the/diseased/republik

"At every point, there was part of me resisting, part of me enjoying," Lagouranis said. "Using dogs on someone, there was a tingling throughout my body. If you saw the reaction in the prisoner, it's thrilling." --washingtonpost -- read more | digg story

it is about time Congress has started using the 'no-confidence' vote. better yet, the people of this Republik should rise up and start using it... "The Senate plans to take up a no-confidence vote against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday, a sponsor of the measure announced Friday. "If all senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement announcing the vote. "However, the President will certainly exert pressure to support the Attorney General, his longtime friend. We will soon see where people's loyalties lie." Gonzales has faced myriad calls for his resignation from lawmakers in both parties, but Republicans have so far been hesitant to endorse the no confidence vote. The measure would be non-binding and would not force Gonzales to leave his post as the nation's top law enforcement officer. But the politi

October 13, 2005 MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS FROM: GARY SCHMITT SUBJECT: Therapy as Policy: CIA and Clandestine Ops In today’s Washington Post, Walter Pincus reports (“CIA to Remain Coordinator of Overseas Spying”) that the Agency’s operations directorate will continue in its senior intelligence community role for coordinating and overseeing all other clandestine human intelligence collection activities of the U.S. Government. This will include the overseas activities of both the FBI and various Defense Department Agencies. As Pincus notes, this “keeps the CIA’s traditional position as leader” of U.S. human collection intact. Approved by the White House, the plan ignores the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s recommendation that – given the CIA’s failures to penetrate Saddam’s Iraq or Bin Laden’s al Qaeda – the task of coordinating the overall management of human intelligence be moved to the office of the director of national intelligence, now headed by Amb. John Negroponte.

The first criminal trial over the CIA's " extraordinary rendition " of terror suspects has opened in Italy. Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Italy and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured. The American CIA agents and military personnel will be tried in absentia. Italy has not announced if it will seek their extradition to the Milan trial. US President George W Bush arrived in Italy hours after the trial began. Mr Bush will have his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Saturday and will later hold talks with Italy's prime minister, Romano Prodi. Mr Prodi has already said that the extraordinary rendition case will not be on the agenda.

The CIA has dismissed a Council of Europe report alleging that it ran secret jails for terror suspects in Europe after the 11 September attacks. A CIA spokesman said the report was biased and distorted, and that the agency had operated lawfully. Swiss Senator Dick Marty, who wrote the report, said secret CIA prisons "did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania". The charge was denied by both Polish and Romanian officials. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who served from 1995 to 2005, said on Friday: "There were no secret prisons in Poland." Romanian senator Norica Nicolai, who headed an investigation into the allegations, also denied his country's involvement. The report says Romania "was developed into a site to which more detainees were transferred only as the HVD programme expanded". "The secret detention facilities in Europe were run directly and exclusively by the CIA," the report says. But i

Posted on Jun 5, 2007 Police killed 21 members of the banned Mungiki sect in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday in retaliation for alleged attacks by the outlaw group in recent weeks. The Kenyan government recently instituted a shoot-to-kill policy for the sect, according to the BBC. BBC: The security forces in Kenya have spent the past three months trying to crack down on criminal elements in the Mungiki—a sect which it is claimed runs an extensive extortion operation and is reported to have connections high up in Kenya politics. The police have blamed them for the beheading of six people last month in central Kenya. Read more

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them just pick themselves up and hurry off, as if nothing had ever happened" - Winston Churchill "If someone can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities". - Voltaire And was Churchill and Voltaire absolutely on target. The first Bush action was to create a reason to get some of those pesky Constitutional laws out of the way. You know the ones - Rights of the citizen, Restraint of Abuse of Authority, Habeas Corpus - i.e. "The Rule of Law". Immediately after the Towers were down, even before the smoke cleared, the assault of our Rule of Law began. The Rationale presented was "It's necessary to fight off the enemies of America". Or "we'll fight them over there instead of over here." But why did this Administration bring their assault on the Constitution to full fury? The reason is clear for all but the Ignorant to understand and those inept people took

Manchester, NH - Freelance reporter Matt Lepacek, reporting for Infowars.com, was arrested for asking a question to one of Giuliani's staff members in a press conference. The press secretary identified the New York based reporter as having previously asked Giuliani about his prior knowledge of WTC building collapses and ordered New Hampshire state police to arrest him. Jason Bermas, reporting for America: Freedom to Fascism, confirmed Lepacek had official CNN press credentials for the Republican debate. However, his camera was seized by staff members who shut off the camera, according to Luke Rudkowski, also a freelance Infowars reporter on the scene. He said police physically assaulted both reporters after Rudkowski objected that they were official members of the press and that nothing illegal had taken place. Police reportedly damaged the Infowars-owned camera in the process. FULL STORY & VIDEO

How It Works: “Nick,” a top crystal-meth dealer for a decade before getting arrested in 2004, explains the system. Every other month, he’d purchase a pound of meth ($32,000 to $36,000) from producers in the Midwest or the Filipino mob in California, and have it shipped via regular mail or FedEx inside teddy bears, candles, or coffee. In the next 36 hours, he’d sell it in bulk to three or four associates, pocketing a 500 percent profit. The associates in turn would sell to dozens of small-time dealers who’d take to the streets, clubs, and doorsteps of addicts. “If you stay small, there’s not room for profit,” says Nick. “But at the top, I would buy a quarter gram for $5 and sell it for $50. It’s around $65 today.” There are 1,792 quarter-grams in a pound of powder (that’s $89,600 for Nick). SOURCE Nick ascended to the top organically. He began dealing just enough to cover his own addiction. “You outgrow the little guys you buy from,” says Nick. “You want more than they have. So you go t

how the government is outsourcing its intelligence functions to private companies, thus avoiding congressional and taxpayer oversight, and enriching friends of the administration. "It appears that more and more of the data collection sanctioned by the US government is passed through the hands of private enterprise, Salon reports. 'Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it. The explosion in outsourcing has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures for which the Bush administration has been hammered by critics, from Saddam Hussein's fictional weapons of mass destruction to abusive interrogations that have involved employees of private contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Aftergood and other experts also warn that the la

Removal from office Article II of the Constitution provides that the president may be removed from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors " through impeachment and subsequent conviction. Article I gives the power of impeachment to a majority of the House of Representatives and conviction to two-thirds of the Senate . Two presidents, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, have been impeached. Neither was subsequently convicted by the Senate; however, Johnson was acquitted by just one vote. By Act of Congress, the president may resign if his written resignation is delivered to the Secretary of State . [9] The only president to resign was Richard Nixon , on August 9 , 1974 , facing articles of impeachment being reported on favorably by the House Judiciary Committee and probable subsequent Senate conviction. If the office of President becomes vacant, whether through death, impeachment, or resignation of the sitting president, or throu

Release Date: May 29, 2007 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 The Department of Homeland Security has developed enhanced security screening procedures for Iraqi refugees applying for resettlement in the U.S. As a first step in fulfilling the Administration's commitment to accept up to 7,000 referrals of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees – such as persons whose lives may be in jeopardy because they worked for coalition forces – the department is poised to approve the applications of nearly 60 Iraqis. The Departments of Homeland Security and State continue to work closely toward this fiscal year 2007 goal, and the new security screening procedures will facilitate our progress while ensuring that terrorists do not enter this country posing as refugees. These new screening procedures supplement the checks conducted for all refugee applicants who are considered for resettlement in this country. Applicants will not be admitted if doubts arise about

The strike had an immediate effect. By the end of February, all smelters in Colorado were either closed or running part-time. At the beginning of March, the Gold King and Granite mines gave in and resumed the eight-hour day.[ 5 ] Mine owners still holding out for the 10-hour day soon attempted to re-open their mines. On March 14, they obtained a court injunction ordering the miners not to interfere with the operation of their mines. A limited number of strikebreakers were brought in. The WFM initially attempted to persuade these men to join the union and strike. When they were unsuccessful, the WFM resorted to threats and violence. The strikebreakers were so intimidated that few of them reported for work.[ 6 ] An event on March 16 changed the nature of the strike. An armed group of miners ambushed and captured six sheriff's deputies en route to the Victor mine. Shots were fired, and the miners and deputies engaged in a fistfight. Two of the deputies received minor injuries. An Alt

o the rot within… the time of american hegemony is over. the fractured state of american society and bilateral disfunction of the political apparatus are the main contributing factors. collective guilt, bankrupt corporate ethics and the lack of personal accountability fuel the disease that is killing the amerikan republik. the global neighborhood has caught a whiff of the decay and the buzzards are starting to circle. the potential for increased societal control of a mistrustful and mutually fearing population already divided by class and economics is at hand. fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by a mass media who wishes to create a culture of fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad). a few techniques the fearmonger uses to distract the public’s attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like: * careful selection and omission

Beginning January 2006, a movement to revive the SDS took shape. A small group of SDS veterans (Robert Alan Haber, Tom Good, Paul Buhle) have joined with high school students, Jessica Rapchick and Pat Korte, to call for a new formation of SDS in to build a multi-issue organization that could re-envision a student movement in the United States. Several chapters at various colleges were subsequently formed. On Martin Luther King Day of 2006, these chapters banded together to issue a press release that stated their intentions to reform the national SDS organization.[4] In the press release, the SDS called for the organization's first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 and to have it preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring during the Memorial Day weekend. These regional conferences would not also be the first of their kind to be held since 1969, however, as on April 23, 2006, the SDS held a northeast regional conference at Brown University. F

The AP is reporting that a military judge has thrown out terrorism charges against Omar Khadr, a detainee at Guantanamo that could undo the whole War Crimes trials system. However, what may be more stunning is that this ruling could throw out THE ENTIRE WAR-CRIMES TRIAL SYSTEM. And how? Because of a technicality which appears to have been caused by circumventing the Constitution and other deceptive practices. The Geneva Convention, which is US law, requires a legal entity (e.g., a court) to first determine that a prisoner is an UNLAWFUL enemy combatant before we can abandon the military-POW-specific elements of the convention. In that case, however, the prisoner should be tried according to international or civilian (e.g., US, or local) law. If the prisoner is a LAWFUL combatant, then the Geneva Convention's POW provisions apply. There are only those two options, and BushCo had to choose one or the other. They chose neither. Bush has so far only vaguely claimed these men are unlaw

An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity. “Halliburton has already raked in more than $20 billion from the Bush-Cheney Administration for work in Iraq, and they were awarded some of the first Katrina contracts," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. The Vice President should sever his financial ties to Halliburton once and for all.” Cheney continues to hold 433,333 Halliburton stock options. The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of a no-bid

FTA: The Bush administration has changed the rules over record-keeping to prevent access to visitor records. They've usurped the role of the Secret Service, covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Bush / Cheney claim visitor records are under their jurisdiction, thus exempt from FOIA. CREW is not accepting that determination, hence our lawsuits. The Bush administration has changed the rules over record-keeping to prevent access to visitor records. They've usurped the role of the Secret Service, which is covered by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instead, Bush and Cheney claim visitor records are under their jurisdiction, thus exempt from FOIA. CREW is not accepting that determination, hence our lawsuits. The first paragraph of the latest AP article sums it up: A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public does not learn who has been meeting with top officials in t

FTA -- Federal authorities said a plot by a suspected Muslim terrorist cell to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, its fuel tanks and a jet fuel artery could have caused “unthinkable” devastation. But while pipeline and security experts agreed that such an attack would have crippled America’s economy, particularly the airline industry, they said it probably would not have led to significant loss of life as intended. Despite their efforts, the men never obtained any explosives, authorities said. “Pulling off any bombing of this magnitude would not be easy in today’s environment,” former U.S. State Department counterterrorism expert Fred Burton said, but added it was difficult to determine without knowing all the facts of the case. The pipeline, owned by Buckeye Pipeline Co., takes fuel from a facility in Linden, N.J., to the airport. Other lines service LaGuardia Airport and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport. Fourth suspect in JFK airport plot surrenders PORT

Russia's Cold War rhetoric is set to disrupt an otherwise carefully orchestrated G-8 summit this week in Germany where Bush had planned to highlight global development efforts, a new climate change program and trade negotiations. It also threatens to fracture already weak European support for missile defense. Bush will meet Putin Thursday in Germany, and again early in July at Kennebunkport as part of the effort to reassure the Russians that missile defense is aimed not at undermining Russia's deterrent capability but at combating regimes like Iran's that are developing missile arsenals and are hostile to the U.S. MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia's test-firing of new missiles this week was a response to U.S. plans to build missile defense sites across Europe, and suggested Washington is pursuing an imperialist policy that has triggered a new arms race. In a clear reference to the United States, Putin harshly criticized "diktat and impe