Greetings, fellow Freedom Fighters™ and Defenders of Democracy™!

We of The Scallion are back with our usual hiatus-limited assortment of the sadly usual outrages, wrongdoings, injustices, and crimes being committed by the Bush junta and its adherents and corporate cronies.

Today, we bring you a handful of links to stories every American should read along with letters to Congress and the media regarding issues every American needs to know about. (Good news for our short-attention-span Readers: since the letters were submitted for publication to the media, not one is over 250 words.)

Please continue to do all you can every day to save our precious democracy. We can’t afford to give up or give in … the stakes are simply too high.

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But wait--there’s more!

In all the shame, deceit, thievery, institutionalized hate, and whitewashed crime that is now Nazi America, there is one glimmer of good news: the Editor in Chief of The Scallion has a clean bill of political health as far as the FBI is concerned.

That’s right, folks--our chief editor made a written FOIA (also known as FOIPA--Freedom Of Information-Privacy Acts) request some 4-6 weeks ago and received a response last week saying that the FBI has no records on file relating to political donations, activism, writings, or other non-official activities.

Granted, this does not mean that the FBI is necessarily being completely forthcoming. There’s always the chance that the poor schlep what has to answer all those FOIA requests is not letting us know that he knows what we know only we don’t know what he knows that we know. You know?

But we’ll take it. We won’t be looking this tiny little gift-horse in the mouth any time soon.

Want to see what dirt the FBI has on you? Trust the men in black to give you a straight answer? Then why not go FOIA yourself? It’s quick, it’s easy … it’s almost fun … and you can print the form right from your computer if you click here:

http://www.foiarequest.org/

As the creators of the above website say, by FOIAing ourselves, we are sending our government the clear message that WE CARE about our Constitution and our rights, and we want an administration that will obey the law. Or get the hell out. NOW.

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Surviving to tell the tale of torture

(Click here; the link leads to
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/
la-oe-talamante25mar25,0,7342682.story?coll=la-news-
comment-opinions)

As The Scallion’s Chief Editor sees it, one of the worst problems is that the torture survival stories will be censored here in Nazi America. Many of us will hear them because we want to know, but millions of Americans will never have a clue.

Remember our engineer friend from “What’s wrong with monopolies, anyway?” He has no problem with our military committing torture. He thinks it's all a tempest in a teapot over "a little nudity" (his words) and that we as a nation are too prudish. He is convinced that the prisoners are not being hurt and that, since they're all terrorists anyway, they deserve far worse than the luxury treatment they are getting--he is convinced that they are living like kings on our tax money. We of The Scallion wonder how many there are like him out there. We wonder if he's gotten this view from his usual sources: O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and the other shouting heads whose only job is to inflame … barking dogs who are not responsible journalists but merely loudmouths who spew whatever distortions they like because they are accountable to no one for their facts.

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Bush's unholy alliance: petroleum, preachers, & debt

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174713-1,00.html

The road ahead that is being paved by this alliance is a swift and sure path to the fall of the American nation as we know it. True conservatives know this and are as distressed about it as the rest of us across the political spectrum who understand and lament what is really going on.

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Here is a letter to The New York Times lambasting it for accepting nearly $1M in Darfurian blood money to advertise sweetness and light for the Sudanese government:

For two years, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has courageously ventured into the mouth of hell to describe the brutal genocide in Darfur. Through his and other Times staffers’ reporting, Americans continue to read of the tremendous suffering of the innocent people of Darfur at the hands of their very own government.

Yet last Sunday, the Times accepted nearly $1M from the Sudanese government to run a special, eight-page advertisement! The insert, placed in New York-area papers, featured pretty words about Sudan's "peaceful, prosperous, and democratic future." This propaganda was written on behalf of a government the Times reports has sponsored a mass effort to kill, rape, and force people from their homes.

On the day the Times ran the Sudanese advertisement, the paper also ran an editorial condemning the Sudanese-government-sponsored militias responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent people and displacing millions more.

This is unconscionable.

The Times is free to choose its business partners: the paper could and should have chosen to reject this paid advertisement! How DARE the Times profit from money that the Sudanese government SHOULD have spent on health clinics in Darfur? How dare the Times profit from propaganda representing a government they themselves believe guilty of mass murder?

Face it: THE NEW YORK TIMES ACCEPTED BLOOD MONEY. The LEAST the Times can do is to donate the tainted proceeds from the ad to relief work in Darfur!

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Letter to Congress and the press: who has the authority to sell off America’s public lands without informing the public? We can’t let Bush sell off yet another 300,000 acres of OUR lands!

Who owns America?

In “Who Owns The West? Mining Claims in America's West” (http://www.ewg.org/mining/report/index.php?stab=US&chapter=1), I was shocked to read that America’s public lands have been systematically sold to private corporations and individuals at home and abroad.

The buyers obtain mineral, agricultural, and other land use rights while the American public loses its rights of access and remediation. In other words, suppose that a mining company a were to purchase a piece of parkland and then dump cancer-causing PCBs into the soil in the process of harvesting that land’s resources. Then, the American public would be stuck with the bill for dealing with the deadly cancers and cleaning up the PCBs that caused them.

“Just how many Americans realize this is going on?” I wondered. “And who gives whom the authority to sell off our public lands without our knowledge?”

Just as the Senate recently snuck through approval to drill in ANWR, Bush’s 2007 budget will sell off yet another 301,511 acres of public lands to logging, oil, and gas industry cronies.

And you and I will foot the bill to rehabilitate these lands once they are exhausted.

Our government is so intent on making a quick buck now that they fail to realize that, by selling off the public’s lands, they are mortgaging the engine to save the car--an approach that is neither responsible nor sustainable.

Our elected officials need to realize to realize that America’s public lands belong to America’s public. They’re not for sale at any price!

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Letter to Congress and the press: censuring Bush is a good start; Bush MUST obey the law!

Under the Constitution, the President’s sole responsibility is to uphold the laws that Congress passes--not to create, rewrite, or break laws as convenient. Mr. Bush must obey the law or pay the penalty of failing to do so, including censure, impeachment, and imprisonment.

Senator Feingold's resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the law resonates with countless Americans, many of whom support impeaching Bush. With more than 400,000 petition signers urging Congress to support censure, our elected officials are faced with a powerful, unambiguous call for accountability.

In response, the Republican National Committee is already on the warpath, running ads accusing Senator Feingold of being "more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom."[1] They can't defend Mr. Bush's lawbreaking, so they're trying to intimidate dissent by attacking the messenger. But Republicans have acknowledged that Bush broke the law.[2]

As Senator Feingold said, "The President has broken the law, and the censure resolution I introduced is intended to hold him accountable. Nobody says that we shouldn't be monitoring suspected terrorists. Of course we should, and we can under current law."[3]

Censuring Mr. Bush isn't about tracking terrorists. It's about whether the Republican-controlled Congress thinks that Mr. Bush is above the law.

[1] "RNC Releases New Radio Ad Entitled 'Censure,'" Republican National Committee, March 21, 2006
[2] "FACT: Members of Both Parties Believe Bush Broke the Law," Thinkprogress, January 23, 2006
[3] "GOP to air ad criticizing Feingold for censure proposal," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 20, 2006

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Letter to Congress and the press: Here are MORE Bush lies. When are we going to IMPEACH this guy?!

George W. Bush misled Americans through manipulated intelligence and outright lies about Iraq's ties to September 11th. America remains awash in a river of propaganda, from "Mission Accomplished" to an insurgency in its "last throes" and claims of “great progress” as Iraq descends into further violence.

The distortions continued this afternoon as Mr. Bush took the stage: "First, just if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said -- at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein."

Wrong.

In fact, Bush told Congress, "The use of armed forces against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." (3/21/03)

Republicans in the White House and Congress have a three-part strategy on Iraq: ignore inconvenient reality, whitewash failures and distortions, and attack the patriotism of anyone who demands accountability.

None of that will reduce the chaos in Iraq.

Neither does it make America safer.

Our warfighters are suffering and dying for lack of proper equipment.

There is no exit plan.

We are financing this war through unsustainable, skyrocketing debt as Bush continues to cut taxes for the rich.

We deserve better.

It’s time for a meaningful exit strategy and for Bush to be held accountable through impeachment.