How many times do we need to be sold out to get the message?


US Demands Answers From Israel Over China Arms Sales .

The controversy flared over an Israeli deal to sell its Harpy Killer unmanned drone to China against Washington's express wishes.Jerusalem (AFP) Jun 12, 2005
A dispute between Israel and Washington over Israeli arms sales to China is deepening after months of US sanctions on joint military projects, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday.
Washington has demanded that its close ally Israel provide details of more than 60 recent security deals with China and its arms export trade in general, the newspaper reported on its front page.
In the interim, the United States has suspended cooperation with the Israeli air force on developing a new jet in the Joint Strike Fighter project and other high-tech military equipment used by ground troops.
Contact has also been "disrupted" at the top echelon between the Israeli defence ministry and the Pentagon, with Israeli phone calls not answered, the newspaper added.
The controversy flared over an Israeli deal to sell its Harpy Killer unmanned drone to China against Washington's express wishes.
Washington pressured Israel to scrap the deal to upgrade a consignment of drones which it had sold to China, for fear that advanced US defence technology contained in Israeli equipment could be used against Taiwan.
Pentagon officials were furious at the deal as the United States has come to regard China as the emerging rival to its status as the world's lone superpower.
But Israel's defence ministry refused to confirm or deny the Haaretz report.
"The ministry is holding discrete talks and working with the United States to clear up this misunderstanding, which it does not believe need to make public," spokeswoman Rachel Ashkenazi told AFP.

The sad part about this is I really don’t or should I say shouldn’t have to say a word, this speaks for itself but my question is this when will we the people speak?


Accused Terrorist Is Big GOP Donor
February 19, 2007 1:51 PM
Justin Rood Reports:

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) won't say what it plans to do with thousands of dollars in campaign donations it received from an accused terror financier.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari gave $15,250 to the NRCC since 2002, according to FEC records published on the Web site opensecrets.org.
On Friday, Alishtari pled not guilty to funding terrorism and other crimes, including financial fraud.
The NRCC is the main political group dedicated to helping the Republican party win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Reached Monday morning for comment, an NRCC spokeswoman declined to discuss the matter on the record.
The indictment against Alishtari unsealed in Manhattan federal court Friday charges him with providing material support to terrorists by transferring $152,000 between banks to allegedly be used to purchase night-vision goggles and other equipment needed for a terrorist training camp.
Alishtari, aka Michael Mixon, was paid for his efforts to collect and transfer the funds, which included $25,000 sent from a bank in New York to a bank in Montreal, Canada, the indictment alleges.
Police and FBI agents arrested Alishtari in New York City on Friday. A day earlier, agents raided his Ardsley, N.Y. home, according to the "Lower Hudson Journal News." When a reporter for the paper reached a woman claiming to be Alishtari's wife on Friday and informed her of the charges, she cried and said he was innocent, the paper reported.
The NRCC would not confirm it had received donations from Mr. Alishtari, or that he had received numerous awards from the organization, as is claimed by an online list of personal accomplishments that appears to have been posted by Mr. Alishtari.
The list says he was made a life member of the NRCC's "Inner Circle" and was named New York State Businessman of the Year by the group in 2003 and 2004.
The NRCC "Businessperson of the Year" fundraising campaign, which gave such "awards" to at least 1,900 GOP donors, has been derided as a telemarketing scam by political watchdogs.
Read Brian Ross' previous investigation on the NRCC's "Person of the Year" fundraising campaign.
The online list also claims Alishtari was appointed to the president's "USNRCC White House Business Advisory Group."
An archived Web site for one of Alishtari's companies, GlobalProtector.net, claims it had demonstrated a "Web filter" technology for officials at the Department of Defense's Miami, Fla.-based Southern Command (SouthCom), which coordinates U.S. military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean and oversees the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
SouthCom spokesman Steve Lucas would not confirm or deny any contacts between Alishtari and officials there. SouthCom personnel he spoke with said SouthCom does not use the company's software, and could not rule out the possibility they had received a sales pitch from him or another company representative.
A database of unclassified federal contracts at FedSpending.org does not show SouthCom or any other government branch awarded business to Alishtari's company.
A call to the telephone number which had been listed on GlobalProtector's site connects to a recorded message offering the caller to "spark up your days and nights" by calling a 1-800 phone chat line.

When W came to DC what did he bring with him other than his daddy's old cronies and their purse strings. Everything he had tried to do up to that point was a failure, he would screw up and the cavalry would ride in and all would be well. But not even they can cover up his failings this time around, so when people ask what can Obama bring I say a fresh perspective on our overall situation in the world as well as and even more so at home.


Obama Forged Political Mettle In Illinois Capitol

By Peter SlevinWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, February 9, 2007; A01

CHICAGO, Feb. 8 -- When Sen. Barack Obama heads downstate to Springfield on Saturday to announce his candidacy for president, he will speak in lofty tones of America and Abraham Lincoln, but also of a more prosaic topic: his own eight years in the Illinois Senate.
The heart of Obama's political résumé lies in Springfield, where he arrived in January 1997. He was a newcomer to elective politics after time as a community organizer and University of Chicago law professor operating largely outside the city's Democratic machine.
From a district on the South Side of Chicago, he reached Republican-dominated Springfield as a committed liberal, later writing that he understood politics in the capital "as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blind-side hit."
Yet he emerged as a leader while still in his 30s by developing a style former colleagues describe as methodical, inclusive and pragmatic. He cobbled together legislation with Republicans and conservative Democrats, making overtures other progressive politicians might consider distasteful.
Along the way, he played an important role in drafting bipartisan ethics legislation and health-care reform. He overcame law enforcement objections to codify changes designed to curb racial profiling and to make capital punishment, which he favors, more equitable.
"When you come in, especially as a freshman, and work on something like ethics reform, it's not necessarily a way to endear yourself to some of the veteran members of the Illinois General Assembly," said state Sen. Kirk W. Dillard, a Republican who became a friend. "And working on issues like racial profiling was contentious, but Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."
"He wasn't a maverick," said Cynthia Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "There were other legislators I would turn to if I just wanted to make a lot of noise. That wasn't his style."
Obama was a persistent foe of social conservatives on issues of reproductive rights. He was also a reliable vote for gun control and backed a ban on assault weapons, although he took a political hit from Democrats for missing an important gun vote while in Hawaii for the Christmas holidays.
In 1997, Obama was not instantly embraced, Dillard said: "The fact that he was a law professor -- and a constitutional-law professor -- and he was a Harvard graduate made many members of the General Assembly roll their eyes."
Obama went to work. Afterward, he played golf and pickup basketball. He made the social rounds at Springfield cocktail parties. He joined a weekly poker game with legislators and lobbyists in which the ante was a dollar or two.
One regular, former Democratic state senator Larry Walsh, said Obama was competitive yet careful -- and always hard to read.
"One night, we were playing and things weren't going very well for me," Walsh said. "I had a real good hand and Barack beat me out with another one. I slammed down my cards and said, 'Doggone it, Barack, if you were a little more liberal in your card playing and a little more conservative in your politics, you and I would get along a lot better.' "
The campaign finance effort came at the initiative of former U.S. senator Paul Simon (D-Ill.). A Republican and a Democrat in each legislative body were tapped to tighten a system that, among other things, allowed politicians to use campaign accounts for personal expenses.
Obama was given the job of representing Senate Democrats by state Sen. Emil Jones Jr., who chose him on the recommendation of Abner J. Mikva, a former judge and Democratic congressman.
"He was very aggressive when he first came to the Senate," said Jones, now president of the state Senate. "We were in the minority, but he said, 'I'd like to work hard. Any tough assignments or things you'd like me to be involved in, don't hesitate to give it to me.' "
Obama favored more ambitious changes in campaign law, including limits on contributions, but nipped and tucked in search of consensus.
"What impressed me about him was his ability in working with people of the opposite party," said Mike Lawrence, director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. "He had definite ideas about what ought to be contained in a campaign finance reform measure, but he also was willing to recognize that he was probably not going to get everything he wanted."
The result, according to good-government groups, was the most ambitious campaign reform in nearly 25 years, making Illinois one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure.
Five years later, Obama waded into a complex capital-punishment debate after a number of exonerations persuaded then-Gov. George Ryan (R) to empty death row.
Obama wrote in his recent memoir that he thinks the death penalty "does little to deter crime." But he supports capital punishment in cases "so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment."
In proposing changes, Obama met repeatedly with officials and advocates on all sides. He nudged and cajoled colleagues fearful of being branded soft on crime, as well as death-penalty opponents worried that any reform would weaken efforts to abolish capital punishment.
Obama's signature effort was a push for mandatory taping of interrogations and confessions. It was opposed by prosecutors, police organizations and Ryan's successor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who said it would impede investigators.
Working under the belief that no innocent defendant should end up on death row and no guilty one should go free, Obama helped get the bill approved by the Senate on a 58 to 0 vote. When Blagojevich reversed his position and signed it, Illinois became the first state to require taping by statute.
"Obviously, we didn't agree all the time, but he would always take suggestions when they were logical, and he was willing to listen to our point of view. And he offered his opinions in a lawyerly way," said Carl Hawkinson, the retired Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "When he spoke on the floor of the Senate, he spoke out of conviction. You knew that, whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him."
Obama paid a political price for missing an important vote on a crime package. That was during the 1999 Christmas holidays, as Obama -- who describes himself as suffering from "chronic restlessness" -- embarked on an ill-fated attempt to unseat Rep. Bobby Rush, a popular Chicago Democrat.
When the legislature was called into special session to vote on gun control, Obama and his family were visiting his grandmother in Hawaii. His 18-month-old daughter, Malia, was sick and unable to fly. The measure was narrowly defeated, and Rush criticized him. Obama lost by 31 points, his only electoral defeat.
"I take my legislative responsibilities extremely seriously," Obama said after the measure fell five votes short. "In the midst of a congressional race, I'm well aware of the potential risk of missing a vote, even if that vote doesn't wind up making the difference on a particular piece of legislation. But at some point, family has to come first."
Obama was a steady supporter of abortion rights, said Pam Sutherland, Planned Parenthood's chief lobbyist in Springfield, although he caught flak from the political left in 2004 as he ran for the U.S. Senate.
The reason was a series of votes on such issues as late-term abortion and parental notification when Obama voted "present" instead of yea or nay. He said he was not tacking toward the center, but an opponent in the Democratic primary sent mailers portraying a rubber duck and proclaiming, "He ducked!"
Obama said his votes helped provide cover for other legislators. Sutherland said the votes were part of a strategy designed with Obama's help to deny Republicans easy campaign sound bites.
"The Republicans loved to put out legislation all the time that would put their opponents in a trick box during the elections," Sutherland said. "It was a strong statement to those who promoted bad legislation that we're not going to take this; you can't use this against us."

So you think things have changed? Well think again.




Woman who miscarried after arrest sues
Driver arrested, held overnight; loses premature baby next day
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:11 a.m. ET Feb 1, 2007

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A woman who lost her premature baby a day after she was thrown in jail is suing the police department and two arresting officers who repeatedly ignored her pleas for medical help.
A police videotape released Tuesday shows Sofia Salva telling officers numerous times last Feb. 5 that she was pregnant, bleeding and needed to go to a hospital.
After the ninth request, the tape shows, a female officer asked: “How is that my problem?”
Salva was held overnight on traffic violations and outstanding city warrants. After being released the next morning, she delivered a premature baby boy who died immediately after birth, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Salva sued officers Melody Spencer and Kevin Schnell and the department for wrongful death, personal injuries and failure to provide medical assistance. Salva is seeking actual damages exceeding $25,000 and punitive damages.
“The officers went into this with a preconceived idea of who and what they were dealing with, and they were wrong,” said Salva’s attorney, Andrew Protzman.
The videotape was released to the media after The Kansas City Star requested it under Missouri’s open records law.
Police have opened an internal investigation, Capt. Rich Lockhart said.
“It’s a matter of trust. ... We want to make sure the community trusts us to get to the bottom of this regardless of the way it reflects on the police department,” Lockhart said.
No telephone numbers are listed for the two officers, and a representative of their union, the Kansas City Police Officers’ Association, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
Stopped for putting fake tag on carThe officers stopped Salva after they saw her placing a fake temporary tag on the back window of her car.
The tape shows Salva telling the officers she is having a miscarriage and is bleeding.
On the tape, an officer identified as Schnell, who has worked for the department for less than two years, walks away from the car and tells his partner: “She just gave me a line of excuses. She said she’s bleeding. She said you can check her.”
Salva said: “I’m three months pregnant and I’m bleeding.”
The officer identified as Spencer, a four-year veteran, replied: “OK. Why are you driving to the store and then putting a fake temporary tag in your car?”
“I took it because I want to go to the hospital,” Salva said.
The officers made Salva sit on the curb while they searched her car, purse and grocery bags.
Salva again told the officers she was bleeding and needed to go to a hospital.
“Well,” Spencer said, “that will be something you can take care of when we get done with you.”
The officers handcuffed Salva after learning she had outstanding warrants for mistreatment of children, trespassing and several traffic violations.
She again told Schnell she was bleeding.
“I don’t doubt that you’re possibly bleeding, but you got a lot more problems with us,” Schnell said.
No tapes were available of Salva’s time in the jail, but she contends in the lawsuit that her continued pleas for help were ignored. The department said videotapes from that period had been recycled before it became aware of Salva’s claims.




Biden's description of Obama draws scrutiny

Story Highlights• Biden called Obama first "clean" African-American candidate• Biden said comments were taken out of context• Obama not offended by comments but called them "historically inaccurate"• Jesse Jackson said comments were "highly suggestive" but not "off-color"

From Xuan Thai and Ted BarrettCNN Washington Bureau

Sen. Joe Biden planned to spend Wednesday focusing on his official announcement that he was running for president, but the Delaware Democrat instead found himself defending remarks he made to the New York Observer about his Democratic opponents.
In the article published Wednesday, Biden is quoted evaluating presidential rivals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. His remarks about Obama, the only African-American serving in the Senate, drew the most scrutiny.
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man." (Watch Biden's comments and Obama's reaction)
Biden issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying: "I deeply regret any offense my remark in the New York Observer might have caused anyone. That was not my intent and I expressed that to Sen. Obama."
Biden also spoke to reporters in a conference call Wednesday afternoon and said the remark was taken out of context.
"Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican Party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said on the call. "And he's fresh. He's new. He's smart. He's insightful. And I really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the world 'clean.'"
Biden said he was referring to a phrase used by his mother.
"My mother has an expression: clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack," Biden said.
Obama, in a brief off-camera interview in a Senate hallway, said he thinks Biden "didn't intend to offend" anyone.
"He called me," Obama said. "I told him it wasn't necessary. We have got more important things to worry about. We have got Iraq. We have got health care. We have got energy. This is low on the list."
"He was very gracious and I have no problem with Joe Biden," Obama added.
Later on Wednesday, Obama, in a written statement, said "I didn't take Sen. Biden's comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate. African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate."
Comment muddles launch of exploratory committee
Earlier in the day, Biden had officially filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to launch a presidential campaign. Biden ran for the White House in 1988, but pulled out of the race before the first votes were cast.
During the conference call, Biden told reporters he decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination because of his frustration with President Bush's stewardship of the country.
"I'm running because I believe this administration has dug a very deep hole in terms of both our foreign policy and domestic policy," Biden said.
But during the call, reporters kept returning to the issue of his remarks.
In addition to Obama downplaying the comments, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also ran for president in 1988, also said he did not think Biden was being racist. However, Jackson did say that he called Biden to talk to him about it.
"Knowing Joe Biden the way I do, I'm sure he didn't mean it as off-color, but it is certainly highly suggestive," Jackson said in an interview with CNN.
Biden has made other questionable comments. In a June 2006 appearance in New Hampshire, the senator commented on the growth of the Indian-American population in Delaware by saying, "You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. Oh, I'm not joking."
Two months later, responding to a question in an August interview on Fox News Sunday, Biden was asked how a "Northeast liberal" could compete against more conservative southern candidates.
"Better than everybody else. You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state," Biden said.
He repeated the comment during a visit to South Carolina in December 2006 at an event before the Columbia Rotary Club, according to a story published in The State newspaper. The State reported that Biden referred to Delaware as a "slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way."


Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plainSeeking a home where he himself is free.(America never was America to me.)Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--Let it be that great strong land of loveWhere never kings connive nor tyrants schemeThat any man be crushed by one above.(It never was America to me.)O, let my land be a land where LibertyIs crowned with no false patriotic wreath,But opportunity is real, and life is free,Equality is in the air we breathe.(There's never been equality for me,Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.I am the red man driven from the land,I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--And finding only the same old stupid planOf dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.I am the young man, full of strength and hope,Tangled in that ancient endless chainOf profit, power, gain, of grab the land!Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!Of work the men! Of take the pay!Of owning everything for one's own greed!I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.I am the worker sold to the machine.I am the Negro, servant to you all.I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--Hungry yet today despite the dream.Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!I am the man who never got ahead,The poorest worker bartered through the years.Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dreamIn the Old World while still a serf of kings,Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,That even yet its mighty daring singsIn every brick and stone, in every furrow turnedThat's made America the land it has become.O, I'm the man who sailed those early seasIn search of what I meant to be my home--For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,And torn from Black Africa's strand I cameTo build a "homeland of the free."The free?Who said the free? Not me?Surely not me? The millions on relief today?The millions shot down when we strike?The millions who have nothing for our pay?For all the dreams we've dreamedAnd all the songs we've sungAnd all the hopes we've heldAnd all the flags we've hung,The millions who have nothing for our pay--Except the dream that's almost dead today.O, let America be America again--The land that never has been yet--And yet must be--the land where every man is free.The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--Who made America,Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,Must bring back our mighty dream again.Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--The steel of freedom does not stain.From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,We must take back our land again,America!O, yes,I say it plain,America never was America to me,And yet I swear this oath--America will be!Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,We, the people, must redeemThe land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.The mountains and the endless plain--All, all the stretch of these great green states--And make America again!