Iranian cleric attacks President Ahmadinejad

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“We have so much oil and gas but make useless expenditures work for others and don’t think of our own people’s problems and the price of basic commodities goes higher and higher every day.”

He complained that people kept on shouting slogans about nuclear rights, but he asked: “Don’t we have other rights too?”

via::BBC News

Czech gov’t wants to be part of US missile shield; Russia sees move as a threat

The Czech government has announced that it wants to host a large US military site for the Pentagon’s much-criticised missile shield system, confirming for the first time that Washington had asked Prague for permission to build a radar site for the national missile defence programme.

Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek referred only to a radar site, a strong indication that the Pentagon is hoping to locate the bigger part of the European project – a large missile interceptor silo that would theoretically fire off rockets to destroy incoming missiles – in neighbouring Poland.

The US has been quietly negotiating with the Czechs and the Poles for four years, while scouting Poland and areas east of the Czech capital, Prague, for suitable missile defence sites. Both centre-right governments in Prague and Warsaw are pro-American.

Lt Gen Vladimir Popovkin, commander of Russia’s space forces, said Moscow would interpret the move as a military threat; “Our analysis shows that the deployment of a radar station in the Czech Republic and a counter-missile position in Poland are an obvious threat to us…”It is very doubtful that elements of the national US missile defence system in eastern Europe were aimed at Iranian missiles, as has been stated.”

via::The Guardian (UK)

see also, “Missile Shield Threatens Russia” (BBC)

The Socialist Senator

Sanders has always been an easier fit in Vermont than in Washington. Being a Socialist in the seat of two-party orthodoxy will do that. While he has generally championed liberal Democratic positions over the years — and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee endorsed his Senate campaign — Sanders has strenuously resisted calling himself a Democrat. And he has clung to a mantle — socialism — that brings considerable stigma, in large part for its association with authoritarian communist regimes (which Sanders is quick to disavow).

via::NYTimes

Rep. believes Democratic media reform bill may prevent possible ‘fascist’ takeover of US media

Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) plans to reintroduce the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA) that would break up media monopolies and restore the Fairness Doctrine, which was eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission under the Reagan administration.

Specifically, MORA would:

  • restore the Fairness Doctrine
  • reinstate a national cap on ownership of radio stations
  • lower the number of radio stations that one company can own in a local market & reinstate the 25% national cap on television ownership (The bill’s no-grandfathering provision would compel media conglomerates to divest to comply with new ownership limitations.)
  • require public interest reports from broadcasters
  • require more independently produced programming on TV.

and more…

via::RawStory

“Surging and Purging”

Krugman has another interesting piece in the NYTimes today: 

There’s something happening here, and what it is seems completely clear: the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.

Last month, Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Eastern District of Arkansas, received a call on his cellphone while hiking in the woods with his son. He was informed that he had just been replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican political operative who has spent the last few years working as an opposition researcher for Karl Rove.

Mr. Cummins’s case isn’t unique. Since the middle of last month, the Bush administration has pushed out at least four U.S. attorneys, and possibly as many as seven, without explanation…In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, “typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term.” Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?

The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead.

via::NYTimes (registration req’d)

Prosecutor says presidential recount rigged in Ohio county

Three elections workers in the state’s most populous county conspired to avoid a more thorough recount of ballots in the 2004 presidential election, a prosecutor told jurors during opening statements Thursday.

“The evidence will show that this recount was rigged, maybe not for political reasons, but rigged nonetheless,” Prosecutor Kevin Baxter said. “They did this so they could spend a day rather than weeks or months” on the recount, he said.

via::RawStory

The Real World: Washington, DC

And you thought only college kids lived like this:

“I once had to pick up a mouse by the tail that Durbin refused to pick up,” complained Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, referring to his roommate Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

This characterization is not fair to Mr. Durbin, interjected another tenant in the Capitol Hill row house, Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. For starters, it overlooks Mr. Durbin’s gift for killing rats. “He will kill them with his bare hands,” Mr. Delahunt marveled.

About a quarter-mile southeast of the Capitol, the inelegantly decorated two-bedroom house has become an unlikely center of influence in Washington’s changing power grid. It is home to the second- and third-ranking senators in the new Democratic majority (Mr. Durbin, the majority whip, and Mr. Schumer, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus) and the chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee (Mr. Miller).

Mr. Delahunt, a six-term congressman, is the least prominent of the four but perhaps the funniest. More to the point, he is the only one willing to sleep in the living room with a close-up view of Mr. Schumer slumbering a few feet away in his boxers.

via: NYTimes

Washington ‘snubbed Iran offer’

“Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office rejected the plan, the official said.”

via: BBC/RawStory

US condemns China satellite-killer test

The United States, Australia and Canada have expressed concern to China over Beijing’s successful test in space last week of a satellite-killing weapon, the White House said.
The official confirmed a report in Aviation Week magazine that US spy agencies have concluded that China conducted a successful test of a satellite-killing weapon on January 11, knocking out an aging Chinese weather satellite with a “kinetic kill vehicle” launched on board a ballistic missile.

The impact occurred at more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth.

via AFP

Wait a second, isn’t the US doing the same thing?

Also see: An Introduction to Space Weapons

UPDATE: Japan, Britain join concern over Chinese Missile Test (washingtonpost)

Wiretapping Program now under Court Supervision

Remember how the Bush administration said they couldn’t use the FISA court for their “Terrorist Surveillance Program” because it was slow and inefficient? That it hampered terrorism investigations? All this despite the fact that through the end of 2004, 18,761 warrants were granted, while just five were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004. The four known rejected requests were all from 2003, and all four were partially granted after being resubmitted for reconsideration by the government.

Well, apparently they’ve come around. The White House has announced that the FISA court is now overseeing the domestic surveillance program that has been the subject of such criticism. Sudden reinterpretation of the fourth amendment? Fear of Congressional hearings now that the Dems have the power of the subpoena?

Washington Post: Obama’s Past Offers Ammo for Critics

He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on.

With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn’t have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes.

via: Washington Post

Protestors found in DoD Database

A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago — including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with “anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.”

Titled “Review of the TALON Reporting System,” the four-page memo produced in February 2006 summarizes some interim results from an inquiry ordered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after disclosure in December 2005 that the system had collected and circulated data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.

via WashingtonPost

Related info:

COINTELPRO

Pentagon admits errors in spying on protesters (NBC)

The Other Big Brother: The Pentagon’s Domestic Spying Program (Newsweek/MSNBC)

FBI Monitored Web Sites for 2004 Protests

Keeping an Eye on Protesters (Salon.com)

Anti-War Protesters Under Pentagon Surveillance Speak Out