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Saturday, August 2, 2008 |
ThinkProgress: "Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh - a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker - revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President's office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
In Hersh's most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The 'meeting took place in the Vice-President's office. The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,' according to one of Hersh's sources.
During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney's office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:
HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don't we build - we in our shipyard - build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.
Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can't have Americans killing Americans. That's the kind of - that's the level of stuff we're talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected."
There is a video at the above link.
That it could cost some American lives, never has been an obstacle for America to start a war.
11:15:03 AM 
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AlterNet: "Washington can act with breathtaking urgency when the right people want something done. In this case, the people are Wall Street's titans, who are scared witless at the prospect of their historic implosion. Congress quickly agreed to enact a gargantuan bailout, with more to come, to calm the anxieties and halt the deflation of Wall Street giants. Put aside partisan bickering, no time for hearings, no need to think through the deeper implications. We haven't seen 'bipartisan cooperation' like this since Washington decided to invade Iraq.
First, while throwing our money at Wall Street, government is neglecting the grave risk of a deeper catastrophe for the real economy of producers and consumers. Second, Washington's selective generosity for influential financial losers is deforming democracy and opening the path to an awesomely powerful corporate state. Third, the rescue has not succeeded, not yet. Banking faces huge losses ahead, and informed insiders assume a far larger federal bailout will be needed - after the election. No one wants to upset voters by talking about it now. The next President, once in office, can break the bad news. It's not only about the money - with debate silenced, a dangerous line has been crossed. Hundreds of billions in open-ended relief has been delivered to the largest and most powerful mega-banks and investment firms, while government offers only weak gestures of sympathy for struggling producers, workers and consumers."
Remember how Schwarzenegger came to power in California? Yes, with a little help from his friends at Enron, who deliberately closed down the energy lines to generate a shortage and increase their profits, and embarrass the Democratic incumbent.
This same Schwarzenegger now has totally failed.
MercuryNews: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order seeks to roll back wages of as many as 200,000 state employees and lay off more than 10,000 of the state's 22,000 temporary, contract and part-time workers.
Schwarzenegger does not, however, have direct authority over the employees of several government agencies. Those include the California Public Utilities Commission, state university and college systems and agencies headed by elected constitutional officers.
In addition to the governor, the constitutional offices are the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, controller, insurance commissioner and school superintendent.
The governor asked department heads to report to him by Friday with lists of employees they believe should be exempt from the executive order for critical health and safety reasons."
Maybe he can start by reducing his own salary to the minimum wage.
11:02:53 AM
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Do you know any democratic country that passes laws which are then secretly changed and even annulled by its president? There are no such countries. Unless, of course, you take into account the undemocratic ones. Then, yes, there is one country, it's the United States. It's like Louis XIV peeing in the face of Congress and the American citizen.
An Executive Order Integrity Act of 2008 is in the making to restore at least some of the nation's integrity. But will it be passed, and if so then not secretly changed or annulled?
FAS: "The President would no longer be able to secretly modify or revoke a published executive order if a new bill introduced in the Senate yesterday becomes law.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, responds to a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion that was revealed last year by Senator Whitehouse on the Senate floor. According to that unreleased opinion, 'There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous Executive order. Rather than violate an Executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.'
What this means is that any published executive order may or may not actually be in effect. It may or may not correspond to the legal framework that governs the executive branch. The public has no way of knowing.
'No one disputes that a President can withdraw or revise an Executive Order at any time,' said Senator Feingold yesterday. 'That is every President's prerogative. But abrogating a published Executive order without any public notice works a secret change in the law.'
'Worse,' he said, 'because the published Order stays on the books, it actively misleads Congress and the public as to what the law is.'"
10:36:50 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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