Dear Cheney Gang.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. In fact, you may have already signed your own confessions with the torture documents you issued and the speeches you gave on the record.

And the court of law may well be in SPAIN.

From The Raw Story:

Six Bush-era officials responsible for crafting the legal justifications permitting the military prison at Guantanamo Bay are the subject of a potential Spanish criminal probe which could place the men under serious risk of arrest if they travel outside the United States.

"[Spanish newspaper] Público identifies the targets as University of California law professor John Yoo, former Department of Defense general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer working for Chevron), former vice presidential chief-of-staff David Addington, former attorney general and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, now a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith," noted Scott Horton at Harper's.

He called them Bush's "torture lawyers."

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who indicted the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,

The New York Times broke this story.

BEWARE of "Amazon" Scam

Dear Reader

If you have been getting the following kind of message in your email, do not respond. Notice they want your bank account information. Give them that and they will clean out your account. I have tried to warn Amazon about this, but it is hard to contact the company. They have no easy way to do it. I finally made a press inquiry. I am, after all, a reporter. Here is the message. Keep in mind it is a total and complete scam. It is not from Amazon.

Dear Amazon.com Associate,

We have recently made payments to Associates. However, we are unable to pay you because of one of the following reasons; you have not indicated your preferred method for receiving payment (eg; EFT, Check or Gift Certificate) , you have indicated EFT but a previous disbursement into your bank account failed, or you have a US residence but you have not provided a tax identification number.
Please go immediately to Associates Central to update your information so that we can process your payment as soon as possible:
* To change your payee information, you should go to Associates Central >> Account Settings >> Change your contact information (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/your-account/payee-info.html).

* To change your bank account information, you should go to Associates Central >> Account Settings >> Change your payment method (under Pay me by direct deposit) (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/your-account/payment-info.html).

Once you have made the changes, we will process your payment within 2 to 3 business days. You will know we have processed your payment again when the payment error message disappears from the top of Associates Central homepage.

It is imperative you update your account information today. We will hold this payment and any future payments until you make the necessary changes.

We appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us anytime at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/contact. Thanks again for participating in the Amazon.com Associates Program, and have a great next month.

Sincerely,

The Amazon.com Associates Program

You night think that Amazon would jump right on this to try to shut it down. We'll see what their response is to my inquiry.

Sincerely,


NEWSGUY

Oliphant Cartoon Offends Anti-Defamation League

Congratulations, Pat Oliphant on yet another cartoon that is worth a thousand editorials.

The Anti-Defamation League calls this Pat Oliphant Cartoon anti-semitic. I call it brilliant.

Israel has been acting like the Nazis who persecuted, terrorized and murdered millions of Jews. It maintains Gaza like a giant concentration camp. And it has killed Palestinians wholesale. Just like the Nazis did 60 and 70 years ago.

I picked this image up at The Raw Story.

UN Drug Czar: Illegal Drugs Prop Up Banking System During Crisis

From the DRC Net Blog

Profits from the global illicit drug trade helped keep the international banking system afloat during the crisis that swept the global financial system during the second half of last year, the UN's leading drug fighter said in an interview with the Austrian magazine Profil, which was made available Sunday. Drug money was almost the only available capital for banks, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime

UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa Costa's remarks came as the Profil interviewer questioned him about the size of the global drug market. "If you look at agriculture markets, it is the most important," Costa replied. "According to our calculations, the wholesale value of illegal drugs is more than $90 billion, in the range of world meat and grain trade. The street trade, we assess at a volume of over $320 billion."

While profits from the illicit drug trade fund political violence by the likes of the Taliban or Colombia's leftist FARC insurgents and rightist paramilitaries, they are also finding their way into the coffers of the world banking system at a critical time, Costa said. The drug business is one of the few global growth industries right now, he noted.

"The drug trade at this time could be the only growth industry, with little unemployment," Costa explained. "The money that is being made is flowing only partly back into illegal activities, in parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, where it is used to bribe politicians, buy elections, or finance insurgents, such as the Talibans in Afghanistan, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, or the FARC in Colombia, for example."

If the illegal drug trade generates huge profits for criminals and violence that results in the deaths of thousands of people each year, then the War on Drugs must be a Failure.

How about ending this Prohibition, taking the profit away and depriving the criminals of their very lucrative businesses? No, that makes too much sense.

Memorial at a Double Murder Site

Highland Park Neighborhood, Figueroa Street, Los Angeles Here is the police report:

Highland Park
Last Friday we had the tragic shooting on Figueroa Avenue at approximately 3:25 PM. Our homicide detectives have been working hard to solve this crime. This occurred in broad daylight on a busy street yet we do not have lots of witnesses to this crime. We do have some leads. If anyone has any information please contact Detective P.J. Morris, NOE Homicide at (213) 847-4261. Thanks for your cooperation.

Prayer vigil for two Highland Park murder victims (Alejandro Garcia and Carlos Hernandez) on Friday March, 20th, 2009 at 6 PM, at Piedmont Park (vicinity of Ave 61 and Figueroa).

The Lady on the Billboard was a witness. She smiled through it all.

Street Musicians

At the South Pasadena Farmers Market

California Winter Dandelions

California Bird of Paradise

Dear AIG, Re: Those Multimillion $$ Bonuses...

Dear Reader of this Blog,

Are you incensed that we bailed AIG out to the tune of $170 billion, and now they have announced $165 million in bonuses to executives? That's OUR MONEY they are handing out like Girl Scout Cookies. Well, take action.

If you would like to write your own note to AIG, go to this OFficial AIG Contact Form.

And if you buy auto insurance from AIG, DROP IT, and tell them why. You can check at their Web site to find the companies they own. Actually my company, 21st Century, was bought by AIG and they announced it. So maybe you know already.

Here's the AIG Website. .

And pass these Web addresses around to your friends. And ask them to pass them around. Let's start a movement here.

Shocker! White House Counsel Worked for Karl Rove

Dear President Obama

How could you? Your lawyers have cut a sweet deal for Karl Rove's appearance before Congress. He won't have to testify in public, not under oath and will be able to avoid some critical questions. Here's part of the story from Counterpunch:

This is the deal brokered by the current administration, with Obama's hand-picked White House counsel, Gregory Craig, and his aides playing a "critical role," as Newsweek reports. But while the venerable newsmag found time to address the ever-burning question of who "won" in the negotiations -- Did Rove's lawyers make the most concessions? Who's on top of the Beltway food chain today? -- they entirely omitted a very pertinent fact, reported by Glynn Wilson at the Locust Fork News-Journal: Obama's White House Counsel has worked for Rove. Wilson writes:

"In what appears to be a clear conflict of interest, Craig represented Rove in his recent book deal, while Craig’s law partner, close associate and mentor, Emmet Flood, is representing Bush in executive privilege matters before the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, where Bush administration officials have been charged with the political firings of U.S. attorneys for failing to act on orders to prosecute Democrats prior to elections."

And we thought you were a different kind of president.

Guess not.

Regards

NEWSGUY

Dear Catholic Church, You Are a Criminal Fascist Conspiracy

Dear Church, Pope, et al,

And that Conspiracy goes right to the top. You have expelled several people from the Church for helping a little nine year old Brazilian rape victim get an abortion. But you did NOT excommunicate the criminal who raped her. How about trying to bring yourself out of the 12th Century? Here is the story from Al Jazeera:

The Vatican has defended the excommunication of those involved in helping a nine-year-old girl get an abortion in Brazil after she was allegedly raped by her stepfather.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops, told the Italian daily La Stampa over the weekend that the unborn twins the girl was carrying had the right to live.

"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," he said.

The senior cleric's comments come after Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, criticised Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the Brazilian archbishop who excommunicated the girl's mother and the doctors involved in aborting the baby, but not the stepfather who allegedly raped the girl.

Frankly I think excommunication from the Church is a kind of honor. Who would want to belong to a Church led by insensitive, idiotic Vatican morons. Remember, the current Pope Benedict XVI himself used to be a Nazi. True story. I did not make this up. The Catholic Church is evil.

And during the Nazi regime, the Catholic Church was right there, celebrating along with Hitler. For more photos of the Christian Hitler and his alliance with the Church, check out this Web site.

To Quote Myself (on BagNews Notes)

I recently left this comment at BagNews Notes, a Web site devoted to close analysis of news photos.

Dear BagNews Notes,

Look at the photo. There is Mr. Republican, for all to see.

Come on, we should be grateful that Rush Limbaugh, the Face of the Republican Party is a disgusting bag of gas, a bloated drug addict and full of shit. This guy is the de facto LEADER of the Republican party and is increasingly being viewed as such by the American public.

We progressive types should all rejoice and celebrate the fact that Rush is the heart and soul of the Republican party incarnate. He has crippled the Republican Party and with his idiotic public statements helped boost the Democrats' chances of enacting an effective recovery.

And it doesn't hurt any that his photographs reveal him as a corpulent self-righteous fool.

Regards,

NEWSGUY

Dear Toyota

I think it is so cool that you have discovered how to build a car out of sticks and leaves. Where can I get one? At my local National Forest Reserve or what? Are those guys building it members of the UAW or Boy Scouts? Is it powered by rainwater? Who would I get to repair it, a tree surgeon? When it gets old with too much mileage, can I feed it to my horse?

NEWSGUY readers: If you haven't seen this commercial, here it is:

Regards,


NEWSGUY

Workers Take Note: Employee Free Choice Act -- Republicans Hate It

To my Fellow Workers:

The Employee Free Choice act is backed by America's unions and would help rebuild the Middle Class. Nauturally the Republicans are against it. Naturally. Why should we have any help for the Middle Class? It's the Rich who count.

If the Republicans hate it you can be assured that it is worthy of serious consideration. Once the Republicans put the Mojo on something, that's a hint that it's a good thing. Here's why.

As a member of no less than THREE unions (AFTRA, SAG and UTLA), I support the Employee Free Choice Act. And I hope Obama supports it and Congress passes it. I have been reading that maybe the Democrats are backing away from it. Please do your part. Help give the Dems in Congress some spine, to encourage them to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Republicans have been circulating lies about it, mainly that it would destroy secret balloting in the workplace for union organizing. Bullshit. Nothing of the sort. It gives employees a choice of secret ballot or signing a card. And it makes it much easier to form a union in a workplace. That's what the Republicans and their Corporate Masters are scared of.

I worked at a nonunion newspaper once. Believe me, it stinks. It was like a plantation, and I was a cottonpicking slave. If the publisher could have had his way totally, I would have been quartered in a tiny shack with a dirt floor behind the office building and living on hardtack, beans and a little salt pork.

Go here to take action


Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Sincerely,


NEWSGUY

You Go, Rush. A Letter From a Big Fan...

Dear Mr. Limbaugh,

I caught your act at the CPAC conference on CSPAN. I occasionally hear you on the radio, for about ten seconds. That is about all I can take of your arrogant nonsense.

You are a corpulent, overpaid drug addict and about the most disgusting self-righteous fool I have had the pleasure of observing from a distance. You would have been right at home in Hitler's Germany. In fact, you could have been perfect replacement for Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda.
.
As an ignorant blathering blowhard, you represent the party well. You express the wish that the president will fail, a wish that reveals your contempt for jobless people and homeless people and those of us struggling to survive in the economy that you and your kind created. You do not lie. You actually seem to believe the absolute fascist drivel you spew forth on the nation's airwaves.

And that is why I cheer you on. Please stay on the radio for the long haul, despite the fact that you make more money than God. I wish you could get a TV show. It is fitting and appropriate that you are the face of the Republican Party. You unwittingly rip the mask of "compassionate conservatism" and reasonableness (such as it is) from the face of the GOP. You really do tell it like it is.

Each day, you cause the Body Politic to retch and purge itself of the greedy and violent philosophy of the Wingnut Crowd. It only takes about a minute or two of listening to your virtual finger down the throat of America to accomplish this. In other words, you reveal the hatred and ignorance of the GOP. .

Oh, and I love that you are a big fat draft dodger. Couldn't serve during Vietnam, yet you supported that war and Iraq and Afghanistan. Perfect stance for a chickenshit Republican. You go, Rush

Regards, from a Veteran, a Big Fan and Dittohead,


NEWSGUY