Greetings, fellow Freedom Fighters™ and Defenders of Democracy™! While we of The Scallion are still officially on hiatus, we are within a few weeks of returning to our usual weekly schedule of satire and speaking the truth to power. Until then, we shall continue to speak out whenever we reach boiling point on all the corruption, graft, and injustice being wreaked at home and abroad by chimposter and the neoCONs in our government and corporations.

This issue features news to use, an original piece of Scallion satire (yay!), and political letters from Scallion staffers. You won’t want to miss a word!

Keep the faith; keep fighting; and let’s continue to work together to put these criminals where they belong: IN JAIL!

-----
Finally--a website that shows all of the chimposter’s wrongdoings in one-stop shopping!
http://www.wikithepresidency.org/?tr=y&auid=1666466

-----
How we (essentially) stole Iraq’s oil
http://alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/36031/

This article answers the following question from Scott Adam (yes, the creator of Dilbert) …

I don't understand the theory that we attacked Iraq for oil. Can one of you geniuses explain that to the rest of us? I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. And I certainly think governments are capable of doing bad things. But I don't understand the concept of attacking Iraq "because of oil." What does that even mean? [...] Seriously. Can anyone explain what the plan was?

… and it does so in a way that reveals that the evil and greed of our government and corporations goes beyond even what we of The Scallion imagined (and we boast pretty active imaginations!).

If you care at all about why we are in Iraq, this is a must-read article.

-----
Axis of Corporate Evil (hmm--nice acronym!)
http://www.hereinreality.com/news/axis.html

This little web page only confirms what we of The Scallion have been saying since our inception some three years ago: Clinton helped sow the seeds of fascism during his administration. Anyone who doubts this should go Google the Telecommunications Act of 1996—there’s more proof there than you can shake an optical fiber at.

-----
And now … a piece of original satire from the pen (er, keyboard) of The Scallion entitled
Who needs the paperless society when you can have the recordless society?

Diebold and other electronic machine manufacturers finally decided to make a giant leap forward for recordless society. “Since recordless voting has been such a hit, we decided to go whole hog,” said Gree D. Bastard, President and CEO of Diebold.

Under the new policy, ATMs no longer issue receipts to bank patrons. As a result, any American who does not make at least $1M/year from a Bush-crony corporation will now only see one message upon attempting to withdraw funds from ATMs: “overdrawn.” For consistency, human tellers have been instructed by their supervisors to issue the same message to any patrons who enter the bank to withdraw funds.

“We love it,” exclaimed American Banking Association president Fred Grubmoney. “Now, instead of just contenting ourselves with usurous interest rates, we get to keep all the money that Americans are foolish enough to deposit in our banks! Thanks, Diebold!!”

Lotteries no longer issue receipts, either. Amazingly, within the past three months, George W. Bush has now won over $10B in lotteries across most of the nation. While some Americans are suspicious of this result, nothing can be done to redress any injustice that might have been perpetrated because, indeed, there is no record of any wrongdoing to redress.

Similarly, credit card companies, utilities, and other service providers and debt collectors across America have been thriving on Diebold's brave new approach. One credit card company spokeswoman said, “Since we don't keep records any more, we get to tell all our customers that we never received payment on their credit cards, which are all maxed out, of course. It has been great fun foreclosing on Americans' houses and possessions in payment of their non-existent debts and then throwing them into debtors' prison for good measure. Now, more than ever before, every day is Christmas in our industry!”

The prison-industrial complex has also benefited from the boon. Warden Dragoon Browneshirt remarked, “Since we no longer keep records, every person who walks in the door has a mandatory life sentence, regardless of the crime. The only down side is that the prisoners were all taxpayers, so, eventually, we will run out of revenue once we put them all behind bars, where they belong. At that point, we will have to get our revenue from somewhere else. Since them rich folk don't pay any taxes, we figure we'll just have to put all these once-taxpaying felons to work. That way, they can pay their room and board at the same time they also support all those poor rich people on the outside, who rely on their fat Federal tax refunds every year.”

Interestingly, the increasing incarceration of taxpayers has not at all been detrimental to the economic well-being of the consumer goods and services industries. Corporate advocate and spokeswoman Tow D. Avaricious commented, “Since we no longer keep records, we don’t have to report any income any more; as a result, we now get lucrative tax refunds every year. Those refunds essentially subsidize us not to produce any goods or services, so, for us, it has all been one great, big, fat, happy vacation.”

Welcome to America’s brave new world of recordless economy.

-----
More On Moron’s Illegal Domestic Spying …

Got a cell phone? Keep it on all the time? Then, friends and gentle Readers, you are being tracked like sheep!
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/12/more-unlawful-activity/

---
Greg Palast's two cents on the issue (please go to http://www.gregpalast.com/ for the full story!):

THE SPIES WHO SHAG US
The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story -- Again
by Greg Palast
For Buzzflash
Friday, May 12, 2006

I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.

This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company, formed in 1997, called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.

Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.

They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.

Who ARE these guys selling George Bush a piece of you?

ChoicePoint's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country club. It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar daddies as billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone -- even after Langone was charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside information.

I first ran across these guys in 2000 in Florida when our Guardian/BBC team discovered the list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election. Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases, Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc.

And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And when we caught them, they lied about it. While they've since apologized to the NAACP, ChoicePoint's ethnic cleansing of voter rolls has been amply assuaged by the man the company elected.

And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United States ...linked to all the other information held by CP [ChoicePoint]" from medical to voting records.

And ChoicePoint lied about that too. The company publicly denied they gave DNA to the Feds -- but then told our investigator, pretending to seek work, that ChoicePoint was "the number one" provider of DNA info to the FBI.

"And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since left the company), because ChoicePoint gets it WRONG so often. We are not contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's more like Austin Powers, Inc. Besides the 97% error rate in finding Florida "felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering ChoicePoint had produced test "results" on rape case evidence ... that didn't exist. And ChoicePoint just got hit with the largest fine in Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase 145,000 credit card records.

But it won't stop, despite Republican senators shedding big crocodile tears about "surveillance" of innocent Americans. That's because FEAR is a lucrative business -- not just for ChoicePoint, but for firms such as Syntech, Sybase and Lockheed-Martin -- each of which has provided lucrative posts or profits to connected Republicans including former Total Information Awareness chief John Poindexter (Syntech), Marvin Bush (Sybase) and Lynn Cheney (Lockheed-Martin).

But how can they get Americans to give up our personal files, our phone logs, our DNA and our rights? Easy. Fear sells better than sex -- and they want you to be afraid. Back to today's New York Times, page 28: "Wider Use of DNA Lists is Urged in Fighting Crime." And who is providing the technology? It comes, says the Times, from the work done on using DNA fragments to identity victims of the September 11 attack. And who did that job (for $12 million, no bid)? ChoicePoint, Inc. Which is NOT mentioned by the Times.

"Genetic surveillance would thus shift from the individual [the alleged criminal] to the family," says the Times -- which will require, of course, a national DNA database of NON-criminals.

It doesn't end there. Turn to the same newspaper, page 23, with a story about a weird new law passed by the state of Georgia to fight illegal immigration. Every single employer and government agency will be required to match citizen or worker data against national databases to affirm citizenship. It won't stop illegal border crossing, but hey, someone's going to make big bucks on selling data. And guess what local boy owns the data mine? ChoicePoint, Inc., of Alpharetta, Georgia.

The knuckleheads at the Times don't put the three stories together because the real players aren't in the press releases their reporters re-write.

But that's the Fear Industry for you. You aren't safer from terrorists or criminals or "felon" voters. But the national wallet is several billion dollars lighter and the Bill of Rights is a couple amendments shorter.

And that's their program. They get the data mine -- and we get the shaft.

---
And now … this article hot off the AlterNet press. Do you care that your cell phone can be used to track your whereabouts even if you are not making or receiving a call? The only criterion is that your phone has to be on. If you care about whether or not your government and/or other interested parties can track you like a sheep, then this article is one you won’t want to miss!

Reach Out and Track Someone

http://www.alternet.org/rights/36151/

By Terry J. Allen, In These Times. Posted May 11, 2006.

Your mobile phone lets companies and the government know where you are, even when you're not making a call.

If you are one of the more than 200 million Americans with a cell phone nestled in your pocket, authorities may be able to find you any time day or night--even if you never make or receive a call.

You know the Verizon ad where a lockstep crowd personifies the network that accompanies its customer everywhere? Well, within that seemingly friendly horde, a high-tech Big Brother is lurking.

Most people know that when they make a mobile call--during a 911 emergency, for example--authorities can access phone company technology to pin down their location, sometimes to within a few feet.

A lesser-known fact: Cell phone companies can locate you any time you are in range of a tower and your phone is on. Cell phones are designed to work either with global positioning satellites or through "pings" that allow towers to triangulate and pinpoint signals. Any time your phone "sees" a tower, it pings it.

That is what happened last month when a New York City murder highlighted the existence of the built-in capability of phones to locate people even when they aren't making calls.

The case of Imette St. Guillen captivated the New York City media as only the murder of a young, attractive, middle-class, white female can. One piece of evidence leading to the arrest of Darryl Littlejohn, the bouncer at the club where St. Guillen was last seen, was what police called "cell phone records." In fact, it was not an actual call that placed Littlejohn at the crime scene. Instead, according to the New York Daily News, police traced Littlejohn's route the day of the murder by tracking the "pings" of his cell phone, which were "stored" in a tower and "later retrieved from T-Mobile by cops."

Telecom companies and government are not eager to advertise that tracking capability. Nor will companies admit whether they are archiving the breadcrumb trail of pings from a cell phone so that they--or authorities--can trace back, after the fact, where the customer had been at a particular time. "Of course, there is that capability," says Bruce Schneier, chief technical officer with Counterpane Internet Security. "Verizon and the other companies have access to that information and the odds are zero that they wouldn't sell it if it is legal and profitable. This is capitalism after all."

But legality can be so tricky to pin down, especially when national security and corporate profits are involved. Communications companies and government have been repeatedly caught collaborating in highly questionable practices. Warrantless wiretapping, now sparking cries for Bush's impeachment, was implemented by the NSA accessing the "gateway" switches that route calls around the globe. Most of these switches are controlled by AT&T, MCI and Sprint.

Recently, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it had internal AT&T documents and a sworn statement by retired AT&T technician Mark Klein showing that the company's use of a "dragnet surveillance" was "diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale."

It is likely that authorities are also accessing cell phone call records and conducting real-time tracing of hapless Palestinians who donated to clinics and liberal activists who dared march for peace. And if the administration's record is a guide, it is interpreting privacy protection laws relating to cell phones in ways that bend and perhaps batter the Constitution.

"I think there's a substantial worry that location information about cell phone users is being released without a court order," EFF Staff attorney Kevin Bankston told CNN.

Echoing the Bush administration's rationale for warrantless wiretapping, the Justice Department argues that time lost justifying a search warrant can mean dangerous delays. Several judges around the country have disagreed. Citing officials' failure to show probable cause, they have denied government requests for cell phone tracking. According to EFF, a New York magistrate revealed that "the Justice Department had routinely been using a baseless legal argument to get secret authorizations from a number of courts, probably for many years."

"Justice Department officials countered that courts around the country have granted many such orders in the past without requiring probable cause," the Oct. 28 Washington Post reported.

Real-time tracking technology also opens disturbing entrepreneurial opportunities. Anyone who provides their kids, spouse or employees with a software-readied cell phone can secretly monitor them on the web. Wherify.com "locates loved ones within feet/meters in about a minute," and allows subscribers to "view location on both street and aerial mapping, to include date/time stamp, lat/long and block address" and "set breadcrumb schedule for periodic locates." Another Internet business promises to sell you the calling records for any phone number you provide. (Note to readers: If you have Karl Rove's number, I'll cough up the $100 fee to get a look.)

But as far as invasiveness goes, the ability of the government to secretly track and find you anywhere, anytime, ranks right up with a pelvic exam in Times Square.

-----
A Scallion thank-you to Ray McGovern

The Scallion would like to extend a warm, public thank-you to Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst who sat in front of Dick Cheney and asked, “…I would like to ask you to be up-front with the American people. Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?”

Would you like to thank Ray McGovern yourself? If so, then please go to http://thankyouraymcgovern.org/ and type up a thank-you letter. Here’s what we submitted:

Thank you, Ray McGovern! You are a true patriot and a true American hero!! You are an inspiration to all of us who continue to commit ourselves to the daily struggle of trying to wrest power back from the fascists who have stolen it from the American people. Freedom isn’t free, and America is truly blessed to have brave people like you who are willing to risk life, limb, and reputation to fight for freedom and defend the Great Experiment that is our democracy. THANK YOU!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

-----
A great big Scallion thank-you to Stephen Colbert

A Scallion staffer went to http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/ and wrote the following thank-you to Stephen Colbert for his relentless church-bell-sized balls o’ brass and his determination to speak truthiness to power despite a frigid reception from our naked chimp-emperor and his corporate media cronies at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year:

Stephen, you are MY HERO! I wish we could have seen Bush’s face on split screen during your wonderful remarks. Below is an e-mail I sent to Mr. Bush on the occasion via comments@whitehouse.gov:

I am glad that George W. Bush finally became a captive audience and had to sit down, shut up, and listen to the truth as told to him by Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

Maybe now Mr. Bush will find some common ground with the rest of America — meaning those of us who are not filthy rich like he is. We have been a captive audience that has had not merely to listen to but to LIVE WITH the unspeakably awful truths that Mr. Bush has created in Afghanistan, Iraq, New Orleans, and all over America with his policies of fascism, destruction, corruption, and deception.

Unlike the rest of us, Mr. Bush gets to go home after the event and pretend he never heard the truth, and at least Mr. Bush gave and got a few laughs at the party. Too bad that’s not the case for our maimed and dead in Iraq, for the innocent civilians they have killed, or for our suffering poor at home. For them, it was no party.

-----
The truth hurts: a Scallion staffer’s plea to Congress to stop penalizing America’s mothers

First, the bad news: for 15 years, I was denied equal pay just because I am a woman. Now, the worse news: for most of those years, I worked for the Federal government, which supposedly has regulations against discrimination!

I am fortunate in that I now have a fair-paying job for a family-friendly company. And I realize that, even so, working full time and having a child will be an incredibly difficult balancing act.

Why am I so committed to keeping my job?

Because I am an engineer. I can do math and science that over 90% of the human population is incapable of doing. And, since I work for a government contractor, my job serves my nation and provides for its defense.

How much harder is it for other current and prospective mothers -- women who are not blessed with an enlightened employer, like I am -- to support their families on less than equal pay? How much harder is it for their children?

The children are the bottom line. By penalizing mothers, America is penalizing its children. And, by penalizing its children, America is destroying its future one child at a time.

-----
The injustice of it all: easy luxuries for men; not even the necessities for women

A Scallion staffer bitches to Congress and the media that Viagra is covered by insurance, but contraception isn’t! Friends and gentle Readers, it’s not about preventing unwanted pregnancies: it’s about keeping women barefoot, pregnant, subjugated, and underfoot. If you don’t get it by now, then please leave the country -- or at least stop breeding because your intelligence genes are clearly defective!

How typical: The Republican Congress sees no injustice when insurance companies cover men's RECREATIONAL sex drugs, like Viagra, but not a NECESSITY like birth control. It’s the same old, tired tune: Republican hypocrites are willing to bend themselves into pretzels to undo Roe v Wade WITHOUT WORKING TO PREVENT UNWANTED PREGNANCIES in the first place!

This must be the Republican motto: “a ton of cure that we-the-SELF-righteous control beats an ounce of prevention any day.”

God knows that, as far as Republicans are concerned, as long as the mother is forced to give birth, the baby can drop dead afterward--and so can the mother. Republican "family values" means leaving all but the richest children behind!

You hypocrites should be ashamed of yourselves. Please grow consciences and work to prevent unwanted pregnancies through sexual/abstinence education and contraception for MALE AND FEMALE teens and adults. It would be so much more intelligent and rational of an approach than simply foaming at the mouth trying to enforce mandatory birthing.

-----
Boot Hayden! The guy doesn’t even know -- or care to know -- the Fourth Amendment!

Below is an impassioned plea from a Scallion staffer to Congress and the media begging for General Hayden to be rejected as incoming CIA chief. After all, the man is either too ignorant or too corrupt to admit that “unreasonable search and seizure” appears in the text of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution!

This week's news has been rife with reports that the National Security Agency, or NSA, has in fact been monitoring virtually every domestic phone call in the US. In doing so, the NSA deliberately skirted the scrutiny of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, which the Bush administration has already declared in public it would flagrantly disregard. Now the Bush administration is pushing General Michael V. Hayden, the prime overseer of this vast domestic spying program, to take over the already demoralized CIA as well.

When challenged recently on the issue of warrantless domestic spying, General Hayden proclaimed, "Believe me, if there is any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the 4th." He made this remark after having just denied that the Fourth Amendment contains any reference to the expression "probable cause" to regulate unreasonable searches and seizures. Hayden's denial that "probable cause" is a key aspect of the Fourth Amendment was either an error or a lie; thus, it does not bode well for the Constitution or Americans' rights under the Constitution if our CIA director refuses to understand or obey the Constitution as the law of our land.

Even Republican leaders have admitted this warrantless domestic spying program is "clearly and categorically wrong."

Therefore, it is time for the Republicans in the House and Senate to step and defend what is right: oppose the appointment of General Hayden as head of the CIA.

-----
And no one’s getting’ fat …!

As a Scallion staffer groused to Congress and the media, it’s not Mama Cass who’s getting’ fat this time: it’s Big Oil. And they’re getting fat off of US, the American sheeple. The rich are getting richer because of subsidies and tax refunds that we working Americans pay for with our tax money! Why the decerebrate denizens of the Republican rank and file think this is hunky dokey, we of The Scallion will never know …

The last time Congress held hearings on gas prices, they didn't even put the oil company executives under oath: oil executives had NO incentive to be truthful in the absence of the threat of perjury.

It is time for ALL members of Congress to call for bi-partisan hearings. Big Oil’s executives must be placed under oath and asked how they enjoy record profits while Americans pay through the nose for each gallon of gasoline. Politicians had better hold Big Oil accountable because, by God, America is going to hold its politicians accountable.

Isn’t Congress even a tiny bit suspicious that the petroleum companies set the price of gasoline based on the worldwide spot market, but they produce the gasoline themselves via their own offshore platforms? Don’t tell me OPEC controls American petroleum producers’ prices!

And whatever happened to the petroleum companies’ moth-balled refineries? Can’t they put them back into production? Don’t tell me there’s a shortage of facilities!

Why can’t some of the tax breaks Big Oil enjoys be shared with the American people, who foot the bill for the massive refunds and subsidies? Hello … are any of our REPRESENTATIVES awake and ready to represent us? Or are you all just too busy representing yourselves and your rich Big Oil cronies?

The American public is not blind to the oil-drenched corruption that runs from the corporations all the way up through the Oval Office, and we hold Congress accountable for the lack of oversight.