The Bulldog Manifesto

Rest in peace, Coretta Scott King.

Yes, it's cliche, but it's the damn truth-- 'we reap what we sow.'

We've been planting seeds of indifference and apathy for nearly 30 years.

Our mainstream news media caters to the dollar rather than the viewer. We've been dumbing down our populace on edutainment and "news gossip".

And damn if this country of mine doesn't deserve what is coming to it.

And well, it just saddens me to see it-- until I realize that there is a justice to it all.

We cannot plant apathy, arrogance, and greed and expect to harvest compassion, humility, and generosity.

The harvest is coming soon.

Lately, impeachment has been taking all of my available blogging time. Accordingly, The Bulldog Manifesto blog has been forced to take a back seat to the Impeach Bush Coalition.

This blog is NOT shutting down! But for the forseeable future, I will be cutting back on this blog so that I can spend more time working to impeach the bastard.

The Talking Dog has posted an informative interview with Joshua Colangelo Bryan, an attorney with the New York office of the law firm of Dorsey and Whitney, and counsel to three currently detained inmates of the American detention facility at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Juma Al Dossari, Salah Abdul Rasool Al Blooshi and Essa Al Murbati, all nationals of Bahrain.

Excerpt:

"The Talking Dog: Do you know what the charges or allegations of the Government are with respect to your other clients still detained? What are they? What were the charges against the clients who were released? Was there any rationale, rhyme or reason or explanation given for why some were released, and some still held?

Joshua Colangelo Bryan: Again, other than the limited (if any) explanations given by the CSRT, there is absolutely no explanation ever given of why anyone is detained, or why anyone is released.

The Talking Dog: Do you know who Abdullah Mesud is (leading a guerrilla movement in Pakistan)? Are you aware of allegations that Mahmoud Habib trained AQ in hand to hand combat? Any explanation for why he gets released, and your other clients get released, but Al-Dossari, Al-Blooshi and Al-Murbati are not? Do you think this is a fundamental problem with the arbitrariness of the whole process? Any way we can convince the public that it is the arbitrariness- and not the release- that is the problem?

Joshua Colangelo Bryan: Well, how does one reconcile the detention of my clients on the thinnest of accusations, while releasing an Australian who allegedly trained Al Qaeda terrorists including the 9-11 hijackers in martial arts and hand to hand combat–

The Talking Dog: You’re referring to Mahmoud Habib... who was released just ahead of proceedings in an action complaining of his side trip to Egypt for “extraordinary rendition” where he alleges he was tortured...

Joshua Colangelo Bryan: Exactly... Or a number of British prisoners who were released because Tony Blair insisted that it was politically necessary for him that they be released, a similar situation that has occurred with other European governments. By contrast, Arab very few prisoners from Arab countries have been released. I am familiar with Abdullah Mesud in passing and from reading about him– but the fact that he is released, and my clients continue to be held just shows that there is no rhyme or reason to the system that has been set up.

The Talking Dog: Anything else that I should have asked you, or that my readers, the American public, the Bahraini public, or anyone else needs to know about your representations, or anything else?

Joshua Colangelo Bryan: We should all know that by our military’s own admissions, there are innocent men at Guantanamo Bay, and they have been horrifically abused. Not only is this legally and ethically disastrous, it is bad strategically, and ultimately, politically counterproductive."

Check out the full interview and leave some comments for The Talking Dog

I just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel- Breakfast of Champions.

One word: genius

There is a time for politics and a time to lead-- damn the polls. For Hillary Clinton, unfortunately it's almost always about politics, and rarely about leadership. Check out the article by Molly Ivins.

"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges...."

More HERE.

On Friday night, I went to see Why We Fight. It is a fan-freaking-tastic movie! I highly recommend it to every American.

If it is playing near you, please go see it. I mean seriously, see it!! They don't make many movies better than this.

NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.

Last Friday, under the direction of our commander-in-chief, our military dropped bombs in the sovereign nation of Pakistan, killing 18 civilians, including women and children.

It's Thursday now. Still, our President has not apologized or even offered a statement of remorse on behalf of the innocent victims who perished. Pakistan is pissed, and rightfully so.

Whether the strike successfully killed Ayman al-Zawahiri or not is totally unimportant in this matter. We killed 18 innocent people. We owe the world an apology, at the minimum.

Without showing any remorse, we have now become exactly what we detested four (4) years ago. In essence, we have become the terrorist.

Like I stated on Sunday, it makes no difference if a bomb is strapped to a person or falling from a plane, if we are killing innocent people without remorse, we have become the terrorists. Plain and simple.

Frankly, I've been amazed at how the blogosphere has been almost silent on this matter. Are people scared of being seen as some "Hanoi Jane" character? I don't care how I'm viewed. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. And last Friday, as a nation, we were wrong, BIG TIME! Our leader should step up and apologize. Our leader should show some compassion. And we should not be afraid to speak up for what is right.

Bad idea!

I don't care what the odds are, you just don't fire a rocket containing the "most toxic radioactive substance known" into outer space, risking accident and mass exposure.

Is a probe to the planet Pluto really worth the risk of showering Florida with plutonium?

I mean really, could we at least vote on something like this?

"With the spacecraft containing 24 pounds of radioactive plutonium-238, the New Horizons launch is somewhat controversial.

The craft is not directly nuclear-powered, but the decay of the plutonium generates heat to fuel a battery, which in turn will power the probe as it moves far away from the sun to the outer reaches of the solar system.

Critics have expressed concern that an accident on launch could spread deadly plutonium over a wide swath of central Florida.

In an environmental impact statement NASA was required to file before making final flight plans, the space agency indicated that a 1-in-620 chance exists of an accident on liftoff that would release plutonium into the environment.

As a worst-case scenario, NASA estimated the chances at "1 in 1.4 million to 1 in 18 million" that an "extremely unlikely launch area accident" could release up to 2 percent, or about half a pound, of the plutonium on board the spacecraft.

NASA critic Karl Grossman, author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet," said he doesn't agree with NASA's interpretation of the risks.

"Is NASA again crossing its fingers and hoping?" he asked. "If it's 2 percent or it's 6 percent or if it's 20 percent or if it's 100 percent, when you're talking about plutonium, you're talking about the most toxic radioactive substance known."

New Horizons scientists say the benefits of the project outweigh the risks associated with launch."

Lately, pundits and "experts" have been ratcheting up the rhetoric for a military strike and/or invasion of Iran. In doing so, some pundits have gone so far as to compare present day Iran with Germany of 1938.

But General Glut's Globblog has a better historical comparison:

"In 1964 China was considered just as radical and unstable and irrational as Iran is today. In fact, probably more so. The Great Leap Forward had just ended, which consumed 25-60 million lives. The split with the USSR had come a few years previously as well because Khrushchev thought Stalin wasn't all that and a bag of chips, with Mao accusing the Soviets of "counter-revolution". China condemned Khrushchev's actions in the Cuban Missile Crisis as "capitulationism" and didn't give a damn that Khrushchev thought Mao's advice would have led to nuclear war. China had also just finished up a brief border war of its own with India in 1962 and supported communist rebels throughout Southeast Asia including Vietnam where the US was digging in for a war of its own.

"And yet when the US had the chance to bomb Chinese nuclear facilities to forestall a nuclear China in 1964, it refused....

"If we could live with a nuclear China which was seen as a very grave threat to world peace and security in the early 1960s, then why can we not do the same with a potential nuclear Iran?"

Check it all out HERE.

Bob Johnson, of the blog Satiric Mutt, had the opportunity to sit down and interview Jesus Christ. What a scoop!!

Check it out HERE.

C'mon George. It's time to apologize. The buck stops with you, right Georgie? So if an American military aircraft mistakenly bombs civilians in a small village of Pakistan, it is incumbent upon you Mr. President to show our nation's sincerest regrets, right?

Or will you simply do what you always do-- ignore the problem and pretend like it doesn't exist?

No George, now is the time for humility. Because regardless of what our intentions were, we screwed up. And innocent children died. As you love to say about Iraq, "we broke it, now we must fix it."

A real leader would act with sincere humility. A real leader would send aid to any families who suffered as a result of the bombing. A real leader would represent this nation well, showing that we aren't barbarous thugs who indiscriminately drop bombs. Or are we?

You see, there isn't too much difference between a 16 year old kid with explosives strapped to his chest and a military aircraft dropping bombs on civilians. The only difference is the 100 million dollars of military ordinance. Civilians are civilians.

When a suicide bomber straps a bomb to his back he mistakenly believes that his act of mass murder will somehow bring justice to his people's struggle. There is no difference when one of our bombs falls from the sky in the attempt to "bring justice."

If one of these acts is terrorism, then so is the other.

If we are a nation of laws-- a nation of compassion, then we must apologize for what we have done. I don't give a rat's ass about 9/11 right now. It doesn't give us the right to tear up the world, killing more innocent people. As we teach our children, "two wrongs do not make a right" and the ends do not justify the means.

How much are we willing to give up in order to fight this bullshit war on terror? How much terror are we willing to exact on others in the process? How many civil liberties are we willing to hand over to our emperor-in-chief? What will be left of the American ideals when this is all over? And how much safer will we be after this is all said and done? How many terrorists are we breeding?

Apologize now, Mr. President.

(Better yet, step down and turn yourself in. It's called repentance. Look into it.)

This week's video recommendation is 20 minutes long. Don't ask me what it's about, just watch it. :-)

WATCH IT HERE

Have a great weekend!!!

"There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story." -- Linda Hogan

Professor David Ray Griffin has set forth eleven (11) features of the collapse of the Twin Towers that would be expected if, and only if, explosives were used. These eleven (11) features will be discussed at length in a new book scheduled for publication in Spring of 2006 (The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, Research in Political Economy, Volume 23, P. Zarembka, editor, Amsterdam: Elsevier)

1. Sudden Onset:

"In controlled demolition, the onset of the collapse is sudden. One moment, the building is perfectly motionless; the next moment, it suddenly begins to collapse. But steel, when heated, does not suddenly buckle or break. So in fire-induced collapses---if we had any examples of such---the onset would be gradual. Horizontal beams and trusses would begin to sag; vertical columns, if subjected to strong forces, would begin to bend. But as videos of the towers show,[19] there were no signs of bending or sagging, even on the floors just above the damage caused by the impact of the planes. The buildings were perfectly motionless up to the moment they began their collapse."

2. Straight Down:

"The most important thing in a controlled demolition of a tall building close to other buildings is that it come straight down, into, or at least close to, its own footprint, so that it does not harm the other buildings. The whole art or science of controlled demolition is oriented primarily around this goal. As Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained, “to bring [a building] down as we want, so . . . no other structure is harmed,” the demolition must be “completely planned,” using “the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges” (Else, 2004).[20] If the 110-story Twin Towers had fallen over, they would have caused an enormous amount of damage to buildings covering many city blocks. But the towers came straight down. Accordingly, the official theory, by implying that fire produced collapses that perfectly mimicked the collapses that have otherwise been produced only by precisely placed explosives, requires a miracle.[21]"

3. Almost Free-Fall Speed:

"Buildings brought down by controlled demolition collapse at almost free-fall speed. This can occur because the supports for the lower floors are destroyed, so that when the upper floors come down, they encounter no resistance. The fact that the collapses of the towers mimicked this feature of controlled demolition was mentioned indirectly by The 9/11 Commission Report, which said that the “South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds” (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, p. 305).[22] The authors of the report evidently thought that the rapidity of this collapse did not conflict with the official theory, known as the “pancake” theory. According to this theory, the floors above the floors that were weakened by the impact of the airliner fell on the floor below, which started a chain reaction, so that the floors “pancaked” all the way down.

But if that is what happened, the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, would have provided resistance. The upper floors could not have fallen through them at the same speed as they would fall through air. However, the videos of the collapses show that the rubble falling inside the building’s profile falls at the same speed as the rubble outside[23] (Jones, 2006). As architect and physicist Dave Heller (2005) explains:

"The floors could not have been pancaking. The buildings fell too quickly. The floors must all have been falling simultaneously to reach the ground in such a short amount of time. But how?. . . In [the method known as controlled demolition], each floor of a building is destroyed at just the moment the floor above is about to strike it. Thus, the floors fall simultaneously, and in virtual freefall. (Garlic and Glass 6)"

4. Total Collapse:

"The official theory is even more decisively ruled out by the fact that the collapses were total: These 110-story buildings collapsed into piles of rubble only a few stories high. How was that possible? The core of each tower contained 47 massive steel box columns.[24] According to the pancake theory, the horizontal steel supports broke free from the vertical columns. But if that is what had happened, the 47 core columns would have still been standing. The 9/11 Commission came up with a bold solution to this problem. It simply denied the existence of the 47 core columns, saying: “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped” (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, 541 note 1). Voila! With no 47 core columns, the main problem is removed.

The NIST Report handled this most difficult problem by claiming that when the floors collapsed, they pulled on the columns, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832°F, and this combination of factors somehow produced “global collapse” (NIST, 2005, pp. 28, 143).

This theory faces two problems. First, NIST’s claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. As we saw earlier, its own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482°F (250˚C), so its theory involves a purely speculative addition of over 1350°F.[25] Second, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provides no explanation as to why it would have produced global—-that is, total--collapse. The NIST Report asserts that “column failure” occurred in the core as well as the perimeter columns. But this remains a bare assertion. There is no plausible explanation of why the columns would have broken or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse at virtually free-fall speed, even if they had reached such temperatures.[26]"

5. Sliced Steel:

"In controlled demolitions of steel-frame buildings, explosives are used to slice the steel columns and beams into pieces. A representative from Controlled Demolition, Inc., has said of RDX, one of the commonly used high explosives, that it slices steel like a "razor blade through a tomato." The steel is, moreover, not merely sliced; it is sliced into manageable lengths. As Controlled Demolition, Inc., says in its publicity: “Our DREXSTM systems . . . segment steel components into pieces matching the lifting capacity of the available equipment.”[27]

The collapses of the Twin Towers, it seems, somehow managed to mimic this feature of controlled demolitions as well. Jim Hoffman (2004), after studying various photos of the collapse site, said that much of the steel seemed to be “chopped up into . . . sections that could be easily loaded onto the equipment that was cleaning up Ground Zero.”[28]"

6. Pulverization of Concrete and Other Materials:

"Another feature of controlled demolition is the production of a lot of dust, because explosives powerful enough to slice steel will pulverize concrete and most other non-metallic substances into tiny particles. And, Hoffman (2003) reports, “nearly all of the non-metallic constituents of the towers were pulverized into fine power.”[29] That observation was also made by Colonel John O’Dowd of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “At the World Trade Center sites,” he told the History Channel, “it seemed like everything was pulverized” (History Channel, 2002).

This fact creates a problem for the official theory, according to which the only energy available was the gravitational energy. This energy would have been sufficient to break most of the concrete into fairly small pieces. But it would not have been anywhere close to the amount of energy needed to turn the concrete and virtually all the non-metallic contents of the buildings into tiny particles of dust."

7. Dust Clouds:

"Yet another common feature of controlled demolitions is the production of dust clouds, which result when explosions eject the dust from the building with great energy. And, as one can see by comparing videos on the Web, the collapses of the towers produced clouds that are very similar to those produced by controlled demolitions of other structures, such as Seattle’s Kingdome. The only difference is that the clouds produced during the collapses of the towers were proportionally much bigger.[30]

The question of the source of the needed energy again arises. Hoffman (2003), focusing on the expansion of the North Tower’s dust cloud, calculates that the energy required simply for this expansion---ignoring the energy needed to slice the steel and pulverize the concrete and other materials---exceeded by at least 10 times the gravitational energy available.

The official account, therefore, involves a huge violation of the laws of physics---a violation that becomes even more enormous once we factor in the energy required to pulverize the concrete (let alone the energy required to break the steel).

Besides the sheer quantity of energy needed, another problem with the official theory is that gravitational energy is wholly unsuited to explain the production of these dust clouds. This is most obviously the case in the first few seconds. In Hoffman’s words: “You can see thick clouds of pulverized concrete being ejected within the first two seconds. That’s when the relative motion of the top of the tower to the intact portion was only a few feet per second.”[31] Jeff King (2003), in the same vein, says: “[A great amount of] very fine concrete dust is ejected from the top of the building very early in the collapse. . . [when] concrete slabs [would have been] bumping into each other at [only] 20 or 30 mph.”

The importance of King’s point can be appreciated by juxtaposing it with the claim by Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, that although the clouds of dust created during the collapses of the Twin Towers may create the impression of a controlled demolition, “it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception" (Popular Mechanics, 2005). The pancaking, according to the official theory being defended by Sunder, began at the floor beneath the holes created by the impact of the airliners. As King points out, this theory cannot handle the fact, as revealed by the photographs and videos, that dust clouds were created far above the impact zones."

8. Horizontal Ejections:

"Another common feature of controlled demolition is the horizontal ejection of other materials, besides dust, from those areas of the building in which explosives are set off. In the case of the Twin Towers, photos and videos reveal that “[h]eavy pieces of steel were ejected in all directions for distances up to 500 feet, while aluminum cladding was blown up to 700 feet away from the towers” (Paul and Hoffman, 2004, p. 7). But gravitational energy is, of course, vertical, so it cannot even begin to explain these horizontal ejections."

9. Demolition Rings:

"Still another common feature of collapses induced by explosions are demolition rings, in which series of small explosions run rapidly around a building. This feature was also manifested by the collapses of the towers.[32]"

10. Sounds Produced by Explosions:

"The use of explosives to induce collapses produces, of course, sounds caused by the explosions. Like all the previous features except the slicing of the steel columns inside the building, this one could be observed by witnesses. And, as we will see below, there is abundant testimony to the existence of such sounds before and during the collapses of the towers."

11. Molten Steel:

"An eleventh feature that would be expected only if explosives were used to slice the steel columns would be molten steel, and its existence at the WTC site was indeed reported by several witnesses, including the two main figures involved in the clean up, Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction, and Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Incorporated. Tully said that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the site. Loizeaux said that several weeks after 9/11, when the rubble was being removed, “hot spots of molten steel” were found “at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels” (both statements quoted in Bollyn, 2004).[33]

Also, Leslie Robertson, the chief structural engineer for the Twin Towers, said: “As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running” (Williams, 2001). Knight-Ridder journalist Jennifer Lin, discussing Joe "Toolie" O'Toole, a Bronx firefighter who worked for many months on the rescue and clean-up efforts, wrote: "Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. 'It was dripping from the molten steel," he said'" (Lin, 2002). Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint, Inc., which supplied some of the computer equipment used to identify human remains at the site, described the working conditions as "hellish," partly because for six months, the ground temperature varied between 600 degrees Fahrenheit and 1,500 degrees or higher. Fuchek added that "sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel" (Walsh, 2002). And still more witnesses spoke of molten steel.[34]

This testimony is of great significance, since it would be hard to imagine what, other than high explosives, could have caused some of the steel to melt."

----------------------------------
----------------------------------
One last thing.....this comes from Controlled Demolitions, Inc.'s Website:
"A two thousand ton skyscraper collapses like a house of cards, crumbling in on itself - a waterfall of well-fractured steel and concrete debris. It lasts only seconds, and buildings within a few meters stand untouched. The very essence of Controlled Demolition, Inc. is in our name: CONTROL."

It almost sounds like their rubbing our noses in it.

Today, a kangaroo court authorized by Emperor Bush will be in session in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to Reuters, an American war crimes tribunal will hear the cases of two suspected al-Qaeda associates.

"The Pentagon is proceeding with the two cases even though U.S. courts have halted the trials of three other Guantanamo prisoners pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether Bush had authority to establish the tribunals. The high court will hear arguments in the case in March."

But here is the kicker:

"Only nine of the approximately 500 Guantanamo prisoners have been charged with crimes, and the legal advisor to the tribunals has said that probably no more than 50 to 75 ever will be."

Yup, you read it correctly. Basically, we are detaining (not to mention the torture) about 450 people without probable cause. Think about that. We already know that these people won't be charged with crimes, but we're keeping them anyway.

"They hate our freedoms--our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." -- Emperor Bush in October, 2001.

Watch only Fox News
Also MSNBC
Gasping- Truth is dead

The First Amendement
For corporations only
Why don't they use it?

Where would we be now
Without daily dose of Kos
Brainwashed by Coulter?

The John Birch Society has an impeach poll. Should Bush be impeached?

You know what I think....

Impeach the bastard.

Freep THIS.

Impeach Bush!

(Time for some sarcasm....)

How dare he? Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, is at it again!

Damn that bastard!

This weekend, Venezuela said it will expand a program to provide cheap home heating fuel to poor Americans, helping low-income families in Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as four Indian tribes in Maine.

GASP!!!

Is Chavez insane?

Why would they sell us their heating oil for less than market value when they could easily sell their heating oil at a premium and thereafter use the proceeds to buy military armaments?

Only a pinko-commie would do such a terrible thing!

It's official, Hugo Chavez is now a threat to the American way of life!

What is the American way of life, you may be asking? Simple.

From today's New York Times:

"A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials."

More HERE

Wow!  This is nice!

Hot of the presses from the Boston Globe.

Three key GOP Senators (John McCain, John W. Warner Jr, and Lindsey O. Graham) came out and bashed George W. Bush yesterday.  And from the sounds of their quotes, it almost sounds like they are hinting at impeachment.

John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.

''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," the senators said. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation. Our committee intends through strict oversight to monitor the administration's implementation of the new law."

Separately, the third primary sponsor of the detainee treatment law, Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told the Globe in a phone interview that he agreed with everything McCain and Warner said ''and would go a little bit further."

This is where it gets really interesting! Graham goes on to say:

"I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified," Graham said. ''If we go down that road, it will cause great problems for our troops in future conflicts because [nothing] is to prevent other nations' leaders from doing the same."

Moreover, David Golove, a New York University law professor  specializing in executive power issues commented that the Senators statments "mean that the battle lines are drawn" for an escalating fight over the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.

"The president is pointing to his commander in chief power, claiming that it somehow gives him the power to dispense with the law when he's conducting war," Golove said. ''The senators are saying: 'Wait a minute, we've gone over this. This is a law Congress has passed by very large margins, and you are compelled and bound to comply with it.'"

Read the rest HERE.

Here we are, it's 2006. Anybody remember the Anthrax scare?

Ahhh c'mon, you remember don't you? It was that freaky time in your life when you weren't sure whether the world was about to suddenly come to an end. Remember the days soon after 9/11, when anthrax started appearing everywhere? Do you remember how gas masks were selling on Ebay for hundreds of dollars? Do you remember how you feared for your family's life as your television sold you a bill of goods about these Anthrax letters, reportedly sent by Arabs?

Do you remember how Anthrax was on television, in magazines, in newspapers; seemingly downloaded into your brain at almost every moment of your waking day-- for months? According to a LexisNexis search conducted by TomDispatch.com, "between Oct. 4 and Dec. 4, 2001, 389 stories appeared in the New York Times with "anthrax" in the headline." During the same period, 238 "anthrax" stories appeared in the Washington Post. Think about that for a second. Now consider the noise made by all the other media outlets. Now add all that noise together. That's a lot of noise.

These days though, the silence is deafening.

Anthrax? Are you there? Anybody home?
Have you heard of anthrax lately? Do you know what became of the anthrax investigation? Do you know if anybody was ever arrested? Do you know if the FBI has any leads? What do you know about anthrax? When was the last time you saw an anthrax story in the newspaper?

Yes, the anthrax story is gone. Like Kaiser Soza and Osama bin Laden-- vanished, 'poof', just like that! It served it's purpose (just like Osama). It got us into a war with Iraq. Mission accomplished, as they say.

But here is the real gist of it all:

All the anthrax used in the various anthrax attacks in 2001 came from a United States military base. They all came from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. But there were two separate mailings of anthrax letters. One batch of letters was mailed on or about September 18, 2001. This batch went to various media outlets and contained cutaneous anthrax (Ames Strain).

Then on or about October, 9, 2001, the second batch of letters was mailed out. This batch contained a much more lethal "weaponized version" of the Ames strain. These letters were sent to two Democratic Senators.

Hydrocarbon analysis showed that all of the anthrax found in the letters was incubated within two years of the time it was mailed.

And from CNN on June 26, 2002:

"This discovery lends credence to the theory that whoever mailed the finely milled anthrax spores -- known to be of the Ames strain -- has a current connection to a sophisticated laboratory.

Investigators have long believed the suspect possessed a sophisticated knowledge of anthrax and a high level of training."

Now, here is something everybody seems to miss. If Osama bin Laden is responsible for the 9/11 attacks (yeah right), isn't it somewhat odd that some other group of people with certain ties to the United States government just so happened to pull off the anthrax attacks within a week of 9/11 and again on October 9? Are we supposed to believe that the anthrax attacker(s) were just waiting around with extremely fatal weaponized anthrax in their refrigerators for the right moment? And what about the letters? C'mon, these guys were obviously trying to frame Arabs for the attacks. Isn't this the slightest bit suspicious to anybody in the media?

So let's recap.

The Anthrax came from an American military base.
The Anthrax required sophisticated knowledge and a high level of training.
The Anthrax letters contained feeble minded language to make us all believe they were written by some "stupid Arab".
The letters were mailed within one week of 9/11. (Were they just waiting around for a 9/11-like event to take place or was it all just a big coincidence?)

If the Anthrax attackers are related to the US government, what does that tell us about 9/11? Perhaps this is why the media went to sleep on the anthrax story after it was revealed that the anthrax came from Fort Detrick. Hmmmmm, what do you think? After all, if you connect the dots on anthrax, 9/11 is pretty much a no-brainer, isn't it?

A Few More Things to Make Your Head Spin
1. Members of the White House (including Bush, Cheney, and the Cabinet) were given the antibiotic CIPRO on September 11, 2001-- seven (7) days prior to the date the first anthrax letter was even mailed. (I wasn't aware that antibiotics could save you from a jumbo jet smashing into your building, cool!)

2. Even after it was determined that the only anthrax to ever be used in a terrorist attack against American citizens came from our own military base, the Bush administration had Colin Powell waving around a vial of faux-anthrax at the United Nations in February of 2003. We invaded and occupied Iraq because, as Colin Powell stated that day, "Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material". (Considering that it was our own anthrax that was used against us in the 2001 anthrax letters, isn't this statement just a tad ironic?)

The president loves to make us remember 9/11. Why doesn't he ever remind us of the anthrax attacks? Oh wait......