Burned Out Paranoid Democrat

How Did He Say This Without His Tongue Bursting Into Flames?

2006-03-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Bush on the immigration reform debate:

“The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way,” the president said as the Senate prepared to tackle the hot-button election issue of what to do with the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants this week.

Translation: you guys have to play nice while we sic our attack dogs on you.

Yeharr

What a Coincidence

2006-03-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

...that a major new offensive in Iraq starts on the third anniversary of our descent into the rabbit hole.

...that a major new offensive in Iraq starts shortly after this president's poll numbers hit an alltime low.

...that a major new offensive in Iraq starts while a Senator introduces a motion to censure this president.

...that only now, at the height of discontent and dissatisfaction with this president, are documents discovered that allegedly show that Saddam: a) had WMD's that he either destroyed or hid; and b) show ties to terrorists planning attacks against the US.

What a coincidence.

It has to be a coincidence, right? After all, a big part of the Bush apoligentsia's playbook is the phrase "This president doesn't care about poll numbers; he cares about security."

And I'm sure that if you look back at the history of this president, you won't find other instances where announcements, proclamations, or offensives were mounted just as his numbers hit low points. Just as you won't find investigations held up until a later point, when the damage they might cause is limited.

Have you heard about the documents? I predict they'll be the next big piss in the right wing blogosphere. A bunch of documents seized when Baghdad was captured by the US reportedly show that the statements made by Bush at the beginning of the war were right, after all.
Give me a break.

Here are my takes on this:

The first place I've seen the allegations is in an online investor's editorial, yet mickey at instapundit is already trimphantly linking to it. Yeah. Great. I always go to an online investment website for definitive answers regarding military invasions. The information has no attribution, and I wasn't able to find any corroboration elsewhere, other than the fact that they're being released. Which to me says either it's an exaggeration, or the ink's not dry on the three year old documents yet.
Lemme get this straight--Hussein was able to hide/destroy/export his WMD's but couldn't get rid of the documentation? I can see that. After all, paper is one of the most durable substances known to man. It's not like it burns or anything.
If Hussein had WMD's, why didn't he use them instead of destroying them? I know, he didn't want to hurt or kill any of his own citizens. After all, he's shown that sort of reluctance in the past.
So we decided to divert our army from finding the guy who demonstrated the ability to attack and kill thousands in terrorist attacks on the US, and who was actively and openly planning future attacks, in order to get a guy who might have the potential to do what the first guy was already doing?
What a tremendous lack of imagination from Wingnuttia: First they said we went to Iraq because there were WMD's and ties to terrorists. When that information was effectively disproven, all of a suddend the reason we went to Iraq was to build a democracy. As that country dissolves into civil war, they need to find another reason to justify our foray into the hellhole. And they can't think of anything else, so they're going back to the first argument!

Hate is a strong word. I try to limit my usage of it. It's a negative emotion, and I try to avoid those.

But God help me, I hate this president. And all his minions. Call your Senators. Call your Representitives. Let then know you don't want these people destroying our country anymore.

Yeharr

Liberal Media, My Ass...

2006-03-16T03:42:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted at The Cranky Yankee Daily Crank

For those of you who are deaf, dumb and ignorant to the fact that the U.S. mainstream media is nothing more than a propaganda piece for the same corporate giants that are running shrubco there are a few bold groups out there like Fairness and Accuracy in Media - FAIR that are willing to stand up to the media and call it what it is. Below are excerpts from a FAIR Media Alert reminding us how badly the U.S. media failed to live up to its responsibility in the run up to the illegal, unwarranted, irresponsible and highly unsuccessful war against Iraq.

In addition to all the evidence below of media failure and malfeasance let us never forget the White House had no less then the "so called" liberal New York Times on its payroll to sell the bogus WMD story through Judith Miller and her yellow journalism based on shrubco lies.

"The Final Word Is Hooray!"
Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits

3/15/06

Weeks after the invasion of Iraq began, Fox News Channel host Brit Hume delivered a scathing speech critiquing the media's supposedly pessimistic assessment of the Iraq War.

"The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that, got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech (Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/25/04). "They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got it completely wrong."

Hume was perhaps correct--but almost entirely in the opposite sense. Days or weeks into the war, commentators and reporters made premature declarations of victory, offered predictions about lasting political effects and called on the critics of the war to apologize. Three years later, the Iraq War grinds on at the cost of at least tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Around the same time as Hume's speech, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared (4/16/03): "All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent. Otherwise, they will return to us in another situation where their expertise will be acknowledged, or taken for granted, but their credibility will be lacking."

Gathered here are some of the most notable media comments from the early days of the Iraq War.

Declaring Victory

"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)

"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
(Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)

Mission Accomplished?

"The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific."
(PBS's Gwen Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech)

"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)

Neutralizing the Opposition

"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him. The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)

Nagging the "Naysayers"

"Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"
(Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)

"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)

"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....

"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, "The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated." Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.

"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)

"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."
(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)

"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend. Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened. Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might can set the world right."
(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)

"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)

"Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad out in the New York Times bashing George Bush. Apparently he still hasn't figured out we won the war."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)

Cakewalk?

"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer,
3/30/03)

"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold like that."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

Weapons of Mass Destruction

NPR's Mara Liasson: Where there was a debate about whether or not Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction and whether we can find it...

Brit Hume: No, there wasn't. Nobody seriously argued that he didn't have them beforehand. Nobody.
(Fox News Channel, April 6, 2003)

"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb and the desperate could ignore it."
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)

"Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will be raised. Where are the supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify pre-emption? (Freed scientists will lead us to caches no inspectors could find.) What about remaining danger from Baathist torturers and war criminals forming pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance? (Their death wish is our command.)"
(New York Times' William Safire, 4/10/03)

No matter how you wingnuts out there spin it the shrubco cooked the intelligence toward its own end. They spun it to the willing media and they media lapped it up like the corporate puppy dogs they are. There were a few of us out there who knew it was all bullshit but our protests fell on deaf ears. We were accused of treason and all sorts of unpatriotic epitaphs were heaped upon us.

We were right! We love our country so much that we were willing to stand up to the mainstream, speak the truth and absorb the abuse. To all of you still out there beating the drum that the WMD did exist in the threatening manner shrubco sold them I say, "You are they traitors. All the deaths, military and civilian in Iraq are on your heads. Screw you and I was and still am right."

On Things Hanging Out

2006-02-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

My Soon-to-be-Ex-Sister-in-Law sent me this editorial, written by literary theorist and law professor Stanley Fish, and asked me what I thought about it.

I figured I'd share my opinions with the class:

As much as I hate using a man's name to make a point, you can tell Mister Fish is old, because his thinking stinks.

Who the hell am I kidding? I love doing stuff like that!

The first clue is the title. "Letting it all hang out?" Wow. I was so surprised about that that I almost dropped my Hai Karate aftershave, man.

Seriously, though, this guy's setting up liberal straw men, but he's not even doing a good job knocking them down."The first tenet of the liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to be taken seriously."

Umm. It's not a religion, dude. That you think it so shows not the failure of liberalism, but your failure to grasp basic concepts of freedom in society. Not every expression is to be permitted. Inciting a crowd to riot is not permitted under freedom of expression; nor is yelling 'fire' in a movie theater. And as far as taking things seriously--who is he to decide who does and does not take any particular point of view 'seriously?'

Then he goes on to denigrate the concept of 'respect:' "The thing about respect is that it doesn't cost you anything; its generosity is barely skin-deep and is in fact a form of condescension: I respect you; now don't bother me."

If anyone's doing any condescending, it's you, Mister Fish. Respect, to me, means a deferential regard towards something. If I have a deferential regard towards someone's religious views, it means I accept that this person has a specific viewpoint, and (assuming he or she is not being hypocritical,) has just as much a right to that viewpoint as I do to mine. It does not mean that I have to agree with it, nor will I feel the need to make him or her agree with my differing view. Where is there condescension in that?

If, however, I espouse respect, yet my actions towards you and/or your beliefs show a lack of respect, now that's some condescension. I would contend that this sort of behavior is more in line with the current Neocon way of doing business. Perhaps Fish is doing a bit of transference here, no?

I also find it fascinating that he has the power to read minds. After all, he knows that "the editors who have run the cartoons do not believe that Muslims are evil infidels who must either be converted or vanquished. They do not publish the offending cartoons in an effort to further some religious or political vision; they do it gratuitously, almost accidentally."

Hold on there, Kreskin. You must be losing something in the telepathic transatlantic translation. Jyllands-Posten is one of the most conservative of Danish newspapers--sort of the Manchester Union-Leader of Denmark, not some moonbat bastion of liberal causes. And did you know that the very same Flemming Rose who ran these cartoons had previously rejected a series of cartoons lampooning Jesus and a host of other Christian icons on the grounds of being too offensive? Rose explained that he used the term 'too offensive' because it was more polite than saying the cartoons were just plain bad. In what world is 'too offensive' more polite than 'just plain bad'? And have you seen the cartoons they did run? They make the guy who draws 'Marmaduke' look like the love child of Rembrandt and Mark Twain.

Just for fun though, let's follow through on his way of thinking. Let's assume that he's right when he says: "The belief in the therapeutic and redemptive force of dialogue depends on the assumption (central to liberalism's theology) that, after all, no idea is worth fighting over to the death and that we can always reach a position of accommodation if only we will sit down and talk it out."

I guess that means that there are ideas worth killing over. So, in his view, it's OK for us to kill Muslims because of our differing belief system? That must mean then that, since they believe differently than us, that it's OK for Muslims to kill us.

Or does he espouse to a double standard?

And what is wrong with believing that we should sit down and discuss our differences? In the end, when everyone's tired of killing, isn't that what we do anyhow?

From where I sit, dude is just using this incident as a launching point for another typical Conservative swipe at the First Amendment. Which, of course, is a bit strange, seeing as how none of the players in this story happen to be from the US. Typical.

Yeharr

5

2006-02-16T04:50:00.000-08:00

...the number of days since the Vice President shot anyone.

4

...the number of days since the world was notified that the Vice President shot anyone.

Top Ten reasons Cheney shot that 78 year old guy in the face.

From the home office, Dick Cheney's Top 10 Excuses for Shooting That Guy:

10. Sure, like you've never seen giant game birds wearing day glo orange vests
9. Warrantless domestic spying revealed he was getting phone calls from al Qaeda
8. If the Vice President does it, its not against the law
7. Hoping to put him in a persistent vegetative state so the GOP could pass a law to keep him alive
6. Thought he was hunting Dan Quayle
5. The love between them could not survive back in Washington
4. Birds, Cows, People-- with my eyesight I'm lucky I hit anything
3. Positive the guy's family will welcome him as a liberator
2. Pheasants? I thought we were hunting peasants

and the number one Cheney excuse for shooting that guy:

1. Open season on liberals started early this year

#3 is my favorite. Thanks Dallas Dem at DKos

As I posted over at my crib, Dr. Evil may have been drunk when he shot that guy.

Doesn't Anyone Get it?

2006-02-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

We are treated to a spectacle where a half-assed excuse of an AG sits in front of a half-assed excuse of an Senate investigative panel and gives half-assed answers that are all framed exactly the same way: "We need this wiretapping to keep our country safe."

Bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

It is illegal wiretapping, pure and simple. Has anyone asked this schmuck the following question: "Mr. Gonzales: what does the wiretapping without FISA approval get you that a wiretap WITH FISA approval doesn't? And don't say expediency, because we all know that is a lie."

Of course, it doesn't matter if he lies or not, since he couldn't be bothered to be sworn in.

The reason no one asks the question is because Al can't give us the truth, which is: the only thing this wiretapping gives the President is the ability to spy on people and organizations that oppose the President's policy. This is wiretapping for political gain, not any sort of highminded antiterror use.

And then I go to the Newsweek site and discover that the problem isn't that we have Big Brother watching us--it's that Big Brother isn't competent enough.

Micheal Hirsch says the problem isn't that we have an oppressive overlord--it's that our oppressive overlord isn't very good at the job.

Well, that makes me feel better.

How about you?

Yeharr

$500

2006-01-31T04:03:00.000-08:00

My company offers a pre-tax savings account, where we can set aside a certain amount of money per year to help pay for medical expenses.

I did a check of my finances, and that's the amount I can set aside this year.

$500.

Now, here's the thing: To use that $500, I have to first pay the health-care provider, THEN submit the bill for reimbursement.

So that's $1,000 out of my pocket--at least temporarily--to get that money.

Oh--and I can't touch any of it until next year. So if I need to spend five hundred on something THIS year...well, as a friend of mine used to say: TS, eliot.

Nice racket, eh?

I mention this, because The Worst President Ever wishes to take this policy nationwide. In lieu of actually providing affordable health care for all, he wants us to start savings accounts for our healthcare.

Yes, on the heels of his wildly successful (for the drug companies) Medicaid reform, TWPE is expected to say tonight that Americans should take ownership of their health care by putting money aside specifically for future health issues, and then have high-deductable health policies for all. At the same time, he's also expected to call for changes in malpractice lawsuits that would restrict damages to hospitals.

Put in another way, he wants us to save money we don't have to save to pay for health care problems we don't have yet, and if the hospital screws up, we won't be able to do much about it.

And we don't have the money, folks. Not just debt-ridden li'l ol' me. We are all spending more than we make. Which is not surprising since most companies give a 3% COLA to their employees, while the actual Cost Of Living rose something like 3.25%.

So here's what we're going to be asked to accept from TWPE: A plan that will likely increase the number of uninsured and increase health care costs, all while costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Aren't you glad this guy got to choose our Supreme Court?

Yeharr

The Alito 48

2006-01-30T13:34:00.000-08:00

Democrats.com is running an on-line update on the number of Senators willing to support a filibuster of Samuel Alito. If you haven't already called your Senators, why not?

Did you know that the Federalist Society was created 24 years ago specifically to get the Supreme Court to move to a far-right position? New York Times has an article. They posted it today. I wonder how long they sat on it.

We are living in interesting times. We are reaching tipping points in environment, in civil rights, womens rights, and so many other issues. The Wingnuts have been working on this coup for a quarter-century. We may not win any of these fights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try

Yeharr

Human Shields

2006-01-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

I'm discovering a trend in the Bushie playbook: Use the womenfolk as shields and/or collateral.

The first sign of this was on January 11, when Martha-Ann Alito broke down in tears while her husband was being questioned by the Judiciary Committee, which led to the inevitable characterization of the Democrats on the Committee as being 'vicious.'

Eleven days later, a letter from the father of payola specialist Jack Abramoff appears in a newspaper. He says that George Clooney's remarks about Abramoff made his 12-year-old granddaughter cry.

And now, we find out that the US Army has been arresting the wives of suspected terrorists. They were using them as 'leverage,' in order to get the men to come forth.

This is wrong on so many levels.

Yeharr

Someone Want to Explain What's Happening?

2006-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

Paper cuts? Razor burn? Falling down drunk?

Can't remember a commander in chief who looked so often like he should have all the sharp objects in his room removed for safety reasons.

Why doesn't anyone ever ask question about it? Does it mean you're anti-war and therefore pro-anti Bush if you ask why he needs so many band aids?

I have a bad case of levee envy.

2006-01-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

My good friend Gerry sent me a link to Common Dreams which showed how sophisticated other countries levees are, and how they manage to keep their heads above water. The first two pictures are how the British and Dutch do it.
The third picture is a great example of our Yankee Ingenuity.

If you ask me, our crack Army Corp of Engineers have some 'splainin' to do...

Your tax dollars at work. AKA The Money Pit.

2006-01-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

I saw two articles recently that I thought were compelling.
The first one reports that we’re about to run out of reconstruction money for Iraq.

The $18.6 billion approved by Congress in 2003 will be spent by the end of this year, officials here say. Foreign governments have given only a fraction of the billions they pledged two years ago. With the country still a shambles, U.S. officials are promoting a tough-love vision of reconstruction that puts the burden on the Iraqi people. ''The world is a competitive place,'' Tom Delare, economics counselor at the U.S. Embassy, said this month during a news briefing. ''You have to convince the investor that it is worth his while to put his money in your community.''

Of course! What could be more attractive to a potential investor than persistent car bombings? Kidnappings and murder? An impoverished population? Raging insurgency and certain civil war? I'm ready to close out my IRA and invest. Aren't you?

Embassy and reconstruction officials propose fiscal belt-tightening by the new Iraqi government as the long-term solution to the country's woes, even if that causes short-term suffering for Iraq's people.
''No pain, no gain,'' Andy Wylegala, whose job at the embassy is to help Americans do business in Iraq, said at the same briefing. ''It's very difficult procedure to pass through. But when I look from my side, I see it as a long-term, very favorable development.''

Tough-love. Short term suffering. Favorable development? For whom, exactly? The people who are trying to survive in a shambles that we created?

''If they say they have spent money, where is it?'' asked Salah Qaragholi, 30, a barber in Zafraniya, a poor neighborhood. ''Where are the projects? The electricity is only four hours a day.''
Baghdad's roads are an obstacle course of barriers, potholes and debris. Many government and office buildings are either still gutted or strung with webs of electrical wire connecting to generators that run 12 hours on good days. A brown haze fouls the air and pools of sewage overflow dot the streets.

The other article was in the Wall St. Journal regarding how some billions of Iraq rebuilding funds have vanished - poof-abracadabra-presto-chango - into thin air.

Earlier audits by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction -- a post Congress created in late 2004 -- found that oversight of contractors by the Authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely. An audit in April 2005, for example, found "significant deficiencies in contract administration," which meant that "there was no assurance that fraud, waste, and abuse did not occur in the management and administration of contracts" the U.S. awarded with Iraqi oil money administered by the United Nations.

Interestingly, as we run out of reconstruction money, there has been no real effort to trace what happened to those billions or make those recipients pay it back…

The inspector general's office said it doesn't plan to ask the Justice Department to file lawsuits or to conduct widespread audits of individual contracts to look for fraud.

Gee, I wonder why? Who might this Special Inspector General be? Well, Bush appointed him – he’s Stuart Bowen, who had been the Authority’s own Inspector General. So Bush doesn’t call in an independent person. He appoints someone who was associated with the group that was part of the problem. Say it with me: You’re doing a heckuva job, there Stuey!

Some in Congress are trying to use the False Claims act that was passed during the Civil war to recover the money.

Under that act, the Justice Department's civil division has the authority to sue contractors that defraud the government, and to seek treble damages. But Justice hasn't initiated any such suits involving Iraq-related work, a spokesman said. The civil division also hasn't joined any suits filed by private-sector whistle-blowers who claim they know of fraud or abuse, although lawyers familiar with such suits estimate that at least two dozen are pending.

And to add insult to injury…

A series of 2004 audits by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Pentagon's contract-auditing arm, found expenses of $1.48 billion unsupported by adequate documentation on KBR's two largest contracts, which were valued at a total of $9.5 billion. In a recently disclosed letter, the audit agency said it has passed on findings about Halliburton to the Justice Department, to consider whether a criminal investigation is warranted. But the audit agency's calls to withhold some payments from Halliburton have been resisted by Pentagon units that awarded the contracts. The Army Corps of Engineers disclosed in November 2005 that it was going ahead with a $1.5 billion payment to Halliburton for work on Iraqi oil fields, including $124 million for costs the defense-department auditors had challenged as questionable. It also paid Halliburton nearly $38 million in bonuses allowed under a contract formula for good performance.

So, to sum up the two stories in all of their irony. We go into a country illegally. Bomb the living beejeesus out of it killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and over 2,000 of our soldiers. Create such an unstable environment in that country that professionals and doctors and professors are not safe and they’re falling all over themselves to get the Hell out of there. We run out of reconstruction money (taxpayer dollars, remember), with so little to show for it, telling the Iraqi citizens – you’re on your own now. And we can’t be bothered to find the billions (more tax payer dollars) that went missing or into the pockets of Haliburton cronies.

Before I go take a Valium and have a nice lie down, I'd just like to sum up this administration in a few choice words. Lying. Torturing. Corrupt. Illegal. Incompetent. Propogandistic. Dictatorship. Scum-sucking. Bastards.

In a Nutshell

2006-01-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

From Greg Saunders at The Talent Show:

"On the one hand, we're supposed to believe that Alito is a top-notch intellectual giant, but he's so uninformed about the most controversial issues of our time that he can't be bothered to form an opinion. Alito's a neutral "referee" who's willing to listen to both sides before making up his mind, but he's so weak-willed that taking any stand at all would limit his ability to be even-handed in future cases. I don't know which is worse : Republicans insulting our intelligence by playing dumb, or taking them at their word that and accepting the notion that their best pick for the high court is a habitual liar who's too stupid to remember things he did and said 20 years ago."

Yeharr

Not One Democrat Took Abramoff Money

2006-01-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

Let's be clear on that. It's a Republican scandal.

The NRC is freaked out and determined to blow memos down every toilet hole they have into every pundit's talking point box, but the fact is - as Governor Dean pointed out when he blasted Wolf Blitzer:

"There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff," Dean answered. "Not one. Not one single Democrat. ... There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money and we've looked through all those FEC [Federal Election Commission] reports to make sure that's true."

More analysis proves the statement true:

He's right, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which keeps track of such things. Their analysis of election commission records shows that Democrats received about a third of the $4.2 million donated between 1998 and 2005 by tribes that had hired Abramoff to represent them in Washington, but none from Abramoff's own wallet.

Old Saturday Night Lived Sketch?

2006-01-12T02:16:00.000-08:00

No, two anti-abortion activists praying and "anointing the doors" to the Senate hearing room where the Alito confirmation hearings were to take place.

What's alarming, points out BagNewsNotes, is that:

"One should not be fooled, however, that this is a simple or innocent action when the prearranged participation of the press and at least the tacit cooperation of Capitol security was required. (Otherwise, these guys would be out on the sidewalk, fighting for attention just like everybody else.)

The other point here (although not a new one, of course) is the way the religious right shamelessly exploits religious symbolism for political gain.
The play here is a psychological one exploiting a reflexive tendency to associate religious garments, objects, and physical language and gesture with noble, even pious intention. As well, the simple visage of the minister already comes more than pre-packaged with the connotation of authority. "

These dudes weren't priests or ministers, merely impersonating them. Where are the moral values associated with pretending to be a church official for political, emotional gain or media time? The Right still doesn't get that breaking any rule to win is not winning.

Don't You Just Want Nixon Back?

2006-01-11T20:45:00.000-08:00

For those of you who can remember him, or have learned of him since his resignation and saluting in shame as he left the White House lawn, you may have come to despise his abuse of power, hateful list of enemies he retaliated against, spitefull actions and attacks on his perceived detractors, and foul mouth bigoted rantings in the Oval Office as revealed in several books published way after he left office.

He was the poster child for everything wrong with the GOP, power hungry, paranoid, untrusting of Congress, trusting of only a select few and endlessly circling his wagons for most of his White House stay. He decried dissenters as traitors, assualted civil liberties, was a secretive war-monger -

And don't you just want him back?

Nixon also created the EPA, opened trading talks with China, signed federal affirmative action into law. Nixon may have been crooked, had no moral compass, and tried to achieve an usurpassed level of control and authority in the executive branch -

- but I really miss him.

Because Nixon was an amateur when you compare him to Boy George.

George is now taking the TerrorPalooza road show across the country, insisting that his admitted crime of signing an executive order allowing the NSA to issue infinite unwarranted wire-taps domestically, is crucial to the safety of America.

This despite the fact that it is illegal, as in against the law, a constitutional officer taking away anyone's civil liberty at any moment.

This given the fact that the FISA court currently allows instant and immediate taps on anyone deemed a threat, with 72 hours to follow up the paper work and create the warrrant neccessary.

So pundit point (1) that immediate taps were unavailable to intelligence/justice agents is a lie. But it makes it harder for their side to stay in power if it's revealed they're trashing civil liberty.

And George now says any criticism of the war (by Democrats) is anti-american, supports the other side, alerts the enemy to what we're doing, kills troop moral, helps us lose the war, is standard Rove playbook. Whoring the Iraq war is what these guys have done from the third week in - using it as the catre blanche excuse to kill dissent, support increased executive power, try to push through the Alaskan oil pipline for God's sake, whatever legislation they could.

But the war is being run incompetently and has from when it started. Repeated calls for more troops have been ignored (now Bremer admits in his new book he asked for twice as many troops as supplied). Armor available since 2003 is still not shipped overseas. 80% of fatalities could have been prevented with adequate armor, a Pentagon report has recently concluded. Tracking the terrorists has proven impossible for our intelligence community for the last three years, perhaps the bad guys realize they shouldn't use cell phones and talk openly?

So pundit point (2) that dissent hurts the war on terror, or hurts our chances of winning the war is a lie. It just hurts their side's chances of staying in power if dissent happens.

And the backlog of taped recordings by the NSA must be overwhelming. They already didn't have enough translators to begin with, and now they're creating an impossible backlog of material to go through as they listen in on 500, 1000, 10,000 calls a day? They're data-mining, not tracking, they say they're looking for any clues at all that could lead to any terrorists at all, anywhere (because they have not a clue).

Cheney piped in that if this were in place pre-9/11, 9/11 might not have happened.

But Cheney pundit point (3) is a lie too! Because they had a memo delivered to the President that said "Osama Bin Laden planningn to strike at U.S. using airplanes". And that was filed behind a cable bill or something, and it wasn't deemed important. That's how this administration hums along on all pistons.

But 10,000 NSA recorded phone calls on dating, cooking, arabic school carpet cleaning, ad nauseum could all be diciphered and coded and filtered to catch one bad guy? Don't think so. Another lie. To stay in power.

Part of the terror road show.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. That's how they like you. To cook you until you're over done right about election time.

Because that pretty much lets them do anything. Like NSA wiretaps on whomever they so decree, whenever, where ever. Think of all the good they can do!

Like - listening to the political opposition maybe? Like Nixon tried to do by bugging Democratic Headquarters at the Water Gate Hotel? That would be a good way to stay in power, wouldn't it?

Don't you think that's what all this is really about? Watch that come out next. Because that's all Bush and Rove cares about. Power, getting itand keeping it. Not governing. That's an unfortunate inconvenience that comes along with the job.

Or am I being too paranoid?

Fury

2006-01-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

...towards the people responsible for this decision:

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

That's right. GI Joes went Commando on a sleeping family. Fired three bullets into the room. Fired three bullets into the room where a three year old and a seven-month-old were sleeping. Rolled daddy onto the floor, told him to shut up, tied him up, hooded and hauled him away.

Dr Fadhil (the Iraqi journalist) is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

A few days ago, the director of the film had informed "US Authorities" about the investigation, and had asked them for an interview.

And this was the response.

I'm sure Cranky will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that the troops had more than one way to accomplish this mission. I'm assumining that the tools that the US troops had--scopes, heat sensors, night vision goggles, et c.-- could give them a pretty good idea of the threat level inside this room where a three-year-old girl and a seven-month-old boy were sleeping with their parents. I imagine that if they wanted to, this could have been handled in a far more gentle way and still maintain a level of personal security for the troops.

Yet, they decided to go in with guns blazing.

They knew what they were doing. They knew the threat level in this house was far lower than the threat level they would have getting this guy back to whatever black bag room they took him to.

This was shock and awe.

Because this reporter was uncovering painful truths.

They released him a few hours later, but they still have his tapes.

And we will be greeted as liberators.

Yeharr

Pat Robertson. The Holy Conduit of God.

2006-01-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

Praise be to Pat Robertson. He is such a good Christian that he can interpret what God intends.

Like when he figured out that God was punishing New York with 9/11 because the Supreme Court had legislated Him out of schools. Clearly:

“God Almighty is lifting his protection from us.”

Then Robertson blamed Hurricane Katrina on the fact that the Academy of Arts and Sciences chose Ellen Degeneres to host the Emmys (I kid you not.)

“By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath. Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?!!!”

Now, Robertson, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was God's punishment because He was royally pissed off that Sharon was offering some of His land to the Palestinians.

Never mind that Sharon was enormously overweight. Or had a hole in his heart. And had a minor stroke just a week ago. Nah, that had nothing to do with Sharon being on life support today.

Obviously, this stroke had God’s handwriting all over it. In much the same way that God is torching most of Texas and Oklahoma. I mean - my God - they must have done something really awful to have all those small towns go up in smoke. What are they?
Pro-gay?

And what about that time God sent Bush's ass flying over his handlebars? Or when He crammed that peanut down George W.’s throat and caused him to black out and hit his head on the coffee table? Were those just accidents? I don’t think so! Clearly God was trying to warn us. We need to pay more attention, people!

Is it any wonder New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles haven’t just melted off the face of the earth and all of its citizens turned to pillars of salt? I’m expecting that to happen any day now. Aren’t you?

I'd just like to leave you with a final, insane, absurdist Robertson quote. It refers to Degeneres hosting the Emmys. And honestly, you can't make this shit up.

“God already allows one awards show to promote the homosexual agenda,” Robertson declared. “But clearly He will not tolerate such sinful behavior to spread beyond the Tonys.”

Biased is as Biased Does

2006-01-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

I didn't see O'Reilly on Letterman, but I've seen the ripple effect it's had on the internet.

What surprised me the most is the spin being placed on it by both sides.

One side claims jubilantly that Letterman kicked O'Reilly's ass. The other side crows about how O'Reilly stuck it to Letterman.

Yeah, I thought Letterman was pretty generous when he left the 'crap' level of O'Reilly's spew at a mere 60%.

But he could have done more research, and actually watched some O'Reilly before having him on.

When I post about comments made by a commentator when commenting about another commentator, it's a sure sign of the end of civilization.

Comments?

Yeharr

Who's in Control at the DoJ?

2006-01-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

The Abramoff plea agreement only talks about "Representitive #1" and "Staffer A." I'm hoping that this means his lawyer managed to have him take the hit on only one of the alleged many fraudulent acts he has committed, and will start naming names forthwith and post-haste.

What I'm hoping this doesn't mean is that the political movers in the Department of Justice have managed to limit the scope of the investigation so as to only corral a relatively small player (Rep. Bob Ney) in the power deals that are going on in DC right now.

I'm also curious to see how much of a deal the wingnut bloggers will make when the first Democrat is implicated in this fiasco.

As for me, I don't care if the pocket-liners are Democratic or Republican. Let's shine a light on them and get them out of there.

Yeharr

A short guide to comparative religion

2006-01-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

I've seen this various places. My neighbor Jack even had it on a T-shirt.
I just thought that since it's the New Year, it's a time of reflection, and we all want to understand life better - this might just help.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Taoism - Shit happens.
Buddhism - If shit happens, it's not really shit.
Islam - If shit happens, it's the will of Allah.
Protestantism - Shit happens because you don't work hard enough.
Judaism - Why does this shit always happen to us?
Hinduism - This shit happened before.
Catholicism - Shit happens because you're bad.
Hare Krishna - Shit happens...rama rama.
TV Evangelism - Send more shit.
Atheism - No shit.
Jehovah's Witness - Knock-knock, shit happens.
Hedonism - There's nothing like a good shit happening.
Christian Science - Shit happens in your mind.
Agnosticism - Maybe shit happens, maybe it doesn't.
Existentialism - What is shit anyway?
Stoicism - This shit doesn't bother me.
Rastafarianism - LET'S SMOKE THIS SHIT!!!

(copywrite:LA Imprints)

How did we get here?

2005-12-30T14:53:00.000-08:00

I thought of a great Talking Heads song today, it's called Once in a Lifetime.
Sort of existential rock & roll:

And you may find yourself living in a shot gun shack.
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

I'd like to suggest a parody for the Neocons of this adminstration:

And you may find yourself lying to Americans about weapons of mass destruction.
And you may find yourself neck deep in Iraq.
And you may find yourself trapped behind the wheel of a large Bradley fighting vehicle.
And you may find yourself locked in an endless battle with insurgents.
And you may ask yourself - Well...How did I get here?

Want to know how they got us here? There's an interesting article in the London Guardian
written by Dr. Richard Drayton, a senior lecturer in history at Cambridge University that details how the neocons conned us into this war.
And it's more diabolical than I ever dreamed of. Here are some excerpts:

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance - a key strategic document published in 1996 - aimed to understand how to destroy the "will to resist before, during and after battle". For Harlan Ullman of the National Defence University, its main author, the perfect example was the atom bomb at Hiroshima. But with or without such a weapon, one could create an illusion of unending strength and ruthlessness. Or one could deprive an enemy of the ability to communicate, observe and interact - a macro version of the sensory deprivation used on individuals - so as to create a "feeling of impotence". And one must always inflict brutal reprisals against those who resist. An alternative was the "decay and default" model, whereby a nation's will to resist collapsed through the "imposition of social breakdown".

All of this came to be applied in Iraq in 2003, and not merely in the March bombardment called "shock and awe". It has been usual to explain the chaos and looting in Baghdad, the destruction of infrastructure, ministries, museums and the national library and archives, as caused by a failure of Rumsfeld's planning. But the evidence is this was at least in part a mask for the destruction of the collective memory and modern state of a key Arab nation, and the manufacture of disorder to create a hunger for the occupier's supervision. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported in May 2003, US troops broke the locks of museums, ministries and universities and told looters: "Go in Ali Baba, it's all yours!

For the American imperial strategists invested deeply in the belief that through spreading terror they could take power. Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the recently indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from Leo Strauss that a strong and wise minority of humans had to rule over the weak majority through deception and fear, rather than persuasion or compromise. They read Le Bon and Freud on the relationship of crowds to authority. But most of all they loved Hobbes's Leviathan. While Hobbes saw authority as free men's chosen solution to the imperfections of anarchy, his 21st century heirs seek to create the fear that led to submission. And technology would make it possible and beautiful.

Being a superpower, however, doesn't always make you super successful:

One small nation can tie down a superpower. Air and space supremacy do not give command on the ground. People can't be terrorised into identification with America. The US has proved able to destroy massively - but not create, or even control. Afghanistan and Iraq lie in ruins, yet the occupiers cower behind concrete mountains.

Proof once more that hubris, agression and arrogance create a mighty stupefying cocktail. I say it's time we cut off this administration and had them sober up.
My New Year's resolution is to fight the lying bastards even harder this year.

Be good and let's hope next year is damn site better than this one...

Torture

2005-12-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

Craig Murray is the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He complained too loudly about the repeated human rights violations that the Uzbek government was involved in, such as boiling dissidents alive. He protested vociferously about the use of information gathered by torture in the war on terror. He pointed out that the information gathered was of no use anyhow, that the confessions were from 'dupes' who were signing confessions that made it look like the Uzbeks were fighting the same war as the US and UK. I don't know about you, but if I was made to sit and watch as my children were tortured, I would sign just about anything to get them to stop.

That's one of the techniques that was used by Uzbeks. Torturing children in front of parents.

Hell, at least they weren't boiled alive.

Oops, they do that too.

Well, Craig Murray didn't think that was the right way to fight a war on terror. So he protested. He was removed from office. He said he would publish the memos he had made while Ambassador. Citing the Official Secrets Act, the British Government banned him from doing that. He did it anyway.

That link was working when I looked this afternoon. It's not working now. (UPDATE: It appears to be working again. 9:40 am 12/31/05) Luckily, bloggers picked it up, and are posting it around the world. Here in the US, Kos, among others, have published it.

As I read them, what I notice is that no one is really denying that the UK is using evidence gained by torture. There was even a rather nit-picky memo sent by a legal adviser pointing out that, essentially, not illegal to recieve evidence obtained by torture. The answer, essentially is it's legal as long as it doesn't make it to court.

Here's part of one memo:

1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.

2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results.

3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in a friendly state.

So what's the US position on this? Uzbekistan is given a quarter billion dollars in aid annually, three-fifths of which is military.

In an era when so many jobs are being outsourced to other countries, it's nice to know we do the same thing with our torture.

Yeharr

ID and Ego

2005-12-28T00:20:00.000-08:00

The claim that equity demands balanced treatment of evolutionary theory and special creation in science classrooms reflects a misunderstanding of what science is and how it is conducted. Scientific investigators seek to understand natural phenomena by observation and experimentation. Scientific interpretations of facts and the explanations that account for them therefore must be testable by observation and experimentation.

-Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition, p. 26

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.
To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

Katzmiller, et al, v. Dover Area School District, et al pp136-137

Last Wednesday, the ever-thoughful Polanco blogged about the decision handed down in Pennsylvania regarding Intelligent Design. The very first comment made was from a woman who wrote: "It's amazing how many evolutionists are scared of alternative theories. "

Hoo boy.

That comment pisses me off no end. I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why it pisses me off. And I discovered that it was because it sums up a whole plethora of misconceptions many have about the whole kerfuffle. Let me count the ways:

First off: The use of the term evolutionist. Webster's defines an evolutionist as "a student of or adherent to a theory of evolution." That's fine, but I'm getting the feeling that this term is being bandied about by those who would like to see Intelligent Design incorporated into high-school science classes in much the same way as others are using terms like 'abortionist' and 'liberal'--in other words, with scorn and disdain. As an exercise, I typed 'evolutionist' in the 'search blogs' window at the top of the screen, and sure enough, the majority of bloggers on the top of the list (first three pages) were supporters of ID. This doesn't suggest that the majority of blogger out there support ID. It does, however, suggest that the majority of bloggers who use the term 'evolutionist' aren't supporters of evolution.

I keep telling myself this isn't a valid scientific process, but then I remind myself that the proponents of ID don't seem to be too keen on valid science, so fuck it.

Then, I went to google and searched 'evolutionist theory,' and found a whole bunch of 'talking point' websites, and almost as many sites 'debating' (as polite a word as I can come up with) the issue.

What I didn't find was a whole bunch of actual evolutionists who had anything to say about the issue. Again, I'm not saying they are silent on the subject; just that I couldn't find any using popular web searches.

My conclusion: Evolutionists really aren't debating this topic.

And why should they? They left this topic years ago. Perhaps a century ago.

This goes to the second part of the sentence--that evolutionists are scared of alternative theories.

As far as I can tell, true evolutionists--scientists who have made the study of evolution their life's work--are no more scared of the 'alternative theory' of Intelligent Design than geologists are scared of the the alternative theories of the Flat Earth Society.

In other words: evolutionists aren't really in this debate at all. Shouldn't that tell us something?

They aren't in this debate because, in my opinion--and in the opinion of the Republican, Bush-appointed judge who handed down this ruling--this debate really isn't about evolution, or Intelligent Design, or anything at all scientific.

So what's it about? It's about free thinking.

Look at it this way: The odds of any one of those ninth-graders in the Dover School District growing up to be an elite research scientist in any field is probably comparable to the odds of any of those kids growing up to be a Major League Baseball player. This isn't a slam on their intelligence any more than it's a slam on their physical prowess. Statistically, there's not a lot of either types in the general population. In fact, twenty-five years from now, those kids will probably know more about baseball than evolutionary theory.

That's because, on the whole, the evolution/ID debate doesn't really matter. It will honestly matter less in their lives than the wins and losses of the Phillies.

What matters--what really is to me the heart and soul of this debate--is that, for those ninth graders, many of them for the first time in their lives, will be asked to think. To conjecture. To come up with conclusions that they will have to factually support.

That's the true importance of high-school science for the overwhelming majority of us. It teaches us to weigh facts. It gives us a structure to reach rational conclusions. It give us a tool to use when deciding what to do. That is the great gift of science. The ability to be dispassionate about something.

By introducing ID into the fray at this point, in the venue of science the message becomes muddied. One of my Dad's favorite cartoons showed two researchers in front of a huge blackboard. The left side of the blackboard was filled with this huge mathematical equation, as was the right side. In the middle, were four words: 'Then a miracle occurs.' And one researcher says to the other: 'I think you might have a problem with step number two.'

Intelligent Design wants you to belive there is no problem with step number two.

Perhaps there isn't. But the debate over that should not ever be in ninth-grade science.

Yeharr

Distinguished Leaders of the Right comment on the President's actions

2005-12-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

These are their direct quotes:

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-N.J.):

And we all share in the emotional trauma getting back to our subject of this constitutional crisis in which we are ensnared. But this cup cannot pass us by, we can't avoid it, we took an oath of office, Mr. Speaker, to uphold the Constitution under our democratic system of government, separation of powers, and checks and balances.

And we must fulfill that oath and send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial. Now I say personally, and all of you who know me, and a lot of you do, I've been around a long time; I bear no personal animosity towards the president. But we in the House did not seek this constitutional confrontation.

Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.):

How can we expect a Boy Scout to honor his oath if elected officials don't honor theirs? How can we expect a business executive to honor a promise when the chief executive abandons his or hers?

Rep. Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.):

How did this great nation of the 1990s come to be? It all happened Mr. Speaker, because freedom works. . . . But freedom, Mr. Speaker, freedom depends upon something. The rule of law. And that's why this solemn occasion is so important. For today we are here to defend the rule of law. According to the evidence presented by our fine Judiciary Committee, the president of the United States has committed serious transgressions.

Among other things, he took an oath to God, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And then he failed to do so. Not once, but several times. If we ignore this evidence, I believe we undermine the rule of law that is so important that all America is. Mr. Speaker, a nation of laws cannot be ruled by a person who breaks the law. Otherwise, it would be as if we had one set of rules for the leaders and another for the governed. We would have one standard for the powerful, the popular and the wealthy, and another for everyone else.

This would belie our ideal that we have equal justice under the law. That would weaken the rule of law and leave our children and grandchildren with a very poor legacy. I don't know what challenges they will face in their time, but I do know they need to face those challenges with the greatest constitutional security and the soundest rule of fair and equal law available in the history of the world. And I don't want us to risk their losing that....

You knew they were talking about Clinton, right? This and more great nostalgic travels in hypocrisy from Democratic Underground.

Is Fox News our Al Jazeera?

2005-12-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

Just asking. I've quoted this before:

But what really separates Fox from the competition is its unabashed use of religion as a divisive weapon. Common sense -- and common courtesy -- have long dictated that personal religious beliefs be kept out of news reporting unless the story at hand involves religion. But on Fox, it’s not uncommon for an anchor to raise the issue of a guest’s religion, or lack thereof, a’ propos of nothing. (more)

John Moody, of course, at the bottom of it. He was there at the start, Under Roger Ailes, who have such a pro-right, religous oriented agenda.

"There is a formula to Fox's news agenda. "A lot of the people we have hired," Fox executive John Moody explained (Inside Media, 12/11/96) when the network was launched, "have come without the preconceptions of must-do news. There are stories we will sometimes forego in order to do stories we think are more significant. The biggest strength that we have is that Roger Ailes has allowed me to do that; to forego stores that would be 'duty' stories in order to focus on other things."

That's code, of course, for religious oriented, divisive programming, conservative biased programming, etc.

Former CBS producer Don Dahler resigned from Fox after executive John Moody ordered him to change a story to play down statistics showing a lack of social progress among blacks. (Moody says the change was journalistically justified--New York, 11/17/97.) According to the Columbia Journalism Review (3-4/98), "several" former Fox employees "complained of 'management sticking their fingers' in the writing and editing of stories to cook the facts to make a story more palatable to right-of-center tastes." Said one: "I've worked at a lot of news organizations and never found that kind of manipulation."

Looks and sounds like a news channel with reporters, interviews and headlines, but has a political and religious agenda. Yeah, I was right. They're our Al Jazeera.

Oh, this is intersting too: FOX NEWS in rating free fall:

TV Newser cited a CNN press release which gave these totals for Fox's primetime audience in the 25 to 54 age bracket: Oct. 04: 1,074,000; Nov. 04: 891,000; Dec. 04: 568,000; Jan. 05: 564,000; Feb. 05: 520,000; March 05: 498,000; April 05: 445,000. That amounts to a decline of 58 percent, with no sign of leveling off.

Other cable stations' ratings were also down since the election, but CNN's, for example, appeared to have stabilized last month while Fox's continued to drop. (more)

So This Is Christmas

2005-12-20T23:14:00.000-08:00

"War is over, if you want it."

John Lennon - 1971

He's still singing to us.

Happy Christmas.

9/11 and the creep of dictatorship

2005-12-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

Bush is fond of saying 9/11 changed everything. He’s right - to a degree. 9/11 and the threat of terrorism definitely made us more vulnerable. Not to terrorists. But to an administration that was willing to play on and exploit our fears thus giving them the cover to do whatever they wanted.

Spy on us. Torture. Render suspects (i.e. kidnap) to foreign countries where they would be brutally tortured. Sic the FBI to spy on peace groups. 9/11 enabled Bush’s administration to push the envelope of legality. And ultimately smash it.

Bush lied and continues to lie about the connection between Al Quaeda and Hussein. We went to war in Iraq based on the ramblings of a prisoner who was being tortured by Egyptians and he told them what they wanted to hear. Cheney’s buddy Achmed Chalabi, Curveball and PR manipulation also greased the skids into battle, as told in the amazing Rolling Stone article. Now, Pentagon anti-terror
investigators are going after gay law school groups.

They lied that the war was over. Mission Accomplished.
They lied about the insurgents being in “the last throws” They lie about how many Iraqis troops are battle ready. They lie about poll figures that actually show the Iraqis are fed up with us being there.

There's other evidence of the United States' increasing unpopularity: Two-thirds now oppose the presence of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, 14 points higher than in February 2004. Nearly six in 10 disapprove of how the United States has operated in Iraq since the war, and most of them disapprove strongly. And nearly half of Iraqis would like to see U.S. forces leave soon.

They plant stories in the Iraqi papers. Nothing in the administration is ever above board or done in the bright light of day. It's always dank, secret and covert.

Condoleeza Rice went to Europe and told them we don’t kidnap and torture people.
Big fat lie. And, they lied when they said the Iraqi elections were fair and accurate.

But probably the most egregious lie of all is when they say they are only trying to protect us. Doing it for our own good. Spare me. Because they are acting, as they always have, in their own self-interest.

Now, Bush is willing to trash the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to protect you and I. He's lying when he says it gives him the power. I would rather he would use it to impeach himself.

These are very dangerous times we are living through. And I'm going to quote a great movie called the Seven Days in May. Check out the original with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.
It's about how a General Scott, tries to stage a coup on our government because he is so convinced he knows what's best for the country. The President of the U.S. is talking about the General:

He's not the enemy. Scott, the Joint Chiefs, even the very emotional, very illogical lunatic fringe: they're not the enemy. The enemy's an age - a nuclear age. It happens to have killed man's faith in his ability to influence what happens to him. And out of this comes a sickness, and out of sickness a frustration, a feeling of impotence, helplessness, weakness. And from this, this desperation, we look for a champion in red, white, and blue. Every now and then a man on a white horse rides by, and we appoint him to be our personal god for the duration. For some men it was a Senator McCarthy, for others it was a General Walker, and now it's a General Scott.

"
Change the word "nuclear" to "terrorist" and "Scott" to "Bush" and you have a pretty good description of what's happening now. Bush is not our champion even though he likes to wrap himself in the flag. He is as uninformed about what powers the constitution gives him as he is clueless about everything else in this world. Write or email your congress people and Senators and encourage them to look into this domestic spying. We can't give these people another inch...

Finally

2005-12-18T23:39:00.000-08:00

The advantage to having a President who didn't pay much attention in school, isn't exactly sure what the right thing to do in any situation is, doesn't trust himself intellectually and because of that holds on to simplistic black and white concepts because he can understand and defend them, is that he is eventually going to drop the ball, one that he's quite good at carrying by the way as he mis-leads down the field, but drop the ball nonetheless. And he finally did that on Friday when he admitted that he broke the law.

It dropped jaws on both sides of the aisle, because as much as his administration has screwed up under his watch, he himself has never been linked directly to a crime. Until now.

The irony of it is, he still doesn't get it.

After The New York Times reported, and CNN confirmed, a claim that Bush gave the National Security Agency license to eavesdrop on Americans communicating with people overseas, the president said that his actions were permissible, but that leaking the revelation to the media was illegal.
During an unusual live, on-camera version of his weekly radio address, Bush said such authorization is "fully consistent" with his "constitutional responsibilities and authorities." (CNN)

Um...no.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Other key bipartisan members of Congress also called on the administration to explain and said a congressional investigation may be necessary. (CNN the next day)

There's something called the fourth ammendment:

Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, note that the Constitution's Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires a show of probable cause before warrants are issued. Also, the Communications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Criminal Code have provisions limiting or banning the interception of electronic communications. (USA Today)(the next day)

But being a President who has no interest in his own schooling, traveling, history, or historical context, he couldn't imagine why his own idea that seemed good, isn't good enough. Why doesn't it just trump constitutional context, or legal violation? What's the big deal?

Well, when you live in a little bubble I suppose you could decide that torture was okay too, or that dropping the guarantee of a minimum wage to those in a national disaster area desperate for jobs was okay, or that changing social security to a private plan the in NO WAY IMPROVED the senior payment plan and might REDUCE it but would make walls street rich was okay.... and on and on...

Which is not a bad track record for one leader who over and over again proves he is unfit to lead or is unfit for office. But now that he's admitted to breaking the law, there's ground for impeachment.

You know, the oath for the office of President is not particularly long. And except for the extra adjectives and some decorative prepositions basically says: "I promise to uphold, preserve, protect and defend the constitution and the laws of this country."

Period. That's it. You don't even have to take a test and get a license.

So - signing or giving an order that is a violation of the law of this country is grounds for impeachment. It violates the oath of office. That's what Nixon did. Supposedly that's what Clinton did, it's what Starr hung his whole case on "A constitutional officer LIED." (I never slept with that woman). It wasn't the act of sex, it was the LIE.

Well, Bush has that in droves. The great irony here is that his one TRUTH he's proudly splashing across the media and in his TV address is that he broke the law.

And he still doesn't get it.

In 2006, when all the diebold machines are recalled for their security failures, or the company folds because of its SEC violations (two counties already recalled them in Florida), and the votes in this country are really counted, and Democrats win back either the House or the Senate, watch everyone be tired of the Bushit and start the process to Impeach.

Bush is not above the law.

2005-12-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

Today on Meet The Press, Condoleeza Rice claimed that Bush was following the rule of law in spying domestically on American citizens. Except, that's a lie. He's not.
To be following the rule of law he would have needed to get a court order either before or immediately after a wire tap. But that's not what was the most fascinating statement she made. She said Bush would do everything he could to protect us and that's why he decided he needed to spy on us, so that he would find out information that would help in protecting us.

If that's really the case, why didn't he heed the intelligence report he got the month prior to the 9/11 attack while he was on vacation in Crawford? The report that was intrigueingly titled: BIN LADEN DETERMINDED TO ATTACK INSIDE THE UNITED STATES BUT, BUSH DID NOTHING ABOUT IT.

There was no domestic follow-up by the Bush administration, no high level meetings, no sense of urgency. No warnings of FBI agents across the country.

We cannot trust this guy to do what is right, what is smart, or what is in our best interest. This is the most incompetent, delusional president we have ever had. He is the least interested, least informed President we've ever had. He works primarily on "gut instincts". I don't trust his gut any more than I trust his brain.
We need to impeach him and his entire administration.

A New Low

2005-12-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

A group called the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License wants to put billboards like this up in North Carolina, Wisconsin and New Mexico, and is shocked--shocked--that anyone might consider this to smack of racism.

[North Carolina] Transportation Department spokesman Ernie Seneca called the premise for the ad “flat-out wrong [and] totally inaccurate” and said the ad itself was offensive.

As a person who has lived in North Carolina, I can honestly say that if the Tar Heel State thinks something is racially offensive, then you've got no wiggle room whatsoever in this area.

Now, I don't know if the goals of this group are worthy ones or not. Perhaps they are. I haven't really read anything about this possible loophole in the War on Violence Committed or Threatened by a Group to Intimidate or Coerce a Population. But the fact that they consider a billboard like this to be appropriate speaks volumes about our current social climate.

I remember driving through Indiana in the early '70's with my family, and seeing signs at the borders of some small towns that read "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you here." This sign doesn't match those for gut-level offensiveness; but they're damn close.

Yeharr

Tide is Turning. Tired of the Bushit

2005-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

This is a big deal:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the USA Patriot Act as infringing too much on Americans' privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders.

In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill's Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47. (CNN) (From Raw Story)

It's because of support of the 70% of the country who write in, call, email and let these people know they are not happy with this administration. Period. These aren't leaders just suddenly doing the right thing, these are leaders reflecting a pissed off population who want to keep their jobs.

CNN Dumps Novak

2005-12-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Robert Novak (AP Photo)

For one outburst of "this is bullshit?" and walking off the set? Not that I'll miss his one-sided shilling. But there's a long history of right-sided reporting here that made a lot of money for him and the network. I wonder if Bob stepped into his own right wing issue of FCC vulgarity violation, or if it's something more at work:

Could it have something to do with his statement: "I'm confident the president knows who the source is. I'd be amazed if he doesn't," Novak said at a Tuesday lunch address to the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh...?

CNN says:

From: Emery, Edie
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 11:09 AM
Subject: CNN statement regarding Mr. Novak

"After 25 years of serving as a CNN commentator and program host, our colleague Bob Novak's tenure on the network will come to a close (effective 12/31). Through the years, Bob has offered incisive analysis for much of CNN's programming, including Crossfire, The Capital Gang, Inside Politics, Evans and Novak, The Novak Zone, and Novak, Hunt and Shields. Bob has also been a valued contributor to CNN's political coverage. We appreciate his many contributions and wish him well in future endeavors," said Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S.

Edie Emery, CNN PR

Let's do the perp walk again.

2005-12-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about several Republicans who were indicted or about to be. One was James Tobin. Today he was convicted for his part in a plot to jam the Democrats' phones on election day 2002. The federal jury acquitted him of conspiring to violate voters' rights. But they nailed him on telephone harrassment.
That alone could get him up to seven years in the big house and $500,000 in fines.

His crime?

For nearly two hours on Election Day 2002, hundreds of hang-up calls overwhelmed Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks in New Hampshire and a ride-to-the-polls line run by Manchester's firefighters union.

Tobin, who at the time was New England chairman of Bush's re-election campaign and a top regional official of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was accused of orchestrating the phone-jamming.

In August, the Republican National Committee acknowledged it had spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin with lawyers from a high-powered Washington law firm. Party officials who said they ordinarily would not discuss such matters said they underwrote Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and assured them he had committed no crimes. (Ha! That was money well spent!)

Tobin's lawyer declined to comment after the verdict.

The former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, Chuck McGee, who admitted coming up with the idea, served a seven-month sentence for conspiracy.

As Bush would say, (and probably did) Heck of a job there, Toby! Too f*cking bad you were caught. Tobin is scheduled to be sentenced in March. Let's hope he gets the maximum. But, hey, he won't be lonely for long. Because Abramoff, Libby, and so many others are bound to join him in the Federal Prison System soon.

Come on Iraqis, get out there and vote!

2005-12-15T06:40:00.000-08:00

This election needs to be successful.

That way we can set a timetable for withdrawal, I'm mean victory and bring our troops home. Shrubco will have no reason to keep them there. The Neocons will have their middle eastern democracy and the Iraqis will have their Islamic Republic. Win/Win

Three cheers for the purple finger!

ps. Send a care package to our troops who can't be home for xmas this year.

Fair and Balanced and Hateful and Divisive

2005-12-14T23:49:00.000-08:00

Fox News, headed by Roger Ailes, ex-DC Gop operative and VP John Moody (scholar and devout catholic who frames his religiouis views in good guy-bad guy terms) , uses religious confrontation to foister division and to cut a new swath for cable news:

"From CHARLIE REINA, former Fox News Channel producer: As with many conflicts, particularly the manufactured kind, dishonesty, greed and ignorance are the culprits behind Fox News Channel's so-called “War on Christmas.” - more.

Charlie knows becuase he worked there for six years. See his take on how "fair and blanced" or on how "we report - you decide" is complete hokum.

Point Blank Disgraceful

2005-12-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

Heard a fairly shocking story today and you can read more about it here.

The story involves the wealthy maker of bullet proof vests. The continuing recall of about 21,000 of those vests, and blow-out Bat Mitzvah.

David H. Brooks (I assume the H stands for “Hell yes I’m making profits on this war!”) is the CEO of DHB Industries. DHB makes and supplies bulletproof vests for our guys in Iraq. They’re called Point Blank Body Armor. These vests are supposed to stop rounds of ammo, schrapnel, pesky things like that. Funny thing is though, according to an investigation by the Marines Corp Times, these vests can’t stop a 9 millimeter bullet. Which is pretty pathetic considering that the insurgents are using things like AK47s and big car bombs which can do much more damage than a measly 9 millimeter bullet.

Even funnier is, that in spite of the fact that these vests are about as protective as goose-down, the Army keeps giving DHB and Brooks, millions and millions of tax payer dollars in contracts to produce more faulty vests which are then recalled and then they get millions more to make thousands more. See the vicious cycle here?

“On November 21, the Army Times reported, “The Army and Marine Corps are recalling more than 18,000 body armor vests because they failed ballistic requirements when they were manufactured in 1999-2000. Many of those vests may now be in the war zone. The Nov. 16 recall order is the second in six months for the Marines. The Corps recalled more than 5,000 vests in May. All of the vests involved were produced by the same manufacturer, Point Blank Body Armor Inc. of Pompano Beach, Fla., under contract to the Marine Corps.””

So what is Brooks doing about all this? Well, when his daughter turned 13, he threw her a $10 million dollar Bat Mitzvah for 300 of their bestest friends in New York’s elite Rainbow Room. Hosted by Tom Petty, starring Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Kenny G., Aerosmith and 50 Cent. How could he afford a $10 million dollar soiree like that? Well it’s no problem when you’re earning $250 million in income and stock compensation.

Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and founder of Operation Truth said,

“It is already disturbing that anyone can live the high-life as a result of the booming war business, but it is particularly disheartening to hear about someone having their own private Lollapalooza, in part from the sale of defective equipment that put our troops in harm’s way. America must take a long, hard look at the idea of profit on the battlefield.”

And just as a comparison, the average soldier putting his life on the line over there is lucky if he earns $30, 000 a year.

You know, when you earn $250 million dollars a year on the backs of our soldiers, you probably don’t want the war to end. I wonder how many more military suppliers like the guys who bribed Randy Puke Cunningham feel that way.

Maybe the H stands for Heinous.

More Dead in Ohio

2005-12-14T13:49:00.000-08:00

A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal U.S. Senate seat in 2006, are about to end.

HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.

The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the U.S., starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax.

But despite significant court challenges, the Republicans are forcing changes in long-standing election laws that have allowed citizens to vote based on their signature alone. Across the U.S., GOP Jim Crow laws will eliminate millions of Democratic voters from the registration rolls. In swing states like Ohio, such ballots are almost certain to be crucial.

A comment at the end of the piece writes: "I almost wish this wasn't so well-written."

I agree.

And the noose tightens, and rich white men rejoice.

Yeharr

We Welcome the Cranky Yankee

2005-12-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

Who joins us as a contributor to this site, and will post as his busy schedule permits.

Okay, maybe he won't and it's just a vanity plate.

I'm just saying.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddle Masses, and Let Me Really Screw Them

2005-12-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

You all know that's from a poem of course (except the last bit), but do you remember where it's engraved? On the pedastal of the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of welcome and opened armed protection to those in need to come here to America, for care.

The poor from Katrina's devastation continue to suffer, continue to be forgotten, as if the GOP who are controlling the funds are just hoping they will GO AWAY.

"When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans it was the city's poor - almost exclusively African Americans - who were left to fend for themselves as the city drowned in a lake of toxic sludge. Now, three months on, the same people have been abandoned once again by a reconstruction effort that seems determined to prevent them from returning. They are the victims of a devastating combination of forced evictions, a failure to reopen the city's public house projects, rent gouging and - as in the case of Mildred - a decision to write off whole neighbourhoods."

From the Observer Article.

Problem is, they're people, who are poor, and sick, so they don't evaporate. Of course they tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic. And I know the GOP are hoping that if you go down their moral values check list, they will find a box entitled IGNORE next to those "in need".

Problem is, if you are the government when you take your pledge, you have a sworn oath to uphold the duties of your office. Last time I checked it didn't include ignoring catastrophic destruction brought to entire cities by natural disasters. That is, unless you're handing out contracts to your corporate buddies for whatever rebuild you deem neccessary and not the locals who need them. They've got that problem covered.

It's unfortunate for the poor that the huddled masses referred to in the poem are from everywhere but here. The poem could have a footnote: "If you start here and you're poor, why don't you just drop dead?" But I'm not sure that rhymes.

But the poor can't get anyone's ear as they can't plunk down the $1000 a dinner plate for a Bush fundraiser.

Footnote: (Poverty has increased in every year of the George Bush administration).

Run on Fear, Run in Fear

2005-12-10T23:21:00.000-08:00

Really, is he just this scared of ex-President Clinton? Bush is the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, right? What's he afraid of? That he's not as popular? That Clinton will just tell the truth, which really throws Bush off his game?

"Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might’ve been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.

Bush officials informed organizers of their intention to pull out of the new Kyoto deal late Thursday afternoon, soon after news leaked that Clinton was scheduled to speak, the source said..." More.

Out of the Mouths of Babes in Arms

2005-12-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the big picture is best seen by what it's made up of, lots of little pictures. The way a television picture is really the assemblage of thousands of dots of color. If those colors all shift in one direction, the big picture sways in that direction as well, it can't help it, it's inexorably linked.

Seems like the Bush Administration is trying to insist that the big picture is green, when all the little dots are really reporting red.

But lying is BOP (basic operating procedure). Of course debunking the lie is BOPD (Burned Out Paranoid Democrat).

"Before I begin, let me state that I am a soldier currently deployed in Iraq, I am not an armchair quarterback. Nor am I some politically idealistic and naïve young soldier, I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt. Additionally, I am not just a soldier with a muds-eye view of the war, I am in Civil Affairs and as such, it is my job to be aware of all the events occurring in this country and specifically in my region.

I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win here for a number of reasons. Ideology and idealism will never trump history and reality..." More.

Also from OpTruth.org:

"Stop Loss is devastating to troop morale. Many Soldiers affected by Stop Loss have already served one or even two tours of combat duty, only to be extended when they were expecting to be finished with their service. Besides damaging troop morale, Stop Loss could possibly lead to a drop in recruitment and reenlistment rates, thus weakening our Armed Forces..." More.

How about some thoughts from an an expert on Capital Hill who's not afraid to say the truth.

"Most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth," Rep. John Murtha told a civic group."

"Murtha, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, expressed pessimism about Iraq's stability and said the Iraqis know who the insurgents are, but don't always share that information with U.S. troops. He said a civil war is likely because of ongoing factionalism among Sunni Arabs, and Kurds and Shiites. He also said he was wrong to vote to support the war." More.

Unlike the White House, Right Wing pundits, or psuedo professionals called in to be talking heads on Fox News, Murtha gets all his information from only one place: The Military. He knows what he's talking about regardless of Bush's need to tarnish any enemy.

And to show how fair and balanced we can be, some thoughts from soldiers with a positive attitude. What's heartbreaking is hearing how they're trying to bring in a bit of Home town back yard into their hell.

"Well not much going on here. It is much colder at night and in the morning. Very much like home. There is a lot of talk about leave and it seems like every day I am taking someone to go on leave. Being shorthanded is tough being a small company but we are doing okay with it. We are still waiting for the much anticipated rainy season that so far has only given us 2 days worth not lasting more then 20 min each. When the roads get wet the vehicles like to slide as if we are on ice and that will make for some interesting challenges in the future. We are just about complete on improving our unit area. The other day we had a cookout that was nice we also invited the former B TRP guys, it was good to see a lot of them again..." More.

Arnold and the taint of ill-gotten campaign funds.

2005-12-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

Do you smell that? Smells like something rotten. You know like bad eggs or a dead skunk. Yep. That's the smell of tainted money. And as much as politicians love
to receive it. The minute the media finds out the donations are illegal or immoral, the politicians can't wait to get rid of it.
Except it seems, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger.

Apparently Brent Wilkes, the one that bestowed all the ill-gotten bribes on Randy
"Puke" Cunningham, also donated $73,000 to Arnold. And in a complete coincidence I'm sure, Arnold appointed Wilkes to two board seats. One to the Del Mar Fair Board and the other to the State Race Track Leasing Commission. On November 29th, the Governator, asked Wilkes to resign. That's great. But what about the $73,000?
according to today's LA Times article Arnold says: "at the present time" the money would not be returned.

That's pretty much what he told the state of Ohio when it was discovered the unscrupulous and now indicted Tom Noe, he of the multi-million dollar Coingate scandal that drained the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation Fund of money, donated 10 Grand to Arnold. It wasn't until Ohio State Senator Marc Dann put the screws to Arnold to give up the money, that Arnold coughed up it up. But you know what he did? He didn't donate it to charity. He gave it back to Tom Noe! According to a Toledo Blade article (which has done a fabulous job uncovering that scandal.)

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could have cleared his campaign coffers of Tom Noe’s $10,000 in contributions by donating the money to a charity or the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, but instead he sent the cash back to the embattled coin dealer.

Marty Wilson, Mr. Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, said yesterday the governor was not aware there were other options for disposing of the money contributed by Mr. Noe, who is facing accusations that he stole millions of dollars from a $50 million rare-coin fund he managed for the bureau. A long line of Republicans, including President Bush, has already sent the coin dealer’s contributions to charities or the bureau.

“Had we known about the other options, we may have made a different choice, but that’s hindsight,” said Mr. Wilson, adding the money was returned in early June. “The fact is the money has gone out."

“It’s money that clearly wasn’t his money to begin with and Governor Schwarzenegger knew it,” said state Sen. Marc Dann, a Democrat from suburban Youngstown. “I think he ought to give another $10,000 back to the bureau.”

Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger. One stupid and smelly politican.

Remember Karen Kwiatkowski?

2005-12-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

She was the Lieutenant Colonel who as 'volunteered' to work at the NESA during the run-up to the war. She published her frustrations with the politicization of the intelligence-gathering process first anonymously, then publicly on Salon.com in March of 2004.

Here's two quotes from that article:

" I asked John [Trigilio, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst] who was feeding the president all the bull about Saddam and the threat he posed us in terms of WMD delivery and his links to terrorists, as none of this was in secret intelligence I had seen in the past years. John insisted that it wasn't an exaggeration, but when pressed to say which actual intelligence reports made these claims, he would only say, "Karen, we have sources that you don't have access to." It was widely felt by those of us in the office not in the neoconservatives' inner circle that these "sources" related to the chummy relationship that Ahmad Chalabi had with both the Office of Special Plans and the office of the vice president."

"I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."

The Office of Special Plans is the unit created by Donald Rumsfeld and led by Douglas Feith, created to deal with intelligence on Iraq. OSP was described by Kwiatkowski as "a censorship and disinformation organism controlling the NESA," and by former CIA officer Larry Johnson as "dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace. [The OSP] lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. It's a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary."

In light of the current imbrolgio regarding Democratic legislators who now oppose the war, and are calling for a timetable, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the article.

Yeharr

Smoke & Mirrors & Web Sites

2005-12-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

By now, you’ve probably heard the sobbing mea culpas of a former Viet Nam Hero turned
Shill as Randy “Duke” Cunningham admitted to taking 2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. You’ve probably heard about all the antiques, rugs, houses and boats given to him. You probably even heard about the massive amounts of cash he just deposited right into his bank accounts.

What you may not have heard about is all the phony companies set up by one guy, Brent Wilkes, to appear to be legit military contractors who all got government contracts thanks to “Duke”, who all shared the same address and who all donated money to various Republicans including Cunningham. And, they shared something else. They all had bogus websites.

The blog Cannonfire does a masterful job researching it:

The invisible empire. I still have yet to discover any evidence that the other "defense-related" enterprises operating under the Wilkes umbrella were genuine businesses.

"Group W Media," the advertising agency with no discernable clients, was a front for something -- I don't yet know what. "Group W Transportation" amounted to a time-share arrangement involving a Lear jet. "Al Dust Properties" and "Group W Holdings" supposedly owned properties -- but I can't trace any holdings beyond the impressive building which the Wilkes Corporation called home. (It's now up for auction, by the way.) MailSafe Inc. supposedly offers "mail decontamination, digital capture, and electronic distribution to government and commercial entities." But the web site has disappeared, and the company seems to have left zero imprint on corporate America. Where is the evidence that it actually provided any services to clients?

"PerfectWave Technologies" has (or had) what seems, at first, to be an impressive web page advertising speech recognition devices for the military. (That page is really little more than a ghost, since the official Wilkes Corp. site no longer points to it.) Look closer: The site does not specify any PerfectWave products. Neither do we encounter any named personnel or development teams. No order information. If this company makes battlefield-ready high-tech equipment, why doesn't the the web site mention any departments, managers or employees? All we get is a single phone number and a fax number. Now conduct a Google search: Aside from channeling funds to politicians, PerfectWave hasn't done anything to warrant a mention.

Just for contrast, I checked out Boeing’s website. When you do that, it’s easy to see who’s legit and who’s just a sham.
What's more, I build web sites for a living. When you just do a front page as in Group W Media and some of the other sites listed here, you realize "there is no there, there."

"Pure Aqua Technologies" another Wilkes operation, seems to be pure snake oil. No address, no telephone number, no nothing -- except this stupid web page, which is a joke. Nevertheless, "Aqua" managed to pass some green around Washington.

Ghost locations. Supposedly, Wilkes has an office building in Honolulu, which is the home of yet another subsidiary: AkamaiInfoTech. They once had a nifty web page, which has disappeared. But what actually goes on there?

If you read the document from that last link, you'll see wilkescorp.com is involved.
What's great is they didn't do such a great job hiding all the affiliations. This should be a relatively easy case to prosecute. If Cannonblog can turn up this stuff just by using Google, this should be a cakewalk for our Justice Department.

The following is a list of all the companies URLs. Check them out.
www.Acousticalcs.com
www.Adcs.com
www.Akamaiinfotech.com
www.Archerdefense.com
www.Archerlogistics.com
www.Asap-catering.com
www.Aztecclassic.com
www.Aztecgolf.com
www.Bbqranch.com
www.Cdpsa.com
www.Edge-catering.com
www.Electharman.com
www.Groupwadvisors.com
www.Groupwevents.com
www.Groupwholdings.net
www.Groupwmedia.net
www.Groupwoutfitters.com
www.Ict-sa.com
www.Libertydefensetech.com
www.Mailsafeinc.com
www.Mirrorlabs.com
www.Ocdllc.com
www.Pefectwavetech.com
www.Perfectwavetech.com
www.Pkmi.com
www.Powaymafia.com
www.Powaysc.com
www.Primevector.com
www.Pureaquatech.com
www.Sandiegoheroes.org
www.Sdheroes.org
www.W-catering.com
www.Wilkesclan.com
www.Wilkescorp.com
www.Wilkesfoundation.com
www.Wilkesfoundation.org
www.Wilkestechnologygroup.com

We should really be angry this happened. That phony companies bribed a congressman to get our tax payer dollars. Some of which was supposed to be used in Iraq. That they then turned around and used that money donate money to more Republicans.

So which candidates got chunks of that taxpayer money earmarked for "defense"?

Henry Bonilla, Roy Brown, Rick Clayburgh, Duke Cunningham (of course!), John T. Doolittle, Maria Guadalupe Garcia, George W. Gekas, Lindsay Graham, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa, Samuel Johnson, Thaddeus G. McCotter, Constance Morella, Devin Nune, Steve Pearce, Bill Van de Weghe Jr., Jerry Weller.

All Republicans, of course. As the scandal unfolds, the pundits will try to convince us that "both sides do it." That simply is not true.

The donations amounted only to $5000 or so. But ADCS Pac was hardly the only mechanism by which Wilkes could distribute the Christmas candy. Remember, Perfect Wave Technologies, Pure Aqua Technologies, Group W. Advisors and other "subsidiaries" were also used as funding mechanisms.

By keeping the donations small, and by maintaining the illusion that the donors are numerous, the conspirators could line many a pocket with relative safety. Clever, eh?

Other recipients of Wilkes' largesse: President Bush, Katherine Harris, Tom Delay, Virgil Goode Jr. and Elizabeth Dole -- whose husband, as you may recall from yesterday's post, lent his name to Reverend Moon's "stamp out the cross" crusade. Talk about being on the Dole!

I thought DeLay was Bad. I thought Abramoff was shocking. But this, this is about as disgusting as it can get. Is this business as usual in our Republican
Washington?

The White House. Home of the Whopper.

2005-12-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

Another lie exposed.

Bush, in his last speech, claimed that training of Iraqi troops was moving right along, resulting in more professional troops. But that may not be the case. Is anyone surprised?

According to an AP article this morning, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer disputes that, saying:

“that most recently trained Iraqi forces focus on settling scores and other political goals rather than maintaining security. In particular, armed Shiite militias in the south might try to incite war if U.S.-led coalition forces leave…”

Recent allegations that Interior Ministry security forces — dominated by Shiites — have tortured Sunni detainees were evidence that many forces are increasingly politicized and sectarian, he said. According to him, the army which is dominated by Shiites — is conducting raids against villages and towns in Sunni and mixed areas of Iraq, rather than targeting specific insurgents — a tactic he said reminded many Sunnis of Saddam Hussein-era raids.  "Saddam used to raid villages," using security forces, he said. "This is not the way to do it." 

According to the article:

 

Al-Yawer also expressed grave concern that Iraqi army units might use intimidation to try to keep Sunni voters from the polls during the country's crucial Dec. 15 general election.  American officials — and Sunni moderates like al-Yawer — are trying to persuade Sunnis to go to the polls, hoping that if they gain a sizable chunk of parliament, Sunnis will abandon support for the insurgency.  Al-Yawer said many Sunnis want to vote. But he noted that both intimidation and voter fraud occurred during the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum, and complaints to the Iraqi Electoral Commission and U.N. voting advisers went nowhere, he said.  His supporters have made a series of requests to ensure a fair vote this time, including changes to the electoral commission and adequate numbers of polling stations and ballots in Sunni areas, he said. Most importantly, they have asked that U.S.-led coalition forces, and not Iraqi army troops, guard polling stations, he said.  Many outside experts have expressed concern that Iraqi security forces will actually increase tensions if they guard Sunni areas, rather than keep order. Al-Yawer did not specifically say that Shiites make up too much of the army, but said he would like to see more political and sectarian balance — especially among the officer corps.

Again more PR from Bush and very little honesty.

This year, let’s all take a holiday from Christmas.

2005-12-01T23:44:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Christian conservatives have recruited a record 1,550 attorneys to pursue any attempts to substitute "Christmas" with "Holiday," or any other inclusive or nonsectarian terms. It’s just their way of "putting the Christ back in Christmas."

They’re boycotting Target, because the company used the term “Holiday” in their advertising. (Um…that is until the day before Christmas and the tree is looking a little…empty.)

They successfully forced Lowes to change their “Holiday Trees” back to Christmas trees. It is kind of silly to call a Christmas tree a holiday tree but honestly, aren’t their more important things in the world to worry about? Why don’t they boycott Walmart for paying their employees so little they can only afford to shop at Walmart!

Don’t they know that Christmas trees started out as pagan symbols? According to the History Channel:

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

But sadly, not the extreme right conservative Christians…

So what’s next? Cops who bust you for tree flocking? Sanctions against Santa? Jail time for spelling it XMAS? Are they that insecure about their beliefs? Or are they truly sickened by the crass commercialism?

According to an ABC news report:

Christian conservatives say retailers should proudly play up Christmas even if some non-Christian customers are alienated.

Ok, then it’s not the crass commercialism…
Donald Wildmon, Chairman of the American Family Association put it this way:

‘Tough Luck. This is an overwhelmingly Christian country."

How incredibly Christian of him to say it just that way. In other words, “My religion, like it or lump it.” I just question how you can view yourself as a majority religion and still feel so victimized?

Why didn’t they recruit a record 1550 attorneys to find homes for the people displaced by Katrina? Why aren’t they more concerned about feeding the poor over the holidays? Why aren’t they actively doing something about the travesty in the Sudan?

So what do you think Jesus would do? Do you think he’d be spamming Target and picketing Lowes? Or do you think he’d do something totally selfless, generous, and loving in such a way as to not draw attention to himself…just wondering.

The Continuing Chaos in Iraq

2005-11-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

Time for an update on Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a secular country. But now there are troubling signs that the country is even more extreme and more religious.

As you know, I periodically check in with the Riverbend blog to see what's really transpiring there. We can't hope to get unbiased reports from our media. Hell, our reporters can't even leave the Green Zone to get a cup of coffee.

According to the woman who writes the Riverbend Blog,

In the last three weeks, at least six different prominent doctors/professors have been assassinated. Some of them were Shia and some of them were Sunni- some were former Ba’athists and others weren’t. The only thing they have in common is the fact that each of them played a prominent role in Iraqi universities prior to the war: Dr. Haykal Al-Musawi, Dr. Ra'ad Al-Mawla (biologist), Dr. Sa'ad Al-Ansari, Dr. Mustafa Al-Heeti (pediatrician), Dr. Amir Al-Khazraji, and Dr.Mohammed Al-Jaza'eri (surgeon).

Another professor killed earlier this month was the head of the pharmacy college. He had problems with Da’awa students earlier in the year. After Ja’afari et al. won in the elections, their followers in the college wanted to have a celebration in the college. Sensing it would lead to trouble, he wouldn’t allow any festivities besides the usual banners. He told them it was a college for studying and learning and to leave politics out of it. Some students threatened him- there were minor clashes in the college. He was killed around a week ago- maybe more.

Whoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country.
The problem with this situation is not just major brain drain- it's the fact that this diminishing educated class is also Iraq's secular class…

So all those happy stories about how we're over there opening more schools and hospitals don't really mean much, if the teachers and doctors are trying to leave the country.

And according to Tom Friedman of the New York Times who wrote about Iraq's new constitution:

Islamists will have to accept being unhappy that the system does not mandate Sharia law as the constitution, but only "reasonably" unhappy, because Islam will be the official religion of the state and respected as an important basis for legislation and governance. Secularists will have to accept being unhappy that Iraq's new basic law gives Islam an important symbolic place in governance, but only "reasonably" unhappy, because this secular law and judges will still provide the basis for a new rule of law.

Then there's that business about the recently discovered Iraqi torture chamber, again from Riverbend:

These torture houses have existed since the beginning of the occupation. While it is generally known that SCIRI is behind them, other religious parties are not innocent. The Americans know they exist- why the sudden shock and outrage? This is hardly news for Americans in the Green Zone. The timing is quite interesting- it shouldn't matter that this raid came immediately after the whole white phosphorous story came out, but the Pentagon and American military have proven to be the ultimate masters of diversion.

Only last year in an area called Ghazaliya, one such house was discovered. It was on a smaller scale though. My cousin lives in Ghazaliya and he said that when the Americans got inside, they found several corpses and a man hanging from the ceiling on a makeshift noose. The neighbors had tried to get the Americans to check the house for months- no one bothered. They finally raided it because they got information from someone in the area that it was an insurgents hiding place. I read once that in New York, if a woman is being raped, she should scream 'fire' instead of 'rape' because no one would come to save her if she was screaming 'rape'. That's the way it is with Iraqi torture houses- the only way they'll check it is if you tell them it's a terrorist cell.

And another thing- you know when they say 'men dressed in Ministry of Interior uniforms' or 'men in official cars claiming to be from the Ministry of Interior', etc. when describing some horror committed by the new Iraqi security forces in the news? Here's a thought: they aren't 'claiming' and they aren't in costume- they actually ARE from the Ministry of Interior! One would think they'd do this covertly so as not to enrage Iraqis or humanitarian organisations, except that it doesn't matter to them because SCIRI and Da'awa aren't out to win hearts and minds. They have American favor- what more does one need in the New Iraq?

For over a year corpses have been turning up all over Baghdad. Corpses of people who are taken from their homes in the middle of the night (lately they've been more brazen- they just do everything in the light of day), and turn up dead somewhere. That isn't as disturbing as the reports about the bodies- the one I can't get out of my head is that many of the corpses are found with holes in the skull left by an electric drill.

And what about the White Phosphorus? The LA Times did a story on that today:

The Pentagon and other U.S. officials at first denied, and later admitted, that troops had used white phosphorus as a weapon against insurgents in Fallouja...

This is interesting, because now how do we know they're telling the trust when they say that its use wasn't widespread and that civilians were not among those killed?

When white phosporus comes in contact with skin, the chemical will burn through to the bone. The only way to stop it, is to cut off its air supply. According the LA Times article, incendiaries like wp are considered particularly inhumane weapons under international treaty, and a 1980 United Nations convention limits their use. However the U.S. never signed that part of the convention.

In the 1990s, we condemned Saddam for allegedly using white phosphorus chemical weapons against Kudish rebles and residents of Irbil and Dohuk

A soldier in the LA Times article said:

We had rounds of wp burst in the air quite close to us, and the Marines were quite concerned, since they knew of its impact - that it burns through flesh and is impossible to extinguish."

And if you really want a jolt of reality, click on this link courtesy of Crooks & Liars,to see a trophy video that appears to show security guards from the British security contractor, Aegis Defense Services, randomly shooting Iraqi citizens from their car while they listen to Elvis Presley's Mystery Train. If you want to read the story, this link will take you to an article from London's Daily Telegraph.

Bugler: Sound "Planned Withdrawal!"

2005-11-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

Newsweek has an interesting article about a "planned withdrawal" that will, coincidentally, occur at just about the same time as the midterm elections.

While reading this, I kept thinking: How is this different than what many in Congress have asked for? Last week, Rep. Murtha is called a coward for suggesting exactly the same thing that this article suggests is already in place.

How dysfunctional is this administration? They could have said, "Yeah, we're working on something along those lines, Rep. Murtha. We'll probably release the information in the next couple of weeks." But instead, they automatically go into attack mode.

Lieutenant Trouble says the only reason so many Iraqi troops are now listed as 'trained' is because they have changed the definition of what 'trained' means.

Seems to me that Iraqi troops get military training the way many college football players get a university education.

Yeharr

Iraqi Insecurity

2005-11-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

The bubble of security is shrinking in Iraq, in Bahgdad. We're pouring billions in, we're pouring in our blood, we're pouring in our best hope. And the bubble of security is still shrinking. This from a first hand account from the Washington Post.

Paul Hacket, the Vet. who's running for the Senate in Ohio puts it well when he says, why not listen to the military strategists and professionals to find solutions in Iraq? Why fire the guys advising more troops, or caution, or timetables, and instead going with policy and demanding that it fits? Good interview, he stands by his statement that George was a known party boy and cocaine user. My kind of politician!

His common sense seems like...well, common sense, doesn't it?

The downside of George Bush illustrious lack of a military career, is that he doesn't understand military process. There are a lot of wise old multiple star guys who know how to kick a country's ass and secure it. They should set the game plan, troops numbers, and we should go with that. But these guys running the administration see taking counsel from anyone as a weakness. So they demand a game plan, and expect the game to be won, regardless of the shifting opposition. And brutally end the careers of those military elders who raise any criticism.

Richard Clark said in a recent interview that when Colin Powell was asked what the meeting was like when they discussed going to war he said "What meeting?" The decision had been made before the case was closed.

Don't forget what Bush 41 wrote about in his book (Taking Bagdad was not worth the consequnces or the benefits).

I mean, even his dad realized the hornets nest he'd be getting into. Then Clinton isolated Saadam with embargos and made 3/4 of the country a no-fly zone. Not a world threat.

Yet here we are. And now the GOP votes on the most heinous budget cutting bill, cutting into just about all government services for every state, to support the war, while we nation build.

Just wish we were nation building our nation.

And don't tell me we're building American security. The war has guaranteed American insecurity. And this administration will milk that for all it's worth to stay in power and keep us afraid.

Ex-FEMA head to start disaster planning firm

2005-11-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Insert your own joke here....

Yeharr

Don't Let the Turkey's Get you Down

2005-11-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

An Update on the El Tee

2005-11-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

Just got a call. He's doing very well, considering.

Considering he's been up for two days. He's in charge of two shifts, and sometimes when things get a little aggravated, he'll work both shifts. He usually tries to make his hours overlap, so that he's around for at least half of both shifts, but when things get a little dicey, he goes round-the-clock.

He had his Thanksgiving meal off-base, with some Bedouins. He made sure his troops got fed, and since it was crowded, decided to go elsewhere. He was closed-mouth about what he ate, simply saying it was edible.

His troops love him. The upper brass less so. He'd probably be fired, except his flight always has the best ratings. He demands no less from them, or himself. When the Base Commander came out to meet the airmen today, there was supposed to be some sort of 'hoo-ah' response from each flight. All the other flights gave the appropriate response. When it was his flight's turn, apparently, they responded (on their own) with my son's mantra when he's on duty:

"We run this shit!"

It's a good thing he doesn't want to make the military his career.

He was aware of the kerfuffle in Congress, but didn't want to talk about it, except to say: "When it comes to assessing the military, I tend to side with the guy with the most metal on his chest."

Of course, what else would you expect from a guy whose nickname is now "Lieutenant Trouble?"

I'm so proud of him.

Yeharr

Common Ground

2005-11-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

I’m pretty liberal. You guys have figured that out, right? But I work with two conservative guys. Guys I happen to like a lot and feel lucky to work with. We don’t always agree on solutions to the issues. But we try to find some common ground. And it’s amazing how much we really agree over all:

Honesty - I don’t care what political party you belong to, you want your guys to be honest. For instance, I’m interested in finding out who in Congress accepted money from Abramoff to do favors for his clients. There are a lot of Republicans who seem to be involved like DeLay, Ney and Hastert. But, Harry Reid is on his list, too. I was very proud of Harry the other day, but if he was getting money from Abramoff, I want him to face the music just like everyone else. We need to stop looking the other way when it’s one of our guys. We all have to demand transparency and accountability. Oh and if you said something and it's on video or audio tape, don't lie and say you never said it. You just look like an idiot.

No strings attached – Get rid of the special interests. Stop giving breaks to big business. The Trickle Down Theory ain’t working if most CEOs make 512 times more than what the average worker makes.

No one wants an endless war in Iraq - The Democrats believe there was a hidden agenda. That the intelligence was fixed around a pre-conceived desire to invade Iraq. The Dems did not have access to all the intelligence reports the White House did. And how good was the quality of that intelligence when it’s coming from a guy named "Curveball" that German Intelligence thought was an idiot with emotional problems!!! C’mon, wasn't the name Curveball a dead give-away as to the veracity of his information?

The Republicans say the Democrats don’t have a clear solution beyond just pulling out. But not having a clear victory isn’t a solution either. I would love to lock Kerry, Murtha, McCain and Hagel together in a room and make them come to some consensus.

Think beyond your party – Stop the profiling. Dump terms like liberal & coservative. Run on a platform of ideas instead of ideology. I’m tired of knee-jerk reactions. Of one party thinking they know better than the other. I want the smartest people on the planet as my senator, congressman and President. I want people who put the good of the country first. Not their party or their religion.

Stop the spin, I want to get off - How about a no spin zone that doesn’t try to spin it the other way? I don’t want anyone’s version of the truth. I just want the truth. And stop the endless shows of punditry.(Talk about watching paint dry) Put an end to PR posing as government. I never want to see another photo-op as long as I live. Back before radio, TV and the Internet, there were no sound bites. Politicians had to travel from town to town without a teleprompter and talk to large crowds of people. And those people weren’t screened by security to make sure they supported that candidate.

Anger Management - I’m Sicilian. I have a temper. I hate arrogance, lies and abuse. We have to be able to vent - but people ultimately want solutions to poverty, global warming, unemployment, etc. People want Congress to work together to get stuff done. The backbiting and dirty tricks have got to stop. The end doesn’t justify the means.

Keep an Open Mind – I’m just going to quote Shakespeare here,

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

No one person, political party or religion has all the answers. The thing we should remember is

"First, do no harm.”

Hey, By BOMB Iraq, I didn't mean "Invade"

2005-11-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

Rumsfeld tap dances around his initial commitment to go to war on an interview, Sunday. Now even the top players in the house of cards are losing their velcro-like attachment to Bush's misguided and mismanaged dreams of world order.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asserted that he did not press for the US-led invasion of Iraq, as public disaffection for the US military operation there reaches new highs.

"I didn't advocate invasion," Rumsfeld told ABC television Sunday, when asked if he would have advocated an invasion of Iraq if he had known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found there. whole story.

Why didn't that little fact come up, he was asked? "No one asked me."

No one asked the Secretary of Defense if he thought our country should invade another country? This guy gets no respect.

He followed that up with a statement that he completely agreed to go to war. So he didn't advocate it - but he merely completely agreed with it.

advocate: "One that argues for a cause; a supporter or defender."
agree: "To grant consent"

In other words - "I was just following orders."

Sounds like he's distancing himself a bit from the bruhaha over the continue failed war effort that he's master minding, ney?

Just have to give you some omore of this:

"But Rumsfeld's insistence that he had not advocated an invasion of Iraq appears to contradict several media reports, and at least one book by a former White House couter-terrorism chief.

CBS News has reported, citing notes by Pentagon officials, that Rumsfeld told his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

The notes, cited by CBS, quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein)".

Former White House terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, said in his book "Against all Enemies" that days after the September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, despite questions over Iraq's links to Al-Qaeda.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke has said in describing White House deliberations after the September 11 attacks.

In other words: "Give me best info fast, because I'm not advocating an attack, merely agreeing on something I haven't been asked about yet, that I'm in complete agreement with." Well, it would be classic Rumsfeld double talk.

I don't know if it tops "stuff happens" his brilliant defense against the looting during the lack of post-war planning that helped devastate Bahgdad, or "Death has a tendancy encourage a depressing view of war" or even his classic:""I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

But it is significant that a crack in the armor of conviction has appeared in the President's top defensive officer.

The War is just not going well, and that's just such a drag, isn't it? After all the neat and tidy theories and scenarios in the bounce house.

Cowards Cut And Run

2005-11-19T23:10:00.000-08:00

The honorable Jean Schmidt:

Ms. Schmidt: "A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bop, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."
Ms. Schmidt: "Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed at any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest that they applied to any member. Most especially the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania. I therefore ask for unanimous consent that my words be withdrawn.

- from Crooks and Liars

Translation: "Murtha, you yellow piece of dog crap, and by by "you" I don't mean anyone specifically."

Let Rep. Jean Schmidt know how you feel about personal attacks against a veteran who has served his country on foot, gun in hand, and is one of the biggest supporters in congress of the millitary.

Some of Representative Murtha's incredibly offensive text -

"....I have been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda and Walter Reed hospitals almost every week since the beginning of the War. And what demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace; the devastation caused by IEDs; being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes; being on their second or third deployment and leaving their families behind without a network of support.

"The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to face all threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls at our bases in the U.S....."

Let Rep. John Murtha know how you feel about speaking the truth.

STBEW

2005-11-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

This post is in response to Anonymous' comment from the previous post.

He wrote: " Some of those program cuts are a good thing. Some of those that have the least have become much too comfortable with living off of those programs.

Yeah, some things even disgust the most staunch Republican, but not everything has been bad.

And I for one sleep just fine at night.

I wondered how well Anon knows his subject. I started thinking about Ronald Reagan's "Welfare Queen." I wonder if Anon is old enough to remember this story. While campaigning for President in 1976, a staple of his campaign speech was that there was a "Welfare Queen" in Chicago: "She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names."

There was no such woman.

Anon--care do dispute this fact? How many people do you know--not know of, who are on some sort of public assistance? How many do you deal with on a daily basis? How many of them are the parents of the kids your children play with?

How many of their stories can you tell?

I can tell a story.

My wife's. Almost wife. Soon-To-Be-Ex-Wife. Hence, STBEW, the title of this post.

One of the reasons I go by the moniker of Balloon Pirate is to preserve anonymity. Because it is an important part of recovery.

My wife is a recovering drug and alcohol addict. And she's on welfare.

Now, Anon (and any other of the right wing ilk who may be reading this), don't get all huff-and-puffy about how she's getting what she deserves and she brought it on herself. Need I remind you that the only difference between her and the President of the United States is she doesn't have a billionaire family to support her, and she has a slightly more realistic world-view.

And I can't support her.

A year ago August, she voluntarily checked herself in to a drug rehabilitation program. This was no "Betty Ford" clinic. This was the place where people who have nothing but the desire to get better go, along with the people who had to choose between treatment and prison. It was as no-frills as you can get. It was, essentially, a jail without jailors. She could leave, but if she did, she couldn't go back.

And the reason she was there, as opposed to any other treatment center, was because we were broke. Bankrupt. House foreclosed, paycheck-to-paycheck. I have two degrees and have been with the same company for more than 15 years, but it's hard to survive when huge amounts of money disappear into a crack pipe.

While she was there, we had to decide what to do. I certainly could not afford to pay for her treatment. So, we have separated, and will soon be divorced. It may sound callous, but it's not. The marraige was over. We bruised each other way too much to ever be whole as a couple again. The financial issues just hurried the process along.

But I digress.

She's on welfare. And it ain't pretty.

Are there some people who are on welfare who shouldn't be? Perhaps. I'll even give you 'probably.' What the hell: Yes, yes there are. But there are many, many more who need these programs to get by, who are using these programs not as a replacement for, but assistance with, living their lives.

And without these programs, where will these people be? What will they do? Who will help them?

What will they do to survive?

Despite all the harrumphing I hear from the right, I have yet to see a government report that says there is rampant abuse in the world of public assistance. That's because there isn't. It would be too much work, to get too little. Financially speaking, it's easier to rob. Saying that welfare should be abolished because people abusethe system is the same as saying accounting should be abolished because of embezzling.

So the right wing harrumphs, and cuts funding from those who need it most. Shortly after giving tax breaks to those who need it least. And in the big picture, what they cut from these programs is about what is spend in Iraq in a week.

Sleep well tonight, Anon.

Yeharr

Blog Universe

2005-11-19T01:06:00.000-08:00

Some excellent blogs out there I have come across recently:

Booman Tribune

" You can make yourself sick by reading, via Crooks & Liars that GOP lawmakers are floating an ethics probe of Murtha. "Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee.....

Erudite Redneck

"Cut programs that mean the most to people who have the least in the first place. Leave ruinous tax cuts in place. Increase the deficit at the same time.

Blame it on a war that was reckless at best, and immoral at worst. Then blame it on God (Katrina).

Then sing with Jesus on Sunday morning.

Give me a Saturday-night hell raiser who stumbles into church the next mornin' and sticks what little jingle he has left in the offerin' plate -- ANY DAY. Drunks know they're drunks. These people couldn't care less about their overindulgences.

How can Republicans sleep at night?"

The Cranky Yankee:

For those of you who don't know him - a must read:

"We do not torture: Is this what we have become? It wasn't so long ago when the very idea that a sitting U.S. President would have to utter those words was unthinkable. Now we have a President denying widespread accusations of torture while his Vice President is strong arming Congress to exempt the CIA from the rules forbidding it.

We truly are at a low point, the torture years..."

Wonkette

Kick ass attitude and wit. Michelle Malkin has this to say about her:

"Profanity-laced and sex-obsessed...[a] vain, young, trash-mouthed skank."

What else need you know?

Looks Like We Have a Ken for Judy Miller's Barbie

2005-11-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

I’m referring to none other than Bob Woodward. So Bob got the word two years ago from a senior White House official(Some are speculating that it’s either Hadley or Cheney) that Joe Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent.

So for two years while the controversy mounted, Bob hunkered down, didn’t even tell his newspaper, because he didn’t want to be subpoenaed (and of course, he wanted to protect his source)

The only thing he did do, was drape himself in his magical Watergate Aura and criticize the investigation.

"there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful." In a National Public Radio interview in July, Woodward said that Fitzgerald made "a big mistake" in going after Miller and that "there is not the kind of compelling evidence that there was some crime involved here." LINK

There is a lot to this revelation that I find especially disturbing.

Bob went through a hell of lot more drama putting together the Watergate story with Bernstein. He was afraid his apartment was bugged. He was afraid he was going to be “silenced” with a silencer if you know what I mean… Now, he’s afraid of being subpoenaed?

As a participant in the story, and using his Watergate gravitas to attack the special prosecutor’s case was the worst kind of slimy spin imaginable – even misdirection. Looking back on his comments now, it seems like he’s hiding something really big. It’s the same kind of stonewalling the Nixon administration used against him when he was reporting Watergate…and we all know how that turned out.

I went into Journalism in part because of the work Woodward and Bernstein did on the Watergate story. It demonstrated to me that reporters can do a tremendous amount of good in the world. They're supposed to be watchdogs. So, as someone with a degree in Journalism, let me say this: Yes, reporters need to protect their sources. BUT NOT WHEN THEY ARE POTENTIALLY BREAKING THE LAW AND UNDERMINING OUR NATION’S SECURITY. The least Woodward could have done was consult his paper.

Because at some point, you need to decide what you care about more. Your job, your reputation, or your country. Bob chose his job and reputation. And now both are damaged. He has no credibility. Are you going to trust anything he writes or says about this administration? I’m not. He’s obviously too cozy with them.

Woodward, who had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his two most recent books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration's inner workings.
"The net to readers is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington," Woodward said, referring to the Bush administration.

If I were Bob’s editor, I think I’d make him cut the quality, balanced part of that last paragraph. And I’m just going to have to be satisfied with only respecting Bernstein from now on. Even if he’s not the cute one…

Reality Check

2005-11-16T04:32:00.000-08:00

No matter what our administration tells us about Iraq, it's always good to check back with the Riverbend Blog which is written by a young Iraqi woman from Baghdad, and get another perspective on what's happening over there. This latest installment was written November 6th.

The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.

It began, of course, with Badir’s Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The referendum results were so disappointing and there have been so many stories of fraud and shady dealings (especially in Mosul), that there’s already talk of boycotting the December elections. This was the Puppets’ shining chance to show that there is that modicum of democracy they claim the Iraqi people are enjoying under occupation- that chance was terribly botched up.

As for the December elections- Sistani has, up until now, coyly abstained from blatantly supporting any one specific political group. This will probably continue until late November / early December during which he will be persistently asked by his followers to please issue a Fatwa about the elections. Eventually, he’ll give his support to one of the parties and declare a vote for said party a divine obligation. I wager he’ll support the United Iraqi Alliance - like last elections.

Interestingly enough, this time around the UIA will be composed of not just SCIRI and Da’awa- but also of the Sadrists (Jaysh il Mahdi)- Muqtada’s followers! For those who followed the situation in Iraq last year, many will recognize Muqtada as the ‘firebrand cleric’, the ‘radical’ and ‘terrorist’. Last year, there was even a warrant for Muqtada’s arrest from the Ministry of Interior and supported by the Americans who repeatedly said they were either going to detain the ‘radical cleric’ or kill him.

Well, today he’s very much alive and involved in the ‘political process’ American politicians and their puppets hail so energetically. Sadr and his followers have been responsible for activities such as terrorizing hairdressers, bombing liquor stores, and abductions of women not dressed properly, etc. because all these things are considered anti-Islamic (according to Iranian-style Islam). Read more about Sadr’s militia here- who dares to say the Americans, Brits and Puppets don’t have everything under control?!

Americans constantly tell me, “What do you think will happen if we pull out of Iraq- those same radicals you fear will take over.” The reality is that most Iraqis don’t like fundamentalists and only want stability- most Iraqis wouldn’t stand for an Iran-influenced Iraq. The American military presence is working hand in hand with Badir, etc. because only together with Iran can they suppress anti-occupation Iraqis all over the country. If and when the Americans leave, their Puppets and militias will have to pack up and return to wherever they came from because without American protection and guidance they don’t stand a chance.

We literally laugh when we hear the much subdued threats American politicians make towards Iran. The US can no longer afford to threaten Iran because they know that should the followers of Sadr, Iranian cleric Sistani and Badir’s Brigade people rise up against the Americans, they’d have to be out of Iraq within a month. Iran can do what it wants- enrich uranium? Of course! If Tehran declared tomorrow that it was currently in negotiations for a nuclear bomb, Bush would have to don his fake pilot suit again, gush enthusiastically about the War on Terror and then threaten Syria some more.

Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq. This shift of power should have been obvious to the world when My-Loyalty-to-the-Highest-Bidder-Chalabi sold his allegiance to Iran last year. American and British sons and daughters and husbands and wives are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years.

What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?

Iraq has been the land of dreams for everyone except Iraqis- the Persian dream of a Shia controlled Islamic state modeled upon Iran and inclusive of the holy shrines in Najaf, the pan-Arab nationalist dream of a united Arab region with Iraq acting as its protective eastern border, the American dream of controlling the region by installing permanent bases and a Puppet government in one of its wealthiest countries, the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdish state financed by the oil wealth in Kirkuk…

The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen… the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation.

Four Freedoms and a Horse Race

2005-11-16T01:08:00.000-08:00

You all know this picture. It's called Freedom From Want by Rockwell. One of the Four basic Freedoms that FDR felt we should have. The others are:

1) Freedom of Speech
2) Freedom from and of Religion
3) Freedom From Fear.
and just to make the list of four tidy:
4) Freedom from Want.

Paul Hackett spoke on these ideals today, at a home here in our small town. I was there to hear him, as was Boni. We missed you BP!

They form the bedrock of our country, the backbone of our beliefs. They are why people came to our shores in an unending stream long before we were a Superpower.

And they are the four freedoms that have been most reduced by this administration and are most under attack.

Paul said he went to Iraq, volunteered to return to his "second family" of the Marines after ten years' absence because of another ideal. One his father taught him. "For to those whom much is given, much is expected." He had a lot, this country had given him a lot, so he wanted to give back.

I haven't heard that lately from the heads of the oil companies, or Haliburten enumeries.

Now Paul says he wants to give back again. He's running for Senator in Ohio, against the incumbant. Because he's looking at his children, and worried where this country is going.

Freedom of speech has been attacked by the administration The IRS threatning to take away a church's tax-exempt status because the had a sermon that was anti-war. The administration visciously attacks those that speak out against them, most notably leaking Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak for a write up in his column, at every public Presidential event a refusal to let in the public, except for those vetted as pro-Bush, Democrats are accused of threatening America if they disagree or criticize the adminsitration...like yesterday suggesting they are "undermining the war effort" (I thought he was doing that all by himself) ...the list goes on and on.

Freedom of and from religion. One of the reasons the constitution is a sacred and unique document. That it is part of Ammendment 1 is noteworthy, as it's all about expression, speech, religion, nothing prohibiting the free expression thereof. Like in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, for exmpale. There are reaons Theocracy's are bad ideas. And this administration is bringing religion into the legislature, attempting to add on a "no abortion" amendment to a UN document about human rights, intervening in a family's life and death struggle with Terri Schiavo, making marriage rights ana election issue, Bill Frist downloading himself live to "just-us-Sunday" and implying the liberals are at war with America.

Woops - the liberals made America. These freedoms were considered very risque before their day and a lot of people died for them, jsut to make sure that he can now take them for granted. (Remember, the illustrious majority leader just came out saying how upset he was that the leak came out about the existence of CIA secret jails around the world, no that they DID exist, unobserved, most likely a human rights violation, but that the leak occured. They voted to go forward with this, but not to look again at prewar inteligence on Iraq).

Freedom from Fear. Protect the country, protect our shores. If we go to war, attack the right country. If youwe're stuck there, handle it well. Try not to generate new enemies every day. The publice says the country does not feel safer.

Freedom from want. The right to be able to feed your family, find work, have a strong economy, fiscal sensibility in government, a gofernment that supports the job market with incentives, that supports corporations to keep jobs in America. It's not a complicated concept. It's not happning here.

Freedom of Speech
Freedom from and of religion
Freedom from fear
Freedom from want

It's why Paul Hackett is running for Senator. It's the core belief of the Democratic party.

They are the Four reason to vote Democrat.

Paul Hackett for U.S. Senate.
For information, support, moral or fiscal: Hackett For Ohio.

Anyone Else Tired of the Bushit?

2005-11-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

It keeps raining down on us, thick enough that you better have your umbrella handy or you'll need to take a serious shower after each day's news revelation.

Bush "we dont' torture" speech in Panama. Meanwhile Cheney pleads with GOP star Senator McCain to add an "exception" to his ammendment on the current defense bill outlawing ALL torture, to exempt CIA from non-torture requirement "just in case". Bush has also threatened to veto this bill if McCain refuses. Great column on McCain, and this ammendment in the WP on it here.

Once again: Bush has threatened to veto the bill forbidding torture, and putting us back in line with the Geneva Conventions. Just wanted that to stand out in one sentance.

He has yet to veto a bill in during his Presidency.

Okay, let's move on:

America's perception around the world continues to shine as:

Guantanamo inmates are about to lose all rights, after the Surpeme Court ruled they had rights. This due to a slippery ammendment slapped onto a recently passed defense bill by Lindsey Graham:

The amendment was tabled by Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and passed by 49 votes to 42. It reverses the Supreme Court's decision in June last year which affirmed the right of detainees to bring habeas corpus petitions in American federal courts.

As a result, about 200 of Guantanamo's 500 prisoners have filed such cases, many of them arguing that they are not terrorists, as the US authorities claim, and that the evidence against them is unreliable.

None of them were given any kind of hearing when they were consigned to Guantanamo. Instead, the Americans unilaterally declared they were unlawful 'enemy combatants', mostly on the basis of assessments by junior military intelligence personnel, who were often reliant on interpreters whose skills internal Pentagon reports have criticised.

The Supreme Court's 2004 ruling also meant that the handful of prisoners facing trial at Guantanamo by military commissions, which do not follow the normal rules of evidence and due process, have been able to file federal challenges to their legality.

The rest of that story.

Pundits pissed off at Harry Reid for shutting down Congress with Rule 21, demanding final accountability on WH and 9/11. Pundits and WH claim Congress and WH saw same intel on Iraq, so what's the foul? That Bush limited security clearances from most of the Senate:

"President Bush issued an order limiting access to classified intelligence only to 8 members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees."

Security clearances limited from 96 Senators in October 2001. That number again - 96 - out of 100. So, no one actually saw anything except what the WH wanted.

Ah, let's see. There's so much.

Okay, GOP blocks inquiry into handling of war.
GOP blocks war profiteering ammendment

Aren't you tired yet of the Bushit?

Any Enemy of Bill O'Reilly is a Friend of Mine.

2005-11-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess Bill O'Reilly's gotten a lot of complaints about his San Francisco comment. So much so, that he's now threatening his web site will post an enemies list. Gee, just like Santa he's making a list and checking it twice.

So what's that supposed to do I wonder? Scare people away from criticizing him?
Boogah - Boogah!!! Except, I think it's having the opposite effect. Check out this recent poll on DailyKos and click here to vote.

Dear Bill O'Reilly,

Please put me on your Enemies List because:
1. You thought telling an entire city that you didn't think they should be defended if Al Qaeda attacked them would be a funny joke.

2. You thought telling one of of your women coworkers that performing sexual acts using a fried middle eastern food would be a sexy turn on.

3. I read ten pages of your goddamn porno book, and you owe me.

4. You thought I forgot all about that whole "I'll be first to be mad if no WMDs are found in Iraq" thing, but I didn't.

5. I was on McCarthy's Enemies List, and Nixon's Enemies List, and I want to continue the streak.

6. I'm hoping to hasten your rapid descent into madness. Possibly by Christmas, if possible, because I haven't gotten Al Franken anything yet.

Hope to see you on Bill's list in the near future.

Hope For The Future

2005-11-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

Years ago I saw Bill Clinton when he was out here campaigning and I was struck with how comfortable he was at it. He was at least an hour late. It was hot. People were fidgety and tired of hanging around. But when he stepped out on that stage, it was showtime. Everyone was riveted by his speech and I walked away thinking,
"There's hope for us after all."

Phil and I had a similar experience this morning. Paul Hackett, a candidate who’s running for Senator in Ohio, was meeting with people in LA and we got to meet him and hear him speak. What a smart guy. Not to mention passionate and funny. He’s tough, too.
He came back from a tour of duty in Iraq and almost immediately decided to run for Congress(And nearly pulled it off in a predominantly Republican district.) He’s got great ideas. And he can actually string whole words together and communicate a coherent thought without having to rely on a teleprompter. I would love to see a ticket one day that includes him and Barack Obama.

I encourage you to watch him, here's his website , donate to his campaign. It's critical that we gain back Ohio. He will not be cowed by the Republicans. He's very honest and thoughtful about his positions. He is an up and comer in this party and would be a real asset in the Senate.

Look who's inciting terrorism

2005-11-14T07:40:00.000-08:00

Gee I guess that if you don't get your way on something, or you disagree with how an American city wants to run its life, it's ok to incite terrorists. At least in Bill O'Reilly's version of America...

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

On Tuesday's version of O'Reilly's syndicated radio program, "The Radio Factor," the host vented his exasperation at two ballot measures that San Franciscans were in the process of approving on election day.

If city voters were intent on voting to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership, O'Reilly reasoned, then maybe it should be cut off from federal dollars. To illustrate his point, O'Reilly riffed on a vision of a San Francisco nation-state:

"Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly went on. "And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Interesting thing that he chose Coit Tower. Did you know it's a tribute to firefighters? Like the kind of firefighters we lost hundreds of in the 9/11 bombings...

O'Reilly is a man who hemorrhages hate, fear and idiocy. It's time we stopped allowing it to spew. Go to Fox News
And scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on E-Mail Us and tell them what you think about O'Reilly.

The Rip Van New York Times Wakes Up

2005-11-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

Brilliant editorial by the Times that states what the 62% in this country are thinking.

"After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long. "

More.

Tracking the Administration's Deceit in Invading Iraq

2005-11-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

My husband Tom and I compiled this information from reliable sources, much of it from former members of the Bush Administration, and the Pentagon, on how the Administration mislead the public in making its case for war with Iraq.

Let me say upfront, if you wish to refute this information in your comments, I expect the same sort of reliable information and links to quotes. Conjecture, fantasy, musings from Bill O’Reilly or other gasbags, or tired stories about Clinton getting a BJ (get over it, already), will not be sufficient to convince me otherwise.

The Preoccupation of War with Iraq.
• The neocons wrote about their desire to take out Saddam in the mid-nineties. This was no secret. Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor to Bush Sr. said:

"… allied to the core of neocons is that bunch who thought we made a mistake in the first Gulf War, that we should have finished the job. There was another bunch who were traumatized by 9/11, and who thought, 'The world's going to hell and we've got to show we're not going to take this, and we've got to respond, and Afghanistan is O.K., but it's not sufficient."

LINK
• Paul O’Neil, the former Treasury Secretary in Bush’s first term, said that within days of Bush entering the White House after his first election, (And way before 9/11) the Bush Administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq.According to former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, O'Neill and other White House insiders gave him documents showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.

"There are memos," Suskind said. "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'" Suskind cited a Pentagon document titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," which, he said, outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from ... 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."

LINK
• Richard Clarke has testified under oath before the 9/11 Commission that in the hours after the 9/11 disaster, the president asked him to see if he could link the attacks to Saddam.
• The Downing Street Minutes make it clear that the plan was in place to go to war with Iraq at least a year before the invasion and that the “facts were fixed around the policy”. LINK
• Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff said in a commentary in the LA Times:

"In PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.  When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.  But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.  Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."  But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well.  The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it. And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped.  Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).  It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time."

LINK
• Retired General, Anthony Zinni, handed up a scathing indictment of the push to go to war in Iraq, saying the generals didn’t want this war, but the administration did.

"In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption.”

Zinni says the Pentagon relied on inflated intelligence information about weapons of mass destruction from Iraqi exiles, like Ahmed Chalabi and others, whose credibility was in doubt. Zinni claims there was no viable plan or strategy in place for governing post-Saddam Iraq. Zinni refers to a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq.

“I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do”

LINK

Deceitful Presentation of Intelligence.
• In his State of the Union Address, President Bush says that Saddam was seeking to buy yellowcake uranium from Africa. Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger the year before dashed this claim. This report was know to the CIA and had been disseminated to various parts of the government including the Office of the Vice President. LINK
• Administration officials say the Saddam has aluminum tubes can only be used for nuclear weapons. Speaking to a group of Wyoming Republicans in September, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States now had ''irrefutable evidence'' -- thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges…. The tubes were ''only really suited for nuclear weapons programs,'' Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. ''We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.'' However:

A NY Times article written in the fall of 2004 puts the lie to this allegation by documenting how one person, a Junior analyst in the CIA floated this idea. When he published his finding, scientists within the Department of Energy shot holes in his argument. The DOE report was given to Ms. Rice’s staff a year before her statements.

LINK

• Mobile Weapon Labs. This was also hyped by administration officials including Colin Powel at the UN. The source of this intel was a person known as “Curveball” and it was widely known that he was of suspect value. Again this was known in the fall of 2002, prior to the “selling of the war”. Analysts in the CIA who voiced concern about Curveball were ''forced to leave'' the unit most responsible for analyzing his claims, …. One analyst, after arguing that Curveball might indeed be a fabricator, recalled being ''read the riot act'' by a supervisor. LINK
On Meet The Press, Tim Russert said to Colin Powell:

“It now appears that an agent called Curveball mislead the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that would deliver biological chemicals and weapons. How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?”

And Powell replied:
“ I’m very concerned when I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information the essential intelligence agency made available to me. We studied it carefully, we looked at the sourcing, the case of the mobile trucks and trains, there was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I’m deeply disappointed. But I’m also comfortable that at the time I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing, was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading.”

LINK
• What's more, according to a lengthy US News & World Report Article:

"The policy decisions weren't matching the reports we were reading every day," says an intelligence official. In September 2002, U.S. News has learned, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a classified assessment of Iraq's chemical weapons. It concluded: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons . . . ." At about the same time, Rumsfeld told Congress that Saddam's "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas." Rumsfeld's critics say that the secretary tended to assert things as fact even when intelligence was murky. "What we have here is advocacy, not intelligence work," says Patrick Lang, a former top DIA and CIA analyst on Iraq. "I don't think [administration officials] were lying; I just think they did a poor job. It's not the intelligence community. It's these guys in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who were playing the intelligence community."

LINK
• Saddam al Qaeda connection. The president stated in his Cincinnati speech in October of 2002 that al Qaeda was training in Iraq. The NY Times, in a November 6th article, stated that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was highly suspect. This was known since February of 2002, yet the Bush Administration used it as one of the justifications for the imminent threat Iraq posed. LINK

• And finally, The writings of Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski shed a unique spotlight on the deceitfulness of the whole operation. She was in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and chronicles the cherry-picked intelligence used for the justification of the war.

“From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.
I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
While this commandeering of a narrow segment of both intelligence production and American foreign policy matched closely with the well-published desires of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of us in the Pentagon, conservatives and liberals alike, felt that this agenda, whatever its flaws or merits, had never been openly presented to the American people. Instead, the public story line was a fear-peddling and confusing set of messages, designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses, and a war one year later Americans do not really understand. That is why I have gone public with my account.”

LINK

According to Newsweek this morning, 68% of the American people are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. LINK

Wow, I Can CopyPaste Whole Articles Too!

2005-11-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Person Who Must Not Be Peter:

I can't believe you've copied Podhoretz. Once I stopped laughing, I did about an eight second search, and came up with this. We could do this all day. Why not try thinking for yourself for a while?

Oh, that's right...

I forgot who I was talking to.

I eagerly await the next spewing of GOP talking points.

Just out of curiousity...how do you know shawn?

Yeharr

Yes, They Lied
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 08 November 2005

The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.

- Ari Fleischer, 12/4/2002
Find a defender of the White House on your television these days, and you are likely to hear them blame Bill Clinton for Iraq. Yes, you read that right. The talking point du jour lately has focused on comments made by Clinton from the mid-to-late 1990s to the effect that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat. The pretzel logic here, of course, is straightforward: this Democratic president thought the stuff was there, and that justifies the claims made by the Bush crew over the last few years about Iraqi weapons.

Let's take a deeper look at the facts. Right off the bat, it is safe to say that Clinton and his crew had every reason to believe Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction during the 1990s. For one thing, they knew this because the previous two administrations - Reagan and Bush - actively assisted the Hussein regime in the development of these programs. In other words, we had the receipts.

After the first Gulf War, the United Nations implemented a series of weapons inspections under the banner of UNSCOM, and scoured Iraq for both weapons and weapons production facilities. They lifted bombed buildings off their foundations, they used a wide range of detection technologies, and after seven years of work, they disarmed Iraq.

A good place to start any detailed discussion of this matter is with former UNSCOM chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who spent seven years in Iraq searching out and destroying Iraq's weapons and weapons manufacturing capabilities. "After 1998," Ritter reports in a book I wrote in 2002 titled War on Iraq, "Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed. What this means is that 90%-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability, including all of their factories used to produce chemical, biological, nuclear long-range ballistic missiles, the associated equipment of these factories, and the vast majority of the product produced by these factories, had been verifiably eliminated."

The Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame scandal that has recently encompassed the White House stems from claims made by Bush in 2003 that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for use in a nuclear weapons program. In 2002, Ritter described the status of Iraq's nuclear program. "The infrastructure, the facilities, had been 100% eliminated," he said. "In this, there is no debate. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed, and we had in place one of the more effective monitoring mechanisms - gamma detection - that we operated in Iraq both from vehicles and airborne, looking for gamma rays that would be emitted if Iraq was seeking to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. The fact is, in terms of the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons, this had been eliminated."

Ritter went into great detail on the status of Iraq's chemical weapons capabilities during our 2002 interview. "The Iraqis were able to produce a nerve agent of sarin and tabun successfully and stabilize it," said Ritter, "but even stabilized stuff stored under ideal conditions will degenerate within five years. The sarin and tabun were produced in the Muthanna State establishment - a massive chemical weapons factory - and this place was bombed during the Gulf War, and then weapons inspectors came and completed the task of eliminating this facility. What that means is that Iraq lost its sarin and tabun manufacturing base."

"Let's also keep in mind," he continued, "that we destroyed thousands of tons of chemical agent. It's not as though we said, 'Oh we destroyed a factory, now we're going to wait for everything else to expire.' No. We had an incineration plant operating full-time for years, burning tons of the stuff every day. We went out and blew up in place the bombs and missiles and warheads filled with this agent. We emptied out SCUD missile warheads filled with this agent. We destroyed this stuff - we hunted it down and we destroyed it."

"Now, there are those who say that the Iraqis could have hid some of this from us," continued Ritter. "The problem with that scenario is that whatever they diverted would have had to have been produced in the Muthanna State establishment, which means that once we blew up the Muthanna State establishment, they no longer had the ability to produce new agent, and in five years science takes over. Sarin and tabun will degrade and become useless sludge. It's no longer a viable chemical agent that the world needs to be concerned about."

"So," concluded Ritter, "all this talk about Iraq having chemical weapons - most of it is based upon speculation that Iraq could have hid some of this from UN weapons inspectors. That speculation is no longer valid, not in terms of the Iraqi ability to hide this stuff from inspectors - although I believe we did such a good job of inspecting Iraq that if they had tried to hide it, we would have found it. But let's just say that they did try to hide it, and we never found it. So what? It's gone today, so let's throw out that hypothetical. It's not even worth the time to talk about it anymore."

On the subject of Iraqi biological weapons, Ritter said in 2002, "The two main biological weapons weaponized by the Iraqis were anthrax and botulinin toxin. Both factories have been destroyed, the means of production destroyed, and even if Iraq was able to hide these weapons, they're useless today. For Iraq to have biological weapons today, they would have had to reconstitute a biological manufacturing base. And again, biological research and development was one of the things most heavily inspected by weapons inspectors. We blanketed Iraq - every research and development facility, every university, every school, every hospital, every beer factory, anything with a potential fermentation capability was inspected, and we never found any evidence of ongoing research and development or retention."

That's a lot of information, so let's boil it down. Yes, Iraq was at one time in the business of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. By 1998, however, those weapons had been destroyed. The manufacturing base for the production of these weapons had been destroyed. Even if Iraq had been able to squirrel away a portion of these weapons, the basic chemistry involved means that the stuff degraded to utter uselessness within five years. Without a manufacturing base for the production of weapons material, said base having been eliminated by 1998, anything stashed away was pudding by 2003.

If Bush's people are going to argue that invading Iraq in 2003 because of weapons of mass destruction was the responsible thing to do, they must certainly acknowledge that the efforts of the Clinton administration and UNSCOM to eliminate these weapons was also responsible. The tough talk from the Clinton administration in 1998 regarding Iraq's WMD was of a piece with this process; they were keeping the heat on to make sure the threat was eliminated.

Flip to the end of the chapter, however, and you'll come across the pages being left out of the discussion by Bush's defenders. One, the stuff was destroyed by 1998, a fact that weapons inspections in 2003 could have easily established (and did establish, thanks to Bush's inspector, Dr. David Kay, who stated bluntly the stuff wasn't there, but only after the killing had begun). Two, Clinton did not invade Iraq and throw the United States into a ridiculous, endless, bloody quagmire. He managed to disarm Hussein without taking this disastrous step.

In short, the contortions that defenders of Bush are going through to justify the invasion do not hold water. Further, evidence that the Bush administration lied with their bare faces hanging out to get this war is piling up in snowdrifts.

Take, for example, the dire claims made by Bush administration officials about the imminent threat posed by Iraq, claims made as early as 2002. "The Iraqi regime," said Bush in October of 2002, "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

If the threat was so dire, why is Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's ambassador to Washington in the run-up to the war, claiming that the Bush administration would have been happy to hold off on invading Iraq until after the presidential election? Meyer, according to the UK Guardian, "reveals that Karl Rove, the political advisor to the president, told him there would have been no problem for Mr. Bush in waiting until the end of 2003 or even early 2004 and this would not have risked entanglement in the US presidential campaign."

Some dire threat.

Finally, there is the recent report in the New York Times about an al Qaeda operative captured in 2001 who deliberately lied to US interrogators about an al Qaeda presence in Iraq. The operative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was exposed as a liar by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February of 2002. Their report bluntly stated that al-Libi was deliberately misleading interrogators, and any information he provided was not to be trusted. By 2004, al-Libi had completely recanted all of his testimony.

"The (Defense Intelligence Agency) document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility," reported the Times. "Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that 'we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.'"

It makes you wonder. Why did al-Libi lie about an al Qaeda presence in Iraq? Did he do this in order to help push the US into an invasion of that country? If true, this means that Bush, by invading Iraq, did exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted him to. He gave bin Laden the war, and the rallying cry, he was looking for. That's leadership.

The stuff was destroyed by 1998. Bush and his crew were prepared to delay the invasion if it meant smoother sailing for the election, despite all their claims of an imminent threat. They used a fully discredited source to justify the invasion, even after being told the source was certainly making things up as he went along.

Tack this to the wall:

How the United States should react if Iraq acquired WMD. The first line of defense ... should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence - if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration.

- Condoleeza Rice, 2/1/2000
We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction ... In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction.

- Dick Cheney, 6/20/2002
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

- Dick Cheney, 8/26/2002
There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest.

- Ari Fleischer, 9/6/2002
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

- Condoleeza Rice, 9/8/2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

- George W. Bush, 9/12/2002
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.

- George W. Bush, 10/5/2002
And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.

- George W. Bush, 10/7/2002
After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.

- George W. Bush, 10/7/2002
We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.

- George W. Bush, 10/7/2002
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists ...The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction.

- Dick Cheney, 12/1/2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.

- Ari Fleischer, 12/2/2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

- Ari Fleischer, 1/9/2003
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

- George W. Bush, 1/28/2003
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

- George W. Bush, 1/28/2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.

- Colin Powell, 2/5/2003
There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling.

- Colin Powell, 2/5/2003
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us ... But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct.

- Colin Powell, 2/28/2003
Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.

- Dick Cheney, 3/16/2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

- George W. Bush, 3/17/2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly ... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.

- Ari Fleischer, 3/21/2003
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

- Donald Rumsfeld, 3/30/2003
We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.

- George W. Bush, 4/24/2003
I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.

- Colin Powell, 5/4/2003
It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction.

- George W. Bush, 5/25/2003
But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

- George W. Bush, 5/30/2003
No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored.

- Condoleeza Rice, 6/8/2003
Yes, they lied.

A Strong Word...

2005-11-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

Hate.

It's possibly my least favorite word. One that I wish to never use.

It is not the opposite of love. There is no opposite to love.

Hate, for me, comes from a combination of fear, desperation, anger and frustration.

It's not a healthy feeling.

Think about the following:

Our President says we do not torture, but the Vice President twists arms in the senate to remove a resolution barring America from using torture.

When someone (possibly a member of the CIA who doesn't like what's going on) reveals that, well, yeah, I guess we do torture after all, the Senate Majority Leader is pissed off about the leak, NOT the torture camps.

When the Supreme Court says that, yes, these detainees have the right to ask why they're being held, and can be released if the government can't come up with a reason, the Senate votes to change that law.

And even though its proponents insist that it's not about bringing religion into the classroom, one of the leaders of the evangelical christian movement that helped bring this group to power is prophesizing doom for Dover Pa, because voters removed the school board members who tried to foist Intelligent Design on its students.

Today, the President will tell us why, despite the fact that every previous reason given being proven to be inaccurate, misleading, or an outright lie, the war in Iraq is justified.

He will tell us why the war, which has cost us billions of dollars we don't have, killed more than two thousand Americans, wounded thousands more, killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, brought scorn upon this country from most of the rest of the civilized world, and has actually increased the terror threat, is justified.

Hate is a strong word.

But I use it here.

I hate what these people are doing.

Yeharr

A Sad Veteran's Day Tribute

2005-11-10T14:35:00.000-08:00

Why do the Republicans seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot? I can't say I really mind. But it is mind-boggling. This is the latest affront. And it's directed at a group that has made many sacrifices for our country. I'm talking about our military veterans.

It seems that Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind), the new House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman, (Tom DeLay appointed him) announced Tuesday that the groups would no longer have the opportunity to make legislative recommendations at joint House-Senate hearings. The following comes from The Hill.

“We think it’s an absolutely abhorrent idea. These things were initiated somewhere around 1950, and they represent a crowning moment for our grassroots membership,” said Dennis Cullinan, national legislative director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Buyer is replacing the joint hearings with a February series in which veterans groups would outline their budget priorities just as the White House finishes sending its budget request to Congress. In the past, that series of budget hearings has been held in March, after lobbyists for veterans groups have fully examined the president’s request.

The lobbyists dismissed Buyer’s explanation that the earlier hearings would allow their groups greater influence on the VA’s annual budget. The chairman, the lobbyists charge, is seeking to avoid the public-relations headache of having disappointed veterans groups repeatedly blasting the White House budget.

“Some people don’t want to be criticized for being deficient,” said Richard Fuller, legislative director for Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA). “What they want to do is get rid of these [joint] legislative presentations because they have become, unfortunately now in the climate on Capitol Hill, very partisan.”

So let's understand this. The Republicans wanted this war, and now they're giving the
vets the cold shoulder. And earlier this year, Veteran's Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson conceded the department was already $1 billion short for 2005.

The Republicans love to talk how much they love the troops. But what they really love is the Defense Industry. They would happily reduce benefits for the soldiers, and jack up defense budgets. And meanwhile more and more guys come home terribly maimed from this insane war.

The Dominoes Continue to Fall

2005-11-10T00:53:00.000-08:00

Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve Drilling plan DROPPED from budget bill.

WASHINGTON - House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday....

...The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists...

--msnbc (link from crooks and liars)

Wow. Shouldn't someone set up a net to catch the falling poll numbers, second term agenda hallmarks and empty phrases like "political capital?"

Getting the feeling that Bush is a little bit radioactive? And that his own side is beginning to sidestep and shuffle away from him? "Who'll join me on my photo op in Pennsylvania? Show of hands? No one? Hello - the room's empty?" (Rick Santorum has already made a point of stating he's not joining Bush in his own state on Veteran's day - Democratic Underground,) Hello, Rick is the #3 Republican in the Senate.

(Also New Mexico GOP has said they don't want Bush to come right now and campaign on immigration...these will be the first of many)

I mean, you can't top showing up to campaign for your GOP brother, the candidate for Governor of Virginia, and then he loses the next day.

You know the old Laurel and Hardy joke when they're soldiers in a long line of soldiers and the sergeant asks for volunteers and everyone else takes a step back except them? Watch the GOP step back from their genius leader.

Politics is rarely pretty, and selfishness and me-first is not uncommon. But the GOP has so drenched themselves in the coating of "values", "unity", "if you're not with us you're against us" "America first - we're here for you", that their sudden fractious splitting and everyone running for the hills, seems to play with a particular hypocrisy.

Hasta La Vista, Baby

2005-11-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

All 4 of Arnold’s propositions were rejected by the California voters last night. All 4. Maybe Schwarzennegger’s going to have to work with the legislature like most governors in their states do – instead of grandstanding and calling them names, like Girly Men. Well who’s the Girly Man now, Arnold?

Arnold had a big old bag of Republican tricks, too. He tried to call Nurses, Policemen and Firefighters Special Interests. Like his corporate sponsors, who were his big contributors, weren’t. He actually told a crowd of supporters that he enjoyed kicking the Nurses' butts.
Hello? Who's got a big old footprint on his behind?

He’d hold these phony town hall meetings that were more like autograph signing sessions where only Arnold groupies and the major media were allowed in. God forbid you showed up with a dissenting point of view. Security people would swoop down and haul your ass out of there faster than you could say Gestapo. But that didn't stop the nurses, cops and firefighters - even Warren Beatty from dogging his heels and holding him accountable.

His special election cost the state 50 million dollars – money we could ill afford - because his ideas were so important they couldn’t wait until the 2006 election. Well, apparently the voter’s didn’t think so…

Arnold’s a lot like Bush. Neither one really likes to govern. They like to travel around, hog the spotlight and act like they’re real tough.
Yeah, bring it on.
The fact is, they're both a couple of bad actors. And people want more substance. They want their elected officials to actually do something. Like make life better, safer. They don’t want recycled movie lines from really stupid films…and when there’s a terrible hurricane that takes out a major US city, they don’t want their president remaining on vacation like its no big whup.

I sense a change in the wind. Americans everywhere are getting savvy to the BS.

Democrat Tim Kaine in Virginia won despite the local Republican’s dirty trick of splicing his comments out of context and putting together a phony telephone campaign message. Despite a negative campaign commercial that said he would have refused to execute Adolf Hitler (???). And despite some last minute campaigning by Bush for his opponent. Ooh that’s got to sting…

Democrat Jon Corzine won big (10 points ahead) of his mudslinging opponent Doug Forrester who had the temerity to quote Corzine’s ex-wife in a campaign commercial.

Maine voted to preserve the state's new gay-rights law.

Randy Kelly, the St. Paul, Minnesota Mayor who supported Bush last year was defeated by Democrat Chris Coleman by a margin of 69% to 31%. Ouch!

And in a recent poll, 4 out 5 Americans said what Scooter Libby did was indeed a big deal.

Now let’s carry this momentum into 2006…

Truth & Reality Part One

2005-11-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

My friend Joan sent me another email. I wrote about her once before, a post called "Painful Truths and Comfortable Lies" (posted May 9th, if you're at all interested in reading it. It was one of my better efforts).

She sent it to my work email, which is having some problems. So I'm not able to repost the actual email. Luckily, this sort of glurge appears all over the place, so here is a version which appears courtesy of Truth or Fiction. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to cut out a lot of the litany of attacks. You can read the whole thing at the website if you're truly interested.

America WAKE UP!

That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.

It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US embassy set the stage for the events to follow for the next
23 years.

America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Viet Nam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism. America's military had been decimated and downsized / right sized since the end of the Viet Nam war. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.

Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.

--snip--

The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively. They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision, they kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.

The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.

And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.

In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979. The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war. I think we have been in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough.

America has to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. America has changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to hit the Snooze Button again and roll over and go back to sleep. We have to make the terrorists know that in the words of Admiral Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor "that all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."

The email I received went on to exhort the reader to support the troops and the President, and to pass this along. I chose to not do that. Instead, I did some research, and then I responded to Joan. I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I wanted to see if this was in fact the opinion of a high-ranking member of the military.

I didn't find this information right away. It took some digging. The email said it was from "Naval Captain Ouimette" who was Commanding Officer at Pensacola Naval Air Station. That's an important job. Pensacola is the premier Naval Installation. It's where the Blue Angels live. The CO of the NAS is an important man. When I went to the NAS Pensacola website, I discovered that CO is a Captain Peter Frano.

Hmm.

So I dug a bit further. I did a search for Ouimette at Navy.Mil, but all I found was a press release. From Meridian Mississippi. Capt. Ouimette had gone from CO of NAS Pensacola, to Commodore of Training Air Wing One, in a very short time.*

Wow. Not the CO of the most important Naval Air Station, but instead the principal of the flight school.

Except the Commodore of NAS Meridian is Captain Curt Goldacker. So where's Captain Ouimette?

Retired.

From Truth and Rumor: According to the U.S. Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, Captain Dan Ouimette made this speech on a couple of occasions, one is 2002 and again in 2003.
At the time, he was the Executive Officer there.
According to the NASP, the speech was not meant to be a political statement but was circulated quite a bit during the Presidential elections.
Captain Ouimette has retired from the Navy and has not given anyone permission to reprint his speech.

Hmm.

Not the CO, but the XO. An important position, nonetheless. So he went from XO in at Pensacola in 2003, to Commodore of the Training Wing in 2004, to retired in July 2005. There could be a lot of reasons for this sudden shift, but to me it appears that Captain Dan was politely promoted out of the Navy. I wonder why?

As for what I wrote to Joan: I told her that I didn't agree with most, if not all of the conclusions drawn here. But, for the sake of argument, let's say he's right. I then asked her these three questions:

Why has the United States been attacked?
Are our actions the best way to respond?
If so, how will we know when we've won?

I told her I have my own answers to these questions. I'll send them to her soon. What about you? I'd love to read your opinions.

I hope my email's fixed tomorrow.

Yeharr

*Rank factoid: There is no rank of Commodore in the modern Navy; only the title. Once upon a time, it was the equivalent rank to a Brigadier General; but now that position is filled by the Rear Admiral Lower Half. (Insert scatalogical/anal joke here. )

Party Line Dissent Still Punished

2005-11-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Our local church, of all things, is now coming under fire from the IRS. All Saints Church in Pasadena has been informed they may lose their tax exempt status (brutal for a church to survive without) for political activism. Turns out the sermon by the visiting ex-pastor, beloved in the community, (which we heard) was promoting peace and was anti-war. It was not anti-president, and not anti-country. I think the sermon's point was. "War is bad, isn't it? Jesus liked peace, didn't he? So wouldn't it be great to be more like Jesus?"

And the IRS has put them on the chopping block.

So promoting peace is now punishable by the machine of the Bush Government during war time? Is peace really that bad an idea? And is peace political - and by inference - now owned by the Democratic party, since it seems deemed to be so anti-Republican by this IRS action?

And what about the churches documented using their phone trees to call all congregants to get out the vote for Bush in 2004? Were they punished?

The answer of course is no.

I think it's time for a major recycling campaign. I'm going to look in the GOP garbage can and look at what they've tossed out. I might find something still worth using, something that could be used again. Hmmm....let's see: Peace. Prosperity. Personal Freedom.

Not bad.

I could dust these off, and use these again, I'm sure.

2006, baby. 2008. Watch the wheels come off and the bus tossed out.

(also at Democratic Underground)

2005-11-04T04:48:00.000-08:00

Sorta sez it all, doesn't it? Thanks to my friend Gordon.
Yeharr

The Donald Rumsfeld Diet

2005-11-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

Donald Rumsfeld recently said this about the prisoners who are on a hungerstrike at Gitmo:

There are a number of people who go on a diet where they don't eat for a period and then go off of it at some point…

Like when they starve themselves to death. Or you force feed them.

Oh yeah, those prisoners are on a diet (wink, wink, nudge nudge).

Just like:

Bush is the most brilliant person Harriet Miers has ever met.

Cheney has no conflict of interest with Haliburton.

Scooter Libby's a patriot.

Rove isn’t the spawn of Satan.

Brownie was doing a heck of a job in New Orleans.

And Ann Coulter’s a woman.

Can we please get these people out of power now and get on with our lives before they destroy us all? Just asking…

A slap in the face

2005-11-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

Senator Harry Reid and the Democrats did a brilliant stealth move today. Eclipsing Alito and the woefully stupid bird flu press conference. They forced the Senate into a dramatic closed session to discuss what happened with the CIA leak and the indictment of Scooter Libby. That meant that the whole place shut down, the public was escorted out and all 100 senators had to come back in and really discuss the national security issues. Like why no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Were the facts cooked so we would go to war? And why Senator Pat Roberts hasn't examined the misinformation like he promised he would a year and a half ago!!!

Reid gave an absolutely rousing speech. It was brilliant. Emotional. And about time! Senator Bill Frist on the other hand was caught with his lame duck in his hand.

"Never have I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution."

OH YEAH? GET USED TO IT. AND BTW, WHAT FUCKING LEADERSHIP?

You know what I consider a slap in the face?
An illegal war
A conspiracy to out covert CIA agents.
The cover-up to that conspiracy.
A cabal of Cheney, Rumsfeld and all the rest of the neo-cons who plot in secret and hijacked our country.
Lying to the American public on a regular basis.
Killing innocent American soldiers and Iraqis for the profits of oil companies and Haliburton.
Thinking that they can dupe us again and again and again.
An idiot President that doesn't deserve to be President much less dog catcher.

Bravo to Reid and the Dems. Harry Reid is a much better leader than I ever thought he could be. I hope this blow is the first of many.

Trick? Or Treat?

2005-10-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Depends on which side of the current political landscape you call home, I guess.

People for the American Way says: "the judicial philosophy of Samuel Alito is far to the right. In fact, he has been given the nickname “Scalito” by some who practice before him and liken him to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He has demonstrated hostility toward the principles undergirding a woman’s constitutionally protected right to govern her own reproductive choices – most notably in the Third Circuit’s attempt to limit or overturn Roe v. Wade in the context of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case. In addition, he has issued a number of troubling opinions that seek to undermine established civil rights law, especially in the areas of gender and race, and that seek to severely limit the federal government’s ability to protect its citizens. Alito claimed that the federal government could not apply the Family and Medical Leave Act to state employees, a decision effectively reversed by the Supreme Court, and even argued that Congress could not enact a ban on the possession of machine guns. It is clear that Alito’s confirmation would seriously jeopardize Americans’ rights."

On the other hand, MSNBC is reporting that Pat Robertson has called the nomination "A grand-slam home run."

For what it's worth: I think this is exactly what I predicted would happen. Bush has offered the Conservative's a golden boy. Someone with impeccable Conservative credentials.

In other words: Pro-business, anti-rights, anti-women.

Just what we need to hasten this country's race down the toilet bowl.

Some liberals bloggers are saying that this nomination is a gift, and I agree:
Absent a 'consensus' nomination, we at least have a judge with actual judicial history. At least now we know where this guy stands.

So the question now becomes: Do we have any Democratic Senators with the balls to dissent?

Yeharr

Rehab for Republicans

2005-10-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

As a Burned Out Paranoid Democrat in good standing, it’s easy for me to demonize Republicans, especially in light of all the indictments. (I mean, they make it so easy!) But obviously, they are not all chum-sucking idiots. Jim Ramstad is an example. He’s a Republican representative from Minnesota. He’s pro embryonic stem-cell research, increased health care for our soldiers and government sponsored alcohol and drug addition treatment programs.

He’s also against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and voted against The DeLay bill that would have allowed creeps like Tom DeLay to keep their posts even after a felony indictment. But what I really love about this guy is what he said after Libby’s indictment was announced:

"It's time to stop the leaks and spin and turn Washington into one big recovery meeting where people say what they mean and mean what they say."

Now Ramstad is a former alcoholic so he knows a lot about recovery meetings. So I think he would agree with me that it’s time to do an intervention with all the Republicans who are getting ready to line-up behind Scooter and the Bush White House. It’s like any addiction. Republicans are addicted to power.
And the only way they are going to get better is to give it up – cold turkey.
Otherwise, how can Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, DeLay, Frist - ad nauseum (and I do mean nauseum) ever hope to rejoin decent society?

They need to stop lying, spinning and pretending they’re good guys when they’re not. And the best way to help them, is to get them into Rehab and show them some tough love - vote them all out of office or send them up the river, whatever’s appropriate…

BTW: Ramstad was a big Reagan fan. Oh well, nobody’s perfect…

How do I indict thee? Let me count the ways…

2005-10-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

It seems like the perfect time for an indictment recap...

Today, Scooter Libby was indicted on 5 charges. 1 count of obstruction of Justice, 2 counts of perjury, 2 counts of making false statements. A potential 30 year prison sentence. If he goes to the Big House, the name Scooter will take on a whole new meaning…

Tom Noe, former Bush Pioneer, indicted on 3 counts of violating federal campaign finance funding limits. Illegally funneled $45,400 to President Bush’s re-election campaign. This whole escapade in Ohio is as surreal as it can be. If you haven’t been reading the Toledo Blade, who busted this whole affair, you must. Because you won’t friggin’ believe how crooked (and unbelievably stupid) that whole state is under Republican control.
Read the articles that cover the whole 7 month investigation here.

Jack Abramoff, Washington lobbyist and Republican kiss-ass has been indicted in Florida on 5 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy bank fraud.

David Safavian, former chief of White House procurement (Pimp?) was indicted on 5 counts of lying about his dealing with Jack Abramoff.

Bill Frist is under formal investigation by the SEC for insider trading. His trust was blind – not!

Tom DeLay, former pest control expert, (Too bad he never turned the bug juice on himself) indicted on conspiracy to violate campaign financing laws and 2 counts of money laundering. Texas Association of Business and Texans for a Republican Majority also indicted.
32 indictments in all…

Shaun Hansen of Spokane, Washington, was indicted for taking part in a Republican scheme to jam Boston Democrats’ get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election day 2002. Chuck McGee, former executive director of the Republican State Committee and Allen Raymond, GOP consultant from Virginia pleaded guilty. McGee got 7 months in Federal Prison, Allen Raymond got 5 months.
James Tobin of Bangor Maine, and regional director of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (and former Bush campaign chairman) pleaded innocent to violating federal telephone harassment statute and depriving voters of a constitutional right to vote…his trial will begin Dec. 6.

Wow, this is an impressive Rogues Gallery. This party has NO credibility anymore as the law and order party. Or the party of national security. The decent Republicans should purged their party of its criminal element. And the media should never ever, take anything they say at face value. These people cannot be trusted.

PS. Isn’t Tucker Carlson a whiny little Bitch for the Republicans?
I’d love to snap his pretentious bow tie.

Oh, and of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty…

First Time in 135 Years a Senior White House Official is Indicted

2005-10-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Haldemen, Erlichman, even Nixon shot out of office before the indictments and impeachment came down. It's telling that these white house staffers hold on to the last second, disbelieving in their own accountability, convinced that they've rigged the system so completely in their favor that there is no moral conscience or rule of law to answer to.

It's disgraceful. You know, Libby got a letter yesterday about it, he could have saved face, still he probably couldn't believe it and just waited for the shoe to drop. On him.

Moral values, that's what got them in, right?

Or was it just the appeal of Bush as "born again" so that his past "indiscretions" were wiped clean, he was a blank slate, and he could not be held accountable because he was "saved" and could now do no wrong?

It's a nice fairy tale, but an insult to all those who truly have a moral faith, isn't it? As Bush clearly does not.

Alterman has a brilliant take on this.

Either way, Bush is finished as a force in American politics. How he ever got to become president in the first place -- not once, but twice -- will remain a subject social scientists will study and debate for decades to come. Because there was plenty of evidence that George W. Bush was a made man. He had accomplished nothing in his adult life on his own -- not one thing.

Click here for more of this article -
(Click here for more on how little Bush has accomplished on his own.)

Rove is up next, the the rumor is that he's working furiously behind the scenes to change it. Raw Story reports that an indictment was pending, but somehow got scuttled at the last minute...

RAW STORY also reported that Fitzgerald had intended to charge Bush's deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, but last minute deals appear to have derailed the indictment for now. Rove will remain under scrutiny.

Here is more on that.

Hard Right Ahead

2005-10-28T04:38:00.000-07:00

With Harriet Miers relegated to her normal position of fawning adoration of The Worrst President in History, we are still short a Justice on the Supreme Court. The two factions who voiced the most displeasure about the Miers nomination were Conservatives and the Reality-Based Community.

And we know how the President feels about those two groups.

So, in picking his new nom, who do you think Dubya's gonna try his dangdest to please?

Charles Krauthammer, the Conservative columnist who predicted that Miers would withdrawal on the grounds of protecting Presidential Privilege,* ** has now predicted that the new nom will be so much of a wingnut that Democrats will wish we had Miers back.

There's going to be a battle ahead.

Yeharr

*On Bush: He nominates a woman with even less of a paper trail than Roberts, then acts pissed off when the Senate asks for what little documentation is available? What the hell did he expect to happen here? Is this guy so out of touch with reality that he really thinks that the country will agree to his choice just because he says so? Well, I guess that a guy who thinks that getting slightly more than 50% of the popular vote is a mandate might think like that. Boni's right: delusional.

**on Krauthammer's prediction: Even a blind pig can find an acorn every now and again.

How about a little intolerance, people?

2005-10-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yep. That’s right. Intolerance. I think right about now, we could use some real, down-home, deep-seated discrimination.

Oh sure, on many levels our country often embraces intolerance. Like when it's directed at gays. Or race. Or even people who are overweight. (“My God, she’s so fat! Why is she wearing Spandex?)

But there’s one very important area where we have a serious prejudice deficiency:
We’re not discriminating enough against politicians who lie.

And they lie about everything:
Why they sat in a classroom for 7 minutes on 9/11.
About being compassionate.
Campaign contributions - how much and from whom.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
The Iraq war.
Blind trusts that turn out to have 20/20 vision.
They never had sex with that woman.
Who told them about Valerie Plame.
How many votes they got.
That they care about the poor, the children, or seniors.
And hey, perjury is no big deal. Right?

They say they’re going to do one thing and do exactly the opposite.
They pose as concerned citizens and they could really give a flying F about us.
Lying is so second nature to them, they’ll look you (or the camera) right in the eye and spew the most blatant falsehoods. And then turn around the next day and deny they ever said it.
They’ll ask you to trust them and then stab you in the back.

And millions tolerate this kind of aberrant behavior every single day. We tell ourselves:
That’s business as usual.
That’s politics.
That’s Washington.

But, that’s no excuse. I wonder, how did we get so jaded? So...tolerant? If your spouse was this pathological, you’d call a divorce attorney. If your boss told these kinds of whoppers you’d blow the whistle on him. If some store clerk jerked you around like this, you’d never shop there again.

What politicians do day in and day out is criminal dishonesty. And I say, during the next election, we eradicate this behavior - with extreme prejudice.

With Apologies to C&C Music Factory...

2005-10-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

These are some things that are currently making me go "Hmmm:"

I haven't done any research, but I'm reasonably sure that two of Tom DeLay's favorite targets over the years have been Democrats and trial lawyers (remember tort reform?) Yet when he gets into trouble, he hires a trial lawyer who's a Democrat? Hmmmm...
DeLay is asking for a new judge for his trial, because the current presiding judge contributed to MoveOn.org during the 2004 elections. He says that he won't get a fair trial because of the judge's politics. At the same time, Republican loyalists are going around trying to convince the Conservative base that Harriet Miers is truly a Conservative. Why can one person not be a judge because of politics, but another person CAN be a judge because of their politics? Hmmm...
According to Daniel Schorr, if any indictments are handed out in the investigation of the Valerie Plame outing, they will be for perjury and obstruction of justice, but not for the actual breaking of Federal laws pertaining to the exposure of a CIA agent. I wish I could find it again, but I saw one Conservative commentator write that this is just a 'technicality.' So perjury is enough to attempt to impeach the President of the United States when he's a Democrat, but when it's a Republican official that lies, it's just the "Criminalization of Politics?" Hmmmm....
The Wingnuts over at Little Green Footballs think that the death of 2000 Americans in Iraq has somehow made those of us in the Reality-Based Community happy, because there are many groups--the American Friends Service Committee in particular--who staged vigils to mark this sad fact. They even are so callous as to call them 'parties.' I have not met a single person from the left who looked forward to this happening with anything other than a dreaded resignation. But over on the right, the folks at Little Green Footballs think it's so funny that they're making Photoshopped pictures mocking Americans who are mourning. Does anyone think that's funny?

hmmm....

Yeharr

Talking Points

2005-10-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

Democrats need solid talking points, that address the real concerns of voters day life. People are out of work, can't pay bills, don't feel safe. "Culture of Corruption" is not emotional. We need to hear: "Safety, Security, Salary". That should be a Democrat mantra to their constiuents.

"Democrats will Bring Safety to your communities, Security to the country, and a Salary to your family. We want to run the country, not just run for office. Vote Democrat."

That will give us majority control.

Our Narcissistic Administration

2005-10-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

Having Bush as President is like having a boyfriend you’ve grown tired of, but – for whatever reason - can’t quite break up with yet. So, until you find someone better, (or until you can elect his replacement) you start arm-chair analyzing him. Why is he so dysfunctional? Why is he so stubborn? A liar? A phony?

So I went on the Internet and found a great site that explained personality disorders - Link.
And it’s my hypothesis that Bush and most of his arrogant administration, (Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz - even Rice) is simply a bunch of Narcissists. Now, you’re probably thinking “Narcissists? Hey, that’s not so bad. At least they’re all not paranoid schizophrenics.” But, Narcissists can be very harmful, especially when they are in control…

So sit back, relax and read through the following list of narcissistic traits and see if Bush and his gang don’t manifest most if not all of them…I'd be curious to see if you can think up any other examples to go along with what I've found...

1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements.
Bush was an average student at Yale. In the private sector, he mismanaged companies until they crashed and burned. He went awol at the National Guard. Doesn’t like to follow current events and wants loyal aids to spoon feed him information. Yes, he was Governor of the big state of Texas, but the Lt. Governor there is the one who actually does all the work. And after all that, Bush ran for President as a can-do CEO. Based on what, exactly? A C average in business school?

At high school in Utah, Karl Rove was known as a nerd and a motor-mouth, unpopular but irrepressibly opinionated. While his peers were fixated on girls he became obsessed with school politics, campaigning for student positions in a precocious jacket and tie. Although his parents were apolitical, he was a vocal Nixon supporter from the age of nine. Like Dick Cheney, he avoided the Vietnam draft with a college deferment, but gave up his education to work on Republican campaigns, and never got a degree.

Link

Narcissists must be seen as superior or otherwise, they feel worthless. And they will do anything to protect they’re superiority. They are (a) extremely sensitive to personal criticism and (b) extremely critical of other people. Narcissists will say ANYTHING, they will trash anyone in their own self-justification. The malicious outing of Valerie Plame and co-ordinated attacks on Joe Wilson are great examples. So are the attacks on Paul O’Neil, General Shinsecki, Richard Clark, and John Kerry.

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
Gee, why do you think Bush ran for President in the first place? Or why Karl Rove put him there? Bush still believes in his tax breaks for the rich, that Saddam Hussein was involved in 911, the war in Iraq, his lame-ass campaign against Social Security and his own brilliance. Think about his goading the Terrorists with his ill-conceived comment “Bring it on”.

And he’s often commented on how he’d like to be a dictator:
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. Governing Magazine 7/98

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," From Paul Begala’s book Is Our Children Learning?

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it," Business Week, July 30, 2001

Link
Remember Bush in his flight suit landing on that aircraft carrier outside of San Diego with that Big Banner – Mission Accomplished? Narcissists love settings like that where they can parade their fantasy in front of an adoring audience. (Someone actually created a flight-suited action figure of him from that incident. I wonder what landfill that ended up in?)

3. Believes he is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

As we now know, Palestinian Leaders allege that Bush told them God speaks to him and tells him which countries to invade and bomb. Religious Narcissists believe that they are God's special favorites somehow; God loves them, so they are exempted from ordinary rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them to be the way they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note, the narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including you. Did you see him pretend to comfort the common folk in New Orleans? It was scary. Did you see him try to hold a hammer at the Habitat for Humanity photo op? No matter how much he likes to pretend he’s just a regular guy, Bush is an elitist and his homies are the very wealthy and Big Business.

4. Requires excessive admiration
Translation: Narcissists want lots of praise, brown-nosing deference and they want to be told that everything they do is better than what others can do. This is why he surrounds himself with ass-kissers, cronies and sycophants. That certainly explains Harriett Miers! Why Bush is the most brilliant person she's ever met!!! (Obviously Harriet needs to get out more.) He holds these phony town hall meetings where people have to sign an oath of allegiance before they can attend. That’s intense and quite nuts.

5. Has a sense of entitlement
All hail the privileged son of George and Barbara Bush. Narcissists expect automatic compliance with their wishes or especially favorable treatment, such as thinking that they should always be able to go first and that other people should stop whatever they're doing to do what the narcissists want, and may react with hurt or rage when these expectations are frustrated. White House Aids practically soiled themselves when they had to tell him the terrible news about Hurricane Kristina. Bush once said loyalty is more important to him than experience. No wonder.

6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends.
Think about all the millions of people he’s duped with the Clean Skies Initiative. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Think about the horrors the Iraqi people face everyday. The toll the war has taken on our National Guard and our military. The uncertainty the American people face with our economy.

7. Lacks empathy
Translation: They are unwilling to recognize or sympathize with other people's feelings and needs. They "tune out" when other people want to talk about their own problems.
When no weapons of mass destruction turned up in Iraq, Bush tried to make a joke out of it and actually pretended to look under furniture.
According to Cindy Sheehan, when Bush came in to console her family about her son’s death in Iraq, Bush acted like it was a social event. He didn’t refer to their son by name, just the term “loved one”. When they tried to talk about their son, Bush changed the subject.
When Bush finally cut his vacation short and landed in the New Orleans disaster area, he talked about how when he was younger he used to party there. Then he complimented Brownie for doing a heck of a job.

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
I think Bush has always been jealous of his father. Unlike Bush Jr., his dad actually accomplished things in his life. George H. Walker Bush was a real fighter pilot. Head of the CIA. Vice President and then President. He had the intelligence not to invade Baghdad. Bush Jr. seems intent on trying to do everything better than his father. Another Narcissistic fantasy that doesn’t seem to be playing out.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
Translation: They treat other people like dirt. Watch Bush during his press conferences. When he’s sarcastic with someone. When he’s on the defensive. Lately he’s playing up the liberal media angle a lot. And don’t forget his macho swagger.

So, what does this all mean? I had too much time on my hands this afternoon? Maybe. But at least in my mind, Narcissism helps explain both the swagger, the intolerance, and the fear I now see in his eyes when the world isn’t a reflection of his narcissistic fantasy.

The Wheels on the Bus Come Off, Off, Off, GOP sends administration back on Warranty repair

2005-10-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

Boy do they now wish they had spent the extra $60 on the four year extended warranty, don't you think?

I mean, the wagon was so red and so solid just ten months ago, steamrolling to mandate victory, riding the crest of that 3% Tsunami in the 2000 vote.

"...Political capital..."

Bush had said that he earned it, and was going to spend it.

Now, if he said he was going to spend it like a drunken sailor on a three day black-out binge after four years at sea in a submarine with a full crew and no shower, that would have been one thing. Who would have believed him? Because that's what he did.

I mean, the war along is costing a billion dollars a day and he has no interest in pulling the troops out. Does anyone have a clue as to the size of that number and what it means? A billion dollars? A DAY?

Do you all realize how deep we are in deficit? That to keep this country going - and to keep this country at war - right now we are borrowing all the money we're using - from all the countries that lend to money? It means we technically have no money of our own any more, and that we're borrowing like mad, spending on a virtual mammoth credit card and pretending there's no limit, and just paying on the percentage, forget the principle.

Sound fiscal policy?

Any of you out there remember that Bush bankrupted both companies he headed in his pre-political days, and that Daddy bailed him out of trouble?

Daddy can't write the check for this one.

That's never happened in the history of this country, by the way. Waging a war on credit. What do you think would happen if the creditors decide they've had enough and Bush's "bushit" (no typo there), and shut down the credit card? Because that's where we're potentially headed. Bush is handing all our power to all the countries that extend us credit, by bankrolling our activities every day.

And those countries wouldn't have to pull the plug, just have a delegation show up at the white house with a list of really good ideas they'd like America to do - right now - so the plug isn't pulled. How do you think that would affect policy?

Okay, back to what Bush did say about his mandate.

"Keep those big tax cuts permanent."

and

"Fix social security. Privatize it, and make private accounts for everyone."

And so far, he's 0-2, both of these second term agendas have tanked. They were tanking on their own before Katrina, because they were bad ideas to begin with that even his blind faithful had to pause a moment and go - "he did actually graduate from Yale? Or did he leave that early too and have those records destroyed also?"

Then Cindy Sheehan shows up outside of Bush's ranch, and doesn't go away. And Bush is afraid to talk to her. Then "Camp Casey" forms around her, the beginning of a very public anti-war movement, and Bush's big response is that sure he understands she has a right to her opinions, but he has to -

"get back to his own life."

Man, is that the leader of the free world hiding from a - mom? In retrospect you know what this is?

The first wheel coming off the bus.

Show's what a coward he really is. Then his "ham-handed" response to the deadliest hurricane in our nation's history, and the thorough crony-ing up of FEMA, appointing unqualified, untrained sycophants and a clueless leader, and New Orleans is wiped off the map and ignored for about the time it took God to create the Earth.

And what is also revealed, is just how unprepared we are to really do anything regarding our Homeland or our Security, and this was the second wheel to fall off the bus.

The public outcry was so intense that they shelved social security reform permanently, permanent tax reform too has taken a back seat.

As I said, two wheels off.

Then DeLay gets indicted. Twice, and Frist at first reveals he's being investigated by the SEC, oh yes, and that he's been subpoenaed too. Seferian's arrested, let's see, Abramoff too...hmmm...all the Republicans are in trouble with the law.

Third wheel comes off.

But that doesn't stop the President from continuing his terrific leadership: and nominate Harriet Miers, a lawyer who ran the Texas Lottery Commission, is a Texas Right to Lifer, and never failed to blow a kiss to Bush's rumble seat at every opportunity, as the next supreme court justice. Even the Right took offense at this, and isn't promising an easy process.

At the same time the real leaks begin to spring forth from Fitzgerald's investigation which point fingers at Rove, Libby, Cheney and others in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, and what surfaces is that this has been going on for weeks and weeks, and it's why Karl Rove's tight hand of control has been flabby, because he might be indicted, as might all the others, all this allowing George to talk in front of a mike on his own, without the tight leash of talking point control, explaining many of W.'s mis-steps in the last six weeks.

And wheel four comes off.

The bus is flat on the road. 'Aint going nowhere fast. And it took only seven weeks from hot rod to junk heap.

And poor W. is only in month eleven of this second term.

The GOP were feeling so untouchable, I don't think they even signed up for AAA.

I was looking for a big change in 2008, but the real news is that the winds of change are coming in 2006.

Planet Bush

2005-10-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

How far away is it? And where the hell are we? And if he's so far away form us on another planet, how come we can see him on TV?

I mean, the guy is seriously not down here with the rest of us, or perhaps he looks like he is, but he's just not in his own body. Because there's something going on and I think I finally got a handle on it.

He's on Planet Bush. And on Planet Bush all continues to go well. The historical level of arrests and indictments in the top tiers of Republican government are just - wait for it -

"...background noise..."

Yes, actual quote from Bush on Planet Bush (the actual quote - see link). Now remember, Abramoff was arrested, Seferian was arrested (he was the guy that allocated Federal funds from the government to whoever he wanted to, big job ), DeLay has been indicted and you got to see his mug shot today on AOL, Frist has been indicted - and folks - the Republicans control all branches of the government! This isn't Clinton Time - when he was a Dem President and a GOP congress was in control and out to get him. The Republicans are running this show and they're still dropping like flies! That's some major background noise!

But not on Planet Bush. Because George follows up with:

"the American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to."

First of all, at this point, the 39% that seem to still think he should show up at work, must have had a problem understanding the pollster on the phone. But assuming they're good with his track record, the 61% who think our ship is sinking are probably just crossing their fingers and hoping he's not going to have to do any more of his particular brand of on the "job" training until his time runs out.

But what is the President's job on Planet Bush?

Is it to chide his most trusted advisor, Karl Rove, about the embarrassment and potential massive criminal fallout and future office cleansing of the Valer Plame outing? Of course it is! But not that what he did was wrong, merely that he got caught! See link. Apparantly he expects Karl to chat with the press and leak what's neccesary, as they've done through their entire rise to power, but Bush was angry at him for the

"...ham handed..."

way in which this particlar leak was done. Allowing it to be lead back to Rove and the White House. (This is quite a stunning article in the Daily news, actually, not a page one either, but it quotes sources at the White House who are admitting now that Bush has lied for the past two years in saying he did not know of the leak, who leaked what, and that Rove told him to his face he did was not involved.) More to the point, the author of the article is one who has written a book supporting Bush, and has known the family for years, so this is not some journalist's idle chatter, but a loyalist with access.

Rats do leave a sinking ship. Even on Planet Bush. So the fact that insiders are talking in such a damaging way is telling.

Speaking of insiders talking, how about that Lawrence Wilkerson! Ex-chief of staff to Ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell and his "scathing attack"? He said on the record yesterday - in part -

"Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world" - ouch!

This guy is definitely not on Planet Bush any longer, but has come back home. He added:

"And I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita and I could go on back, we haven't done very well on anything like that in a long time. And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government." Yowchers!

Click the dude's name for the whole story.

See, and you thought I was just paranoid and burned out. Got to tell you, I'm not exactly thrilled at being vindicated. It would be much much better for all of us if everything was fine, and I was merely paranoid.

Oh yes - more background noise details: Scooter Libby, Cheney's #1 guy and Rove can't keep their lying straight, blaming reporters for having leaked Plame's name to them - but they're coming up with conflicting dates and times of their various lies, so red lights are going off on Fitzgerald's legal pad, because it's obvious someone's lying the question is; a few of them, or all of them? And believe me, Fitzgerald's not sacrificing his career to a benign report this late in the game, with such public attention and a week to go. I think someone's going to get a bad report card. A report card that will definitely not be brought home on Planet Bush.

Also worrisome for Libby, Judith Miller (recently sprung NYT reporter) told the grand jury that Libby told her a classified report (pre-iraq war) showed even more damning evidence supporting WMD in Iraq, leading her to write one of her various page one NYT articles very pro war, very pro WMD, and helping push the country to war - and 10 days later the actual classified report Libby refered to is published - and it's 180 degrees opposite of what Libby said, little evidence to support WMD's. Fitzgerald hears this and realizes there are major conspiracy issues and potential charges, in addition to the perjury. So.

Cheney's going to need a temp. Kelly Girl D.C.

But everything's okay on Planet Bush, thank God. Woops - wrong again:

Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek: "George W. Bush rose to power on the strength of a disciplined, aggressive, tightly-focused, leak-proof spin-machine -- one that took issue positions and stuck to them, divided the world (including the media) into friends and enemies, and steamrollered the opposition with ruthless skill while the candidate remained smilingly above the fray....

....But the machine they built may have run amok -- at least that seems to be what Fitzgerald is examining...

...in the meantime...tightly-knit groups rise together, but they fall together. If the inner circle is small, it takes only one insider 'flip' to endanger the rest."

Seems to me, there's a lot more giong on here than background noise, doesn't it?

Don't you think somone at the grand jury is out to save themself and screw the rest? Isn't that what you do when a boat is sinking, really sinking? You try to save yourself?

I think the offices on Planet Bush are going to be much emptier very soon.

So what do do? Lie to yourself and say everything's fine. It's worked so far.

So on Planet Bush pathological lying is rule of the day. Because at the end of the day, it's probably the only way he can get through the day and live with himself and the historic level of disasterous policy decisions, lives lost in war and natural disasters, quality of life eroding for those not yet killed by the adminsitration, and the bright future of our country permanently damaged and dimmed.

For real.

And I wish I were really kidding.

Can you impeach a President for having his thumb up his ass?

2005-10-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

Bush got elected on the platform of being a CEO President. The implication being, that CEOs are smarter, sharper, and shrewder than the average politician. Well Bush is a CEO like Paris Hilton is a Nobel Prize winner. Too bad a lot of voters out there in election land didn’t pay much attention to Bush’s sad, private sector resumé which included running two oil companies into the ground and being bailed out repeatedly by his Daddy's pals. Link
And his current record as CEO President isn’t any better:
• Terrible, crazy war in Iraq
• Condones torture
• Skyrocketing deficit
• The murder of the middle class
• Killer hurricanes every time you turn around (Not much any CEO could do about this, but, c’mon, having Bush as President just ratchets up the fear factor)
• Paralyzed and ineffective Federal Emergency Response
• Looming bird flu crisis.

If Bush were the CEO of a major US corporation with this kind of record, most Board of Directors would have him drawn and quartered. Graydon Carter, Editor of Vanity Fair wrote this about him:

First of all, what sort of C.E.O. works in a bubble?
What sort of C.E.O. surrounds himself almost exclusively with yes-men and women? What sort of C.E.O. doesn't read the newspapers, or even watch the evening news? What sort of C.E.O. wants to hear only good news? What sort of C.E.O. makes drastic, life-altering decisions based on flimsy due diligence, or outright faulty research? (See also: weapons of mass destruction; Saddam's links to the 9/11 hijackers; and the impression that Americans would be welcomed in Iraq as "liberators.") What sort of C.E.O. makes bold announcements of victory long before a battle is over? What sort of C.E.O. bullies his competitors and allies alike? What sort of C.E.O. pays more attention to public relations than to actual operations? What sort of C.E.O. plunges his company into historic debt levels in order to reward the wealthy backers who put him in the job? What sort of C.E.O. has the vacation mind-set not of a Fortune 500 mandarin but of a French civil servant?

Link
And I would add, what sort of CEO President confuses photo ops, and phony, staged townhall meetings attended by Stepford Wives - with actually governing and directing a country?

The answer to all of the above is: The worst kind of pretender. Let’s not enable this guy any more. Bush doesn’t deserve our respect or the office. Like all those greedy corporate tycoons from WorldCom, Tyco and Adelphia – Bush should be indicted and imprisoned. That’s my opinion. What’s yours?

The best laid plans, oft get laid

2005-10-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well, thank God we had that historic vote in Iraq. Don’t you all feel better? Safer? My gosh, even my sinuses feel clearer. I mean, this is the vote that’s going to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. The same vote that’s now under suspicion because an unheard of 99% voted for the referendum on their reconstituted constitution. Wow, 99%! Now that’s a mandate, right? Wrong. Because you see, we never get the whole story. We continue to get the spin. Even Bill O’Reilly - King of Spin himself - was chiding Codoleeza Rice on his show the other night, when she said it was better in Iraq. He said,

“How can it be better? Fox reporters over there have to stay in the Green Zone. They can’t even venture out to get a cup of coffee.”

I’m attaching two interesting sources I’d like you to check out. One is the Riverbend blog, written by an Iraqi women who struggles every day with the horror over there. It is a real eye-opener. You want to know what is really going - the power outrages, the lack of water, the kidnappings, the on-going brutality – visit this link. Here’s a sample of a recent entry:

The referendum is only hours away and the final version of the constitution still hasn’t reached many people. Areas with a Sunni majority are complaining that there aren’t polling stations for kilometers around- many of these people don’t have cars and even if they did, what good would it do while there’s a curfew until Sunday? Polling stations should be easily accessible in every area.

(Hmmm, curfews, not enough polling stations…and they still got a 99% turnout?)

This is like déjà vu from January when people in Mosul and other Sunni areas complained that they didn’t have centers to vote in or that their ballot boxes never made it to the counting stations. Link
American media is trying to make it sound like Sunnis have suddenly been mollified with the changes made in a flurry of covert meetings these last few days, but the reality is that the only Sunni party openly supporting the constitution is the Iraqi Ilamic Party which represents a very, very small percentage of Sunnis.

The Guardian Unlimited in London also has an article about how swell it is over in Iraq. Makes me just want to take my frequent flyer miles and go there for a little visit.

Last week I returned to Iraq for the first time since the end of 2003. If the essence of "getting better" is security then things are incomparably worse. I could no longer walk the streets or visit friends. Anyone associating with foreigners risks execution. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, academics are fleeing abroad for fear of kidnap. The National Museum has closed. Visiting VIPs must go everywhere by helicopter. The Iraqi head of Baghdad's military academy must change into civilian clothes before leaving his base. After nearly three years of American rule, Baghdad is simply the most terrifying city in the world.
…Bringing democracy to Iraq? We claim to have done that already. Bringing peace and security to the country? You must be joking. Rebuilding the Iraqi army? Of 113 paid-up battalions, the Americans regard just one as reliable in a firefight, and that after two years of recruitment and training. The fact is you can train an army but not motivate it. That it must do for itself.

To read the whole article visit this link:

It’s astonishing, really. Our country and our lives are in the hands of the most shameful, dishonest, incompetent, administration ever. They are madmen. Everyday there is a new revelation. It’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion. You think the Iraq war is bad. You think Katrina was a disaster. You better pray we don’t have to watch what happens if the bird flu ever gets here…

Negative

2005-10-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Do you know why there's so much negative campaigning in elections? It's not because it ever causes a majority, or even a large minority, to change their minds about the candidate being smeared. A recent poll showed that, all other factors being equal, only 3% of undecided voters said that a negative campaign was likely to cause them to vote against the candidate being smeared. 35% said it would probably sway their vote toward the smeared candidate.

The rest didn't know what to think. 62% gave some version of "I still don't know what to think."

And that's the plan.

If you're a campaign manager, you look at the electorate and see three basic groups: with your guy, against your guy, and the undecideds.

Undecideds are the crucial link to close elections. They're the wild card.

So, if you're a campaign manager who thinks your candidate will win, especially if it's a close margin, what do you do with the undecideds? What buttons can you push to get them to vote for your candidate? Unfortunately, these undecideds fall into a wide socio-econo-political spectrum, united only in their inability to shit or get off the pot. The buttons you would push to sway one bunch of undecideds to vote for your guy will most likely alienate an equal number of undec's. And of course, you can't say one thing to one group and its opposite to another, since the one thing modern journalists can do is compare transcripts. And this would alienate a large bunch of folks.

It's the ultimate in cat-herding.

So, if you can't control this large group of folks, what do you do with it? What can you do?

Here's an idea: Prevent it from voting. And that's the beauty of negative campaigning--it has the ability to turn people off--not just for or against your candidate, but against the whole process.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say you have a White House that is particularly adept at this sort of politicking. In fact, it is so adept at it, that it has taken it to new heights. Or depths, depending on your point of view. Let's take it further--let's imagine this group's agenda is so selfish, so destructive, and so unAmerican that it should cause the country as a whole to rise up and run this cabal out of Washington, and perhaps even into prison.

How could you possibly sell this to a watchful public?

'Well,' the hypothetical campaign manager-turned presidential advisor says, running his pudgy little fingers through his thinning blonde hair, 'what if we continue to baffle them with bullshit? what if we continue to run a negative campaign, against those who oppose us, including journalists? What if, while we on the whole make their lives harder to live, offer them tax cuts, giving them hundreds of dollars, while taking millions for ourselves?

'What if we run a negative campaign against America?'

What do you think the results would be?

Yeharr

A Few Good Men?

2005-10-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a recounting of one of the techniques used by the guards on 'unruly' prisoners of war...er...enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay:

THE WORST punishment for prisoners was a “forced cell extraction” by a group of six to eight guards called the Initial Response Force. The troopers called it IRFing.

I witnessed my first IRFing after a military policeman had performed the “credit card swipe” — pressing his fingers inside a detainee’s buttock crack to look for a weapon. This type of physical contact is not acceptable under Islamic law and the detainee had pushed the guard away. But prisoners were not allowed to touch an MP and immediately eight guards were summoned.

They put on riot protection gear — helmets, heavy gloves, shin guards and chest protectors — before forming a huddle and chanting in unison, getting themselves pumped up. Still chanting, they rushed the block, their heavy boots sounding like a stampede on the steel floor. Detainees throughout Camp Delta started to yell and shake their cage doors.

When the IRF team reached the offending detainee, the team leader drenched him with pepper spray and opened the door to his cell. The others charged in. He was no match for eight men in riot gear. The guards used their shields and bodies to force him to the floor. With his wrists and ankles tied, he was dragged down the corridor to solitary confinement.

When it was over the guards high-fived each other and slammed their chests together like professional basketball players — an odd victory celebration for eight men who took down one prisoner.

IRFing was used with extraordinary frequency. Seemingly harmless behaviour could bring it on: not responding when a guard spoke or having two plastic cups in a cage instead of the regulation one. Invasive body searches occurred daily and were a constant source of tension leading to IRFing. I came to believe that the searches were done solely to rile the detainees. The prisoners had been locked in cages for several months in a remote area of Cuba. What could they possibly be hiding?

This was written by an Army Chaplain. Now, read about how he was treated:

Naked, I had to run my hands through my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon in it. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside. Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera was displaying my naked image as male and female guards watched.

It didn’t matter that I was an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite US military academy. It didn’t matter that my religious beliefs prohibited me from being fully naked in front of strangers. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been charged with a crime. It didn’t matter that my wife and daughter had no idea where I was. And it certainly didn’t matter that I was a loyal American citizen and, above all, innocent.

This is the story of Captain James Yee. Remember him? Read his story, and keep repeating to yourself, "We're the good guys. We're the good guys..."

Yeharr

Who, Then, For the Dems?

2005-10-11T12:42:00.001-07:00

Note: I fixed the link

I've been having lots of conversations with fellow burned-ou paranoids where we all come to a conclusion that then elicits further questions:

Because of [insert litany of egregious, immoral, and downright godawful things the current regime is currently either denying or trying to shove down our throat], it's pretty evident that the GOP is apt to collapse under its own mismanaged weight.

Question 1: Why in the hell isn't the so-called liberal media going after this group?

Questtion 2: Who on the left--Democratic party member or otherwise--can we rally behind?

To answer both, I submit a quote:

"The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

Al Gore for President.
Eight years late is better than not at all.

Yeharr

From Brad Blog

2005-10-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

One of the forerunners in the blogosphere to investigate and police the vauter fraud in this country in 2000 and 20o4, a great blog, recognized by Congressman Conyers and others, and this was just too good to let it pass by without a nod:

Who hits zero first?

Latest Bush Approval Rating: 37% (and falling)
Latest Diebold Stock Price: $34.25 (and falling)

Blogged by Brad on 10/6/2005 @ 7:56pm PT...

He's Going Back for a Fourth Chat

2005-10-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

Prosecutor Fitzgerald is bringing Turd Blossom back yet again. He was caught lying, apparently - surprising that. Turd's lawyer defends him saying "he hasn't received a 'target letter'", which is the document stating that you are going to be indicted and must appear before the grand jury. But that's a lawyer's trick - if you voluntarily agree to testify when asked, then you're not subpoenaed - and a target letter is only ever attached to your subpoena. So Rove's lawyer can say that to make things appear fine and dandy, but it's meaningless.

And Fitzgerald has said to Rove's attorney that he can not promise that Rove won't be indicted. That, apparently, the Prosecutor has to say to a witness who may be in trouble, upon asking that witness back to testify. Legal protections against self-incriminating statements kick in if the witness is not aware that they are potential targets of indictments, and their testimony may hurt their own case. Thus, the prosecutor must inform them up front that it's possible, and then everything is cool and the witness can blab away. So - he was warned. Thus - there is a big chance Mr. Blossom may be receiving some nasty legal documents in the mail.

International Merchants Have No Country, Bush is One of Them

2005-10-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson said it best.

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Bush is beholden to the guys who are raiding the treasury, literally, he's one of them. Part of the Carlyle group, the oil/gas cartel whose mammoth profits determine geopolitics. He's in bed so thick with the Saudis he gives them every consideration, and a hands off approach to thier foreign policy. He gives tax breaks to every internation corporation who throws money at him for re-election. Hey, who cares about America when you're floating in the wealth generated by pleasing the companies who lobby the GOP? And just so no corporate coffer be put out, Bush is using the social security fund to keep the government going, as past administrations have done, except this adminstration has no intention of paying it back.

So to try and curtail the spiraling deficit, currently at 7 trillion, and refusing to include any of the war operations budget into the fiscal budget, which is beyound maxed out, he's decided on cutting government spending and services to the poor and middle class all the way across the board as the way to go to keep things in the illusion of checked and balanced.

Because the bottom line is the dollar. Keep the money, and take the money, from whever you can, and hold it for yourself and your friends.

So cutting taxes again and again, and getting the no bid contracts for their buddies, for the wartime disaster and the natural disasters, is business as usual. And the way to keep that going, is to take away the people's funding: Schools that work, hospitals that work, police forces that are large enough to work, medical coverage for the elederly that works, watch it all start to crumble, with what Bush's government is now planning to cut it down to.

And four years after 9/11, the only thing that seems to have come from all the government re-organiztion, the creation of Homeland Security, and the rainbow colored disaster codes, is that they can't manage a disaster very well. They can, however, make an excellent profit at the disaster, doling out the countracts to favored companies and friends, and keeping the clean up in the privatizing theme. Once again, taking great care of their own, and screw you if you're not part of the club.

And America is very gib and their club is very, very small. If you're reading this, you're not in it.

Hell, I thought America was the club. The greatest country in the world, the one everyone wants to get to, be a part of, buy a part of, emulate the artists of, happy just to be a citizen of.

Not to these guys. America can go screw itself, while Bush retires to his ranch and Cheney to his new estate. But they'll take our money.

Don't you think their own greed will be their own destruction? Private sector has to make a profit, has to cut corners to stay in the black, and thta's why we still have bodies in NO, morgues backed up because FEMA shuts the morges early, etc. etc. , it's tragic - but they are standing on the stilts of profit, and sawing the stilts off below their feet to be used as even more new-found money! That's how these guys think. Nothing is sacred.

'Taint gonna work.

Supreme Cushion a.k.a. Half-Baked Court

2005-10-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

There are some interesting theories abounding lately as to the rushed nature of Bush's Supreme Court nominees. John Roberts aggresive inability to answer questions not withstanding (one was lead to believe that even "how are you feeling?" could be met with an answer along the lines of: "answering that question might jeapoardize a future moment when I might be asked "how I was feeling", revealing the nature of how I might answer that question, and prejudicing my own answer as to how I answered previously, or signalling to the questioning party how I might already feel, suggesting they mightnot ask how I feel, so I won't answer that question"), he at least was a judge. Harriet Miers has the advantage of never having ever been a judge, avoiding the messy paper trail that could indicate any beliefs or belief system she has at all, except for her undying gratitutde and allegiance to the President, particularly when he apointed her to run the Texas State Lottery Commission.

Lottery Commission. You read correctly. That's who George has picked to become a Supreme Court Judge. One of nine judges in the land who have the final say on the law of the land, their purpose to be independent of the Executive Branch, to interpret law, untangle complex decisions rife with philospphical questions of the modern age, that would make the framers of our Constitution heads' spin.

And she reigned over the Lottery Commission. Just what John Adams, Jefferson and Ben Franklin would have hoped for. (Not to mention she very likely will be the deciding vote against legalized abortion in this country if she makes the bench - see "With Miers Bush Gets Fifth Vote Against Roe") (And not to mention, she may have helped hide W's National Guard derelcition of duty days.)(Woops)

At the same time, and seemingly on a parallel track, manequin-journalist Judith Miller, who has spent 86 days in jail protecting her source on the Valerie Plame investigation (the investigation to discover the origin of the leak that "outed" her once uncercover CIA operative status to the US media, who's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson, was on a then anti-Bush tirade against their faulty intelligence justifying the then unstarted war agaisnt Iraq), suddenly voluntarily decides to suddenly un-protect her source, pop out of jail and testify in front of the grand jury, allowing Fitzgerald to finally close his case.

Well, a leak from the grand jury about the leak case has fingered Dick Cheney himself, and his chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby as potential indictment targets.

It's very possible the indictments will come down, and very possibly for some very real jail time and loss of power will rear its heads for some very real high level players in this government.

Unless...we are to look at the timing.

John Roberts is voted in as Chief Justice. Making it a very conservative majority ofthe now eight judges on the Supreme Court. And Judith Miller pops out of jail the next day like a piece of over done toast, allowing Fitzgerald to close a case that had been in limbo, waiting on her testimony.

Because if indictments come down on Cheney, and Libby, for some very real jail time for the very real crime of "outing" a CIA agent, there is only one recourse to protect them?

Presidential Pardon.

And that would create an outcry in half the population of the land, and be fought immediately in the Federal courts of Wasthington, who would not want the hot potato of course, or even if they did would find the case immediately appealed if the Govt. lost, which would bump the case up into the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court.

Where sits Bush's newest crony, and now awaits the next one.

And what if this new George Bush Supreme Court were to rule that the Presidential Pardon in this case were legal? Check Mate. Cheney and Libby are free, no crime has been committed. Everyone go back to raiding the treasury.

The Political Right in this country has always been two to three steps ahead in their game of political chess. Lacking a moral compass, they are quick to throw caution, common sense, tradition and precedent to the wind, as long as they can stay in power. (See Tom DeLay and his indictments) And it's sometimes hard for the rest of us to imagine the next move in their game of Souless Stratego, as it's only about keeping the power.

If this is indeed the plan, it's brilliant in it's empty Machiavellianism, but bufoonish on the face of it, as even extreme conservatives Trent Lott and George Will have had it with this administration's blatant attempts at self preservation to the point of desecrating the country's branches of government. When these Righties have to draw a line in the sand at W.'s lack of familiarity or appreciation of this country's great history in selecting law makers, one really has to sit up and take notice.

The Texas Lottery Commission.

Really now, is the President that stupid? That he thinks he can just put in all his friends and neighbors to the most important posts of the country with no training, and not have the country fall apart? The bottom line, of course, is that he just doesn't care.

Small man in a big job. Small selfish ideas win the day. Big problems come later down the line. He shrugs. We suffer.

The fall of his house of cards started with Katrina. I'm praying it's not forced to fall to the ground before he's stopped. Because we live in his house of cards.

Ah, Dude!!!

2005-10-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

Daniel, one of the blog’s regulars, asked what we thought about the posting of dead from Iraq on a porno site.

Here’s my two cents. I’m appalled by it. I know that there’s always some fringe
Bizarro element in the military - creeps that like to cut off ears and such. I know war can do ugly things to a person. But, posting dead bodies so you can get free porn - now that’s enterprising. Talk about killing two birds with one mortar round. I just wonder who these guys are? Our lovely volunteer army. A few good men. A few psychopaths. What’s the difference, right? Did the military put an ad in Mutilation Monthly to get these rejects? Are these all-American boys who believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of twisted obsessions?

And let me say this before I get a bunch of wackos saying I don’t support the troops.
I support good people who are doing the best they can in a needless war our crazy administration saw fit to pursue. But I will not support people getting their freak on posing next to dead, charred bodies, like they just scored a touchdown at the homecoming game. There is no honor in this. It's sick and depraved.

Even more appalling? It doesn’t look like the military’s going to investigate.
So let’s just wink and look the other way. And someday, these guys are coming home. Lock up your daughters…

The problem is, our behavior only fuels their behavior.

On a related topic, you should see what some people have gotten through emails.
Today, I saw a video of an American pilot blasting some people in Iraq into oblivion.
The dialogue between the pilot and his base went something like this:

PILOT: I see a number of individuals coming out onto the street. Should I take them out? (On the video, you see about a dozen small figures walk out of a doorway onto the street. They're not running. They're leisurely walking. You can't even tell if they are men, women or children.)
BASE: Affirmative
PILOT: 10 seconds...(The pilot launches a missile at them)
Then a huge explosion envelops these people.
But the kicker is what the guy at the base says. He must have had a simultaneous video connection. He sees the explosion and says:
Ah, Dude!!!

Ah, Dude!!! Like awesome man! In his mind, the pilot just racked up huge points in the ultimate video game. What are we fighting over there? Bill & Ted’s excellent adventure in Fallujah?

Bush in Free Fall

2005-10-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

When you click on the link, you'll see a brilliant piece of animation that my friend Gerry turned me onto. I don't know who Planet Dan is, but after seeing this, I would bear his child. It's very cathartic. When Bush gets hung up in the animation (You'll see what I mean when you watch it.) just drag him free with your mouse. And send him on his merry way...Enjoy!

Fight or Die!

2005-10-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

New Slogan for the Democratic Party?

A Republican calls the DNC for help with a dying woman from NO in his residence, as his endless calls for help to his own party go unanswered. This true and very moving story from a DNC staffer (link from Democratic Underground).

"At 10 a.m. the phone rang, and while I usually only get calls from the press, this one was different. A man identifying himself as a lifelong Republican was on the line. I began to prepare myself for whatever harsh words he was about to unleash, but to my surprise he said, "I need your help." So I asked him "What do you need?"

More.