Washington, D.C.,: “ I post an article on a planned Israeli attack on Iran and you get a quantity of shrill invective from Jews. Typical.

What I said is true and that is that Israel wants to attack Iran and destroy its capacity to either build a bomb (they have several, thanks to friendly allies) or attack them with it (Iran has the capacity right now to accomplish this.)

Much of this is pure bluff. Inside the Pentagon is a technical group that is capable of intercepting classified and scrambled telephone conversations. Over the last seven months, this group has been intercepting conversations and other electronic communications, of the Israeli Embassy and other entities in the United States. Much, if not all of this presentation is based on notes from a friendly source.

Israel could not launch any kind of a land war against Iran. Their worthless IDF would be torn to bits before it got started. They are not dealing with unarmed women and children here, after all.

They do have atomic weaponry and have threatened to use it but if the enraged Iranians strike first, they won’t have any aircraft left, no airfields capable of launching a raid and certainly no pilots to man the wrecked planes.

Bush, while fanatically pro-Israel, has been curbed by the results of the midterms and the U.S. would, under no circumstances, send troops to help Israel and it's not so much that they won’t, but they can’t.

The Israelis are frightened that Bush’s loss of power means that their plans to have the U.S. draw their chestnuts out of the Middle East fire are wrecked.

This threat about an attack is, like most of the Israeli mouthing, pure bullshit. Bush would certainly like them to do this attack but the U.S. can’t, and won’t back it.

Some time ago, both Israel and the Pentagon released “leaked” papers showing the U.S. was going to attack Iran. This was solely to put pressure on Iran and it fell really flat. Many of us believed it because there were actual plans in place but the execution of them was impossible.

These threats from Tel Aviv are an attempt to regain face, lost when Hezbollah kicked the vaunted IDF in their asses and chased them back over the border.

Of course Israel revenged itself by immediately killing unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. Bush approved the slaughter in Lebanon and would certainly wet himself over an even bigger slaughter in Tehran who has had the nerve to flip him the bird with impunity.

None of our “allies” are going to support an attack on Teheran because they all buy Iranian oil.

All Bush has left is the pathetic ass kisser Blair and his days are certainly numbered. I predict Bush will end up talking to himself and eventually swallowing either a handful of pills or kissing a gun.

People like that cannot stand being thwarted.

Let up prey!

In conclusion?

An Israeli air attack against Iranian targets using their own aircraft and new U.S. tactical nukes designed to be fired from aircraft in rocket form, is not impossible. Israel is so frantic at this point that she might well attempt this and would also wish to present the U.S. with a fait accompli and force them into a support of Israeli activities. In this, Tel Aviv would be relying on the support of Jewish members of Congress, the very powerful Israeli lobby in America and strong support for Israel in both the Evangelical communities and the U.S. print and television media.

Would Israel launch such an attack? Given all of the circumstances, they might…unless Tehran struck first. This is certainly a strong possibility but to expect Israel to keep quiet about this subject, we can trust it to shout it from the housetops. It could well backfire in the end but they are so upset at the perceived loss of their power with the White House that reason is not part of their makeup at this point in time..”

Iran vows to hit back if Israel attacks
November 11th 2006
AFP

TEHRAN: Iran's armed forces on Saturday vowed to hit back against any military strike after a top Israeli official refused to rule out attacking the Islamic republic over its disputed nuclear programme.

"The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will firmly respond to any military and threatening move," Brigader General Ali Fazli, spokesman for Iran's latest round of 10-day war games, said.

"The Iranian armed forces, which realise the different threats, have the capacity and capability to confront them," he added.

Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh had told the Jerusalem Post on Friday he considered military action against Iran as a "last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort."

His comments were seen as the clearest statement yet by an Israeli official that military strikes against Iran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities were not excluded.

"The enemies of the Islamic republic are too weak and too abject to be a threat for a powerful Iran," added Fazli, who did not specify what the nature of Iran's response would be.

Iran has been showing off its military prowess in recent days in the 10-day "Great Prophet II" war games, which have seen its fire its Shahab-3 longer range missile for the first time in manoeuvres and test-fire new weaponry.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, complained to Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Security Council over Israel's "threats" on Friday following the comments by Sneh.

"The letter, underlining threats from Sneh and other Israeli officials, regards these statements as illegal, ridiculous and a sign of the Zionist regime's criminal policies and terrorist intentions," the IRNA state agency said.

"The Security Council should act in the face of such statements and the Israeli regime's terrorist acts. As a first step it should at least promptly condemn the Israeli regime's threats against Tehran," it said, quoting from the complaint.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1063450

More Defeats for Bush
Warrantless wiretaps unlikely to be OK'd
November 11th 2006
by Laurie Kellman,
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Legislation aimed at President Bush's once-secret program for wiretapping U.S.-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush's request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him.

Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. "I can't say that we won't do it, but there's no guarantee that we're going spend a lot of time on controversial measures," Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said Thursday.

In Senate parlance, that means no.

Republicans for months have known that no bill accomplishing Bush's goal could get filibuster-proof support from 60 senators. Sealing off any hope was what Democratic leader Harry Reid put on his lame-duck to-do list. The warrantless domestic surveillance bill was conspicuous in its absence.

As for next year, Bush should not expect Democrats to allow such legislation to pass without language establishing considerable congressional oversight of any expansion of warrantless wiretaps.

"We have been asked to make sweeping and fundamental changes in law for reasons that we do not know and in order to legalize secret, unlawful actions that the administration has refused to fully divulge," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the next Judiciary Committee chairman. "If legislation is needed for judicial review, then we should write that legislation together, in a bipartisan and thoughtful way."

The Bush administration has a backup plan. In speeches over the next few weeks, the Justice Department will launch a new campaign for the legislation by casting the choice as one between supporting the program or dropping it altogether — and appearing soft on al-Qaida.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will make the eavesdropping program the focus of a Nov. 18 speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for the national security, will make a similar pitch Wednesday to the American Bar Association.

Leahy said that monitoring communications of suspected terrorists is essential but that "it needs to be done lawfully and with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuses of Americans' rights and Americans' privacy."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush ordered the National Security Agency to monitor communications potentially related to al-Qaida between people in the U.S. and those overseas. He bypassed normal requirements for court approval of such eavesdropping, and the program came under harsh criticism after it was disclosed last December by The New York Times.

Democrats and Republicans on the intelligence and judiciary committees spent much of the year trying to find out details from the administration, to little avail. Much of the information is classified, and the White House has insisted that revealing it would mean compromising the war on terrorism.

The House passed a bill in September to allow warrantless wiretaps under certain restrictions. House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders would have to be notified, the president would have to believe that a terrorist attack is imminent, and certification would have to be renewed every 90 days.

A Republican measure in the Senate favored by the administration would require the Justice Department to report twice a year to the House and Senate intelligence committees the number and kind of any such operations. It would permit the surveillance to continue for up to one year without a warrant. 

Keith Olbermann Taps a Well of Discontent as the Anti-O'Reilly
November 12th 2006
by C.W. Nevius

San Francisco Chronicle

Keith Olbermann just needed to find his voice. He'd been a droll sportscaster, a serious news anchor and a bickering critic of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. But none of those personas really clicked.

Then he found one. A little over a year ago, as the White House fumbled and botched the Hurricane Katrina recovery, Olbermann finally blew up.

He concluded a broadcast of his MSNBC cable news show, "Countdown,'' with an indignant rant in the rat-a-tat-tat cadence of his idol, Edward R. Murrow. He called it a "Special Comment.''

And just like that, Olbermann found his voice -- the angry everyman. He became a liberal counterpoint to conservative media ranters like O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and an Internet star, too.

The result has been a cultural earthquake.

"Here's what happened,'' Olbermann said in a phone interview this week. "Five years ago (on Sept. 11), 50 percent of the country went quiet. There was this self-imposed censorship. Suddenly it became unimaginable to criticize the administration. And no one else was brave or stupid enough to say, 'I don't remember signing that document.' ''

Today Olbermann is hot, in every sense of the word. He likes to say that the first step to creating one of his blistering editorials is to "get pissed off,'' and that's certainly how he sounds.

But there's something more to it, too. Conservatives may hate his attacks, but no one doubts that he comes across as one of the smarter guys in the room. When he laid into then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Aug. 30, he threw in references to Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. Let's see NBC network anchor Brian Williams pull that off.

Not that he would try it.

"Broadcast networks are not interested in the controversy,'' Olbermann says.

Well, maybe they'd better start thinking about it.

"I think,'' says MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams, "that Keith Olbermann may become a model for the newscast of the future.''

And sure, Abrams is going to say that because he's Olbermann's boss. Besides, the MSNBC ratings have been on a roll lately -- helped by the 67 percent jump in viewer-ship for Olbermann's show in the year since he began channeling Howard ("I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!'') Beale from the movie "Network.''

But there's something more at work here, a possible new model for the next age of electronic media. Olbermann isn't just getting more viewers. He's getting more views -- lots and lots more.

It may have been the Rumsfeld piece that struck a nerve. Captured on YouTube, it was e-mailed all over the country and watched again and again. A month after it appeared on "Countdown,'' it had been seen more than 100,000 times.

"I was told that this thing was flying all around to various places,'' he says. "To hear that as many, if not more, people were seeing it there than had seen it in the original was amazing.''

Not only was it a rock-solid indication that Olbermann was pulling younger viewers, but there was legitimate proof that he could move product as well. The day the Rumsfeld piece aired, pre-orders for Olbermann's new book, "The Worst Person in the World,'' placed it 19,000th on Amazon.com's best-seller list, according to mediabistro.com, a media news Web site. After the commentary aired, the book moved to 19th.

It's tangible evidence of what Olbermann calls the "proverbial ripples on the pond.'' Not that he needed the book sales to convince him. Wherever he goes, people rush up to tell him that they've seen one of his "Special Comments'' and that he speaks for them.

"Six weeks ago,'' Olbermann says, "a woman burst into tears. I was at a restaurant with my girlfriend and she came up to me and started crying.''

Suddenly, everyone wants Olbermann. Last week, he and political veteran Chris Matthews teamed up to anchor MSNBC's midterm election coverage.

The result? Abrams called it "a major turning point for this network.'' Ratings were up across the board and the coveted 25-to-54 age demographic increased 111 percent from the 2002 midterm election.

What's next? Expect to see Olbermann in even more mainstream settings. The one thing he is resisting, however, is pressure to produce more "Special Comments.'' He has to feel them, he says. "Otherwise I will turn into a cartoon of myself.''

Certainly it is the passion that carries the day. As Abrams says, "Keith isn't faking this, and the viewers can see that.''

But now that he has everyone's attention, everyone is asking Olbermann the same question: With the result of the election and the resignation of Rumsfeld, where will he find targets?

"I'm giving the Democrats six months,'' he says. "And then they may be in for some 'Special Comments' of their own.''

Don't think he's kidding. He has found a point of view and he isn't afraid to use it.

“Falsehood is an amorphous monster, conceived in the brain of knaves and brought forth by the breath of fools. It's a mortal pestilence, a miasmic vapor that passes, like a blast from hell, over the face of the world and is gone forever. It may leave death in its wake and disaster dire; it may place on the brow of purity the brand of the courtesan and cover the hero with the stigma of the coward; it may wreck hopes and ruin homes, cause blood to flow and hearts to break; it may pollute the altar and disgrace the throne, corrupt the courts and curse the land, but the lie cannot live forever, and when it's dead and damned there's none so poor as to do it reverence.” ~William Cowper Brann

And all the sons of Congressmen! And the two adorable 100 Proof Bush daughters! (Ginna and Tonic)

"As democracy is perfected, the office of  president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." ~H.L. Mencken

“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them.  There is almost no kind of outrage, torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, and bombing of civilians, which does not change its moral color when it is committed by our side.  The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." ~George Orwell

"Under the Bush administration, openness and accountability have been replaced by secrecy and evasion of responsibility. They abuse their power, conceal their actions from the American people, and refuse to hold officials accountable." ~Senator Edward M. Kennedy

“George W.Bush is deeply interested in Deep Space Exploration. His next project will be to circle Uranus and search for Kingons…..”
~Dallas Herald

“A government official is a man who has risen from obscurity to something worse.” ~Pat Robertson

"The voters decide nothing.  Those that count the votes decide everything." ~J.V. Stalin

“The Senior White House staff is living proof that Pentecostal mongoloids regularly cohabit with chimpanzees, frogs and Norway rats”
~Dr. Myron Kalbfuss, Biology Department, Stanford University
 

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1.The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2.The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3. An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old or too fat to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4. George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

We gather information, on a daily basis, from many websites. There are a number of publications that are well worth viewing for their intelligent reporting of national and international news. All of those sources, listed below, are daily newspapers with the exception of the Asia Times. The latter is a very well written site with in-depth articles that are worth reading.

The New York Times:  www.nytimes.com
The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com
The Christian Science Monitor: www.csmonitor.com
The Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:  www.seattlepi.nwsource.com
Asia Times www.atimes.com

Note: Very little of the information in this edition of TBR news has come from the mainline American media. It is just not there. Most of it has come from foreign sources and the Internet. Most of our sources can be seen on the main page.

 "People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility  ~Eric Hoffer “The True Believer”