Morgan Mghee

The HJC just voted 20-14 to hold Karl Rove in contempt!

WHAT THIS MEANS: The decision by the HJC to hold Karl Rove in contempt is a recommendation to the full House, who can now vote to adopt the recommendation with a contempt resolution by a simple majority vote. Should they pass a contempt resolution, the Sergeant-at-Arms for the chamber would be ordered to arrest Karl Rove and bring him to the floor of the House to answer to the charges and to be issued punishment. The case would then be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who would in turn refer it to a grand jury. If convicted, Rove could face between one month and one year in jail.

BACKGROUND: Karl Rove has made a career out of distorting facts to destroy political rivals. In the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, he went even further: he deliberately put a political opponent in prison based on trumped up charges. The GOP couldn’t beat the most successful Democratic politician in recent Alabama history at the ballot box. So instead, at Karl Rove’s direction, the Bush Justice Department used U.S. attorneys to cook up a false criminal case against Siegelman in order to hand the Governor’s Mansion over to the Republican Party.

It’s no surprise that Karl Rove puts politics before due process, democracy and civil rights. That’s why even when faced with a subpoena from Congress, Rove has refused to testify. Unlike Don Siegelman, Karl Rove is breaking the law.

Rove believes that he is not only above the law, but that he controls it. He’s wrong.

Sign our petition. Send Karl Rove to jail.

UPDATE 7/23 8PM ET: 100k signatures!

Send Karl Rove to Jail!

        

“On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs.”

Martin Gilbert, Israel: a History

I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are.

Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: “I am a Zionist.” Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.

Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation.

Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994.

Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer’s recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel’s opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: “The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.”

Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history’s great killers, disputed the facts: “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

To continue reading this article:

Paul Craig Roberts: Are You Ready for the Facts About Israel?

Listen Now [17 min 46 sec]

A rare and endangered blue whale, one of at least four feeding 11 miles off Long Beach Harbor in the Catalina Channel, spouts near offshore oil rigs near Long Beach, California. Getty Images David McNew

Talk of the Nation, July 18, 2008 · In a time of ever-increasing energy prices, this week President Bush overturned a long-standing executive order banning offshore oil exploration in certain parts of the country. The move is largely symbolic at this point, as additional congressional action would be needed to fully open up offshore oil drilling.

Offshore drilling has also turned into an election-year issue, with presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain supporting ending the drilling ban, while the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama says opening up offshore drilling "would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years."

Robert Kaufmann, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University, talks about the realities of offshore oil drilling, including how much oil there might be, when it would be available and what the consequences could be.

Related NPR Stories

• Gore: Reliance On Fossil Fuels Poses Threat To U.S. July 17, 2008

• Candidates Clash On Impact Of Offshore Drilling July 16, 2008

• Oilman Pickens Shifts Focus To Wind Energy  July 8, 2008

I've been watching the media, the oil industry and those it has control over in our government try to take advantage, yet again, of the American people in crisis.  Eyes open, search engines in full gear, RSS feeds linked and yet I wait, for one expert that can prove to us how drilling now in sensitive areas will lower gas prices now.  People in leadership positions, betraying the trust of those they lead, corporations that long ago abandoned allegience to their country's stability and well being, collusive media we can't even call journalism any longer.

Below are some links, explore them at your leisure, but do explore them:

"The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher—2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant." http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html

The simple reality is, drilling just will never, ever do what McCain and Bush think it will.  Here's why http://www.theseminal.com/2008/06/18/drilling-is-a-fraud

On MSNBC Live, Andrea Mitchell discussed Sen. John McCain's call to end the moratorium on offshore oil drilling with RNC deputy chairman Frank Donatelli, but did not mention that Donatelli was a registered lobbyist for energy sector clients ExxonMobil and Dominion Resources before joining the RNC.   Click here to read more... http://mediamatters.org/items/200806180004

Perhaps, Senator McCain has a geological study that shows the Florida coast has enough oil to be the next Saudi Arabia. However, his campaign has not produced this evidence to date, which means that the EIA analysis provides the only projections that we have on which to assess the merits of drilling in these restricted areas.

Suppose we raised average fuel efficiency to 40 MPG by 2030; this would save us more than 5 million barrels of oil per day, 25 times as much as we would get from Senator McCain's offshore drilling. Since many cars sold today already get more than 40 MPG, this is hardly an unrealistic target. Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles in '07 http://www.dot.gov/affairs/fhwa1108.htm.  Wherever we set our targets, the simple arithmetic shows that it is far easier to have an impact on oil markets through conservation than drilling in environmentally sensitive areas. http://www.truthout.org/article/john-mccain-wants-drill-your-toilet

I think it's important to consider that the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999 created the largest multi-billion dollar business in the US with almost monopoly-like power to exercise on the consumer marketplace. There was no immediate impact on the petroleum market because it takes a couple of years for a merger to restructure its business strategy and operations. So perhaps might want consider this. Prior to the merger average of price of gasoline through the 90's went up and down in a range from $1.00 to $1.25 per gallon. Since the merger the prices have had a steady increase, to where they are 400% more today.

Exxon Mobil Corp.Earnings 2002-2006 (beginning 3 years after the merger, check out the increase in earnings)http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000119312507042435/dex12.htm

John McCain's Connection to Big Oil & The Enron Loophole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdRbuUQNcxwand http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/30/62830/1353

In response to the Republican plan, House Democratic Caucus leader Rahm Emanuel proposed to increase fuel efficiency expand drilling on federal land. The idea is to fine Big Oil if they don't produce oil from leases that they already own. This is supposed to call attention to the fact that the oil industry is only producing oil from 20-30 percent of federal oil leases it currently owns and cast doubt on the prospect that selling more leases will actually increase offshore drilling.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/18/14012/8082

 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/top-mccain-adviser-offshore-drilling-will-have-no-immediate-effect-on-gas-prices/

http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/581/44814183_MMS_Katrina_Rita_PL_Final%20Report%20Rev1.pdf

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/06/19/mccain-katrina-spills/

Wow, check out stimulator!  Servin' one up to  investigative journalism.  Thanks man!

Naomi Klein’s speech at the National Conference for Media reform was not included on the conference website. subMedia contacted Free Press, the organizer or the conference, to ask why The Shock Doctrine author’s speech could not be found online, and the person explained that Free Press is a non-profit organization and that I should reefer to the disclaimer on their website which reads:

"Despite our best efforts, we feel that some of our speakers encroached on electoral space during their remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform. It is not in our interest to disseminate these recordings. We are reviewing all of our video content and will add that which we determine to be free of electoral statements to this page."

I don’t quite understand how these things work, but whatever. Two sources have told me the reason Free Press did not include the speech was Klein’s criticism of Barack Obama. It would be pretty fuckin lame if it were true.

But fuck it, I got a hold of a copy of the speech and here it is.  

Read Klein’s article "Obama’s Chicago Boys" published in "The Nation"

Download this Episode

Buy This Episode on DVD

Check out Naomi’s film "The Take"

Naomi Klein’s controversial speech at subMedia  Where you can get the embed code.  

"We CANNOT tolerate a leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus who supports George Bush and McCain's War in Iraq. We CANNOT tolerate a Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee who endorses and stumps for McCain. We call on the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and his leadership role."

 This petition will be presented tomorrow, will your name be on it?

Recent signers:

 

Andrea Tung signed less than a minute ago.
Dennis Grabowski signed 1 minute ago.

  He's a despicable wishy-washy political character . . . . people of Conneticut should be embarrassed !

Roy Clendaniel signed 1 minute ago.
Lois Kain signed 2 minutes ago.

  Lieberman is not only an embarrassment to the Democrats, he is also a horrible example of a person of the Jewish faith.
  I would NOT want him "watching my back"

Todd Cooper signed 3 minutes ago.
Aimee O'Neill signed 3 minutes ago.
John Barnes signed 4 minutes ago.

  Joseph Lieberman is political and social cancer. He's a disease in the heart of American politics.

Sheila Fortner signed 5 minutes ago.

  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

fred thomas signed 6 minutes ago.
kendall johnson signed 6 minutes ago.

  Lieberman can think he knows what is best for us, but he has to DO what we tell him to do, that's the job. Much like the position he holds now  is by way of the Democrat party, think all you like but do the job or your fired.

Anonymous signed 7 minutes ago.
Kevin Schneider signed 12 minutes ago.

  The Republican must go.

Therese McNally signed 12 minutes ago.

  Enough with the right's failed agenda and Lieberman's turncoat position. We want a real democrat representative of the party.

Anonymous signed 13 minutes ago.
Anonymous signed 14 minutes ago.
Pamela Franzen signed 14 minutes ago.

  Joe must GO!

Elyse Littenberg signed 15 minutes ago.
Robert Weisberg signed 16 minutes ago.
Anonymous signed 16 minutes ago.
Nick Gibbons signed 16 minutes ago.

  No one exemplifies the politics of fear better than Joe Lieberman. I would highly encourage objective observes to read the transcript from This Week on ABC which aired on 07/06/08.

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