Saturday, August 12, 2006

WE WILL WIN WAR ON TERROR by GETTING OUT OF IRAQ

WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE GONE TO WAR IN IRAQ. THIS WILL BE THE BIGGEST BLUNDER OF OUR LIVES.

REMEMBER: BUSH WANTED TO SELL OUR PORTS TO THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. Bush rules only by fear which is False Evidence Appearing Real. FEAR. He uses terrorist tactics on us, making us think he thwarted these terror attacks! Thanks to Britain and Pakistan who shared information that helped thwart the London terrorist plot. Bush only found out about this on Sunday, so the Republican spin machine has no right to say Democrats are soft on "terror" or getting out of Iraq will make us less safe. IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE!

STRENGTH LIES IN INTELLIGENCE. Democrats are stronger on terror because we know the value of human life. We will win the war on terror by gathering our forces and fortifying our homeland. By first bringing our troops home and strengthening our own borders, ports, airports and train stations and using our resources wisely. We can't afford to lose a single human life. We've lost over 2,600 troops, and another 16,000 missing arms and legs, and we've spent over 300 billion dollars on a war that has DEFINITELY CREATED MORE HATRED AND TERRORISM throughout the whole world against us.

Democrats will go out and communicate with our enemies: we will bridge the gap and open diplomatic channels. Syria, who was helping us right after 911 will be helping us again. Everyone wants to be on the side of the Peacemaker who brings a higher vision to conflict. In the time that George Bush and the Three Stooges have been in power, they have created more enemies than ever before in America's history. This is the most shameful time in our country. We must get these primitive self-serving oil barons and Neanderthals out of power before they destroy the world.
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To NYTimes Editors
Re: the "liquid plane bomb threat." Two items from the massive press reporting do not ring true: 1) that the plotters go-ahead message "begin the attack now" would be sent without code words. No one is that dumb. And 2) How did the airlines know in advance to have thousands of clear plastic carry on baggies ready to distribute?
Plus there's the obvious political angle "Why just now?" which took away the democratic party's moment in the national spotlight with Ned Lamont's victory.

Garth Bishop, Los Angeles
_________________________________
BY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
At a time when the real enemies in the war on terror have reared their murderous heads (exploding shampoo? no need to sex that up), to hear Dick Cheney and company using illogical, over-the-top, fear-mongering rhetoric conflating Ned Lamont's victory with the war on terror is as deeply offensive as it is jaw-droppingly outrageous.

You want to know what really emboldens our enemies? It's not Ned Lamont beating Joe Lieberman; it's the idea of an impotent United States so over-extended and bogged down in Iraq that it has been pushed to the diplomatic sidelines.

What Lamont's victory should really do is embolden Democrats to aggressively counterattack the Republicans' scare tactics nonsense. (It would help if the MSM reacted to the GOP drivel by treating it with the contempt it deserves instead of dutifully reporting it as if it contained even an ounce of logic or sanity.)

John Kerry effectively counterattacked the Republican's scare tactics nonsense today -- and every Democratic leader should do the same every day, without fail, until the message finally breaks through the static. The thwarted London attacks, said Kerry, "expose the misleading myth that we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here. In fact, the war in Iraq has become a dangerous distraction... Nearly five years after the attacks of 9/11, we are not as safe as we can and must be... The 9/11 Commission's recommendations to secure our most vulnerable infrastructure remain virtually ignored. And homeland security funding has been cut for cities like Boston and New York."

One of the main reasons this has happened is that Congressional Democrats have failed to hold the Bush administration accountable for taking its eye off the national security ball in order to pursue its imperial adventure in Iraq. It's worth noting that the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee is none other than Joe Lieberman, whose belief in bipartisan comity has kept him from holding the White House's feet to the fire. No wonder Karl Rove wanted to help him out, and Dick Cheney feels so concerned by his defeat.
Read more at HuffPo
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218 comments:

  1. Wow, your getting sneaky Lyd, I didnt even see the new thread till right now.

    seriously though, excellent points, I've been saying since January that the terrorists arent dumb they arent going to say "tomorow Allah will reign down fire and brimstone on the Infidels when we blow up the stadium at the Superbowl at 7:20PM, of course they talk in code and spying on every single phone call of 300 million Americans is a complete waste of resources not to mention illegal and a violation of our constitutional rights and privacy, not to mention what this information could be used for, it could be used to get dirt on political rivals or for any number of sinister things.

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  2. And the repugs greatest fear is losing control of Congress because when the congressional hearings and true oversight begins and all the dirt comes to light it will lay bare the republicans self serving agenda as well as the fact that not only have they done nothing to keep us safe and protect us, but they could care less about catching or stopping the real terrorists, 9/11 and all the tough talk and fear tactics and war mongering is about nothing more than opening up the Middle East to Imperial opportunism, the elite and the energy giants will benefit tremendously from overthrowing those govenments in Iran and Iraq that were hostile to us so American energy companies can make fortunes developing their reserves, thats what the bait and switch was about when we forsook the war on terror to invade Iraq.

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  3. Hey Mike, that was an amazing story! I have to read it again. The rainbow is a covenant.
    Luv & xo
    me

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  4. BIG FOOT, SCOOP JACKSON DEMOCRATS AND OTHER MYTHS
    August 9, 2006

    I suppose we'll have to wait yet another election cycle for all those "Scoop Jackson Democrats" to come roaring back in and give us a Democratic Party that does not consistently root against America.

    On the bright side, it is now official: Democrats are not merely confused patriots, so blinded by their hatred for President Bush that they cannot see their way to supporting any aspect of the war on terrorism. Would that they were mere opportunistic traitors!

    As some of us have been trying to tell you, Democrats don't oppose the war on terrorism because they hate Bush: They hate Bush because he is fighting the war on terrorism. They would hate him for fighting terrorists even if he had a "D" after his name. They would hate Bernie Sanders if he were fighting a war on terrorism. In the past three decades, there have been more legitimate sightings of Big Foot than of "Scoop Jackson Democrats."

    That's why Hillary Clinton has anti-war protestors howling at her public events. That's why she has drawn an anti-war primary opponent, Jonathan Tasini, who appears to believe that Israel is a terrorist state. If those rumors I've been hearing about a Hezbollah/Hamas/DNC merger are true, we might be in for a slightly longer fight.

    In Tuesday's primary, Connecticut Democrats dumped Joe Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent, because he supports the war on terrorism. This is the same Joe Lieberman who voted against all the Bush tax cuts, against banning same-sex marriage, against banning partial-birth abortion, against the confirmation of Judge Alito, against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in favor of the Kyoto accords. Oh yes, this was also the same Joe Lieberman who was the Democrats' own vice presidential candidate six years ago.

    Despite all this, Connecticut Democrats preferred stalwart anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, great-nephew of Corliss Lamont, WASP plutocrat fund-raiser for Stalin. Lamont's main political asset is that he is a walking, breathing argument in favor of a massive inheritance tax. His plan for fighting the terrorists is to enact a single-payer government health plan and universal pre-K education programs. His goal is to unite the "cut" and "run" wings of his party into one glorious coalition.

    The Democrats can hold it in for a few years, but eventually the McGovernite face of the Democratic Party reappears.

    Lamont declared victory surrounded by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Kim Gandy of the fanatically pro-abortion group known euphemistically as the "National Organization for Women."

    Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat. Waters also considers Joe "soft" on the issue of the CIA inventing crack cocaine and AIDS to kill all the black people in America.

    Gandy's support for Lamont must have been a particularly bitter pill for Lieberman to swallow, inasmuch as he has long belonged to the world's smallest organization solely to satisfy bloodthirsty feminists like Gandy — Orthodox Jews for Partial-Birth Abortion. (OJFPBA has just slightly more members than GBRFC, "Gay Black Republicans for Choice.")

    To give you a snapshot of today's Democratic Party, in 2004, pollster Scott Rasmussen asked likely voters if they believed America was generally a fair and decent country and whether they believed the world would be a better place if more countries were like America.

    Republicans agreed that America is generally fair and decent, 83 percent to 7 percent. Eighty-one percent agreed that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

    By contrast, Democrats were nearly split, with only 46 percent agreeing that America is generally a fair and decent country, and with 37 percent saying America is not a generally fair and decent country. Only 48 percent of Democrats said they thought that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

    Democrats constantly complain that the nation has never been so divided, but consider that half of them think the statement that America is a good country is a divisive remark.

    So remember: When you vote Democratic, you're saying NO to mindless patriotism. This country isn't so great!

    The free world, which is rapidly boiling down to us and Israel, is under savage attack. Treason is rampant in the country. True, Democrats hate Bush, but they would hate anybody who fights the war on terrorism. It is a hostile world, and there is now a real question about the will of the American people to survive.

    AnnCoulter.com

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  5. Bush gets 55 pct approval on security: poll

    Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:00pm ET

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of President George W. Bush's handling of homeland security, an 11 percent jump from May, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday.

    The poll was taken Thursday and Friday, after British authorities foiled a plot to use chemical bombs to bring down as many as 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

    Bush's approval rating rose to 38 percent, a 3-point increase since Newsweek conducted its last poll in May.

    Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would oppose a ban on all carry-on baggage on commercial flights, the poll said.



    Taken three months ahead of congressional elections, the survey found 44 percent of respondents said Republicans would do a better job handling terrorism, compared with 39 percent who preferred Democrats.

    Fifty-three percent of respondents said they wanted to see the Democrats win enough seats to take over Congress, while 34 percent said they wanted the Republicans to retain control, the poll found.

    Twenty-two percent of those surveyed said Iraq was the most important issue in the upcoming election and would determine how they would vote. Eighteen percent said the top issue was the economy and 15 percent cited terrorism.

    Fifty-three percent of Americans surveyed also said they trusted the Democrats to better manage the economy, while 34 percent sided with Republicans, according to the poll.

    The survey of 1,001 adults has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

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  6. Bush rules by fear, that's all he has.

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  7. Saddam used the wmd THAT WE GAVE HIM and don't ever forget that! Remember it was during the Reagan/Bush Sr. years that we were arming Saddam to the hilt.

    Let's not forget either that there were at least 2 Texans involved in and profitted from The Oil For Food Program! Starving Iraqis didn't seem to bother these guys either!!!!!!!!!

    If Saddam killed thousands and thousands of people in his country and the massive graves aren't from years of bloody war with Iran, then please explain Thomas why Saddam is on trial for killing 143 people! Doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense to be having a war crimes trial in the middle of an illegal occupation/war.

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  8. Knowing that all the evidence has come forth and out in the open that the Iraq occupation was based on forged documents and started on lies, John Kerry can't change his mind about the war? You mean to tell me that America is now a nation where there is only one way and one way only? No free thinking?

    You mean to tell me that when you purchase an expensive item only to get it home to find out it's nothing but a fake, that you can't change your mind about it? You have to keep the garment, lose your money, and can't say one negative word about maker of the garment because of fear that you might upset him?

    Idiots!!!!!!!!!!!

    Many republicans in your party are changing their minds about Bush and his fake war. Why aren't you talking about them but continue to lambaste John Kerry for also feeling the same way?

    I know why!!!!!

    You're pathetic little sheep following your Shepard and can't see the edge of the cliff approaching in the distance!

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  9. kay said: "Many republicans in your party are changing their minds about Bush and his fake war."

    Right, Bush's poll numbers are going up. Kay, I am happy to see that you aknowledged that Saddam DID have WMDs. Good of you to come around on that issue.

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  10. Sorry Tall Texan, Bush's approval rating is at 33% (which is down 3% in the last week or two) and I find it hysterical that his homeland security number is up to 55% which is up 11% since May! Wow, Reuters is werkin hahd to help their Fuehrer's party out for the upcoming November election, even though it is now known that the British plot was hurried by our CIA and many of the 'terrorists' didn't even have passports at their disposal! Funny how the Pigs in Washington tried to use this plot to try to fake out our country that a vote for Lamont was a vote for a terrorist attack!

    YOUR PARTY is desperate. YOUR PARTY is irrational and deceitful. Americans are onto you. If you don't go down in November it's because of Rovian plots by YOUR PARTY!!!!!!!

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  11. Isn't it funny that Bush has been defunding bomb detection at our airports and has known about the liquid bombs, but funny how it's been relaxed?

    I guess the Pigs in Washington have to relax the security measures in our country so they can get their ducks in a row before the November election!!!! Yup, can't have fantastic machines in place to detect bombs when you have people on your payroll who need to get them through!

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  12. Boxcutters and lipsticks can takeover America's defense systems! Watch out for the L'Oreal brand!!!!! They're the scariest according to the Bush Pigs!

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  13. Did you know that 3 Texans were arrested a day or two ago for trying to purchase 80 cell phones (can be used to detonate bombs) from a Wal-Mart and when their personal property was searched, it was learned that 1,000 cell phones were in their possession?

    Wow! Bush says, "we must fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here!". Wow!

    Bush doesn't believe in homegrown terrorists because he's too busy counting all the money that he and his Swines have stolen from the American people in the last 6 years by setting up fake companies to launder our money into! Fake wars help them so much too!

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  14. Did the doctored picture look worse than the original picture or did it just look blacker? The fake smoke wasn't much higher than the real smoke!

    But, you warmongers will use anything to make yourself look like the victim in all of this!

    Joe Lieberman did the same thing with his "website being hacked". It wasn't hacked. He just purchased a cheap webserver that was shared with 73 other websites and it crashed during the middle of the night! Just like all Rovian republicans, Joe used a normal occurance to make himself look like a victim to the big bad liberal opponent!

    JOE AND YOUR PARTY are screwed. YOU'RE ALL CRIMINALS.

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  15. Notice how the RNC is not supporting the republican candidate in Connecticut? Wow! You know what that means.......LIEBERMAN IS MORE OF A REPUBLICAN THAN THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND THIS IS WHY THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT BOOTED HIS ASS TO THE SIDEWALK!

    Who will support Joe as the Independent? Not the democrats. Nope! THE REPUBLICANS WILL LAUNDER MONEY TO HIM SOMEHOW. Dammit. Jack Abramoff isn't around. Rove will just have to find an unknown to do it. Awwwww, poor Karl. He's going to be busy this fall.

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  16. Post things against my rants that prove me wrong Trolls!!!!!!!

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  17. So, why would 3 Texans buy so many cell phones and do it so 3 were rung up at a time? Hmmmmmmmm...they're addicted to cell phones? Yeah, that's it! Yup, addicted to cell phones. This is what Bush will use as an excuse everytime there is homegrown terrorists exposed. Yeah, yeah, he'll say, (insert your best cowboy accent here) "They're addicted to white phosophorus and electrical components. They're addicted to blowing things up. Don't pay no attention to them. Timothy McVeigh was not real. He never did a thing to America. Go buy a new outfit to make yourself think happy thoughts".

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  18. Please post evidence that Bush flew planes everyday while in the National Guard. Post as much stuff as you have that proves he showed up faithfully like all others during that time. And make sure you post all the evidence you have that proves that Bush couldn't wait to fight in Vietnam and was so disappointed when his number wasn't called!

    No one in the National Guard at the time that Bush "served" have come forward as far as I know to say that Bush served honorably and proudly.

    Dan Rather shouldn't have been fired. BUSH SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO BE.

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  19. Voltaire! Leiberman is going to lose my friend! Did you hear what he just said about the Holocaust? Wow, for a guy who supports Israel and is Jewish himself he sure likes to use the Holocaust to get his way!!!!!!

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  20. Joe said that anyone who doesn't agree with him and who doesn't like the war on terror is worst than Hitler!

    He was implying that what Hitler did was nothing compared to what the liberals, democrats, and moderate republicans are doing by voting in Lamont!

    HE WON'T BE ON THE TICKET IN NOVEMBER because gassing, starving, and beating to death the Jews by Hitler is much better than voting for Lamont.

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  21. Kerry fought in Vietnam, idiot.

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  22. Kay said "Funny how the Pigs in Washington tried to use this plot to try to fake out our country that a vote for Lamont was a vote for a terrorist attack!"

    Kay, the plot was revealed two days after the CT election.

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  23. Voltaire, the 3 Texans are either American citizens with those last names, are illegals, or have come from abroad and have infiltrated our security. Wow! I guess we don't have to fight the terrorists over in Iraq anymore. Seems that not all the terrorists on the planet followed us to Iraq. Awwwww poor Bush, he thought he was so right too. He forget that he didn't secure our country right after 9/11 and is now defunding all security programs. Awwww, no wonder he vacations so much. He hides his head under his pillow hoping the world will go away! Kind of like his 'service' during Vietnam. Thank God he had his powerful Daddy and the bin Laden family members to get him through it all!!!!! Phew.

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  24. TallTexan, explain why Bush gave the authority to push the terror coding system to red level ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT? And why did Bush know about it on Sunday before the Lamont/Lieberman race and never said anything? Huh? BECAUSE THE BUSH REGIME IS PLAYING AROUND WITH OUR SECURITY FOR POLITICAL REASONS!

    They don't care about you and I. They care about winning and doing whatever they want! Laws in our country? Not according to Bush who has used over 800 signing statements to ignore them! He thinks he is the Unitary Executive of America, the Imperial Ruler of America, and the Dictator of America. He and his Swines hate the idea of democracy where the people rule. They want America to be a dictatorship.

    Because they don't want to lose in November, expect a huge terrorist attack to happen in our country. And.....if the democrats win in 2008 (if Martial Law hasn't set in by that time and Diebold has folded), you can bet your sweet ass the repukes are conspiring now with our military (think Anthrax attack right after 9/11) to do something huge "to prove" that a vote for a democrat means a terror attack!

    They just used the same analogy this past week after the Lamont win.

    Pigs. I spit on them.

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  25. Kay, didn't you see that compelling piece by Dan Rather in which he proved, by showing an unaltered email from 1975, that Bush dodged his service? Didn't you see that?

    Also, glad to see that you finally acknowledged that Saddam has WMDs.

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  26. Questions for Kay:

    1. Have you ever seen Big Foot?

    2. Ever been abducted by a UFO.

    3. Do you think Elvis is still alive?

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  27. Okay, so what you're saying is John Kerry's time in Vietnam aboard a swift boat (which were the tiny boats that would speed to shore to come in first to take on and scope out the enemy before the 'big guns' got there) is now deleted because he spoke out against his country (freedom of speech was still available during that time, wasn't it?) and then didn't go on to spend one weekend a month in the Reserves?

    Do you know how stupid that sounds?

    That's like saying, "Well, George Bush's presidency is null because he didn't serve as president of his freshman class back in high school".

    Say what you want.....JOHN KERRY SIGNED UP TO GO TO VIETNAM and GEORGE BUSH DID EVERYTHING IN HIS SPOILED CONNECTICUT ROOTS TO NOT!

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  28. Kay, what's your reaction to the fact that 55% of Americans approve of Bush's performance on national security?

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  29. Sorry everybody but Bush was drinking and snorting coke during his time in the very elite portion of the Texas National Guard! Believe what you want, but the man was the son of a powerful father and he didn't go to Vietnam nor did he serve honorably.

    It's my understanding that after Dan Rather's employees were fired and after he left, it was found that the documents were NOT FALSE. A funny thing happened when this whole thing happened, IMMEDIATELY THE REPUBLICAN PUNDITS JUMPED ON THE STORY AND CALLED IT FALSE WITHOUT THEIR OWN PROOF!

    The same thing happened on election 2000 night. In the middle of the night all the exist polls were stating that Gore had won until FOX NEWS exclaimed that Bush had won it!

    The republicans are very good at throwing in a bone into everything. They hate to lose and to look like the asses they are, so they first will put a lie out there hoping the population will take hold of it!

    Same with Joe Lieberman and his webiste......very Rovian, agree?

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  30. What war did Bush personally fight?

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  31. Read above for my response TallTexan.

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  32. Aug. 12, 2006, 1:25PM
    Bureaucracy impedes bomb-detection work


    By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer
    © 2006 The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology. Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

    Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.

    "The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.

    Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks, and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.

    "They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using," Sabo said.

    Homeland Security said Friday its research arm has just gotten a new leader, former Navy research chief Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, and there is strong optimism for developing new detection technologies in the future.

    "I don't have any criticisms of anyone," said Kip Hawley, the assistant secretary for transportation security. "I have great hope for the future. There is tremendous intensity on this issue among the senior management of this department to make this area a strength."

    Lawmakers and recently retired Homeland Security officials say they are concerned the department's research and development effort is bogged down by bureaucracy, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.

    The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.

    The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

    The British plot to blow up as many as 10 American airlines on trans-Atlantic flights would have involved liquid explosives.

    Hawley said Homeland Security is now going to test the detector in six American airports. "It is very promising technology, and we are extremely interested in it to help us operationally in the next several years," he said.

    Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.

    Homeland Security is spending a total of $732 million this year on various explosives deterrents. It has tested several commercial liquid explosive detectors over the past few years but hasn't been satisfied enough with the results to deploy them.

    Hawley said current liquid detectors that can scan only individual containers aren't suitable for wide deployment because they would slow security check lines to a crawl.

    For more than four years, officials inside Homeland Security also have debated whether to deploy smaller trace explosive detectors _ already in most American airports _ to foreign airports to help stop any bomb chemicals or devices from making it onto U.S.-destined flights.

    A 2002 Homeland Security report recommended "immediate deployment" of the trace units to key European airports, highlighting their low cost, $40,000 per unit, and their detection capabilities. The report said one such unit was able, 25 days later, to detect explosives residue inside the airplane where convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid was foiled in December 2001.

    A 2005 report to Congress similarly urged that the trace detectors be used more aggressively and strongly warned the continuing failure to distribute such detectors to foreign airports "may be an invitation to terrorist to ply their trade, using techniques that they have already used on a number of occasions."

    Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.

    "It is not that expensive," said Fainberg, who recently retired. "There was no resistance from any country that I was aware of, and yet we didn't deploy it."

    Fainberg said research efforts were often frustrated inside Homeland Security by "bureaucratic games," a lack of strategic goals and months-long delays in distributing money Congress had already approved.

    "There has not been a focused and coherent strategic plan for defining what we need ... and then matching the research and development plans to that overall strategy," he said.

    Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said he urged the administration three years ago to buy electron scanners like the ones used at London's airport to detect plastics that might be hidden beneath passenger clothes.

    "It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats," he said.

    The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from the Sciences & Technology Directorate's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.

    Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the top two lawmakers for Senate homeland security appropriations, rejected the idea shortly after it arrived late last month, Senate leadership officials said.

    Their House counterparts, Sabo and Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., likewise rejected the request in recent days, Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Brost said. Homeland Security said Friday it won't divert the money.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Leslie Miller contributed to this story.

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  33. Wow, Bush used the British terror plot as a way to say that liberals are weak on terror, but yet, he and his Swines were taking away money from bomb detection!

    I bet the 55% who took that poll didn't know that he was doing that. As usual, on the surface Bush says and does things but underneath.......HE'S SCREWING AMERICANS OVER!

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  34. Bye trolls! I'm leaving to get some stuff done around my house.

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  35. Baghdad:

    20 dead and 70 wounded in southern Baghdad from a series of explosions.

    Another Bush milestone.2601 US soldiers killed in Iraq so far.

    George W Bush: Giver of Life, Taker of Oil.

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  36. NBC News:

    British and Bush administration officials engaged in serious disagreement over the timing of the British terror arrests.

    Britain wanted to wait because they feared they didn't have enough evidence to convict.

    The Bush administration insisted the arrest be made the day after the Connecticut primary.

    Why did Bush rush to arrest if there may not be evidence to convict?

    Why did the US force Britain to prematurely bring the plot public, without knowing who all was involved?

    Was this another Bush push to use fear for political gain?

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  37. Was this another Bush push to use fear for political gain?
    -leisure suit larry, resident genius

    larry, your keen mind has indubitably grasped the essence of this whole silly "war on terror" thingy.

    This entire British "terrorist" attack story is just as bogus as the British subway terror attack last year and the fake 9/11 attack on the WTC.

    There is no terrorist threat; it's a lie as michael moore has demonstrated in his scholarly documentary films. The 24 British terrorists are all really U.S. CIA agents in Muslim drag who work for Carl Rove.

    The neocons only foole themselves if they think we are going to fall for this.

    We just need to elect hillary as president. Then there will be no more phony Muslim attacks, because the world will become a happy place and even the fwench will luv us. Besides, if there are more terror attacks, assuming we survive, we can still blame Dubya.

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  38. Bye trolls! I'm leaving to get some stuff done around my house.
    -dkb

    Yes, buh bye now sweetness. You're proly running late for church.

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  39. It's my understanding that after Dan Rather's employees were fired and after he left, it was found that the documents were NOT FALSE. A funny thing happened when this whole thing happened, IMMEDIATELY THE REPUBLICAN PUNDITS JUMPED ON THE STORY AND CALLED IT FALSE WITHOUT THEIR OWN PROOF!
    -dkb

    Of course, the whole story was fake but accurate.

    The Republicans never made a convincing argument to prove that the Rathergate Killian documents were false.

    /Of course nothing is very convincing if all you hear is the sound of moonbat barking bouncing around inside your empty cranium...

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  40. Pigs. I spit on them.
    -dkb

    Mee too! Patooey!

    Hey is it true that your perfect soul mate match on eHarmony.com turned out to be wharf?

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  41. Lydia, Iraq is central to winning the War on Terror. The violent faction within Islam - who are committed to an 8th century ideology of repression and conquest - can only be eradicated by the majority of good hearted Muslims who desire peace, prosperity and well being. We've forced the violence and pathology of Islamist terror back to its source. The Iraqis will have to remove the murderers from their midst. In doing so, as a free and soverign people, it will create a sea change throughout the region and initiate a severely necessary reformation within the Islamic religion and throughout the Islamic world. We are forcing Muslims to confront and remove the cancer within their body. That is our only option. 19 individuals killed 3000 innocent Americans on 9/11. Unless we force a profound change in the environment that breeds violence and extremism, we will be attacked again with weapons that will kill millions of our innocent friends, family and countrymates. We cannot sit back and wait for that. Best Regards!
    -thomas

    Wow Thomas, you rawhawwk! Kudos dude.

    Speaking out against Islamic intolerance is the new civil rights movement. The cowardly, politically-correct, multi-culture worshipping libs are AWOL in this fight, just as the democrats led by george wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to block black children a generation ago.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Baghdad:

    Car bombs and rocket explosions killed at least 47 more and injured 148 late Sunday.

    In other news:

    Iraq is suffering from the worst fuel shortage since 2003.

    Gas on the black market runs at $4 per gallon.

    More Deaths, Fuel Shortages, Civil War, Insecurity.

    Brought to you by George W Bush.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Kay said "Funny how the Pigs in Washington tried to use this plot to try to fake out our country that a vote for Lamont was a vote for a terrorist attack!"

    Kay, the plot was revealed two days after the CT election.

    -TalllTexan

    Yes Tex, that is a very inconvenient fact for liberals, but I doubt that this is the last time you will hear this goofy concoction.

    Since the Islamist terror attacks of New York and Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, there have been 4,896 acts of Islamist terror victimizing 58 different countries, killing at least 28,096 and injuring 54,408 people.
    -Islam: Religion of Peace

    I'm certain that dkb will assert that all these silly little terror acts also were done by Bush, the hitler, pig, nazi, racist.

    /how stupid does one hafta be to be a lib?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Hey thanks for the weather underground report, leisure suit larry. You must be saddened indeed, that no Americans were killed today; better luck tomorrow.

    Yes that is an outrageous price to pay for gasoline. What Iraq needs is price controls like we had under jimmah carter so the Iraqis could wait in line as they dodge insurgent bullets.

    You must really long wistfully for the good ol days of peace and prosperity Iraq enjoyed under the gentle and wise saddam hussein, your sunshine sunni buddy.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Saddam used the wmd THAT WE GAVE HIM and don't ever forget that! Remember it was during the Reagan/Bush Sr. years that we were arming Saddam to the hilt.

    If Saddam killed thousands and thousands of people in his country and the massive graves aren't from years of bloody war with Iran, then please explain Thomas why Saddam is on trial for killing 143 people! Doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense to be having a war crimes trial in the middle of an illegal occupation/war.

    -kayinmaine, BDS patient

    Wow, this post is so full of lies, it's hard to know where to begin. How bout the top:

    1) The U.S. was not the primary supplier of weaponry to saddam. The biggest suppliers of arms to Iraq were the Soviet Union, China, France and Egypt.
    -Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990 per Wikipedia

    At the time saddam was fighting Iran which had just kidnapped and held about 100 U.S. hostages.

    2) Just because a defendant is on trial for killing x number of people hardly means that is the only number of people that prosecutors believe he killed. A common technique is to hold some victims in reserve so that the defendant may be re-tried without invoking the legal protection against double jeopardy. Also it is much easier to prove that the defendant directly killed someone than cases in which he may have ordered killings. It is unlikely that saddam personally killed each person who fills the mass graves.

    3) The Iraq war is "illegal" only in the sense that war was never officially declared. It is legal in the sense that Congress votes to fund the war. No funding...no war. It is also legal in the sense that all "policing actions" since WWII, the last war to have been declared, were legal (Korea, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs, Granada, Balkans, etc.) It is legal because it complies with the War Powers Resolution of 1973 which authorizes use of force abroad with Congressional approval.

    Facts to liberals are like kryptonite to superman
    -Larry Elder

    ReplyDelete
  46. TT said "Bush gets 55 pct approval on security: poll

    Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:00pm ET

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of President George W. Bush's handling of homeland security, an 11 percent jump from May, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday.

    The poll was taken Thursday and Friday, after British authorities foiled a plot to use chemical bombs to bring down as many as 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

    Bush's approval rating rose to 38 percent, a 3-point increase since Newsweek conducted its last poll in May.

    Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would oppose a ban on all carry-on baggage on commercial flights, the poll said.



    Taken three months ahead of congressional elections, the survey found 44 percent of respondents said Republicans would do a better job handling terrorism, compared with 39 percent who preferred Democrats.

    Fifty-three percent of respondents said they wanted to see the Democrats win enough seats to take over Congress, while 34 percent said they wanted the Republicans to retain control, the poll found.

    Twenty-two percent of those surveyed said Iraq was the most important issue in the upcoming election and would determine how they would vote. Eighteen percent said the top issue was the economy and 15 percent cited terrorism.

    Fifty-three percent of Americans surveyed also said they trusted the Democrats to better manage the economy, while 34 percent sided with Republicans, according to the poll.

    The survey of 1,001 adults has a margin of error of 4 percentage points."

    Hey TT you just said yesterday that POLLS DONT MATTER!, you cant have it both ways big guy.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Thomas said "Mike, if Bush and his "big oil" conspirators were interested in cashing in on Iraq's oil resource we didn't need to invade the country: Saddam would have gladly sold us all the oil we dreamed of at cut rates if we left him alone to plunder,oppress and kill his economy and people and destabilize and terrorize his neighbors. We know he had WMDs because he used them against his Kurdish countrymates and Iranian soldiers. We know he harbored Al Qaida operatives"


    No Thomas I never said we wanted to STEAL the Iraqi oil I said we wanted to overthrow the USA hostile governments in Iran and Iraq so American companies could make fortunes developing their resereves......see right now they dont like us in Iran and we arent allowed in, same with Iraq not to mention both were planning on going off the Petrodollar system so the moves were also to defend the petro dollar as well.

    By the way Saddam NEVER harbored Al Qaeda, they did not enter that country till we invaded and overthrew Saddamm, the WMD was another lie, the only WMD he had were the ones Rummy gave him in the 1980's, they used cherypicked inteligence to portray it like he had WMD in 2002 to justify the the invasion but they never showed the intelligence that stated that he did not have WMD.

    ReplyDelete
  48. BTW Thomas, linking the war in Iraq to the war on terror is dishonest, the 9/11 commission as well as the the vast majority of expertson terrorism all say the war on teror was virtually abandoned to invade Iraq. We have limited resources and invading Iraq is dangerously compromising both national security and the war on terror.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Lydia,
    Full discloser:While at work, bored, I began searching for tv stars of the past that I had crushes on (Jan Smithers aka Bailey Quarters, etc). When I found your site I never dreamed I would come acrossed all this political content.
    I must say your opinions annoy me, however it was a great way to kill five hours. If we are supposed to marry the ones who annoy us the most, you should clone yourself, because we would surely clash.
    Anyway, I agree with the gentlemen who said you blossomed with age. You're stunningly attractive, and I admit if I had a daughter I would much prefer her to be like you than Ann Coulter.
    God bless, and thank Him for allowing us to live in a country where we are free to smear each other with words, dirty tricks and politics, and skrew each other with lawyers. It beats living in the dark ages under the rule of a Taliban.
    Look forward to continue reading and being annoyed by your comments--D.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Lydia said "REMEMBER: BUSH WANTED TO SELL OUR PORTS TO THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. Bush rules only by fear which is False Evidence Appearing Real. FEAR. He uses terrorist tactics on us, making us think he thwarted these terror attacks! Thanks to Britain and Pakistan who shared information that helped thwart the London terrorist plot. Bush only found out about this on Sunday, so the Republican spin machine has no right to say Democrats are soft on "terror" or getting out of Iraq will make us less safe. IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE!

    STRENGTH LIES IN INTELLIGENCE. Democrats are stronger on terror because we know the value of human life. We will win the war on terror by gathering our forces and fortifying our homeland. By first bringing our troops home and strengthening our own borders, ports, airports and train stations and using our resources wisely. We can't afford to lose a single human life. We've lost over 2,600 troops, and another 16,000 missing arms and legs, and we've spent over 300 billion dollars on a war that has DEFINITELY CREATED MORE HATRED AND TERRORISM throughout the whole world against us.

    Democrats will go out and communicate with our enemies: we will bridge the gap and open diplomatic channels. Syria, who was helping us right after 911 will be helping us again. Everyone wants to be on the side of the Peacemaker who brings a higher vision to conflict. In the time that George Bush and the Three Stooges have been in power, they have created more enemies than ever before in America's history. This is the most shameful time in our country. We must get these primitive self-serving oil barons and Neanderthals out of power before they destroy the world."

    Lydia, that is one of your best posts, I couldnt have said it better, right on on all counts!!!!!!

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  51. BTW Lydia, the Mel Gibson post was funny, I was dead tired when I initially read it, and for half a second I was actually wondering if it could be true, funny stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Hey FF, you remember the old Bob Newhart show?

    Do Mikey, Clif and Larry kinda remind you of Larry, Darrell and Darrell?

    (I read them described once as "three men sharing one brain"...LOL)

    -Voltaire

    Yeah Volt. That Larry is a real milquetoast, eh? He will only respond to folks who already agree with him. Even kayinmaine has more gonads than that. Maybe he needs a testosterone supplement; dkb proly has some to spare.

    All he does is gloat over his daily casualty report then he scurries away like a timid weasel.

    If you did an autopsy, you would proly find a whack-a-mole game where a normal person has an actual brain. Every time a cogent thought pops up, he knocks it back down with a mallet.

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  53. Hey Volt, I se you were warning the newest propagandist about Clif and I, truth is clif and I are always usually civil to people who are here for open minded debate, but we call BS when people are just spewing partisan rhetoric and lies.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Must have nothing relavent to say FF, because your resorting to personal attacks......if you cant defeat the message attack or kill the messenger, that should be the Rights motto.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Democrats will go out and communicate with our enemies: we will bridge the gap and open diplomatic channels.
    -Mike

    Yeah, Mike. You dhimmicrats will go out and communicate with our enemies like chamberlain "communicated" with hitler.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Mike, what can I say that Thomas didn't already say so eloquently?

    Go back and carefully read what he posted. That is what is called a world class mind.

    ReplyDelete
  57. More spin FF, first of all Lydia said it, but I agree with her 100%, understanding our enemy and talking with them is not appeasement, I believe terrorists like bin laden need to be weeded out, however we need to understand why more mainstream muslims are becoming hardcore terrorists, and we need policies that are fair for all not just that benefit the elite rich in America, these people hate us for a reason and it would benefit us to understand what fuels that hatred and a simple polarizing us and them statement like they hate us for our freedom is didhonest and insulting.

    The Iraqi's dont want us occupying their country and many other arabs do not like our bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

    ReplyDelete
  58. that is what is called world class partisan rhetoric, lies and fear mongering, he should have saved himself the time and just paroted GWB or Dick Cheney or ann Coulter, the talking points are almost identical.But to you anyone that agrees with you has a world class mind and anyone who does not, no matter how sound their arguments is mentally challenged......how sad for you that you think 2 dimensionally my intellectually dishonest friend.

    ReplyDelete
  59. ...these people hate us for a reason and it would benefit us to understand what fuels that hatred and a simple polarizing us and them statement like they hate us for our freedom is didhonest and insulting.
    -Mike

    I think Muslims hate the West because we are more successful than they in every measurable way.

    Because of modern communication -- TV, radio, the internet -- the entire ummah now must recognize and confront their own failure. But instead of taking responsibility and admitting their own failure, they blame it on Israel and the West.

    For Muslims to admit failure means that their religion is a lie. They reject this with every fiber of their beings; instead, they believe that they are not practicing their religion fervently enough, which has led to the wahhabist movement of the last 30 years.

    That is what I think. So why do you think Muslims hate the West, Mike? And how do you plan to solve the dilemma with negotiation and "multi-dimensional" thinking? Please enlighten us.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Fantasy foole said;

    I think'

    There's your first mistake....son

    and from there it is simply downhill with your arguments

    ReplyDelete
  61. thomas said;

    Lydia, Iraq is central to winning the War on Terror.

    Well, it WAS not central to winning the war on terror, before the invasion of March 2002.

    But with the lack of PROPER military planning, especially where the phase 4 (follow on to combat operations are involved) is concerned. The utter lack of ANY planning as for security whether in Border security,(something Bush ET AL seems severely lacking the capability in performing whether in Iraq or at Home), security of enemy weapons, ammunition or equipment, or proper handling of the enemy forces at the end of the invasion proper....is THE first direct CAUSE. If the planning had included these operations...and had properly implemented...well the Fiasco we now face in Iraq would be MUCH different.



    The violent faction within Islam -


    Which one son? Sunni fundamentalism...radical Shiite extremists, you know the two major factions in Iraq who ARE killing each other DAILY

    who are committed to an 8th century ideology of repression and conquest - can only be eradicated by the majority of good hearted Muslims who desire peace, prosperity and well being.


    Too bad we BLEW it sooo badly in Iraq that the chance of that happening in that country is about as good as Dead eye telling the real truth about his quail shoot.


    We've forced the violence and pathology of Islamist terror back to its source.


    FAR from it son...it's source hinges in TWO separate places...the Shiite fundamentalism arose out of Iran in response to the repressive pro-western regime of the SHAH, who the CIA through Kermit Roosevelt and the Dulles brothers , set in power in 1954...

    The Sunnis extremists actually trace themselves back into the Wahabbism which is the brand of Islam which is fostered and promoted BY Saudi Arabia...wonder if that might be the reason Osama(you know the guy Bush forgot) and 15 of the 19 hijackers CAME FROM Saudi Arabia?

    And the Saudi's funded the madrasas in Pakistan where the majority of the terrorists get their calling from today, Pakistan the same country which Osama(you know the guy Bush forgot) and Mullah Omar sought refuge in since Nov 2001, and have not been "caught" yet.


    The Iraqis will have to remove the murderers from their midst.

    Seems that, the possibility of that right now is slim to none...because the Government which Bush ET AL support rests on the shoulders of al Sadr which is a power sect of Shiite fundamentalism in Iraq...and the Sunni's will never aquiess their control over the government, that OLD sunni-shiite hate thing.



    In doing so, as a free and sovereign people, it will create a sea change throughout the region and initiate a severely necessary reformation within the Islamic religion and throughout the Islamic world.

    Drinking delusional Cheney koolaid again eh son?


    We are forcing Muslims to confront and remove the cancer within their body.

    Right, it seems to be REAL effective there...

    That is our only option.

    That is the scary Part..son...we have limited ourselves to an option that has NEVER worked in the past, attempting BY force to make indigenous people to accept a political solution which the MAJORITY of them do not want.

    didn't work for the British in their shrinking empire thought out the 20th century...

    Didn't work for the Soviets in Afghanistan...or Eastern Europe in the LONG Run...didn't work for the French in Algeria, or Indochina. Didn’t work for the US in Vietnam....but somehow you have deluded yourself that it will work NOW?


    19 (15 Saudi citizens..2 UAE citizens and 1 Egyptian...SEE no IRAQI"S) individuals killed 3000 innocent Americans on 9/11.

    Correct ...but why did Bush, Cheney and Dumsfeld ..abandon the FIGHT to capture Osama(you know the guy Bush forgot) to invade a country WHICH had NOTHING to do with 9-11.....

    Unless we force a profound change in the environment that breeds violence and extremism, we will be attacked again with weapons that will kill millions of our innocent friends, family and countrymates.

    Too bad that it can not be done with a GUN...unless you are willing to kill people on the level the US Army did in the Indian wars...and that HOPEFULLY is NOT what your proposing? Do to the Muslims of the world...what Hitler tried to do to the Hebrews...eliminate them...because half measures will breed more terrorists than we destroy...As we did in Vietnam.


    We cannot sit back and wait for that. Best Regards!

    Well there is little we can do given the Fiasco in Iraq..and the Fiasco Israel created on their northern border...which will embolden the extremists even MORE.

    Hezbollah has done something that NO standing army of an Arab nation has EVER done....fought Israel to a STANDSTILL...with stood their onslaught..and kept fighting.. in fact after 33 days of brutal air assaults in Lebanon...Israel may be more insecure than when they started...and with the fiasco in Iraq the neo-con idiots have spread our forces thinner...which giving Osama and the Shiite extremists a recruiting tool and new training ground.

    the FIRST thing you do when your in a rather DEEP hole(like the fiasco in Iraq) is to STOP digging, but you repug neo-con loving clowns can't seem to understand just HOW deep the whole really is...AND WHY IT IS GETTING WORSE.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Thomas said...

    Mike, if Bush and his "big oil" conspirators were interested in cashing in on Iraq's oil resource we didn't need to invade the country: Saddam would have gladly sold us all the oil we dreamed of at cut rates if we left him alone to plunder,oppress and kill his economy and people and destabilize and terrorize his neighbors.

    Like Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush did in the 1980's?

    We know he had WMDs because he used them against his Kurdish countrymates and Iranian soldiers.


    Yes son in the 1980's, when Reagan and Bush's daddy were coddling him as our "ally" against Iran....

    But since then we fought a war...destroyed large stockpiles of his weapons and Ammunition...including some of the weapons he had in the 1980's...I know because that was part of MY job during Desert Storm,if you go here my unit is listed , and at places like Khamisiyah we destroyed chemical weapons according to the Iraqi's who stated they had some chemical weapons stored there.

    After the war in 1995 Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid (died February 23, 1996) was the son-in-law of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He defected to Jordan and took to helping the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA inspection teams assigned to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

    Kamel rose through the army ranks to become Iraq's minister of military industries, heading the Military Industrialization Commission and supervising Iraq's weapons development programs from 1987.
    Hussain Kamel defected to Jordan for a while, and while there gave the UN inspectors at that time the information he had about the WMD Saddam had.

    The UN inspectors were able to destroy the Large majority of those weapons...and since ALL chemical a weapons have a relatively short shelf life

    On June 21, 2006 a report has been released through the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence stating that since 2003, 500 chemical weapons have been discovered dating from before 1991 in Iraq, and "likely more will be recovered." The weapons are filled "most likely" with Sarin and Mustard Gas. However, the U.S. Department of Defense states that these weapons were not in useable condition, and that "these are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war.


    ..nothing Saddam had before Desert Storm would be very effective in 2003.



    We know he harbored Al Qaeda operatives


    Wrong on that front...until right before the Invasion Saddam and Osama were sworn enemies who competed for supremacy of the Arab Sunni anti-American world...in fact Osama offered to protect the Saudi kingdom from Saddam after Saddam invaded Kuwait...but the Saudi King preferred the US military to Osama's ragtag band of jihadist extremists.

    and paid rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

    We know he was using the corrupt Oil for Food program to purchase and develop deadly weapons, fund terror cells around the globe and buy UN Security Council protection. He killed hundreds of thousands of his people. He fired at our warplanes patrolling the UN no-fly zone.


    And WE bombed his missiles, radar sites and military assets. This allowed the US Air Force to severely degrade his effectiveness in the fall of 2002 up to the invasion starting.......

    He ignored the conditions of his surrender from the first Gulf War, in which 130 Americans lost their lives.


    345 please get YOUR facts straight; I personally knew some of those who lost their lives.

    When he refused to disarm,


    He did not refuse to disarm...inn fact HE did let the inspection teams BACK IN

    On November 9, 2002, at the urging of the United States government, the UN Security Council passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, offering Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions (Resolutions 660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986, and 1284), notably to provide "an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles". Resolution 1441 threatened "serious consequences" if these are not met and reasserted demands that UN weapons inspectors that were to report back to the UN Security Council after their inspection should have "immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access" to sites of their choosing, in order to ascertain compliance. Significantly, the Resolution stated that the UN Security Council shall "remain seized of the matter" (United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441)


    .....Bush made them leave.

    In his March 17, 2003, address to the nation, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay leave Iraq, giving them a 48-hour deadline. This demand was reportedly rejected. Iraq maintained that it had disarmed as required. The UN weapons inspectors (UNMOVIC) headed by Hans Blix, who were sent by the UN Security Council pursuant to Resolution 1441, requested more time to complete their report on whether Iraq had complied with its obligation to disarm (UN Security Council Resolution 1441; UNMOVIC). The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA reported a level of compliance by Iraq with the disarmament requirements (UN Security Council Resolution 1441; IAEA) Hans Blix went on to state the Iraqi government may have been hoping to restart production once sanctions were lifted and inspectors left the country, as speculated by senior Iraqi officials and a prominent defector, Gen. Hussein Kamel. The attempt of the United Kingdom and the United States to obtain a further Resolution authorizing force failed when France made it known they would veto further Resolutions on Iraq. Thus, the Coalition invasion began without the express approval of the United Nations Security Council, and most legal authorities regard it as a violation of the UN Charter. (cf. The UN Security Council and the Iraq war) Several countries protested. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in September 2004, "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it was illegal." Proponents of the war claim that the invasion had implicit approval of the Security Council and was therefore not in violation of the UN Charter. Nevertheless, this position taken by the Bush administration and its supporters has been and still is being disputed by numerous legal experts. According to most members of the Security Council, it is up to the council itself, and not individual members, to determine how the body's resolutions are to be enforced. Despite the discovery of chemicals that are part of legitimate industrial use, but which could be possibly used as potential components of WMD manufacturing, no actual weapons of mass destruction were found.

    he had to be taken out.

    Good repug neo-con spin...but UNTRUE


    This War has nothing to do with oil

    This war had a lot to do with oil...that is why the US military was guarding the Iraqi Ministry of OIL while leaving thousands of weapons and ammo site’s unguarded.

    ... we get 80% of our imported oil from Canada,

    Shrinking base...unless the can get the oil sands economically effective..(and at $75-80 they might...but oil was no where that high in March 2003.)

    Mexico,

    Past peak production and declining

    Venezuela

    HUGO CHAVES...not the best person to pin you economic engines power source on if you act like George Bush

    and the Saudis.

    They may very well be near peak production...they are pumping water into their largest field..and that is a sign the easiest oil is already extracted.

    ReplyDelete
  63. It is unconscionable that you Libs wanted this regime to stay in power.

    Saddam Personally Ordered Chemical Attack On Kurds

    The Scotsman reports on a key piece of evidence that ties Saddam Hussein directly to the disgusting genocide of Kurds in Halabja almost twenty years ago. Memos from his personal secretary to military leaders make clear that Saddam wanted to use chemical weapons on Kurdish positions in 1987:

    SADDAM Hussein ordered plans to be drawn up for a chemical weapons attack on Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq in 1987, according to a letter signed by his personal secretary. ...
    The planned attack appears to have been part of the 1987-88 campaign that left more than 180,000 Kurds dead and demolished hundreds of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. In the most notorious incident, the town of Halabja was bombed with mustard and nerve gas in 1988, killing 5,000 residents.

    In the papers released by the US, a report from Iraq's military intelligence details the bases of Kurdish rebels, led by Ibrahim Barzani, and Iranian troops.

    Saddam's secretary replies, saying, "The leader Mr President has ordered that your department study with experts a surprise attack with special ammunition in the areas of Barzani's gangs and the [former Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini Guards."

    "Special ammunition" is the phrase used throughout Saddam's regime for chemical weapons. Later documents mention specifically the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas.


    One wonders how Saddam would respond to this. Regarding Dujail, he has claimed that the processes used to massacre the residents of the small town as a reprisal for an assassination attempt were legal under Iraqi law, a claim that has done little to slow his prosecution. For Halabja, observers widely predicted that his defense would claim ignorance of the attack until after it had already taken place -- a sort of reverse Nazi defense of "I didn't give the orders". This new evidence clearly shows that he gave those orders before, and probably on many other occasions, against the Iranians during their eight-year war as well as against his own people.

    It's fashionable these days to claim that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam than after his liberation, given the civilian death toll from the fight against the insurgents. Some claim that over 100,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion, although the methodology for those calculations has been highly suspect. In two years, Saddam killed over 180,000 Kurds just for being Kurds, and destroyed their homes, forcing them to live in the hills to survive -- and that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs, Shi'a, and even Sunnis who died either in droves in reprisals for suspected disloyalty or individually as Saddam and his henchmen desired. This letter reminds us that Iraqis and the world have all benefitted from the removal of this sick, twisted dictator.

    http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006565.php

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  64. MSNBC reporting this morning that Lieberman is ahead of Lamont in the polls by 46-41.

    Way to go, Rove, keep splitting the Democratic Party.

    ReplyDelete
  65. NO MORE BUSHMEN!
    -Lydia Cornell

    Absolutely! The Bushmen are a heavily-armed menace who must be defeated at all cost.

    ReplyDelete
  66. From MichelleMalkin.com

    Lieberman Tops Lamont in Post-Primary Poll

    By Mary Katharine Ham · August 14, 2006 02:33 PM
    Nedrenaline. Great high, killer crash?

    'Tis a long time 'til November still, but this is interesting. A cursory look at the big liberal blogs suggests they're not discussing it. Vewy, vewy quiet over there.

    Jim Addison takes a look at where Lieberman must go from here.

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  67. TalllTexan, Michelle also turned me on to this:

    Most of the UK sky terror suspects are Pakistani Muslim men who grew up in Britain. They aren’t like the 9-11 crew, who invaded the US using student visas, overstayed those visa periods, and lived here until that fateful day. The UK suspects are homegrown. One couple involved in the foiled attack even allegedly planned to take their six-month-old baby on their aerial suicide mission.
    -Hotair

    Fortunately homegrown jihad isn’t a major problem here in the US. This could never happen here...Or could it?

    ReplyDelete
  68. Tiny inTellect said;

    SADDAM Hussein ordered plans to be drawn up for a chemical weapons attack on Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq in 1987, according to a letter signed by his personal secretary. ...
    The planned attack appears to have been part of the 1987-88 campaign that left more than 180,000 Kurds dead and demolished hundreds of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. In the most notorious incident, the town of Halabja was bombed with mustard and nerve gas in 1988, killing 5,000 residents.


    1987-1988...Ronald Reagan was playing pResident...and in 1988 GHWB ran for the office...seems they were not too worried...but Willie Horton was A MAJOR problem according to the repugs...at that time. Seems the GOP had absolutely NO problem with Saddam's actions as NOBODY tried to do any thing about HIM until he attacked Kuwait...which interfered with the US oil companies contracts with Kuwait. And would have resulted in Saddam having control over the Kuwaiti oil.

    Yes we should have licked him out of Kuwait...but simply put..that is the first REAL action Reagan or Dumya's Daddy took in regards to Saddam.

    ReplyDelete
  69. June 14, 2006
    In Connecticut, Lamont Closes the Gap
    Want to know why supporters of Sen. Joe Lieberman are planning an independent bid? A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows Lieberman leading primary challenger Ned Lamont (D) by just six percentage points, 46% to 40%.

    There are some issues with the poll, such as a small sample size (218) and large margin of error (7%), but the results are a clear sign that Lamont is gaining traction.


    Seems we have been HERE before haven't we dumb and dumber......

    BTW who actually WON the election that a JUNE poll had Lieberman leading?

    ReplyDelete
  70. BTW i forgot the link...sorry;

    http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/06/14/in_connecticut_lamont_closes_the_gap.html

    ReplyDelete
  71. Clif, that link got cut off. Could you post a hotlink?

    ReplyDelete
  72. Cliff, could you post a hotlink to Wikipedia's entree on the ROTC?

    ReplyDelete
  73. Got this from Buzzflash...and HE makes a lot more sense that Malkin the squaking head does.

    Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security

    A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
    by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and Fog Facts

    Say it loud, say it often, "Republicans are bad on national security." Every Democrat running for national office – and local offices too, why not? – should say, "I'm running because Republicans are bad on national security."

    Then they should go on to say, here's why I’m saying it:

    1. 9/11 happened on their watch. Of course, we can’t say, absolutely, that it would not have happened if they had not been asleep at the wheel. But we can say that they did not do all they could have done to prevent it. We can say that Bush literally pushed away the warnings.

    2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden. We got both Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we’ve been chasing bin Laden. Every day that bin Laden’s out there, he’s proof that you can attack the United States and get away with it. That’s a bad message to send, and believe me, people in the terrorist world have heard it loud and clear. That’s very bad for national security.

    3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted. Bin Laden wanted the US to get into a quagmire. He wanted our troops tied down in an Islamic country so that an insurgency could do to them what the Afghanis did to the Russians and to the British before them.

    A modern, hi-tech army is very good at invasions. It’s also good for fighting back against other armies. But a modern hi-tech army is not good at occupying a country against the will of the population. Even if the army is as violent and ruthless as the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan were.

    4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America’s power and prestige. Before 9/11 most people in the world probably thought that America’s intelligence services were able and astute, agencies to be feared. The Bush administration has made them appear bumbling and inept. They did this, first, by ignoring their warnings and then, second, by making them the fall guys for 9/11.

    After 9/11 most of the world feared America's wrath and America's might. By failing to get bin Laden and his gang, then by attacking the wrong country, unleashing chaos, and getting our armed forces into a situation that they can’t win, the administration showed the world they have less to fear than they imagined.

    5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah. The 'insurgency' in Iraq was Hezbollah's textbook and their inspiration. If Iraqis could do that to Americans, surely they could do the same to the Israelis. And they have. It's not yet on the record, but it's clear from everyone's conduct, that the administration encouraged the Israelis to 'unleash' their forces against Hezbollah. They probably thought Israel's modern hi-tech armies would quickly smash their enemy.

    6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas. Hamas was elected. Sworn to the destruction of Israel or not, they should have been encouraged to become responsible players with carrots as well as sticks. Instead the administration put them up against the wall, hoping to starve the Palestinian people into voting for a different group. Would that work if someone tried to do it to us?

    7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran and North Korea invested in nuclear technology. That made North Korea feel secure enough to test ICBMs. If they had been successful, they would have had a delivery system for their nuclear weapons. That would be incredibly bad for national security. Iran, with American forces tied down in Iraq, feels secure enough to defy the UN as well as the US. Very bad for national security.

    8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists. People on the level of this group that the British just took down. The most ferocious terrorist arrested in the United States since 9/11 has been the shoe bomber. Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred billion dollars, a trillion dollars, and the best we have to show for it is the shoe bomber?! Republicans are bad on national security.

    9. We have trashed the bill of rights. We have trashed the Geneva conventions. We have a president and a vice president willing to go the mat to fight for the right to torture people.

    We have spent a fortune on illegal wiretaps.

    We have spent a fortune on collecting everyone’s telephone data.

    And what have we achieved by all of this?

    A quagmire in Iraq. Dishonor. Debts. An empowered al Qaeda. A new war in Lebanon. The inability to stand up to Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden at large, an inspiration to extremists everywhere.

    Republican are unimaginably bad on national security. Say it loud. Say it often, it’s the truth, Republicans are bad on national security.

    http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/354

    ReplyDelete
  74. More Evidence of Bush Administration Treason: The Valerie Wilson Affair Revisited



    On Sunday, BuzzFlash posted an editorial accusing the Bush Administration of treason.

    It is a subject worthy of a book.

    Their priority is not to fight terrorism, as we have said many a time. Their priority is the accumulation of dictatorial powers, primarily by using terrorism as a tool for doing away with our civil liberties.

    To such a Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush/Rove mindset, WE are the collateral damage in a campaign to achieve one-party tyrannical rule. They crave power, and they are the ultimate elitists.

    Like a Pinochet, they believe that they are restoring some fantasy of "patria" to a nation of sheep, lost in the chaos of liberty and freedom.

    To those that question the assertion that the Bush Administration is treasonous, we will return, yet again, to one of the most egregious examples of their betrayal. That is the exposure of a CIA operative specializing in the tracking of the illicit sales of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    The Neo-con "Tokyo Roses," such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, will argue that Libby was just indicted for perjury, and that no one has been legally charged with treason or outing a CIA operative.

    This is legally accurate, but does not settle the issue of treason.

    The Neo-con "Tokyo Rose" arguments regarding the Wilson affair are, as Stephen Colbert would say, filled with "truthiness," not truth.

    This is the reality on the record.

    The White House, with the authorization of both Bush and Cheney, approved the declassification of highly secret intelligence information to discredit Joe Wilson and to expose his wife. By exposing Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, they rendered her inoperative as a CIA asset who was an expert in following the illicit trafficking of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    It has been speculated -- and not disputed -- that Valerie Wilson was even an expert on the subject of Weapons of Mass Destruction in regards to Iran.

    Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, well more than 2500 American GIs are dead, and thousands of U.S. soldiers are recovering from the most serious of war injuries. Why? Because the Bush Administration led us into a war with Iraq by lying to us.

    What did they lie to us about? The chief lie that clinched the casus belli was the endlessly repeated assertion that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (which they did not actually have). Now, the Bush Administration has been saber rattling for a war with Iran. Why? Because they are attempting to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction, according to the Neo-cons.

    So here we return to the treason.

    If you have initiated and conducted a three year ruinous war by telling the American people that a nation had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and if you are trying to pull America into another war because of a claim that a nation -- Iran -- might develop Weapons of Mass Destruction, isn't it treason to intentionally render useless a CIA operative who specializes in tracking the illegal sales and transfer of Weapons of Mass Destruction?

    There is no answer to that question but yes.

    In the course of the years since 9/11, there has been day after day of stories and findings that prove that the Bush Administration is running only a headline propaganda war on terrorism, while shortchanging us on the details of implementing and funding anti-terror efforts in the United States and abroad. That, one can argue, may be due to either incompetence or intentional criminal malfeasance; i.e., aimed at exacerbating the terrorist threat to use it as an excuse to gain more power by dismantling our freedoms.

    But the Valerie Wilson affair goes beyond that. It is not just an issue of legal technicalities. The public evidence is more than sufficient to show that Rove/Libby/Cheney and Bush willfully outed a CIA operative who could aid us in knowing which nations or terrorist groups who wished us harm had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    To do such damage to our efforts to track illegal weapons that the Bush Administration claims are worthy of thousands upon thousands of lives and billions upon billions of dollars is treason.

    Let the Neo-con "Tokyo Roses" play with technicalities.

    We will repeat the bare truth: The "neutralizing" of a CIA operative specializing in Weapons of Mass Destruction was treason. The motive of the Bush Administration doesn't matter. Because of their actions in the Wilson Affair, America's national security is at greater risk based on their own emphasis on the significance of certain nations and terrorist organizations having Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    The President, Vice-President, Rove and Libby have committed treason by the definitions of national security that they themselves have created. By their own standards, they are guilty of betraying America's safety and security.

    http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorial/71

    ReplyDelete
  75. A very GOOD article about how OPENMINDED freepers are...NOT.


    Targeted by Gun Nuts

    After she wrote a gun-control op-ed, the writer got threats and worse: a blogosphere hit job on her murdered brother.

    A SPINELESS retard with the character of pond scum." A "whacko," "greedy un-American idiot," "fascist," "whining liberal" and "nasty little gun grabber."

    Those are just some of the names I've been called since I published an Op-Ed article in the Washington Post to commemorate the fifth anniversary of my brother's death. After briefly stating that David and his fiancee were shot and killed by the fiancee's mother, who was angry that she had to move out of their L.A. apartment, I went on to argue for a national ban on handguns. The gun control lobby, led by the Brady Campaign, has worked passionately to make guns safer and to regulate their sales. But such measures, I contended, will never significantly reduce the annual U.S. death toll by firearms — 12,000 — because most murderers use legally purchased handguns and know how to operate them safely.

    ADVERTISEMENT
    A couple of days later, while procrastinating on a writing assignment, I Googled my article. And so began my strange, weeklong trip through chat rooms on such pro-gun websites as keepandbeararms.com freerepublic.com, packing.org and rightnation.us.

    I was not surprised by the insults directed at me. I'm familiar with the name-calling in gun control debates: "stupid," "beyond stupid," "liar," "criminal-coddling leftist scumbag," "Los Angeles coward."

    I also expected threats: "OK beotch … come get my gun … bullets first."



    I was hardly startled by the misogyny: "bitch," "broad" and "bimbo," but also "sweetums," "Miss Jenny" and "Jenny honey" (I'd rather be called a "spineless retard with the character of pond scum").

    The sheer meanness could be breathtaking, but it was not unexpected: "Gee, Jenny dear, perhaps they just needed killin.' "

    I calmly read accusations that my true goal in writing the article was to sue gun companies and profit from my brother's death. The barrage of counter-statistics was standard too, as were the paeans to the 2nd Amendment and the endless iterations of "guns don't kill people — people kill people."

    But objections to my account of my brother's murder left me speechless. There were two sorts of challenges.

    First, many chat-room members declared that the killing had to have been justified and was most likely an act of self-defense.

    One participant, "armymarinedad," wrote: "I would submit it was a liberal mind-set." Liberals, many others agreed, are mean to their parents — mean enough to warrant homicide. "One can't help wondering," went one response to armymarinedad, "what the mother had done in a previous life to deserve … a Liberal for a daughter."

    The second challenge was that I had made up the story of my brother's murder. "Law-abiding gun owners simply do not commit crimes," "Gunslinger" posted — logic hard to refute. But like David's killer, thousands of law-abiding citizens annually become criminals when they pick up a firearm and shoot other people.

    "Chances are very good," wrote "Plutarch" on freerepublic.com, "that her brother, if she has one, is alive and well."

    Plutarch and his freerepublic fellows Googled my story about David — and were encouraged when they came up empty because they were certain that "this remarkable murder" would have received massive media attention.

    "I love to catch them [liberals] lying!" declared "mad_as_he$$."

    Lamentably, a double homicide by a friend or relative of the victims is an unremarkable news event in Los Angeles County, where 17 people, on average, are shot to death every week. The Times' and Daily News' stories were brief and buried on inside pages. Because the police took all day to notify our family, David's name did not appear in them.

    No matter. The freerepublic.com gang Googled some more, LexisNexised, scoured The Times' archives for headlines, dug up Social Security records. They wondered whether David and I had different last names: A "rabid feminist" like me, of course, would never use her husband's name. But "Ghengis (Alexander was a wuss!)" surmised that David and I had different fathers because that was so "common in California in the '60s."

    In the midst of my detective work, I received an e-mail from a medical doctor who praised my "terrific opinion piece" and asked for "a link to any newspaper accounts." But I quickly determined that Plutarch had sent the e-mail using his real name (I can Google too).

    Plutarch found a photograph of me on the Internet and posted it on the freerepublic site. He worked so hard on the case that I was rooting for him to be the guy who finally figured it out. But just after he promised his colleagues that he'd call the L.A. County coroner's office, "DakotaRed" posted a recent newspaper piece about my family that mentioned the murder. The freerepublic discussion stopped abruptly, and the chat rooms on the other pro-gun sites soon moved on as well.

    So ended the efforts to prove that David either deserved to be shot to death or that he never existed.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-price13aug13,0,4661455.story?coll=la-opinion-center


    Freepers repugs who hate and do not let the FACTS get in the way of their HATE.

    ReplyDelete
  76. He is extremely rude in his language...BUT SPOT ON POINT;

    Bush and Cheney: Not Part of the Conversation Anymore, Just Like They Want:
    For so long, George Bush and Dick Cheney have isolated themselves like paranoid neighbors in their backyard bomb shelter, telling the clawing outsiders they don't have enough food or air for everyone. They have spoken, for the vast part of the last five years, only to audiences that are handpicked by lackeys or screened at the events themselves (and this doesn't include those who get to pay for the "privilege" at fundraisers). If you even get into a Bush or Cheney speech with a dissenting or bumper sticker, you will get the bum's rush. And that's been quite the success.

    They've treated over half the country like parents who ignore their children, only breaking the silence to discipline the kids when they knock a vase over or refuse to eat their peas, and who are surprised when the kids get older and don't give a shit what their parents have to say. Because right now, when Bush and Cheney speak, they're only talking to thirty percent or so of the country, with the rest of the nation either saying, "F*ck them" or wondering, "Hey, who's the old guys and why are they so mad?"

    So debased is the pile of vaguely humanoid slime that is Dick Cheney that Hillary Clinton can say of Cheney's slurping words of condemnation of Connecticut Democrats, "I don't take anything he says seriously anymore. I think that he has been a very counterproductive, even destructive force in our country." A writer with the Washington Post can say, "I'm afraid to say his utterances are losing their news value." And most of us can only nod, a bit sadly, a bit wisely, and say, "So true, so true."

    Then the President, who has gone unchallenged by everything except reality, in his radio address this weekend actually said, "Unfortunately, some have suggested recently that the terrorist threat is being used for partisan political advantage. We can have legitimate disagreements about the best way to fight the terrorists, yet there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face." One could argue this or that, things like, "Umm, when RNC chair Ken 'Elastic Cheeks' Mehlman said on Sunday that 'the focus now is going to be who’s on the ballot? What are the choices? And I don’t believe Americans, in the middle of a tough war, as they see these plots, want to weaken the tools and surrender the tools that are critical to keeping Americans safe. I don’t think they want to weaken how we interrogate potential terrorists. I don’t think they want to weaken the surveillance. I don’t think they want to kill the Patriot Act, and I certainly don’t want to think that they give the enemy the kind of victory that the 9/11 Commission had said they would have if we cut and run from Iraq,' had he gotten the memo not to use the threat for political advantage?"

    But that's useless. When the goddamn President can say, as he did on Saturday, "On September the 11th, 2001, they used box cutters to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of innocent people," well, what's supposed to be our reaction? Motherf*cker's right. They did. Thanks for the f*ckin' reminder. We could throw all kinds of crap at his bullsh*t statement that "Because of the measures we've taken to protect the American people, our Nation is safer than it was prior to September the 11th." We could ask about the attempt to cut money from explosive detection technology. We could ask about how the White House pressured the British to make the arrests early, so it could conveniently come right after primary day.

    It's useless because Bush ain't talkin' to us anymore. He's only talking to those who could get into his public appearances, an increasingly small number. You wanna talk about the "polarization" of the nation? There's your bifurcation: those who can see their President speak in person and those who can not. Sure, sure, we can all watch him on the TV, but not when there's all those episodes of Laguna Beach on the Tivo.

    The White House knows this - it's Karl Rove's modus operandi: f*ck those who disagree. And it's what they want. By so diminishing the value of the public roles of the President and Vice President, they can go about their business in deeper secrecy. Nothing to see here. And we're just gonna keep sayin' the same bullsh*t, over and over, because you don't matter.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Poof!

    One day the vaunted Iraqi security forces that we are training to stand up so we can stand down were more than 2,000 strong in Fallujah.

    The next day -- poof! Gone with the wind. Hasta la vista baby!

    This is from the Los Angeles Times. Sorry, it's not online yet:

    BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Hundreds of newly recruited police officers in Fallujah failed to show up for work Sunday after insurgents disseminated pamphlets threatening officers who stayed on the job, according to police officials in the restive western Iraq city.

    "We will kill all the policemen infidels," read the pamphlets, "whether or not they quit or are still in their jobs."

    Fallujah Police Lt. Mohammed Alwan said that the force, which he estimated had increased to more than 2,000, has now shrunk to only 100. Alwan said that insurgents have killed dozens of policemen in their homes and also attacked family members in a weeks-long intimidation campaign.

    A Fallujah police major, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to a fear of reprisals, said that at least 1,400 policemen had left their jobs since Friday, 400 of them police officials above the rank of officer.

    http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/08/meanwhile-back-in-war.html

    No wonder the DOD has fairy tale numbers for congress, they count on people who obviously can not be counted on.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Hell they will EVEN throw their OWN canidadtes under the BUS...before they even get a chance to prove their mettle...

    White House: Bush declines to back Republican in CT

    The White House today refused to announce support the Republican challenger to Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), RAW STORY has learned.

    When asked whether or not President Bush supports Alan Schlesinger in his bid to oust Lieberman, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow answered only that "the president supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut, and wishes them a successful election in November."

    "Wait, wait, wait," a reporter persisted. "I realize he supports democracy, but I'm wondering. Does he actually support his own party's candidate?"

    During a combative back and forth that sometimes had the two talking over one another, Snow indicated that he didn't know for sure whether the president supports Lieberman or his Republican rival, but that "there are a whole host of reasons," that Bush may not want to back Schlesinger.

    "I think you know the situation in Connecticut," Snow concluded.

    Connecticut is currently seen as unlikely to elect a Republican Senator. Schlesinger is seen trailing behind Lieberman, who is running as an Independent Democrat, and Democratic nominee Ned Lamont.


    http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/White_House_Bush_declines_to_back_0814.html


    The RNC and white house have their GOP canidates backs...but would prefer them to bend over......especially if they are not way ahead in the polls.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Tinmy inTellect said...

    Clif, that link got cut off. Could you post a hotlink?


    works FINE for me, try it again son, and if it still does,t work ask your thrid grade teacher to help you next time.

    http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/06/14/in_connecticut_lamont_closes_the_gap.html

    ReplyDelete
  80. Tiny inTellect said...

    Cliff, could you post a hotlink to Wikipedia's entree on the ROTC?

    google ..wiki, and when it comes up TYPE "ROTC" in the search box, geeze, third grade does not teach much any more.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Or even easier son, go back to the LAST thread, scroll down to the post I wrote, and Follow that LINK....

    You'd think the GOP could get operatives with above third grade computer skills.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Clif, I guess my sarcasm went right over your head, like most things.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Why has Iraq war lasted nearly as long as WWII?

    By Kenneth Janda, a professor emeritus of political science at Northwestern University
    Published August 14, 2006

    The United States has been fighting in Iraq since March 19, 2003, when President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom with air strikes against Baghdad. Monday marks the 1,245th day of the Iraqi conflict. By that reckoning, Americans troops will have fought in Iraq for as long as they fought Germany in World War II.

    Our war against Germany lasted 1,245 days, from Dec. 11, 1941, (when both nations declared war) until May 8, 1945.

    Our war against Japan from Dec. 7, 1941, until Aug. 15, 1945, lasted somewhat longer--1,348 days.

    So one cannot yet say that the war in Iraq has been longer than World War II.

    By another reckoning, the war in Iraq is already over, having lasted only 44 days. According to President Bush, it ended on May 1, 2003, when, standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, he said: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

    During those 44 days, 140 Americans died in the successful conflict called Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the 1,200 days since, however, more than 2,400 Americans have died in Iraq.

    So it does not quite seem right to declare the war in Iraq over on May 1, 2003.

    Already, the war in Iraq has gone on as long as the war against Germany (and Italy, which surrendered even earlier), and it seems destined to last even longer than the three years, eight months, and nine days needed to defeat Japan.

    Nov. 25, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, will mark the 1,348th day of American involvement in the Iraqi conflict. It is not a date to celebrate.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0608140204aug14,1,5246137.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

    Longer than WW1, longer than the Korean conflict, longer than the War of 1812, longer than the Mexican War, come November, the War in Iraq will only be exceeded by Vietnam, the Civil War (very telling there) and our Revolutionary War, which if used as a comparison we are the red coats.......large foreign army fighting insurgents in their home towns and states,(called provinces in Iraq)

    ReplyDelete
  84. Tiny inTellect (between nap time and recess)said...

    Clif, I guess my sarcasm went right over your head, like most things.

    Not really son....but do try harder next time and you might make it to scorn, or maybe even to a REAL insult.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Later Tiny, isn't it time for you to ride the little yellow bus home?

    ReplyDelete
  86. Clif, at least you are using a spell checker, because your previous posts (the ones you actually wrote) were incomprehensible.

    Remember this one from March or April?
    ___________

    BTW of this is the VA side over, which they adjust for US of veterans, the dioxin in Viet Nam was suspended: Viet Nam veterans profiting from the central orange guidelines you are leaders of the society. They let business run; direct organizations; dress political office. In their mid-50s they are on the height their social and economic energy and acquire more than others in its age group. However with their success, they can escape not the inevitable health interests of one graying population. They are Viet Nam veterans and the department of the affairs of veteran (VA) are concerned the fact that they can regard the diseases, which with aging, like Prostatakrebs, when straight another illness instead of than the result their military services in Southeast Asia is connected. VA wishes this Viet Nam veterans knows that they for reconciliation and health care for certain diseases can be suitable, which are connected with central orange the Entblaetterer, which is sprayed unmask hostile hiding places in the jungles in Viet Nam. Special health care and balance use is for the 2,6 million men and women available, who served in Viet Nam between 1962 and 1975, only 3,300 of, remain whom in the uniform today. Those, which will unload during this period, are received the largest group of the veterans, the VA Gesundheitspflege and monthly reconciliation. A small percentage of their requirements for inability for diseases, which registered scientists, nevertheless is as, connects with central orange. VA presupposes that all military personnel, who served in Viet Nam was suspended central orange, and Federal law presupposes that certain diseases are a result of this exposure. This so-called "supposed policy" simplifies the process of the receiving of reconciliation for these diseases, since VA lets the normal requirements of the examination go that an illness began or was worsened during military services. Based on clinical research, the following diseases on central orange are list Virginias of the supposed inability: chloracne, illness Hodgkins, repeated myeloma, lymphoma of the non Hodgkins, porphyria cutanea tarda, AtmungsSarkoms, acute and subacute auxiliary neuropathy and Prostatakrebs of the cancers (lungs, Bronchus, Larynx and trachea), soft fabrics. A regulation is developed, in order to add diabetes mellitus. Additionally financial use, health care and vocational rehablitation services to the sekundaerteilchen Viet Nam veterans with Spina Bifida, a kongenitaler birth damage of the thorn are provided. A new law authorizes health care and financial use to the children of the female veterans, who served in Viet Nam for certain additional birth damage. That additional use under the new law is not to the beneficiaries until December. 1, 2001 payable. Veterans, who also served in Viet Nam during the war, are suitable for a complete physical examination. If a VA physician assumes, an illness with central orange, VA could is connected supplies free medical treatment. Those, which participate in examination the program, part central orange of a register and receive periodic mails from the VA over the newest central orange studies and the new diseases, which under VA-POLITICAL guidelines are covered http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/21/benefits/herbicide/AOno1.htm this side examine that the Federal Government accepts responsibility for the exposure of US of veterans, whom US put out the military now as a Christian, what we as country are, which goes, doing for which does not fit into this program, but who became put out by US the military straight the same? A small problem the population of Viet Nam is, 83.535.576 (July 2005 est.) One April 2003 report paid for by national the Academy OF Sciences determined that during Viet Nam of the war, 3,181 villages became sprayed directly with herbicides. Between 2,1 and 4,8 million people would have been present "during the spraying."(wikipedia) and to eliminate and lower why it is our problem..., a sind.We signer for Stockholm meeting, connect the contract signer, mass, where possible, where one does not eliminate possible, everything, sources of dioxin.(like, which the estimated 19 million gallons herbicide had been sprayed on Viet Nam, Kambodscha and Thailand to take, a little more than half (55%) of this central orange, between 1962 and 1971. Early estimations of 1974 had set the quantities lower, between for 12 and 14 million gallons. In the total quantity approximately six million morning in Viet Nam alone) seems sprayed that possibly we a chemical machine log book in our eye also....

    http://www.lydiacornell.com/
    2006/03/acceptance-is-key
    -to
    -serenity.html
    #c114399174006819333

    ReplyDelete
  87. Thanks for the info Voltaire. Too cold sounds alright now, because I'm in the midwest and it's too damn hot here. (In the 100's).

    ReplyDelete
  88. FF, I think Michelle owns or controls that site. I just looked at myself for the first time this afternoon. Thanks for the tip.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Of course those big-hearted and compassionate Liberals are reveling in the kidnapping of FNC's Steve Centanni. Way to go Libs:

    "We can't savor the irony? These people engage in and enable FOX News' constant lies about pretty much everything, including the Palestinians, and then they're seized by some of the very people they've lied about incessantly - helping craft American opinion that gets these people killed by Americans not being outraged by the Israeli government's treatment of them. From a karmic viewpoint, the irony is perfect, and informative: don't lie about others, because you might be at their mercy someday. That's not wishing ill on them; it's recognizing the funny way life works."

    http://freerepublic.com/
    focus/f-news/1683563/
    posts?q=1&&page=51

    ReplyDelete
  90. Testy eh tiny minded one...they picking on you on the bus again?

    ReplyDelete
  91. Thomas said...

    Voltaire, the great delusion is this notion that somehow our campaign in Iraq has created some enemy that didn't exist before.

    An enemy like the Al Sadr militia...well we were not fighting them before march 2003, and the Sunni insurgents...not them either...However our Air Force was doing a good job destroying Saddam’s Military assets while enforcing the no fly zone....and we were doing a very good job frustrating his plans....


    We've been at War with Islamist fascism for nearly 30 years.

    Funny the Islamists in Iran go back at least to 1954 when the CIA through it’s agent Kermit Roosevelt(Teddy’s grandson) on orders of the Dulles brothers who lead the CIA and State department under Eisenhower,

    Good article here about both the coup, and Cia cover up of it...

    http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/iran-coup.htm


    and in Iraq they might even go back to the post WW1 period when Briton attempted to subdue Iraq with no better results than we have had.


    The Iranians seized our embassy and held our citizens hostage for six months in 1979.

    Actually 444 days to be EXACT...facts seem to elude you don’t they son?



    Terrorists kidnaped and killed our Beirut CIA station chief in 1981.


    Could it be because of the CIA’s operations in Support of Israel?

    Terrorists bombed our Beirut Marine barracks and killed 240 Americans in their sleep in 1982.


    Possibly because at the same time Reagan sent the Marines into Beirut, he was arming and supplying Israel who just happened to have attacked Lebanon, could you think the terrorists did not see the difference between the two military operations in their country, Israel with the US’s military support were attacking their country, but the marines in Beirut were not part of THAT military exercise.



    Terrorists hijacked boats and planes and murdered American citizens in 1985.

    Yes son they did....after we over threw a democratic government in Iran, and reinstalled the SHAH...who created Savak...a secret police agency that rivaled the KGB in Russia for techniques of terror and torture it used to prop up the SHAH. Savak was partly funded and trained by the CIA.

    SAVAK, short for Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar, Organization for Intelligence and National Security) was the domestic security and intelligence service of Iran from 1957–1979.

    SAVAK was founded in 1957 with the assistance of the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. Its mission was to provide stability. Its first director was General Teymur Bakhtiar, who was replaced by General Hassan Pakravan who was executed by the Revolutionary Guard after the Islamic Revolution. Pakravan was replaced in 1965 by General Nematollah Nassiri, a close associate of the Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising Islamic and Communist militancy and political unrest.

    SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centres, like the notorious Evin Prison. It is universally accepted that SAVAK routinely subjected detainees to physical torture. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians (especially students on government stipends) abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.

    SAVAK agents often carried out operations against each other. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Hussein Fardust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Fardust later became director of SAVAMA, the post-revolution carbon copy of the original SAVAK organization. Also, SAVAK planned and executed Black Friday (1978), although the role of PLO agents in Black Friday has not been disproven. The CIA closely watched over SAVAK and provided them with intelligence on possible targets for assassination, many of whom were Communists. Many Communists were imprisoned or mysteriously disappeared as a result of this relationship. It is believed that the last director of SAVAK was on the payroll of the CIA.

    Wikipedia

    BTW Black Friday...

    Black Friday occurred September 8, 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 AP) in Iran. The country had been convulsed with protests against the rule of Muhammad Reza Shah. The Shah had thus declared martial law. However, on September 8, Tehran witnessed mass protests. Despite the largely peaceful nature of the protests, the military used deadly force to break up the demonstrations. This included the use of tanks and helicopter gunships. Several hundred demonstrators [1] [2] were killed.(Can we say Tiananmen Square?)

    The event utterly destroyed any support the Shah had in Iran. An even larger round of protests followed this event, one that shut down the oil industry, which was essential to the regime's survival.

    The events were an important part of the lead-up to the Iranian Revolution that saw the destruction of the monarchy less than a year later.

    Wikipedia...



    And have supplied the Israeli military which has treated the Palestinian as bad as the US did the African-Americans during the “Jim Crow” period.... which included the Israeli’s basically stealing the homes and Land from the Palestinians during the 1946-1948 period when the State of Israel was being created


    Terrorists bombed a Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland and killed several hundred Americans in 1988.

    Lybia...Gaddafi...

    For most of the 1990s, Libya endured economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation as a result of Gaddafi's refusal to allow the extradition to the United States or Britain of two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Through the intercession of South African President Nelson Mandela - who made a high-profile visit to Gaddafi in 1997 - and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Gaddafi agreed in 1999 to a compromise that involved handing over the defendants to the Netherlands for trial under Scottish law. U.N. sanctions were thereupon suspended, but U.S. sanctions against Libya remained in force.

    In August 2003, two years after Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. Gaddafi agreed to pay compensation of up to $2.7 billion – or up to $10 million each – to the families of the 270 victims. The same month, Britain and Bulgaria co-sponsored a U.N. resolution which removed the suspended sanctions.

    Wikipedia...

    Bush’s buddy now remember?

    Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by US forces in 2003, Gaddafi announced that his nation had an active weapons of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. US President George W. Bush and other supporters of the Iraq War attempted to portray Gaddafi's announcement as a direct consequence of the Iraq War by claiming that Gaddafi acted out of fear for the future of his own regime if he continued to keep and conceal his weapons. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a supporter of the Iraq War, was quoted as saying that Gaddafi had privately phoned him, admitting as much. Many foreign policy experts, however, contend that Gaddafi's announcement was merely a continuation of his prior attempts at normalizing relations with the West and getting the sanctions removed. To support this, they point to the fact that Libya had already made similar offers starting four years prior to it finally being accepted. International inspectors turned up several tons of chemical weaponry in Libya, as well as an active nuclear weapons program. As the process of destroying these weapons continued, Libya improved its cooperation with international monitoring regimes to the extent that, by March 2006, France was able to conclude an agreement with Libya to develop a significant nuclear power program.

    In March 2004, British prime minister Tony Blair became one of the first western leaders in decades to visit Libya and publicly meet Gaddafi. Blair praised Gaddafi's recent acts, and stated that he hoped Libya could now be a strong ally in the international War on Terrorism. In the run-up to Blair's visit, the British ambassador in Tripoli, Anthony Layden, explained Libya's and Gaddafi's political change thus:

    "35 years of total state control of the economy has left them in a situation where they're simply not generating enough economic activity to give employment to the young people who are streaming through their successful education system. I think this dilemma goes to the heart of Colonel Gaddafi's decision that he needed a radical change of direction."

    On May 15, 2006, the US State Department announced that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Libya, even after Gaddafi declared Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs. The State Department also stated that Libya would be removed from the list of nations that support terrorism

    Wikipedia

    Terrorists captured and killed Navy airman Scott Spicer(check your spelling son) in 1992.

    No son facts is wrong again...Capt Speicher’s plane went down in Desert Storm...Jan 1991 until Feb 1991...and he was shot down during the combat phase, first listed as KIA by DOD, his status has changed to MIA after questions as to whether he survived...but enemy uniformed combatants are not terrorists, but enemy military personnel.

    SPEICHER, MICHAEL SCOTT

    Name: Michael Scott Speicher
    Rank at Loss/Branch: Lt. Cdr./US Navy
    Rank in 2002: Commander
    Unit: USS SARATOGA
    Age at Loss: 33, Born 1957
    Age in 2002: 45
    Home City of Record: Jacksonville FL
    Date of Loss: 17 January 1991
    Country of Loss: Unknown
    Loss Coordinates:
    Original Status: Missing in Action
    Status Changed to KIA/BNR May 1991
    Status changed BACK to MIA 01/10/01
    Status Change Requested 2002 - From MIA to POW . no action as of 03/12/02
    Acft/Vehicle/Ground: FA18

    http://cybersarges.tripod.com/speicher.html

    Damn you can’t get many of your “facts” straight can you son? Even the reichwingnut talking points....


    Terrorists bombed the World Trade Center and killed 5 Americans in 1993.

    Possibly Osama (you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot)..and the blind Egyptian Cleric(who sits in a US prison ...for life.


    Terrorists bombed Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and killed 19 Airmen in 1996.

    Osama again(you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot)

    Terrorists bombed American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and killed 80 in 1998.

    Osama again (you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot)

    Terrorists attacked the USS Cole in Yemen port and killed 16 sailors.

    Osama again (you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot)

    Terrorists attacked and killed 3000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in 2001.

    Osama again (you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot)

    Terrorists bombed and killed hundreds of civilians in Madrid, London, Beslan Bombay, Riyadh, Bali, Manilla, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Morocco and Cairo the past four years.

    Osama again (you know the guy Bush let escape then forgot) damn you would think at some time Bush would GET serious about actually catching that guy!

    They target schools, hospitals, mosques and playgrounds.

    So does both our and the Israeli air force....

    Terrorists kidnap American civilians and cut off their heads. They desecrate captured soldiers.

    We've been at War with radical Islam for several decades.

    Actually much longer , since the western powers attempted to colonize the region after WW1, and have involved themselves deeply in the affairs of the countries which have had oil discovered in their borders.....


    Now, however, we're fighting them with our world class warriors in their neighborhood .

    Like the Soviets did from 1980-1988?


    Failure in this War is not an option.

    Somebody should tell The GrOPer in Chief, Dead Eye and Dumsfeld...because they seem dedicated to FAIL with their clumsy incompetent approach. The war in Iraq is a Fiasco...Lebanon did not go very well from the perspective of “destroying Hezbollah”, Afghanistan is getting WORSE not better......and now the incompetent PNAC clown patrol is pushing for attacking Iran?


    Sorry for the length..but you have SOOO much misinformation..it requires quite a bit of FACTUAL based replies to correct your factually challenged posts....

    ReplyDelete
  92. BUSH KNEW ABOUT THE TERROR PLOT ON THE SUNDAY BEFORE THE TUESDAY ELECTION IN CONNECTICUT.

    HE AUTHORIZED THE RED ALERT ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

    IT WAS REPORTED ON THURSDAY MORNING.

    EVERYTHING BUSH DOES IS INTENTIONAL.

    HIS CURRENT RATING FOR HOMELAND SECURITY IS 51%. IT'S GOING DOWN.

    AMERICANS ARE ON TO HIS LYING, DECEIVING WAYS!

    WOOHOO!

    ReplyDelete
  93. AMERICANS ARE ON TO HIS LYING, DECEIVING WAYS!
    -dkb

    Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, nor what your point was supposed to be (other than to demonstrate your hysterical BDS) but Dubya is a font of truth compared to your hero, slick willie. Woo Hoo!

    ReplyDelete
  94. Okay republicans! List out what your party stands for since you're so proud of it.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Ambassador Leo Wanta Provides Key Update On $4.5 Trillion Earmarked for American People Criminal diversion of Wanta funds continues, as high level U.S. officials and banks implicated.

    14 Aug 2006

    By Greg Szymanski



    According to Ambassador Leo Wanta in direct communication with London financial writer, Christopher Story, a "blatant and scandalous" diversion of the $4.5 trillion settlement entered into by Wanta and U.S. authorities has taken place, blocking the vast sum of money from being used to revitalize the American economy.



    Ever since President Bush and the Federal Reserve Board, without legal justification, blocked the settlement and then failed to honor a July 31 deadline imposed by Wanta, the Ambassador, who is legal trustor of the money, hoped for a quick resolution.



    However, after receiving no cooperation from the Bush administration and no receipt for the money, he decided to come forward Sunday with a "status update" regarding the progress of repatriating the $4.5 trillion earmarked for the American people.



    Besides the $4.5 trillion negotiated settlement in May, Wanta has been declared legal trustor of more than $27.5 trillion in offshore funds amassed when he was instructed by President Ronald Reagan to destabilize the Russian currency at the end of the Cold War, which turned into a highly successful financial program beyond Wanta and Reagan's wildest dreams.



    But instead of using the money to strengthen America after Reagan was out of the picture, Bush Sr. and Clinton devised a plan to use the money for their own underhanded purposes, jailing Wanta in the process, as they then created phony front companies and illegal trusts to use the money illegally.



    And now, according to Wanta, the same people are trying to under-mind the latest deal signed, sealed and delivered between Wanta, his AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc. and U.S. authorities after negotiating the deal through influential law firms in New York and Georgia, as well as with the assistance of two federal court judges.



    Wanta claims the $4.5 trillion has been diverted and stolen with the complicity of high level officials, including the President of the United States, Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., the U.S. Attorney Gen.Alberto Gonzalez, the Supreme Court and other high level officials.



    Furthermore, he claims financial institutions are illegally trading the vast sum of money with up to $200 billion a day being illegally earned instead of the money being used to better the American economy.



    Wanta's financial revelations were first revealed Sunday evening by Story on his London web site at www.worldreports.org. Story also revealed that his web site as well as the Arctic Beacon and its editor, Greg Szymanski, have been the target of ruthless and criminal intelligence attacks, aimed at discrediting the writers bringing the truth to the world as well as Wanta himself.



    The following is Christopher Story's status update of the Wanta saga, as provided on his web site listed above:



    STATUS REPORT

    Note: The following report summarizes the status of The Wanta Settlement at the time of posting.



    It represents the position as officially approved and authorized by Ambassador Leo Wanta. All Wanta-related reports posted on this website are PRIMARY reports. All others are SECONDARY.



    The blatant and scandalous diversion of Ambassador Leo Wanta's Treasury-tagged $4.5 trillion, earmarked for the benefit of the Ambassador Leo Wanta, his corporation, the US Treasury, the State of Virginia, and the American people, continues. Specifically:




    o Financial institutions are brazenly and illegally trading these tagged funds, that they do not own, overnight between each other, with up to $200 billion per day being earned and pocketed - such accruals being by definition exclusively the stolen property of Ambassador Leo Wanta. The identity of some of the institutions, which can now be regarded as criminal enterprises, is known.

    To read the rest, go here:

    http://www.arcticbeacon.com/14-Aug-2006.html

    ReplyDelete
  96. What my "party stands for" is irrelevant except to the extent it promotes my Conservative values. This is what I believe as a Conservative:

    Conservative versus Liberal World Views

    Conservatism v. Liberalism

    Why I fly the American Flag

    Why We Fight In Iraq

    Fascism

    Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States

    It would be interesting to hear what liberals believe in their own words, not just some goofy dhimmicrat party platform about Mom and apple pie designed to dupe swing voters.

    I am less interested in enumerating a laundry list of beliefs; I'm more interested in having liberals see how their beliefs represent a fundamental difference between Conservatives and liberals, and seeing if they are capable of identifying that specific difference.

    Also I am less interesting in hearing once again what liberals are against and hearing their litany of complaints; I'm more interested in hearing what liberals are for and what specific solutions they would use to address the problems.

    ReplyDelete
  97. The Fantasy Foole said;

    Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion,

    36% poll approval numbers might be the FIRST Clue...even with all the "news" that the White House is tryibg like hell to spin.


    Hell the GrOPer in Chief is right back into what Stephen Colbert correctally claimed was the BACKWASH....

    nor what your point was supposed to be

    That Bozo boy..Dead Eye and Dumsfeld...are disconnected from the truth.......tragically disconnected.


    (other than to demonstrate your hysterical BDS) but Dubya is a font of truth compared to your hero, slick willie. Woo Hoo!

    Woo Hoo must be some repug reichwingnut cry when they LIE..

    Bush lied about his National Guaed service...and WAS dishonest about his DUI..he even refuses to talk about HIS drug abuse..

    And he had his daddy cover up for him especially with the SEC investigation of his "insider trading" allegations that are STILL sealed.

    ABout his supposed truthiness about IRAQ and his RYSH to war...well the spin and lies would even have Clinton blushing...after all Billy lied about a Blowjob, not sending American soldiers to kill and be killed.....

    Good fantasy foole reichwingnut repug bloviator to the bitter end......about 7 November 2006....

    ReplyDelete
  98. What Fantasy foole will not admit....

    FREE MARKETS?
    Dean Baker's An End to Self-Defeating Rhetoric should be mandatory reading for all progressives.

    What's the difference between conservatives and progressives? Conservatives support free markets, whereas progressives support government solutions to social problems, right? Wrong. Conservatives like the government every bit as much as progressives do, they just don't advertise this fact. In actuality, conservatives want the government to shape markets in ways that provide profits to corporations and high incomes to rich people, instead of using it to ensure a decent standard of living for everyone.

    For example, with regard to airwaves and patents, conservatives expect the government to grant them exclusive rights and arrest competitors. Even in the recent battles over Social Security, conservatives have not been pushing a market solution -- rather they advocate a policy of government-mandated saving, which would put citizens' savings under the control of the financial industry. In all of these instances, conservatives are not pushing for a market solution. Their desired policies require large-scale government intervention in the market. Conservatives conceal this fact in their rhetoric, implying that they simply want the market to be left alone.

    On intellectual property rights:

    In the case of patents and copyrights, the language of intellectual property rights not only weakens progressives' political grounding, it seriously muddles thinking about the issue. The policy question that needs to be addressed is straightforward: what is the best way(s) to provide incentives for innovative and creative work? Patents and copyrights are one possible mechanism, but not the only mechanism. An enormous amount of innovative work takes place by scientists employed by universities, foundations or the government, where the hope of windfalls from patents would be close to zero. Similarly, a large amount of creative work -- including recorded music, writing, and the video production -- is supported by foundations, universities or other institutions. The earnings from having copyright protection for most of this work are trivial. There is literally no economic evidence to support the case that patents and copyrights are the most efficient means to support innovation and creative work. In other words, this massive government intervention into the market cannot be justified on the basis of any body of economic research.

    On "free trade":

    But there is no inherent connection between the ends pursued in these trade agreements and anything that can be called "free trade." The major thrust of most of these agreements has been to standardize the laws governing investment in order to facilitate U.S. investment in developing nations. The obvious and intended effect of this foreign investment is to place U.S. workers in direct competition with the lowest-paid labor anywhere in the world.

    A "free trade" agreement could just as easily be written to standardize education and licensing standards for professionals. Such an agreement would then put U.S. doctors, lawyers, and accountants in direct competition with the lowest paid professionals throughout the world. Instead of investing to build factories in Mexico or China, hospital chains might pay to support medical education in these countries, with the graduates coming to work in the United States. Since U.S. professionals are paid far higher salaries than professionals even in OECD nations (doctors in the United States earn more than twice the average for doctors in other OECD nations), free-trade pacts of this sort would have the potential for enormous economic gains for the United States, as well as developing nations.

    However, trade agreements have done little or nothing to increase the ability of foreign professionals to sell their services in the United States. This is because doctors, lawyers and other professionals have powerful lobbying groups that can prevent this sort of competition.

    One could also mention the unfree nature of trucking goods between the U.S. and Mexico under NAFTA. The U.S. trucking industry lobby has restricted the access of Mexican trucks to the U.S. via the "safety" bogeyman. While the rhetoric is free, the reality certainly isn't.

    On privatizing social security:

    Instead, conservatives are advocating a system of government-mandated savings, where the government forces individuals to invest in some types of funds for their retirement. While this can be done through a centralized system, where the funds would be collected by the government, most proponents of individual accounts envision a system of decentralized accounts, where the government will effectively be requiring workers to place a fixed percentage of their wages on deposit with the financial industry. It is also worth noting that almost every serious proponent of this system also advocates extensive government regulation of these accounts, restricting them to relatively low risk investments. The accounts therefore require a government role even in control of the money.

    This system would hand the financial industry tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars in administrative fees each year. It has absolutely nothing to do with a free market. If progressives let the right pretend that it is proposing a market solution for Social Security, they have given away the debate. Both conservatives and progressives are proposing systems in which the government ensures that workers are guaranteed a minimum level of retirement income. The real question is which system does it more effectively.

    As Chomsky never tires of pointing out, one of the best ways to restrict debate to a desired range of alternatives is to control the rhetoric used in the debate.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Oh and Foole...this is what liberals, Or progressives (as they have also been known) have done for the country;

    “If Americans have a common fault, however, it’s our tendency to suffer from historical amnesia. Too many of us have forgotten, or never learned, what kind of country America was under the conservative rule that preceded the century of liberal reform. And too many of us have no idea whose ideas and energy brought about the reforms we now take for granted.

    “If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a forty-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights - you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable - you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family - you can thank liberals. If your rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn’t black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green - you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society - you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism - with the support of the American people.”

    Just as TODAY progressives want to help EVERYONE rise...repug conservatives want to tilt the field in their favor EVEN more than it already is tilted that way...

    They want complete control..and most of them spend a good portion of their tax time finding ways to push their tax burden on to others...like BORROWING against their (and everybody else's children or grandchildren) futures, just so they can HOARD more for themselves....real good conservative principles...And the FACT that they reichwingnut conservative repugs have controlled the house senate and white house means THEY ARE DOING EXACTALLY WHAT THEY WANT IN PASSING THEIR VERY UNBALANCED BUDGETS.....they musty want it that way.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Dear Average Republican,

    There is NO “liberal agenda” but the shared interest of liberals who want to see things get better for everyone. You, your parents, and the guy who bags groceries down at the corner market. Liberals want to see you with enough money to buy groceries, pay off your house, and put at least one fuel-efficient vehicle in your garage.

    It’s not an agenda. It’s people hoping for the best for other people.

    It’s about hoping that your Uncle John, who’s been farming the same plot of land for the last 40 years, doesn’t lose his farm because he falls off his tractor and breaks his leg and can’t pay his doctor bill. It’s about hoping that you have some options when your town’s biggest employer goes belly-up because it can’t compete with that textile factory in China.

    It’s about making sure you get paid enough that you don’t have to take two or three jobs just to make ends meet. So you can spend more time with your family…so you can play catch with your kids, or take them fishing on weekends, or take them to the local swimming hole or municipal pool to teach them how to swim.

    It’s not an agenda to want the best for people. It’s just humanity. It’s about being a good neighbor, even if that neighbor lives half a country away.

    Ask a liberal what empathy is…it’s about understanding where someone else is coming from. And most of us try very hard, even if we don’t agree.

    Being a liberal isn’t about making fun of God, or your beliefs about him. Most liberals take the Sermon on the Mount to heart. They try to live the teachings of Jesus, even if some aren’t sure he’s really the Son of God. Thomas Jefferson called him the World’s Greatest Moral Philosopher. You’ll find very few liberals who’d disagree with that.

    It’s because of liberals that your ten year olds get to go to school rather than being forced to work in factories for spare change. It’s because of liberals that you can trust your workplace to be safe and free of unexpected dangers. It is because of liberals that, should you be injured at work, you can expect fair medical treatment and compensation for your lost work, and have money coming in if you’re laid off. It’s also because of liberals that you have reasonably clean water to drink and bathe in, and that the local swimming hole isn’t completely polluted.

    That’s what we do. We try to look out for everybody. Even the people who hate us. We don’t have an agenda. We don’t take marching orders from anyone. We do what we do because we believe in people. We believe in you.

    All we ask is that you begin to believe in us.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Let's see how well the repugs in DC really stack up.....to;

    The Seven Key “Failure Factors”:

    • Restrictions on the free flow of information.

    Over bearing secrecy including extreme limitations on WHO gets into repug staged photo op speaking shows Bush has held...

    Even going so far as to expulse people out of the events for NOTRHING more than wearing certain clothing or even the BUMPER STICKERS ON THEIR CARS..

    Failure of the white house to be open with the American people when questions of how many times Jack Abrarmoff visited the white house...

    But Dick Cheney's penchence for secrecy is way beyond the pale...his discusses little and hides much of what he does...

    Sorry Fantasy Foole but they get a D in this catagory....




    • The subjugation of women.


    Fighting equal rights every where they can...fighting against equal pay..and equal opertunities is a HALLMARK of those in the white house and even one of the picks for the Supreme Court Sammy boy.

    D-



    • Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.


    Are you KIDDING...everything is CLINTON"S fault...or the liberals..or the NYT...or somebody anybody but BUSH, Cheney and Dumsfeld.


    F


    • The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.

    Pushing "family values", attacking those who do not fit into sterotyped "traditional" families....attacking those who do not follow traditional...pro christian life styles as

    Unamerican...Unpatriotic...aiding the enemy...

    D

    • Domination by a restrictive religion.


    Reichwingnut Fundementalistic Christianity.......dominates the though processes of Budh ashcroft Bolton Cheney ET AL


    F

    • A low valuation of education.


    Constantally attacking those "ivory towered eggheads" liberal no it alls.

    Bush PLAYING at being just another "dumb texan" even though he went to BOTH liberal bastions of education Harvard and Yale...dumbing down the message so as to make it into Mantras...which denies intellectual investigation as

    weak

    soft

    pathetic

    "code pink"

    ineffective etc.

    D-

    • Low prestige assigned to work.

    Bush's vacations...and general disregard for him doing any REAL work.....

    Pushing for gains by economic trickery like stock gains instead of real industrial production gains...

    Pushing for quick fixes like giving everybody $300 as a cover for millions for the richest which they get EVERY year not just once....

    Pushing the industrial segment of the society off shore....undercutting the real work ethnic, by stealing the jobs and leaving nothing to WORK FOR..

    D-

    U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters
    Excerpted from Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly
    Spring 1998, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, pp. 36-47


    Looks LIKE they FAILED the test.....

    ReplyDelete
  102. “If Americans have a common fault, however, it’s our tendency to suffer...
    -Clif

    Gee cliffy, it would have been nice to have given credit to your source:
    Big Lies by Joe Conason

    Maybe you hoped we would think it was all your idea.

    ReplyDelete
  103. I think Worf has come back in the character of "Thomas Moo Moo."

    He's too chicken to come back as Worf since he slinked out of here with his tail between his legs.

    ReplyDelete
  104. Fantasy Foole in full reichwingnut delusional bloviation said;


    Why We Fight In Iraq( a fantasy article by the foole..**as amended by Clif)

    Between 1975 and 1990, Saddam Hussein spent $65 billion on military arms; he was one of the largest purchasers of arms in the world. His ultimate dream was to possess nuclear bombs; he fervently was pursuing this dream.


    **Well we spent a tiny bit more than he did...and we made quite a bit from 19809 to 1990 sellinh Saddam weapons....

    In 1980 Saddam Hussein attacked Iran which began a bloody war that lasted eight years and cost about a million lives.

    **With Reagan Bush41 tacit approval....in fact encouragement...


    In 1988 he dumped poison gas on his own dissident people, resulting in the deaths of about 100,000 mostly civilian Kurds.

    **Did Reagan Bush 41 DO anything...not really....


    In 1990 Hussein invaded Kuwait without provocation.


    **I seem to remember a tour I took there provided by the US army which lasted about six months...

    Having attacked his neighbors to the east, then his neighbors to the south, no doubt soon he would have attacked his rich, weak neighbors to the west.

    **Neither Jordan( one of Saddam’s few allies in 1991) who is not very rich or Syria..a fellow Bathist state would be very tempting targets.

    Then with Saddam in possession of the oil of Iraq, Iran,

    **He never got the oil try some other spin...but Saddam never got the Iranian oil...and he NEVER could.

    Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, he would control over 70% of the world’s oil.

    **Right son. but except for a limited excursion into Kafji he never came close....and as of 2003 he was in a very small box...his military decimated by the sanctions and the destruction it endured in Desert Storm..and the punishment of no fly zone violations.

    He easily would become the richest man on earth.


    **You dreaming here but you need to dream for this particular fantasy to be even close to anything we faced in 1991...95...98...2000...01..02...03, otherwise your delusional point falls FLAT on its face.


    He could dictate world oil prices; triple, quadruple the price and we still would have to pay.

    **Well son he couldn’t but the oil corp’s and oil exchanges have managed that with little help from Saddam....


    While this evil dictator was enriching himself and building weapons of mass destruction, the rest of the world would plunge into desperate economic depression and collapse into third world nation status, or be consumed in thermo-nuclear fire if we dared to resist.


    **WTF are you smoking?

    This is what conservatives dare to call a “threat to our national security”.

    **Or a wet dream for the masses to FEAR, thus they become willing to accept the repuyg lies and spin.

    Apparently liberals do not believe or feel threatened by this scenario.

    **And except for the mental ward patients..and some fellow repugs drunk on the Kool aid...neither does most of the rest of HUMANITY.


    They see no parallel between Saddam’s sinister plans and the ambitions of another Jew-hater named Hitler.

    **Far from it son......Saddam actually used Stalin as a role model..not Hitler...


    They feel that we should have appeased Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, like Chamberlain appeased Hitler after his invasion of Poland in WWII.


    **Not quite son...some of US liberals were there FIGHTING in that particular war....try again son.

    Inexplicably, berserk Berkeley denizens and other brain-damaged liberals, who project their own racism everywhere, think we stopped Saddam because of his skin color.

    Did we really invade Iraq to enrich Halliburton?

    **Only as a secondary effect...primarily it was to control the oil fields, and who had access to them...and to create military basses from which to attempt to control the rest of the oil rich middle east.

    How utterly stupid does someone have to be to display, or wink at people who display, signs proclaiming “End War and Racism” and “No Blood For Oil”?


    **Slightly less dumb than to swallow the Bush Cheney lies hook liner and sinker, and continue to defend them after they have been exposed as liars and fooles...oh yea right your SOP

    **slightly less dumb than believe we had UN approval for the invasion...the war was well planned....or executed..and they had the Iraqi’s best interests at heart.

    **Slightly smarter than any PNAC reichwingnut propaganda spewing FOOLE



    To say that the the war in Iraq is just about oil is a grossly misleading half-truth similar to saying that because the sun and the ocean are both made of hydrogen, they are both about the same thing.

    **It ain’t about “taking” the oil just controlling who is given access to develop the oil fields and make the profits from that...as well as the military bases like Balad Air Force Base they have spent Billions building.....


    Where is all the oil we have stolen from Iraq?

    **It is still in the ground because the insurgency is sort of an inconvience in developing the oil fields, However L Paul Bremer did tear up every contract Saddam had and rewrote the rules of how the contracts could be written and that the oil would be priced and sold in dollars not euros....

    Why are gas prices sky-high? Why is the "no blood for oil" gang the first to scream about high gasoline prices or advocate additional gasoline taxes? The simple truth is that we didn't invade Iraq to steal oil.

    **NOT steal stupid...can’t you get it control the oil fields and contracting procedures.


    We invaded to stop Saddam from stealing his neighbors' oil,

    **Was not even a threat in 2003...so QUITE BEING SO DISHONEST.

    controlling global economics


    **Right like that was even a possibility...except in your delusional Bush appologistical fantasies..you spew out with

    , ruling Iraq and the rest of the Middle East with a bloody fist, supporting terrorists, and yes, building weapons of mass destruction.


    **All untrue repug 2003 talking points that have been disproven

    Those, who doubt that Saddam had intentions of building nuclear bombs, may benefit from reading The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda by Khidhir Hamza, Saddam's Bomb maker who escaped to the west in 1994.

    **Lets see 1994...before Hussien Kamel defected and outed Saddam’s programs which destroyed his programs even more than the bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1982


    Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein's reactor in Baghdad in a daring air raid in June 1981, as liberals screamed about the injustice. Liberals probably believe that this nuclear reactor was to be used for peaceful purposes--like generating power for a country sitting on top of a veritable ocean of petroleum.

    **No son but it is not the reactor Bush is letting Pakistan build...one which will generate enough Plutonium to build 50 war heads a year..in the same country Osama (remember he is the guy Bush forgot) and the Taliban sough refuge in after they lost in Afghanistan and the base the Taliban is using to re attack Afghanistan reminiscent of the war they fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets

    Iraq has long been a dark den seething with vicious terrorist snakes.

    **Great emotional hate speech sentence, with NO factual basis......

    One such terrorist found in Iraq was Abu Abbas, who had been living there under Iraqi protection since 2002. Abbas was the mastermind behind the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achilles Lauro in the Mediterranean. During that terrorist attack, Abbas’s men shot Leon Klinghoffer, a retired 69-year old American, in cold blood before rolling him in his wheelchair into the sea. At that time Abbas held an Iraqi diplomatic passport.

    Another vicious Iraqi terrorist was Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi architect of the 1993 World Trade Center (WTC) bombing which killed six persons and wounded 1,042 others, who entered America on an Iraqi passport.

    **FACTUALLY inaccurate there SON:

    **His nationality may be disputed, but Ramzi himself said he was born in Kuwait. Ramzi's father was a Pakistani engineer who worked for Kuwait Airways, is believed to be from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, same as Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Yousef was possibly raised in Kuwait.

    **Raised in a rural Palestinian community in Kuwait, Ramzi excelled in math and science, but was treated as a second-class citizen, which formed his underlying grievance. He spoke Arabic, Baluch, Urdu, and English, graduating in 1989 with a degree in engineering from West Glamorgan Institute, Swansea, Wales, where he joined a chapter of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Following graduation, in Kuwait he was employed as communications engineer in the National Computer Center of the Ministry of Planning. He saw himself as an international playboy. The self-proclaimed "freedom fighter" for liberation of Palestinians allegedly beat his young wives and refused to fast during Ramadan. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, August 2, 1990, some members of Ramzi's family fled to Quetta, others to Iran. [1]

    **Starting in the late 1980s, Yousef took spring break trips to Pakistan.

    **Wikipedia.....


    Another example is Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted for mixing the chemicals in that WTC bombing, who fled to Baghdad after the attack and lived there for years afterwards. Saddam gave Yasin both a house in Iraq and a salary. How can any honest, informed person maintain that Iraq had nothing to do with the spread of terror?


    **As Paul Harvey would say...here is the REST of the Story(you left out son)

    **On the very next day, March 5, 1993, Yasin boarded Royal Jordanian flight 262 to Amman, Jordan, the same plane Salameh had failed to catch a week earlier. From Amman, Abdul Rahman Yasin went on to Baghdad. An ABC news stringer saw him there in 1994, outside his father's house, and learned from neighbors that he worked for the Iraqi government.

    **In Baghdad, Iraq, Yasin lived freely for at least a year. Pointing to Saddam Hussein regime's involvement in World Trade Center bombing was "evidence" it gave money and housing to Yasin. The Iraqi government later claimed he was arrested and put in prison (see CBS Stahl interview, below).

    **On Oct. 10, 2001 Yasin appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush.

    **On several occasions, Iraq offered to turn Yasin over to the US government in exchange for lifting UN economic sanctions. Tariq Aziz, spokesman of Iraq, claimed that in the 1990's all Iraq wanted in return was a signed statement that Iraq had handed over Yasin. But reportedly the statement presented to the U.S. at the time contained lengthy wording essentially exonerating Iraqi involvement in the 1993 WTC attack. Nevertheless, Kenneth Pollack of the State Department stated that there was no CIA information tying Iraq into the 1993 WTC bombing.

    **With Yasin reportedly being held as a prisoner in Hussein's Iraq, Leslie Stahl of CBS interviewed him there for a segment on 60 Minutes on May 23, 2002 (see below). Yasin appeared in prison pajamas and handcuffs. It was claimed that Iraq had held Yasin prisoner on the outskirts of Baghdad since 1994. Stahl also interviewed US Attorneys who acknowledged they had agreed to release Yasin to Iraq. (CBS 2002 Briley 2005)

    **Yasin is believed to still be in Iraq.

    **Wikipedia

    Apparently some liberals are so blinded by their ideology that they actually believe Iraqis were better off living under the boot of Saddam.

    **No son but it was UP TO THE IRAQI”S not us to do something about their country .

    They care little about the future of people like Nahle Sabet, once a pretty architecture student from a respected Christian family. But that was before she was abducted, raped, tortured, and finally served as live food for Uday Hussein’s vicious, starving dogs. Imagine being raped and tortured for weeks, then screaming in agony as two massive canines ravenously tear the flesh off your bones, while a bunch of sick sadists watch and howl with laughter, delighted at the blood-fest. Uday was next in line to be dictator of Iraq.


    **Not exactly true as after the attempt on Uday’s life in the mid 90's he was seen as unstable. And Saddam was grooming his brother Qsay for succession

    Today in Iraq, Saddam's long, dark reign of terror, rape and murder is over.

    **Replaced by sectarian violence...roving death squads...ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods..a collapsing economy, civil society and a bleak future......and a few rapes like the one PFC Green is on trial for.

    Thousands of people will live, who would have died under Saddam.

    **Only to be killed by US collateral damage..or the Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias or lack of medical care or electricity or clean water....

    Bombings of Muslims by other Muslims have not ceased, but the future belongs to the millions throughout the Middle East who eventually will breathe the sweet air of freedom and justice.


    **If they can survive our pathetic attempt to recontour the political landscape to the PNAC neo-cons liking...and Israel’s approval.

    Regardless of how anyone initially felt about the wisdom of our invading Iraq,

    **About as Dumb as Bush and Dumsfeld could get.

    can a person with noble intentions root for the disastrous consequences following a humiliating defeat for the U.S. in the Middle East?

    **Like we could no longer try to play power broker in a region where we have very few assets on the ground and seem to totally misunderstand the society or customs which alienate the masses against us( bombing their houses, families , neighbors and relatives also might be part of their alienation from our presents we claim to be sending.


    Can a person who sincerely cares about the Iraqi people advocate their abandonment to the insurgent wolves who will murder thousands following the premature extraction of American and British troops (as advocated by that paragon of integrity, Teddy Kennedy, right before the first Iraqi election)?

    Do you liberals think the danger is over for Western civilization?

    **The danger with in from the economic imbalanced are far greater especially as the energy crunch adds to inflation at the same time the standard of living is FALLING for the first time since the great depression for the lower 2/3 of the population

    Do you think Islamists would hesitate to use nuclear weapons on the Great Satan (you and me) just as soon as Russia or the France or the Iran or North Korea sells them the technology in exchange for petro dollars?

    **Not where they are going to get them FOOLE...Russia has a very real Islamist problem much worse than ours...France would never sell them a NUCLEAR weapon no matter how much reichwingnut hate you have for them. Iran has none now and would never sell the Sunni extremists (who hate Shiites as much as they hate the west) nuke since the Sunni extremists would proly return the nuke armed and ticking.

    **However Pakistan is a whole different story...if Musharraf is toppled by the Islamist extremists that are through out that society, and who have tried more than once to kill him. He is limply assisting the west in the “war on terra” which will put an extreme Islamist target on his back.

    **The terrorists only need take Pakistan and they would have as many nukes as Israel


    Will you liberals change your mind after they incinerate an American city or two, or will you blame the victims again like Ward Churchill did? Maybe you won't because next time you'll be the victims.


    **Nice emotional extreme bloviating there but distinctly far removed from reality right now.

    Liberals wring their hands over the small number of accidental Iraqi civilian deaths,

    **Above 100,000 by some reliable accounts.....

    smooch repulsive traitors like Ward Churchill while wearing roosting chicken hats, giggle at Bill Maher jokes and lap up lies from Michael Moore “documentaries”.

    **Nice smear tactic...good reichwingnut propaganda there son.


    Real Americans

    **56% of whom disapprove Bush’s job performance

    enthusiastically cheer the protection of freedom and spread of democracy throughout the world,

    **Too bad Bush doers not do the same HERE AT HOME son...


    courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. Oorah.

    **Lookie another wanna be marine......bloviating from a computer keyboard.....

    ReplyDelete
  105. Fantasy foole said;

    Gee cliffy, it would have been nice to have given credit to your source:
    Big Lies by Joe Conason

    Maybe you hoped we would think it was all your idea.


    no son I have had that in my computer for a while and could not find the link thanks for helping me outson....

    ReplyDelete
  106. CLIF - That was a beautiful post about the good liberals do.

    And Thomas: Yes, Iraq is central to winning the war on terror by getting our troops out of harms way and beefing up our forces and resources at home. Let's get back to taking care of America. The Iraqis are in a civil war that only Sadaam apparently was brutal enough to subdue. SADAAM AND OSAMA WERE MORTAL ENEMIES BY THE WAY. Their egos were too big to team up, and as you know we had Sadaam right where we wanted him, with the whole world watching. We could have won friends all over the middle east by NOT CARPET BOMBING IRAQ AND CREATING TERRORISM'S SPREAD WORLDWIDE. We could have contained Sadaam for years and surreptitiously, covertly gained allies in the underground to help an internal revolution WHERE IT WAS THE PEOPLE'S IDEA - WHICH IS ALWAYS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! You can't enforce democracy at the point of a gun. Who would want this kind of sick, sadistic "democracy" that engages and condones torture and Haditha-type insanity.

    Would you want a bunch of guys with machine guns parading around your town? Remember when British troops were in America, every average Joe revolted.

    Try to remember history, or at least Christ's most important teachings. Please grow some brain cells, all of you neocons are so obtusely damaged as to believe war is peace.

    ReplyDelete
  107. dusty simpleton said;

    Clifs cut and pastes just get bigger and bigger and Mike just has nothing to say.

    atually that last post was in reply to a STUPID post by the Fantasy foole, thus not really cut and paste as I composed replies to each of his Juvinile points...


    But you never let Facts get in your way do you STUPID?

    ReplyDelete
  108. Dusty Simpleton said...

    Cliffy,do you really believe those things you post from the left wing web sites?

    Almost all of them because I look for FACTS not jus emotional hate.

    I have a difficult time understanding how a guy who supposedly spent the better part of his life serving his country now has an unhealthy distain for it.

    The PNAC neo-con reichwingnut crowd is NOT the country...in fact they are like a cancer in the country which the majority is waking up to and proly soon to remove by removing their repug leaders from office


    What the hell happened to you?

    Nothing son...I was as much for FACTUAL based instead of emotional bloviation in 1980 as today...

    Did you get screwed somewhere down the line?

    Not at all, in fact I have not been treated even close to bad by either the DOD or VA....

    Did you have some sort of Epiphany (Greek: επιφάνεια, "the appearance; miraculous phenomenon") is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to humankind in human form, in the person of Jesus.

    Well, not in the way wiki describes it...but Jesus is a very good place to start a spiritual journey.

    What caused the anger?

    I'm not angry son...I'm not the one on a progressive web site attacking those who believe in a progressive spiritual existence.


    But then again I have not drank from the Neo-con reichwingnut stupidity kool aid either.....

    ReplyDelete
  109. Dusty Simpleton said...

    Cliffy,how about answering my 8:57 post?

    9:20 PM

    I did but at 9:30 because I was responding to the Foole..since he does seem a bit more intelligent than you do son....NOT much but a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Dusty Simpleton said;

    You did'nt compose that,the spelling was too good.Dont lie you're nose will grow.

    If that was true...Cheney, Bush or Dumsfeld could no longer ride in an elevator...and Air Force 1 would need a nose job of it's own.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Hey Cliffy,Lyd patted you on the head,kinda makes life worth living,does'nt it?

    No son my daughters are more than enough to give my life FULL meaning...


    but a repug dunce does wait for praise, to think it has worth, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  112. Clif, seems to me that this blog takes up mopre time than any other single activity. You are routinely here until 5 AM your time and then re-appear and 7 AM.

    Do you ever sleep?

    And, now that I think about it, I think Thomas Moo Moo is Lydia.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Cliffy,do you think you could run the Iraq war more effectively then the current officers are doing?

    well son it has to do with what you mean by running...

    If I had COMPLETE control to over rule the STUPID decisions...

    than most militarily trained officers who studied Theater Strategy and tactics could have done a much better job...

    but if I wuold have to live inside the Dumb and dumber rules of Bush and Dumsfeld....

    short of walking on water nobody could save that fiasco....

    ReplyDelete
  114. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Do you think you, Shinseki and Zinni together could put an end to this thing once and for all?

    It is according to how much freedom and automity they had in applying tactics and strategy that would work...they would proly do rather well if they had the freedom to do the right thing Militarily and I would learn a lot from two GREAT General Officers

    ReplyDelete
  115. Dusty Simpleton said;

    So, an NCO with 14 years of service couldn't win this damn war. I had all my hopes hanging on you Cliffy.

    too bad I do not fit that description dusty chicken hawk extraordinaire...


    but some time ask the Foole what ROTC means....

    ReplyDelete
  116. dusty simpleton said;

    Cliffy consider's this blog a foxhole.

    wrong son it is simply a diversion ...but an enjoyable one at that.

    a foxhole is a bit bigger than a PC, try basic training...they would teach you how to dig one and then we could discuss the Foxhole SOP

    ReplyDelete
  117. Rusty, it's worse than that. He would work with Larry C. Johnson and make great predicitions, like in July of 2001, that terrorism is an extremely remote threat. What a great tema they would make.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Dusty Simpleton said...

    I thought you were going to be like Dr.Strangelove and take command of the situation,rather then just bitch about it.


    I'm not Bush, Cheney or Dumsfeld and therefore, I do not pretend I know more than those who spent 30+ years in the service to their country, learning and practicing the art of War

    ReplyDelete
  119. Dusty Simpleton said;

    If those two guys were really so good,why on earth did they get fired?Do you think they might be a bit bitter?

    Zinni retired he did not get fired..

    Shinsiki said what he believed..and has been proven right by historical events...instead of parroting the repug neo-con party line....he was what we need in a MILITARY leader...somebody who tells them the truth...Patton in that very same circumstance would have said the same thing but less politely..and have gotten fired also....

    ReplyDelete
  120. Dusty Simpleton said;

    A diverision? I thought you were an adrenalin junkie?

    Not much adrenalin required to type at a keyboard...

    except for the barking mad 102nd chicken hawk brigade,

    which is as close they ever get to danger....

    ReplyDelete
  121. Speaking of Kerry and his alleged Purple Hearts, we all know how to search the Internet, can ANYONE here tell us of anyone, aside from John Kerry, who got three Purple Hearts and never spent a single night in the hospital?

    ReplyDelete
  122. Dusty Simpleton said;

    I remember Kerry mentioning Shinseki a number of times during the campaign,it must have been Shinseki who awarded Kerry those 15 Purple Hearts for a 90 day tour.

    Kerry served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1970. His 2nd tour of duty in Vietnam was four months as commanding officer of a Swift boat. Kerry was awarded several medals during this tour, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.

    second tour means he already spent 1 year there...and 4 months is 122 days........

    and

    Shinseki served in a variety of command and staff assignments both in the Continental United States and overseas, including two combat tours with the 9th and 25th Infantry Divisions in the Republic of Vietnam as an Artillery Forward Observer and as Commander of Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry. During one of those tours, he stepped on a land mine, which blew off the front of one of his feet.

    was not in Kerry's Chain of Command thus he never could award Kerry anything.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Clif,

    Thanx for taking the time to respond in detail to a couple of my essays. You have far more substance than goofy libs like dkb. Kudos my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Cliffy,other then you're immediate family,Mike,Lyd,Larry and worf nobody really gives a crap if you served in the army or not,along with the other 14 million or so who did.

    don't know son If it comes up most people thank me for my service....try it,

    It might even make a man out of you yet son....

    ReplyDelete
  125. Well the US Navy says 4 months...but then again they might be wrong given the fact I am talking to a factually challanged individual

    ReplyDelete
  126. Freedom Fan said...

    Clif,

    Thanx for taking the time to respond in detail to a couple of my essays. You have far more substance than goofy libs like dkb. Kudos my friend.


    not a problem that is why I stayed here...because once in a while I can debate something instead of listening to a couple of dumb mooks attempt to insult me with PATHGETIC smears.....that a good drill would drop them for.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Tiny inTellect said...

    It's also been a few days since Clif posted a long piece with hyperlinks from every word.

    10:07 PM

    See what I mean FF...stupiud mooks trying to insult me with, something a drill at the reception station would toss away as way too soft.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Dusty medals are recommended by a superior..and endourced by the commander, and reviewed by both the battaion level and brigade level..and most purple hearts and bronze stars and above require the signature of a general officer...so why don't you check out who signed off on his awards...and go ask them?

    I'm sure you will find insulting the intelligence of a General Officer in person very enlightening....

    ReplyDelete
  129. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Cliffy,you hurt my feelings.

    Really where show me the big bad boo boo son.

    I'm trying to help you see the light,

    son you would have to go very far to get that "light" after all I am after a spiritual reality...and you live in a very boring banal insecure existance from what I have seen of youyr posts....


    abandon your foolish ways,walk towards the light,

    the light you profess to have is not real nor the one I am spiritually drawn to.

    come over to the bright side,give up the losing cause.

    In a true spiritual journey there is NO sides...but a journey of learning and sometiimes spiritual revelation...thus YOU have very little to offer...but banality and insecurity.

    Its not painful,rather, its quite enjoyable.

    like I said..i am enjoying myself here, but for reasons you seem to dense to understand

    ReplyDelete
  130. Dusty Simpleton said;

    Jeesh Cliffy.I just asked a question.

    No stupid you were being assinine as usual

    You being a military expert and all,is it uncommon for someone to get all those medals in a 4 month tour?

    As I have not studied the award system in Vietnam closely I can not answer that question...but like I said...go find thoose who did the awarding and ask them they have the answers yiou so despirately seek.

    I mean,do you know of anyone else who received those kinds of honors in such a short time?

    like I said I have not studied the question...so I can not answer thw question, but go ask the first rear Admiral who was In Kerry's chain of command and ask HIM, but do be a bit more diplomatic than you do here...general officers can be a bit hard on stupid simpletons with dunb questions

    ReplyDelete
  131. Sine I have not looked deeply into the connecticut race I can not say at this time...but as timwe goes by and Lieberman moves even closer to Bush...and more and more repugs "kiss" Lieberman..his chances in the general will proly go the way of the primary.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Actually better question......

    Dusty...

    should the GOP back their candidate in the election instead of undercutting him for Lieberman?

    ReplyDelete
  133. dummy simpletom said;

    Cliffy,you've done it now,banal and insecure? Ouch,that really hurts.I dont know what to say,I'm without speach.You've taken me to task.To bad Mike and worf are'nt here to see this.

    your worse an actor than my 10 year old daughter......and seem a bit dumber too.

    ReplyDelete
  134. CLIF - Stay strong Clif, all these unkind people are just miserable and jealous, so they have to undermine the good. They would never have the courage to actually go to a war zone or put their neck on the line. Only those who have been to war or seen bloodshed up close, have the compassion and courage to say, WAR IS WRONG. It is unnatural.

    This is how evil works. Don't give them any power.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Lydia, they are dumb mooks on a fooles errand...which they see as noble demonise the new enemy so as to justify anything and everythinbg the GrOPer and dead Eye do....

    such pathetic people... hate and slime is their trade...and a lot of it seems to have rubbed off on them....

    ReplyDelete
  136. Lydia said: "WAR IS WRONG. It is unnatural."

    Tell that to Lincoln who freed the slaves. Tell that to FDR who vanquished Hitler.

    War is not always wrong. Even Billy Graham was not a pacifist, but I guess you know more than Billy Graham did.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Rusty Shackelford said....

    Cliffy,be truthful here.Do you stutter when you talk? Or just when you type?

    Cliffy, be truthful here. Do you stutter when you talk?

    No not at all...

    Or just when you type?

    quickly sometimes, however if you check son, I have been correcting your stutters when I re-post your questions and reply....

    like this set....

    check the differences....

    see dusty stutters while he accuses other of the same thing.....

    hypocrite....

    a repug hypocrite....

    naw never happen....

    they say so.............LOL

    10:58 PM
    Rusty Shackelford said....


    Cliffy,I dont think "demonise" is really a word.Hell,I dont know maybe its an army word.

    Cliffy, I don't think "demonise" is really a word. Hell, I don't know maybe its an army word.


    11:01 PM


    demon
    One entry found for demon.
    Main Entry: de·mon
    Variant(s): or dae·mon /'dE-m&n/
    Function: noun
    Etymology: Middle English demon, from Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin daemon evil spirit, from Latin, divinity, spirit, from Greek daimOn, probably from daiesthai to distribute -- more at TIDE
    1 a : an evil spirit b : a source or agent of evil, harm, distress, or ruin
    2 usually daemon : an attendant power or spirit : GENIUS
    3 usually daemon : a supernatural being of Greek mythology intermediate between gods and men
    4 : one that has exceptional enthusiasm, drive, or effectiveness (a demon for work)
    - de·mo·ni·an /di-'mO-nE-&n/ adjective
    - de·mon·i·za·tion /"dE-m&-n&-'zA-sh&n/ noun
    - de·mon·ize /'dE-m&-"nIz/ transitive verb

    sorry a minor spelling mistake son....

    my apologies.....

    the spell checker I use did not catch it....


    Rusty Shackelford said....

    And what pry tell is a GrOPer? Thats something new.Is that Klingon?

    And what pry tell is a GrOPer? That's something new. Is that Klingon?


    11:02 PM

    No but go ask Angela Merkel ....

    Rusty Shackelford said....

    Cliffy,is this the way you talked in front of one of those "general officers.?

    Cliffy, is this the way you talked in front of one of those "general officers"?

    11:04 PM

    Only once son....

    I'm rather a quick learner......

    and in the end he admitted my point was right but lacked sufficient tact...

    something he quickly helped me learn real well.....


    Dusty Simpleton said...

    Cliffy,your written reports must have been something to behold.I bet there were a few gawfaw's over them.

    Cliffy, your written reports must have been something to behold. I bet there were a few guffaw's over them.

    not really son as most reports were reviewed in draft form. pencil changes made....

    ( this was in the era pre PC) and retyped by the company clerk....

    as per usual most reports though were simply fill in forms....

    the army uses....

    In bullet comments like this....

    Very few required a quick response typed and sent right away.....

    but since you were never in uniform you proly think it is all like MASH....

    BTW dusty if you ever find the testicular fortitude to actually sign up, please do not ask to be a company clerk....

    it really is a boring job, but it does require a lot of diligence and attention to detail........

    you have little of both, if what you post is anything resembling your self

    11:06 PM
    Rusty Shackelford said....

    Well Cliffy,it appears you've thrown in the towel.O.K.,I win,goodnight.

    Well Cliffy, it appears you've thrown in the towel. O.K., I win, goodnight.

    No son just updating some software....

    and rebooting the computer....

    but declare victory when you actually have debated NOTHING again........

    as usual....

    empty slime and smears....

    as a repug debating tool. How original....

    but pathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Official's Tax Break: on Firm Ground?
    ""When U.S. Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) sold 165 acres to the city of Monrovia in 2002, he made a profit of more than $10 million, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in Congress. Ordinarily, he would have had to pay state and federal taxes of up to 31% on that profit. Instead, Miller told the Internal Revenue Service and the state that Monrovia had forced him to sell the property under threat of eminent domain. That allowed him to shelter the profits from capital gains taxes for more than two years before he had to reinvest the money. But there is a problem with Miller's claim: Monrovia officials say that Miller sold the land willingly and that they didn't threaten to force him to sell."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-miller13aug13,0,2223572.story?coll=la-home-headlines


    Just another repug tax cheating hypocrite..........typical

    ReplyDelete
  139. Oh and FF, this is about how the white house, keeps the American people from knowing what the President, who supposedly WORKS FOR THEM ,is doing, unless it is to their advantage..

    The Lapdog Press Rolls Over, Again


    There was a telling quote in the Washington Post weekend piece about how president Bush, stiff-arming the press once again, now sometimes travels around the country--usually to private fundraisers--without a press plane in tow. The arrangement is unprecedented in modern times, as noted by the Post's Peter Baker: "The idea that Bush could travel across the country without a full contingent of reporters, especially in the middle of a war, highlights a major cultural shift in the presidency and the news media."

    The move is just the latest part of the White House's war against the press; the way Bush essentially walked away from press conferences during his first term, the way former chief of staff Andy Card famously dismissed the press as just another D.C. special interest group seeking access, and the way the administration audaciously paid off pundits like Armstrong Williams. (Unfortunately, the Post article failed to include that proper context, suggesting Bush's latest move towards press secrecy was occurring in a vacuum.)

    The article's money quote though, came from Lanny Davis, who served as White House special counsel during the Clinton years and who witnessed the non-stop attacks that the angry, agitated D.C. press corps launched against that Democratic administration. Davis expressed surprise that the recent change in White House policy of not including a press plane for all presidential trips hadn't generated my cries of protest. Said Davis, "I marvel at their ability to get away with it. I have to grudgingly admit to some envy. I admire their chutzpah."

    But to paraphrase Dizzy Dean, the old-time baseball great who once quipped, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up," when it comes to this White House dealing with the timorous press corps, it ain't chutzpah if you know you can get away with it. Because based on the Beltway press corps' six-year lapdog run, the White House knew full well that not taking the press along whenever the president traveled was unprecedented, it knew journalists would interpret the move as insulting, and it knew the ramifications--the organized push back--would be non-existent. And of course, the White House was right.

    Here's the barely-there response the Post got from Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, when asked about the lack of a press plane: "A lot of this is the reflection of the times. The whole thing is changing." He's also quoted as saying, "As we move into the fall campaign, if this happens more often, we're going to put pressure on [White House spokesman Tony Snow] and others to open these events."

    Forgive me if I doubt Snow is trembling in anticipation of the 'pressure' that may soon be brought to bear. After all, this is the same White House Correspondents' Association that did nothing in 2005 after it was discovered the Bush administration had waved a former male escort, Jeff Gannon, into more than a 100 press briefings despite the fact Gannon had no journalism background, had no accreditation with a legitimate news organization, and was not asked to sit for an FBI background check the way most White House reporters did.

    The Beltway press corps has made it abundantly clear that the Bush White House can do pretty much whatever it wants in terms of dealing with the press, and journalists aren't going to object. They're too intimidated to even speak up. Yet reporters and pundits wonder why they get tagged as lapdogs?


    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/the-lapdog-press-rolls-ov_b_27215.html

    ReplyDelete
  140. This is what the news story about disallowing the press to travel with BUSH is really all about.

    • Restrictions on the free flow of information.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Pray for President Bush
    prayforgeorgewbush.com August 14, 2006

    Psalm 139: 7-10

    Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?
    Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
    If I ascend up into heaven,
    Thou art there;
    if I make my bed in hell,
    behold Thou art there.
    If I take the wings of the morning,
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
    even there shall thy hand lead me
    and Thy right hand shall hold me.

    -------------------

    Holy Father,
    Because this is the day that You have made, help us to use it to grow in our love and service to You. Though we sometimes run from You, we pray that You would help us to stop, turn around, and face You, Lord. For where can we go to hide from You? Where can we flee from Your presence? You are far too great for even the entire earth to contain You. If we sleep, You are there; if we awaken, Your presence remains. How grateful we are, Father, that You who fill the entire universe, the heavens, and the depths are greater than any problem we can ever possibly face. And so we praise You for Your goodness, and for Your wonderful works in the children of men. For You satisfy our longing souls, and You fill our hungry souls with goodness.

    Father, though the wicked have laid a snare for our President and Vice-President, yet we confess that You are their Defense. You are their Keeper---the Shade upon their right hands. Nothing shall harm them by day or by night for You preserve them from all evil. You preserve their going out and their coming in for evermore. We are confident that You will accomplish everything that concerns them and that Your mercy shall prevail over them, for You never forsake the works of Your own hands. Thank You for the time of respite You have given our President, and may he be renewed by Your power as he does the work You have set before him.

    We grow weary of the squawking voices of those who choose to call good evil, and evil, good. We pray that the Light of Your Truth would flood over their hearts, driving out the darkness and blindness. Help them, Lord, for like fish out of water, they flounder without You.

    May our military men and women speak of Your greatness to a world that is easily offended. May they be strong in You and do the work You have set before them, and may they accomplish their missions with integrity and persistence. Reward them, Lord, for they are willing to risk their own lives for people even of their own nation who denounce and hate them. Shield the Israeli forces and help the Israeli people to dwell in Your shadow of protection.

    Grant us an extra measure of Your grace during these trying times, Father. Help us to speak and move in the Spirit so that we do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. We can do so because we are branches of the Vine, and You supply us with all that we need to bear much fruit. Help us to keep our eyes focused on You rather than upon the seas of uncertainty that surround us. Accept our humble prayers in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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  142. Why do Muslims hate the West?

    What would be the impact of a single dirty bomb exploded in the U.S.?

    Why did the Afghanistan invasion make the U.S. more vulnerable to nuclear attack?

    Craig Winn Radio Interview with Art Bell

    Other Craig Winn Interviews

    ReplyDelete
  143. To Rusty AKA, Dusty Simpleton, Wufuss Dandy,Herpes Simplex, Anonymous, Mr Mackey, etc....


    I have this to say, its funny how 1/3 of our nation or 100,000,000 people think the Bush Administration was either involved in 9/11 or had knowledge of it and let it happen, and coincidentally that same number, 1/3 of our nation support this mindless self serving evil dictator GWB, so next time you try and portray those who Think the Bush Administration may have had knowledge of 9/11 or been involved as fringe wacco's keep in mind that the same number of fringe wacco's support the Bush Administration and even less 18% last I heard support Cheney and the repug Congress that should be called "Rubber Stamp" because they rubber stamp anything Bush wants instead of doing their part of their job which is oversite.

    And since 2/3 of our nation or 200,000,000 people are opposed to the Bush Administration and their policies you dont have a snowballs chance in hell of trying to spin it that 2/3 of our population are fringe wacco's, it is the Neo Con's and their Ideologue supporters that are the backwash of America, and if you guys consider the 1/3 of our Country who Think the Bush Administration may have had knowledge of 9/11 or been involved as fringe wacco's, then I guess its fair to say the 1/3 of our Country who support Bush and his corrupt Administration are fringe wacco's as well!

    ReplyDelete
  144. Lydia said "We have never learned our lesson: that communication, really listening to the needs and point of view of the other side, could save countless lives & destruction. To be hell-bent on war, saying the insurgents envy us because of our freedom is a total lie and cop-out. We just don't care to look at our part as enslavers, invaders. That's how we'll be remembered by the Iraqi people. A little girl was blown to bits after her famiily's apartment suffered its 3rd bombing. How on earth have we improved matters and protected our homeland by this heinous war?"

    Lydia, great blog, i've been meaning to comment on it for the last couple of days, people dont realize how beneficial and important it can be to try and see things from others point of view, It has helped me numerous times both personally and professionally to avoid conflict and turn around potentially ugly situations, while it doesnt work 100% of the time (what ever does) just letting someone know you are trying to see things from their point of view can often ease tensions even if you still dont agree. If everyone one would make the attempt to be more open minded and try to see things from others perspective, the world would be a much better place.

    As for our leaders I dont think the Neo Cons are capable of seeing any point of view other than their own, and although they try to make it like we are in Iraq for purely altruistic reasons, I think its all spin, I dont buy it for a minute that they care about the Iraqi's well being (they dont even care about our own citizen's well being) or for liberating them or installing democracy they've been using this war to rubberstamp or justify anything they want to do weather it is illegal or not, to seize power and make money. a lot of people think the Neo Cons want to wage war because they are afraid, but I dont buy that either, this war is all about controling the oil and seizing power and staying in power and profiting from the war on both ends from the weapons and killing and from the rebuilding and oil.I get aggravated everytime I hear that load of crap that "they hate us because of our freedom", yeah, its not because we are bombing and destroying their homes, killing, imprisoning and torturing their friends and families, they hate us because of our freedom, I just dont understand how anyone can buy the riddiculous poisonous rhetoric these clowns are trying to sell.

    ReplyDelete
  145. clif said, As for our leaders I don't think the Neo Cons are capable of seeing any point of view other than their own,"

    once again your absolutely right as usual Clif, let me rephrase what I meant. the Neo Cons are not capable of accepting or acknowledging any point of view other than their own.And again your absolutely right they do attemp to discredit the oppostion and try to distill everything down to soundbites. they are part of the dumbing down of America, they use the tough talk and the soundbites to try to appeal to 20 year olds and rednecks and the worst thing is it has worked so far. They continuously offer simple solutions to complex problems then when their solutions fail to work they use spin to demonize their opponents and deflect the real issues. the worst part is that unlike being wrong on a blog or in a verbal debate, there are serious consequences for their failed policies and poor decisions that could effect the world for decades to come.

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  146. Worfeus sais "The fact is, this war on terror is a police action, its law enforcement, not war as they were referring to in the constitution.

    We have had terrroists attacking us for decades in various places, but Bush decided to call it war.

    Now he can claim that the war never ends, therefore our constitutional rights are null and void.

    Thats their plan, and so far its been working like a charm.

    Like Clif said the Repugs arent for fair and honest debate, they prefer to argue semantics like for instance they consider the war on terrorism a real war when they use it to stomp on our civil rights and personal freedoms and spit on and defy the constitution, but yet they dont consider it a real war when they circumvent the Geneva Convention and imprison and torture the very people they claim to want to liberate and help.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Fed Governor Ferguson resigned several months ago. He was one of the last voices on the Fed which resists targeting inflation, which is what Bernanke has argued the Fed should do. His departure also means that President Bush will have appointed every Fed governor, which is unprecedented"


    Think the Federal Reserve isnt political, think again, they want to stop raising interest rates a few months before the elections, while talking fairly tough on inflation so the dollar will remain reasonably stable for the next few months at least and the market will rally going into the elections, after that its look out below.

    ReplyDelete
  148. HAROLD LOVES MAUDE - thank you! Just read your post. Sometimes it takes me awhile to read everything.
    Hope I don't annoy you too much. Read the Christ posts from earlier in the year. Maybe it will gradually make sense that I am coming from Christ's actual teachings.

    God Bless
    * Peace out xo
    Lyd

    (*from Napoleon Dynamite)

    ReplyDelete
  149. Thomas, in the HUNTER episode, it was a gun, not a knife, but thanks for remembering.

    Fred Dreyer is 6 foot 7, so I had to stand on an apple box to kiss him.

    Anyway, yes the terrorists are barbaric and inhumane, but WHY ARE WE ENGAGING WITH THEM ON THEIR TURF WHEN THEIR CHIEF COMPLAINT IS WE ARE ON THEIR HOLY LAND, RAPING THEIR RESOURCES AND CORRUPTING THEIR "RELIGION" WITH MATERIALISM!

    Why can't we just take care of our side of the street, or at least Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. We have no right to be in Iraq. Aggressive wars and invasions are not natural nor are they American. This is a blight on our nation.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Tall Texan - that was a beautiful prayer.
    Thank you,
    xo,
    Lyd

    ReplyDelete
  151. On Meet the Press this past Sunday, everyone of the Guests, both repugs and dems said that the war on terror and the war in Iraq are two distinct and seperate things and they went on to say that the war in Iraq is a distraction that is wasting our limited resources and is compromising both our domestic safety and the war on terrorism

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  152. I'd like to hear people's opinion on if this will make us safer, or it is just a fear tactic to inconvienience people and make people angry and fearful and help polarize them to the us or them repug thinking come election time.


    Press Office
    U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    FACT SHEET
    August 10, 2006
    Contact: 202-282-8010
    GUIDANCE FOR AIRLINE PASSENGERS
    Raised Threat Levels:
    􀂾 The U.S. threat level is raised to Severe, or Red, for all commercial flights flying from the United Kingdom to the U.S.
    􀂾 The U.S. threat level is raised to High, or Orange for all commercial aviation operating in the U.S., including international flights. Flights from the U.S. to the U.K. are also Orange.
    Increased Aviation Screening Procedures:
    The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will be implementing a series of security measures – some visible and some not visible -- to ensure the security of the traveling public and the Nation's transportation system. TSA is immediately implementing following changes to airport screening procedures:
    􀂾 NO LIQUIDS OR GELS OF ANY KIND WILL BE PERMITTED IN CARRY ON BAGGAGE. SUCH ITEMS MUST BE IN CHECKED BAGGAGE. This includes all beverages, shampoo, sun tan lotion, creams, tooth paste, hair gel, and other items of similar consistency.
    Exception: Baby formula, breast milk, or juice if a baby or small child is traveling; prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket; and insulin and essential other non-prescription medicines, which all must be presented for inspection at the checkpoint.
    􀂾 Beverages purchased in the boarding area (beyond the checkpoint) must be consumed before boarding because they will not be permitted on board the aircraft.
    􀂾 Passengers traveling from the U.K. to the U.S. will be subject to a more extensive screening process.
    These measures will be constantly evaluated and updated when circumstances warrant.
    How every passenger can assist in security:
    􀂾 Pack lightly, without clutter to facilitate easier screening
    􀂾 Arrive earlier than usual at the airport
    􀂾 Cooperate with TSA personnel at checkpoints and with airline personnel at all gates
    􀂾 Be attentive and vigilant to any suspicious activity and report it to authorities
    Increased Border Protection Procedures:
    􀂾 U.S. Customs and Border Protection will increase enforcement efforts in international arrival areas including the use of advanced targeting tools, special response teams including baggage and aircraft search teams, baggage x-ray equipment, specially-trained canine units, and explosive detection technology.
    􀂾 DHS has also mandated that all flights from the U.K. transmit passenger manifest information for intensive screening prior to departure from the gate. In addition, passengers on these flights and all other international flights will be subject to heightened inspection upon arrival in the U.S.
    ###

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  153. Sounds like your the one wearing the Tinfoil Hat dusty Simpleton!

    I have this to say, its funny how 1/3 of our nation or 100,000,000 people think the Bush Administration was either involved in 9/11 or had knowledge of it and let it happen, and coincidentally that same number, 1/3 of our nation support this mindless self serving evil dictator GWB, so next time you try and portray those who Think the Bush Administration may have had knowledge of 9/11 or been involved as fringe wacco's keep in mind that the same number of fringe wacco's support the Bush Administration and even less 18% last I heard support Cheney and the repug Congress that should be called "Rubber Stamp" because they rubber stamp anything Bush wants instead of doing their part of their job which is oversite.

    And since 2/3 of our nation or 200,000,000 people are opposed to the Bush Administration and their policies you dont have a snowballs chance in hell of trying to spin it that 2/3 of our population are fringe wacco's, it is the Neo Con's and their Ideologue supporters that are the backwash of America, and if you guys consider the 1/3 of our Country who Think the Bush Administration may have had knowledge of 9/11 or been involved as fringe wacco's, then I guess its fair to say the 1/3 of our Country who support Bush and his corrupt Administration are fringe wacco's as well!

    ReplyDelete
  154. Volt, just my opinion, but I think those stats you posted reflect more that just which show appears to be best.........I think progessives/democrats arent as political as conservatives/repugs and are more well rounded and interested in more things than just politics, look at your party over the years for example, repugs have always been more united than democrats, I also think they are more poltical and more tuned into politics.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Cliffy, I understand you're from KY.

    Did you ever work in that modern KY Jelly factory?

    ReplyDelete
  156. Foole "KY" is the abbreviation for "Kentucky" a state in the United States not YOUR favorite cream you slip across the border into Mexico with...like Limpman slipped into the Dominican Republic

    BTW bozo they use K-Y not KY as their logo....try and get your data straight..and you would not look soooo stupid all the time...

    And as for claiming it was sarcasm well repug sarcasm usually isn't, but a bumbling attempt to smear with bad humor

    ReplyDelete
  157. Colorado redistricting lawsuit dismissed

    By Jon Sarche, Associated Press Writer | August 14, 2006

    DENVER --A panel of federal judges has delivered a blow to Colorado Republicans and dismissed the last lawsuit filed over congressional boundaries imposed by a state court.


    The ruling, handed down Friday, means district lines drawn by a Denver judge remain in effect.

    The dispute dates to the 2000 census, which showed Colorado's population grew enough to earn the state a seventh seat in the U.S. House. The Legislature, then split between Republicans and Democrats, failed to agree on new boundaries in time for the 2002 elections, prompting a Denver judge to map the districts.

    By 2003, Republicans had gained control of the Legislature and adopted a new redistricting map to replace the court-imposed map.

    When Democrats challenged the GOP-favored map, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature gets only one chance a decade to redistrict and lawmakers missed that chance when they failed to agree on a plan in 2002. Justices threw out the 2003 map and restored the state court's map.

    The federal lawsuit had asked judges to reinstate the district lines drafted by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

    The lawsuit argued that the court-imposed map violates the constitutional right of citizens to vote for congressional candidates in districts created by the Legislature.

    In dismissing the lawsuit on Friday, the federal judges asserted that the case has already been decided by Colorado's Supreme Court.

    Brett Lilly, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the federal suit, said Monday the judge's redistricting map and the state Supreme Court ruling violated the U.S. Constitution, which says redistricting must be handled by the Legislature. Lilly also objected to the state justices' conclusion that the Colorado Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting.

    Lilly said he plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/08/14/colorado_redistricting_lawsuit_dismissed/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News+%2F+Nation

    Too bad the repugs keep thinking they get to MAKE up the rules as they go along...too bad the courts do not agree with them at least too bad for THEM but GOOD for the country, the majority of it's people and both futures....

    ReplyDelete
  158. So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See? and Bush says, “Whad’l'ya have, pardner?” and Osama says…

    But wait a minute. I’d better shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport says, “Security is no joking matter.” But if security’s no joking matter, why does this guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to dump my Frappuccino and take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank the Lord the “shoe bomber” didn’t carry Semtex in his underpants.

    Today’s a RED and ORANGE ALERT day. How odd. They just caught the British guys with the chemistry sets. But when these guys were about to blow up airliners, the USA was on YELLOW alert. That’s a “lowered” threat notice.


    According to the press office from the Department of Homeland Security, lowered-threat Yellow means that there were no special inspections of passengers or cargo. Isn’t it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off? Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his nation doesn’t use these pretty color codes.

    He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day’s terror color.

    “I can’t say I ever have. I mean, who would?”

    He smiled. “The terrorists.”

    America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won’t be monitored. You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush’s team.

    There are three possible explanations for the Administration’s publishing a good-day-for-bombing color guidebook.

    1. God is on Osama’s side.

    2. George is on Osama’s side.

    3. Fear sells better than sex.

    A gold star if you picked #3.

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  159. Bush Said to Be Frustrated by Level of Public Support in Iraq

    WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 — President Bush made clear in a private meeting this week that he was concerned about the lack of progress in Iraq and frustrated that the new Iraqi government — and the Iraqi people — had not shown greater public support for the American mission, participants in the meeting said Tuesday.

    Those who attended a Monday lunch at the Pentagon that included the president’s war cabinet and several outside experts said Mr. Bush carefully avoided expressing a clear personal view of the new prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

    But in what participants described as a telling line of questioning, Mr. Bush did ask each of the academic experts for their assessment of the prime minister’s effectiveness.

    “I sensed a frustration with the lack of progress on the bigger picture of Iraq generally — that we continue to lose a lot of lives, it continues to sap our budget,” said one person who attended the meeting. “The president wants the people in Iraq to get more on board to bring success.”

    Another person who attended the session said he interpreted Mr. Bush’s comments less as an expression of frustration than as uncertainty over the prospects of the new Iraqi government. “He said he really didn’t quite have a sense yet of how effective the government was,” said this person, who, like several who discussed the session, agreed to speak only anonymously because it was a private lunch.

    More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. “I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/washington/16policy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

    Invading their country...with out the populace asking him to invade.

    Denying them security..and basic services for YEARS

    Bombing their houses, killing their children, parents, family, friends, and neighbors..imprisoning the same with out much justification except they exist in Iraq. Torture...the same they imprison. Level Falluga, attack Ramadi continuously...

    Incite factional sectarian violence by the policies they choose...under fund the reconstruction...and under supply basic needs,

    However in the MIDDLE of Baghdad..build the largest US embassy on the planet..which will rival the Vatican in size..

    ON time...fully funded...and supplied with building materials..and water...and electricity..so the can LIGHT it up at night to build...as the rest of the city goes WITHOUT power.

    And they are supposedly be thankful for this..AND ask for MORE?

    BUSH DOESN'T GET IT?

    Why would a dry drunk who has failed at most everything he attempted in his life get the suffering and misery he causes, after all daddy and daddy's friends have always bailed bush out...and the Iraqis have daddies also, unless they are in Abu Ghraib...or dead...or are living in bombed out towns or cities...with no electricity or running water...with NO jobs...and real future.

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  160. Editorial: Is it time to end U.S. Iraq adventure?

    Civil war there isn’t a mere possibility; it’s a reality.

    A few identical e-mail letters trickled into the Star Tribune Sunday: same format, same contents. The first line read: "President Bush has a clear plan for victory in Iraq that begins with training Iraqi forces so they can defend their country and fight the terrorists." These e-mails are known as "astroturf" -- i.e. imitation grass-roots letters crafted by some partisan group for people to send. Their appearance almost always suggests that the opposite of what they assert is nearer the truth.

    In this case, Bush may have a clear plan, but it's a clearly failing plan. Iraq is a mess. Bush's goal of creating a stable, democratic Iraq where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds live peacefully side by side now seems a fool's errand. Some people find the use of Vietnam as a comparison to Iraq annoying, but like Vietnam, Iraq has come down to this question: How do we get out?

    The astroturf was an obvious GOP attempt to recover from the body blow Bush's Iraq policy took last week from, of all places, the commander in charge of U.S. forces there. Gen. John Abizaid told a Senate committee that the sectarian violence in Iraq was as bad as he'd ever seen and that the country seems headed for civil war.

    Abizaid was being generous. Iraq isn't headed for civil war; it's in the initial stages of that war. Rather than focusing on fighting American troops, the Sunni and Shiite insurgents now are focused on killing each other; power over all of Iraq is the prize they seek. That's why Abizaid recently ordered 3,700 troops from Mosul to Baghdad: The Sunni-Shiite violence in the capital city had gotten out of control, and Iraqi forces were incapable of dealing with it.

    If Baghdad deteriorates into total chaos -- and it's near that point -- then all indeed will be lost for Bush. His naive experiment in Middle East democracy-building will have proven as dangerously farfetched as his critics have said it was from the beginning.

    In a new book, "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End," former ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith recounts that even on the eve of the war, Bush was unacquainted with the divisions in Islam. He did not appreciate the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, which is at the heart of the civil war now picking up steam. Perhaps that's why the White House was so nonchalant about planning for postinvasion Iraq.

    In response to Abizaid's testimony, even senior GOP senators such as Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed serious concern about the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Warner said the Senate might need to rethink the authority it gave Bush to send forces into Iraq in the first place. They don't want to see U.S. troops caught in the middle of a civil war.

    It's a good thing to see senior Republicans finally expressing concern for U.S. troops who long after Bush's "mission accomplished" moment are trying to police in the midst of chaos. Too often, the young men and women are seen as mere tools to be used as seen fit in pursuit of geostrategic goals. The question these senators now need to confront is the crucial one: When will enough be enough?

    If this is a lost cause, how many more lives should we give to it? There is a black wall in Washington with more than 58,000 names on it of those who died in another lost cause. Washington doesn't need another such wall.

    http://www.startribune.com/561/story/600850.html

    But The GrOPer in Chief, Dead Eye and Dumsfeld..are staying the course to fill their very own wall of heros who fell, in the line of duty,because the three stooges in DC couldn't admit theirs was a policy failure, of epic proportions.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Clif, thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise of KY jelly. That's one of the nice things about these blogs; you learn so much about other people's interests and hobbies, in your case KY jelly and the branding thereof. You are truly a very wise man, with a compendious knowledge of all things great and small, including personal lubricant technology and branding. Thanks again for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Tiny inTellect said;

    Clif, thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise of KY jelly.


    No expertise son, just Google...


    That's one of the nice things about these blogs; you learn so much about other people's interests and hobbies, in your case KY jelly and the branding thereof.


    Before the Foole showed he is a foole...I never even googled K-Y, however I have lived in Kentucky for over a decade and a half....

    You are truly a very wise man,

    Why thank you son.....

    with a compendious knowledge of all things great and small,

    Just curious about the universe...in fact last night I spent quite a bit of time watching the metior shower, called the persids

    including personal lubricant technology and branding.

    Just Google son...not that important but do continue in the Fooles brand of sarcasm

    Thanks again for sharing.

    Thank you for being a STUPID repug operative...I'd expect nothing less from the party of lies and smear tactics...and gutless chicken hawks

    ReplyDelete
  163. Funny tiny minded one with Five posts I made last night, you choose the one where I call the foole on his stupidity as the MOST important since it was the only one you CHOOSE to reply to...I guess the war in Iraq, or Bush's losing strategy in his war on terra or the repugs court losses, are simply a side show to a repug operative, since bush got his 3 point jump in the polls already and is still swimmimg in the backwash.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Well, next time I have a question about KY jelly, I'll know just whom to ask.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Clif, do you ever notice when some people get kicked in the teeth and don't even know it?

    ReplyDelete
  166. Tiny InTellect said;

    Well, next time I have a question about KY jelly, I'll know just whom to ask.

    The Foole of course...as he knew enough to take it to Mexico for some mexican limpman action...

    ReplyDelete
  167. Tiny one why don't you BACK up your suggestion?

    ReplyDelete
  168. Meanwhile, in Baghdad ...

    Published: August 16, 2006
    As everyone with a television is aware, Lebanon has just suffered through a terrible month, with more than 1,000 people killed, most of them innocent civilians. But Iraq has suffered through an even worse month. Since June, more than 3,000 Iraqis have been killed each month, and the rate continues to rise. While Lebanon is now trying to pick up the pieces, Iraq is falling apart at an accelerating pace.

    As Americans debate where to go from here on Iraq, one thing should be clear. Staying the course until President Bush leaves office 29 months from now is not an option. It is no longer even clear just what course America is on. Most of what Washington now claims to be doing cannot withstand the most elementary reality test.

    Just this week, Mr. Bush defined America’s purpose as supporting an inclusive national unity government. Every day, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no such unity government, that there never has been and that the various branches of the Iraqi leadership are not trying to create one.

    Iraq’s elected government is dominated by two Iranian-backed Shiite fundamentalist parties. They are backed on the streets of Baghdad and in the Shiite south by two Hezbollah-like armed militias. In Parliament, their power is reinforced by two Kurdish separatist parties, also with their own militias, which have been allowed to run the Kurdish northeast like an independent state within a state.

    Washington doesn’t complain too loudly about these militias, because without them, the Iraqi government would be even weaker than it is now. But so long as they are allowed to enforce their murderous brand of vigilante justice, it is ludicrous to claim that Iraqis enjoy democracy or the rule of law.

    Some Sunni parties also participate in the government, but without any real policy-making power. This week, the Sunni speaker of Parliament considered quitting to protest his isolation.

    Outside Shiite and Kurdish areas, the authority of Iraq’s government is barely felt. There, Sunni insurgents fight and kill American troops. That insurgency did not die down after Saddam Hussein was captured, as Mr. Bush once hoped it would. Nor did it die down when elections were held, when the constitution was ratified, when the government was formed or when the local leader of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed. The insurgency rages on, and no one knows when, how or if it might end.

    The other key element of Mr. Bush’s policy is his promise that as Iraqi forces stand up, American forces will stand down. Even on the rare occasions that Iraqi forces have stood up, they have often been unreliable and ineffective. In June, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced a drive by Iraqi and American troops to secure Baghdad. Baghdad became even less secure, and more American troops had to be called in to do a job they were supposed to be phasing out of. More Iraqis were killed in July than in any other month of the war.

    And the mayhem in Baghdad continues unabated. Local policing is, in fact, a job that only Iraqis can do successfully. But almost three and a half years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, there is still no Iraqi force capable of taking this on. And it is hard to see how the present Iraqi government will ever field such a force, so long as its power depends on armed sectarian militias that fuel the Baghdad violence.

    Things in Iraq are not going to get better by themselves. The answer is not blind perseverance in staying a course that has demonstrably failed.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/opinion/16Wed1.html?th&emc=th

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  169. BTW backwash is still the same 4 months later..but more stale, and less appealing


    August 15, 2006
    Latest Bush Approval Rating at 37%
    Little fundamental change in rating since June


    by Jeffrey M. Jones

    The latest Gallup poll finds George W. Bush's presidential job approval rating at 37%, consistent with recent polling. His approval rating has bounced between 36% and 40% since early June, after hitting a personal low of 31% in May.

    http://poll.gallup.com/content/?ci=24118


    I guess Bush does not know when he is getting "kicked in the teeth" either .... does he son?

    ReplyDelete
  170. I mean son...

    Tom Delay figgered it out ..

    and HE CUT AND RAN from his house seat...

    ignoring his DUTY to those who elected him didn't he?

    He knew he had kicked his own teeth in

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  171. And Bob Ney of Ohio realised he was down for thge count, thus he threw in the towel...

    ReplyDelete
  172. But people like Kathrine Harris...or Joe Lieberman just do not get it do they?

    ReplyDelete
  173. They just come back for a second kick...

    ReplyDelete
  174. BTW Tiny inTellect..

    Next time you want to have a battle of wits, bring yours with you.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Dusty I live in Kentucky and the Amish do make some very good Jelly and Jam,

    but if your using bad sarcasm to suggest I am interested in K-Y like the FOOLE and Tiny inTellect seem to be, well right after they get done experimenting with it in the blue boy motel...they can get you up to speed so when Ken Mehlman comes to visit you can offer him something better than you with knee pads on....at least from HIS perspective.

    If he thinks your good they might even give you Jeff Gannon's old gig at the white house...seems Karl is off his game after Jeffy-Boy quit visiting.........they might even "need" you...................LOL

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  176. Lydia,
    I think people on both sides of the politcal spectrum in this country need to be annoyed. Broadens everyones perspective. I'll read the posts you suggested to see where you're coming from.
    --Thanks for the response.

    ReplyDelete
  177. Leaving the Battlefield

    KHIAM, Lebanon, Aug. 14 -- A little after dawn Monday, the shells crashed every few seconds. The last fell at 7:56 a.m. Then they stopped, as suddenly as they had begun 33 days before. And into the streets of this Shiite Muslim town, where electricity wires laced through rubble and a tree branch sprawled across the hood of a green BMW, the fighters emerged, bathed in a cool mountain breeze.

    There was no gunfire in the air, no chants, no jubilant displays of celebration. There were, rather, the satisfied expressions of survival. Men embraced, kissing each other's cheeks, some emerging into sunlight for the first time in weeks. Cellphones, in almost everyone's hand, rang with queries of others' whereabouts, the fate of houses and the reality of a cease-fire that still seemed fragile. They smiled. "Thank God for your safety" was the refrain.



    And Hussein Kalash, burly, hard and confident, offered three words that defined the war for Khiam's defenders, the Hezbollah fighters.

    "We're still here," he said.

    Anthony Shadid

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Israel is leaving the battlefield in Lebanon. It has already begun to withdraw troops from north of the border, and plans to withdraw all of its forces when relieved by UNIFIL+ and the Lebanese Army. When that relief might take place is unclear.

    What is clear is that Hizbullah's forces remain in place all over the disputed zone and that its command and control of its forces remains effective. How can you know that? Easy. The day before the cease fire Hizbullah fired 250 rockets into Israel and since the cease fire has fired none. This represents unmistakable evidence of effective command.

    The IDF believes that Hizbullah is using the southward flow of returning refugees to infiltrate reinforcements and re-supply into the area near the border only partially occupied by the IDF. Between and among the scattered positions of the IDF there are many areas empty of Israeli troops. There are Hizbullah forces in these areas waiting for re-supply. The IDF must know that. Why are they vacating the battlefield in these circumstances?

    A basic lesson of history is that one must win on the battlefield to dictate the peace. A proof of winning on the battlefield has always been possession of that battlefield when the shooting stops. Those who remain on the field are just about always believed to have been victorious. Those who leave the field are believed to be the defeated.

    Lee remained on the field a day after both Antietam and Gettysburg waiting to resume the fight. McClellan and Meade did not respond and Lee then moved away withdrawing to the south. He is thought to have been defeated in both battles although both could be argued to have been a "draw."

    Look at the man on the stretcher. If this situation continues to develop along present lines, he will be considered the victor of the 2006 Israeli/Hizbullah War.

    Pat Lang

    http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

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  178. Bush fumbled real security

    By barging past Congress, he left gaps for terrorists


    The Bush administration and its supporters claim that the recently foiled terrorist plot in Britain vindicates President Bush's approach to protecting this country against terrorist attacks.

    Superficially, there would appear to be merit to this claim.

    Certainly the audacity of the plot - blowing up perhaps as many as 10 planes en route to the United States at roughly the same time - demonstrates that large-scale terrorist attacks against this country remain a real and present danger. And it's fair to say that the Bush administration generally places a greater priority on protecting against such threats than its critics.

    Moreover, the plot was foiled through the extensive use of surveillance of terrorist suspects in Britain. And the Bush administration has consistently advocated and asserted greater surveillance authority in the United States.

    More carefully considered, however, the foiled terrorist plot in Britain actually cuts against the Bush approach in a couple of critical respects.

    Britain's government certainly does have broader powers to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks than the government of the United States does.

    The laws defining and proscribing terrorist activities are more expansive. Law enforcement can institute surveillance of terrorist suspects without court order.

    The activities of terrorist suspects can be restricted through control orders. Terrorist suspects can be detained for a couple of days without court order and for up to 28 days with court approval but without specific charges being filed.

    Law enforcement in Britain has greater latitude to take action, including search-and-seizure and cordoning off areas, in investigations and in responding to a perceived imminent threat.

    Some court proceedings can consider secret information. In such cases, suspects are represented by special advocates, who have access to the secret information but cannot share it with their clients.

    These are certainly broader powers than the Bush administration has advocated or exercised. There is, however, a critical distinction. All of these powers were given the British government through explicit acts of Parliament.

    When the Blair government found that the existing rules weren't flexible or nimble enough to meet the modern terrorist threat - as the Bush administration has found, for example, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - it didn't assert an inherent authority to ignore the rules and craft its own. It instead publicly sought changes in the rules to give it the flexibility and nimbleness it thought it needed.

    There is not, of course, the same separation of powers principle in Britain that animates the U.S. system of government. The Bush administration, however, has little taste for the corollary to the separation of powers doctrine: checks and balances.

    More significantly, the British terrorist plot would certainly seem to stand in stark repudiation of a central tenant of the Bush doctrine. The Bush doctrine holds that it is the lack of freedom and democracy that breeds terrorism. Therefore, the long-term solution is the spread of freedom and democracy.

    That was one of the principal rationales for the invasion of Iraq. After removal of Saddam and his threat, a democratic government could be stood up that would be a transforming force in the region.

    However, Britain is as free and democratic as they come. Yet that did not prevent a plot rivaling 9/11 from being hatched by some of its citizens.

    The spread of freedom and democracy is, of course, a good thing and in the national interest of the United States. Participating in democratic governance may also play a role in a necessary evolution of Islamic fundamentalism.

    Islamic terrorism, however, is a more complex phenomenon than the Bush doctrine contemplates. Nor is it obvious that pushing democratic reform in Islamic countries, rather than letting it occur organically if it will, protects the United States against terrorist attacks. It may just as well make the United States more of a target.

    Islamic terrorism needs to be attacked directly, through surveillance, detection, disruption and preemption. The U.S. government does need the authority to become flexible and nimble enough to match the modern threat.

    After 9/11, the opportunity existed to create an enduring national consensus about the authority government needs to protect against the threat of terrorist attack and the appropriate checks and balances on that authority. The alacrity with which the Patriot Act was enacted illustrates that.

    That opportunity, however, has now been shattered, principally by the Iraq war in pursuit of a geopolitical objective only marginally related to protecting the country against terrorism, and the assertion of unilateral authority by the Bush administration without the formal consent of Congress and unchecked by court oversight.

    The fumbling of that opportunity is the great tragedy of the Bush presidency.

    http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0816robb16.html

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  179. On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite, the longtime anchorman of the CBS Evening News and the gruff but kindly voice of what was then called Middle America, signed off his broadcast on an unusual note. Freshly returned from Vietnam, where the Tet offensive had just ended, Cronkite offered what he called “an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective.” “We have too often been disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds,” he said. “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic yet unsatisfactory conclusion.” Like the famous issue of Life devoted to photographs of a week’s worth of American dead, Cronkite’s polite demurral came to symbolize the long migration of opposition to the war in Vietnam from the fringe—the campus firebrands, the radical clerics, the flowers-in-gun-barrels hippies, the papier-mâché puppeteers—to the wide, upholstered center of American political life.

    The center of American politics is no longer as roomy (or as comfy) as it was then. The fringe, now luxuriant only at the rightmost edge of the political prayer rug, has gone online and wired itself for AM radio and cable TV. And nowhere in the cacophonous, atomized “media environment” of today is there anyone capable of deploying the wall-to-wall avuncular authority that was Cronkite’s stock-in-trade. Even so, in this August of 2006 a palpable, ’68-like shift in sentiment is in the steamy air. Among foreign-policy élites and the broader public alike, it has become the preponderant conviction that George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq is a catastrophe.

    “It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq,” Thomas L. Friedman wrote, in the August 4th edition of the Times. “We are baby-sitting a civil war.” Friedman may not be another Walter Lippmann (just as any number of Stewarts, Olbermanns, O’Reillys, and Coopers don’t quite add up to a Cronkite), but he is the most influential foreign-affairs columnist in the country, and from the beginning he has been a critical supporter of the war. His defection is a bellwether. “The Administration now has to admit what anyone—including myself—who believed in the importance of getting Iraq right has to admit,” he wrote. “Whether for Bush reasons or Arab reasons, it is not happening, and we can’t throw more good lives after good lives.” In a Washington Post column a day earlier, the relentlessly centrist David S. Broder, citing his colleague Thomas E. Ricks’s new book, “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq,” admitted that “the hope for victory is gone” and deplored “the answer from Bush,” which he characterized this way: “Carry on. Do not waver. And do not question the logic of prolonging the agony.”

    That same week, a summing-up confidential cable by William Patey, the departing British Ambassador to Iraq, found its way into the newspapers. “The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy,” Patey wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair. “Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq—a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself and is an ally in the war on terror—must remain in doubt.” Asked about Patey’s assessment during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John P. Abizaid, the over-all American commander in the Middle East, replied carefully (Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sitting next to him), “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that, if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war.” Last Monday, in an interview with ABC News, General George Casey, the top commander in Iraq for the past two years, agreed, saying that “the six last weeks or so have been the highest levels of sectarian violence that I’ve seen since I’ve been here” and that “a countrywide civil war” is “the most significant threat right now.” (At a news conference that same day, President Bush himself weighed in on the subject: “You know, I hear people say, well, civil war this, civil war that.” Well, at least he’s listening. Or maybe just hearing.)

    Three and a half years ago, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, commentators across the board agreed that the coming war would be a gamble—“the greatest shake of the dice any President has voluntarily engaged in since Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Japan,” Thomas Friedman called it. The metaphor came up again and again as the war approached. “This is the biggest gamble any President has taken in my lifetime,” a foreign-policy specialist at the Heritage Foundation said. “By accident or design, President Bush has allowed Iraq to become the gamble of a lifetime,” the Washington Post noted. Some viewed the gamble with apprehension. “Whatever this war’s effect on the region, globally it may be an even bigger roll of the dice for the United States than either its proponents or critics have argued,” Charles W. Freeman, Jr., who was the first President Bush’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, wrote. Others were thrilled by the audacity, the swagger, the sheer “High Noon” moral clarity of it all. “This is Texas poker, with the President putting everything on Iraq,” a Republican senator told the columnist Robert Novak, with relish.

    It is in the nature of gambling that the gamble may lose. The dice have now been well and truly rolled, and they have come up snake eyes. The war’s sole real gain—the overthrow of the murderous Saddam Hussein regime—is mocked by the chaos and suffering that have overwhelmed millions of Iraqis, whose country is again a republic of fear. The concrete losses are horrific: nearly three thousand American and “coalition” troops killed; thousands more maimed; scores of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; a third of a trillion dollars burned through. So are the less tangible ones: the unprecedented levels of anti-Americanism throughout the Muslim world and Europe; the self-inflicted loss of America’s moral prestige; the neglect of real nuclear dangers, in Iran and North Korea, while chimeras were chased in Iraq. The neoconservative project of a friendly, democratic Middle East, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, is worse than a charred ruin—it is a flaming inferno.

    After the defeat of Joseph Lieberman in last week’s senatorial primary in Connecticut, spokesmen for the Bush Administration and the Republican Party sought to portray the result as an expression of opposition to the struggle against Islamist terrorism. It was not. Virtually all those who voted against Lieberman, and many, probably most, of those who voted for him, oppose the Iraq war, as does a solid majority—sixty per cent, according to a CNN poll released last Wednesday—of the American public. But they oppose it because, among other reasons, they believe that it has harmed, not helped, that larger struggle. At the end of the week, after British authorities foiled what was evidently a large-scale plot to destroy transatlantic airliners and murder thousands of passengers, President Bush called the plot “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom.” But the war in Iraq is wholly irrelevant to the means chosen by the London terrorists, and the means that thwarted them—dogged police work, lawful surveillance, international coöperation—are precisely those which have been gratuitously starved or stymied on account of the material, political, and human resources that have been, and continue to be, wasted in Iraq. Why not change the game to one that relies less on gambling and bluff and more on wisdom, planning, and (in every sense) intelligence?

    http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/060821ta_talk_hertzberg

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  180. Demonstrating once again that his is an administration bereft of imagination, initiatives, or answers, Bush dusted off an old, worn out campaign slogan yesterday, echoing the fear-mongering theme of his 2004 reelection:

    “America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe,” Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington.

    Safer, but not yet safe. Bush sounds like a man with demented echolalia, repeating old, familiar words echoing back from years past:

    “America is safer, but not yet safe.” — GW Bush, November 1, 2004

    “we are safer, but not yet safe.” — Bush, October 31, 2004

    “America is safer, not yet safe.” — Bush, October 25, 2004

    “America is safer, but not yet safe.” — Bush, October 9, 2004

    “I think we are safer today. I would say, though, we’re not yet safe” — Dick Cheney, September 17, 2004

    “the actions we’ve take have made America safer, but not yet safe. ” — Bush, August 26, 2004

    “Our homeland is safer, but we are not yet safe.” — Bush, July 31, 2004

    Bush said this almost incessantly between July and November 2004. It was the essential theme of his reelection campaign, crafted not by policy makers or counterterror experts, but by political consultants of the sleaziest sort imaginable.

    Not coincidentally, Bush trotted out this campaign slogan just as the Department of Homeland Security issued another terror alert — in fact, a couple days before — as if to emphasize the “not yet safe” part.

    The “safer, but not yet safe” is Bush’s chosen mantra for politically motivated fearmongering.

    It’s what we called the “fear tightrope,” the prostituting of national security for partisan advantage, walking the razor’s edge between inciting raw fear, while projecting an offer of greater security:

    The administration’s push for infringement of civil liberties, repression of civil debate over its increasingly failed policies, and push for support of a free hand to address situations with costly and ineffective military solutions requires Bush and his deputies to constantly incite a level of fear among Americans. Yellow, Orange and Red.

    At the same time, in order to argue that Bush’s diversion from al Qaeda to Iraq is wise policy, it has to argue that Americans are safer now, than we were before the invasion of Iraq.

    This need to constantly incite fear and proclaim that we are safer creates obvious dissonance. The White House is struggling to walk the Fear tightrope: we are safer, yet dire threats which didn’t appear to exist before still require us to spy on our citizens and expend lives and treasure in Iraq.

    “Be very, very afraid, but trust us, you’re safer than you were before you felt so afraid,” is the Bush message.

    I take it as a sign of increasing desperation that Bush is reverting to this strategy. He pulled it off in 2004, but using the same meme two years later will prove problematic for a number of reasons.

    One problem with Bush employing this theme is the shift in public perception in his competence. In 2004, while Americans had their doubts about Iraq, they had more confidence in Bush’s core competence and ability to win in Iraq and create stability. Two years of seemingly pointless conflict styled as “staying the course,” and Bush fumbling of Katrina and other issues have eroded the perception of Bush as an effective leader.

    Another problem is the “safer” part of the message. “Safer” than what?

    While it was easy in 2004 to say we were safer than on 9/11 — the date of the deadliest terror attack on US soil — making the case that we are safer than we were two or three years ago is a much tougher task.

    Terror attacks worldwide soared from 208 in 2003 to 11,111 in 2005. Despite two more years of “fightin’ em over there, so we don’t have to fight them here,” attacks have occurred throughout Europe, and serious attacks continue to target US citizens and those flying to our shores. We are no closer to leaving Iraq than we were two years ago — in fact, the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point where 3,000 Iraqis are dying monthly in mostly sectarian violence.

    Bush may have been able to convincingly make the case in 2004 that we were safer than before in part because fear had been a constant fabric in American society since 9/11. The American people had, afterall, been in a state of almost constant fear since 9/11. First, the fear derived from the horror of the 9/11 attack. Later, the fear was derived from false and inflated projections of Saddam’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons promoted by the Bush administration in order to promote its (and the PNAC’s) agenda of regime change in Iraq.

    But the past two years have, in contrast, been relatively free of fearmongering, as the Bush administration downplayed the deterioration of conditions in Iraq, and sought to minimize its failures in the Global War on Terror epitomized by the 5000% increase in terror attacks from 2003 to 2005.

    Following the 2004 elections, there was an almost complete cessation of terror warnings. After a 2 year hiatus from fearmongering, can BushCo now reinstitute terror alerts, bring back fearmongering, while simultaneously making the case that we are safer?

    Can he now ramp the fear level back up, and still persuade people he is making them safer, in the face of increasing questions regarding his basic competence and increasing perception of his failures and deficiencies as president? How can he convince people they are safer now than they were last year while instilling more fear than before? For how many years can we be “not yet safe” yet still believe we are safer than before?

    It is simply a far more difficult task to use fearmongering to retain a Republican majority now, than it was 2 years ago. Yet the signs that Bush, Cheney, and the GOP intend to do so are unmistakeable. It is a desperate move, attempting the same grift twice, and a sign they have little or nothing else to fall back on.

    http://www.martinirepublic.com/item/back-to-the-fear-tightrope-2/

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  181. You know the world is upside down when progressives can agree with both George Will and Pat Buchanan, columns....

    or is Bush simply down the rabbit hole in his foreign policy?

    Enamored with his pathetic.."war on terra"?

    And out to lunch in his domestic agenda.

    proly...but reality is not something repugs do very well.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Article on George Will;

    Unrealism in the White House

    For our must-read of the day, let's turn to a conservative, a real one, George Will, who has become one of the most eloquent and forceful critics of neoconservative foreign policy.

    In his column in today's Washington Post, entitled "The Triumph of Unrealism," Will argues, correctly, that terrorism is best dealt with through law enforcement, not military action. He even suggests that "[c]ooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement" leading to the recent arrests of terror suspects in Britain validates John Kerry's view that the war on terror is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world". It is only "occasionally military".

    Bush, his foreign policy team, and the neoconservatives don't seem to understand this. Even after all that has gone wrong in Iraq, even after the arrests in Britain, they claim, in the words of one "senior administration official," that "[t]he law enforcement approach doesn't work". Will: "[P]erhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike 'the law enforcement approach,' does 'work.'"

    This is the "unrealism" of Bush's foreign policy. And it's not at all helpful in addressing the threat of terrorism or the world's other pressing and emerging crises.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Forgot the link;

    http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2006/08/unrealism-in-white-house.html

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  184. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  185. Were Bush and Blair the Targets?

    by Patrick J. Buchanan

    After the arrest of 24 men and women in the plot to blow up 10 airliners on flights from the British Isles to the United States, we may be fortunate that the terror they envisioned was so apocalyptic.

    With so many implicated, even more being pursued in Britain and Pakistan, the odds of a leak were high. Had the plot involved a single plane or two, the number of terrorists needed might have been fewer than a dozen. And the chances of "success" would have risen geometrically. Which suggests this may have been the "big one."

    This may have been Act II, a planned massacre so shockingly costly in human life as to suspend air travel between America and Europe. If all 10 targeted planes had been blown out of the sky, the death toll could have been higher than the 3,000 on 9-11.

    This may explain why there has been no al-Qaida attack here in five years. Al-Qaida may have wanted the next act of terror to be so horrendous as to show the world its ability to wreak 9-11 death and destruction had not been diminished by the Bush-Blair War on Terror.

    We are still in the area of surmise. But given the enormity of the plot, the timing, on or near the fifth anniversary of 9-11, and the targets, America and Britain, this appears a plot a with political motive.

    But besides the horror such an atrocity would engender and the martyrdom some of them sought, what was their goal?

    It is known that the arrested include middle-class men and women, second-generation Pakistanis. That South Asian Muslims might be alienated from secular Britain is understandable, but to the extent that they would slaughter thousands and commit suicide because of it is not. There has to be something more behind this.

    Had the plot succeeded, and five, seven or nine planes been blown up over the Atlantic, the initial U.S.-British reaction might have been to rally behind the president and prime minister. But then the questions would have begun.

    "Who failed us?" "Who was asleep?" "Who told us we were safe?" "Who said we were winning the War on Terror?" "What are we doing in a civil war in Iraq when Americans are being slaughtered by the thousands over the Atlantic?" Americans would have been battling over these issues until Election Day.

    Had thousands perished, the credibility of the U.S. and British governments would have been shattered. Critics would have mocked Bush-Blair claims to have made us safer. The FBI, CIA and Homeland Security would have come under savage attack. Bush would have been charged with failure to implement the recommendations of the 9-11 commission. Blair would have been ousted.

    Recall. Three days after the Madrid bombing, the conservative Spanish government, allied to Bush and Blair, was voted out of office. And Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq.

    Had the Atlantic bomb plot succeeded, Republicans would be attacking Democrats for their naivete in nominating an antiwar wimp like Ned Lamont. The day the plot was exposed, Joe Lieberman tore into Lamont, saying that leaving Iraq "will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. ... It will strengthen them, and they will strike again."

    Democrats are already saying Bush's war on Iraq was a bloody, costly, unnecessary diversion of America's attention and resources away from the real threat: Islamic terrorism.

    Had the plot not been aborted, the War Party -- Newt and the neocons -- would have seized on the slaughter over the Atlantic to stampede America into a new war on Iran, as they seized on 9-11 to stampede us into the war on Iraq.

    Already we are hearing that Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are all part of a gigantic Axis of Evil -- with which we are engaged in "World War III" in Newt's phrase, "World War IV" in the phrase of ex-CIA Director James Woolsey -- and, "Let's get it over with!"

    Most of what we are hearing is propaganda. Everyone is using the Atlantic bomb plot as an excuse to mount his or her hobbyhorse and ride, ride, ride. What we need to know is the truth.

    Was the Atlantic bomb plot merely inspired by 9-11, or actually supported or directed by al-Qaida? Was any nation-state involved? What caused second-generation Pakistani Brits to consider a diabolical mass murder? What was their motivation besides a massacre? What did they hope to achieve beyond the killing?

    Was this mindless terror of the Baader-Meinhoff variety, or purposeful terror, like the ANC or FLN, to get us out of the Middle East, or perhaps to draw us into yet another war in the Middle East?

    We need truth. We need answers. We are getting propaganda.


    http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16474

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  186. Tide appears to be growing against GOP
    By Jonathan E. Kaplan

    Despite a divisive Democratic primary in Connecticut and renewed attention to homeland security in the wake of a foiled terrorist plot, the political wave that Democrats hope will wash out Republican majorities in Congress appears to be getter larger.

    With 83 days before the election, independent analysts and political observers say that the universe of competitive congressional races is broadening. Most of these newly identified endangered incumbents are Republicans, increasing the chances of a Democratic takeover of one or both chambers of Congress.

    Republicans were expected to benefit politically from the thwarted plot to blow up airplanes bound for the U.S. and Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) loss to Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate, in the Democratic primary. But lawmakers and political strategists noted that those events have not shifted perceptions about President Bush or the GOP-controlled Congress.

    “I don’t think this is much of a reprieve for the Republicans,” said a widely respected Republican strategist. “This foiled airliner attack won’t have a lasting impact on the electoral process because it didn’t happen. I don’t think it changes much of the dynamic.”

    Anita Dunn, a Democratic political consultant, said, “The fundamental dynamic of this election is there is an unhappy electorate that wants change. Nothing that happened last week will change that.”

    Bush’s approval rating remains stuck at or below 40 percent, according to recent polls, while 62 percent of the public disapproved of his handling of the Iraq war. Meantime, Congress’s popularity has dropped to 36 percent, and in a hypothetical congressional matchup, Democrats were outpacing Republicans, 52 percent to 39 percent.

    Perhaps more worrisome for incumbents is that their job approval rating is at 55 percent, a seven percent drop and just two points above where that number stood in September 1994, according to last week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    “A lot feel frustrated by the war in Iraq and cost of gasoline,” said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). “Voters are not totally comfortable with what they’re getting from Republicans even though we control the White House and House, and [nominally the] Senate. It’s an interesting election where neither party appears to address everyday concerns of Americans.”

    The nonpartisan Cook Political Report last week increased the number of GOP House seats up for grabs to 17 from 15; 36 seats are rated “lean Republican” or “toss up.” No Democratic seats are rated “toss up.” The Cook report labels 55 House Republican seats and 20 House Democratic seats as competitive.

    Incumbents who earlier this year were expected to easily win reelection could face challenging races, including Reps. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), and Mark Foley (R-Fla.). These three races are listed by the Cook report as “likely Republican.”

    National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) has said he expected three dozen hotly contested House races. If that holds true, Democrats would have to dominate these races in order to have a realistic shot of winning back the House.

    But Democrats say that there are at least 40 close House races and they expect that number to increase down the homestretch of the campaign season.

    A change in power is more likely in the House, but Senate Democrats are growing increasingly optimistic.

    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Sunday that Democrats would pick up at least five seats in November, which would leave Republicans with the narrowest of majority control in the upper chamber. Reid had previously indicated it would take “a miracle” for Democrats to control the Senate in the 110th Congress.

    Republicans, having cast their lot with the war in Iraq, face a tough time trying to disavow their previous support, and they remain worried that Democrats could capitalize on the perception that Republicans have let foreign and domestic policy crises spin out of control.

    “You only can play whack-a-mole for so long. [The public is] ready for some action and the White House has been far less than helpful, not working to lay out a path to resolution,” on issues like immigration, said a Republican lawmaker with leadership ambitions.

    Voters have punished Republicans and Bush’s congressional allies. Besides Lieberman, Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-Mich.) lost last week in his GOP primary, and scandal forced Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) to withdraw his bid for re-election.

    Despite the downcast political climate, Republicans will continue to try to paint Democrats as hopelessly liberal and unreliable in the war on terror.

    “That’s going to be the cry. I think you’ll hear from our side that it’s not important what the United Nations thinks about [the situation in the Middle East] as it is that the we stand up for our freedom. I think that will be a much larger theme,” said the top GOP lawmaker. “That theme of … Americans standing up in the world will play a larger role than we thought two months ago.”

    Nevertheless, Democrats are confident that 2006 will be different than 2004 when Bush used national security to his advantage. They also believe that Republicans will fail in trying to alter the electorate’s perception of Bush.

    “By this time in a president’s term, he is so well known that images [get] awfully hard to change,” said Calvin Mackenzie, a political scientist at Colby College. “Everybody knows how they feel and any new evidence has to be awfully compelling.”

    Democratic lawmakers, candidates and political analysts are no longer asking whether momentum is on their side, they’re asking how much.

    “I see a tidal wave,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said in a conference call last week with reporters.

    Still, there are lingering questions about Democrats’ ability to get out the vote, an area where Republicans have excelled in recent elections.


    http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/081606/news3.html

    ReplyDelete
  187. Tide appears to be growing against GOP
    By Jonathan E. Kaplan

    Despite a divisive Democratic primary in Connecticut and renewed attention to homeland security in the wake of a foiled terrorist plot, the political wave that Democrats hope will wash out Republican majorities in Congress appears to be getter larger.

    With 83 days before the election, independent analysts and political observers say that the universe of competitive congressional races is broadening. Most of these newly identified endangered incumbents are Republicans, increasing the chances of a Democratic takeover of one or both chambers of Congress.

    Republicans were expected to benefit politically from the thwarted plot to blow up airplanes bound for the U.S. and Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) loss to Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate, in the Democratic primary. But lawmakers and political strategists noted that those events have not shifted perceptions about President Bush or the GOP-controlled Congress.

    “I don’t think this is much of a reprieve for the Republicans,” said a widely respected Republican strategist. “This foiled airliner attack won’t have a lasting impact on the electoral process because it didn’t happen. I don’t think it changes much of the dynamic.”

    Anita Dunn, a Democratic political consultant, said, “The fundamental dynamic of this election is there is an unhappy electorate that wants change. Nothing that happened last week will change that.”

    Bush’s approval rating remains stuck at or below 40 percent, according to recent polls, while 62 percent of the public disapproved of his handling of the Iraq war. Meantime, Congress’s popularity has dropped to 36 percent, and in a hypothetical congressional matchup, Democrats were outpacing Republicans, 52 percent to 39 percent.

    Perhaps more worrisome for incumbents is that their job approval rating is at 55 percent, a seven percent drop and just two points above where that number stood in September 1994, according to last week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    “A lot feel frustrated by the war in Iraq and cost of gasoline,” said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). “Voters are not totally comfortable with what they’re getting from Republicans even though we control the White House and House, and [nominally the] Senate. It’s an interesting election where neither party appears to address everyday concerns of Americans.”

    The nonpartisan Cook Political Report last week increased the number of GOP House seats up for grabs to 17 from 15; 36 seats are rated “lean Republican” or “toss up.” No Democratic seats are rated “toss up.” The Cook report labels 55 House Republican seats and 20 House Democratic seats as competitive.

    Incumbents who earlier this year were expected to easily win reelection could face challenging races, including Reps. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), and Mark Foley (R-Fla.). These three races are listed by the Cook report as “likely Republican.”

    National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) has said he expected three dozen hotly contested House races. If that holds true, Democrats would have to dominate these races in order to have a realistic shot of winning back the House.

    But Democrats say that there are at least 40 close House races and they expect that number to increase down the homestretch of the campaign season.

    A change in power is more likely in the House, but Senate Democrats are growing increasingly optimistic.

    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Sunday that Democrats would pick up at least five seats in November, which would leave Republicans with the narrowest of majority control in the upper chamber. Reid had previously indicated it would take “a miracle” for Democrats to control the Senate in the 110th Congress.

    Republicans, having cast their lot with the war in Iraq, face a tough time trying to disavow their previous support, and they remain worried that Democrats could capitalize on the perception that Republicans have let foreign and domestic policy crises spin out of control.

    “You only can play whack-a-mole for so long. [The public is] ready for some action and the White House has been far less than helpful, not working to lay out a path to resolution,” on issues like immigration, said a Republican lawmaker with leadership ambitions.

    Voters have punished Republicans and Bush’s congressional allies. Besides Lieberman, Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-Mich.) lost last week in his GOP primary, and scandal forced Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) to withdraw his bid for re-election.

    Despite the downcast political climate, Republicans will continue to try to paint Democrats as hopelessly liberal and unreliable in the war on terror.

    “That’s going to be the cry. I think you’ll hear from our side that it’s not important what the United Nations thinks about [the situation in the Middle East] as it is that the we stand up for our freedom. I think that will be a much larger theme,” said the top GOP lawmaker. “That theme of … Americans standing up in the world will play a larger role than we thought two months ago.”

    Nevertheless, Democrats are confident that 2006 will be different than 2004 when Bush used national security to his advantage. They also believe that Republicans will fail in trying to alter the electorate’s perception of Bush.

    “By this time in a president’s term, he is so well known that images [get] awfully hard to change,” said Calvin Mackenzie, a political scientist at Colby College. “Everybody knows how they feel and any new evidence has to be awfully compelling.”

    Democratic lawmakers, candidates and political analysts are no longer asking whether momentum is on their side, they’re asking how much.

    “I see a tidal wave,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said in a conference call last week with reporters.

    Still, there are lingering questions about Democrats’ ability to get out the vote, an area where Republicans have excelled in recent elections.


    http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/081606/news3.html

    ReplyDelete
  188. The Triumph of Unrealism

    By George F. Will
    Tuesday, August 15, 2006; Page A13

    Five weeks have passed since the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers provoked Israel to launch its most unsatisfactory military operation in 58 years. What problem has been solved, or even ameliorated?

    Hezbollah, often using World War II-vintage rockets, has demonstrated the inadequacy of Israel's policy of unilateral disengagement -- from Lebanon, Gaza, much of the West Bank -- behind a fence. Hezbollah has willingly suffered (temporary) military diminution in exchange for enormous political enlargement. Hitherto Hezbollah in Lebanon was a "state within a state." Henceforth, the Lebanese state may be an appendage of Hezbollah, as the collapsing Palestinian Authority is an appendage of the terrorist organization Hamas. Hezbollah is an army that, having frustrated the regional superpower, suddenly embodies, as no Arab state ever has, Arab valor vindicated in combat with Israel.


    Only twice in the United Nations' six decades has it authorized the use of substantial force -- in 1950 regarding Korea and in 1990 regarding Kuwait. It still has not authorized force in Lebanon. What is being called a "cease-fire" resolution calls for Israel to stop all "offensive" operations. Israel, however, reasonably says that its entire effort is defensive. The resolution calls for Hezbollah to stop "all attacks." The United Nations, however, has twice resolved that Hezbollah should be disarmed, yet has not willed the means to that end. Regarding force now, the U.N. merely "expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements" of the U.N. force that for 28 years has been loitering without serious intent in south Lebanon.

    The "new Middle East," the "birth pangs" of which we supposedly are witnessing, reflects the region's oldest tradition, the tribalism that preceded nations. The faux and disintegrating nation of Iraq, from which the middle class, the hope of stability, is fleeing, has experienced in these five weeks many more violent deaths than have occurred in Lebanon and Israel. U.S. Gen. George Casey says 60 percent of Iraqis recently killed are victims of Shiite death squads. Some are associated with the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry, which resembles a terrorist organization.

    The London plot against civil aviation confirmed a theme of an illuminating new book, Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." The theme is that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England.

    Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

    Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:

    "The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

    This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

    The official is correct that it is wrong "to think that somehow we are responsible -- that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies." But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy -- and domestic politics -- unrealism.

    Foreign policy "realists" considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401163.html

    ReplyDelete
  189. Let's recap....

    George Will has bailed on Bush...and thinks that the white house has been disengenous, in their approach to the war on terra, and John Kerry has been validated as RIGHT, and by extension Bush ..wrong(as usual)

    Pat Buchanan thinks Bush ET AL have incompetently fought the "war on terra" because unlike the British what the Bush administration does is ineffective..and illogical given how the terrorists operate...

    Repugs , even with the spin of the air line plot, are still losing ground..and possibily seats in congress.....

    I guess John Conyers will get to explore the 26 times he claims Bush has Broke the LAW..as he will inherate a very important chairmanship in the house...

    ReplyDelete
  190. Everybody and their brother -- at least anyone who has any sense and isn't on the payroll of the GOP -- has been saying for years that our occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with fighting radical Islamists who want to commit mass casualty terrorist attacks in the US and around the world.

    'Nothing' is a very big word. Clearly, there is a relationship. Indeed, I think there's a pretty solid argument to be made that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has expanded the pool of terrorist recruits. And in other indirect ways with Iraq and international terrorism, we are all blind men touching different parts of the same elephant. But on the basic ground of 'Is fighting in Iraq helping reduce the threat of terrorism at home?' the answer is clearly 'No'.

    And yet, I wonder if this recent terror scare out of London may have actually driven that point home in a new and more resonant way.

    Living in a major American city, I take it for granted that my wife and I live under a certain general threat of major terrorist attacks. In that sense I'm not really different from everyone else in the country to this or that degree. Back in late 2001, when I was living in DC and we were in the midst of the Anthrax scare and various reports of sleeper cells in the United States, I remember having moments where I hoped the FBI and CIA were doing everything imaginable to shut these guys down, whatever the constitution might say.

    Now, here's the point I want to focus in on. I want to make a basic distinction between the things we might think or feel impulsively when in the grip of fear and things we really think ought to be done. I never thought we should be torturing people or rounding people up. What I am saying is that I remember the atmosphere of those days just after 9/11 and the primal gut instincts that made part of me wish those things were happening.

    It now seems that even this London bomb plot may not be all it's cracked up to be. But it did give me a moment of that gut level fear. And in that moment, as much as I've thought what I've thought about Iraq, I'm not sure I ever felt as clearly how completely beside the point Iraq is from the real threat we face of deracinated Islamic radicals (in the Muslim world and sprinkled about the West) trying to perpetrate mass terror attacks.

    It hit me like a sort of epiphany even though it was a realization of something I and countless others have been saying for years.

    I'm curious to know whether anyone else experienced something similar and even more whether anyone else's mind (about Iraq) actually may have been changed.

    Is there anyone in the country who can say honestly, in their heart of hearts, that when that moment of fear hit them after the recent reports out of London, they said to themselves, "God, I'm glad we're in Iraq"?

    Anyone?
    -- Josh Marshall


    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009441.php

    ReplyDelete
  191. In Texas, Front-Running DeLay Replacement Spars with Local GOP

    Texas Republicans are scrambling to choose their party's "official" write-in candidate to oppose Democrat Nick Lampson's congressional run. Because Tom DeLay withdrew late from the race for Texas' 22nd district seat, Republicans are barred from officially nominating a candidate and placing his or her name on the ballot.

    At least three GOPers have thrown their hats in the ring, and the local Republican leadership is scheduled to meet Thursday to make the call. One, perceived frontrunner David Wallace -- also mayor of DeLay's (former?) hometown of Sugar Land -- says he's running no matter what party says.

    Last week, Wallace's spokesman called the Republicans' powwow a "non-binding mock election." Harsh, no? But since then he's juiced up his rhetoric even further. Here's Wallace in today's New York Times:

    [Wallace] disparaged the meeting, saying “that may have worked in Moscow,” and vowed to keep running even if it meant two Republican write-in candidates.

    Although Wallace has raised the most money and claims the support of many local big-wigs, there is apparently some resistance to Wallace's push in the party. For one, the Texas Republican Chairwoman is "no friend of his campaign," he told the Times.

    At least two other Republicans have expressed interest in running for the seat. One of them is Dr. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, a dermatologist and Houston City Council member. She told me that unlike Wallace, she'd bow out if local Republicans tapped another candidate.

    http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001350.php


    Delay's bad Karma still exists in sugarland no matter where his evil shadow claims home now.

    ReplyDelete
  192. So does Jack Abramoff's bad Karma come back to haunt the GOP( Greedy Obnoxious Perverts)

    Former Ney Aide Continues to Cooperate
    By Paul Kiel - August 16, 2006, 1:10 PM

    Federal prosecutors working the Jack Abramoff case are continuing to piece together their case against Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

    Neil Volz, Ney's former chief of staff who went to work for Abramoff, pled guilty in June for conspiring to bribe Ney, among other charges, and agreed to tell prosecutors everything he knew. A meeting to set his sentencing date had been scheduled for August 10th -- last week.

    But prosecutors and Volz's lawyers have agreed to defer the meeting, so Volz can keep talking. As they wrote in a joint motion, "Mr. Volz has been cooperating with government agents and prosecutors. The government anticipates that Mr. Volz’s cooperation will continue for the foreseeable future."

    The judge agreed to postpone the status conference to November 2nd. In the meantime, Volz will be working with prosecutors to help them build their case against Ney and possibly other lawmakers.

    http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001351.php

    ReplyDelete
  193. And even Anderw Sullivan is questioning the reality of the plot...admid the reichwingnut spin machine...who as usual get it WRONG;

    The Alleged UK Terror Plot

    16 Aug 2006 09:58 am

    So far, no one has been charged in the alleged terror plot to blow up several airplanes across the Atlantic. No evidence has been produced supporting the contention that such a plot was indeed imminent. Forgive me if my skepticism just ratcheted up a little notch. Under a law that the Tories helped weaken, the suspects can be held without charges for up to 28 days. Those days are ticking by. Remember: the British authorities had all these people under surveillance; they did not want to act last week; there was no imminent threat of anything but a possible "dummy-run," whatever deranged guest-bloggers at Malkin say. (Correction, please.) Bush and Blair discussed whether to throw Britain's airports into chaos over the weekend before the crackdown occurred.

    Then we have the following comment from Craig Murray. Craig Murray was Tony Blair's ambassador to Uzbekistan whose internal memo complaining about evidence procured by out-sourced torture created a flap a while back. He is skeptical. Money quote:

    None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

    In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

    What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

    Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth ...

    We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why?

    I'd be interested in the number of plotters who had passports. How could they even stage a dummy-run with no passports? And what bomb-making materials did they actually have? These seem like legitimate questions to me; the British authorities have produced no evidence so far. If the only evidence they have was from torturing someone in Pakistan, then they have nothing that can stand up in anything like a court. I wonder if this story is going to get more interesting. I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

    Been there. Done that. Learned my lesson.

    http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html

    ReplyDelete
  194. Here is Ned Lamont in his own words...

    The Democrats Mean Business
    Washington needs an entrepreneurial approach.

    BY NED LAMONT

    In the past week, my victory in the Connecticut Senate primary has been labeled everything from the death knell of the Democratic Party to the signal of our party's rebirth. Beneath all of this punditry is a question that I want to face directly: how the experience I will bring to the U.S. Senate will help Connecticut and the Democratic Party during this time of testing for our country.

    I ran at a time when people said "you can't beat a three-term incumbent," because I believed that President Bush, enabled by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, had weakened our country at home and abroad. We're weaker economically, because we're more dependent on foreign energy and foreign capital. Our national security has also been weakened, because we stopped fighting a real war on terror when we made the costly and counterproductive decision to go to war in Iraq.

    My confidence that Connecticut was ready for a real debate and a real choice this year was founded not only on current events but also past experience. It was my career in business that shaped my outlook, and helped prepare me to run the race I did.

    In 1984, with a loan from People's Bank, I started Campus TeleVideo from scratch. Our offer was unique: Rather than provide a one-size-fits-all menu of channels, we let the customers design their cable system based on the character of the community being served.

    From the moment I filled out that loan application, I've been in every part of the business--pulling cable, hiring workers, picking a good health-care plan, closing deals, listening to customers and fixing problems. It's been profitable, and it's been instructive, a quintessentially American experience. Here, entrepreneurs have the freedom to be successful in ways the rest of the world admires.

    These defining lessons of my business experience are central in my campaign: identifying the challenges that face our state and offering real solutions. Something clearly worked, because the voters decided to do what our Founding Fathers envisioned; they put their trust not in a career politician but in a concerned citizen and experienced businessman who promises to rock the boat down in Washington.

    Here are the four lessons of my business life that I talked about every day on the campaign trail, and that have resonated with Connecticut Democrats:

    • First, entrepreneurs are frugal beasts, because the bottom line means everything. In Connecticut, voters are convinced that Washington has utterly lost touch with fiscal reality. We talked about irresponsible budget policies that have driven the annual federal deficit above $300 billion and the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. Meanwhile, the government is spending $250 million a day on an unprovoked war in Iraq while starving needed social investment at home. I am a fiscal conservative and our people want their government to be sparing and sensible with their tax dollars.

    • Second, entrepreneurs invest in human resources. Our business strives to pay good wages and provide good health benefits so that we can attract employees that give us an edge in a competitive marketplace. Well-trained and well-cared-for people are essential for every business these days, particularly in a global economy. It's getting harder and harder for American businesses to compete on price, but we innovate and change better than any economy on the planet. The quality of our work force is one of America's competitive advantages--if our education system fails our children and our employers, we'll lose the future.

    That's why I talked about my work as a volunteer teacher in the Bridgeport public schools, which can't afford to be open later than 2:30 p.m., schools that send children home to an empty house. That's why my campaign offered a strong alternative to standardized tests and No Child Left Behind. That's why I believe in an employer-based health-care system that covers everyone, and providing tax benefits to small businesses so they can provide insurance without risking bankruptcy.

    • Third, in a market-driven economy, entrepreneurs can never lose touch with what customers, suppliers and workers are saying. A great strength of our campaign is that we embraced the grassroots and netroots, suburbs and inner cities, and used the most advanced technology to empower our door-knockers and activists. We listened hard and respectfully to what voters told us, and gave them the confidence to trust someone new.

    • Finally, entrepreneurs are pragmatic. Unlike some politicians, we don't draw a false strength from closed minds, and we don't step on the accelerator when the car is headed off the cliff.

    By every available metric, the "stay the course" strategy in Iraq is not a winning strategy. Changing course is neither extreme nor weak; it is essential for our national security.

    We start with the strongest, best-trained military in the world, and we'll keep it that way. But here's how we'll get stronger by changing course. We must work closely with our allies and treat the rest of the world with respect. We must implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and put in place real protections for ports, airports, nuclear facilities and public transit.

    Good judgment is an essential part of good governance. But we're bogged down in Iraq, and hamstrung in the war against terror, by leaders who lacked judgment, historical perspective, openness to other cultures and plain old common sense. We offer something different.

    But in the final analysis, the results of this election say less about me, and more about the people of Connecticut. They turned out in record numbers; they spoke every day with a simple eloquence and urgency about the country we love. They oppose the war and the fiscal nightmare crafted by President Bush and his allies. But their vote, finally, was one based on pragmatism and reality, on optimism and hope. And it is to these ideals and values that we plan to address my campaign in the months until November.

    Mr. Lamont won the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut last week.


    http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008801


    Seems he is a wee bit more than a leftist moonbat bent on destroying this country, hell FF he sounds like your kind of candidate.....

    ReplyDelete
  195. Hell if Loserman was not willing to don knee pads for Bush...the repugs would be claiming HE was exactally the type of candidate they RAILED against in 1994....and Lamont seems what they preferred...a Seemily good private businessman who is running against a career politician.....

    My how the times have CHANGED

    ReplyDelete
  196. I bet Worf and Larry buy KY Jelly in buckets direct from the manufacturer? Never enough for those wild Crisco parties they throw.

    Amongst other things, Ive been busy making a video thats so cool it makes the Fonz look like a nerd.....lotta work man!

    Will post it soon when I locate a good hosting service.

    ReplyDelete
  197. Hell even Gen Pace can admit that MORE troops would help now...think they would have HELPED even more in 2003?


    Bigger U.S. Force may Stabilize Iraq

    MOSUL, Iraq - Iraq could be stabilized faster if the United States increased the size of its force, but the costs would outweigh the benefits, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday.

    Gen. Peter Pace said in an interview at the conclusion of a two-day visit - his first since surging sectarian violence triggered talk of all-out civil war - that his meetings with U.S. commanders and their troops left him convinced that the Pentagon is correct to focus its effort mainly on training Iraqi security forces.

    He said the current American force of about 133,000 troops is the right size for that training mission and for the more deadly work of containing the insurgency and helping reduce sect-on-sect killings.

    "More U.S. and coalition forces could get the job done quicker, but that would mean dependency much longer for the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi government," he said, speaking in a recreation room for U.S. troops as a searing summer sun set on a day that took him from Baghdad to Fallujah to Mosul.

    During a question-and-answer session with troops in Baghdad on Saturday, Pace said U.S. officials had hoped as recently as July that they could reduce the U.S. force by two brigades, or about 7,000 troops, this fall. But with the surge in sectarian killings, the force was instead increased by two brigades.

    Pace returned to Washington early Monday.

    Pace said his encounters with U.S. troops at each stop in Iraq reinforced his belief that they are proud of what they are doing and satisfied with what they have accomplished. But he also said he had detected among them "some frustration at the Iraqis for not yet grasping the opportunity that's in front of them."

    He was alluding to the failure of rival Shiite and Sunni sects to reconcile their differences, stop the sectarian violence that has gripped Baghdad in recent months and establish an effective government.

    The troops feel, "We're doing our part. When is the (Iraqi) governance part going to kick in? And that's a fair question."

    Pace preached patience.

    "It's too early to pass judgment on a brand new government," he said, referring to Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki.

    In Fallujah, once a key stronghold of the insurgency and still troubled by almost daily murders of policemen, a few Marines posed questions to Pace that suggested a creeping doubt about what their sacrifices have gained.

    How much more time, one Marine asked, should the Iraqi government be given to achieve the political unity necessary to stabilize the country?

    "I guess they have as long as it takes - which is not forever," Pace replied.

    Pace argued that setting a deadline for the United States to withdraw its support would risk pushing the Iraqis into political decisions that are unviable. On the other hand, he said, "You do not want to leave it open ended."

    Another Marine wanted to know if U.S. troops would stay in Iraq in the event of an all-out civil war. Pace repeated what he told a Senate committee last week: a civil war is possible, but not expected. He did not say what the United States would do if it actually happened.

    Another asked what the United States would do if the Iraqi government did not support extending the U.N. resolution that authorizes the presence of American and other foreign troops in Iraq. Pace said the Iraqis already have said they favor extending the U.S. mandate, which expires in December.

    One Marine wound up his question about the pace of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq by asking, "Is the war coming to an end?"

    Pace didn't answer directly. He said Pentagon officials and military leaders are trying to keep enough troops in Iraq to achieve the mission of training Iraqi troops to take over the security mission, while avoiding having so many that it creates an Iraqi dependency.

    http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,109783,00.html?ESRC=army.nl

    The costs more money to support the troops which would make the situation More secure.....is more important than troops lives?

    Proly not what he meant.......

    The cost of Dumsfeld and Bush admitting they were wrong...

    completely wrong.....

    that is proly what HE really meant.

    and this paragraph is quite telling...


    He was alluding to the failure of rival Shiite and Sunni sects to reconcile their differences, stop the sectarian violence that has gripped Baghdad in recent months and establish an effective government.


    And asking for two diamet5ically opposed sectarian factions to quit fighting for what they believe in and talk about peaceful coexistence,

    well it took Northern Ireland from 1968-1994 to work out their violent sectarian disagreement...26 years...we are only about 2 years into the sectarian violence in Iraq....

    Both Northern Ireland and the civil war in Iraq are the result of differences between two major sects of the Same Primary religion. The Northern Irish was fought between Christians...though neither side seemed to open to the message of Jesus at the time. and in Iraq it is the Shiites against the Sunni's, both major sects of the religion of Islam.

    Thus the comparison of how long it "might" take for religious people to compromise...is relevant.

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