Andy Is No More

I am assuming that this isn’t one of Andy’s lies. If it is, I apologize in advance for falling for it.

Those of us who have watched Breitbart for a long time have seen his personal appearance worsen noticeably over the last year or so. He’s also been much more lunatic in his public appearances, which would be an indicator of something troubling. I figured it was demon alcohol, and alcoholism would certainly explain the demise of a man his age. I guess we’ll see.

I can’t praise him, not after all the lives he’s either destroyed outright, or attempted to destroy, with his lies. I do feel bad for his family, though.

I think I’m gonna leave it at this.

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US building a new “Iraq style” embassy in Pakistan

Pakistanis skeptical about a new one billion dollar US embassy

By T9 Times Articles

Posted on 19 Aug 2009 at 1:18am GMT

The Pakistani government is suspicious of a nearly one billion dollar U.S. plan to expand the American embassy in Islamabad, a senior Pakistani official told The Media Line.

Following reports earlier this week that the scheduled $945.2 million expansion of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad was to include the deployment of up to 1,000 U.S. Marines to the Pakistani capital, a highly-placed official in the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the government is increasingly sceptical of the U.S. plan and intends to raise the issue with Richard Holbrooke, U.S. President Barack Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Well, here we go again, the 2nd. largest embassy on the planet, only to be exceeded by “Fortress America” in Baghdad. I suppose that “suspicious” could be called a vast understatement, when considering the secrecy and then the final unveiling four years later, of an embassy that actually serves as a military installation.

The Military Petrochemical Agrocorporate Fusion Energy Complex is obviously still Hell bent on “the long war” and will go to any lengths to pursue their efforts to control Middle Eastern oil.

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“American Police Force” to manage Hardin Montana prison

AP ENTERPRISE: Montana jail deal raises questions

The Associated Press

Matthew Brown – ‎Sep 12, 2009‎

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Two Rivers Detention Center was promoted as the largest economic development project in decades in the small town of Hardin when the jail was built two years ago. But it has been vacant ever since.

KULR 8 video

Did I hear correctly? The spokesman for American Police Force said that they were interested in using the facility as a training center? Makes sense I guess, considering the possibility of ties to Darth Chainey and the shadow government.

City officials have searched from Vermont to Alaska for inmate contracts to fill the jail, only to be turned down at every turn and see the bonds that financed its construction fall into default. They even floated the idea of housing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay at the jail.

So when Hardin officials announced this week that they had signed a deal with a California company to fill the empty jail, it was naturally a cause for celebration. Town officials talked about throwing a party to mark the occasion, their dreams of economic salvation a step closer to being realized.

But questions are emerging over the legitimacy of the company, American Police Force.

Government contract databases show no record of the company. Security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it. On its Web site, the company lists as its headquarters a building in Washington near the White House that holds “virtual offices.” A spokeswoman for the building said American Police Force never completed its application to use the address.

And it’s unclear where the company will get the inmates for the jail. Montana says it’s not sending inmates to the jail, and neither are federal officials in the state.

An attorney for American Police Force, Maziar Mafi, describes the Santa Ana, Calif., company as a fledgling spin-off of a major security firm founded in 1984. But Mafi declined to name the parent firm or provide details on how the company will finance its jail operations.

“It will gradually be more clear as things go along,” said Mafi, a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer in Santa Ana who was only hired by American Police Force a month ago. “The nature of this entity is private security and for security purposes, as well as for the interest of their clientele, that’s why they prefer not to be upfront.”

On its elaborate Web site and in interviews with company representatives, American Police Force claims to sell assault rifles and other weapons in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. military while providing security, investigative work and other services to clients “in all 50 states and most countries.”

The company also boasts to have “rapid response units awaiting our orders worldwide” and that it can field a battalion-sized team of special forces soldiers “within 72 hours.”

Representatives of American Police Force said the company presently employs at least 16 and as many as 28 people in the United States and 1,600 contractors worldwide.

~More~

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Saudi Arabia – countering terrorism with repression

Amnesty International, September 11, 2009

A Saudi special forces soldier stands guard at a check point, 5 February 2005, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

© AP/PA Photo/Amr Nabil

Since the September 11 attacks in the USA eight years ago, the Saudi Arabian authorities have launched a sustained assault on human rights in the name of countering terrorism. The attacks were carried out by a group that included Saudi Arabian nationals.

“The anti-terrorism measures introduced since 2001 have set back the process of limited human rights reform in Saudi Arabia,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Combined with severe repression of all forms of dissent and a weak human rights framework, there is now an almost complete lack of protection of freedoms and rights.”

An Amnesty International briefing paper, launched on Friday, describes the shocking scale of abuses. Thousands of people have had their lives devastated by violations of their basic rights. Some have been arrested and detained in virtual secrecy, while others have been killed in uncertain circumstances.

Continues >>

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Saudi Arabia’s war on human rights
• Saudi rights abuses rise due to counter-terrorism methods
• Saudi Arabia: Free Political Prisoners
• Saudi king visits prince injured in suicide attack

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RACIST POLITICIAN FIGHTS “B.O.” ON BUSES

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HONOLULU CITY COUNCILMAN ROD TAM SMELLS –SOMETHING AWFUL!!!

BUT HE’S TRYING TO FIX THE PROBLEM

Is He Promising Not To Ride Da Bus?

This is the guy who used the term “wetbacks” in a public meeting not too long ago. His new racist offensive is targeted at foreigners whose hygiene standards may be different, or at the poor whose access to bathrooms is limited –In part by lax planning, zoning, building and housing codes and a lack of affordable housing and public facilities. Tam’s our Zoning Committee Chairman, by the way, so he’s responsible for a lot of that. But it’s so much easier to target the disenfranchised and humiliate & punish them than it is to offer real solutions that are already available elsewhere and to people with money right here in Honolulu.

The fact that Tam has already established himself as a race-warrior with his attacks on “wetbacks” makes this new measure smell pretty bad in itself. The homeless population and immigration from global-warming and economic depression victims throughout the Asia-Pacific region keep growing, putting some less recent immigrants’ and forgetful long-time Locals’ noses out of joint, “Aloha” be damned. Da Bus is one of the few places where the old and the new, the poor and the middle classes come into contact. Maybe now is the time those living in comfort paid attention to the problems of the system that has benefited them so much more than others.
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Rising Fascist Threat??

7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat

By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America’s Future. Posted August 13, 2009.

Why the right-wing extremism must be stopped in its tracks or else we face the threat of outright violence and goon rule.

Writing about fascism for an American audience is always a fraught business.

Invariably, a third of the readers will dismiss the topic (and your faithful blogger’s basic sanity) out of hand. Either they’ve got their own definition of fascism, and whatever’s going on doesn’t seem to fit it; or else they’re firm believers in a variant of Godwin’s Law, which says (with some justification) that anyone who invokes the F-word is a de facto alarmist of questionable credibility.

I get letters, most of which say something to the effect of, “Calm down. You’re overreacting. We’re nowhere near there yet.”

Another third will pepper me with missives that are every bit as dismissive — for exactly the opposite reason. To them, anyone who’s been paying the barest amount of attention should realize that America has been a fascist state since (choose one:) 1) 9/11; 2) Reagan; 3) McCarthy; 4) the Civil War; 5) July 4, 1776.

For them, my careful analysis and worried warnings are dangerously naive — clear evidence that I’m simply not seeing the full horror of America as it truly is, and always has been, at least since (insert date here).

Given this general crankiness, I probably wouldn’t bother with the subject at all — except for that final third who keep me going. From them, I’ve gotten a blizzard of anecdotes, questions, meditations, ideas, suggestions, manifestos and love letters (including lots of link love).

The piece sparked a lot of conversation all across Left Blogistan about what fascism is and what it ain’t, and what we need to be watching for. And that kind of thoughtful discussion is exactly what I hoped for. I wanted people to start paying attention.

In the post about fascism, I pointed out that the most insidious part of it is that by the time it’s finally obvious to absolutely everyone that these people are dangerously out of control, it’s too late to do anything about it.

Early warnings are even more valuable here than they are in most domains. And since futurists are — more than anything — in the business of early warnings, it falls to me to step up there and point out that according to at least a few of the more reputable atlases in the glove box, this looks a lot like the last turn into the parking lot of downtown Fascist Hell.

The good news is we’re not yet parked and locked, let alone committed to entering the building. (Which is good, because the doors appear to be all one way, just like in the “Hotel California.”) We’ve still got a few minutes to change our minds, back out of this and go spend our future somewhere else.

MORE

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