Hey kids, Sam wrote!

Eardth-And I didn't read their e-mail that must have been riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors (more than I!). At least they wasted the time to write and send it. Sorry to take-a-play from the GOP operative play-book, but it had to be done. None of the information posted on Ron Roughead, Mark Capansky, or anyone found in the phone records of the so-called "DC Madam" are being removed by this hand. That'll learn ya.'

Senator Chris Dodd and the FISA Issue

Washington D.C.-Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd is fighting for all of our rights in the chambers of the Senate as this is being written. As far as I can tell from the c-span 2 broadcast, he's literally the only senator on the floor trying to prevent retroactive immunity for the telecoms in allowing the Bush administration to spy on all of us illegally without a warrant. The good side of all of this is that the House Democrats aren't so willing to hand-over everything to the White House and to wreck our Constitution--the only thing that makes us Americans.

Consider for the sake of posterity that if our rights are eroded further--institutionalizing elements of a Police State--that only a handful of the Senate opposed it. But, this is how Empire ends: not with a whimper, but with a bang. Imagine you held-up a grocery store, but were granted immunity and were told that "it wasn't illegal at the time." Would anyone be safe after that? Even if they get their retroactive immunity, they have to get-it-past the House. After that, the fight against illegal surveillance will continue regardless. The fear is that it will be resolved through insurrection when it could have been done through the courts.

10:09 PM EST: Senator Dodd's comments on the amendments has ended. The voting comes tomorrow. We know that the Senate is going to pass the version of the FISA update with the retroactive immunity. They appear hell-bent on preserving the power and privilege of their rich backers. This should be unsurprising.

Brent Wilkes, the Most Innocent Man on Eardth

San Diego, California/Washington D.C.--Brent Wilkes didn't do anything wrong. Ignore the October conviction for money laundering and bribery of a public official. According to him, his former ADCS never attempted to bribe congressmen with gifts, money, more gifts, a boat, a couple mortgage payments, throwing poker games for Randy Cunningham at poker (while letting him win, a bribe)...and women.

Well, at least that's what the convicted briber, government contractor, de facto lobbyist, and pimp has to say these days. Pimp? Yes, pimp. A pimp would wear a camo-tux, wouldn't they?

For reasons known only to government prosecutors (and perhaps the White House), they decided to isolate all evidence and testimony of Brent Wilkes's soliciting prostitutes-for-government contracts to the Hawaii jaunt of the former GOP Representative Randy Cunningham. Was this part of the reason for the firing of those bothersome U.S. Attorneys, namely like Carol Lam and David Iglesias?

Yet, we still see periodic stories on Shirlington Limousine and Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter's efforts to get an investigation going into Shirlington's contracts with the scandal-ridden Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. All of her efforts have stalled. Why is that? Why does a convicted felon with a 60-plus page rap sheet get first-dibs on contracts with DHS, and why then does Congress rate it as unimportant with no real action to discover what really happened? Because many of them already know what happened. The not to investigate would be because it's of great importance, so why not schedule hearings on steroids in the major leagues?

Surely, Brent R. Wilkes and his wordy attorney Mark Geragos can convince the court and federal probation officials that he's innocent after receiving a fair trial? No, I didn't think so either. But what do you do when your client is caught, cold, hard busted and politicians (yes, plural) are also part of the game? You rely on semantics, word-games, and the predictable technicality that won't go anywhere to buy a little time. San Diego Union-Tribune journalist Greg Moran noted:

Geragos took issue with those claims in a broad legal attack. In recent years the U.S. Supreme Court has said judges can't impose a sentence based on any factors that were not found to be true, beyond a reasonable doubt, by a jury. The court has ruled that would be a violation of the fair trial rights of defendants. In Wilkes' case, Geragos argued that the factors cited by probation officials as reason to increase the sentence were not found to be true by a jury. For example, he said there was no jury finding that Cunningham was an elected official. (Signs on San Diego.com, 02.09.2008)

Eventually comes the mandatory quibbling over the meaning of words--we understand where Geragos is trying to take this. Into overtime. Wilkes and his attorney have contended since the beginning that the Poway contractor never did anything differently from all the other lobbyists and contractors. On this, we can take Wilkes at his word.

And what of the "cigar parties" at the Watergate (the GOP appears to have a fetish for this building, trying to get things right the second time) and the Westin hotels? We know that there were "women present," that some congressmen went off to rooms with them, but most-of-all, we know who brought these women there: Christopher D. Baker, CEO of Shirlington Limousine. From the early-1990s until Cunningham, Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, Thomas Kontogiannis, and the other "co-conspirators" were nabbed by federal investigators, Baker's Shirlington Limousine was ferrying them there. It's like that they were ferried to other locations, as Wade has discussed that Cunningham was frequently calling Wilkes for companionship. Shirlington was also involved in some of these acts of soliciting.

What's so fantastical about these recent legal moves is the fact that Wilkes had been caught red-handed lying about his alleged "poverty" during his trial. For these claims, he was given federal defense funds for his legal costs, costs that federal prosecutors now want him to pay back in-full. Will Brent Wilkes start talking? For real? This 36-page filing by Geragos is worthless, just a response to the sentencing and the fact that Wilkes was caught lying about yet another thing.

Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes came under scrutiny after federal prosecutors cried foul last week, filing court documents claiming Wilkes has more money than he has let on in court. They asked U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns to force Wilkes to retain private counsel and pay back the costs of the public defense attorneys representing him."The use of public funds while the defendant continues to spend his ill-gotten gains must stop," prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in federal court last week. Prosecutors argue that Wilkes had access to more than $1 million in assets, which he used to pay bills, including mortgages and divorce attorneys. (North County Times, 02.05.2005)

As of this writing, Wilkes is still receiving federal defense funds. Somehow, we're supposed to ignore all that and trust him now. Never mind that he's had his time in the courts. If he really wanted to contest that his trial was unfair, why not point-out that he subpoenaed 13 members of Congress, which the prosecution successfully quashed?

To open that door is to take a bigger gamble than the poker games at the Watergate and the Westin. Interestingly, one of the money-laundering "co-conspirators" by the name of John Thomas Michael (nephew to co-defendant and possible CIA financial/banking-asset Thomas Kontogiannis) has changed his plea to "guilty" the very same day that the prosecutors attacked Wilkes over lying about hiding money from them. The stakes couldn't be higher. And there's more-to-come: Wilkes has upcoming charges in the trial of the former #3 man at the CIA, Kyle Dustin Foggo, his old childhood friend. The charge is bribery, but why isn't it for soliciting prostitution? Foggo is denying all connections to Shirlington Limo and the escorts. One can imagine why.

TPMuckraker on lying, thieving Brent R. Wilkes, February 5th, 2008: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/prosecutors_wilkes_faked_pover.php

John Michael Thomas's guilty plea, 02.05.2008:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20080205-9999-1m5michael.html

That wascally Bwent Wilkes and his vow of poverty
(Mitchell Wade looks like Azar's Big Boy):

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/06/news/sandiego/20_32_052_5_08.txt

Signs on San Diego today:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080209-9999-1m9wilkes.html

Over the Hill, or Under the Rainbow?

The Sam Eardth Chronicles: I have seen the light.

Eardth Meter--For those who don't know (...anything at all, which would make them Indiana Republican rednecks), this is a phony name of some anonymous asshole who decided to harass me through a yahoo account once I started writing about the presence of SAIC's (war-profiteers) Ronald Roughead, brother to CNO Rear Admiral Muckety-Muck Gary Roughead, and a person found in the phone records of 'DC Madam' Deborah Jeane Palfrey's Pamela Martin & Associates. It also began after I wrote about a former intern to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Pa.), Annapolis liner and tin-horn hoople-head, Mark Capansky.

Anyway, I think we have an answer: whoever created 'Sam Eardth' cannot spell. Someone from Hungary tried to do a google.hu search for "earth' and misspelled it. Genius, pure and crystalline.

Domain Name		invitel.hu ? (Hungary)
IP Address		62.77.230.# (SATEL Kft.)
ISP		INVITEL Tavkozlesi Szolgaltato Rt.
Location		Continent : Europe Country : Hungary (Facts) State/Region : Veszprem City : Nagyvzsony Lat/Long : 46.9833, 17.7 (Map)
Language		Hungarian hu
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; hu; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Feb 3 2008 7:47:22 pm
Last Page View		Feb 3 2008 7:50:04 pm
Visit Length		2 minutes 42 seconds
Page Views		2
Referring URL		http://www.google.hu...e keres%C3%A9s&meta=
Search Engine		google.hu
Search Words		eardth
Visit Entry Page		http://chickasawpick...-where-art-thou.html
Visit Exit Page		http://chickasawpick...-where-art-thou.html
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC+1:00
Visitor's Time		Feb 3 2008 1:47:22 pm
Visit Number		28,087

"Some people are eating cat food for dinner tonight in a cold home (or no home!)..."

South Bend, Indiana--"Some people are eating cat food tonight in a cold home," said my neighbor's brother-in-law. The 42nd Super Bowl was nearly over. The beer was flowing, and so was that legendary homespun wisdom of the Midwest. Prairie Populism was alive and well in Northern Indiana tonight, and I don't fuckin' mean the Klan or the Libertarians neither.

"Yes," I said, "And they should stop voting Republican." That'll learn ya.'

President Bush sees 'Problems with the economy.'

Washington D.C.--Ma' Kettle must have sent junior out for some milk--Jesus! The prices!

'OBAMA SAYS CLINTON A STEP BACKWARD'

Washington D.C. and the campaign trail--Senator Obama couldn't be more wrong about this issue--Clinton would be a step forward, then a step back. A step forward, and a step back. A step forward, and a step back. That would make her the cha-cha.

Congress Temporarily Grows a Pair as Democratic Majority Blocks GOP Rush to Pass FISA Amendments

'This vote will finally shows that the Democrats are capable of standing up against the Bush administration’s rush to legalize his warrantless wiretapping program.' --Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington D.C. field office.

Washington D.C.--How will they decide? Will the Senate just let the bill die? Don't bet on it, they're just allowing debate over the bill so it doesn't appear they let this one through without-a-peep. How many Americans understand the threat to their liberties from these amendments? Imagine that the phone companies would be able to gather information on all us, handing it over to another corrupt presidential administration--whether Democratic or Republican, it wouldn't matter. What the White House and the Republicans in Congress are demanding is the right to spy on all of us, and nobody appears to be moving to restore Habeas corpus anytime soon. All of this is unacceptable. They broke-the-law, now it's time for real investigations into it.

With virtually no solid wins against the White House in an entire year of their majority, the Democrats appear to finally be getting it, but will they pass these amendments anyway after they think no one is watching? It's likely. Yes, Americans are primarily concerned with the economy, and yes, we DO get that it's connected to the fiscal irresponsibility surrounding the war in the Middle East and corruption in the White House, Congress, the Banks, and the private sector. Strangely, presidential candidate John McCain and...well, nearly all-of-the-rest, are still voting for funds for the war rather than winding-it-down. This is what the White House and the rest of the GOP wants, and the Democrats are still very happy to oblige, sir:

The proposed law is controversial because it essentially makes permanent President Bush’s program that secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without a court warrant as required under the law. The bill also contains a provision, sought by the White House, that would give telephone companies legal protection from dozens of lawsuits now pending against the telcom industry for participating in the president’s terrorist surveillance program without a court warrant. (The Statesman, 01.28.2008)

In other words, they want to make an illegal act suddenly legal (voila!), never mind punishing the perpetrators and standing behind the enforcement of law and order. Why not legalize murder? To even voice the desire for this is to be a knowledgeable co-conspirator in a criminal enterprise that violates every precept of this nation, and this includes the Democratic author and sponsors of these amendments. It's criminal treason.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (R-Wv., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee) has been walking a real tightrope, and it's well-known that he's into AT&T for all those campaign donations. We know why he votes the way he does, and he surely has many other reasons, like saving his family fortune from the rest of us bared-assed heathens. The GOP has other motives, namely the continued seizure-of-power, the enrichment of their backers at the taxpayer's expense, and escaping accountability for the hundreds of laws admittedly violated by the Bush administration and her allies in Congress.

To say that the GOP is in-trouble is to state the obvious, especially when one considers that there are too-many traditional democratic structures in the United States that are going to battle the PAA amendments to FISA whether they pass-or-not. Today, we were lucky: enough of us got off of our asses and let these bastards know how we felt and that we're watching them. We must continue to watch them. We must continue to browbeat them into doing what we want them to, not what a few corrupt businessmen want. A majority of Democratic senators have finally begun to feel the heat as well. That's because their cover truly is blown after a year of allowing the GOP to make fools of them...

The incredible irony is that a Democrat co-wrote the amendments to the current FISA update, and now even he doesn't want it to be passed yet. In his comments before the voting today, Senate majority leader Harry Reid noticed the most bizarre aspect of this whole story with the FISA amendments...the Republicans were filibustering their own bill! Every time an amendment came up that wasn't theirs, they cut-off any debate or voting on it. This is improper parliamentary procedure by any standard. He also noted:

Let's not forget: the question of retroactive immunity wouldn't even be before us if President Bush hadn't ignored Congress and established his own process outside the law. But far from taking responsibility for his actions, the President bullies and threatens the Congress he is supposed to work with. He is like the kid in the schoolyard taking his ball and going home when he doesn't get his way. (TPMmuckraker, 01.28.2008)

Yeah, that sounds like a Republican politician, they get fatter with age (especially between-the-ears). What the GOP and the White House feared was coming is here--they're losing time to keep the legitimate forces of law and order at bay. Yet, they all somehow still want this legislation to pass, it's just the details that are the problem. I don't think the Democrats are doing this out of any real patriotic or noble sense, it's just that the public has become very restless about everything. You could get away with more when the economy was stable, and when it is, people become complacent and lazy. They stop paying attention because they don't have to. Americans are realizing that this no-longer works.

The vote was 48-45, blocking cloture (an end to debate) over the newest version of the bill, and news is coming out that Senators Obama and Clinton both voted against cloture. That's great, but they're going to have to vote against the GOP/Rockefeller version of the amendments to be viable candidates. Some attention has become focused on Senator Diane Feinstein's amendment that would allow the FISA court to decide which telecommunications companies were granted immunity. It's not a good proposal at all. This is still the same mentality as that of the original law-breakers, and bars American citizens from any public hearings or trials, with no way to redress the grievance of having their right-to-privacy violated.

Robert Cruickshank's take at CaliforniaProgressReport.com is insightful, and he notes that this has all happened before. At that time, Congress did the right thing--it didn't grant immunity to the telecommunications companies.

In the 1970s, Congress refused to grant immunity to telecoms that had engaged in an earlier round of illegal spying - the FBI and NSA-led Project SHAMROCK. Out of these debates grew the 1978 FISA law that was supposed to provide the legal framework for foreign intelligence wiretapping. Telecom immunity as being debated today would represent a direct attack on the intent of the FISA law itself. (CaliforniaProgressReport.com, 01.28.2008)

Historically, the Republicans have spread their corruption, grabbed as much from the public-trough as they could, and tried to take as many of our rights away as possible when they held power. Unlike some Democratic politicians, they're excessive and go too far. As a result, the inevitable public groundswells come, and the Democrats have to manage the clean-up job. It's America, this is our political cycle.

Rob Cruickshank's take at CaliforniaProgressReport.com, 01.28.2008:
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/01/most_important.html

A full transcript of Senator Reid's statement:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005157.php

The Statesman Today on the Blocking of Passage of the FISA Amendments: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/secrecy/entries/2008/01/28/democrats_kill_republican_atte.html

The Onus is on Hillary and Barack: Telecom Immunity and our rights in-peril

Washington D.C.--The truth comes on Monday: 12 Democratic senators sided-with the Republican minority in the Senate and allowed unwarranted obstructionism by the GOP and the tabling (killing) of the Senate Judiciary version of the reauthorization of the FISA Act (S.2248), with Protect America Act amendments (S.1927). One has to ask: 'What does the GOP have on Democratic incumbents? Dirty photos? No, that would be the Republicans...'. The irony is that--there is no irony. The Republican Party is itself embroiled in several scandals that could have an impact on their influence for years-to-come. For reasons unknown, the Democrats are acting as if they're the ones in the GOP's current position. The might explain how this works some time.

The PAA amendments to FISA were hastily passed in August of 2007. The aim of White House allies--seemingly everywhere in Washington and the mainstream media--is to make the recent provisions permanent, granting the executive branch the ability to circumvent the courts in obtaining surveillance warrants. This is not what the public wants, and it's partly reflected in the historic-lows they're experiencing in the polls. Habeas corpus also has yet to be restored.

The Senate Judiciary version supported by SJC chair Patrick Leahy would not have granted retroactive ('after-the-fact') immunity for such telecom carriers as AT&T for cooperating with the illegal requests of the White House in a warrantless NSA surveillance program. The law is very clear on this--you have to have a warrant. However, the Leahy amendments would still grant certain kinds of warrantless surveillance within the continental United States and practically render the FISA court impotent. This bill was killed by a 60-36 vote to table it, a motion that the 12 Democrats voted for. They are:

Evan Bayh (D-In.) (202) 224-5623 (and: http://bayh.senate.gov/contact.html )
Thomas R. Carper (D-De.) (202) 224-2441 (and: http://carper.senate.gov/)
Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) (202) 224-3934
Tim Johnson (D-Sd.) (202) 224-5842
Mary Landrieu (D-La.) (202)224-5824
Clare McCaskill (D-Mo.) (202) 224-6154
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) (202) 224-4654
Bill Nelson (D-Fl.) (202) 224-5274
Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) (202) 224-6551
Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) (202) 224-2353
Ken Salazar (D-Co.) (202) 224-5852
Jay Rockefeller (D-Wv./AT&T) (e-mail the pig @ http://rockefeller.senate.gov/services/email.cfm)

I'm faxing Senator Bayh in a few moments and asking him if he's lost his mind. It would be wise for all Americans who value their basic liberties and their right to privacy to do the same. And what of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in all of this? They skipped the vote, presumably to campaign and to avoid the surveillance bill during a key-part of their party's nomination process for the presidential race. So much for Senator Obama's credentials as a constitutional law professor, but at least he understands the loopholes.

Where do both presidential candidates actually stand? The bets are on that Obama and Clinton are going to disappoint all of us as they usually have (and will continue to), but there is a possibility that Barack Obama could seize-the-moment with an unpredictable move against passage of the Republican/White House-approved version of the bill on Monday evening (4:30 PM ET). He would gain the trust of most of the American public by doing so. Additionally, if Senator Clinton receives prior-knowledge of how he's going to vote, it's a virtual certainty that she will vote the same way to remain competative. It's understandable that the White House would want the immediate passage of their version of the bill with the early nomination process almost at a close. Interestingly, back in October, Clinton stated to Talking Points that she would support a filibuster of the Senate FISA bill that the GOP was pushing at the time:

Q: Can you discuss your position on the reauthorization of the FISA bill?

HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton]: I am troubled by the concerns that have been raised by the recent legislation reported out of the Intelligence Committee. I haven't seen it [Ed.--Like the war authorization bill in 2002?] so I can't express an opinion about it. But I don't trust the Bush Administration with our civil rights and liberties. So I'm going to study it very hard. As matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently. (TPMelectioncentral.com, 10.23.2007)

Is she convinced? One has to wonder where Senator Obama's and Clinton's heads are at on the current versions of the bill, which aren't substantially different from the versions at the time of the questions and their responses in October. Will they waffle? Do some birds migrate? Considering the political pressures, it's hard to tell what side either presidential hopeful will come down on at this writing. Talking Points also queried Senator Obama back around October 23rd of last year and he stated this through a spokesperson:

"Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it."(TPelectioncentral.com, 10.23.2007)

This is not a 'left' or a 'right' issue, but one of what defines us as Americans: the Consitution and the Bill of Rights are our identity, they are sacrosanct. Without their protections, we're no longer Americans, and no longer unique in the world for guarding basic liberties. Without the protections of the courts and the Bill of Rights, America ceases to exist.

Even the Libertarian Party is angry over this, and they have sent letters to all 'pro-FISA senators' urging that they vote against making the warrantless wiretapping provisions permanent. The ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson has also gone as far as to remark that:

“Under Democratic leadership, the Senate will now continue its debate on surveillance with a bill that resembles something from the administration’s playbook. Six months after being hoodwinked into passing the Protect America Act, Americans are still waiting for Congress to grow a spine. (ACLU.org, 01.24.2008)

Still rooting-for Harry Reid and the Senate Judiciary Committee's version? I'm not, it still allows for warrantless surveillance. If nothing gets passed, that's fine, and the PAA amendments to FISA can sunset as they should. There is hope--not every Democrat in the Senate or the House voted for these questionable bills, and minds can be changed if the right pressure is applied by we, the people.

There is a presidential candidate who supports the ending of warrantless surveillance of all of us: John Edwards (http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2008/1/24/144856/068), a candidate who is staunchly opposed to the PAA provisions. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.) appears poised to have his filibuster, yet it could all be avoided if Senate majority leader Harry Reid simply told the body that S.2248 was dead and not up for further discussion--but he won't do it. What does he fear? A second civil war?

Time to remove Harry Reid as Senate majority leader: http://www.usalone.com/step_down_harry.php

Barack and Hillary on warrantless surveillance and extending the PAA

Clinton: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/hillary_says_she_would_support_filibuster_of_current_bill.php

Obama: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/obama_i_would_support_dodds_filibuster.php

Give em' holy hell: www.senate.gov

Yes, even the Libertarians get it:

http://www.lp.org/media/printer_560.shtml

Is all of this saber-rattling by the White House a way of fighting-off impeachment?

Washington D.C.--If you're paying any attention to the unfolding geopolitical and economic mess created by the administration of George W. Bush (Cheney), you've probably noticed that there are a number of motifs that run throughout their disastrous tenure: threats and intimidation, and then the victim mentality when they're feeling cornered or thought of as irrelevant or bumbling (something we all take-for-granted about them). After yet another failed attempt at instigating an exchange in the Straits of Hormuz bordering Iran, the embattled Bush administration is again making threats. This week has brought us more calls from them and their allies for war with Iran, as well as the White House's urgent desire to expand and make their illegal wiretapping-powers permanent. They sound a little defensive, don't they?

Now the Commander in Chief and his administration are telling the whole world that they're considering a ridiculous and ill-fated move of sending a few thousand American troops into Pakistan to track and fight al-Qaeda and the revitalized Taliban. You can hear all the retired and active Joint Chiefs groaning over this just as Field Marshal von Paulus did when Hitler sacrificed his beloved 6th Army at Stalingrad for an equally worthless cause made of vapor and lies. The brass knows that it's just more military adventurism from an alcoholic pen-pusher's desk, but orders are orders. Today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked by journalists who were paid to ask him about operations into Pakistan (they should ask about illegal ops into Iran, ongoing for over four-years, but they weren't paid to ask that question, and therefore didn't):

For several years the focus of U.S. concern about al-Qaida elements in Pakistan was their support for Taliban extremists who have received training in western Pakistan and then infiltrated into Afghanistan to foment violence. More recently, al-Qaida in Pakistan has posed more of a threat to the Pakistani government, seeking to destabilize the government of a nuclear-armed Muslim nation. ( 'US Willing to Send Troops to Pakistan,' AP, 01.24.2008)

And yet, there really wasn't a lot of concern until ten-years-ago when Clinton and the State Department realized that they had created a monster. The executive branch and Congress might consider defunding the Pakistani intelligence community (ISI, or 'Inter-Services Intelligence') and President Mousharraf (looking strikingly similar to the late Sonny Bono), the very people who created al-Qaeda and the Taliban. ISI has a boss called the CIA, who has a boss called the State Department, who has a boss called the President of the United States (Cheney).

Back in the late-1990s, Pakistan was working towards destabilizing India through support of uprisings in the disputed state of Kashmir, and they were also meddling with the internal-affairs of Afghanistan. They would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were only too happy to oblige the Kashmiris' accommodations and camps to train in, with a wink and material support from Pakistani intelligence. Scooby-snacks for everyone:

The I.S.I.'s reliance on Mr. bin Laden's camps for training came to light in August 1998, when the United States launched a cruise missile attack against Al Qaeda terrorist camps near Khost, Afghanistan, in response to the bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa. The casualties included several members of a Kashmiri militant group supported by Pakistan who were believed to be training in the Qaeda camps, American officials said.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the Pakistani government, led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has turned against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in favor of the United States. One element in that shift was General Musharraf's decision to oust the chief of the intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, who may have been reluctant to join an American-led coalition against the Taliban government that his organization helped bring to power. ('A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SPIES; Pakistani Intelligence Had Ties To Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say,' The New York Times, 10.29.2001)

Let's look at the first sentence 'Since the attacks on the World Trade Center...' . 'Since' is the key word here--meaning, until the attacks of 9/11, elements of the government of Pakistan supported the Taliban, knew of Osama bin Laden's support from them, and probably knew a whole lot more about Mousharraf than anyone wants to know. Where's the missing poker-player here? No, his last name isn't Foggo. The CIA's hand is in all of this, but that goes way back a million-years-ago during the fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, as well as the operations in the Balkans with Muslim extremists as the bag men (as seen in the pages of Soldier of Fortune). This is about American State Department policy.

Like the pirates-of-old, our own intelligence community has created a number of these extremist-groups and left them hanging once the short-term goals were met. Besides, if you run out of enemies as we did with the ending of the Cold War, you just create a few straw men. This material abandonment left the Islamic extremists feeling angry and betrayed as most employees do when they're laid-off, and the bills were piling-up. Once were privateers, later were pirates. Once were freedom fighters, now are terrorists. Justice denied, becomes something else...something toxic, something extremist. But enough about the dying neocon ideology...

The message from the White House is that the Pakistani government is doing a fine job fighting internal-threats (like Bhutto), but aren't, and therefore need help crushing the people who helped bring them to power (and anyone who might resist our influence in the region). The rub is that the logistics aren't there, and American troops are already stretched-too-thin in the Middle East. Added to this mix is the fact that a number of coalition allies are going to be gone during this year--take any troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and you begin to lose the tenuous control of each of the occupied nations. And somehow--according to the more paranoid elements on the internet--we can expect a military coup here in the U.S. any day now. Where are the troops to do this exactly? Everyone has an answer ('Blackwater'--get real), it's just that they're all wrong. The president has made it clear that no troops are leaving the region anytime soon, but we can assume that the last 'surge' was intended to allow for adventures into Taliban-controlled Pakistan. We've already been doing this for some time, so one could call these few-thousand troops counterinsurgency 'reinforcements.'

Taking troops from currently occupied nations can have a snowballing effect: insurgents move-in while American and other foreign troops are removed from certain areas of duty--and that's forgetting tensions between the Kurdish PKK and Turkey in the north. Then, there are the areas once kept stable by the British...who no-longer occupy those areas. Another problem posed by the presence of U.S. troops in Pakistan would be the reaction of nearby nations, like China, Russia, Turkey, and a number of former Soviet satellite-states like Azerbaijan (not to mention India--I played my 'Risk'). Is the Bush administration doing some of this as a threat to all of us to 'back-off'? It's a questions worthy of discussion. We have no reason to take this administration at its word on anything. The problem after that--if we all agree what they're doing is actually true--is what to do about it.

Is it all about Bush and Cheney? Of course it isn't, they always needed enablers in Congress and the courts. Not so long ago, someone wrote a very penetrating letter to The New York Times on our tendency towards military adventurism as a nation and a culture. That it's a sign of decline should be inescapable to anyone paying even a scant amount of attention:

As some observers have commented, the remarkable exercise of our sophisticated weaponry in the Persian Gulf created a high level of euphoria among our citizenry because it was a demonstration of power at a time when most people agree that our country is losing ground to foreign industrial and financial competition, and lacks the quality of education essential to halt this loss. This fits the picture painted by Mr. Kennedy.

It is far easier for our political leaders, many of whom rightly predicted that a war in the Persian Gulf would not achieve political stability and progress toward lasting peace and democracy for that region, to go along with the self-deception that the gulf war was a great success and to approve yet another Pentagon budget of close to $300 billion to buy still more advanced weaponry for unspecified needs.
('Does Military Adventurism Proclaim Our National Decline?' (op ed.), The New York Times, 07.28.1991)

That was in 1991, now nearly seventeen-years-ago when all of us who were against the war warned that another one almost exactly like it would come. We were wrong: this one is far-and-away worse, and under a president with the same first and last-name. We were close, very close in our predictions, and we hate to be right about any of it. Is the current President Bush threatening us all with chaos unleashed if we attempt to impeach him--that there will be consequences to pay? Are the president and vice president threatening Congress in classified meetings through phony intelligence threat estimates? What would surprise us anymore?

'A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SPIES; Pakistani Intelligence Had Ties To Al-Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say,' The New York Times, October 29th, 2001: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E3D61630F93AA15753C1A9679C8B63

'Frederick S. Lightfoot, July 10, 1991' (The New York Times, July 29th, 1991):

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7D81E3CF93BA15754C0A967958260

'US Willing to Send Troops to Pakistan'-(AP, January 24th, 2008):

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080124/47981b50_3ca6_1552620080124-1006540960

Songs from the Site Meter Part II A: The Military Loves J-7

SITE METER--Granted, I wasn't serious about ('aboot' in Canada) giving anyone a chicklet (TM), but it was a military man who answered my question, possibly a big-shot. He read a long time, and he was probably sitting a few-doors-down from Ronald Roughead. Or was it the retired Colonel himself? Doubtful, he's retired, and what would someone lobbying for SAIC be doing working at the Army's Inspector General Agency?

Some words of advice to the IGA: INVESTIGATE SHIRLINGTON LIMO AND CHRISTOPHER D. BAKER, AND START DOING A THOROUGH JOB OF IT. START DRAGGING CONGRESSMEN BEFORE HEARINGS ON ILLEGAL LOBBYING. RANDALL CUNNINGHAM IS ONE-OF-MANY CRIMINALS. Just my two-cents.

Domain Name		army.mil ? (Military)
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Songs from the Site Meter: Military Intelligence? Naw, that's a contradiction-in-terms

SITE METER--This one has me a little puzzled. A chicklet (TM) to anyone who figures-out who they are and why they came to J-7!

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Cheney to Congress: "Make warrantless wiretapping permanent"

"While EFF appreciates the attempt by Senator Specter to craft a compromise to save the litigation, the bill contains serious flaws that undermine the goal of allowing the courts to decide whether the carriers and the president broke the law when they engaged in over five years of warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans." --Electronic Frontier Foundation press release, December 5th, 2007.

Washington D.C.--Today's rare glimpse of the vice president all appears to have begun over a letter written by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) urging the White House to allow for more time to consider provisions of a bill to extend the government's abilities to wiretap domestically. Reid and others want oversight provisions and more. In an unsurprising move, the ever reclusive Vice President crawled-out of his secret bunker and issued an ultimatum to Congress today demanding that spying on American citizens--as well as foreigners--be made permanent. What the vice president and president want is the addition of a feature in the sunsetting "Protect America Act" (Public Law 110-55), a bill that was rashly passed by the 110th Congress at the end of August of 2007, and against the will of the public.

The White House has vowed to veto any version of the renewed act that doesn't include specific provisions. What does Cheney want? The Bush administration (Cheney) wants a provision that gives retroactive immunity to the telecoms (all-but-one complied without warrants) over aiding in perhaps thousands of FISA violations under an illegal NSA wiretapping program that failed to obtain warrants from the oversight court. Blah-blah-blah, "9/11," blah-blah-blah, "war on terrorism," and more blah-blah-blahs, were the reasons given to offer law-breaking communications corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Southern Bell (SBC), MCI, and many others (some unknown at this writing). Does haste make waste? My Grandmother always said it did:

"We're reminding Congress that they must act now," Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law, which authorizes the administration to eavesdrop on phone calls and see the e-mail to and from suspected terrorists, expires on Feb. 1. Congress is bickering over terms of its extension. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to extend the stopgap Protect America Act without expanding it, raising stakes for an expected showdown in the Senate later this week on a new version of the law. (AP, 01.23.2008)

And so, we've established that Richard Cheney didn't have such a great Grandma and that it actually does appear that Democrats in the Senate are trying to kill the Protect America Act (or make it reasonable). Sunsetting the PAA would be the traditionally American thing to do when a law threatens the liberties of its citizens and so clearly violates the Constitution of the United States, but Congress appears to be taking-its-time. This is acceptable. At least the Democrats are finally beginning to understand what a threat this all poses to them and the rest of us. Yet, somehow, Cheney seems to think he can operate without any mandate--he should, he's been doing so for almost eight-years now.

The 2008 elections loom large on the horizon. Is Senator Reid just trying to give Democratic incumbents the appearance of an opposition party, or is this a real shift from their timid and co-conspiratorial behavior from 2000-on? Nonetheless, the vice president's speech is being heavily-hyped by our corporate media in an attempt to drown-out all other voices on the issue, just as they did to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

As usual, Cheney's speech was made on unconsecrated ground, where nobody with any sense would laugh or balk at the vice president's statements today: the Heritage Foundation, where expressing common sense and reason are career-liabilities. None of this matters, action speaks louder than words. Congress is likely to capitulate on this issue unless we nearly break-their-hands forcing them to let the Protect America Act sunset and die after February 1st, 2008. Will they, or won't they? Regardless of the desire to scratch the immunity provision on-the-part of the Democratic majority, they still want to extend the program of spying on Americans, just with oversight by Congress.

But is the threat that bad, is it real? How could you even prove it was until there was an attack? It's all about instilling fear, and most incumbents are thinking on the same level as the White House: milk the war on terrorism for political-points. In-addition, the public isn't taking Congress or the White House at their word as they did in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, which a simple glance at the polls has made clear since as early as late-2004 (about the time that the NYT discovered the warrantless surveillance programs).

Economic woes are only going to exacerbate the dislike for incumbents, especially if they don't start delivering broad-based reforms. The next sweeping-out of Congress could very well mean an end to this political generation and the rise of a new one. Several interconnected DC-scandals could finish the job. The Democrats understand this dynamic of the mandate better than the GOP, and the pressures must be immense at this writing. Preserving Democratic-gains made from the 2006 midterms will require giving the public something, and something will have to go.

On this note, Senator Harry Reid seems to be leading-the-charge against the immunity provisions, so we must assume that it's becoming a mainstream issue within the Senate itself. The reality is that it's been senators like Russell Feingold (D-Wi.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), who have been keeping this issue alive. Other than Arlen Specter, there have been no progressive voices coming from GOP incumbents on this issue. Surely, civil libertarians of all-stripes are pelting Congress with angry e-mails, phone calls, and letters as this is being written. If they aren't, they'd better start doing it immediately, criminals cannot reform themselves. For that matter, they cannot be trusted to investigate or arrest themselves. Going widely unreported by the mainstream press are the actions by Sen. Christopher Dodd who is threatening once again to filibuster the bill in the Senate. What are his chances of succeeding? Not bad:

Efforts to pass the Senate FISA bill stalled in December when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) pledged to filibuster any measure that provided phone companies with immunity. Reid pulled the bill from the floor so the Senate could finish its other work. Dodd on Wednesday again said that he would work to defeat any efforts that included such protections. “I’m just not going to give them a free pass,” Dodd said. Before filibustering, he said he would support an amendment that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) plans to offer that would strengthen the FISA court and does not include immunity for the carriers. Leahy’s amendment is based on the bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs. He would not say on Wednesday whether he would support a filibuster by Dodd. (theHill.com, 01.23.2008)

If the Democratic Party wishes to retain the Congress after this next election cycle, they must stand firm on this issue and block any attempts by the GOP to force passage of this legislation. As Republicans aren't in the majority, it will be the fault of the Democratic one if this legislation is renewed in a form acceptable to the White House. The rule of law has been thwarted long enough by the GOP and her operatives within the State. Predictably, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is calling for a 'compromise' that replaces the telecom carriers as the defendant in all of the telecom lawsuits (nearly all alleging unlawful and unconstitutional violations of privacy) with the government. Ask any honest former-prosecutor if this is acceptable (meaning, 'not Arlen Specter, Rudolf Giuliani or Thomas DiBagio').

Retroactive immunity is like letting the primary accomplices to a major crime off-the-hook so that they can commit the same crimes again-and-again for a future administration, presumably Republican. Granting immunity will absolve this administration and her allies of an unknown number of high crimes, possibly even treason, and it will create dangerous precedents. It should be clear to anyone that Sen. Specter is acting-on-behalf of his party, doing his best to protect the GOP from a long-delayed justice. This is un-American in every respect.

Are Senator Reid and others in Congress starting to listen to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)? EFF's contention back on December 5th, 2007 was that Congress shouldn't rush things--exactly the opposite of what the White House is calling for. This mess has been ongoing since December of 2005 when the existence of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program was revealed in The New York Times. They had been sitting on it for a year. We can wait to pass this bill until it resembles something Americans can be proud of.

'NSA Class Actions': http://www.eff.org/cases/att

'EFF Calls on Senate Judiciary Committee and Full Senate to Take More Time and Not Let Telephone Companies Off the Hook: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/12/05

The Hill (yes, the Hill) on the wiretapping battle, 01.24.2008: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/battle-over-wiretapping-is-heating-up-on-the-hill-2008-01-24.html

The sound of our liberties dying, 01.23.2008 (AP): http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jRICMUBI8QvePywA5BLklcJJApcAD8UBQAT80

Fred Thompson Leaves the Presidential Race

Fredland--When someone like Richard M. Nixon refers to you as 'stupid,' you have to take it seriously. Fred didn't, and now he looks more the fool. Considering that Karl Rove and his former U.S. Attorney pupil Tim Griffin were part of the effort to force Fred on the American people, we can all assume they're going to gravitate to whoever the winners are at this moment. Rove and company might have to leap-frog from one GOP hopeful to another--they had best be careful it's not someone they burglarized.

That man would the shell-shocked John McCain, current waterboy for the Bush administration and their war crimes in the Middle East. It appears that all of those break-ins of the campaign offices of Thompson's running mates in 2007 yielded as much useful data as the Watergate job. Goodbye to a very ugly, stupid, whore-mongering half-man. We don't have to hear about you anymore. Now, if Giuliani can realize it isn't 1993, he might be able to swallow his ego and also admit that the public doesn't like him, and quit too.

[Ed., 09.19.2008-It should be noted that around this time Palfrey began talking more about Larry Flynt's list--that John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Dick Cheney were found in the phone records. Palfrey also began corroborating it in comments. All three appear to have been fashioned out of mud, just like Richard Nixon.]

Sam Eardth, Where Art Thou?

Planet Eardth--Do a little search on this name here at this site, a name that had to be invented by a half-wit, a name that never existed in the history of mankind. 'Smith' would have been a wiser choice. The moment I began writing about the legal situation of 'DC Madam' Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Sam Eardth emerged out of the aether, fully-formed...well, not exactly. He was a little malformed, like an ugly little demiurge, the afterbirth of God.

'Sam' sent me several 'CEASE AND DESIST' e-mails, but wouldn't identify themselves through their clumsy pseudonymn. One can imagine why with all of the lawsuits cutting-loose these days. We are--after all--a litigious society, and that's OK. To Sam & Co.: You're assholes. If you had any balls or credibility at all, you'd reveal who you are. I'm not intimidated.

Sam, if you're part of the prosecution team under D.C. 's U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, you're harassing me under the color of authority. That's a major crime, but realize that there is nothing that's going to cause the removal of the material published on this site about the 'Hookergate' scandal--a scandal that's really about institutionalized and illegal lobbying of Congress. Congress--being a slut--is known to happily oblige as much as possible, regardless of who's in power.

It is a political event, and the media are colluding in covering it all up. The use of women to obtain government contracts is being sidelined so it doesn't affect the GOP so badly in 2008, but it's not going away. Rep. Louis Slaughter has called for further inquiries into Shirlington Limousine, the other government contractor involved in the Cunningham scandal. U.S. Attorney scandal? You bet there's a connection, the exposures are coming. Shirlington Limousine and Christopher D. Baker could possibly be the crux of several scandals, which is why investigations are being blocked.