I've been following this one for a while. My personal theory is that he's a Bush appointee who's trying to get a lot of publicity to create a backlash against laws that protect citizens.

Now, it's a pair of pants. Next thing you know, all the families of people that died from asbestos exposure won't have a leg to stand on (or pants to wear) and Halliburton and Dick Cheney will be in the pink, or rather, in the green.

Otherwise reasonable people already think the country is sinking under frivolous lawsuits, such as ones against NASCAR, despite a total lack of evidence. The reason that NASCAR tracks are shutting down (and can't get a toehold in new markets like Washington State) is because they are total financial sinkholes that drain local economies for the benefit of a few.

Much like the war in Iraq, which is why they shove stories about pants and Paris Hilton at us, to distract us.

If I forgot to send this yesterday, I'll send it now. If I did send it, it's worth reading again:

June 12, 2007

Blackout

Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You

By DAVE LINDORFF

The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.

It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in America.!

Here are some of the things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media for your information:

1. Most Americans would like to see this president and vice president impeached and removed from office. Newsweek magazine published a scientific poll last October showing that 51 percent of us favor impeachment (including 29 percent of Republicans!), but the corporate media, which normally hasn't met a poll it won't publish, didn't publicize this one. And now, when the numbers supporting impeachment are surely even higher, you can't even pay a polling outfit to ask the question. No wonder most people who favor impeachment still think they're odd ducks.

2. There is a bill, filed in the House of Representatives on April 24 by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), calling for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. Since it was filed, it has gained six co-sponsors, including a member of the House Democratic leadership, Rep. Janice Shakowsky (D-IL). Most major media have ignored this important story completely. Most Americans also don't know that the Vermont State Senate voted overwhelmingly this spring to call on Congress to impeach the president.

3. The president has been declared a felon in federal court. Yet even after Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last August that President Bush and the National Security Agency were committing serial Class A felonies and were violating both the First and Fourth Amendments by spying on Americans' communications without first obtaining warrants, Bush continued ordering the NSA to continue the patently illegal program for at least half a year. In reports on the spying program, the corporate media never mention that it has been declared a felonious activity by the federal court.

4. Fifteen Democratic Party state organizations have passed impeachment resolutions calling on Democrats in Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president. The most recent of these, the Democratic Party of Oklahoma, passed its resolution at the party's annual convention on May 19. Other Democratic Party conventions, in states from Nevada and California to Massachusetts and North Carolina, have passed similar resolutions. Most have been ignored by the corporate media even in their own states.

5. Bush's so-called "coalition of the willing" is not so willing and is not really much of a coalition either. When's the last time you've heard how many countries are on board with the US in the war and occupation of Iraq? The reality? Britain, the only significant contributor of combat troops besides the U.S., is pulling out, as did Italy and Spain, and many other countries, like Denmark, Lithuania and others, plan to be out of Iraq by August or at the latest December. One indication of the seriousness of situation: The Pentagon no longer lists the countries that are members of the "coalition." The only mainstream report I've seen laying this out this collapse in international support for Bush's war was in USA Today last February.

6. The Homeland Security Department last year awarded Halliburton $385 million in a no-bid contract to construct prison camps designed to hold tens of thousands of unspecified prisoners in the event of domestic unrest. Meanwhile, President Bush has signed a bill altering the insurrection act so that he can declare martial rule and order active duty troops to take charge anywhere in the domestic US in the event of "public disorder." No one in the corporate media has reported on these developments or asked the White House to explain what it's all about.

7. There is evidence that Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a patron of the Washington Madam whose client book of high-class call-girls is causing many in Washington political circles-mostly Republicans it appears, who apparently need to pay for their sex-to sweat. So far no mention of the Cheney angle in the corporate media, though they've been having fun with the broader story of a political sex scandal. No mention either of how a brave West Point cadet refused to shake Cheney's hand on stage when the vice president was handing out this year's diplomas at the Army's premiere academy.

8. Among the "worst of the worst" of the "evildoers" captured and held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo were children, some of them preteens and kids who were under 15 when captured and brought to Cuba-so many in fact that the military had to set up a special facility, called Camp Iguana, just for adolescent and pre-pubescent "fighters." The corporate media have barely reported on this atrocity (the New York Times ran only one article mentioning child captives, in June 2005). The only wider coverage of this outrage came recently when the government tried to prosecute one such alleged child "terrorist"-Omar Khadr-only to have the military judge in charge toss his case out because the government had misclassified him. Khadr, we learned, was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan at the ripe age of 15, making him one of the older child captives brought to and interrogated at Guantanamo. Under international law, the U.S. was supposed to treat this and other child soldiers as victims, not as war criminals. Khadr, a Canadian by birth, instead has spent five years doing hard time in US captivity.

9. Well-researched reports on the rampant theft of both the 2000 and 2004 elections, and on Republican plans for theft of the 2008 election, such as Mark Crispin Miller's Fooled Again, have gone unmentioned in the corporate media. Books on the subject, like Miller's and like Greg Palast's best selling Armed Madhouse, have never been reviewed.

10. And of course, there's my own book. The Case for Impeachment, despite its having sold over 20,000 copies in hardcover, and despite its having now come out in a mass-market paperback edition, in both cases printed by a mainstream publisher, St. Martin's Press, has not received a single review in the corporate media. In this, my co-author Barbara Olshansky and I are not alone. None of the books on the impeachable crimes of this administration, including one by Nixon-era impeachment panelist and former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, and one by Judiciary Chair Rep. John Conyers, has been reviewed by a mainstream media outlet.

What we're talking about here is a media blackout of important stories and news.

Thanks to the internet and to the grapevine, and thanks to their basic native intelligence, most Americans seem to understand that we're being lied to and cheated. What the media blackout of important news does manage to do, however, is keep us all thinking that we are in a minority in opposing things like illegal wars, a trampled Constitution, and stolen elections.

In fact, however, we're actually the majority.

Once we realize this, maybe we will have a movement, instead of a just nation of isolated cynics and complainers.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His n book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's newest book is "The Case for Impeachment",
co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.

On 6/13/07, kdhaisch@aol.com <kdhaisch@aol.com> wrote:

file this one under

THE LEGAL SYSTEM GONE NUTS!!!

Judge Presses $54-Million Suit Over Pants

Man Leaves Court Crying After Discussing Lost Trousers

AP

WASHINGTON (June 12) - A judge had to leave the courtroom with tears running down his face Tuesday after recalling the lost pair of trousers that led to his $54-million lawsuit against a dry cleaner.

-----------------------------

damn Chinese laundries!!!

Jacquelyn Martin, AP

Dry cleaners Jin Nam Chung and Ki Chung are being sued for $54 million by Washington, D.C., Judge Roy Pearson over a pair of missing pants.

------------------------------------

Administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson had argued earlier in his opening statement that he is acting in the interest of all city residents against poor business practices. Defense attorneys called his claim "outlandish."

He originally sued Custom Cleaners for about $65-million under the District of Columbia consumer protection act and almost $2-million in common law claims. He is no longer seeking damages related to the pants, instead focusing his claims on two signs in the shop that have since been removed.

He alleges that Jin Chung, Soo Chung and Ki Chung, owners of the mom-and-pop business, committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service."

False Advertising!!! I'll sue for $100-Bajillion !!!!

Pearson, representing himself, said in opening that he wanted to examine the culture that allowed "a group of Oriental defendants to engage in bad business practices for five years."

An attorney for the Chungs portrayed Pearson as a bitter man with financial troubles stemming from a recent divorce who is taking out his anger on a hardworking family.

"This case is very simple. It's about one sign and the plaintiff's outlandish interpretation," attorney Chris Manning said.

The Chungs were to present their case Wednesday. Manning asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff to award them reimbursement for their legal costs if they win.

this might go to the Supreme Court !!!

Pearson called several witnesses Tuesday who testified that they stopped going to Custom Cleaners after problems with misplaced clothes.

so we might be talking about 3 or 4 lost pants !!!

Pearson also called himself as a witness, saying his problems began in May 2005 when he brought in several suits for alterations. A pair of pants from a blue and maroon suit was missing when he requested it two days later. He said Soo Chung tried to give him a pair of charcoal gray pants.

gray pants for a blue and maroon suit???

that will NEVER do !!!!!!!

As Pearson explained that those weren't the pants for the suit, he choked up and left the courtroom crying after asking Bartnoff for a break.

he cried like a baby!!! cried like Paris Hilton !!!

Pearson originally asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit, which was more than $1,000. But because the Chungs insisted the pants had been found, they refused to pay.

Manning has said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson, but the judge was not satisfied and increased his demands -- including asking for money to rent a car so he could drive to another business.

what problems he has!

and the rest of the country only has to worry

about the war in Iraq !!!

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2007-06-12 16:45:31

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