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Gotta love Dr. John Orman.

From WTNH.com:

(WTNH) _ The Connecticut for Lieberman Party is calling on Senator Joseph Lieberman to resign from the U.S. Senate following his remarks made Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation regarding military action against Iran.

Lieberman said on the national television program that, “we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians.”

The Connecticut for Lieberman Chair, Dr. John Orman, called for Lieberman’s resignation saying that he “crossed the line” and “no longer represents the views of the citizens of Connecticut.”

Orman, a longtime critic of Lieberman, took control of the minority party back in January.

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Here’s a little something to scare the living hell out of Americans.
Bush is getting ready to become dictator. Everybody run!

NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51

HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20

Subject: National Continuity Policy

Purpose

(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes “National Essential Functions,” prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.

Definitions

(2) In this directive:

(a) “Category” refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive;

(b) “Catastrophic Emergency” means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;

(c) “Continuity of Government,” or “COG,” means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government’s executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency;

(d) “Continuity of Operations,” or “COOP,” means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies;

(e) “Enduring Constitutional Government,” or “ECG,” means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;

(f) “Executive Departments and Agencies” means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C. 103(1), and the United States Postal Service;

(g) “Government Functions” means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches;

(h) “National Essential Functions,” or “NEFs,” means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and

(i) “Primary Mission Essential Functions,” or “PMEFs,” means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.

read more HERE

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The 700 Club AccuWrath Forecast

This one’s for Buck! H/T Jimmah for sending me the video!

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They could use programs like this all over the country!!

It frightened San Francisco caregiver Roy Miller to walk his older and disabled clients through crime-infested neighborhoods in order to reach local check-cashing outlets. And it sickened him when they paid “$30 right off the top” to cash their modest Social Security checks. “It’s a lot of money on a fixed income-enough to stock up on groceries,” he says. But now Miller and his clients are able to take a safer route to cash their checks-they’ve opened accounts at a credit union located near their homes, an option that wasn’t available to them before the city launched the Bank on San Francisco program in September.

Under the initiative, 15 local financial institutions offer checking and savings accounts specifically designed to reach the city’s 50,000 households that do not have bank accounts, including people with no banking history or those whose checkered pasts-even those who bounced checks-prevented them from opening new accounts.

San Francisco treasury officials and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco launched the initiative to boost thousands of low-income residents out of the fee-paying cycle and into the mainstream banking system-a move promoted as advantageous for individuals, banks and the San Francisco community.

More at AARP Bulletin (yeah that’s right, AARP!)

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Subpoenas are being issued to two former White House officials, the first to be subpoenaed in the fired U.S. attorneys investigation.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena to Sara Taylor, former White House political director. About the same time, it was announced that the House Judiciary Committee will issue a subpoena in the same case to former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Both committees say they will also subpoena documents from the White House, also a first in the investigation.

The committees have issued subpoenas for officials and documents from the Justice Department. The committees are investigating whether the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year were politically motivated and whether the White House was involved.

E-mails and documents released by the Justice Department so far show the White House and other administration officials were more involved in the dismissals, and much earlier, than they had acknowledged.

Taylor resigned from her White House job a couple of weeks ago. Miers resigned her White House post in January. President Bush nominated Miers to serve on the Supreme Court but later withdrew her nomination. A day earlier, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that the last batch of e-mails provided to investigators by the Justice Department, “shows again that there was no wrongdoing in the replacement of U.S. attorneys.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been authorized to subpoena several current and former White House officials including Taylor, Miers and Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser.

Two Democratic congressional sources say they decided not to subpoena Rove because they are building their case by talking to and gathering information from lower level witnesses and officials, before they get to the more senior, more important witnesses.

“We want to build up and get documents to have basis to ask questions of Rove,” one of the sources said. “It’s the way you do it in any investigation.”

More at CNN

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Ireland is not part of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” but the city of Derry’s publicly owned airport is seriously considering becoming the first in Europe to officially prohibit the landing of planes the CIA uses for “renditions,” the kidnapping of terrorism suspects in Europe and elsewhere and rendering them to countries known to our State Department for torturing prisoners.
Derry’s disrespect for the CIA’s most faithful protector, our president, is one of many signs of citizen outrage throughout Europe in the wake of revelations by the Council of Europe (overseeing human rights) and the European Parliament, which have uncovered collaboration with the CIA by the secret services of various EU countries-brazenly in violation of these nations’ sovereignty, laws, and international treaties.

Most Europeans, however-like most Americans-do not realize that the CIA often uses the planes and expertise of private U.S. airline corporations, “patriotically” serving in the “war on terror.” Like the CIA, these companies keep their involvement a deep secret.

More at the Village Voice

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Just like everything about the Bush administration…….out of control. Dontcha just feel so cozy and safe?

From The Blotter:

A terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

A portion of the FBI’s unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to “the entire watch list of 509,000 names,” which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force.

A spokesman for the interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which maintains the government’s list of all suspected terrorists with links to international organizations, said they had 465,000 names covering 350,000 individuals. Many names are different versions of the same identity — “Usama bin Laden” and “Osama bin Laden” for the al Qaeda chief, for example.

In addition to the NCTC list, the FBI keeps a list of U.S. persons who are believed to be domestic terrorists — abortion clinic bombers, for example, or firebombing environmental extremists, who have no known tie to an international terrorist group.

Read more »

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One of those weird who’s the good guy who’s the bad guy stories. Who do you believe? I foresee a book……..

2:45 Just found this…… explains why he was released today……

An American prisoner held in Afghanistan for allegedly running a private prison was scheduled to be released from his Afghan prison as the State Department and the FBI faced a Tuesday deadline to answer allegations that they ordered his torture and manipulated the Afghan judicial system.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An American imprisoned in Afghanistan for running a private jail for terror suspects has left the Afghan prison where he was held for almost three years and departed the country, the warden said Wednesday.

Jack Idema, a former Green Beret, was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai in late March as part of a general amnesty. Rahim Ahmadzai, Idema’s Afghan lawyer, said the American left the prison outside Kabul on June 2 and flew out of Afghanistan. He did not know Idema’s destination.

Shamir, the warden of Policharki prison where Idema was held, said Idema had wanted to stay in Afghanistan but couldn’t for legal reasons. Shamir, who like many Afghans goes by one name, said he transported Idema and his dog, Nina, to the Kabul airport for the flight out.

“He wanted to stay in Afghanistan, but there was no way for him to stay,” Shamir said.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Idema wrote, “I can’t and won’t tell anyone where I am and what I am doing.”

Edward P. Birsner, the consul at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said in court documents filed in Washington this week that Idema had left for “an unknown destination.”

The documents were filed in a case in which Idema accused the FBI and State Department of ordering his torture and manipulating the Afghan judicial system.

More at AT&T News

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From NPR:

Television’s “Mr. Wizard,” Don Herbert, who taught generations of children about science, died at his Southern California home Tuesday. He was 89.

From 1951 through 1964, Watch Mr. Wizard delighted young viewers with the joys of science on a set built like a simple workshop. Herbert would demonstrate experiments using household items and encourage kids to “try this at home.”

Herbert received a Peabody Award for the science show in 1954.

Watch Mr. Wizard was briefly revived in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s, after Herbert retooled the show with a faster pace for the Nickelodeon channel.

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By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist and former head of the national party, is replacing Dan Bartlett as White House counselor, according to a senior administration official.

The president is having lunch Wednesday with Gillespie and Bartlett and making the announcement afterward, said the official, who requested anonymity because Bush had not yet talked.

Gillespie will take on Bartlett’s same duties and title as a senior presidential adviser, the official said. He starts June 27, in order to have some overlap with Bartlett, who is leaving around July 4.

Bartlett, 36, has been one of Bush’s most trusted advisers, a constant member of the president’s inner circle, and is his longest’serving aide. He announced his resignation on June 1 to begin a career outside of government.

As a former Republican National Committee chairman whom the president has long trusted, Gillespie’s name has surfaced nearly every time there was a significant opening looming in the Bush White House. When it seemed political guru Karl Rove might be forced out because of the CIA leak investigation, for instance, Gillespie was speculated to be one choice as a possible replacement. Same for when former chief of staff Andrew Card was leaving.

Gillespie now is chairman of the Virginia Republican Party. He chaired the national party through President Bush’s 2004 re-election, is a national GOP strategist and was a campaign adviser to Sen. George Allen’s failed re-election bid in Virginia.

Bush also entrusted Gillespie to help guide Samuel Alito’s successful confirmation process for a Supreme Court seat.

More at the Guardian

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Gee, guess Lieberman and McCain can’t stroll around today. And aren’t we arming the Sunnis????

From Breitbart.com

An indefinite curfew has been imposed in Baghdad from Wednesday 3:00 pm (1100 GMT) following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the northern town of Samarra, state television reported.
Baghdad already is under a nightly curfew between 11:00 pm (1900 GMT) and 6:00 am (0200 GMT).

Details were still sketchy, but the curfew is expected to last from at least 3:00 pm until 6:00 am on Thursday.

Suspected Sunni insurgents on Wednesday blew up the minarets of a revered Shiite shrine in the Iraqi town of Samarra, 15 months after its bombing by Al-Qaeda militants ignited brutal sectarian clashes.

Since the February 22, 2006, attack on the Samarra shrine, Baghdad has been engulfed in sectarian bloodletting that has seen tens of thousands of people killed.

The indefinite curfew imposed on Wednesday is seen as an attempt to thwart any tit-for-tat violence after the latest attack.

US and Iraqi forces are currently deployed in the Iraqi capital as part of a massive crackdown to curb the daily violence.

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Would someone please shut him the hell up already!

ROBERTSON: The question would be, ladies and gentlemen, if a million Christians want to go to Saudi Arabia and say, “We want to pray,” you can’t pray in Saudi Arabia. You can’t have religious literature in Saudi Arabia. You can’t get together in Bible study groups in Saudi Arabia. As far as having special places for foot-washing and all that, no way. You will abide by Sharia law because they’re in control.

That’s because, Pat, Saudi Arabia is it’s own sovereign nation. They have their own rules and laws… just as we, here in America, have our very own set of rules and laws. I find it a wee bit HYPOCRITICAL of you, condemning a nation for not being more tolerant of differently held beliefs and notions, while doing your utmost damnedest to convert the US into some goddamned theocracy.

Robertson: “Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant on domination”

On the June 12 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club, following a report on Muslims in Minneapolis seeking religious accommodations at school and work, host Pat Robertson stated, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognize that Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Islamic law.” He characterized the American Muslim community as “Islam light” and went on to say Muslims “want to take over and we want to impose Sharia on you. And before long, ladies are going to be dressed in burqas and whatever garments they would put on them, and next thing you know, men are going to be allowed to have wife-beating and you’ll be beheading adulterers and so on and so forth.”

Full article (with video) at MediaMatters

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Think I’ll start a new faith based business and see what I can get….QGirl’s Christian Charters…….yah, that’s the ticket!!!

In theory, it was simple: Congress gave two decommissioned Coast Guard cutters to a faith-based group in California, directing that the ships be used only to provide medical services to islands in the South Pacific.

Coast Guard records show that the ships have been providing those services in the South Pacific since the medical mission took possession of them in 1999.

In reality, the ships never got any closer to the South Pacific islands than the San Francisco Bay. The mission group quickly sold one to a maritime equipment company, which sold it for substantially more to a pig farmer who uses it as a commercial ferry off Nicaragua. The group sold the other ship to a Bay Area couple who rent it for eco-tours and marine research.

The gift of the two cutters was one of almost 900 grants Congress has made to faith-based organizations since 1987 through the use of provisions, called earmarks, that are tucked into bills to bypass normal government review and bidding procedures.

Skipping those safeguards can generate more than accusations of political favoritism. As the case of the Coast Guard cutters shows, it also can give rise to grants that never achieve their intended purpose, with the government never even realizing it.

Canvasback Missions, in Benicia, Calif., took ownership of the cutters, the White Sage and the White Holly, in Baltimore in September 1999. This was the first time such ships had been given away through an earmark, the Coast Guard said.

More at the NYTimes

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Crossposted from MainSt.USA

FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky wrote a law review article while he was a staff lawyer at the Justice Department supporting a photo identification program for voters in Georgia.
Photo Credit: By Charlotte B. Teagle — Atlanta Journal-constitution

Stop the Republicans from putting one of their number one vote-challenging whores on the Federal Election Commision. Hans von Spakovsky is the guy who masterminded the 2000 Florida “felon” purge that prevented tens of thousands of legitimate, mostly African-American Florida voters from casting their ballots for Al Gore. He has been nominated to a four-year term on the Federal Elections Commision by the Chimperor, and there is a hearing on the nomination on June 13, 2007 by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Please call your senator if they are on the list below; if he makes it through committee, all senators must be contacted.

dailykos: Keep Yer Vote Thievin’ Hans Off (the FEC): Action Alert!

Hans Von Spakovsky will appear before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on June 13, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. for his confirmation hearing. []

Democrats
Dianne Feinstein (CA) - (202) 224-3841
Robert Byrd (WV) - (202) 224-3954
Daniel Inouye (HI) - (202) 224-3934
Christopher Dodd (CT) - (202) 224-2823
Charles Schumer (NY) - (202) 224-6542
Richard Durbin (IL) - (202) 224-2152
Ben Nelson (NE) - (202) 224-6551
Harry Reid (NV) - (202) 224-3542
Patty Murray (WA) - (202) 224-2621
Mark Pryor (AR) - (202) 224-2353

Republicans
Robert Bennett (UT) - (202) 224-5444
Mitch McConnell (KY) - (202) 224-2541
Thad Cochran (MS) - (202) 224-5054
Trent Lott (MS) - (202) 224-6253
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) - (202) 224-5922
Saxby Chambliss (GA) - (202) 224-3521
Chuck Hagel (NE) - (202) 224-4224
Lamar Alexander (TN) - (202) 224-4944

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