(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

1. Listen to George Gallaway's fucking awesome smackdown of the US Senators HERE. Read the transcript HERE.

British lawmaker George Galloway claimed victory over a U.S. Senate committee which accused him of profiting from the Iraq oil-for-food program in a triumphant speech to supporters on Wednesday.

"We blew them away," an emotional Galloway told a rally in London after giving evidence to the panel examining how former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein used oil to reward politicians.

"From the emails and feedback we've had from all over the world it is true undoubtedly that there was a worldwide audience out there waiting for someone to speak the truth to power," he added.

The U.S. Senate committee had released documents it said showed Saddam gave Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the defunct humanitarian program.

Galloway defiantly rejected the evidence and condemned the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in an unusually robust performance before a Senate committee.

He returned to a hero's welcome from supporters at a rally in central London and appeared close to tears as he made his way through a scrum of photographers.


2. Early Version of New Patriot Act Gives Administration Everything It Asks for, GOP Aides Say

Opponents of expanding the Patriot Act said Roberts' proposal would amount to an expansive wish list for the administration.

"While we're fighting to bring provisions ... back into balance with the Bill of Rights, here we have the intelligence committee moving to give the government more power outside the judicial system to gain access to records of Americans," said former GOP Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a critic of the law.

Lisa Graves, the American Civil Liberties Union's senior counsel for legislative strategy, said the new subpoena power would "be a dramatic expansion of secret search powers."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other administration officials have been adamant that the expiring provisions become permanent, with few changes.

3. PNAC PNAC. Who is there?

The latest Orwellian contraption, the Iran Freedom and Support Act, brought to you by Rick "Anal Sex Effluvia" Santorum:

The U.S. Congress has decided to support efforts to overthrow the Islamic regime in Iran.

A bill has been introduced in the Senate that would support the opposition in Iran. The legislation, termed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, would require that the United States work to ensure a referendum in Iran on the type of regime sought by the people.

The legislation was introduced by Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican and a member of the GOP leadership in the Senate. Santorum has served as chairman of the Republican Conference and the third-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership.

In a statement, Santorum said Iran has been linked to strikes against U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and Al Qaida attacks against civilians in Saudi Arabia in 2004. The United States has never blamed Iran for Al Qaida's campaign in Saudi Araiba.

[Seriously, listen to Gallaway's speech excerpt. I know it shouldn't be shocking in a heart-racing way to hear someone speak the truth in a public forum, but apparently it is. Makes you feel a little light-headed like country air after you first get out of the city.]

Comments

[apathyfabulous.livejournal.com]

As a Minnesotan, I can promise you that Senator Norm Coleman is as shady and dirty as any politician in history. The only fucking reason he was elected was that Wellstone died in a suspicious plane crash a week or two prior to the election.

Damn, this stuff pisses me off so fucking much...

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

i read some speculation yesterday that Coleman is so bad that he is, in fact, a subversive whose goal is to undermine the right-wing repubs by making their public face as ugly and visible as possible. any chance in hell that it's true?

[apathyfabulous.livejournal.com]

Ha!

I wish.

In mn, the dem's are not just dems but the Minnesota democratic farmer and laborer party. The party has some very deep ties to early labor rights, socialist, and feminist movements. It is insanely dominant in the state, which makes it very comfortable and welcoming to liberals.

Coleman is a slimy career politician. He started out in the MDFL party, but switched sides when he realized he could a) win the mayor seat in st. paul, and b) play a major role with major payola in the feeble mn republican circles. So he went for the power and payola. At that point, he got noticed as a centrist middle American republican politician making moves in a dem dominated area. He got a pretty strong republican backing and was seen as the poster boy of the new mn republicans.

When he took the office of mayor, he promised he would not run for another office during his term. Less than half way through he ran for gov. and lost. When his term was ending he decided to run against Paul Wellstone for the senate seat. Wellstone was reveared as a god of liberal mn politics and was seen as a definite win. The national republican powerhouse threw massive amounts of money at Coleman for both the gov. race and the senate race. Since he lost the gov race, the senate was a must win. He was clearly going to lose, but suddenly Wellstone dies in a tragic plane crash two weeks prior to the election. Mondale steps up to run against Coleman as a last ditch effort and Coleman still wins by a none too impressive margin. He quickly becomes a party attack dog. He has basically been groomed to be a possible presidential candidate by the republican since he switched teams and ran for mayor for st paul. He is supposedly very close to Bush.

The red herring tactics he used in the review panel are indicative of his general M.O. If you look into his past, his business dealings and persona life are extremely shady. He is married and has a daughter but his wife and daughter don’t even live in the same state as him. He has a secret woman on the side that is very hush hush and very rarely his wife and daughter are paid off to make a brief campaign appearance and pretend they are a happy family.

Being that he bankrupted the city of st. paul by investing in unsustainable and costly initiatives like new stadiums and entertainment districts, I'd place him strictly in the "power and money at all costs" category of politician. He is willing to do enough to be seen as a man that is doing something and making moves without actually bettering the people he is supposedly serving. Lets us watch and see if he is on a presidential or vp ticket within the next few elections...

[convivium.livejournal.com]

Galloway's testimony was indeed brilliant, and felt like some small vindication for those of us who put our professional credibility on the line to make the same arguments he has over the last several years.

Thanks for posting re. the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which has been discussed as a possibility for some time now. Its passage is a very ominous development. As I probably don't need to remind you, it has a precedent in the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.4655.ENR:), which established regime change in Iraq--under the guise of "democratization"--as official U.S. policy. The ILA was largely the result of efforts by the con man-with-nine-lives, Ahmed Chalabi (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/chal-a30.shtml), whose Iraqi National Congress received tens of millions of dollars as a result, which it then used to spoonfeed transparent propaganda to the likes of Judith Miller of the New York Times, as well as the INC's neocon cheerleaders.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

galloway was also on charlie rose's program monday night. rose attempted to push galloway into his (rose's) usual neocon-lite boxes, and was getting more and more annoyed (frequent interruptions) with galloway's answers.

p.s., on democracy now's site, they spelled his name "galloway", so i've used that spelling here.

[pdanielson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I watched that this morning. I hope it gets broadcast and re-broadcast all over the place for the next few months.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

If only I had greater respect for the source. Galloway is widely considered a near-loon and self-promoting schmuck by my friends in the UK, and his history is, at best, complex.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I know that Gallaway had his name dragged through the mud, especially after that interview he did in, I believe, Abu Dhabi, but he was expelled from the party for things with which I absulutely agree--his encouragement of troops to disobey illegal orders (and while the war can be "legalized" within the countries who are interested in waging it, it is illegal by international standards), his comparison of Bush and Blair to "wolves" and the rest of his rhetoric that I share absolutely. He has always interested me as a public person, and he strikes me as someone with an incredible amount of passion and integrity, who has been an object of libel and slander for his efforts. So, despite the fact that in the 1970s he actively and vocally protested against the sales of arms to Saddam Husein, his opponents called him a Saddam supporter because of his visits to Baghdad; as he correctly put it yesterday, he visited Baghdad to negociate benefits for the Iraqis, while Donald Rumsfeld visited Baghdad to sell Saddam Husein weapons. If I remember correctly, he is suing the Telegraph for libel because it ran a story that he was on Saddam's payroll, and he is going to win the lawsuit, too, because the Christian Monitor already had to retract a similar story and to issue a public apology for it.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

he is going to win the lawsuit

Actually he already won (unless you're referring to a subsequent suit).

I should have made it clear that my UK friends who are dismissive of Galloway are, for the most part, semitypical Guardian-reader types who agree with most of his politics, but can't stand him as a human being. His actions seem to open to a wide variety of interpretations. I don't have enough exposure to him (eg I've never seen him speak) to have a firsthand interpretation, but my friends' accumulated opinions carry enough weight with me that I'm very suspicious.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

whoo, in re: new patriot act -- if Bob Barr is agin it, it's bad. Barr is a certified Right Wing Nutcase, and that's frightening.

Good call...

[vertigo1021.livejournal.com]

...on the linkage of Gallaway's testimony. Do you know if the Daily Show has done anything with that footage yet?

It *is* rare when you see someone so bold enough to challenge those who sit in the places of authority/power. After checking out that footage Tuesday afternoon I have three things to say about that man: He has a pair, They are big, and they are most likely made of brass. Of particular note was the section where Carl Levin kept pressing Mr Gallaway to pronounce that it would "trouble" him if his acquaintance had dealings in Iraqi oil. The juxtaposition of being pressed for "concern" over that point of fact when weighed against the lack of ethics, legitimacy and legality re: US policy in Iraq was quite amusing. Quite impressive all around.

Also, not sure if you caught it or not, but additional stories came out that very morning, (London Daily Telegraph?) showing that the United States itself was the largest violator of the UN Food for Oil Programme in Iraq. (52% us, 48% all the other nations of the world)

[spawnsong.livejournal.com]

"I know it shouldn't be shocking in a heart-racing way to hear someone speak the truth in a public forum, but apparently it is"

...i imagine that kind of forceful eloquence falling on deaf ears, as it surely did, and it makes me rather sad actually.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

it's too much like the response to the completely ignored and much more serious and significant "downing street" memo. 1) the mass media in the u.s. refuse to mention it, and 2) the majority in congress refuses to hold the criminals accountable. if either one did its job then the other would have to do its job. when both refuse to mention it, both can get away with their lack of principles and ignoring their responsibilities.

may interest you:

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to your post, but this may interest you:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cd6cfbd4-c75c-11d9-9765-00000e2511c8.html