Hillary Clinton-Close but No Cigar

Even though my choice for President of the U.S. did not come to pass as I had hoped, she will be what amounts to the Third most powerful person in the U.S. come 2009.

Barack Obama (president elect) asked Mrs. Clinton to be his "Secretary of State" in his new administration, which though does not officially start until the middle of Jan. 2009, has already taken on an air of what some call a "parallel presidency" of sorts.

I feel that Hillary will be one of the greatest representatives of this new administration and with her experience and that of her husband (our former president Clinton) and others in this new administration, I think there is now a "light at the end of the tunnel" with a hopeful end to this needless war, a fixing of the economy and other things that the GREATEST NATION on earth needs to do to get things straight once again and to make our nation one that is looked up to by other nations of the world again, like it once was.

I am so hopeful for this new administration and have good feelings about where we are headed with this new leadership. The world needs guidance and I firmly feel that the people that are about to undertake running the greatest country in this world will do us proud.

Read on for more of the picks of Obama below:
JSOnline.com Associated Press News

Spying on Americans....

How will you feel when one of these is in every single room of your personal dwelling and everywhere else you go for that matter...

Well if Mr. Bush gets his way with his push for his "spying program" this camera may soon become reality along with many more ominous spying tools to keep an eye on our every move....

The editorial below was just put forward in today's online New York Times and I felt it was important enough to recopy here in it's entirety.

In my opinion no matter what has happened since 911, our government does NOT have the right to dig into our personal business the way that our president wants to.

I have said before and I will say it again that what I see is our constitution and thus our individual rights and freedoms are being eroded more and more since this administration has been in office.

I have the deepest feeling that history will look back on this time as a time where great errors and miscarriages of liberty and justice and individual freedoms being eroded as one of the sadest and ugliest times in American history.

The America that our forefathers founded and the basis for which they created this once great nation are no longer valid, at least according to the current leadership of this Once Great Nation.

I feel very worried and sad for our future....

Read on for this very interesting editorial:

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May 2, 2007

Editorial

Spying on Americans

For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.

To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did not apply to him.

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans. That’s an all-too-familiar dodge.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is familiar with the president’s spying program, has said that it could have been conducted legally. She even offered some sensible changes for FISA, but the administration and the Republican majority in the last Congress buried her bill.

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

According to the administration, the bill contains “long overdue” FISA modifications to account for changes in technology. The only example it offered was that an e-mail sent from one foreign country to another that happened to go through a computer in the United States might otherwise be missed. But Senator Feinstein had already included this fix in the bill Mr. Bush rejected.

Moreover, FISA has been updated dozens of times in the last 29 years. In 2000, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency then, said it “does not require amendment to accommodate new communications technologies.” And since 9/11, FISA has had six major amendments.

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it. Before making any new laws, Congress has to get to the truth about Mr. Bush’s spying program. (When asked at a Senate hearing yesterday if Mr. Bush still claims to have the power to ignore FISA when he thinks it is necessary, Mr. McConnell refused to answer.)

With clear answers — rather than fearmongering and stonewalling — there can finally be a real debate about amending FISA. It’s not clear whether that can happen under this president. Mr. Bush long ago lost all credibility in the area where this law lies: at the fulcrum of the balance between national security and civil liberties....
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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Iran Vs U.S.???

Ok...so why havent I heard these stories in the mainstream U.S. News Outlets...
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The Invasion of Iran MAY HAVE BEGUN
28-Mar-2007UPDATE -

The BBC reports that the US Navy has begun "war games" in the Iran region by sending two aircraft carriers, containing 100 war planes and over 10,000 soldiers, into the Gulf. Fly over air maneuvers have also begun.

This is the largest "exercise" in the Gulf since our 2003 invasion of Iraq. A French group of ships are also in the Arabian Sea, one of which has already been launching flying missions into Afghanistan.

The news site (Unknown Country.com) where I gleamed this info from predicted the start of the Iraq war 4 years ago, almost to the day.
Is Shock & Awe about to happen all over again—this time in Iran? And will our military go along with these plans?

In Globalresearch.ca, Michel Chossudovsky reports on what he says the US military has code-named TIRANNT, which means "Theater Iran Near Term," and identifies targets inside Iran which will all be hit by bombs simultaneously. Chossudovsky says the Arab media reports that this will happen in the next 30 days.

And this:
Possible US Troop Build-Up on Iran Border
29-Mar-2007

More news about US military activity near the Iran border: The Russian News & Information Agency (NOVOSTI) reports that Russian military intelligence is seeing a US troop build up along Iran's border with Iraq.
This could indicate a pending invasion of Iran OR it could mean that the US and its allies are attempting to spark a coup against the Ahmadinejad regime, which is rapidly losing popularity in the country.

NOVOSTI reports that, "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran" and also that "the US Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has, for the first time in the past four years, reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003."
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So I guess it is time to drill into the U.S. media and other worldwide media to see if we are on the verge of another full scale U.S. led invasion of another soverign country over there....with the Bush administration nothing really suprises me anymore.......

A good Friday to all.

*Revision:
Ok so after drilling down a few pages in the New York Times Newspaper (online)....I found this little ditty:

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March 28, 2007
U.S. Opens Naval Exercise in Persian Gulf
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, March 27 — In a calculated show of force, the United States Navy began a major exercise in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, a move that Bush administration officials said was part of a broader strategy to contain Iranian power in the region.

Two American aircraft carriers — the John C. Stennis and the Dwight D. Eisenhower — participated in the exercise along with more than a dozen other warships. It was the first time that two carriers have conducted joint operations in the Persian Gulf since 2003, the year the United States invaded Iraq.

American officials said the deployment was planned before Iran’s capture of 15 British sailors and marines last week. But the exercise was clearly intended to send a signal that even with its forces stretched thin by the Iraq war, the United States still has the military means to project power in the region.

The Bush administration initially considered canceling the exercise after the British troops were detained. After consulting with the British government, the exercise was adjusted so that it would take place farther away from where the Britons were captured, American officials said. A scheduled port call by the Stennis in the United Arab Emirates was canceled so the exercise could get under way.
“We don’t want them to determine what we do when we think we are within our rights to do it,” a senior Bush administration official said, referring to the Iranians.
With the grinding war in Iraq and American lawmakers pushing for troop withdrawals, there is uncertainty over the future American military role in the region. That uncertainty has coincided with Iran’s growing influence throughout the Middle East, including a nuclear program that American officials assert is intended to develop weapons.
“Iran has been trying to send a message for some time that we are on the way out, that they are the natural great power of the region and that everybody should circle around Iran,” said the senior American official, who declined to be identified because he does not customarily speak to the news media.

The American naval maneuvers are one element of a broader strategy to counter the Iranians and reassure nervous allies. It also involves the deployment of Patriot antimissile systems to Qatar and Kuwait and the dispatch of minesweeping equipment to the region.

The appointment of Adm. William Fallon as the head of the United States Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East, is another signal that the Bush administration intends to emphasize the use of naval power to counter the notion that it is too bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan to respond to other threats. Admiral Fallon is the first naval officer to head the command.
“This whole thing is designed to send a message to the region,” the official said, referring to the naval exercise. “We are sending a message that we are here to stay.”
Toward that end, the American military made an effort to facilitate news coverage of its two-day carrier exercise by Middle East news organizations. Arab as well as Western media were offered an opportunity to board ships participating in the exercise.

The goal, according to military officials, was to reassure “regional audiences” of the capability of American naval forces and Washington’s determination to keep forces in the region.
American relations with Iran have involved recent diplomatic talks in Baghdad as well as strenuous efforts at the United Nations to build support for economic sanctions against Iran because of its determination to move ahead with its uranium enrichment program. The American military has also conducted raids in recent months against suspected members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq and still have five Iranians in detention.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the recent talks with Syria and Iran in Baghdad represented a “good start” and added that the Bush administration “is open to higher level exchanges.”
But Mr. Gates also cautioned, “We should have no illusions about the nature of this regime or about their designs for their nuclear program, their intentions for Iraq or their ambitions in the gulf region.”

Before venturing into the gulf, the Stennis had been providing aircraft for the NATO military operation in Afghanistan from the Arabian Sea. It headed to the Persian Gulf after the Charles de Gaulle, a French aircraft carrier, took up the Afghanistan mission.
With American carrier aircraft flying simulated attack missions in the Persian Gulf, some administration officials sought to emphasize that the exercise was not a cover for an impending air strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nor would the United States enter Iranian territorial waters, the officials said.

“It is not a precursor to war,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. “It is not a sign that we are building up capability in the region to attack. Sending two aircraft carriers should be seen as a demonstration of our capability.”
World

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So folks...has a new war begun or not???
Hmmm.........................