Bummed out Bully Boy

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- DC.

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE AND ANGER CONDI RICE PHONED THESE REPORTERS THIS EVENING INSISTING THAT WE IMMEDIATELY REPORT TO THE OVAL OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE BECAUSE THE BULLY BOY HAD SOME EXCITING NEWS.

WHEN THESE REPORTERS WERE USHERED IN, A GLEEFUL BULLY BOY HOPPED FROM FOOT TO FOOT AND EXPLAINED HE WAS SO EXCITED THAT HE WAS "PEEING MYSELF A LITTLE."

THINKING THAT SOMEONE HAD FINALLY TALKED SOME SENSE INTO HIM, WE WAITED FOR HIM TO EXPLAIN THAT HE WAS ANNOUNCING THE WITHDRAWAL OF ALL U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ.

INSTEAD, HE EXPLAINED HE WAS PLANNING "THE ULTIMATE PARTY." ADVISING US TO KEEP IT ON "THE LOW DOWN," HE EXPLAINED THE "SUPREMELY AWESOME PAR-TAY" WOULD TAKE PLACE SHORTLY AND HE HAD FIGURED OUT A WAY TO GET CONGRESS TO PAY FOR IT.

HE INSISTED IT WOULD BE LIKE HIS DAYS IN THE EARLY 70S AND NO EXPENSE WOULD BE SPARED.

"I'M GOING TO SPEND 1.4 MILLION DOLLARS JUST ON 'FEEL GOODS' FROM MEXICO, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

THESE REPORTERS DID KNOW WHAT HE MEANT BUT WONDERED IF HE KNEW WHAT THE 1.4 MILLION DOLLARS WAS ACTUALLY FOR? THE WHITE HOUSE HAS INSISTED CONGRESS PONY UP 1.4 MILLION OF TAX PAYER DOLLARS NOT TO STOCK A MAD BASH FOR THE BULLY BOY BUT TO COMBAT DRUG TRAFFIC IN MEXICO.

"WHAT!" HOWLED THE BULLY BOY BEFORE HE STORMED OFF MUTTERING THAT ORIGINAL GANSTA DICK CHENCY, PRESIDENT OF VICE, HAD "PUNKED ME AGAIN!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting with war resisters, Laura Rumpf (The Stanford Daily) reports on Stephen Funk, the first public war resister of the Iraq War who singed up with "the Marine Corps in 2002 at age 19" and "realized almost immediately after starting boot camp in Afghanistan that he opposed the war and could not morally be a part of violence he did not condone" so he filed for CO status. Where did Funk go for information? As most other war resisters have cited, Funk declares that "I had no idea about conscientious objection as an option until I researched my military rights online." Ordered to deploy to Iraq in 2003, Funk assumed his CO application was being processed and handled the issue. Rumpf reports, "On Sept. 1, 2004, Funk became the first known soldier to be jauiled for refusing to serve in Iraq. In a victory for anti-war activists helping his cause, he was acquitted of desertion charges, but he received a six-month sentence in a military brig at Camp Lejune, N.C., for unauthorized absence." In the time since, Stephen Funk has continued to be active in the peace movement and Rumpf notes, "On campus [Stanford], Funk is active in the LGBT community and at the Native American Cultural Center. He serves as chapter president of the San Francisco Iraq Veterans Against the War organization, which helps raise enlistees' awareness about their rights among other activities."

Iraq Veterans Against the War's chair Camilo Mejia is the first Iraq veteran to publicly resist the illegal war. On Saturday he spoke at the national conference of the Campus Antiwar Network held at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Pedro Oliveira Jr. (Badger Herald) reports that the conference had a turn out of "nearly 100 students from CAN chapters across the nation this weekend. During the conference, students had a chance to hear Iraq Veterans Against the War founder Camilo Mejia speak about his experiences in Iraq."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

[. . .]

Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Valerie Plame discussed with Katie Couric how her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, calling out Bully Boy's lies of war led to covert CIA agent Plame being outed by the US government. Plame declared, "When I was outed on July 14th, 2003, I was, until that moment, covert. . . .We understood that he would be criticized deeply. I never once considered that in fact this administration would betray my identity as payback for his criticism." For those late to the party or who have swallowed GOP talking points, Plame was an undercover CIA agent. Her husband Joe Wilson was sent to Niger to see if Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger. Wilson knew the country well and also knew Hussein well (stood up to him during Poppy Bush's presidency). Wilson went to Niger to check out the rumors and found there was no truth to them. In the 2003 State of the Union speech -- the only speech a president is Constitutionally mandated to deliver and, therefore, the only one that the oath applies to without any doubts or quibbles -- Bully Boy declared his 16-word lie about Saddam seeking yellow cake from Africa. Lie and the White House eventually (long after the illegal war started) had to retract it. In his 2003 performance for the United Nations, Collie Powell would make clear what country Bully Boy was referring to. Lies, lies, lies.Joe Wilson would go public with "What I Didn't Find In Africa" in the New York Times. The White House would immediately respond by leaking the fact that Valerie Plame was CIA. Robert Nov-a-hack would be the first to run with it. Valerie Plame would be outed, her career destroyed, by the US government -- the same government she worked for.

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