The Breaking Strain By William Rivers Pitt t r u t...

Who really cares anymore?

I have had to take a break from all of this, the more I read, the more I listen to the politicians the worst shape I be leave we are in. Am I the only person paying attention to this crap? has anyone ever noticed that every time W and his crony’s have a little problem there's always some attack or something of the sort. I had a friend of mind tell me that he has no problem with sneak and peak, listen and don't tell, open your mail because he has nothing to hide, well I have nothing to hide but by the same token if I don't see thing as you see them am I un-American? or am I true to the founding fathers? to the point where I want to know what is going on around me.

'Nightline' Investigation: Wounded Soldiers Told They Owe Money to Army Troops Face Financial Crises After Learning Army Overpaid Them During Hospitalization By BRIAN ROSS Jan. 31, 2006 — - An update on Staff Sgt. Eugene Simpson follows at the bottom of this story . It was one of the thousands of roadside bombs in Iraq that paralyzed Staff Sgt. Eugene Simpson.” My first instinct was to jump farther back into the Humvee, you know, for protection," Simpson said. "But in doing that, I opened my back up to all the scrap metal and debris, which hit my spine and severed my spine, paralyzing me.” He was soon on a plane home. Fast-working, skilled Army doctors saved his life, as they have so many. Slow, bumbling Army bureaucrats would make his life miserable, as they have so many.” And the military basically is, like, they turn their back on you, you kind of feel that you've just been used," Simpson said. No Pay for Four Months It started with a phone call from his wife, home with their four children. She didn't have enough money to pay the bills.” And she was like, well, we haven't been paid," Simpson said. "And you know, instantly I was like, I don't know what to do. You know, I'm still in the hospital. I can't actually get up and go around and talk to these different people.” And until "Nightline" inquired at the Pentagon, Simpson said he could not find out what happened.” Every day is something different," he said. "Well, this person isn't in. I'll have them call you back, give it a couple days. Couple days go by, I call back, and well I got somebody else for you to talk to. And days lead to weeks, and weeks lead to months.” It turns out the Army had mistakenly continued to pay Simpson a combat duty bonus while he was in the hospital. He had been overpaid thousands of dollars, and the Army wanted the money back.” By law, he's not entitled to the money," said Col. Richard Shrank, "so he must pay it back.” Shrank said although that is the law, soldiers can apply for debt forgiveness if they believe the debt is a mistake. So far, more than 800 soldiers have done so. More than 600 of those requests have been granted, amounting to more than $600,000.So, the Army said it withheld the paralyzed soldier's pay until it got back the amount he owed -- with no advance notice, Simpson said.” Four months," he said. "I didn't get paid for four months.” An Ongoing Problem Simpson is not the only one. A study commissioned by the First Infantry Division estimated that eight out of 10 of its wounded soldiers from Iraq have gone through the same or a similar ordeal. Apt. Michael Hurst, now out of the Army, conducted the study.” You have to understand that these soldiers are suffering from incredible injuries, some of them have lost limbs, some of them may never walk again," Hurst said. "And in the midst of that struggle, to then get a paycheck for nothing really hurts morale.” And the Army can play tough to get its money back. In the case of Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who lost his leg in Iraq, he had just finished going through rehabilitation when the Army sent a letter threatening to ruin his credit and call in debt collectors. He had been overpaid by $2,200 while in the hospital, but, like most, never realized it. It took Kelly almost a year to cut through the red tape and get the debt forgiven.” Soldiers receive a paycheck and reasonably think that this is their accurate pay for the month," Hurst said. "And being in the situation they're in, having just been injured and in some cases spouses have to quit jobs in order to spend time at Walter Reed, many of these families are really hurting for funds. So a lot of that money gets spent right away.”‘ Failed Test’ The Government Accountability Office described the Army as having failed the test of taking care of its wounded from Iraq. The report concluded that the soldiers fighting to defend the nation have paid the price for that failure. Shrank disagreed, however. "No, I would not agree that we have failed the test, because we are making the fixes to bring it up to standard," he told "Nightline.” Shrank took over as commander of the United States Army Finance Command last summer to help fix the problem, a problem the GAO said had been ignored until the soldiers went public.” Nightline" asked when the problem was first realized and why it took so long to realize it.” We first realized it was a problem when it came into our view through many different channels," Shrank said. "You see it on [television], read about it in the papers. A soldier without a paycheck is a situation that nobody wants to see.” Shrank was asked if it had happened thousands of times. "I, no, I do not think thousands of times," he said. "It happened, one time is too many.” Shrank could not name an exact number, but the Army told "Nightline" that 5,549 soldiers, or about one out of five soldiers who were removed from battle for medical reasons later had payroll problems.’ Nobody Planned for This to Happen’” You know, as a West Pointer and as a leader in the Army that one of the main things that we're taught is when you have soldiers that you are responsible, you have to take care of them, you have to take care of their family," Hurst said.” And that's kind of the exchange that takes place between leaders and soldiers. And for a lot of these soldiers this is just a betrayal really. They feel abandoned, when they're in such a vulnerable position and their leaders aren't taking care of them.” Shrank said the process failed the soldiers, "but the leaders didn't fail the soldiers because we are making the changes to improve the processes to take care of our soldiers and their pay.” Shrank said he is not aware of anyone losing their command over the thousands of incidents. When asked if the problem could not have been anticipated, he said, "As we experienced taking care of pay for our wounded soldiers, we saw that the, what we had in place did not work. As I told you.” Well," he added, "nobody planned for this to happen.” Shrank said, "It was planning that did not meet the standard and the execution that we wanted to achieve.” Fixing the Problem Shrank said he's moving fast to fix the problem. There’s still no integrated payroll computer system, but now wounded soldiers are assigned a finance officer once they arrive at the Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany to help keep track of payroll changes and problems. And the colonel says wounded soldiers like Kelly will no longer be reported to credit agencies or have debt collectors go after them.” The soldiers have a right to feel that the system let 'em down," he said. 'And it did let them down. This, we know this. We see this. This is why we fixed the system.” Meanwhile, Simpson gave up trying to rectify the situation. "I mean, I've had people on the phone just flat out tell me, I can't help you, no need for you to call here anymore," he said. Shrank said for those like Simpson, "I would tell those soldiers that I care about them," he said, adding, "And I want to see that they received their proper pay.” In fact, he told "Nightline," he wants soldiers in this situation to call him. "Yes," Shrank said. "If that's what it takes, yes.” Update: Feb. 3, 2006 -- After this story aired on "Nightline," the Army immediately gave Eugene Simpson his long-awaited back pay. It will go a long way towards paying his bills. Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures


The Breaking Strain By William Rivers Pittt 21 December 2005

The framers of the Constitution devised an elaborate system of checks and balances to ensure our liberty by making sure that no person, institution or branch of government became so powerful that a tyranny could be established in the United States of America. Impeachment is one of the checks the framers gave the Congress to prevent the executive or judicial branches from becoming corrupt or tyrannical. - Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Opening Statement, Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, 10 December 1998A long time ago - before the Iraq invasion, before the elections in '02 and '04, before all the unprecedented governmental violations of trust we have discovered and endured - I wrote something for a book.” This is America," I wrote. "At bottom, America is a dream, an idea. You can take away all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - you can take all of that away, and the idea will still be there as pure and great as anything conceived by the human mind. I do very much believe that the idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When used properly, it can work wonders. That idea, that dream, is in mortal peril. You can still have all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - you can have all of that. But if you murder the idea that is America, you have murdered America itself in a way that ten thousand 9/11s could never do. No terrorist can destroy the ideals we hold dear. Only we can do that.”The breaking strain has been reached, and those ideals we hold so dear are indeed in mortal peril. The President of the United States of America has declared himself fully and completely above the law. The Constitution does not matter to him, nor do the Amendments. Laws passed to safeguard the American people from intrusive governmental invasion have been cast aside and ignored; simply because George W. Bush finds it meet to do so. Intolerable Impeachable. As has been widely reported, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens. He activated this program in 2002, and has since reauthorized the program thirty times. No one knows for sure exactly who in this country has unwittingly endured investigation by the powerful and secretive NSA. Cindy Sheehan? Patrick Fitzgerald? Joseph Wilson? Non-violent protest organizations? You? Me? No one knows, but the unanswered questions shake the existence of our democracy to its bones. It is not enough that Mr. Bush blew through the Fourth Amendment, which defends the citizenry from unreasonable searches and seizures. It isn't enough that Mr. Bush blew through the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a warrant from a special FISA court be obtained before such surveillance is undertaken. For the record, this special FISA court has granted more than 19,000 such warrants, and has denied exactly four. The worst part of this whole mess is the simple fact that Mr. Bush does not see anything wrong in this. This administration has steadfastly adhered to the idea that the Executive branch is supreme, beyond the bounds of the justice system and further empowered because we are "at war." Of course, Mr. Bush was careful to speak otherwise. For example, during a speech in Buffalo back in April of 2004, Bush said, "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. "We're talking about getting a court order, he said. We value the Constitution, he said Lies. Mr. Bush, in fact, brought the editors of the New York Times into the Oval Office to browbeat them into not running their story on these illegal NSA activities. "Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story - which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year - because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker," wrote columnist Jonathan Alter for Newsweek on Monday. "He insists he had 'legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.' But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing 'all necessary force' in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.” Intolerable. Impeachable. Even Attorney General Gonzales agrees with these sentiments. During his January 2005 confirmation hearings before Congress, Sen. Russ Feingold queried Gonzales on whether Mr. Bush has, "at least in theory, the authority to authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes simply because he's commander in chief?" Gonzales replied, "Senator, this president is not - I - it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."Mr. Gonzales, it appears, did not get the memo.Rep. John Conyers and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee have compiled a massively detailed, impeccably-researched report on the activities of this administration titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War." The report runs some 273 pages. A portion of the Executive Summary reads as follows: In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration. There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated a number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence. While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct, because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the Administration concerning these matters, more investigatory authority is needed before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses. This report was completed before the revelations of Bush-authorized domestic spying, and its release has added to the maelstrom. Upon issuance of the report, Rep. Conyers put forth three resolutions for consideration by the House of Representatives:H.RES.635 : Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.H.RES.636 : Censuring President George W. Bush for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of his Administration, for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958.H.RES.637 : Censuring Vice President Richard B. Cheney for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in the Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of the Administration and for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war. Columnist John Nichols offered an astute analysis of the meaning behind the Conyers report, the proffered resolutions, and their issuance on the heels of the NSA revelations. "The Conyers resolutions add a significant new twist to the debate about how to hold the administration to account," wrote Nichols. "Members of Congress have become increasingly aggressive in the criticism of the White House, with U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, saying Monday, and ‘Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous President. It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution.’” Even Republicans," continued Nichols, "including Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, are talking for the first time about mounting potentially serious investigations into abuses of power by the president. But Conyers is seeking to do much more than schedule a committee hearing, or even launch a formal inquiry. He is proposing that the Congress use all of the powers that are available to it to hold the president and vice president to account - up to and including the power to impeach the holders of the nation's most powerful positions and to remove them from office.” Many political pragmatists will tell you that impeachment is a pipe dream. If the God of the Righteous roared down from Heaven and denounced George W. Bush from the top of the Capitol dome, Republicans in Congress would denounce Him as a traitor, paint Him as standing against the troops, and accuse Him of aiding in the War on Christmas. In other words, the odds that enough Republican members of the House would turn against this administration and support impeachment are about as good as the odds of my cat winning next year's Kentucky Derby.Even if the odds are defied and impeachment hearings are successfully undertaken, one must go many steps down the ladder to find an official worthy of the office. Impeach Bush and you get Cheney. Impeach Cheney and you get Dennis Hastert. Impeach Hastert and you get Ted Stevens, the 82-year-old Senator from Alaska who recently threatened to resign from the Senate if funding for his "Bridge to Nowhere" was stripped and delivered to aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.Pragmatism is good, but hardly the point in this matter. We have gone far beyond consideration of the odds, of the smartest and safest course. This is not about Clintonian lies about sex, nor is it even about Nixonian spying on political appointees. In the simplest terms, we now have a self-appointed dictator occupying the highest office of the land. Of course, the catch-all excuse for these reprehensible actions is that Bush is protecting our freedoms against the terrorists. But if our freedoms are destroyed, what is left to protect? If the rule of law no longer has meaning, why bother? If that which makes this nation good and great is burned out from within, there is nothing left to defend.Calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush must be heeded, and the House must act. This must happen not because it is pragmatic, not because it stands a chance of succeeding. This must happen because the issues at hand demand it. If we as a nation do not impeach a sitting President for such a vast array of blatantly illegal activities, activities directed at the American people themselves, then as a nation of laws we have lost our way. We have no meaning. We are finished, and the ideals for which so many have served and fought and died are ashes.Intolerable. Impeachable.William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.Intel pros say Bush is lying about foiling 2002 terror attack (06:56) -Outraged intelligence professionals say President George W. Bush is "cheapening" and "politicizing" their work with claims the United States foiled a planned terrorist attack against Los Angeles in 2002. "The President has cheapened the entire intelligence community by dragging us into his fantasy world," says a longtime field operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. "He is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited informant who told us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions in New York and Washington."Iraq Soldiers Speak Out Supporting MurthaOn January 5, 2006, Congressman Murtha held a town hall meeting with Cong. Jim Moran (D-VA 08).The soldier who asked the first question served in Afghanistan and said that morale among troops is high and that he would gladly serve in Iraq today. His comment was the only one replayed by Fox News the next day.But the majority of soldiers in attendance spoke out against the current policy. Fox News did not broadcast their remarks.

Here are some excerpts.John Brumes, Infantry Sgt. US Army:Everything that the Bush Adminstration told us about that mission in Iraq is absolutely incorrect. Furthermore, I'd like to say ... I came home to no job, no health insurance. Until we take care of this war, we can't take care of the problems that matter like health care.I've witnessed both ends... Congressman Murtha, I implore you to keep doing what you're doing.

John Powers, Capt. 1st Armored Division, served 12 months in Iraq:The thing that hits me the most is the accountability. ... Where is the accountability for those men [who took us to war], as well as where is the accountability for Paul Bremmer, who misplaced millions of dollars and claims to keep accountability in the war zone?... I know that if we lost $500 we would be court marshaled. So where is the accountability for this leadership?

Garin Reppenhagen, served as a sniper in Iraq for a year in the First Infantry Division:My question is also about accountability. The soldiers that you see, Congressman Murtha, at the hospitals... those are my friends. After coming back, being a veteran, my question is why? Why did we go to this war, why the hell did it happen, why are we in this condition. A lot of soldiers are debating whether this war was fraudulent to begin with. And there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. A lot of Americans now are debating the fact over whether or not the war was fraudulent in the first place. How come there hasn't been an investigation on the fraudulent lead up to the war by this Administration?

C-SPAN has the full broadcasthere.The Gun is Smoking - 2004 Ohio Precinct-Level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote MiscountThe National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data. NEDA's analysis provides virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount.(PRWEB) January 17, 2006 -- There is significant controversy about whether the 2004 presidential election was conducted fairly and its votes counted correctly. According to results of the major national election exit poll conducted for the National Election Pool by Edison/Mitofsky (E/M), Kerry won Ohio's pivotal vote, though the official tally gave the state, and thus the presidency, to Bush. The conduct of Ohio's election was formally debated by Congress in January 2005. The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf. NEDA's analysis provides significant evidence of an outcome-altering vote miscount. The analysis is based on the most accurate statistical method yet devised for determining whether exit poll error, random variations, or vote count manipulation cause the discrepancies between exit polls and official vote tallies. This analysis method was made public recently by NEDA in "Vote Miscounts or Exit Poll Error? New Mathematical Function for Analyzing Exit Poll Discrepancy" available at http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit-Poll-Analysis.pdfExit Polls were conducted in 49 of Ohio’s 11,360 precincts. At least 40% of Ohio's polled precincts show statistically significant differences between Kerry’s exit poll percent and official vote count percent. 35% of these exit polls overestimated the Kerry official vote share. This is five times the number expected. Three of the most glaring examples are:1. In E/M precinct 27, with an estimated 100 respondents, Kerry’s official vote count was 29% less than his exit poll share, creating a 58% difference between Kerry and Bush exit poll and official vote margins. There is less than a one in 867,205,500 chance of this occurring due to chance.2. In E/M precinct 25, with an estimated 62 respondents, Kerry’s official vote count was 28% less than his exit poll share, creating a 56% difference between Kerry and Bush exit poll and official vote margins. There is less than a one in 234,800 chance of this occurring due to chance.3. In E/M precinct 48, with an estimated 100 respondents, Kerry's official vote was 16% less than his exit poll share, creating a 32% difference between Kerry and Bush exit poll and official vote margins. There is less than a one in 17,800 chance of this occurring due to chance.There are also two precincts where the Bush official vote count is significantly less than the Bush exit poll share. The number of significant discrepancies and the pattern of Ohio's discrepancy shown in the NEDA report provide strong support for the conclusion that vote count errors converted a Kerry win to a Bush win.New electronic voting equipment without voter verified paper ballots, implemented under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, makes it easier for a small number of people to manipulate vote counts and nearly impossible to independently audit vote count accuracy. Virtually every county in America today publicly reports its vote counts in a way that hides evidence of miscounts. This allows those with access (whether authorized or not) to manipulate or make mistakes in vote counting with negligible possibility of detection.Without accurate elections, America is not a democracy. NEDA urges the media to publicize the results of this report and its recommendations, in order to return to the American people their right to determine the country’s leaders.About the National Election Data ArchiveThe National Election Data Archive is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to scientifically investigate the accuracy of elections through the creation and analysis of a database containing precinct-level vote-type election data for the entire United States. By making detailed election data publicly available NEDA furthers its goal of providing the means for independent analysts to evaluate the accuracy of vote counts in time to ensure that properly elected candidates are sworn into office following future elections.