Silenced Majority Portal

Seymour Hersh Was Onto Cheney's Assassination Squads Back in March

Daily Beast account of Hersh's "Great Conversation" talk at U of MN

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

“I said what I said, they can always say what they say,” Hersh told The Daily Beast. “The last time they said the government doesn’t torture, this time it’s the government doesn’t assassinate.”

It's being discussed at DailyKos

Tom Tomorrow: Conservatives and Science

Recently we reported on the new survery that showed that only 6% of scientists are Republicans. No wonder the Bush administration censored science. Here is Tom Tomorrow's take on it.

That's Not A Gay Rights Rally, THIS Is A Gay Rights Rally

Let me apologize in advance for my really crappy camera work here. In my defense I was caught a little off guard by the Christopher Street Rally in Munich yesterday, because I had no idea it was going on and I was in the Marienplatz shopping district on another errand and I just wasn't able to make the mental gear shift that I needed to, so I'm all over the map with this footage that I literally shot from the hip.

My wife was a bit more focused than I was, so I'll be posting some of her stuff once we go through it.

One thing I didn't notice right away until I got home and looked at it is that the thing that really stands out is the thing that doesn't.  

Not a lot of flaming flamboyant Brünö stereo types to be seen in the crowd, save for this guy I spotted while I was on the second floor of a retail store as he was passing by in the street.

I like the color coordination he's got going there, what with him using all the colors of the German Flag in his outfit.

A little irked I didn't spot him 10 seconds earlier though.

When I post some more clips later, be sure to look at the crowd and how 'normal' looking most people are. I'm beginning to form the belief that a lot of socially persecuted/ostracized so-called 'fringe' people go for outrageousness as a defense mechanism.

As in:

'Oh, yeah, you think I'm a freak, do you? Lemme show you what a freak REALLY looks like.'

More on this later in my follow up post.

Rude Pundit Says Prosecute!

Rude Pundit wonders at what point amid all the revelations about who hid what from Congress do we all just become knowing accomplices to crimes. NY Times - Cheney is Linked to Concealment of CIA Project - from Congress - for eight years!  HuffPo - Holder Leaning Toward Appointing Torture Prosecutor DailyBeast: Torture Prosecution Turnaround? Guardian: Cheney Kept Congress in Dark Over CIA CounterTerrorism Action"

"I'm persuaded there are a lot of interesting stories that ought to be told" - Dick Cheney

Sarah Palin Social Networking Damage Control - the Conservative's Courtney Love

Sarah Palin

Governor Palin / Thomas Van Flein Frivolous Ethics Complaint

When Governor Palin announced that she would be resigning, in part, because of the unusual number of frivolous ethics complaints burdening the state of Alaska, that was not intended to be an invitation to file more frivolous ethics complaints. Not everyone got the message...

She appeared on a conservative gun owner show and Ted Nugent called in. 

Nugent, well-known for the 1970s hit "Cat Scratch Fever," told Palin from his home in Michigan that he was firing up the grill to cook up some Alaskan black bear backstrap in her honor.  The governor told Nugent that she thought that was "awesome."

She's the conservative's Courtney Love - famous by association with another famous person, never goes away, can't stay out of the news, polarizing, anorexic, many ethics scandals, sucker for fashion and expensive clothes, hires unreliable people, taken in by celebrity (gave interview to Canadian comics she thought were Sarkozy), can't keep track of teen, talks incessantly but it's word salad, has money problems of her own making, spouts off wierdly to journalists and on the internet, lambasts the media (for Palin it's bloggers, for Love it's Vanity Fair) but seeks it avidly, and dabbles in anything but actual knowledge base is shallow. 

As the witches say: "Don't wish for something too much - you just may get it."

A fortune cookie that applies which was taped onto a computer: "You are creating your own problems."

Freepers/Drudge Make Misleading Obama Shot from Video

As shown on Drudge and put on Free Republic: (& if he had .. who could have blamed him..and Sarko looks to be "red-blooded" - but it was taken out of context from a video)  Look at the video, - the president was on a higher step and was stepping down -- so he looked down to assure his footing as the woman was walking up the stairs.  

Media Matters: Did you hear the one about the sleazy Obama photo? Don't buy it.

A member of  Free Republic posted a Reuters photo that the news wire captioned as "U.S. President Barack Obama and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy take their places with junior G8 delegates for a family photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy."  The Free Republic member invited other members to submit alternative captions for the photo, resulting in dozens of sexually suggestive replies, some using racist epithets.

Thirty minutes later, Internet gossip Matt Drudge promoted the same photo with the headline "Mr. President!" Drudge later revised his headline to read "Second Stimulus Package!"  About two hours later, at 5:12 p.m., the The Fox Nation posted the picture along with the headline "Another Stimulus?"   ABC News' Jake Tapper posted the photo with the headline "When In Rome...?"  Tapper posted this message on Twitter: "that foto of POTUS seeming to be sneaking a leer is misleading, im told - video shows the moment was completely innocent."  Drudge subsequently included a link to Tapper's blog post with the headline "ABCNEWS: NO HE DIDN'T ..."  A classic example of how the right-wing noise machine works was unfolding before the American people. 

& here is our former President in China at the Olympics .. a man I never found remotely attractive.  The Freepers seem very insecure in their own sexuality, especially since so many of their heroes have been caught in compromising positions (Vitter, Larry Craig, Haggard, Foley, Ensign, Sanford etc. etc.) Or David Brooks complaining that a Republican Senator had his hand on his inner thigh during dinner..  Freepers have also taken to trashing the Obama daughters with overtly hateful and racist slams, especially disliking that the eldest daughter wore a shirt with a peace sign on it. Family values? Anyway, that's nothing (admit you looked at the twins!)

Noonan Unbound, Margaret Ellen Breaks Reagan's 11th Commandment

BREAKING!!!!  This one is totally worthy of a Drudge Siren...

The Up Is Down, Air Is Wet, Water Is Dry, Black Is White, White Is Black, Day Is Night, Night Is Day World we've all been living lately has taken a new turn.

Peggy Noonan just broke her old boss's 11th Commandment:

"Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of a Fellow Republican."

And this time, not on accident in front of a hot mike, using a Barn Yard Epithet either.

No, no, no.

Margaret Ellen didn't just stray of the Reservation, she went to town on dear Sister Sarah, with a kindler, gentler, rat-a-tat-tat, machine gun hand.

http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB...4620819351.html

Who knew the Thousand Points of Light were the glints coming off of razor sharp daggers?

Unbelievable.

I'm not even going to quote any of the zingers here, because the thing is just one relentless slam after another.

Noonan Unbound.

Joe Bob Briggs sez check it out.

If the comments are any indication, she's about to get the same crash course Chris Buckley got last year in what the seething underbelly of the Republican Party has devolved into.

Drove Buckley away from the organization his Dad founded and right into the waiting arms of Tina Brown.

This is a slaughter.

At this juncture I think what we are going to see from here on in is a complete fracturing of the Republican Party, spear-headed by Palin and her die hard supporters such as Hannity, Limbaugh, etc, etc, et al.

They, the True Conservatives, are going to splinter off and form their own Conservative Party. All their rhetoric on AM radio and in the blogosphere has been trending in that direction, for years now, and Peggy's little Declarations of War on Palin might be the thing that gets the ball really rolling towards that.

Here's the thing.

In a 3 way race, if things get bad enough, and stay bad by late 2012, a rabble rouser like Palin could easily beat a sitting Incumbent.

Especially if she has the full weight of the Media Apparatus that Murdoch built behind her.

Do not misunderstimate her, or the Power Mad people behind her.

---

Twenty Year Anniversary of 1999 Student Unrest / Madonna: Where is My Vote Video

many amazing photos here - I remember being shown 16 mm film footage of students being shot down by helicopters when I was a student then. Thinking also of the repression in China and the rightwing coup in Honduras at this time.

Madonna: Where is My Vote video

Tin Foil Hat TIme: Leaked List of Bilderberg Attendees for 2009

The Bilderberg Group is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence (Kissinger, Geithner, Rockefeller, Wolfowitz etc.) Here is the leaked list of attendees for 2009.

Dutch Queen Beatrix

Queen Sofia of Spain

Prince Constantijn (Belgian Prince)

Prince Philippe Etienne Ntavinion, Belgium

Étienne, Viscount Davignon, Belgium (former vice-president of the European Commission)

Josef Ackermann (Swiss banker and CEO of Deutsche Bank)

Keith B. Alexander, United States (Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, Director of the National Security Agency)

Roger Altman, United States (investment banker, former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton)

Georgios A. Arapoglou, Greece (Governor of National Bank of Greece)

Ali Babaca , Turkey (Deputy Prime Minister responsible for economy)

Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Portugal (former Prime Minister of Portugal)

Nicholas Bavarez, France (economist and historian)

Franco Bernabè, Italy (Telecom Italia)

Xavier Bertrand, France (French politician connected to Nicolas Sarkozy)

Carl Bildt, Sweden (former Prime Minister of Sweden)

January Bgiorklount, Norway (?)

Christoph Blocher, Switzerland (industrialist, Vice President of the Swiss People’s Party)

Alexander Bompar, France (?)

Ana Patricia Botin, Spain, (President of Banco Banesto)

Henri de Castries, France (President of AXA, the French global insurance companies group)

Juan Luis Cebrián, Spain (journalist for Grupo PRISA; his father was a senior journalist in the fascist Franco regime)

W. Edmund Clark, Canada (CEO TD Bank Financial Group)

Kenneth Clarke, Great Britain (MP, Shadow Business Secretary)

Luc Cohen, Belgium (?)

George David, United States (Chairman and former CEO of United Technologies Corporation, board member of Citigroup)

Richard Dearlove, Great Britain (former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service)

Mario Draghi, Italy (economist, governor of the Bank of Italy)

Eldrup Anders, Denmark (CEO Dong Energy)

John Elkann, Italy (Italian industrialist, grandson of the late Gianni Agnelli, and heir to the automaker Fiat)

Thomas Enders, Germany (CEO Airbus)

Jose Entrekanales, Spain (?)

Isintro phenomena casket, Spain (?)

Niall Ferguson, United States (Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School)

Timothy Geithner, United States (Secretary of the Treasury)

Ntermot convergence, Ireland (AIV Group) (?)

Donald Graham, United States (CEO and chairman of the board of The Washington Post Company)

Victor Chalmperstant, Netherlands (Leiden University)

Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Netherlands (Dutch politician, minister of Justice in the fourth Balkenende cabinet, member of the Christian Democratic Appeal)

Richard Holbrooke, United States (Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan)

Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, Netherlands (Dutch politician and the current NATO Secretary General)

James Jones, United States (National Security Advisor to the White House)

Vernon Jordan, United States (lawyer, close adviser to President Bill Clinton)

Robert Keigkan, United States (? - possibly Robert Kagan, neocon historian)

Girki Katainen, Finland (?)

John Kerr (aka Baron Kerr of Kinlochard), Britain (Deputy Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and an independent member of the House of Lords)

Mustafa Vehbi Koç, Turkey (President of industrial conglomerate Koç Holding)

Roland GT, Germany (?)

Sami Cohen, Turkey (Journalist) (?)

Henry Kissinger, United States

Marie Jose Kravis, United States (Hudson Institute)

Neelie Kroes, Netherlands (European Commissioner for Competition)

Odysseas Kyriakopoulos, Greece (Group S & B) (?)

Manuela Ferreira Leite, Portugal (Portuguese economist and politician)

Bernardino Leon Gross, Spain (Secretary General of the Presidency)

Jessica Matthews, United States (President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

Philippe Maystadt (President of the European Investment Bank)

Frank McKenna, Canada (Deputy Chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank)

John Micklethwait, Great Britain (Editor-in-chief of The Economist)

Thierry de Montbrial, France (founded the Department of Economics of the École Polytechniqueand heads the Institut français des relations internationales)

Mario Monti, Italy (Italian economist and politician, President of the Bocconi University of Milan)

Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain (Minister of Foreign Affairs)

Craig Mundie, United States (chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft)

Egil Myklebust, Norway (Chairman of the board of SAS Group, Scandinavian Airlines System)

Mathias Nass, Germany (Editor of the newspaper Die Zeit)

Denis Olivennes, France (director general of Nouvel Observateur)

Frederic Oudea, France (CEO of Société Générale bank)

Cem Özdemir, Germany (co-leader of the Green Party and Member of the European Parliament)

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Italy (Italian banker, economist, and former Minister of Economy and Finance)

Dimitrios Th.Papalexopoulo, Greece (Managing Director of Titan Cement Company SA)

Richard Perle, United States (American Enterprise Institute)

David Petraeus, United States (Commander, U.S. Central Command)

Manuel Pinho, Portugal (Minister of Economy and Innovation)

J. Robert S. Prichard, Canada (CEO of Torstar Corporation and president emeritus of the University of Toronto)

Romano Prodi, Italy (former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission)

Heather M. Reisman, Canada (co-founder of Indigo Books & Music Inc.).

Eivint Reitan, Norway (economist, corporate officer and politician for the Centre Party)

Michael Rintzier, Czech Republic (?)

David Rockefeller, United States

Dennis Ross, United States (special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton)

Barnett R. Rubin, United States (Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for International Cooperation)

Alberto Rouith-Gkalarthon, Spain (?)

Susan Sampantzi Ntintzer, Turkey (?) Guler Sabanci, President of Sabanci Holdings (?)

Indira Samarasekera, Canada (President of University of Alberta, Board of Directors Scotiabank)

Rountol Solten, Austria (?)

Jürgen E. Schrempp, Germany (CEO DaimlerChrysler)

Pedro Solbes Mira, Spain (economist, Socialist, Second Vice President and Minister of Economy and Finance)

Sampatzi Saraz, Turkey (banker) (?) possibly Süreyya Serdengeçti (former Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey) http://arsiv.zaman.com.tr/2002/05/29/ekonomi/h6.htm

Sanata Seketa, Canada (University of Canada) (?)

Lawrence Summers, United States (economist, Director of the White House’s National Economic Council)

Peter Sutherland, Ireland (Chairman, BP and Chairman of Goldman Sachs International)

Martin Taylor, United Kingdom (former chief executive of Barclays Bank, currently Chairman of Syngenta AG)

Peter Thiel, United States (Clarium Capital Management LCC, PayPal co-founder, Board of Directors, Facebook)

Agan Ourgkout, Turkey (?)

Matti Taneli Vanhanen, Finland, (Prime Minister)

Daniel L. Vasella, Switzerland (Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Novartis AG)

Jeroen van der Veer, Netherlands (CEO of Royal Dutch Shell)

Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium (former Prime Minister)

Paul Volcker, U.S. (former Federal Reserve director, Chair of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board)

Jacob Wallenberg, Sweden (chairman of Investor AB and former chairman of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken)

Marcus Wallenberg, Sweden (CEO of Investor AB, former chairman of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken)

Nout Wellink, Netherlands (Chairman of De Nederlandsche Bank, Board of Directors, the Bank of International Settlements)

Hans Wijers, Netherlands (CEO of the multinational corporation AkzoNobel)

Martin Wolf, Great Britain (associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times)

James Wolfensohn, United States (former president of the World Bank)

Paul Wolfowitz, United States (for U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, currently AEI scholar)

Fareed Zakaria, United States (journalist, author, and CNN host)

Robert Zoellick, United States (former managing director of Goldman Sachs, President the World Bank)

Dora Bakoyannis, Greece (Minister of Foreign Affairs)

Anna Diamantopoulou, Greece (Member of Parliament for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement)

Yannis Papathanasiou, Greece (Minister of Finance)

George Alogoskoufis, Greece (former Minister)

George A. David, Greece (businessman, president of Coca-Cola)

Cincinnati Paper Uses Doctored Franken Picture

It's one that those PhotoShop wizard wingnuts used before. & the real adult diaper wearer is actually Vitter from Louisiana, a Republican.