The New York Times reports that helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces attacked al-Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, close to the border with Afghanistan early Wednesday.

“What you’re seeing is perhaps a stepping up of activity against militants in sanctuaries in the tribal areas that pose a direct threat to United States forces and Afghan forces in Afghanistan,” said one senior American official, who had been briefed on the attack and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the mission’s political sensitivity. “There’s potential to see more.”

…The Angoor Adda area is on the border with Afghanistan, and its mud-walled compounds are known as a center of Taliban and Qaeda strength.

Sher Khan, a phone company employee in Angoor Adda, said in a telephone interview that 19 people were killed in the raid. He said most of the dead were women and children.

It wasn’t really an invasion of Pakistan. It was the kind of operation that Senator Barack Obama said we should do more, with the tacit approval of the Pakistanis. Early this year, Senator John McCain said Obama was “naive” to suggest going after al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

In July, McCain seemed to get confused in an interview with Diane Sawyer and expressed concern about the “situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.”

Not one speaker at the Republican National Convention has bothered to mention the critical and increasingly bloody war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

UPDATE: Pakistan filed a formal protest with the U.S. government. Pakistani sources cast doubt on the efficacy of the American assault:

The raid was apparently in response to a rocket that fighters fired at a convoy inside Afghanistan, according to one senior Pakistani official. “By the time they got there,” the official said, “the guy with the rocket had moved.”

According to another Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give out information, several of the troops left the helicopters and launched an assault on three houses.

One of the homes belonged to local tribesman Pao Jan Ahmedzai Wazir, according to Anwar Shah, a resident of a neighboring village. Several women and children who were inside Wazir’s house and two other homes nearby were killed when U.S. and Afghan troops fired on the buildings, he said. “The situation there is very terrible. People are trying to take out the dead bodies.”

I’m giving him 24 hours to retract his arrogant, regurgitation of one of the most tired, global warming denier canards before I unleash the truth on OneUtah. And it won’t be pretty.

I am OVER the right-wing parrots and their manipulation of the American people and in tparticular, ALL OF MY fellow Utahns who will suffer at the hands of this lie.

I’ve tried to warn him. I’m not a happy camper these days…am I.

Steve Urguhart - /Ur-gu-hart/- is getting a little heady these days as the Bramble’s “attack dog” and needs to be brought down a notch or too, before he crashes and burns. Here’s just the latest example.

Early this year, the Democracy For America organization held showings of an important new movie: “Uncounted.” This well researched documentary by Emmy award-winning director, David Earnhardt, is an examination of election fraud, focusing on the electronic voting machines deployed nationwide after congress passed the HAVA act; a terribly failed attempt to correct the chance of another disaster like the 2000 election mess that came to be known as Bush vs Gore. The Supreme Court of the United States stunned the nation by interfering in the Florida State Supreme Court ruling which would have allowed people’s votes to be counted by hand instead of by secretly programmed punch card voting machines. These are the same type of machines used in Utah at the time. The same scenario would have played out much differently here, because state law would have prevented any recount, even in a close election. The machines would have had the last word, and they still do. The Utah media bosses are unconcerned. We know every intimate detail of the Lori Hacking murder, but we don’t know if anybody could be hacking our votes.

Utahn’s will have a chance to see this movie this week at the Post Theater on Wednesday, September 3rd, at 7:00 pm.This link at democracyforutah.com provides a google map, picture of the theater and other information about the event.

Unlike the other nationwide showings of the film, Utahn’s will be introduced to the movie by one of the main people featured in the film. Bruce Funk, a native from Utah, and one of two election officials in the nation who couldn’t turn the other way when his responsibility to the people he took an oath to serve overtook his desire to take the easy way out and ignore the danger these new machines represented to the people in his county and even the nation.

While an earlier film shown on HBO called “Hacking Democracy“, (link to entire film), covered the anomalies of the 2000 election and ends with the live hacking of voting machines under the supervision of another brave and concerned election official named Ion Sancho in Florida, this film covers the anomalies discovered after the 2004 election in Ohio and elsewhere. The same man who successfully hacked the machines in Florida, (Harri Hursti of blackboxvoting.org, an organization founded by Beverly Harris), was filmed hacking into Utah’s first shipment of the Diebold machines which would be deployed here and nationwide for the 2006 election.

This Utah hack by Mr. Hursti, which could not have taken place without Bruce Funk’s courageous cooperation, finally vindicated computer scientists and voting rights activists everywhere, and forced some of America’s largest newspapers and magazines to cover the clear and present danger posed by electronic voting machines. A month later, other major publications, who were afraid to get their feet wet reporting on the discoveries in Utah, by Black Box Voting, fell in line when the Brennan Center for Justice published a study.

The New York Times was quick out of the gate with some astounding quotations in this May 12th 2006 article, “New Fears of Security Risks in Electronic Voting Systems”:

Michael I. Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University:

“It’s the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system,”

Douglas W. Jones, a professor of computer science at the University of Iowa:

“This is the barn door being wide open, while people were arguing over the lock on the front door,”

Aviel Rubin, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University:

“I almost had a heart attack. The implications of this are pretty astounding.”

A Wall Street Journal article, with the heading “Reversing Course on Electronic Voting” includes quotes from a Diebold Inc. representative, but doesn’t mention Blackboxvoting, or Harri Hursti. What’s notable about this column, is that it’s released on the EXACT same date as the New York Times article. Hmmm…

Newsweek, in an article published after the Brennen report called “Will Your Vote Count in 2006?”, mentions Hursti and Blackboxvoting and includes another quote from Aviel Rubin:

“If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it.”

USA Today mentions the importance of the Utah findings in a small paragraph after the Brennen report also, in this piece named “Analysis finds e-voting machines vulnerable”:

Election officials in California and Pennsylvania recently issued urgent warnings to local polling supervisors about potential software problems in touch-screen voting machines after a test in Utah uncovered vulnerabilities in machines made by Diebold Election Systems.

It’s been almost eight years since The US Supreme Court overrode states rights and slipped Bush into office. Although some places in the US have been forced to take steps to insure transparency by unyielding voting activists, Utah’s congressmen and the Lt. Governor’s office seem to be working to make our elections the most secretive in the nation.

What should we do?

Richard Okleberry continues to insist that his religious conviction has nothing to do with his politics. Here’s one of many attempts to state that case.

While I had not once in my original post mentioned my religious beliefs Mr. Lyons somehow gleamed that my underlying purpose was to force a religious doctrine on the country by commingling religion and politics. _-Richard Okleberries from this KVNU post.

Not suprisingly, it took about 5 seconds to find this statement on his own blog in a post entitled, Voters Should use Religion to Decide.

In contradiction to this sentiment, I would argue instead that not only is it just for people to use a candidate’s religion as a measure for political office, but it should also be compulsory for anyone trying to make a truly informed decision.

Yes, I have a problem with people who inject their religion into politics. But I have an even bigger problem with people who try to deny it.

Perhaps in the future Richard O, out of respect for our intelligence, you might preface your political commentary with a little bit of honesty.

I think disclaimer like this is sufficient: “I Richard Okelberry, use religion to decide my politics, and you should to.”

Obama’s answer was perfect; “It’s beyond my pay grade.”

I believe this was and is the only appropriate response for any office holder in American government. That answer demonstrates a perfect fealty to the The Founders intent as well as a clear understanding of the responsibility of a political leader to a pluralistic constituency.

Richard saw it differently. Initially, he attempted to deny the primacy of his religion in his perspective having meticulously avoided any religious reference in article. But it didn’t take long for church boy to throw off this ruse and begin blathering on about his religion and doctrinal problems with reproductive rights.

After two days of banter, Richard has finally, I think, achieved some clarity and graciously agreed to move beyond his obsession with the unborn and is moving toward a discussion, I hope, about the propriety of religion in politics.

My basic premise is that one as an American voter, one SHOULD check his/her religion/faith at the door and that religions and churches should stay the hell out of politics, especially now that we have seen how very destructive has been the religious pandering of the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration.

I agree completely with major shift toward this point of view by social conservatives as reflected in the recent poll discussed below.

Poll: Slim Backing For Keeping Politics, Religion Apart
All Things Considered, August 21, 2008

Listen Now [4 min 30 sec]

A new poll from the Pew Research Center has found a slim majority that says religious institutions should not speak out on political and social issues. The data are a shift from polls conducted over the past decade. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, says all of the change has been among political conservatives.

Study: Conservatives Grow Wary Of Mixing Religion, Politics

Fifty percent of conservatives think churches and other places of worship should stay out of social and political matters, up from 30 percent four years ago…

Of late, some of our less learned brethren have decided the establishment clause somehow means the opposite.  Such sheeple are of course, a grave embarrassment to the country and their friends and family.

I think if the founding Fathers were around today to witness the astounding ignorance of fundamentalist America, they would take to the airwaves in order to help their fellow Christians understand more clearly.

Madison: "Let me put it to you another way folks, keep your ‘filth’ OUT of government." [1]

"YO! BOO-CHAY," Franklin would say (because thats what he calls Bush/Cheney), "I don’t remember putting a disclaimer in ‘ner thats says these amendments are in no particular order…cuz THEY ARE! And guess which one is FIRST!"[2]

And of course Adams would have been a regular on Howard Stern, "If I hear one more ‘mutha fucka’ mention Jesus of God, I’ll take’em out myself!"[3]

I’m writing this because my vile, hateful, unpatriotic, liberal sensibilities were violated by this post over on KVNU By The People.  Some guy named Richard Okelberry spew his religious man-hood all over Obama at Saddleback Church:

"Of course you will never hear Obama take a pronounce stance on this issue. Instead he will simply shrug off the responsibility for his voting record on the issue by saying that such a decision is “beyond my pay grade.”  Unfortunately for America, there is no higher pay grade than that of the President of the United States of America."

First of all Okelberry, Obama is not yet the "President of the United States of America."  But thanks for your confidence.  Secondly, Obama understands something you and McCain clearly don’t about leadership as it relates to being President of this country and I don’t have time to explain it to you.

Hear me Okelberry. We (and I include many, many American Christians, Jews, and Muslims) would prefer if you and McCain would keep you stinking religious hands off our government.

He’s over at KVNU blog right now blathering on about how for his pregnant wife "nothing is more revolting than sucking that moving child from within her" (embarrassing his wife in the process know doubt).

Yo Church Boy.  Its not about your feelings or revulsion.  We all hate abortions!

Okelberry, Okelberry, Okelberry, its about who is better qualified to make family decisions for Mr. and Mrs Okelberry: Mr. and Mrs Okelberry or the government?  You pick…

Mrs. Okelberry may well agree with you that the idea of aborting Okelberry Jr. is ‘revolting’, but I do not believe that means Mrs. Okelberry is saying YOU or anyone else can tell her how to run her body.  Do you?  Do you really think Mrs. Okelberry NEEDS you or McCain to help her?  Put her on the phone dammit!

But here’s the part that confirmed Mr. Okellberry’s misogyny: "I would always side with protecting the life of the child over the mother’s.  To me it is no different than having to decide who gets the last spot in a lifeboat on a sinking ship, a child or a full grown woman."

Hey Okelberry.  Who asked you?  We are talking about presidential candidates.  No body cares about your personal religious beliefs so SHUT UP!

Read this over and over until it hurts. Article VI, Section 3, ". . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

". . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

". . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Thank you.

[1] James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments [1785] "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

[2] Benjamin Franklin, Essay on Toleration: "If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another.

[3] John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America [1787-1788] "It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."

The only surge that worked was a corporate-media conspiracy to smear that canard like seagull shit and leave it to dry, unchallenged in the main-stream media.

This cartoon is the perfect expression of the kind of so very tired Republican tactic that has produced our national living-nightmare and nearly destroyed the Republican party and any semblance of a two-party system (thanks to the epidemic spineless of congressional democrats).

In this case, another lie, declared by feat because its in the news and by our brave troops (self-proclaimed experts in Iraqi national culture), and by the banner…until Obama surrenders a war that “we” would have otherwise won.

So the Republicans will leave another Vietnam-sized scar on the American psyche by granting another generation of angry, ignorant, old WHITE men permission to repeat ad naseum; “we could have won that war but for the liberals.”

We can only imagine what “winning” might have looked like in Vietnam, or Iraq, or any of the hundreds of failed imperial adventures across time and the planet.

But we will never know, because there is one redeeming value in the American people. We eventually sober up and remember why we hate war.

Note: Richard Warnick has written extensively on this subject.

Since the 1980’s, without hyperbole, we have had enough nuclear weapons to end all life on the planet.. With morons and oxymorons in the White House and upon senators’ staffs denying global warming while it is breathing down our neck; and our trying to surround the former Soviet Union with new NATO nations or wanna-be’s (as if we’d go to war with Russia for whatever happens in Georgia) simply inviting the Russians to invade these states which have spun off the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1990; and the collapse of mortgage and banking institutions, huge corporations, not small fry; and our economy threatening a melt-down from debt from financing two major wars, wars of choice; we find our real enemy is us.

The hubris we reveal as we seek global hegemony economically and militarily has been observed from the beginning of the West. Aristotle to Shakespeare (King Lear) to Reinhoid Niebuhr to Sir Isaiah Berlin. It’s time to think locally and act locally. A garden, a source of water, avoid debt like the plague. Help your neighbor. The challenges we now face are so stupendous that the mighty promises of our presidential candidates are ridiculous. If they understand what is going on about them (and I think Obama, at least, has a clue), they would simply say to us that they can promise nothing except hard times.. and express the faith that somehow, together, we may just get through.

Ed Firmage

Save Me From My Senator - Chris Buttars Scares Me.

It was started as a result of dire frustration by a constituent of his. It’s chock full of really useful information, including
101 Reasons to Get Rid of Chris Buttars, Tools for Citizens to use in the Fight, news and blog articles, and lots more.

I live just outside of District 10, so I can’t help vote him out, but I sure can do all I can to get others in his district to do just that.

Chris Buttars Scares Me

Rocky and pals are wrong

I have a message for Rocky Anderson and his loony leftist buddies: If President Bush were the dictator you think he is, you would be dead or worse. You still have the right to spout your liberal Bush-hating drivel. Other than airline passengers, no one has lost any rights in this country.

Garth Woolsey
West Bountiful

It’s not so much that Garth Woolsey is dead wrong (see ACLU), or that Garth Woolsey cares about the truth, its about all the uninformed idiots who read this crap and actually think its true just because its in the paper.

In the Deseret News’ defense, these are letter written by the public and represented as such, but that doesn’t justify printed something so patently false on its face.

If The Desnews wants or needs more thoughtful or interesting letters, they should consider raising the bar an inch or two.