Wikileaks newest: US spys on it's allies.

Once again Wikileaks has released hundreds of thousands of pages, many that were classified secret, to the NYT, DerSpeigel, UK's The Guardian and a couple other foreign news sources. Some of the releases (roughly 9000 documents/cables)  are from as early as Feb of this year, meaning they will affect the Obama Administration and of course...Hillary Clinton, per TruthOut's analysis.   From The Guardian writeup (all emphasis mine):

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog", Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia" while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

Other revelations include a description of a near "environmental disaster" last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

*snip*

Topics covered range from the technical detail of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, to an intimate personality profile of Colonel Gaddaffi, the eccentric Libyan dictator, who they say is nowadays accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

The cables cover secretary of state Hillary Clinton's work under the Obama administration, as well as thousands of files from the Bush presidency.Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

The White House, via the State Department released the usual condemnation of the leaks, stating the usual reasons:

The state department's legal adviser has written to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that publication would place at risk "the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and cooperation between countries".

Oh hell yeah the 'cooperation between countries' will be compromised and possibly damaged as it shows how the US really trusts no one, spies on everyone and relies on that old adage: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Wikileaks has said they will redact certain names to protect the innocent...or perhaps to protect the guilty..hard to say...but all the news agencies have said they will do the same as well. More from The Guardian writeup, which discusses our spying on everyone and every country:

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".

You can go to The Gaurdian's site here and download key data from the embassy cables and wade through them yourself or read the NYT's seven plus page synopsis here.  Why in the blue hell do they need some of that shit, especially on our so-called allies? The cold-war never ended it seems...no matter what the fuckers in DC tell us.

Bill Clinton's donor list is out...and it is a doozy.

Read it here (high traffic warning) all 2,922 pages of it. From Politico, some of the highlights..or lowlights depending on your pov:

Josh Gerstein, the of the now-defunct New York Sun, reported from Little Rock, Ark., in 2004: “President Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen. The governments of Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week. … Information about the donors is available to the public on a single touch-screen computer mounted on a wall on the third floor of the recently opened library.”

AP's Beth Fouhy and Sharon Theimer reported this morning: “Former President Bill Clinton's foundation has raised at least $41 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica.”

The story did not point out that the Saudis gave at least $1 million to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Tex., along with elaborate gifts that included gold and silver camels.

The Politico piece also has a list of the top 18 contributors:

Greater than $25,000,000
The Children's Investment Fund Foundation
UNITAID

$10,000,001 to $25,000,000
AUSAID
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Stephen L. Bing
COPRESIDA-Secretariado Tecnico
Fred Eychaner
Frank Giustra, Chief Executive Officer, The Radcliffe Foundation
Tom Golisano
The Hunter Foundation
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The ELMA Foundation
Theodore W. Waitt

$5,000,001 to $10,000,000
Government of Norway
Nationale Postcode Loterij
Haim Saban and The Saban Family Foundation
Michael Schumacher
The Wasserman Foundation

It's a trip m'dear reader...and lots of fall-out (read as shit) will be sure to hit the fan for the rest of the week on the Saudi connections I bet, since Hillary will spend lots of time talking to those folks...bet on it.

Tags: Bill Clinton donor list

28 Senators said no to the FISA bill today.

We should tell them thank you. We should be able to trust that they understand the rule of law and how important our Constitution is.

Obama voted with the heathens to allow warrantless wiretapping and Telco Immunity.

Hillary Clinton voted no and supported Feingold and Dodd. From TPM muckraker:

Moments before the final vote, a handful of senators voted to filibuster the vote, including Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Tom Harkin of Iowa.

So what does that mean? It means that the nations largest telecom companies no longer have to worry about a batch of multi-million lawsuits filed by customers angered that the companies turned over their personal information to the government without a warrant.

It also means that if you are at home making an overseas phone call to a suspected terrorist, the government can monitor that call without a warrant.

Perhaps its just my usual 'kneejerk' reaction but I applaud Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy and Tom Harkin for standing their ground on this most heinous bullshit.

Obama can kiss my hairy ass at this point, he looks like all the other sell-outs that voted to destroy our civil rights and grant the fucking Telco's immunity from civil lawsuits. That might also just be my usual kneejerk reaction but that said..I ain't happy about his vote to sell the constitution and the rule of law down the fucking river.

This OpEd is awesome..read it!

A big hug to Jet at Bring it On for this article. Allison Benedikt has written a wonderful OpEd for the Village Voice on Hillary, her supporters and her campaign. It tackles that pesky subject of misogyny very well m'dear reader and I encourage...yea I demand that you read it. Tell me then what you think of it. Just a small blurb of it to get you interested:

Next comes Arianna "No Fear" Huffington, suffering from a strain of short-term memory loss that seems to be going around, to declare: "The greatest triumph of Clinton's campaign—a complete triumph—is the example she has set for the next generation."

Currently pregnant with the next generation, let me just say this: There is no greater wish that a mother can have for her daughter than that she will exploit poor people, obliterate Iran, and win rigged class president elections, Putin-style. (Mom, I won 100 percent of the vote!)

I love her!!! Look, as a woman that has fought against sexism my entire fucking life and I might add, the first woman to hold the job as Project Manager on a NASA subcontract in the 80's....I know how fucked up it is to be female and expect to be treated the same as males...and yet not be treated the same. I had to be better at my job than they were, work longer hours and make less money than they did. My husband divorced me because he was tired of me living at the office..I sacrificed my personal life for that fucking job..and I would probably do it all over again.

I am not bitter about any of it. I loved that job and when the spaceshuttle crashed, I knew many of us would be laid off. I opted to get laid off instead of having them dump a specific male co-worker because his son was suffering from brain cancer and I knew damn well that the health insurance was the most important part of the job for that guy at that point in time.

Besides I wanted to move back to Cali...and that is what I did when I got my walking papers. I went back to Cali, started my own business and raised my son as a single parent. If I am bitter about anything it's that my ex-husband was a piece of batshit that never paid a buck in child support.

Being bitter never serves anyone. It eats you up inside. That is why I think Hillary and her staunchest supporters need to suck it up and deal. Instead of screaming, bitching and moaning about how she was 'treated' they should be proud of what she accomplished by using race, lies and bullshit to win the states she did.

Tossing rocks in a glass house ain't a good idea..nope, it ain't.

The Empire Strikes Barack

Crossposted at Bring It On! and Sirens Chronicles

Mark Penn resigns as Chief Strategist for Camp Hillary

From MSNBC:

From NBC's Mark Murray and John Boxley Mark Penn, who recently met with the Colombian government regarding a trade deal that Hillary Clinton opposes, has resigned his post as the Clinton campaign's chief strategist.

"After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign," campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement. "Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign."

Williams added, "Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign's strategic message team going forward."

Per sources in the campaign, Hillary Clinton was disappointed with Penn's meeting with the Colombian government. She is a big opponent of the trade pact. Penn knew that he had made error in judgment and realized over the weekend that he would need to step down as chief strategist.

Clinton agreed.

Tags: Mark Penn resigns

Hillary shills on Fox Noise..

If your so inclined..you can read about it here on Fox's website. This line really caused me to laugh my ass off and spit bottled water all over the laptop:

"People don't want this to be over," she said. "That is what people are telling me."

Which people is she talking to for the love of GAWD? Everyone I know is tired of her tactics and when you look at ALL the fucking numbers..no way in Hell is she winning shit without a back-room deal.

I thought about looking for the video of it..but my stomach is bothering me today and frankly I don't think I could take watching any of the assholes at Fox Noise wonking on her and her taking it.

Hillary in bed with the Neocons? You betcha!

From Jet over at Bring it On! we get the following news today, complete with proof via the picture to the right:

Is there anybody this Ho won't schlep with? I don't know about you, but when somebody has it in for my family, does everything in their considerable power to destroy everything we've worked to achieve, does it publically and does it dirty, I would NOT be pals. I would not forget, and I damn sure wouldn't pander.

Of course, I'm not Hillary Clinton. The picture is priceless.

That’s Richard Mellon Scaife! Yesterday! Jeebus, I need a shower after looking at that. For those with short memories, Scaife was THE MAN orchestratin g the Clinton attacks. From Salon, 4/7/1998:

The man whom Time magazine, in its latest issue, calls “the ultimate patron” of the Clinton haters has been identified by Salon and the New York Observer as a key funder of the $2.4 million Arkansas Project, a four-year effort organized through the American Spectator magazine to discredit the president. Scaife foundation money, as Salon has reported, has also allegedly been used to pay key Whitewater witness David Hale and to help bankroll Paula Jones’ sexual harassment case against Clinton. — Salon

I am speechless..totally and completely speechless..read the rest of Jet's writeup at BIO here. Evidently Hillary will do anything to win..including sleeping with the enemy. Disgusting. Carville needs to use his Judas line on Hillary..because this bullshit is outrageous! She has sold out the Democrats and her supporters.

Tags: Richard Scaife, Hillary Clinton, Sleeping with the enemy

Hillary landing in Bosnia under fire? LMAO..

I don't think so lady Clinton..



So, this means she isn't any more battle-tested than Obama..

Gov Bill Richardson endorses Obama

This is a huge deal. Just this past January, Richardson was watching the SuperBowl with Bill Clinton, his former boss as part of the Clinton administration. Richardson is also Hispanic, which might help Obama’s campaign as well.

Hillary apologizes finally for Ferraro flap.

She did it in her own special way of course.. and it was in front of 200 African-Americans at the National Newspaper Publishers Association. From AP:

Of Ferraro's comment, Hillary Clinton told her audience: "I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee."

She also apologized for Billy's comments in SC regarding Obama and Jesse Jackson. She was on a roll last night..apologizing her butt off for racial gaffs, saying there was nothing intentionally racist in any of the nasty..cough..racial..remarks.

It gives one pause to wonder..would she even bring up these statements if her audience was anything other than people of color. Her comments on unifying the party really made me bite a hole in my lip:

"Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee," she said.

Sure Hillary..right..what-friggin-evah.

Olbermann takes on the Clinton camp..

First time for him bbqing a Democrat..but it was due..Ferraro and hopefully the Clinton Camp will take notice.


H/T to C&L for having it up so quickly..I heart them. BTW..she tendered her resignation from the Clinton campaign today.

Also..the wonderful folks at TPM have a great video post about this whole sordid friggin mess here. Called Send in The CLOWN..I love it..its also on my sidebar.

Molly Ivins-I will not support Hillary Clinton for President

From the grave Molly Ivins serves up a bitchslap of ol HRC. And damn if it isn't a good one. A huge H/T to Fran, my co-conspirator at Sirens Chronicles for posting this on her blog for me to steal. ;)

Published on Friday, January 20, 2006 by the Columbus Free Press (Ohio)

I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President

by Molly Ivins

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges. The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry. What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls? Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008." This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman. Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily. You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely. Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town. Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news." Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can. Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In? © 2006 Columbus Free Press

Well, how the hell are the brown females voting??

I am really tired of the MSNBC pundits telling me how the white males voted, the old white females voted, the blacks voted and how the brown vote went..

Tell me how the agitated brown bitches voted that want an end to the Iraq war, ok smart guys? Jesus...

Obama is now 8-0, Hillary 0-8 in the recent primaries and caucus's. If that doesn't tell you the majority of the voters are voting for the black guy..I don't know what other sign you all need.

Tomorrow Obama is supposed to make a major policy address. I will be watching, believe you me. His speech tonight in Madison, WI was more populist than any I have listened to so far..it made me smile ;)

But really..how are those brown bitches like me voting boyz? Cuz I haven't signed on the dotted line for any candidate yet. Now, a word from Bakersfield's own Merle Haggard:


Find more videos like this on PeaceOverParty.org

From our Dept of WTF? - NYS NOW chapter slams Kennedy

Slams is a mild way to put it..they rip him a new one over his choice of Obama. Their press release starts out with this:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

Is this woman saying that Hillary should be supported regardless? As a woman and a feminist I take umbrage, no..I am highly pissed the hell off with this fuckwitted statement. Her brand of politics is what drives me insane. The rest of the 'statement' should raise the hackles of every progressive:

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not "this" one). "They" are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That's Howard's brother) who run DFA (that's the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). "They" are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women's money, say they'll do feminist and women's rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America's future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women's rights, women's voices, women's equality, women's authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who "know what's best for us.

The National Chapter of NOW is backing Hillary as well.The well-known blog Feministing is also aghast at this press release as well as Feministe and CultureKitchen. I wonder how Marcia Pappas feels about Bill's thinly veiled race-baiting of Obama or the outright lies about his record? Does she approve of that bullshit? I have not settled on a candidate since Kucinich dropped out but this kinda bs won't help me make up my mind in favor of Hillary.

For me, being a woman and a feminist means thinking for myself. Pappas' press release makes no sense and has set back feminism a few decades, in my humble female opinion. She does not speak for this feminist. If you live in NY state and you find this 'press release' disgusting you might want to contact the author and head of NOW in NY: For more information contact: Marcia Pappas, 518-452-3944 - 518-469-2661

Tags: NOW NYS, Marica Pappas, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy

Toni Morrison backs Obama, not Clinton

Ironically, it was Ms. Morrison that dubbed Bill Clinton the "First Black President":

In an October 1998 essay in The New Yorker, Morrison wrote: "Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime."

Ms Morrison is a Nobel Prize winning author. I love my irony served up hot and fresh in the morning..don't you? The NYT has a writeup about her letter to Obama here on their blog page.

Tags: Toni Morrison, Toni Morrison endorses Obama

The Clinton era..was it really that good for America?

With Hillary declared the winner in the first primary of the silly season Tuesday night, lets pause to consider the results of the last Clinton in the White House.

Whatever you think of Hillary and her politics, one thing is abundantly clear; she is riding on the coattails of her husbands eight years as President. A good yardstick of what will happen under a Clinton44 reign can be read in those ancient tea leaves of Clinton42's era. My point-of-view is that, as progressives, with Bill Clinton we were in the frying pan and the heat was on high. We then jumped into the fire with the election of George Bush..but I digress.

David Morris dissects the first Clinton's time in office very well this week in an Alternet article. I also tear into the Clinton's, the DCCC and the Clinton's personal democratic PAC known as the DLC here.

Bill Clinton, with the flourish of his pen, changed the course of all telecommunications. He signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This act allowed a free-for-all to take place with the blessings of the federal government, and I might add..without one iota of oversight or public hearings on the massive changes that would take place. Within three years, we went from having 13 Teleco's down to 5 huge conglomerates that control everything. The FCC lost control of the public airwaves as well thanks to the Teleco Act of '96. Two corporations, Infinity and Clear Channel sucked up a majority of the radio stations and consequently killed roughly 1100 of them in the process that didn't 'perform well' if you believe the two corporations. Clear Channel is all about the Benjamin's and its crystal clear if you read the series of articles at Salon by Eric Boehlert. Check out this quote from an Buzzflash writeup about the giant conglomeration that owns anything and everything regarding advertising and music:

It's no coincidence that Clear Channel executives Tom Hicks and L. Lowry Mays have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Bush's gubernatorial and presidential campaign coffers. Or that Clear Channel gave $119,370 in "soft money" to Republicans in 2001-2002, this on top of the $82,850 it gave in 2000. (Democrats, meanwhile, got $25,000 in soft money in that same three-year period.) Or that Clear Channel stations have been known to pull radio ads criticizing Republicans.

It isn't a stretch to say our airwaves are controlled by Republican interests and continue to be since News Corp. is in the process of selling off some of it's holdings to another Republican-loving conglomerate, Oak Hill Capital Partners. Thank Bill Clinton for starting that ball rolling down the hill when he pushed The Telco bill and signed it.

To continue reading..click here.