IMHO Open Debate Forum: 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Have a safe and prosperous New Year

Have a safe and prosperous New Year

Let's hope 2006 is a better year for us all.

Sean Lewis

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Jenna Bush's Narcotic Adventures

Say it Ain't true!.......This is UNCONFIRMED!!!!!

No Happy Ending For Jenna Bush

Jenna Bush’s infamous ID-gate videotape is raising more questions than the Zapruder film. According to a source who has seen the footage—which features a self-described downtown coke dealer relating his late-night run-in with the First Daughter, and brandishing her college ID as a souvenir—the man insinuates that the two shared more than just drinks.

A well-informed source, who has a DVD copy of the interview shot by tbirdshow.com’s Travis Poston, says that at one point the dealer claims that the young, blonde Jenna Bush with the Texas accent he hung out with that night (and who happened to leave behind Jenna Bush’s belongings) had been “helping [him] clean up” the bar after a long night of partying.

(A publicist for First Lady Laura Bush has unequivocally denied that her daughter has ever been to the Chinatown bar, Happy Ending, even though we hear the UT-Austin ID card displayed in the film clearly shows the hard-partying political liability’s name, picture and student ID number.)

According to the New York Post’s Page Six, the Secret Service are reportedly taking the tape seriously enough to investigate, and we hear they’re not the only ones. When Fresh Intelligence emailed tbirdshow.com about securing selected clips to host on this site, we received the following curt response: “There are about ten top papers fighting for that footage. Get in line.”

Needless to say, “if a coke dealer has your ID it doesn’t look so good,” quipped the source.

Apparently, the affable salesman doesn’t limit his company to presidential offspring. “He brags on camera that he’s down with all the members of Interpol,” our source says. “And everybody in the club that walks by in the video says ‘hi’ to him.”

Reps for Bush and Interpol could not be reached by press time.

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,809,593,591,481 Social Security Trust Fund
– $8,017,618,068,106The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

FounderOpenDebateForum http://VTSL.blogspot.com clock Department of Justice web site
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Bush was suppose to bring Morality, honor and integrity to the WH, BS

Bush was suppose to bring a new enlightened era back to the WH. Instead he has brought the new moral dark age to the COUNTRY.

After all in his words, The Constitution is just a damn piece of paper.

How did a man who thinks the constitution is just a damn piece of paper get to be the President of this country. You Bush Believers need to ask yourself some serious questions this new year.

We have a man who spies against his own people illegally.

We have a man who is out of touch with the poor, sick and elderly as Katrina STILL so painfully proves.

We have a man who choose to go to war when there was no urgent reason to do so.

We have a man who is spending this country to death in a overwhelming sea of red ink.

We have a man who thinks treason is an effective political tool.

We have a man who thinks torture is a good idea.

We have a man who bought the press destroying another tool of freedom this country enjoyed.

We have a man who has turned American against America brother against brother, husband against wife, we know have a country terribly divided.

Everything honorable men have died for in the past 300 years has been exploited, co-opted and bastardized by the this 'Commander and Chief'

Enough is enough. At what point will the collective sins of this man register to the Bush Believers who support this false leader? Everything he said he was, he has proven to be the exact opposite.

2006 is the year of reckoning, let's get it correct this time!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Iraq Elections move Baghdad closer to Tehran - Scheer

Iraq Vote Moves Baghdad Closer to Tehran
Secular politicians smashed by theocrats

December 21, 2005 – For the Bush White House, the good news from Iraq just never stops. But the joy that President Bush has expressed over the country's latest election, though more restrained than his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, will similarly come back to haunt him.

Soon after Bush spoke of the Iraqi election as "a landmark day in the history of liberty," early returns representing 90 percent of the ballots cast in the Iraq election established that the clear winners were Shiite and Sunni religious parties not the least bit interested in Western-style democracy or individual freedom -- including such extremists as Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fanatical followers have fought pitched battles with U.S. troops.

The silver lining, of course, is that the election did see broad participation, if not particularly clean execution. And because all of the leading parties say they want the United States to leave on a clear and public time line, this should provide adequate cover for a staged but complete withdrawal from a sovereign country that we had no right to invade in the first place.

What we will leave behind, after hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lost lives, will be a long ways from the neoconservative fantasy of creating a compliant democracy in the heart of the Middle East. It is absurd for Bush to assert that the election "means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror," ignoring how he has "lost" Iraq to the influence and model of "Axis of Evil" Iran.

Tehran's rogue regime, which has bedeviled every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, now looms larger than ever over the region and most definitely over its oil. "Iran wins big in Iraq's election," reads an Asia Times headline, speaking a truth that American policy makers and much of the media is bent on ignoring: "The Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), not only held together, but also can be expected to dominate the new 275-member National Assembly for the next four years," the paper predicts based on the returns to date. "Former premier Ayad Allawi's prospects of leading the new government seem virtually nil. And Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Accord suffered a shattering defeat."

Allawi and Chalabi are the Iraqi exiles and U.S. intelligence "assets" who played such a huge role in getting the United States into this war. Chalabi, in particular, will go down in history as one of the great con artists of all time, managing to feed phony intelligence to the White House, the New York Times and countless other power players who found his lies convenient for one reason or another. Now, despite -- or, more likely, because of -- their long stints on the U.S. payroll, both of these wannabe George Washingtons have been overwhelmingly rejected by their countrymen.

Chalabi, long the darling of the Pentagon, seems headed to obtaining less than 1 percent of the vote nationwide and will fail to win his own seat. Allawi's slate, favored more by the CIA, will end up in the low teens.

As much as one should despise the role played by those two men in getting us into this mess, their abject failure is not a good thing for they carried the banner of a more modern and secular Iraq, which is essential to peace and human rights progress. But the Iraqi people will have to come to that truth on their own and not as a result of foreign intervention that only fuels the most irrational political and religious forces.

Unfortunately, it is hardly an advertisement for our democratic way of life that the American people were so easily deceived as to the reasons for this war. Or that our president resists the condemnation of torture, renders captured prisoners to be interrogated in the savage prisons of Uzbekistan and Syria, and claims an unrestrained right to spy on U.S. citizens.

Nor does it help that this president is so publicly bent on intruding government-imposed religious values into American civil life, while urging secular tolerance upon the Islamic world. Or that he remains so blind to the reality of life in that world that he still does not grasp that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were on opposite sides of the enormous struggle over the primacy of religion in the Arab world.

Iraq, for all of its massive deficiencies, was not a center of religious fanaticism before the U.S. invasion, and the Islamic fanatics that are the president's sworn enemy in the so-called "war on terror" did not have a foothold in the country. Now, primitive religious fundamentalism forms the dominant political culture in Iraq and the best outcome for U.S. policy is the hope that Shiite and Sunni fanatics can check each other long enough for the United States to beat a credible retreat and call it a victory, albeit a pyrrhic one.

E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com

http://www.robertscheer.com

Bush: 'I Am the Law' / Bush's Impeachable Offense

Bush: 'I Am the Law'
By Max J. Castro
Progreso Weekly

22-28 December 2005 Issue

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122205N.shtml

"L'état, c'est moi." I am the State:" That's what the 17th century French monarch, Louis XIV (1638-1715), told the Parliament of Paris after some of its members dared to question funding for the war against Spain.

"La Loi, c'est moi; I am the Law:" That is what George W. Bush, so anti-French, so unlike the Sun King and yet so monarchical, has in effect told those who question the president's right to do whatever he wants under the guise of the "war against terrorism." Or, Bush being Bush, he would probably say: "Me, I'm the law, that's me, the law is me."

Bush, aided by a handful of partisan lawyers willing to twist and bend legality in every direction or even to turn it on its head to suit convenience, has sought legal cover to subvert or ignore the law at every turn. Political appointees such as former White House Counsel and current Attorney-General Alberto Gonzalez and former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo have been more than willing to deliver tortuous legal opinions meant to give Bush carte-blanche and prevent any future liability for top officials and anyone else involved in the "war on terror."

Bush's legal enablers have been a busy and shameless bunch. International law regarding the justification for war? No problem, go to the UN Security Council to seek authorization. And, if the Council declines to approve war? Invade anyway and invoke violations of Security Council resolutions as the legal basis for military action.

The Geneva Conventions? No sweat: Its provisions have been rendered "quaint" by the "war on terror." Then coin a new category, label prisoners in this war "enemy combatants," and argue that for them no rules apply and anything goes.

The Convention Against Torture? Taking candy from a baby: Claim that it only applies to interrogations conducted in the United States. Then send them to other countries for the third degree. Just in case, redefine the terms. Torture is what we say it is; if they don't have that near-death experience, if they don't see the white light, it isn't torture. And, even if they die under torture, understand that was legal too because if the Commander-Chief says it is legal, then it is.

OK, but haven't we already heard it all when it comes to the Bush administration's Orwellian ways and its disregard for the law, from secret prisons to extraordinary rendition to indefinite detention to denial of the right to habeas corpus?

No: With Bush another week always means a new and more disturbing revelation. Until now the administration's numerous transgressions have involved violations of international law. International law? The Administration has had substantial success in selling the American people on the idea that international law is irrelevant at best and, at worst, an obnoxious interference with U.S. sovereignty. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the President has relied on a compliant Congress and a deferential judiciary to legitimize bending the laws and the Constitution, manly through the Patriot Act.

Now comes news of a new entry in the annals of the Bush administration's illegalities, a secret program to spy on Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The New York Times revealed last week that in 2002 Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor international calls involving Americans located on U.S. soil. Congress, awakened from its slumber by the administration's brazen overreaching, put the brakes on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

It is not as if the government lacks the tools to protect the nation under the rule of law. Twenty-five years ago, in the wake of revelations about illegal spying by the Nixon administration, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed to clarify the boundaries of the permissible. The act created a special court, known as the FISA court, which decides on requests for surveillance involving intelligence. The FISA court acts in secret and can grant a warrant within hours of its request. Moreover, it can grant warrants retroactively; the government can start listening 72 hours before a warrant is approved. According to news reports, during its history the FISA court has received over 19,000 requests for warrants and denied just 5.

But neither the lopsided odds in favour of the government nor the cloaked, expedited nature of the proceedings of the FISA court were good enough for this administration. That Bush felt it necessary to circumvent the minimal scrutiny of what is essentially a rubber-stamp court demonstrates better than anything what this administration has sought all along: an absolute license to do whatever it pleases in the conduct of its "war on terror."

Once again, there were administration lawyers willing to justify it all by arguing that the President could do just about anything in times of conflict. As the New York Times reported, "the same Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, who helped write the twisted memo on legalizing torture, wrote briefs supporting the idea that the president could ignore the law once again when it came to the intelligence agency's eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mail messages."

Wrote Yoo: "The government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled times could be seen as infringements of individual liberties." Countered the New York Times editorial: "Let's be clear about this: illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not."

Indeed, if rights could be suspended whenever the government considered the times to be troubled, the Bill of Rights would lose all meaning. Times are often troubled. History shows that the "troubled times and war argument" has been invoked whenever there has been a shameful trampling on individual liberties. It was used to justify illegal spying on opponents of the Vietnam War. It was invoked during the Cold War to rationalize the outrages of McCarthyism. It was used during World War II to confer a veneer of legality on the massive violation of rights perpetrated by the internment of the Japanese.

Bush already has begun a campaign to invoke the "war on terror" and the spectre of 9/11 to justify the trampling of the fundamental Constitutional right contained in the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. The president is hoping that, once again, the right-wing media and the see-no-evil lawyers and intellectuals will come to his rescue. They are already trying their best to do it.

Yet, perhaps this time the American people will not be deceived by the latest of this administration's many fallacies. It's just possible that, as has happened before in the course of American history, the tide is turning and the silence is in the process of being broken.

Fifty years ago, in the wake of the prolonged detainment of Japanese Americans, Eugene Rostow of Yale Law School broke with the war-induced atmosphere of hysteria and complicity that characterized the attitude of too many lawyers, intellectuals and ordinary citizens when he wrote: "The war power is the power to wage war successfully … But it is the power to wage war, not a license to do unnecessary and dictatorial things in the name of the war power."
============
Bush's Impeachable Offense
By Michelle Goldberg
Salon.com

Thursday 22 December 2005

Yes, the president committed a federal crime by wiretapping Americans, say constitutional scholars, former intelligence officers and politicians. What's missing is the political will to impeach him.

On Tuesday, Dec. 20, Washington Post polling editor Richard Morin participated in an online chat with readers. The liberal blog MyDD urged its users to take part, and evidently they did. In previous days, legal experts had declared that Bush had committed a federal crime by authorizing the surveillance of American citizens without a court order, and Morin was grilled about the issue of impeachment.

First, someone from Naperville, Ill., asked Morin why the Post hasn't polled on public support for impeaching Bush. "This question makes me mad," Morin replied. Someone else repeated the question and Morin typed, "Getting madder." It came up again, and he wrote, "Madder still."

Finally, a fourth person asked it, and he answered: "[W]e do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion - witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in '08 are calling for Bush's impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls."

Morin was wrong. It may be exceedingly unlikely that President Bush will be impeached, but in the past few days, the I-word has become a topic of considered discussion among constitutional scholars, former intelligence officers and even a few politicians.

"If you listen carefully, you can hear the word 'impeachment,'" curmudgeonly commentator Jack Cafferty said on CNN. "Two congressional Democrats are using it. And they're not the only ones."

Indeed, speaking on the Diane Rehm show on public radio, Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said, "I think if we're going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed."

On Dec. 17, after the story of Bush's domestic spying broke in the New York Times, the president conceded that he had ordered the National Security Agency to intercept Americans' communications without seeking judicial approval. Unrepentant, the White House insisted that Bush had been granted such authority by the post-9/11 congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary force" in the fight against terrorism, and that the president would continue to order warrantless searches.

The next day, during a public discussion with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., former Nixon White House counsel John Dean called Bush "the first president to admit to an impeachable offense." Boxer took Dean seriously enough to consult four presidential scholars about impeachment.

"This startling assertion by Mr. Dean is especially poignant because he experienced firsthand the executive abuse of power and a presidential scandal arising from the surveillance of American citizens," she wrote to them. "Given your constitutional expertise, particularly in the area of presidential impeachment, I am writing to ask for your comments and thoughts on Mr. Dean's statement."

Boxer has not made public any of the responses yet. But other political scholars have weighed in. "The American public has to understand that a crime has been committed, a serious crime," Chris Pyle, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and an expert on government surveillance of civilians, tells Salon. "Looking at this controversy objectively, you inevitably end up with a question of impeachment," says Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.

On Dec. 18, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released a 250-page report detailing Bush's misconduct and, on his Web site, called for the creation of a select committee to investigate "those offenses which appear to rise to the level of impeachment." Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said in a radio interview that he would support trying Bush. "If there is a move to impeach the president, I will sign that bill of impeachment," he said.

Assessing the controversy, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter wrote on Dec. 19, "This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974."

It was bracing to see impeachment mentioned as a possibility in the mainstream media. But experts say it's not unreasonable. According to Turley, there's little question Bush committed a federal crime by violating the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The act authorizes a secret court to issue warrants to eavesdrop on potential suspects, or anyone even remotely connected to them, inside the United States. The bar to obtain a FISA warrant is low; more than 15,000 have been granted, with only four requests denied since 1979. In emergency situations, the government can even apply for FISA warrants retroactively. Nevertheless, Bush chose not to comply with FISA's minimal requirements.

"The fact is, the federal law is perfectly clear," Turley says. "At the heart of this operation was a federal crime. The president has already conceded that he personally ordered that crime and renewed that order at least 30 times. This would clearly satisfy the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors for the purpose of an impeachment."

Turley is no Democratic partisan; he testified to Congress in favor of Bill Clinton's impeachment. "Many of my Republican friends joined in that hearing and insisted that this was a matter of defending the rule of law, and had nothing to do with political antagonism," he says. "I'm surprised that many of those same voices are silent. The crime in this case was a knowing and premeditated act. This operation violated not just the federal statute but the United States Constitution. For Republicans to suggest that this is not a legitimate question of federal crimes makes a mockery of their position during the Clinton period. For Republicans, this is the ultimate test of principle."

Of course, that may be exactly the problem. While noted experts - including a few Republicans - are saying Bush should be impeached, few think he will be. It's not clear that the political will exists to hold the president to account. "We have finally reached the constitutional Rubicon," Turley says. "If Congress cannot stand firm against the open violation of federal law by the president, then we have truly become an autocracy."

Similar fears are voiced by Bruce Fein, a former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. Fein is very much a member of the right. He once published a column arguing that "President George W. Bush should pack the United States Supreme Court with philosophical clones of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and defeated nominee Robert H. Bork."

Suddenly, though, Fein is talking about Bush as a threat to America. "President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law," he wrote in the right-wing Washington Times on Dec. 20. "He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms."

What alarms Fein is not only that Bush has broken laws but also that he has repeatedly shown contempt for the separation of powers. Fein wants to see congressional hearings that would explore whether Bush accepts any constitutional limitation on his own authority.

"The most important thing to me, in terms of thinking about the issue of impeachment, is to recognize that the Constitution does place a value on continuity," Fein says. "We don't want to have a situation where you make a single error, and you're exposed to an impeachment proceeding."

Fein says Congress should probe Bush on whether he plans to keep "skating the edge" of federal law by trying to concentrate power in the executive branch. "That's the key. It's that probing that's essential to knowing whether we're dealing with somebody who's really a dangerous guy. If he maintains this disregard or contempt for the coordinate branches of government, it's that conception of an omnipotent presidency that makes the occupant a dangerous person. We just can't sacrifice our liberties for ourselves and our posterity by permitting someone who thinks the state is him, and nobody else, to continue in office."

In fact, though, that may be exactly what America is permitting Bush to do. "Politically, I see no possibility that impeachment will succeed," says Jonathan Entin, a professor of political science and law at Case Western Reserve University.

"The Democrats are a minority in both houses of Congress," Entin says. "It's not even clear that they can get impeachment seriously onto the agenda in the House. Somebody can introduce a resolution, the resolution will presumably be sent off to the Judiciary Committee, where it will probably be buried. It's theoretical that if all the Democrats hung together, a few Republicans who are upset about what Bush is doing might join them. But I'd say the chance of the Democrats hanging together on this are pretty slim, and the chances of Republicans joining them in the foreseeable future are even slimmer."

"The only question here is the political one," says Pyle of Mount Holyoke College. A former military intelligence officer, Pyle blew the whistle on the U.S. Army's domestic spying program during the Vietnam War. He believes that Bush has committed an impeachable offense - and that right now there's no prospect he will be impeached. "This president has admitted committing the crime. He just claims he's above the law," Pyle says. "So the issue is: Is the president above the law?"

If so, Pyle continues, "then we need not argue over the PATRIOT Act. We do not need the PATRIOT Act, because the president can do anything he wants in time of war. He can ignore all the criminal laws of the United States, including the laws against indefinite detention and against torture. I don't think we want to go down that road."

But aren't we already down that road? "We may be," Pyle says. "Maybe it's time to call a halt."

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Key issues needed to be known in regard to secret wire tapping of US Citizens

1 The provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act subject to sunset generally modified two existing laws. Title III governs law enforcement interception of and access to communications in ordinary criminal investigations. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) regulates the FBI's collection of "foreign intelligence" information for intelligence purposes. Under the Fourth Amendment, a Title III warrant to intercept a communication must be based on probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. This is not the general rule under FISA: surveillance under FISA is permitted based on a finding of probable cause that the surveillance target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, irrespective of whether the target is suspected of engaging in criminal activity. The USA PATRIOT Act expanded law enforcement authority to conduct searches and obtain communications under Title III, and also rolled back the already lax restrictions on the FBI's ability to gather information about individuals under FISA.

Through out the law it clearly delineates actions for US and NON US citizens? If all were treated equally there would be no need for such extensive delineation. It is being done specifically to protect the civil liberties of US citizens.

Agent of a foreign power

FISA §1801(b) defines this phrase in two ways, depending on whether the target is a U.S. person. §1801(b)(1) covers non-U.S. persons, while § 1801(b)(2) covers "any person."

Non-U.S. persons are "agents" under FISA if they

act in the United States as an officer or employee of a foreign power, or as a member of a terrorist organization, § 1801(b)(1)(A)
act for or on behalf of a foreign power that engages in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States contrary to U.S. interests when (1) the circumstances of such persons' presence in the United States "indicate that such person may engage in such activities, or (2) when such person knowingly aids or abets any person, or conspires with any person to engage in such activities." 50 U.S.C. § 1801(b)(1)(B).

So, for instance, a British national who works for the British embassy in the United States is an agent of a foreign power.

The Justice Department may engage in electronic surveillance to collect FII without a court order for periods up to one year. 50 U.S.C. § 1802. There must be no "substantial likelihood" that the intercepted communications include those to which a U.S person is a party. § 1802(a)(1)(B).

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=439&invol=1326

The court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis],

Truong was not a US citizen. He was a citizen of Vietnam. The appeal was rejected because Truong was NOT a US citizen so a warrant-less wire tap COULD be conducted.

Part of speech bush gave in April of 2004:

"there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you
hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a
wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Infamous Presidential Phrases

Bush 2005 waging finger: "I did nothing illegal!"

Clinton 1998 waging finger: "I did not have sex with that woman!"

Nixon 1973: "I am not a crook!"

Monday, December 19, 2005

The True Meaning Of Christ-Mass

The True Meaning Of Christ-Mass

They tell us that it is the season to be jolly. It is a time of ornaments, red and green decorations, silver bells, holly, mistletoe and colored lights. It is also a time of department store Santas calling out their universal mantra, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas." Nearly all of the realm of so-called "Christianity" join in and repeat this same greeting, "Merry Christmas!"
Although we hear these words constantly as they resonate millions of times throughout the land, almost nobody understands what they are really saying. It is the purpose of this tract to take the words, "Merry Christmas" and examine the true meaning and essence of those words.
A true Christian would want to examine everything they say, because Jesus said in Matthew 12:36-37, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." We will now set aside all of the customs, glitter and traditions of Christmas, which were taken from pagan witchcraft and popularized by the Roman Catholic Church, and we will focus on the true meaning of the words, "Merry Christmas!"
The word "Merry" is simple to define. It unquestionably means to be happy, joyful and light-hearted. The word "merry" fits into the ambience of laughter and frivolity. This word "merry" by itself is innocent and innocuous enough, but as we will now see, it becomes heinously blasphemous when used with the word "Christmas."
Here let it be noted that most people think that the word, "Christmas" means "the birth of Christ." By definition, it means "death of Christ", and I will prove it by using the World Book Encyclopedia, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and a book entitled, The Mass In Slow Motion.
If you are an honest, sincere and discerning Christian, please read on; if not, you might as well stop right here. The World Book Encyclopedia defines "Christmas" as follows: "The word Christmas comes from "Cristes Maesse", an early English phrase that means "Mass of Christ." (1) It is interesting to note that the word "Mass", as used by the Roman Catholics, has traditionally been rejected by the so-called Protestants, such as Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and so on. The word "Mass" is strictly a Catholic word and thus, so is "Christ-Mass."
It would stand to reason, that since all of these denominations love and embrace "Christ-Mass", that December 25th is the great homecoming day, when all of the Protestants become Catholic for a day. It would seem that all of the so-called "wayward daughters" of the Romish church return to their mother, the scarlet harlot. Thus, all of the so-called Protestant churches could sing to the Pope that popular song "I'll be home for Christmas."
As previously stated, the word "Mass" in religious usage means a "death sacrifice." The impact of this fact is horrifying and shocking; for when the millions of people are saying, "Merry Christmas", they are literally saying "Merry death of Christ!" Furthermore, when the fat man in the red suit laughs boisterously and says, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas", he is mocking and laughing at the suffering and bleeding Saviour, who died for our sins. He does this while parents place their little children into his waiting arms to hear his false promises of gifts that he says he will give them. Consider what you are saying when you say "Merry Christmas."
What is so amusing about our Saviour's painful death? What is so funny? Why is Santa laughing? Why are you going along with it? Your words do count and Satan knows it. Yes, the word "Mass" does mean "death sacrifice", and to cement that fact, we will consider the definition of the inventors of the religious application of the word "Mass." I am looking at page 537 of the Catholic Encyclopedia, which says, "In the Christian law, the supreme sacrifice is that of the Mass." It goes on to say, "The supreme act of worship consists essentially in an offering of a worthy victim to God, the offering made by a proper person, as a priest, the destruction of the victim." (2) Please note carefully the word, "victim" of the Mass. The Latin word for victim is "Hostia" from which the word "host" is derived. The Mass, by definition of those who coined the word, is a sacrifice involving a victim. There is no other meaning for the word "Mass" or "Christ-Mass." On page 110 of a book entitled "The Mass In Slow Motion", we find the following words: "It is only with the consecration that the sacrifice of the Mass is achieved. I have represented the Mass to you, more than once, as a kind of ritual dance." (3)
In essence, the Mass is the ceremonial slaying of Jesus Christ over and over again, followed by the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood. The Mass is the death sacrifice, and the "Host" is the victim. This is official Roman Catholic doctrine, and "Christmas" is a word that they invented. Again, I ask, what is so merry about the pain, bleeding, suffering and death of Jesus Christ? Satan has done quite a job of getting millions of so-called "Christians" to blaspheme. What a deceiver he is.
Now you know the true meaning of the word "Christmas" or Mass of Christ. There is much more to know about this pagan holiday, and we will be glad to provide you with plenty of evidence that Jesus was not born on December 25th, and that Christmas is not only a lie, but is actually a witches' sabbat called "Yule" in clever disguise. Please contact us at the address below, and for the sake of your soul, flee from idolatry!
David J. Meyer

Acknowledgements:
01. World Book Encyclopedia, vol.3, p. 408, 1986 ed., World Book Inc., Chicago, IL
02. The Catholic Encyclopedia, R.C. Broderick, 1975 ed., Nihil Obstat, Richard J. Sklba, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, Archbishop William E. Cousins, Milwaukee, WI.
03. The Mass In Slow Motion, Ronald Knox, 1948, Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York, NY. Nihil Obstat, E.C. Messenger, Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur, E. Morrogh Bernard, Vic. Gen.

Last Trumpet Ministries International
PO Box 806
Beaver Dam, WI 53916

Monday, December 05, 2005

Re: Bush's plan for victory is another plan for failure

Iraq was the Wrong War at the Wrong Time for the Wrong Reasons.

Simply put, the preemptive war of choice was the worst thing America could have done in it's war on terrorism. For Al qaida the Iraq war turned defeat in Afghanistan into a world wide rallying cry.

Iraq was no threat to the US.

Iraq had no WMD's

Iraq was not involved in 9/11.

Iraq had no supporting role with Al qaida.

Iraq was not an immediate threat to the US.

Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US.

Iraq might have been a threat in the distant future, MAYBE!

Bush's plan for victory, like his first plan for invasion, is not based on reality. The reality is Iraq is becoming a war of desperation with ever decreasing chances for a good fairy tale ending. Iraq will become everything Bush warned the world Iraq would become if we did not invade. In fact because of the invasion Iraq will become everything Bush predicted and worst.

Iraq's fate could have been different. It could have been everything Bush predicted. For this to have happened, Bush would have had to be truthful and open. One thing it is obvious the Administration is incapable of being.

From the beginning Iraq was doomed to failure.

The Bush administration 'filtered' the Intelligence and the N.I.E. on the Intelligence. The administration used extreme bad judgement in it's inclusion of questionable and challenged Intelligence in it's justification for war. Intelligence that all proved to be WRONG.

The republicans say the Democrats were at fault also. Why? Apparently it is the Democrats fault for believing Bush at his word during war time. You heard me. The Republicans are blaming the Democrats for taking Bush at his word and not double checking the facts. This is like blaming a woman for being raped because she is pretty. This is how ever the Administrations reasoning for all the many mistakes that have occurred.

The Bush Administration planned for a successful invasion of Iraq. 'Mission Accomplish!' Who didn't know this was going to happen. The real test was what happened AFTER the invasion, when the real battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqis were at stake. This is where the hubris and incompetence of this Bush Administration is very apparent.

So let me 'Bring It On!'

The Intelligence was wrong, based on lies.

There were no WMD's

There wasn't enough troops.

The Ammo and weapon depots were not secured.

The IAEA sites were not secured.

No security was provided after the Iraq military and police were disbanded.

Rioting, looting, crime and chaos was allowed unhindered.

Crime, chaos and murder have gone unchecked.

Indiscriminate torture of the indigent population has occurred.

The claim that it is better to fight Al qaida in Iraq rather than in the US or in Afghanistan were Al qaida was.

The Downing Memos.

Allowing roaming killing squads to exist.

Using Chemical and anti personnel weapons in civilian populated areas.

These are the most egregious mistakes that could have been prevented if Bush had simply LISTENED to criticism.

The solution for Iraq is not in Iraq. The solution for Iraq begins in the White House. For the Iraq war would never have been if not for the White House. Until Bush is willing to admit the fundamental mistakes of it's Iraq war strategy, there will be no positive outcome in Iraq.

Bush's Presidency is a failure. It is a far reaching failure for not just Bush and his supporters. This failure reverberates through out America, the Middle East and the World. Bush's failure has made the world a MUCH more dangerous place.

This is a failure that cannot be allowed to happen. For this reason Iraq MUST BE a WORLD WIDE ISSUE Unfortunately the world is getting out in 2006. We will be left with this. The only way to turn it around is to show the world America acknowledges this Administration's Iraq Agenda was wrong. America has taken those first tentative steps. Next Congress and America must take the lead on 'fixing' Iraq.

America cannot survive anymore plans for victory.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Video: mercenaries randomly shooting Iraqi civilians

This is the sickest video I have seen in quite some time. Not in the visual atrocities, but the callous way these AMERICAN MERCS are arbitrarily killing Iraqis civilians.

No wonder 40% of Iraqis want Americans dead and the Insurgents find support in Iraq.

You Bush Republicans watch this and tell me there is a reason to justify this behavior. Bush this is what happens when you do not plan well because of incompetence.

Video: US mercenaries randomly shooting Iraqi civilians

Telegraph: "A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the Internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal."

The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis."

Video-WMP Video-QT

Active links at:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/4797673.html

MARC PARENT

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777

http://www.dailykos.com/user/ccnwon

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Blair pleaded with Bush NOT to bomb Al-Jazeera UNBELIEVABLE

Updated: 03:46 PM EST

Bush Talked of Bombing Al-Jazeera, Newspaper Reports

White House Dismisses 'Outlandish' Charge Reportedly in Leaked British Memo

By ROBERT BARR, AP

LONDON (Nov. 22) - A civil servant has been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.

J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Iraq war allies British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush met at the White House in April 2004.

Talk About It: Post Thoughts

The Daily Mirror reported that Bush spoke of targeting Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, when he met Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. The Bush administration has regularly accused Al-Jazeera of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for anti-American sentiments.

The Daily Mirror attributed its information to unidentified sources. One source, said to be in the government, was quoted as saying that the alleged threat was "humorous, not serious," but the newspaper quoted another source as saying that "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair."

Blair's office declined to comment on the report, stressing it never discusses leaked documents.

In Qatar, Al-Jazeera said it was aware of the report, but did not wish to comment.

The White House said it wouldn't dignify what it called "something so outlandish" with a response.

The document was described as a transcript of a conversation between the two leaders.

Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh is accused of passing it to Leo O'Connor, who formerly worked for former British lawmaker Tony Clarke. Both Keogh and O'Connor are scheduled to appear at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court next week.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Keogh was charged with an offense under Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act relating to "a damaging disclosure" by a servant of the Crown of information relating to international relations or information obtained from a state other than the United Kingdom.

O'Connor was charged under Section 5, which relates to receiving and disclosing illegally disclosed information.

According to the newspaper, Clarke returned the memo to Blair's office. Clarke did not respond to calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Getty
Al-Jazeera is headquartered in Doha, Qatar, as seen here. The U.S. says past strikes on the broadcaster's offices were not intentional.

April 2003: Al-Jazeera journalist was killed when its Baghdad office was struck by a U.S. bomb.

November 2002: Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul was destroyed by a U.S. missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time.

Press Association, the British news agency, said Clarke refused to discuss the contents of the document. PA quoted Clarke as saying his priority was to support O'Connor who did "exactly the right thing" in bringing it to his attention.

Peter Kilfoyle, a former defense minister in Blair's government, called for the document to be made public.

"I think they ought to clarify what exactly happened on this occasion," he said. "If it was the case that President Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera in what is after all a friendly country, it speaks volumes and it raises questions about subsequent attacks that took place on the press that wasn't embedded with coalition forces," the newspaper quoted Kilfoyle as saying.

Sir Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said Tuesday that, if true, the memo was worrying.

"If true, then this underlines the desperation of the Bush administration as events in Iraq began to spiral out of control," he said. "On this occasion, the prime minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."

Al-Jazeera offices in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hit by U.S. bombs or missiles, but each time the U.S. military said they were not intentionally targeting the broadcaster.

In April 2003, an Al-Jazeera journalist was killed when its Baghdad office was struck during a U.S. bombing campaign. Nabil Khoury, a State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike was a mistake.

In November 2002, Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a U.S. missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time. U.S. officials said they believed the target was a terrorist site and did not know it was Al-Jazeera's office.

11/22/05 12:39 EST

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Monday, November 21, 2005

IMPORTANT THERE IS A VIRUS SAYING IT IS A FBI EMAIL

This is a Virus Do Not open it. Delete Immediately! :

Department@fbi.gov

You visit illegal websites

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.

Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

*** Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
*** 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3220
*** Washington, DC 20535
*** phone: (202) 324-3000

Friday, November 18, 2005

Republicans want to cut and run!!!!!

Republicans want to cut and run!!!!!

Once again the republicans are all about an undefined plan for Iraq. Support the troops or else. Yet the Republicans are not supporting the troops by putting them in harms way under supported, under manned, and under no defined exit plan.

It is a stupid proposal. Leave Iraq to civil war chaos? Only an idiot would vote for such a vote. This is a bald face political maneuver.

Every one supports the troops. The Republicans once again are forcing the issue along lines of patriotism, rather than the actual process of a planned executable reduction and withdrawal of troops in Iraq.

It is the republicans who are calling for IMMEDIATE withdrawal. The Dems are calling for a draw down of troops to pre election levels followed by an orderly turnover of military control to the Iraqis. Isn't this what Bush has been saying all along?

The Troops Deserve better.

Bush says he is a war President.

So why is the Iraq war going so badly.

Whether you agree with the justification of the Iraq war or not, the majority of America now feels that the Iraq war is not going well. We need to fight this war the correct way, our troops deserve better.

Bush made pronouncements of Bring it On, It is better to fight Al qaida in Iraq than in America, and Mission Accomplished. Yet the body count continues to climb.

America supported Bush in his Iraq war. America believed the connection between Al qaida and Saddam. America believed that Saddam was an eventual threat to America. America believed Bush when he said Iraq had WMD's.

America invaded Iraq with the coalition of the willing. The Invasion of Iraq was a war of efficiency. That efficiency ended at Mission Accomplished.

The Bush Administration has made one bad decision after another. Most could have been avoided with simple common sense and well thought out planning.

You do not disband the police force and the military, if you do not have the troops to keep the peace.

You do not invade a country and occupy it with 1/3 of the troops recommended by war hardened generals.

You do not leave Ammo depots unguarded.

You do not invade without and the equipment the troops need to accomplish their mission and keep them alive.

You do not invade without a clear workable end plan and goals.

You do not invade with shifting rules of engagement, and untrained undisciplined National Guardsmen in positions of power and control.

You do not invade with your supply lines handled by for profit corporations with no accountability.

You do not invade with Intelligence that is based on lies from questionable sources, decades old or just plain wrong.

You do not invade with a shifting reason for invasion, from nuclear threat, to WMD's, to plans for WMD's, to potential to have WMD's, to a bad man, to a humanitarian action, to staying the mission, to 'if we leave now the troops who have died will be for nothing'.

You invade because you know beyond any doubt that a pre-emptive war MUST be fought. Because it is NOW an imminent threat to America, not a possible threat in the near or distant future.

You do not conspire to formulate reasons and arguments for invasion that the public will except. You tell them the truth, and let them decide.

You engage your enemy where they are. You do not provide targets of opportunity so they come to you. Al qaida was not in Iraq until AFTER Mission Accomplished.

The troops deserve better. They are risking their lives based on the honor and duty of preserving the values and safety of this country.

The troops deserve better than to be sent to war improperly equipped.

The troops deserve better than to be sent to war without leaders who know how to lead.

The troops deserve better than to die because of a 'war' President who does not know how to fight a war to win the battle and the peace.

America has had enough of seeing troops die as easy targets for our enemies, because of mismanagement by the White House.

America has had enough of seeing an administration that uses patriotism to blind others of justified questioning of the incompetence in the ill planned, ill conceived and ill executed war.

Mr. Bush our troops deserve better. If you cannot admit to this, if you cannot stop needlessly risking their lives, if you cannot better manage this war, then bring them home. This is not about surrender, this is not about retreat, this is not about cowardice. This is about American Men and Woman dying. This is not acceptable. Our troops deserve better.

IMHO Open Debate Forum