Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government
22 Aug 2008
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McCain To Pick Ronald Reagan As VP By R J Shulman 22 Aug 2008 Bucking all of the predictions regarding his choice of a running mate, Senator John McCain will choose Ronald Reagan to run as his Vice President, the Post Times Sun Dispatch learned today. "This is a brilliant move," said Charles Scniender, a strategist for the Republican Party, "as it will bring all the conservatives and Reagan Democrats to the polls to vote for McCain."

"This is as far as I go, John. You're on your own from here." McCain follows bin Laden to the Gates of Hell By Mark Yannone 22 Aug 2008

'Ohio will continue to use the Premier machines in the Nov. 4 election.' Diebold acknowledges voting machine error that may cause votes to be dropped [Three words: Sledgehammer. Swing hard.] 21 Aug 2008 A major voting machine maker [Diebold] has cautioned its customers in 34 states to look out for a programming error that may cause votes to be dropped. At least 1,000 total votes were dropped in nine Ohio counties over the course of a handful 'elections' back to 2006, including the March presidential primary... Premier Election Solutions Inc. previously had said complications with antivirus software caused the problem, but on Tuesday the company said in a product advisory that the problem is with the machines themselves. [The problem is with those *programming* the machines.] Allen, Texas-based Premier, a unit of North Canton-based Diebold Inc., supplies touch-screen voting systems as well as scanners for paper ballots.

'Scores' of Afghans dead in US raid 22 Aug 2008 Afghanistan' s interior ministry says US-led forces killed 76 civilians in an operation on Wednesday in the west of the country. The ministry issued a statement on Friday, saying: "Seventy-six people, all civilians and most of them women and children, were martyred during the operation by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province. Nineteen women, seven men and the rest children all under 15 years of age," were killed in the operation, the statement said. The ministry confirmed it would be one of the highest civilian deaths tolls in the battle against the Taliban since they were ousted from power [?] during the 2001 US-led invasion.

55 pc of French want their troops out of Afghanistan 23 Aug 2008 A majority of French people want their troops pulled out of Afghanistan, a poll suggested on Friday, days after an ambush there killed 10 French soldiers. A survey in Le Parisien daily showed 55 percent of respondents think France should leave the NATO mission fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, compared to 36 percent who say they should remain following Monday's bloody attack.

Iraq, U.S. eye troops withdrawal by end of 2011 22 Aug 2008 Iraq and the U.S. negotiators have reached a draft agreement on a proposed withdrawal timetable [Oh. I thought McBush decried the nefarious 'timetable?' ] and other issues on the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, CNN reported Friday. Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Hamoud, who is also Iraq's chief negotiator, told the channel that the U.S. troops would completely pull out by the end of 2011.

Activists sail to bust Israeli sea blockade on Gaza 22 Aug 2008 International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza. The 44 activists sailed from the port of Larnaca in two wooden boats at 9:50 a.m. (7:50 a.m. British time). Hailing from 14 countries, they said they expected to reach the shores of Gaza, patrolled by the Israeli navy, on Saturday.

France and U.S. Say Russia Not Complying With Cease-fire 22 Aug 2008 Russian tanks and troops swept along main highways out of Georgia on Friday, abandoning the main military camp and checkpoints outside Gori. On Friday night Russia declared its withdrawal complete and said it was in full compliance with a cease-fire agreement, but the United States and France immediately voiced strong objections, saying Russia had not gone far enough.

U.S. Navy Ships Head to Georgia 21 Aug 2008 Two U.S. Navy ships, including a guided missile destroyer USS McFaul, and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter are getting underway to transport 'humanitarian' assistance supplies to Georgia, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said on August 21. It said USS McFaul (DDG 74) departed from Souda Bay, Crete, on Wednesday and the cutter Dallas (WHEC 716) will depart later this week.

Government loses Guantanamo ruling 21 Aug 2008 The UK Government must disclose information relating to a Briton held at Guantanamo Bay. He says it supports his case that evidence against him was obtained through torture. Two judges in the High Court in London said today that they concluded that the Foreign Secretary was under a duty to "disclose in confidence" to Binyam Mohamed's legal advisers in Guantanamo Bay certain information relating specifically to him and "which is not only necessary but essential for his defence". Mohamed is facing US military 'trial' and possibly the death penalty if found guilty.

CIA Statement: Hardly "The Way of the World" (CIA) 22 Aug 2008 In his book, "The Way of the World," author Ron Suskind makes some serious charges about the CIA and Iraq. As Agency officers current and former have made clear, those charges are false. More than that, they are not in keeping with the way CIA works. In fact, they are profoundly offensive to the men and women who serve here, as they should be to all Americans.

Predator Drone On L.I. Sparks Terror Investigation --Investigators said the drone was being designed to carry 600 pounds of explosives 22 Aug 2008 A predator drone being built by an engineer on Long Island sparked a large counter-terrorism investigation across the New York area, officials tell WNBC.com. Police said they had stumbled upon overnight testing of the drone at a little-used airstrip in Calverton, Long Island.

Carnaby had no drugs, alcohol in his system --Man who claimed to be CIA agent shot after fleeing police 21 Aug 2008 A man who held himself out as a CIA agent and led [?] Houston police on a lengthy chase before being shot when he exited his vehicle had no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system, according to autopsy results released Thursday. Roland Vincent Carnaby, 52, was killed by a single gunshot to the back that pierced his spine and caused massive internal damage.

NIST explains the near-free-fall collapse of WTC Building 7 What does a lying government look like? By Mark Yannone 21 Aug 2008 In case you missed it, here are three views of WTC7 collapsing on 9/11. When the public saw the video evidence and heard the recorded testimony of eyewitnesses, they claimed that WTC7 was brought down with explosives in a controlled demolition and demanded an immediate investigation. .. The laughter at the government's explanations never stopped, so they did a three-year study.

Universities try to control students off campus 22 Aug 2008 A growing number of universities are starting to take a more proactive approach to monitoring off-campus behavior... The University of Washington now enforces its campus behavior code off campus as well. A student doesn't need to be charged with a violent crime to activate the campus code at this Seattle university. Being cited for breaking the city's noise regulations is enough to score an invite to the student conduct office. The legal ramifications of these policies are not entirely known, said Sheldon Steinbach, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who formerly worked for many years with the American Council on Education, representing school presidents from 1,800 colleges and universities.

DNC Police Bulletin: People With City Maps Could Be Planning Violence --Leaked instructions to Denver police outline indicators of potential violent protesters By Steve Watson 21 Aug 2008 The ACLU has obtained a leaked copy of a Denver Police Department bulletin which advises officers that violent protesters at the upcoming Democratic National Convention may be identified from their use of hand held radios, bikes, maps and "camping information. " The bulletin provides a "watch list" of items that police are to associate with violent protesters, describing some items as "caches of supplies that could be used by violent demonstrators. " Other items on the list include baseball catch protectors, football helmets, plastic shields, gas masks and protest sign handles.

Swift Boaters and the Housing Crisis By Mary Kane 21 Aug 2008 ...The Big Picture says that 51 former IndyMac employees sent a letter to the California Attorney General's office, requesting an investigation into Democratic Senator Charles Schumer's role in possibly causing the bank's failure. Schumer sent a letter in June to federal regulators questioning the financial stability of IndyMac, a troubled subprime lender hit hard by the mortgage crisis. Shortly after the letter was made public, the bank experienced a run by account holders. The FDIC took over IndyMac on July 11, and it became the third-biggest bank failure in American history... Who is behind this "groundswell" of (former) IndyMac workers? It turns out that the employee letter was distributed to the media by CRC Public Relations -- yes, the group whose clients include the National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee. And, CRC was the PR firm behind the company that published a book questioning 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service on a swift boat.

Powder at McCain offices not hazardous 22 Aug 2008 With the Democratic National Convention just days away, a white-powder scare resolved quickly this afternoon, when the return address led federal agents to an inmate in the Arapahoe County Detention Facility. Within hours of the 3 p.m. scare the Centennial campaign office of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, authorities announced that the powder was phony and that the writer appeared to be Marc Harold Ramsey.

Two McCain offices evacuated after letter threat --Several Colo. staffers hospitalized 21 Aug 2008 Two offices of John McCain's U.S. presidential campaign, in Colorado and New Hampshire, were evacuated on Thursday, and several staffers were hospitalized, after a threatening letter arrived in the mail containing an unidentified white powder. But within hours, the letter was traced by authorities to a Colorado jail inmate... and initial tests of the envelope and its contents turned up negative for hazardous materials, the U.S. Secret Service said. The New Hampshire scare over a second envelope there was later deemed to be an unrelated incident brought about by anxiety over the threatening letter received in Colorado. [The "threats" deflected attention from McBush's latest set of "We need a draft" and "I don't know how many houses I own" gaffes.]

Top 10 Dumbest John McCain Quotes --Idiotic Pronouncements, Gaffes, and Brain Lapses by John McCain By Daniel Kurtzman 21 Aug 2008 10. "I was looking at the Sturgis schedule, and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip." --on the annual Miss Buffalo Chip Pageant, which features topless (and occasionally bottomless) contestants, Sturgis, South Dakota, Aug. 4, 2008.

And None Dare Call It Treason By Pat Buchanan 22 Aug 2008 Who is Randy Scheunemann? He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States... He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man. From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 -- pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili. What were Mikheil's marching orders to Tbilisi's man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia. Scheunemann came close to succeeding.

A grim forecast for heating costs --Report warns that average 2009 oil bill for Mass. household could top $3,000 21 Aug 2008 Massachusetts residents who heat their homes with natural gas or oil could end up paying nearly $1 billion more this year than they did in 2007, about a 30 percent increase, according to a University of Massachusetts report set to be released today. [Start taking over Exxon Mobil's corporate offices - what are we *waiting for?*]

Protections Set for Antiabortion Health Workers --Opponents Denounce Proposed Regulation Allowing Federal Officials to Pull Funding 22 Aug 2008 The Bush regime yesterday announced plans to implement a controversial regulation designed to protect doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who object to abortion from being forced to deliver services that violate their personal beliefs. The rule empowers federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors' offices and other entities if they do not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable on personal, moral or religious grounds.

Polar bears found swimming miles from Alaskan coast 22 Aug 2008 An aerial survey by government scientists in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea this week found at least nine polar bears swimming in open water -- with one at least 60 miles from shore -- raising concern among wildlife experts about their survival. Geoff York, the polar bear coordinator for WWF's Arctic Programme, said that when polar bears swim so far from land, they could have difficulty making it safely to shore and are at risk of drowning, particularly if a storm arises.

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Previous lead stories: New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers --New guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps 'without any basis for suspicion.' 20 Aug 2008 A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations. Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.

Pentagon can't find $2.3 trillion, wasting trillions on 'national defense' --'America's Outrageous War Economy!' By Paul B. Farrell 18 Aug 2008 We've lost our moral compass: The contrast between today's leaders and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 shocks our conscience. Today war greed trumps morals. During the Revolutionary War our leaders risked their lives and fortunes; many lost both. Today it's the opposite: Too often our leaders' main goal is not public service but a ticket to building a personal fortune in the new "America's Outrageous War Economy," often by simply becoming a high-priced lobbyist.

MI5 colluded in torture of British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, says High Court 21 Aug 2008 MI5 colluded in the interrogation of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, the High Court has ruled. The High Court said the role of the Security Service during the questioning of Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan went far beyond that of a by-stander. Lord Justice Thomas said the court had concluded that the conduct of the Security Service "facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the United States when BM was being detained by the United States incommunicado and without access to a lawyer in Pakistan in the period April 2002 until at least 17 May 2002 when he was seen by an officer of the Security Service". Under the law of Pakistan, he said, "that detention was unlawful".

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