A sitting member of Congress is introducing a measure to impeach the vice president of the United States and the story isn't visible on Alternet. This should be the leading story on a website that bills itself as an "alternative" to the mainstream. Some alternative! More like left gatekeeper.

For those who are interested in doing something constructive about our current state of affairs, please call your representative and urge them to support Mr. Kucinich's bill. The Capitol switchboard is:

1-800-828-0498
1-800-862-5530
1-800-833-6354

Just ask the operator for your representative's office. If you don't know it, tell her/him where you live and she/he will look it up. Once transferred to your representative's office, politely tell the person who answers the phone that you urge your representative to support Kucinich's articles of impeachment against the vice president. You will probably be asked for your name and address.

I just did this. It's the first time I had ever called my representative (Rodney Frelinghuysen in NJ). It was easy and I felt better after doing it.

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said that mercenaries are disloyal and disunited. They have nothing better to keep them in a battle than a meager wage which is just about enough to make them want to live for you...but not enough to make them want to die for you.

Now. Scahill contends here that they're not really mercenaries in this regard, but rather a private army with a secret agenda -- which is, in fact, much much much more scary.

If they were merely mercs, they'd run grubbing for the next big flash of cash, most likely from the Chinese the way things are going. At least they'd be out of OUR hair for the time being. But alas -- they are not merely mercs.

Which is why this report is so frightening.

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the show and I wonder if Scahill will put out a new, updated edition considering all the recent investigations, incidents, deaths, etc associated with Blackwater. In many ways Scahill is correct, they aren't mercenaries in the traditional sense (at the least the corporate leaders and structure.) They DO have an agenda and one that is tied up with the PNAC crowd, and extreme traditional Catholic groups and secret socieites. Interestingly, like many zealots, the head guy is a "convert" to Catholicism. Often people that find "religion" late in life or convert to another religion, sect, or branch become FAR scarier than those who have grown up with religion. I think it is because the message is new and they aren't privy to techniques of indoctrination, etc. Blackwater is scary stuff. THEY will be our police, security guards, prison guards, border officials, private detectives once the war is over-- by the way.

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Check out Erik Prince's page on Wikipedia. Prince's story suggests that he is a "true believer" who honestly believes that a strong law-and-order regime is necessary for society to survive. He converted to Roman Catholicism from the Christian Reformed Church (a relatively moderate evangelical Protestant church that ordains women), which suggests a yearning for religious authority, and has been active with Republicans all his life. As an insider to the Bush I regime, he complained about Papa Bush's having discussions with gays and environmentalists, which suggests a desire to impose his vision without listening to other's views. On the plus side, he has contributed to efforts to stop religious violence overseas (although to be fair, his efforts were concerned only with stopping violence against Christians). All of this suggests a "true believer" rather than a cynic out for the money. That might make him even more dangerous.

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Did this happen with tax money? Or are they paid by Halliburton, et al?

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It's only a matter of time before Bush/Cheney turns these "Christian soldiers" on us.

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yeahhhhh..... and the question needs to be raised: they've got a 20,000-man standing "private army" and a 7,500 acre compound bristling with the latest weaponry **entirely funded by taxpayer dollars** (and if not taxpayer dollars, where IS the money for all that coming from?) so what's to stop them becoming the "attack guard dogs" of "Animal Farm" fame the next time a 'terrorist attack' happens on American shores, and the President calls in Blackwater to enforce 'martial law' in Washington (as he did in New Orleans after Katrina)? Who will step up to make them step aside? Who'd be well-armed enough?

Our military *AND* as many as 2/3 of our National Guard are bogged down over in Iraq/Afghanistan... they can't be called up, so who?

It's a perilous and worrying situation to be sure.... a coup in the making?

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Two Hollyweird stunt coordinators were smuggling Katrina victims via boat when they were stopped by Blackwater guys... they didn't know they were Blackwater then, it was only after "running into" one of them later in Iraq that one of the coordinators figured out who the hell these guys armed to the teeth who claimed to be "hunting coons" had been when their boat was stopped. The sickest part was when the Blackwater chaps wanted to know if the stunt dudes had "coons" aboard.... they looked at each other and thought, WTF?! Raccoons? Why the f*ck would we have raccoons on board?! Then the blackwater scumbag clarified with the n-word. As it turned out they had six people hidden in the forward cabin, all Americans with abundant melanin. They lied and offered cigarettes to distract the Blackwater chaps who then let them go. Their boat was confiscated by the military two days later, and they ran into Blackwater sickos several times in those two days (manning official "checkpoints" for the US military). But it's all just hearsay.... until the next US disaster and one of us runs into these f*ckwads armed to the gills in military tactical gear hunting coons again. God bless 'Merkuh, and her new Reich!

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I am just curious how comfortable America or the Bush administration would be if Erik Prince was named Abdul Chaudry and extensive links to right wing musilm groups in America as opposed to right wing christian groups in America.
Would America be so tolerant of a conservative Hindu, Jewish, or Mulism businessman (coming from a family with a history of supporting right wing causes) running essentially a private army with its own armored vehicles, airforce, training bases...?

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