Bush Is Setting A Table to Attack Iran

Israel to brief George Bush on options for Iran strike 06 Jan 2008 Israeli security officials are to brief President [sic] George W Bush on their latest intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme - and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations. A range of military options has been prepared.

I am now reading Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. It is a powerful book. His analysis of the U.S. economy is quite interesting and it has made me to revisit that topic again as well. I am quite concerned about what is happening to the U.S economy. There are terrible things underfoot.

Something I Wrote A Long Time Ago

Andrew Young has sold his soul. He better tune into Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.

When I heard Obama's victory speech in Iowa this morning on Tom Joyner I cried....and my hope has been restored.

A Texas Man Freed From Prison After 26 Years

Charles Chatman was freed by DNA testing after 26 years stemming from a wrongful conviction. Read the story above.

Hooray!

The Jets Crush on You

I Used to Love this Song

I, I was a game he would play
He brought the clouds to my day
Then like a ray of light you came my way one night
Just one look and I knew
You would make everything clear
Make all the coulds disappear
Put all your fear to rest,
Who do I love the best?

Don't you know, don't you know?
You've got it all over him
You got me over him
Honey it' true, there's just you
You must have been heaven sent,
Hearing me call you when out on a limb
And you're all that he's not,
Just look what I got
'Cause you got it all over him

No, don't let him worry you so
Once I met you I let go
Oh, you can surely see you're so much more to me
Just one look and I knew
You would make everything clear
Make all the clouds disppear
You're better than all the rest
Who do I love the best?

Don't you know, don't you know?
You've got it all over him
You got me over him
Honey it' true, there's just you
You must have been heaven sent,
Hearing me call you when out on a limb
And you're all that he's not,
Just look what I got
'Cause you got it all (you've got it all) all over him (you've got it all over him, you got me over him)
Honey it's true, there's just you
You must have been heaven sent,
Hearing me calling you out on a limb
And you're all that he's not
Just look what I got
Cause you got it all
All over him

There needs to be a movement underfoot to make sure every one of the Jena 6 goes to college with full scholarship funds.

The situation in Kenya looks absolutely troubling. A friend of mine, who has done work there, says she is quite alarmed and it is worse than they are admitting.

I Won the Glamalan Contest!

You may view the winning post on Malan Breton's blog, Glamalan.

Tina Turner and Santana:The Game of Love

Lena Horne

Believe In Yourself

Sesame Street/Diana Ross

Oh you can be what you want to be,
See what you want to see,
Believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself.

Go where you want to go,
Do what you want to do
Believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself.

Some folks try to tell you there are things you shouldn't do
You're not strong enough or smart enough at all,
But what seems right to them quite often
Might be wrong for you,
So be sure you try to climb
Before you get too scared you fall.

Oh, you can be what you want to be,
Learn what you want to learn,
Believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself.

Try what you need to try,
No one should question why,
Believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself.

Folks may say you're different,
That you've gone and lost your senses,
But the world is yours to walk in,
Go ahead and leap the fences.

And you'll see,
Believe in yourself
And the world belongs to you and me

Little Red Shoes

Loretta Lynn

I find this song by Lorette Lynn quite profound.

I was 11 months old
I was just starting to walk
And Daddy always kept a big stick behind the door just in case
Somebody was to come in that was drunk on moonshine,
You know, and Daddy had to do something about it
Anyway, this woman, we called her old Aunt Boyd,
She come in and she was telling
Mommy about her, uh, husband, she thinks is going out with this woman in
Paintsville
So she reared back with that big stick showing
Mommy how she was going to hit this woman in the head with it
And when she went back with it, she hit me in the head
And Mommy said I cried for 5 days
And she said I, that fifth night,
I had a great big knot that show up right in the middle of my forehead
And, you know, the only thing I remember,
I don’t remember no pain, but I just remember Mommy
And Daddy carrying me in this old quilt that Mommy had made out of overhalls
The knots kept getting bigger and bigger so she took me to the doctor
And that stuff called mesitor, something like that
Mommy said it made both ears flat to my face and I ain’t got very big ears
And told Mommy that I would, that I was going to die
And that happened like four times so I didn’t walk till I was almost 5
It was… It was kind of a mess…

Oh I forgot about the shoes,
Well shoot, I hadn’t… I’d never had a pair of shoes
And Mommy had went…
Took me to the hospital, you know, to see what that was…
If they couldn’t do something
But they wouldn’t keep me because Mommy and Daddy didn’t have no money
They just tell ‘em to take me home and let me die, you know,
Because there wasn’t nothing they could do about
That kind of disease, I guess
And, um, Mommy told Daddy,
Says “Ted, you take her down the street, you carry her down the street…” and said,
“…let me try this store here,” and Mommy went in and told them the story that I was dying,
That she had to carry me twelve miles to town
And twelve miles back and that I had no shoes
That place, I think it was Murphy’s 5 and 10 and they’re still there in Paintsville, Kentucky
And I think that they told Mommy that they wasn’t in business to give shoes away
Mommy told Daddy, says, “Carry Loretta on down a little farther,”
Said, “and let me stop in another store…”
And Mommy went right back to the same store
When the guy’s back was turned she stole these little red shoes
And I remember on the big’old bridge that went across the river
It went way up high and was…
I’ve always been scared of that bridge that took me across the big Sandy River
Mommy pulled them out from under that yellow jacket that she was wearing
And she was putting them red shoes on me
And I thought them was the prettiest things I ever saw in my life
And Daddy started crying
And I wondered why
And he said, “Clerie, we’re not going to make it home,”
And Mommy put the shoes on me
And Daddy took off running and run all the way ahead t’Butcher Holler with me
And Mommy never had a chance to carry me any farther
And that’s almost twelve miles that Daddy run with me
But Daddy knew that the cops was going to get us
He left Mommy standing and he took off in a dead run
I remember him running but I didn’t know what for

And I remember asking Mommy,
“Mommy, why is Daddy running?”
I remember her hollering,
“To put your little red shoes away, honey, when you get home.”
[Laughs]
Can you believe that?
So I wrote a song called “Put My Little Red Shoes Away,”
You know, they’re my little red shoes and I don’t want
‘em to get… to be dirty…

Something I meant to Blog About

Fred Posey, an old friend of my great-grand-father who worked in the county government, died recently. He was nearly a hundred years old.

Election Rigged: Riots Ensue in Kenya

Thiss From a Progressive Source

83 Days ago , the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered District Judge Mark Fuller to show cause for denying Don Siegelman an appeal bond and ordering Siegelman's immediate incarceration.

On October 4th, Fuller defied the appeal court's order saying, " [This Court] will not issue a lengthy written opinion on this matter."

On November 7th the 11th Circuit ordered Judge Fuller - for a second time - to show cause for denying Siegelman's appeal bond and ordering Siegelman's immediate incarceration.

Today is December 30th . It has now been 53 Days since the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals SECOND ORDER directing District Judge Mark Fuller to show cause for denying Siegelman appeal bond:

Don Siegelman has now been imprisoned for 6 months and 1 day with no explanation as to why he was denied an appeal bond.

It has been 18 Months and 2 days since the trial ended and NO TRIAL TRANSCRIPT has been produced by Judge Fuller's court. Siegelman can not appeal his conviction without the trial transcript.

_____________

August 7, 2007
LEGAL ETHICIST DAVID LUBAN ON JUDGE MARK FULLER
Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine
The main question regarding Judge Mark Fuller's behavior in the Siegelman case is whether it was appropriate for him to have taken the case in the first place. So I discussed the issues with Professor David Luban , University Professor and Professor of Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University, and a well known legal ethicist. Luban is the author of Legal Ethics and Human Dignity, issued this year by Cambridge University Press, among other works, and is an occasional contributor to Harper's Magazine.
1. Judge Fuller is a Republican, and before coming to the bench he worked on a number of Republican campaigns. He served as a member of the Alabama Republican Executive Committee at a time when Don Siegelman was a Democratic state office holder. Was it proper for Fuller to sit as a judge in the Siegelman prosecution?
There's a well-accepted legal standard for when a judge should disqualify himself from a case: the judge should bow out when his impartiality can reasonably be questioned. That's the standard in both the judicial code of ethics and in federal law. The point is to maintain confidence in the fairness and integrity of the legal system. Keeping that in mind, the bare fact that Judge Fuller is a Republican clearly isn't enough to raise questions. Most judges belong to one party or the other, and a lot got their job on the bench because they were active party members. We expect that they can put mere party sympathy aside when they try cases. But on these facts, Judge Fuller was a lot more than just an active party member. He was a electoral strategist, an executive committee member, and an anti-Siegelman campaigner. How can a reasonable person fail to have doubts about his impartiality? If you've spent years organizing the "Beat the Yankees" Club, you should not be umpiring a Yankees game-even if you think you can call the game honestly.
2. In addition to his political engagement, a Siegelman appointee questioned some extraordinary payments Fuller made while he was a district attorney. There was a litigation in which Fuller testified, and the court ruled against him and for the state retirement agency. Fuller was quoted as stating that this was "politically motivated." Does this raise any questions?
If Judge Fuller complained that it was "politically motivated," it sounds like he might be blaming Siegelman for it. Without knowing the context it's hard to tell whether the judge was complaining only about the appointee, or the governor as well. If the latter, it means that the judge had expressed a grudge against Siegelman and obviously should not be trying his case.
3. Judge Fuller appears to derive most of his income from a closely-held business in which he remains the controlling shareholder. The business is almost entirely involved with government contracts, with the Department of Defense and Department of Justice as contractors. What is your reaction when you look at the recusal motion, in which this was set out in some detail, the Justice Department's response, and Judge Fuller's ruling?
Generally, the standards for recusal motions are tough, to discourage parties from judge-shopping. I started reading these papers with that viewpoint-namely that the defendant had an almost impossible case to make. But the more I read the papers, the more I was persuaded that this actually was one of those rare cases where the burden was met. Remember: the legal standard is whether you can reasonably question the judge's impartiality. If so, the law requires the judge to disqualify himself. This is not a run-of-the-mill criminal case where a judge's commercial side-dealings with the government would not raise a question about pro-government bias. This one is a politically charged case involving a former governor in which political leaders in Washington, D.C., who ultimately exercise tremendous control over the process of military procurement contracts, are likely to take great interest. Given the amount of money Judge Fuller's company gets from government contracts, any reasonable person would question how impartial he could be. He should not have taken this case, and with a recusal motion made, he had no option but to drop out.
What amazes me about these facts is that they combine past political activism against the governor, a possible grudge against the governor, and the judge's company's financial dependence on the government's good graces. If they're right (I don't have any independent knowledge of that), any one by itself would raise reasonable questions about the judge's ability to be impartial. Taken together, we have a perfect storm. Under these circumstances, impartiality would take superhuman self-control, and we don't expect judges to be superhuman. The recusal standard is designed so that we don't have to expect it.
4. You read the Justice Department's papers, which were filed both by the U.S. Attorney's office in Montgomery and by the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
I was troubled by the papers filed by the Department of Justice. Half the argument is an ad hominem attack on their adversary's attorneys for daring to question the government's fairness. Without offering any evidence, it accuses them of bad faith, and it's loaded with insulting adjectives. The motion makes it look like the government is blowing smoke to deflect attention away from the real issue.
But rhetorical overkill isn't the main problem. The most troubling problem is that the Justice Department's Professional Integrity Section joined this response. That was a real lapse of professional judgment. PIN (as it's called) is in charge of policing public officials. That includes judges as well as elected officials. Under some circumstances, PIN could be called on to make an independent after-the-fact assessment of Judge Fuller's conduct. By signing onto the Justice Department's submission at this point, before there's been a hearing on the recusal motion, the Public Integrity Section makes it virtually impossible for it to do its oversight job later, because it's already staked out a position on the case before hearing all sides of the argument.

Alice Walker, Susan Griffin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Code Pink

Alice, Amy, and Juan

Not With a Bang, but a Whimper

Alice Walker Endorses Barack Obama

Puerto Ricans Targeted by Feds in New York-From Yerbabuena

Feds target Puerto Ricans in New York

New York City, December 28th, 2007

Groups and individuals from diverse sectors of the Puerto Rican pro-independence movement and the Boricua Community in general, are currently urgently meeting in Puerto Rico and throughout the Diaspora to organize against the latest offensive by the U.S. Department of Justice, after being informed that several young Boricua pro-independence activists from New York City have been subpoenaed to appear before a Federal Grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican Independence Movement in general, and in particular, the Ejercito Popular Boricua (EPB: ‘Popular Boricua Army’) aka the “Macheteros.”

Tania Frontera, Christopher Torres and Julio Pabón Jr. are scheduled to appear before a Federal Grand Jury on January 11, 2008. Hector Rivera, co-founder of the cultural institution The Welfare Poets, is also expected to be served with a subpoena to appear on that day. In the past, due to the fact that some pro-independence activists have traditionally refused to receive the subpoenas from the Grand Jury or to respond to its questions, many have ended up behind bars.

Both the FBI and U.S. Dept. of Justice have made it clear that there is an ongoing investigation focused on the Ejercito Popular Boricua (EPB)-Macheteros. Special Agent Luis Fraticelli, who heads the FBI in San Juan, has said that the agency intends to capture “Comandante Guasábara” of the EPB, who is believed to have succeeded Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in the leadership of the clandestine revolutionary organization. Ojeda Ríos was assassinated by the federal agents on September 23, 2005, the day that Puerto Rican People commemorate the uprising against Spanish Colonialism and considered the historical Birth of the Boricua Nation.

The initial rumors that the recent subpoenas had been issued and served began to circulate almost simultaneously as the new progress report of the White House’s committee reviewing the colonial conditions of Puerto Rico was made public. The subpoenas, all served in New York City, are to appear before the Federal Grand Jury on the following January 11.

Although many are shocked by the identity of some of the particular individuals targeted, this latest offensive by the U.S. Federal Government has not come as a total surprise to the Pro-Independence Movement, which has been organizing to prepare for an expected new wave of political repression and possibly arrests.

There will be a rally in protest of the recent subpoenas and the political oppression of the Puerto Rican People on FRIDAY JANUARY 11TH - 9:30 A.M. at the BROOKLYN FEDERAL COURT on CAMDEN PLAZA.


IF APPROACHED BY AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT


YOU ARE ONLY REQUIRED TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. YOU SHOULD DO SO.

TELL THEM " I AM EXERCISING MY RIGHT NOT TO SPEAK WITH YOU WITHOUT MY ATTORNEY BEING PRESENT". GIVE THEM YOUR LAWYERS NUMBER. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ONE, ASK THEM FOR THEIR INFORMATION TO GIVE TO A LAWYER

IF APPROACHED, CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE MEETING, SPEAKING ON THE PHONE, WRITING OR IN ANY WAY ANSWERING ANY QUESTIONS,

ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU. THEIR REPORTS WILL REFLECT "THEIR VERSION" OF CONVERSATIONS OR STATEMENTS ALLEGEDLY MADE BY YOU

LYING TO A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT "IS A CRIME'"

DO NOT APPEAR BEFORE ANYONE FOR QUESTIONING, CONSENT TO ANY SEARCHES OF YOUR HOME OR PRIVATE PROPERTY, SURRENDER ANY EVIDENCE OR IN ANY WAY LET YOURSELF BE INVOLVED IN ANY ASPECT OF ANY INVESTIGATION WITHOUT A COURT ORDER AND WITH YOUR ATTORNEY

IF THERE IS ANY "LEGITIMATE" REASON , LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS CAN OBTAIN A COURT ORDER. DO NOT CONSENT TO ANYTHING WITHOUT IT. .

FEDERAL AGENTS ARE HARASSING PEOPLE BY VISITING THEM IN THEIR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT. THEY ARE USING THIS METHOD TO "INVITE" PEOPLE OUT TO "JUST" TALK OVER COFFEE

FEDERAL AGENTS ARE LYING TO PEOPLE THEY APPROACH BY TELLING THEM THEY JUST WANT TO TALK, ATTEMPTING TO ENGAGE THEM IN CONVERSATION AND THEN SERVING THEM WITH A SUPOENA.

DO NOT LET YOU SELF BE INTIMIDATED