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CIA’s “Torture Taxi” in the spotlight

Ft. Benning, GA – Sitting in a Georgia motel Saturday night, Kathy Kelly talked through a bad phone connection and a worse head cold to recount the previous day’s activities where she and 13 others were arrested at an airstrip outside Raleigh, North Carolina. 

The tiny Johnson County Airport is home to Aero Contractors Corp., a firm described by the New York Times as “a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service,” that shuttles prisoners abroad for interrogation and suspected torture.  The Times reports Aero was founded in 1979 by the chief pilot for Air America, a CIA “front” in Vietnam. 

In addition to Kelly, those arrested Friday included residents of a Raleigh Catholic Worker house and members of Stop Torture Now, a project of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis in St. Louis, Missouri.  Protesters walked onto company property and lowered the flags to half-mast before being arrested. 

Friday night Congress: what was that?

During the middle of the day on Friday, I spent an hour or two on a conference call with activists and congressional staffers discussing next steps to end the war.  We planned, among other things, to organize support for Congressman John Murtha's bill, H.J.Res. 73, which he introduced on Friday.  The bill resolves that:

"The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.  A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy."

Tallahassee voters were misused in the vote on coal burning plant in Taylor County

To set the coal based electrical power generating plant to be located in Taylor County perfectly clear language, in the list of power electrical producing plants used by communities the worst polluter is absolutely Nuclear power, proceeded by the fossil fuel burning coal plants (producing greenhouse gas accumulation, acidification, air pollution, water pollution, damage to land surface and ground-level ozone. sulphur and nitrogen by products). with the natural gas (Propane) burning plants, geothermal, wind, solar, etc. being the least polluters. (Google, McKinney, M.L. and Schoch, R.M., Environmental Science, Systems and Solutions. Third edition, University of Tennessee, Knoxville USA 2003)  Of this there is no doubt.

Getting out of Iraq

Thanksgiving week began with the New York Times noting that “all of Washington is consumed with debate over the direction of the war in Iraq.” The debate -- long overdue -- is a serious blow to the war makers in Washington, but the U.S. war effort will go on for years more unless the antiwar movement gains sufficient momentum to stop it.

A cliche goes that war is too important to be left to the generals. But a more relevant assessment is that peace is too vital to be left to pundits and members of Congress -- people who have overwhelmingly dismissed the option of swiftly withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

On November 17, a high-profile military booster in Congress suddenly shattered the conventional wisdom that immediate withdrawal is unthinkable. “The American public is way ahead of us,” Rep. John Murtha said in a statement concluding with capitalized words that shook the nation’s capitalized political elites: “Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.”

Diebold attempts to evade election transparency laws

EFF Goes to Court to Force E-voting Company to Comply With Strict New North Carolina Law

Raleigh, North Carolina - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is going to court in North Carolina to prevent Diebold Election Systems, Inc. from evading North Carolina law.

In a last-minute filing, e-voting equipment maker Diebold asked a North Carolina court to exempt it from tough new election requirements designed to ensure transparency in the state's elections. Diebold obtained an extraordinarily broad order, allowing it to avoid placing its source code in escrow with the state and identifying programmers who contributed to the code.

On behalf of North Carolina voter and election integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, EFF asked the court to force Diebold and every other North Carolina equipment vendor to comply with the law's requirements. A hearing on EFF's motion is set for Monday, November 28.

"The new law was passed for a reason: to ensure that the voters of North Carolina have confidence in the integrity and accuracy of their elections," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "In stark contrast to every other equipment

Jean Schmidt is an embarassment to Ohio

I cannot believe Jean Schmidt called a veteran Marine Corps Colonel a coward on the floor of the House of Representatives.  Congressman Murtha spent 37 years in Marine Corps, earned the Bronze Star, two purple hearts, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.  How dare Jean Schmidt try to Swift Boat Congressman John Murtha for principled, common sense position that troops should start being with drawn from Iraq in the interest of national security! 

Lies and manipulation characterized the Republican case for war, and lies and manipulation have been the primary weapon against anyone who questions their failed leadership.

First it was Senator Max Cleland, who left limbs in Vietnam, being savagely attacked in 2002. Then John Kerry, who received three purple hearts, being smeared in 2004. The history of this war has shown that Republicans value political posturing more than the service of America's veterans.

America's corporatacracy says "No MAS"

While he may be dead in the corporal sense, the spirit of Simon Bolivar continues to wage the struggle for freedom from oppression. Hugo Chavez is perhaps the most familiar incarnation of Bolivar's élan vital as he defies the neocolonial policies of the United States, a nation which has supplanted the European colonial empires as looters of Latin American bounty. Bolivar's spiritual essence also burns brightly in Evo Morales, another leader of the poor and oppressed in Latin America. Barring a CIA-orchestrated assasination or sabotage of the election process, in December Morales will be the next democratically-elected president of Bolivia. And deservedly so.

The only thing they have to fear is fear itself....or is there something more?

Teach our children well

In early January, US District Judge John Jones III is expected to deliver his decision in a lawsuit filed by eleven parents, with the help of the ACLU, against the school board of Dover, a sleepy Pennsylvania town outside the capital, Harrisburg. His decision could establish the basis for how American public school students are taught the origins of life for years to come.

A majority of members of the Dover school board last year voted to mandate a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution: “Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is being discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.” The decision of these eight members, each an advocate of the idea of “intelligent design” (ID) and each voted out of office in November, unleashed a firestorm of controversy that quickly spread across the country. And no matter how the judge decides the flames are sure to grow.

Have they no shame?

$51 billion in budget cuts affecting, primarily, the neediest among us? $60 billion in tax cuts affecting, primarily, the wealthiest among us? What is Congress thinking? And who are they working for?...Because it's surely not their constituents.

That tax cuts would even be considered in a time of war, with the Bush administration's support, indicates the true level of concern shared by the Congressional leadership and the White House for the "war on terrorism"...Very little indeed. Should we not be sharing, in some small way, the sacrifices our troops are making as they have been sent into harm's way? Can we not pay, in the form of higher taxes, to support the war effort? Instead Congress and the Administration choose to borrow from foreign governments thus weakening our position abroad as well as putting our economic future at risk?

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." - Matthew 25:40

Words which our nominally Christian elected officials would do well to remember.

Yet again, Congressional leadership has failed their

Greenhouse School secures major art donation

Salem, MA--The Greenhouse School, a small independent school in Salem serving many low- and middle-income families from surrounding towns, has secured a serious donation of art materials. "It's a bit overwhelming," said the school's assistant director, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. "We're so happy to have landed such a gift; now we have to live up to it!"

The donation comes with many components, from a lifelong teacher and artist, Gail Rosenthal, from Needham, MA. She and her husband Leonard, both retired, are in the process of selling their home in Needham and moving to Portland, OR. She chose The Greenhouse School to receive almost her entire collection of art books and materials, collected over decades from an eclectic and fascinating life.

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