Impeachment Thrown Downs, Show Downs and Susan Eisenhower is Leaving GOP For Good, Cites McCain’s “Rove-Style” Politics

National Interest: In Full

“I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.” And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.”

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucasus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win? Read on…

Eisenhower obliterates the media narrative that John McCain is strong on national security and foreign policy and shows the growing distaste within the GOP for the destructive Rove/Bush, scorched earth politics the McCain camp has unfortunately chosen to adopt. Susan believes the GOP has lost its way and has finally awakened to the destructive nature of the Bush regime - the one her grandfather warned us about all those years ago.

Who Will Crash the Democratic and Republican Conventions?
By Michael Gould-Wartofsky, The Nation
As a new generation of activists gears up to take to the streets in Denver and the Twin Cities, can they create democracy from outside? Read more »

http://www.worldcantwait.org

Recreate68: Recreate68.org

Alliance for Real Democracy: realdemocracy2008.org

Unconventional Denver: dncdistuption.org

Come Up to Denver: comeuptodenver.org/

National Leaders Call for Massive AUG 24 ANTIWAR Demonstration at Democratic Convention

YOUR GOVERNMENT

SIGN the Call to Come to Denver - March Against the War at the Democratic National Convention!

SIGN UP to join World Can't Wait in Denver

If you made the trek to Denver, please join us on Sunday night!

A World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime ALERT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 23, 2008

www.worldcantwait.org

Contact in Denver: Adela Rios 347 385 2195

Evening of Conscience: NO War on Iran!

Part of DNC Protest Events
Sunday August 24 7:00 pm
Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theater
119 Park Avenue West, Denver

Speakers are Ron Kovic, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Jeremy Scahill, Sunsara Taylor, Phil Aliff of Iraq Veterans Against the War, with Cleo Parker Robinson and Tom Chelston

Elaine Brower, mother of a Marine leaving for Iraq next week for a repeat deployment, will host the event, which will add substance to the demands of the anti-war march earlier Sunday.

Ron Kovic, paralyzed by a combat injury in Vietnam, and Phil Aliff, of the national board of Iraq Veterans against the War, will be joined by congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan, whose oldest son was killed in Iraq.

Former US Congress member and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution newspaper, will be joined by writers Jeremy Scahill (Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army) and
Larry Everest (Oil, Power & Empire: Iran and the U.S. Global Agenda).

Tom Chelston | Invited ♫

tom@tomsongs.org

Tom Chelston will perform original music. Cleo Parker Robinson, noted modern dance choreographer and Denver arts leader, will welcome the event to the historic Five Points African-American community of Denver.
--- 30 ---

A Country at Peace with Being at War is a Country of "Good Germans"

A country “at peace with being at war” is a country of “Good Germans.”

Seven years of the Bush Regime have radically altered the shape of U.S. society and locked in a global trajectory of wars for empire with no regard for human cost or conscience.

The world is shocked by the crimes and destruction the American people have allowed to be carried out in our names.

Despite the longest presidential campaign ever, George Bush remains unrelenting and self-assured that he can drive the savageness of his agenda into the next administration. Still commander in chief, Bush is recklessly threatening military action against Iran that could break out even before the next president is sworn in.

Who is to stop him when both presidential candidates have also threatened Iran, each insisting that all options, including nuclear weapons, remain on the table?

Who is to stop him when the Democrat-controlled Congress secretly approved funding for covert special operations already underway inside Iran?

Who will stop any of this when both major parties are championing the so-called war on terror, under which the U.S. launched two wars in a region that is strategically located, rich in oil, and long a central concern of imperial powers? Both major political parties have authorized these wars. And at every step, both political parties have voted to extend billions more dollars to continue them.

Only you – not your government – can bring any of this to a halt. The only realistic course is for the people of the U.S. to taking meaningful and independent political action to resist the machinery of war and the fascist direction that has emerged since September 10, 2001.

We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own governments do. People of conscience do not allow themselves to be demobilized by the political and moral terms of an election that calls for national unity while carrying out unjust war for empire. We should take this administration at their word when they promise a war to last generations.

People of conscience act when torture has been legalized and when war crimes are being carried out in our names.

People of conscience do not give up our right to dissent or hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety.

While Barack Obama and John McCain, each in their own way, distance themselves from the debacle of the Bush years, neither of them, and no significant force within the halls of power, is acting decisively to reverse the re-making of American legal norms and political culture that can rightly be described as fascistic.

Neither of them is demanding that the U.S.’s policy of torture – sanctioned and codified in the Military Commissions Act which passed with bi-partisan support – be repealed and those responsible prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Neither candidate is calling for ending the mass round-ups of immigrants or the Halliburton contracts for new prisons to hold targeted immigrant populations and political dissidents.

Neither of them gave voice to the public outrage against Bush’s illegal wiretapping; instead, Obama voted with the majority to grant retroactive immunity to those who joined Bush in breaking the law and violating basic rights to privacy and freedom of press. Further, Barack Obama has pledged to extend Bush’s faith-based initiatives. and promotes a nefarious message of finding common ground with Christian

Fundamentalists who rail against evolution, celebrate intolerance and openly advocate the submission of women.

This is not the pendulum “swinging back.” This is a continuation of the politics of empire. Never before has a sole super-power held so much of the world in such peril and never before have the crimes of one empire threatened the future of so much of the planet.

The words from the original World Can’t Wait Call to Drive out the Bush Regime ring even truer today: “That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn – or be forced – to accept.”

What is needed is not a minor course correction. What is needed is not meaningless “change” we are allowed to believe in, but a radical change in direction brought about by people acting outside the political confines of these official politics.

Real change can come only from people in their millions taking responsibility to change the course of history. It will not be as easy as writing your congressman or putting your energies and resources into a supposed savior from the Democratic Party. But that. Let’s face it, is an illusion.

What will things look like the day after the election? Will people – through their passivity and through having restricted themselves to mobilizing behind one or the other major candidate – have legitimized the results of an election that is taking place on terms inhospitable to the future of the planet? Will the millions who want so badly a different future have forfeited this righteous demand on the altar of “national unity” and an empty promise of “hope”?

Or will there be a pole of opposition that inspires with its moral clarity and fearless truth-telling? An increasingly visible independent political force of resistance, protest, and acts of conscience that people can join with and persevere with until this whole direction is brought to a halt?

Let it be said: It was wrong to go into Iraq. It has been wrong to stay in Iraq. It is wrong not to get out now. It is wrong to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to threaten war with Iran.

LET IT BE SAID in DENVER so that, on August 24, the eve of the Democratic Convention, there is the largest anti war demonstration that city has seen. Come to Denver for a week of protest that includes marching to stand with immigrants under assault and counter-protests to the week of anti-abortion actions of the Christian Right.

For this to happen, WE must act and mobilize now.

We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own governments do. Thus we call on all people living in the United States to RESIST the trajectory of wars and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration and a complicit Congress.

We choose to make common cause with the people of the world by extending a hand to those suffering from these policies and by showing our solidarity in word and deed.

The World Can’t Wait! July 2008

Reports of bikes, maps will go to state intelligence nexus -

Friday, 22 August 2008

By Erin Rosa

The Denver Police Department has issued a bulletin asking law enforcement officials to be on the lookout for stockpiles of supplies that could be used by “violent demonstrators” during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) next week, but civil libertarians are criticizing the memo for containing a broad list of innocuous items including bicycles, helmets and maps. Reports of such items will also be recorded and held for an indefinite period of time by a state “fusion” center, a place meant to share reports of “suspicious activities” with local, federal and military officials.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado announced in a statement yesterday that they will be holding a press conference at their 400 Corona St. offices in Denver today at 3 p.m. to discuss the bulletin, which was also provided to reporters with the organization’s press release.

In the memo, police warn of the dangers of bicycles, protest signs and maps:

Maps: Maps are frequently used by violent protester [sic] to plan direct actions against conventioneers.

Protest sign handles: Wood or metal

- Check the diameter of the wood or metal used to hold up light paper, cloth, or plastic signs

- Heavy wooden handles in 5 foot lengths are perfect for swing [sic] at first responders
- Metal post can also be used to hold improvised “tiki” torches to deliver flammable liquid on first responders

Bicycles: Bicycles are used to blockade sidewalks, streets and can be used to slow down responding emergency vehicles

Helmets: Football, baseball, or motorcycle helmets are all used by violent protesters.

At the bottom of the bulletin is a number to the Colorado Intelligence Analysis Center (CAIC), a state “fusion” center that will be operating 24 hours a day during the convention, fully staffed with up to eight intelligence analysts from both federal and state government agencies at any given time.

“Fusion” centers have been criticized by civil liberties advocates for what they see as invasive data mining and sharing between government agencies. Some of those problems were explored in a July story by The Colorado Independent.

For more on “fusion” centers, read The Colorado Independent’s continuing coverage:

Monster fusion center to coordinate DNC intelligence

Local, state agencies gain spying powers under Bush plan

Colorado ‘fusion center’ to step up intelligence gathering during DNC

Report: ‘Fusion centers’ called new domestic spying machine

Did McCain Just Lose Colorado?
By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress
McCain might have just lost Colorado after saying he wanted to renegotiate a 1922 water deal and take water from Colorado and New Mexico. Read more »

Jerome Corsi: How a Racist, Conspiratorial Crank Became a Top GOP Anti-Obama Point Man
By Max Blumenthal, The Nation
Corsi's success represents the apotheosis of a long, strange trip from the furthest shores of the right into the national spotlight. Read more »

Corsi: Critics of Obama might be "put ... in jail" if he's president

Summary: On C-SPAN, Jerome Corsi, author of The Obama Nation, asserted that, if Sen. Barack Obama were elected president and someone were to write a book critical of him or to publish "a cartoon like The New Yorker,"

"Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail."

Responding to a caller's assertion that "we cannot question Obama," Corsi stated:

Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama.

But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book.

What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary [sic] dressed as a -- you know, a black militant.

And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here?

Also during the broadcast, Corsi continued to compound the falsehoods in his book by falsely claiming that he asks in his book for "definitive proof" -- such as "drug testing" -- that Obama has stopped using drugs. Corsi's claim came after host Pedro Echevarria pointed out that the Obama campaign and several major news outlets, such as The New York Times and Associated Press, have noted that Corsi's assertion that Obama "has yet to answer questions" concerning whether "he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug use extended into law school days or beyond," is false.

Indeed, even before the book's official publication date, Media Matters for America documented this falsehood, noting that Obama wrote in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate, following two years at Occidental College -- a statement that contradicts Corsi's claim in Obama Nation that Obama has yet to say whether he stopped using drugs.

On Washington Journal, Corsi said:

What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign.

In fact, Corsi did not ask about "drug testing," "other records," or "definitive proof" in any of the book's passages about Obama's past drug use.

As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously mischaracterized the false claim he made about Obama's answers to questions about his drug use on at least two occasions and has issued other additional falsehoods while promoting his falsehood-laden book.

From the August 16 edition of CSPAN's Washington Journal:

ECHEVARRIA: You write on Page 77 of the book, looking at various aspects of Senator Obama

--

CORSI: Sure, go right ahead.

ECHEVARRIA: This about drug use. You say that "[s]till, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond." The Obama campaign, from what it put out, came out with this, it said -- and you can find this also on the senator's website -- that "Obama has made clear repeatedly that he stopped using marijuana in college, which peers have affirmed." Went on to go on to quote statements from The State Journal Register of the Springfield [Illinois], The New York Times, the Associated Press and the Politico. Again, an example of your claim against what they say is false.

CORSI: Well, you know, first of all, let me point out The New York Times and many of these other sources were -- have also been wrong dramatically about Senator Edwards, so their sources saying that Obama quit using drugs is probably just repeating what they were told, and I doubt they really did their own independent investigative research into the subject. Notoriously, people who use drugs, especially heavily, and Senator Obama says at Occidental, the drug use in college -- was his first college -- the drug use had actually become really habitual. In fact, he discusses how much of a habit it had become. For people who use drugs like that, their self-reporting that they stopped using drugs is usually notoriously inaccurate. But they'll repeat that to many people, who then repeat it as well.

What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign.

ECHEVARRIA: We'll take a look at various aspects of the book, but first to your calls.

[...]

CALLER: Good morning. And thank you for the book, sir. Appreciate it.

CORSI: Thank you. You're welcome.

CALLER: And I bought it a couple of days ago, so I'm reading it now.

CORSI: Deeply appreciate it, thank you.

CALLER: Mm-hmm. I -- we need something like this, because we cannot question Obama. Even his ears, he says, I don't like people talking about my ears, so we don't talk about his ears. But we talk about McCain's age, right? You didn't hear him say, "I don't like people talking about my age." So we're told what we can say, how we can say it.

And thank you, sir, because we need to know about this guy. He's left us -- they're hiding it. And I'm not sure how -- with the press like it is if you can do much good. And I'd love to talk to you for two hours.

CORSI: Well, thank you, ma'am. The mainstream media did not do its job. It was asleep. The mainstream media was busy making up epithets to use in case I wrote a book. I guess that's what they spend all their time doing.

Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama.

But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book.

What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary dressed as a -- you know, a black militant.

And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here?

I think that Senator McCain made a very appropriate comment yesterday when he said, "Let's just all keep our sense of humor." And I think that the criticism of me, the things that have been said have been over the top, and I've -- you know, my wife was calling me up trying to ask me to explain all the words I was being called on television.

ECHEVARRIA: From our line, for those who support Senator Obama, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Arizona Shock Jock's Dangerous Call for 'Bloodshed' in Polling Places
By Rory O'Connor, RoryOConnor.org
Comments by host Jon Justice could prove to be the spark that turns ominous hate speech into real-life acts of hatred. Read more »

Pelosi property and the DC tax assessor |Thomas Lifson

The Web of Deception website uncovers a very odd situation regarding Washington, DC property owned by the Speaker and her husband:

Our research into the land ownership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband revealed that the Speaker and her husband bought two pieces of property from Joseph E. Seagrams and Sons, the liquor company on March 25, 1999. Current records from the District of Columbia show that one of the properties is now back in Seagram's name but the address Seagram's is using is the address of the Paul and Nancy Pelosi Charitable Foundation.

A Pelosi spokeperson stated that the tax collector has been in error for 9 years as to who owns the property. For this to be correct, then the accountants and tax preparers for Pelosi or Seagrams (a contributor 5 months before the property sale) did not notice there was an error for nine years. The Pelosi's received a statement that showed another owner of their property for nine years. Conversely Seagram's did not receive statements from D.C.

Solving The Energy Crisis | Harness The Power Of All The Shit In DC!

China uses manure to generate power and heat

In the race to implement new energy sources, farms have an advantage: lots of manure. A large chicken farm north of Beijing is taking advantage of this fact by using its chicken manure to generate power and heat. And this isn’t just a small-time farm—the 3 million chickens on the farm produce 220 tons of manure and 170 tons of wastewater each day.

The Deqingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization Plant, which is replacing a coal-fired plant, will reduce CO2 emissions by 95,000 tons a year.

The project is expected to provide 14,600 megawatt hours of electricity a year and help reduce electricity shortages in the region. The biogas is taking the place of coal-fired power, and the project is also helping to control dust levels and reduce odors.

The plant will feature an anaerobic digester to treat waste material, which will produce biogas that will then power 2 GE Jenbacher gas engines. Heat generated from the process will be used in the waste fermentation process and to warm the farm in the winter.

But the project won’t just benefit the farm—it will also help reduce electricity shortages in the region.

While any facility containing 3 million chickens probably doesn’t treat its animal residents very well, at least this one sets an example for other farms looking to become more self-sufficient—and energy self-sufficiency should always be welcome in a growing country like China, cleantechnica.com reports.

GE Energy China estimates the project will save the farm more than $1.2 million a year in electricity costs. GE's Jenbacher gas engines can be powered a number of ways, with natural gas, coal mine gas or alternative fuels like biogas from waste and landfills.

The farm's energy plant adds to the number of projects using gas from landfills or manure to provide power, greenbiz.com reports.