DrumGit, Curtis Cunningham's blog. » politics

Vote for Pedro! The feds stole his money!

Curtis — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:32:57 +0000

This guy worked for something like 11 years as a dish washer to earn
around $60k (about 30,000 UK pounds). He was leaving to go back to his
home country where he could make a great life for his family, and he was
stopped leaving the country and they confiscated his money. There’s a
document you’re supposed to fill out if you’re taking more than $10k in
cash out of the country, and he forgot or didn’t know about it, so they
took his life savings.

You can sign a petition here to help:
~ http://proudtoliveinamerica.com/Forms/Main/Default.aspx?L=en-us&P=Petitions

Please sign, and forward the message onward.

I’ve read about this story for some time now, and they finally sent him
home, and only gave him $10k back, keeping the rest.

~ http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/immigrant.money/index.html

Some of the circumstances around this are confusing. Some are saying he
hadn’t paid taxes on this, some are saying he *did* pay taxes but didn’t
file his taxes correctly. Regardless, many conservatives calling for him
to be crucified as an example of the harm illegal aliens are doing to
America and the American economy. Thing is, I wonder just how many of
these screaming conservatives would take his place and wash dishes for
$5.50 an hour for 11 years. Here’s one such rant:

~ http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/28308.html

And comments on this article are even more shocking, suggesting things like the place he worked should be burned down:

~ http://www.theconservativevoice.com/forum/read.html?id=11424#comments

That amount of money doesn’t even buy a small piece of a smart bomb they
like to let loose daily in the middle east, but would make the world of
difference to that man and his family back home.

Bastards.

caught on cam

Curtis — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:23:59 +0000

I’m turning up a lot of stories these days highlighting abuse of power by those in authority. Technology is turning things around and everyday people armed with something as simple as cell phones with cameras are now our reporters.

Japanese journalized shot at point blank range, unprovoked. [video]
School guards break teenagers arm for leaving crumbs. [story, video]

I’ll add to this as I find more examples.

money manipulation

Curtis — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 19:17:05 +0000

Most of us glaze over with talk of government finance investing, etc. and the like. We need to be more aware..

“They know what’s coming — massive amounts of dollar creation to fund the worsening trade and federal government budget deficits,” says James Turk in the Free Market Gold & Money Report.

“There is only one reason for the Fed to conceal important monetary component information,” The King Report says. It’s “to cover up the truth about what the Fed, central banks, and the really big money are doing.”

(more…)

MoveOn Condemns Congress

Curtis — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:11:27 +0000

The internet is so cool these days .. cos you can do stuff like this ..

More info follows ..

Daily Kos: MoveOn Condemns Congress With Second New York Times AD
MoveOn Condemns Congress With Second New York Times AD
by Dood Abides
Fri Sep 21, 2007 at 08:55:15 AM PDT

New MoveOn.Org Ad which will appear in the Sunday edition of the New York Times

New York, NY (Rotters)- In a vote of 3,100,000 to 100,000 yesterday, the members of MoveOn.org voted overwhelmingly to place a second ad in the New York Times this weekend condemning the U.S. Congress for wasting time condemning them over their previous ad condemning General David Petraeus as “General Betray us”. The ad implies that both houses of Congress, in particular the leadership, are “Ass-kissing little chickenshits”, a term which has been used to refer to General Petraeus by his superiors in the past.

The text of the full page advertisement in it’s entirety stated:

Congress is a group of elected officials constantly at war with the electorate. In 2006 they continually insisted that if elected they would bring an end to the disastrous war and ongoing occupation of Iraq. Last week the leaders of both branches said, “We have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything that we can to build on the progress.”

Yesterday, they had the opportunity to pass two important bills to advance their support for our troops in Iraq and alter the direction of the ongoing catastrophe. Instead they chose to condemn an article we placed in the New York Times. We hear of bruised egos, hurt feelings, and improprieties. But we don’t hear of how many more troops will be hurt or killed because of their willful inaction.

More importantly, Congress cannot admit what everyone knows: Iraq is a bloodbath with or without us. They will not admit that American troops are condemned to remain in Iraq through at least one more election cycle.

CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon has referred to “Surge Architect”
General David Petraeus has an “Ass-kissing little chickenshit”, far worse than the “Betray Us” invective coined by his own troops and pointed out by us. Today, perhaps, it is Congress that has actually betrayed us.

Congress has vowed to convene a special session this weekend to vote on another condemnation of the latest ad. Preliminary polling of the Senate indicates that the condemnation would pass handily with 80 votes for and 20 votes against. This margin guarantees that there would be no veto from the president.

The White House refused to directly comment on either the ad or Congress’s proposed response. “Unlike the blatantly partisan smear directed at General Petraeus, MoveOn may actually have a point here,” stated White House spokesperson Dana Perino. “The President is happy to see the national dialogue gravitate towards these more important and debatable issues, but is clearly disappointed over the language.”

big brother is watching

Curtis — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:58:02 +0000

“Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the CIA’s computers made edits to the page of Iran’s president. It also purportedly shows that the Vatican has edited entries about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.”

From this article.

This is brilliant:

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

I love the way they waited long enough for organizations and individuals to do enough to incriminate themselves before publishing this.

Lots of examples of interesting suspect edits listed here: wikidgame

Paris Hilton

Curtis — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:40:11 +0000

Well put my man, well put.

Stolen from: Arkadelphia Siftings Herald - News

We care about Paris Hilton; we do not care about Iraq or Darfur
By Dan Marsh
Published: Monday, June 11, 2007 1:50 PM CDT
I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but apparently, Paris Hilton has been involved in some sort of legal fracas in L.A.

Perhaps you’ve seen it on the news. Paris, locked in the back seat of a patrol car, screaming on her way to jail. Paris, in better days, posing on various runways, with that stupid, smug, rich-girl look on her face, mugging for photographers.

I’m guessing you’ve seen this coverage, I don’t know. Perhaps some of you have been living under a rock the last few days. Perhaps some of you have never even heard of Paris Hilton. I wish I hadn’t.

I think the news media is a wonderful invention, I really do, but I also think that, somehow, the media has gone off the rails. Somewhere, somebody in an air-conditioned office in New York or L.A. or Atlanta decided that, you know what, people don’t really want “news.” They want to be entertained. Sure, there has been a terrible slaughter in Darfur; of course, there are millions dying of disease and starvation in Africa; and, oh yeah, our troops are getting killed by the dozens every day in a delightful little corner of the globe known as Iraq.

We don’t care about any of that.

Quick, tell me the reason for the genocide in Darfur.

Quick, tell me how the G-8 summit may or may not have positively affected the poor and starving masses in Africa.

Quick, what’s the latest on al-Qaida in Pakistan?

I’ll bet you don’t know, because all weekend, we have been fed a steady diet of Paris Hilton on every major news network. Don’t feel bad, I can’t answer any of those questions, either. I can tell you that Paris mouthed “I love you” to her mom while the judge was throwing the book at her. I can tell you the name of the Los Angeles County sheriff who unlawfully yanked Paris from jail where she allegedly belonged. (Lee Baca, brother of Chew.) I couldn’t tell you the current status of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or how much money we spent on Iraq this past week.

The media has trivialized the important and made monumental the utterly trivial. Paris Hilton is a spoiled brat. I don’t care about Paris Hilton. Yet Fox News re-hashed FRIDAY’S coverage of The Hilton Event on SATURDAY NIGHT’S prime-time broadcast. I can only assume nothing of importance was taking place anywhere else in the world. If so, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS chose to ignore it.

[snip]

"The US has used internationally reviled weapons that the UK refuses to use …

Curtis — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:24:00 +0000

… and has then apparently lied to UK officials, showing how little weight the UK carries in influencing American policy.”

[snip]

I’d read about this last year.. I read somewhere the Iraqis saying the US was using napalm against them. I found it hard to believe then.. turns out it’s been true all along. I’ve lost count of how many stories that go unreported by mainstream media that then get broader coverage 6-12 months later when the evidence and outcry mounts to the point it can’t be ignored anymore, e.g. the Downing Street Memo(s).Isn’t it great that we’re killing them to demonstrate that killing others is such a bad thing?? I’m sure that’ll teach them a lesson.

More of the napalm story follows …

The US State Department website admitted in the run-up to the election that US forces had used MK77s in Iraq. Protests were made by MPs, but it was only this week that Mr Ingram confirmed the reports were true.

Mike Moore, the Liberal Democrat defence spokes-man, said: “It is very serious that this type of weapon was used in Iraq, but this shows the US has not been completely open with the UK. We are supposed to have a special relationship.

“It has also taken two months for the minister to clear this up. This is welcome candour, but it will raise fresh questions about how open the Government wished to be… before the election.”

The MK77 bombs, an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise.

Full story

The full story appears to be broken, or gone.. or something.

I found this related one on the Independent.co.uk site:

US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 17 June 2005

American officials lied to British ministers over the use of “internationally reviled” napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.

the Iraqis must be having a bad case of deja vu ..

Curtis — Sun, 01 May 2005 05:54:00 +0000

“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men… The people of Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws.” (General F.S. Maude, commander of British forces in Iraq, 1917)

2 years on

Curtis — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:14:00 +0000

Really illuminating article on Iraq developments. Particularly striking are the images .. spot the difference in the protests when the Saddam statue was pulled down, and the protests just the other day. And the recent protest pics didn’t make the media.. I wonder why .. ?

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5723

404 Not Found (WMD)

Curtis — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 05:06:00 +0000

http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk