the tenets of any religion, we leave ourselves open to a pattern of behavior that accepts things on faith, without examining them rationally. And this process habituates us to accepting lies as truth, as long as they emanate from an authority figure we have conditioned ourselves to respect.

Let's review.

Religion is something that allows someone to cut the arms of their baby and think it's fine.

Excerpt: The night before a Plano, Texas, homemaker killed her 10-month-old daughter, she told her husband she wanted to "give her child to God," court documents say.

Or think Jesus was the inspiration behind being whipped in front of students.

Excerpt: Principal Steve Unfreid, who said he was inspired in his choice of disciplinary tactics by the actions of Jesus, asked teacher Joe Brost to whip him in front of two male students in the school's basement last month after the boys were caught kissing girls in the locker room for the second time in a week.

Or allow the Vatican to say AIDS is the fault of a moral deficiency.

Excerpt; The Vatican on Tuesday blamed the spread of AIDS on an "immunodeficiency" of moral values among other factors and called for education, abstinence and greater access to drugs to fight the disease.

Hrmph. I wonder if all this mandatory prescreening for mental illness will cover religious mania.

Excerpt: When the Senate considered an omnibus appropriations bill last week that included funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools, it approved $20 million of the $44 million sought, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs counsel for AAPS, told NewsMax.

Perhaps.

The news guy at Agriculture ain't a peach.

Excerpt: In a victory for corporate agribusiness and a defeat for family farmers, President Bush nominated Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns to become the next Secretary of Agriculture. Announcing Johanns's nomination yesterday, Bush called the governor "a faithful friend of America's farmers and ranchers." But as governor, Johanns worked persistently to undermine a law, passed by a citizen initiative in 1982, that protects family farmers in Nebraska by banning most corporate agriculture. Johanns used $300,000 from the Bush administration to fund a biased study of the law – called I-300 – produced by a Texas consulting firm.

Ridge is going.

Excerpt:Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who has headed President Bush's efforts to build up domestic security following the Sept. 11 attacks, will announce his resignation on Tuesday, a department official said.

To be replaced by former NYC Chief of Police, Bernie Kerik.

Excerpt: Kerik was police commissioner under Rudy and then went to work for Giuliani and Associates, Rudy's consulting firm. What's a little more surprising is that Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and even former NY police commissioner and Rudy foe Bill Bratton are supporting Kerik's nomination.

Now remember, he was the head policeman here in NYC on 9/11 and he DIDN'T fight to impound the WTF steel for evidence and testing. In the Bush administration, that spells PROMOTION! (Think of it: Why wasn't he the least bit curious about how a building like that collapsed after burning for only a few hours. Just recently, a skyscraper burned in Venezuela for 26 hours and didn't collapse. What kind of cop is he?) Also, as a New Yorker, I remember him being Giuliani's thug while Giuliani turned NYC into a police state. Kerik will always have a special, cold place in my heart.

And I'm not the only one who thinks he's crap.

Excerpt; Campaign bodyguard to Rudy Giuliani.
Errand boy for the Saudi royal family.
Energetic exploiter of Sept. 11th tragedy.
Tough-talking publicity-hound vowing to bring law and order to Iraq - then hightailing it out of there after a disastrous 14 weeks, leaving the place far less safe than he found it.
Oh, the bullet points on Bernie Kerik's real-life resume just go on and on. But is this really the guy we want standing between us and the terrorists?

And guess what? He's also has a history of incompetence in Iraq! Well that cinches it! He's a shoe-in!

Excerpt:The question, I suppose, pretty much asks itself: what happened? Kerik arrived in Iraq with a rather open-ended committment. By his own account, it should have carried him at least through the end of 2003. There was even some suggestion that it would keep him in the country through 2004. Yet just after the first two major terrorist attacks in Baghdad reports surfaced that he was about to leave. And only a week later, after major terrorist incidents numbers three and four, he was gone.

And Tommy Thompson is leaving, but not without a parting "Boo!"

Excerpt: "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said as announced his departure. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."

But Rumsfeld is staying.

Excerpt:Overcoming criticism about his handling of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has won a strong vote of confidence from President Bush and will remain at the Pentagon.

Only because to let him go would look like he was being fired for his many mistakes...which we all know GW is incapable of admitting any mistakes.

It's as if Scalia has never read the constitution.

Excerpt: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Monday that a religion-neutral government does not fit with an America that reflects belief in God in everything from its money to its military.

I'm sure you've seen this already since it's a week old, but I just had to include it. It totally blows my mind.

Excerpt: A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words “Our Leader” is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.

I said that Reid was a bad choice for minority leader. He's got no ballsack. He cuts bad deals because he's in a Red State and he take risks because of his constituency.

Excerpt; In a deal to let 175 of President Bush's nominees take office, an adviser to new Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Senate's staunchest opponent of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, will be named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Though, he wasn't awful on Meet the Press yesterday. But still....

This is what living in a corporate-run police state is like: Being afraid to speak out against the corporation... because it's illegal!

Excerpt: Homeowners say a Brevard County homebuilding company is bullying, threatening and even suing homeowners for complaining about inferior construction.

Oh, trickledown works alright. Just not economically.

Excerpt: Faced by the possibility that the Iraqi was playing possum with a hidden gun, the marine decided to be judge, jury and executioner. He could also call on some powerful legal and political support – as a representative of the nation which has embraced the theory of pre-emptive strikes, he was simply acting on the self-same impulse.

Here. Let me save you conservatives some time and money.

Excerpt: "Protection of marriage" is now the watchword for many activists fighting to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying. Some conservatives, however, say marriage in America began unraveling long before the latest gay-rights push and are pleading for a fresh, soul- searching look at the institution.

The real threat to marriage is marriage itself. Without marriage, there'd be no divorce!

The pentagon used CNN to disseminate misinformation.

Excerpt: In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or "psy-op" — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.

And I often wondered about this. You know that website "Jihad Unspun"? Well, there's a good chance it's a CIA propaganda machine.

Excerpt: From what I know of pro-jihad websites, they operate on a shoestring budget, provided they happen to find volunteers and donors who are willing to risk being deported and detained. They get kicked off from ISP to ISP and use cheap frontpage templates. Real Jihad websites try to imitate the West in web design rather than coming up with colors that seem to resemble the robes of a sand dune shape and Arabic shaped English text.One such authentic website was the one run by a well known Saudi dissident, Azzam.com. More about Azzam later.

Here are the headlines from the 6 articles I've saved from them over the past year:

Dominican Republic Quits Iraq As US Coalition Cracks
Resistance Captures US General In Ramadi
Taliban Fighters Attack District Office; US Edge Afghan Soldiers Near Iranian Border
Iraqi Resistance Launched Chemical Attack On US Troops In Balad
Mujahideen Strike US Rear Lines; Tape Shows Captured Allawi Forces
New Report, Footage Surfaces On Mass Graves Of US Soldiers

I'm not bright enough to figure out what the motives are.

However, I TOTALLY GET why they lied about Pat Tillman's death.

Excerpt: It was also a distorted and incomplete narrative, according to dozens of internal Army documents obtained by The Washington Post that describe Tillman's death by fratricide after a chain of botched communications, a misguided order to divide his platoon over the objection of its leader and undisciplined firing by fellow Rangers.

My theory about Dan Rather. We know he's retiring.

Excerpt:Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the CBS Evening News, announced Tuesday that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite.

Here's the weird thing: A few weeks ago, he was doing a story on the emergency 911 phone system. Right before the commercial, he said "Coming up: does 111 really work?" and then after the commercial he said "111. Does the system work?" (or something like that.) Point is, he said "111" instead of "911" not once, but TWICE. He's either totally flipping out, ...or he's the messenger for the Illuminati and he was giving out the date of the next staged terror attack (on January 11.) (Just sharing the paranoia, people.)

Ah, Aliens. A little light-hearted distraction from reality.

Excerpt: A loud humming noise breaks the silence of night, causing Ron Cloutier's dogs to bark crazily, and announces the arrival of Unidentified Flying Objects in the Girouxville skyline.

And are they implanting us?

Excerpt: Well, most of the things in my life have been one synchronistic event after the other, and I became interested in the field of Ufology many, many years ago, even as a child. But if someone had told me in my younger days that I would be removing objects suspected of being alien implants, I'd have told them they are nuts. But, anyway, the first case we did was August 19th of 1995. We did two cases of individuals who had objects in their bodies, who were represented by X-Ray evidence, and they were touted to be alien implants. And I did the surgery really to prove that this was nonsense.

But we may not have to look any farther than Mars.

Excerpt: EARTH must take precautions to avoid contamination from lifeforms that must now be presumed to exist on Mars, leading scientists gave warning yesterday.

Nice. Dolphins behave more humanely than Bush. (I don't see our "Dear Leader" going out of his way to protect other species, do you?.)

Excerpt; A pod of dolphins circled protectively round a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark, media reported on Tuesday.

Previous rants

At the very least, point your CNN-loving friends to my links page. Just getting started in reading alternate news sites gets people thinking. I have one friend who was very happy-go-lucky, thinking ol' Greta was telling the whole truth until I opened up his eyes a bit. Now, he's all depressed. He'll get over it. You gotta' get depressed before you get angry and you gotta' get angry before you can accomplish anything. We're all in mourning. We have to move through the steps. But we gotta' hurry it up.

Read. Inform. Spread the word. Even if it means your friends avoid you for awhile. If they really love you, they'll start to listen.

"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.

(Tom Ridge has practically said he'd do away with this act.)

{back}

These sites are good at culling stories from a multitude of media sites:

buzzflash.com
unknownnews.net
rawstory.com
daou report

Here are some excellant blogs:

Bartcop
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tacitus
Josh Marshall
DNC: Kicking Ass
Two Glasses
Brad DeLong
The Wonkette
Urban Survival
Greg Palast

Link exchange:

Ilia Dreams Blog
Iraq War Blog
BushVote.com

These blogs will be covering the primaries and elections:

Salon.com's War Room
The Campaign Desk
FactCheck.org

media-bias exposed:

dailyhowler.com

these are good left-wing journalism sites:

onlinejournal.com
thenation.com
inthesetimes.com
tompaine.com
commondreams.org
truthout.com
guerrillanews.com

a little more to the left:

wsws.org
indymedia.org

conspiratorial:

whatreallyhappened.com
almartinraw.com

HIGHLY entertaining:

surfingtheapocalypse.com

really good "Alternate Thinking" site:

goroadachi.com/etemenanki/

and for godsakes, stay away
from FOX NEWS,  MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
watch the BBC news
or ITN news instead.

if you must succumb to reading a newspaper: 

www.guardian.co.uk 

or any other paper in another fucking country. All of our newspapers are owned by the same idiots that own the TV stations so all of the news is all the same CRAP.