Hieremias

Thatcher threatened to use nukes

2005-11-22T09:23:00.000-05:00

According to a new biography of the late French leader François Mitterrand, the old iron lady, Margaret Thatcher, threatened to use nuclear weapons against Argentina. More explicitly, she threatened to 'launch a nuclear warhead against Buenos Aires."

These western leaders and their reckless and cavalier attitude regarding their weapons of mass destruction. How can we allow them to produce and stockpile WMD when they have demonstrated their willingness to use them?

Guardian story link. read the whole thing. some great insight into Mitterrand's revenge in the form of a tunnel linking France and not-so-great britain. And some colourfully expressive language from the late Mitterrand, such as this gem:

Mr Mitterrand - who once described Mrs Thatcher as "the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe" - went on: "One cannot win against the insular syndrome of an unbridled Englishwoman. Provoke a nuclear war for a few islands inhabited by three sheep as hairy as they are freezing! But it's a good job I gave way. Otherwise, I assure you, the Lady's metallic finger would have hit the button."

France, he insisted, would have the last word. "I'll build a tunnel under the Channel. I'll succeed where Napoleon III failed. And do you know why she'll accept my tunnel? I'll flatter her shopkeeper's spirit. I'll tell her it won't cost the Crown a penny."

blood for oil

2005-11-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

uh-oh we all knew this was coming despite the denials of the bush administration.

Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control.
...

Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Based on its analysis of PSAs in seven countries, it said multinationals would seek rates of return on their investment from 42 to 162 per cent, far in excess of typical 12 per cent rates.
...

Louise Richards, chief executive of War on Want, said: "People have increasingly come to realise the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder. Despite claims from politicians that this is a conspiracy theory, our report gives detailed evidence to show Iraq's oil profits are well within the sights of the oil multinationals."

and the real reason our men and women of the armed forces must stay in iraq to kill and die? has nothing to do with 'cut and run' or 'anything short of total victory' and everything to do with this:

No multinationals are operating in Iraq now because of the poor security situation.

the independent story

Bush war on press freedom gets explosive

2005-11-22T08:42:00.000-05:00

the world's most dangerous tyrant attempted to put another notch in his belt of 'disasterous foreign policy' according to the daily mirror.

According to the report, a five-page memo leaked out of Downing Street, UK Prime ~~poodle~~ Minister Tony Blair had to persuade Mr Bush to NOT bomb the offices of al-Jazeera in Qatar and perhaps other locations around the world. One administration official suggested it was a joke, while another said mr bush was 'deadly serious.' Considering the US attacks on international journalists in Bagdad, the bombing of al-jazeera's Kabul, Afganistan office, and the killing of an al-jazeera reporter in a missile strike on the press agency's Bagdad office, I tend to believe W, the meglomaniac, was serious.

let's assume first that he was serious. that would mean the president of the united states of america had plotted to attack a civilian news agency because he disagreed with what they had published. Time for impeachment and war crimes trials.

let's assume he was joking. that would mean in the middle of a war, the president of the united states, an alleged freedom-lover and 'christian' thought the notion of bombing a news agency and killing civilians was hilarious. perhaps even more funny than his joking about the missing wmd. either way, this man is a danger to the world. his contempt for humanity knows no bounds.

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.
...

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

"He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

"There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it."
...

Yesterday former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street to publish the five-page transcript of the two leaders' conversation. He said: "It's frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions.

"I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war."

Bush disclosed his plan to target al-Jazeera, a civilian station with a huge Mid-East following, at a White House face-to-face with Mr Blair on April 16 last year.
...

To have wiped them out would have been equivalent to bombing the BBC in London and the most spectacular foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War itself.

The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors.

In 2001 the station's Kabul office was knocked out by two "smart" bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station's Baghdad centre.

more: mirror story AFP story

tenet tesimony suggest congress duped

2005-11-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

rawstory:

President George W. Bush’s attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East, RAW STORY has found.

Details of Tenet’s testimony have not been reported before.

Tenet told Congress in February 2001 that Iraq was “probably” pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that the CIA had no direct evidence that Iraq had actually obtained such weapons. However, such caveats as “may” and “probably” were removed from intelligence reports by key members of the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 when discussing Iraq.

and so much more

49-42 senate vote against hebeas corpus

2005-11-11T12:15:00.000-05:00

from dailykos diarist gillon:

"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Does Afghanistan qualify as a rebellion? Does the War on Terror qualify as an invasion of America? I think not. Apparently, the Senate thinks otherwise. Actually 49 senators think otherwise. Because today, 49 senators joined together to vote for one of the most sickening pieces of legislation I have ever heard of.

And what's more - 5 DEMOCRATS voted for the bill. Goddamn it. [http://www.senate.gov/...]
Gillon's diary :: ::
[http://www.nytimes.com/...] The New York Times:
The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.
The vote, 49 to 42, on an amendment to a military budget bill by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, comes at a time of intense debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate passed a measure by Senator John McCain banning abusive treatment of them.
If approved in its current form by both the Senate and the House, which has not yet considered the measure but where passage is considered likely, the law would nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that detainees at Guantánamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions in court.
Nearly 200 of roughly 500 detainees there have already filed habeas corpus motions, which are making their way up through the federal court system. As written, the amendment would void any suits pending at the time the law was passed.
The following Democrats voted for this amendment:
Conrad (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Nelson (D-NE)
Wyden (D-OR)
The following Republicans should be commended for voting against this amendment:
Chafee (R-RI)
Smith (R-OR)
Specter (R-PA)
Sununu (R-NH)
I honestly cannot believe how belligerent this amendment is. It is a slap in the face to the principles this country was founded on. It is a slap in the face to the Supreme Court. It is a slap in the face to reason. It is contrary to every bone in my body.

condi's contempt

2005-11-11T11:01:00.000-05:00

"in the united states, we know that if state and local governments don't work, people get a littttttle unhappy" said condyloma rice in bagdad's greenzone. way to go bitch, are you criticizing the american government [in their failed response to Katrina ] on foreign soil? just state and local, oh then it's okay... really you're just making light of human suffering, which is acceptable as long as those doing the suffering are poor. right?

reminds me of gwb's comic video where he searches around the oval office for WMD while americans are dying fighting a war based on lies of wmd that are no more present than those in the oval office, perhaps even less so.

unmittigated gall. these people are more than just out of touch, they have the audacity to actually make fun of the people who haplessly buy the bushit they peddle. they have nothing but contempt for the people they see as below them, the people they manipulate. i guess that's something i have in common with them. i too, have nothing but contempt for the simpleton/lemming that bush&co find so easy to manipulate.

but back to the point. what she said, is this any way for the secretary of state to behave?

robertson: god's wrath coming to PA

2005-11-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

oh, jesus fucking christ...i include the ramblings of this loon, not to give him a platform, rather to illustrate just one more time, the problem with religion. it is never about how one treats one's neighbor, it is always about political and social control. those in the position of power orchestrating the actions of their minions, their lemmings.

for about one million people, tuning into the 700club each day is not only how they get their news, but also the deliverance of their maintenance dose. gross, this shit is worse than heroin, more destructive than alcohol, more insidious than anything i can think of.

it is used as a platform to push the politics of supreme government social control while at the same time promote the corporate oligarchy. fascism + totalitarianism with a little god thrown in as the cement that holds the tyranny together.

In voting on Tuesday, eight Dover, Pennsylvania, school board members [ all republican ] up for re-election lost their seats [ to democrats ] after trying to introduce a statement on "intelligent design" to high school biology students.

to that, pat robertson issued this ~~threat~~ warning:

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.

go cheney yourself pat roberston

57% say bush is a liar

2005-11-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

latest AP-Ipsos poll:
57% "do not think the bush administration has high ethical standards. the same portion says president bush is NOT HONEST."

what's wrong with the other 43% do they not have eye and ears?

Just over four in 10 say the administration has high ethical standards and that Bush is honest. Whites, Southerners and white evangelicals were most likely to believe Bush is honest.

oh, that explains it. that explains A LOT.

82 percent, described Bush as "stubborn," with almost that many Republicans agreeing to that description.

His job approval rating remains at his all-time low in the AP-Ipsos poll of 37 percent.

Only 42 percent in the new poll said they approve of Bush's handling of foreign policy and terrorism, his lowest rating yet in an area that has long been his strongest issue.

can you say "failed presidency?"

story link. ap-ipsos poll data link [180k pdf].

delay was ready to pleabargain

2005-11-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

i thought that was something only guilty people did!

santorum caught in frivolous lawsuit

2005-11-11T09:07:00.000-05:00

neo-conman senator from pennsyltucky Rick Santorum [R] has long blabbered about frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits. in fact, according to abcnews, he's called malpractice abuse the 'No. 1 health care crisis in his state."

of course that's the biggest health care crisis. really.

so i guess you could say, then, that ricky santorum has contributed to the number one health care crisis in pennsyltucky. seems his wife had an unfavorable experience with a chiropractor and GASP sued the practitioner. now, understanding that ricky santorum has called for malpractice awards to be kept under $250K, how much do you suppose the scam artist and her husband sued for?

would they stop at the santorum-proposed limit? no way! twice the santorum limit? right, $500K was the amount for which they sued the chiropractor. in this day of [allegedly] runaway jury awards, i bet they cleaned up with four or five times that amount. what do you think 2.5 million? 1.25 million?

nope, in the day of runaway awards, the jury actually said that the santorums were asking for TOO MUCH MONEY and reduced the award to 350K. damn! how would the master of all things hypocritical answer charges that he's a hypocrite?

"I guess I could answer that in two ways," he said. "Number one is that I've supported caps. I've been very clear that I am not wedded at all to a $250,000 cap and I've said publicly repeatedly, and I think probably that is somewhat low, and that we need to look at what I think is a cap that is a little bit higher than that."

But the fact is that Santorum has sponsored or co-sponsored a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages two times – even though he testified in his wife's case against the doctor.

"Of course I'm going to support my wife in her endeavors," he said. "That doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with everything that she does."

But Santorum agreed enough to tell the jury that he had to carry the laundry upstairs for his wife and that, because she suffered humiliation from weight gain, she no longer had the confidence to help him on the campaign trail. The jury was so moved it voted to award Karen Santorum $350,000.

"That's where again you're misled is that a lot of, there was cumulative damages," he said. "The medical bills, lost income, all those other things that were out there."

Those medical bills totaled $18,800, yet she sued for $500,000. And lost income? The judge made no mention of that when he slashed the jury's award in half, saying it was excessive.

The judge noted that the remaining damages "awarded amounted to something in the neighborhood of $330,000 or so for injuries sustained and the effect upon Mrs. Santorum's health, her past and future pain and suffering and inconvenience."

full abcnews article here

GAO: GOP stole 2004 election

2005-11-09T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Government Accounting Office [ now renamed Government Accountability Office ] released a report on vote fraud in Ohio during the 2004 election. This of course directly lead to the victory of bush/cheney. here's the intro, read the account:

As if the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby wasn’t enough to give the White House some heavy concerns, a report from the Government Accounting Office takes a big bite out of the Bush clique’s pretense of legitimacy.

This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.

The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.

more
take ACTION: do you subscribe to a newpaper [print or online] ask them when they plan to cover this! and ask your representative what action s/he plans to take, what legislation s/he plans to propose in reponse to GAO report. afterall, s/he is paid to represent YOU in congress...

good. bad. ugly...

2005-11-09T08:37:00.000-05:00

in the races last night,first the good news:

virginia – Kaine (D) beat bush's stumpin pardner Kilgore (R) decisively to become next gov.
new jersey – Corzine (D) beat fellow millionaire Forrester (R) decisively to become next gov. it is widely believed that he will appoint Richard Codey (D-current acting gov) to his now vacant senate seat. to salt the wound, corzine won mercer county (home of forrester) with 57% of the vote.
cowleeforneeea – all of the terminator's ballot initiatives FAILED all of them. way to waste $60million, ahnold!
pennsylvania – dover voters threw out creationist school board, replaced all six with dems
maine – voters overwhelmingly regect effort to repeal gay rights law

bad news:

virginia – looks like they elected a repug. for lt. gov
texas – voters (insert joke here) approved a constitutional amend. to ban gay marriage in a landslide. texas already forbids that kind of arrangement, and this amend. had the potential to ban all marriages. ha! say good bye to your sister, billy-bob, she ain't your wifie no more.
ohio – all of the Reform Ohio Now ballot measures failed. this is a big dissapointment. but then again, in ohio, it's a lot easier to convey marriage = man + woman, than it is to explain why the sec. of state should no longer have oversight of the elections. oh well, next time.

as fore the ugly, despite last night's success, we still have three more years of this intolerable asshole:

documenting war crimes in fallujah

2005-11-08T18:57:00.000-05:00

you really need to watch this documentary:

Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre
A Film by Sigfrido Ranucci

[quicktime]
other formats also hosted on truthout
follow up to my previous post

durbin on chalabi visit to cheney's lap

2005-11-08T18:40:00.000-05:00

from thinkprogress:

Sen. Dick Durbin on the Senate floor this afternoon:

I don’t understand this. While the Department of Justice is actively investigating this man for wrongdoing that could have endangered American troops and American lives, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury are hosting him like some sort of dignitary. So don’t be surprised if you watch the Chalabi motorcade speed up when they pass the Department of Justice. I guess they’re concerned whether an FBI agent will come out and pursue this so-called active investigation.

It is very difficult to track how this man, who gave us such misleading information before the invasion of Iraq, now under active investigation for endangering American troops is now under active investigation for endangering American troops is now the toast of the town at the Department of Treasury and the Department of State

huffpo has full transcripts of a the durbin speech

leaky repugnicans?

2005-11-08T18:25:00.000-05:00

this really is too good [ DSCC via americablog ]

Last Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a front page story revealing that there are secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Apparently thinking that current and/or former CIA officials leaked this story, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today launched a formal investigation into the leak. But now, Sen. Trent Lott, one of their own, is suggesting that the Republican efforts could boomerang… in a huge way. Were National Republicans Involved in Yet ANOTHER CIA Leak??

Lott: “We Can’t Keep Our Mouths Shut.” Sen. Trent Lott “stunned reporters” by saying that the issue of secret CIA prisons was discussed at a Republican-only lunch, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, last Tuesday, the day before the Washington Post reported the story. Lott said of the Washington Post story, “a lot of it came out of that room on Tuesday” and he said of his Senate Republican colleagues, “we can’t keep our mouths shut.” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]

CNN Calls Potential Senate Republican Leak “Boomerang.” Discussing the Republican investigation into the CIA prison leak and Sen. Trent Lott’s subsequent comments, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “That would really boomerang against Hastert and Frist…that would be a bombshell…” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]

via atrios/dailykos/cnn:

S. O'BRIEN: There was a report last week in the "Washington Post" that talked about these secret prisons in Europe.

MCCAIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you aware of these prisons?

MCCAIN: No.

S. O'BRIEN: Not at all?

MCCAIN: I did not know anything about it.

S. O'BRIEN: Which means what, then? I mean if other senators -- are you going to start hearings on this? Obviously you would like to be aware, yes?

MCCAIN: Well, I think the Intelligence Committee chairman and ranking member were told -- at least that's the media reports that I have -- but I think the American people ought to know if we're doing that kind of thing.

is that true?

Trent Lott stunned reporters by declaring that this subject was actualy discussed at a Senate Republican luncheon, Republican senators only, last tuesday the day before the story ran in the Washington Post. Lott noted that Vice President Cheney was also in the room for that discussion and Lott said point blank "a lot of it came out of that room last tuesday, pointing to the room where the lunch was held in the capitol." He added of senators "we can't keep our mouths shut." He added about the vice president, "He was up here last wek and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper." He said he believes when all is said and done it may wind up as an ethics investigation of a Republican senator, maybe a Republican staffer as well. Senator Frist's office not commenting on this development. The Washington Post not commenting either.

maybe mccain wasn't there. was the frister?

Too funny. Hastert and Frist make a big show of calling for an investigation into a leak allegedly affecting national security -- the locations of secret "black site" torture prisons. And then -- BOOM!!! Lott just said, Tuesday afternoon, that he thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info to the Washington Post last week. He says the details had been discussed at a GOP Senators-only meeting last week, and that many of those details made it into the WaPo story.

Money quote from Lott; "We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us."

All just reported on CNN. We are, folks, witnessing the full-on implosion of the national Republican Party. And not a second too soon.

Q- how does one turn a frist into a flip-flop:

Senate Majority Leader Frist telling reporters he has not officially signed the letter that he and Hastert drafted earlier today...

bush marriage troubles

2005-11-08T17:52:00.000-05:00

oh say it ain't so! i'm not one to report on celebrity gossip but this daily news exclusive is just too tempting. it seem that the boys over at the wh have been having their share of troubles as of late and may need to seek counsel~~ing~~! according to one well-connected source close to the couple ~~of assholes~~:

"The relationship is not what it was, [t]here has been some distance for some time."

however, the couple's publicist implored that any such characterization was "categorically false."
uh-oh, sounds like splitsville to me...

story link

failing grades

2005-11-08T17:03:00.000-05:00

when was the last time a score of 16 [scale: 0-99] was considered passing? that was always a failing grade when i was in school, as was anything below 60% [and in later years the benchmark for passing was 70%].

since 1990, the army says it's okay for no more than 2% of recruits to score between 16 and 30 on the aptitude test, which again, has a scale of 0-99. That 16-30 score spread is considered the 'lowest category' for acceptance. Fiscal Year 2004, the number of recruits that were accepted from that 'lowest category' was 0.6%. in FY2005, among concerns about falling enlistment rates and missed recruitment targets, the army raised the limit on recruits that could come from this 'lowest category' to 4% and 4% is what they reached. well, FY2005 ended sept 30 and october represents the first month of FY 2006, so where are we now? for the month ending october 31, a staggering 12% of recruits came from this lowest acceptable score group. that's a 300% increase in 'low-lying lyndie england fruit.'

so out of curiosity, what does the army spokesperson have to say about this situation:

"We're on track to meet our 4 percent annual goal," said Lt. Col. Brian Hilferty, a spokesman for Army personnel.

interesting thing to say since he's 300% over his limit so far this fiscal year [ytd], and amid growing discontent with the war AND the war makers, how exactly does he intend to get back down to 4%?

He declined to comment on the 12 percent figure. "It's very early in the year," he said.

whoa, and can we just say for the record, with all due respect to Lt. Col. Hilferty, that 4% is not a goal. that's the upper limit, the maximum, a goal would be 0% because we want ~~the best~~ i mean ~~decent~~, well really just some warm bodies. at least that's my understanding...maybe i'm wrong and the us army actually does have a quota for incompetence...hmmm

Former Army Secretary Thomas E. White said the service was making a mistake by lowering its standards. "I think it's disastrous. You are throwing the towel in on recruiting quality," said White, a retired general whom Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fired in 2003 over other policy differences.

"We have clear experience from the 1970s with recruiting a sizable number of people from the lowest mental categories," said White. After the Vietnam War, the Army accepted a higher proportion of low-scoring recruits, leading to training and discipline problems, he added.

story in the baltimore sun

no. 44 in the world

2005-11-08T09:07:00.000-05:00

reporters sans frontières has released their 2005 report on freedom of the press. yikes. out of 167 countries 'the worlds greatest democracy' and 'beacon of liberty' for the world fell over 20 places to 44th! to put that in perspective, note that el salvador is 28, jamaica 34, even macedonia is a place above the US! and boliva is in the space right after us at #45.

of course the countries of northern europe topped the list with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, IReland, Netherlands, Norway, joining Switzerland at number one. slovakia at 8, the czech republic and slovenia tied for 10th place...

maybe time to retire 'they hate us for our freedoms'

war crimes for 'chemical rummy'

2005-11-08T08:31:00.000-05:00

wow, the news from the front is bad. really bad. remember when our invasion excuse became: we're in iraq because there was this evil dictator that raped, tortured, gassed and killed the people of iraq. luckily in the two and a half years since the united states ~~declared war on a sovereign nation~~ removed that hiddeous dictator, we've been able to resist the temptation to committ each of saddam's sins. oil-for-food scandal, sure saddam tricked the UN, but not without the help of america's corporate elite. sure saddam's minions had raped and tortured, but so have rumsfeld's minions.

thankfully, we can still use "but he gassed his own people" as our rallying cry. i'm sure you're well aware that the poison gas he used was supplied by the American govt., just as i'm sure you know that the people he gassed were as much "his own people" as native americans are "our own people." yes, this justification of war is a stretch, but a good soundbite none-the-less. in this day and age, the thought that a military would use chemical weapons against people, especially civillians, is obscene. how barbaric does a leader have to be to allow/encourage his military to use wmd that burns or carmelizes the flesh right off the bones of children?

what modern-day hitler would use wmd in urban warfare–in cities with tens of thousands of civilians? at least in a democracy the people would not allow their government to rape, kill, torture, and burn children alive. because unlike a dictatorship, in a democracy, the people rule. and when the leaders act, they act on the will of the people. the people are directly responsible for the leaders elected and policies enacted. therefore anything that a democratic government does, is 'in the name of the people' of that democracy. and surely the poeple of a democracy would NEVER allow those kind of crimes against humanity. right?

so someone explain this to me: "US forces used chemical weapons during assault on city of Fallujah" hopefully it's just some catapulted propaganda and that this wasn't done in our name:

A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact."

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

whether this looks like an american signature or not, the point is now it's out there, and once again, george w bush has dragged the realatively good name of the people of the united states of america through the streets of the world, chained to the back of his pick-up truck like james byrd.

back...

2005-11-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

it has been several weeks since my last post. i've been busy with work and travel for work...and that is why i've not written. also, i've grown a bit bored with the whole thing as well, and that has not helped.

the world, led by the american government, is being 'fast-tracked' to a barbaric hell. anyone who says 'i don't vote, it's not like it matters' ought to take a good hard look at the atrocities 5 years of bush have produced. from a preemptive war against an unarmed nation to the civil war against the middle class. from the cronies at FEMA to the cronies at depts. of educations, interior, state, defense, treasury, homeland security, justice, fda, cpb, and so on. from cheney's secret energy task force (featuring the oil lobby) to secret cia-run prisons in ~~eastern~~ new europe featuring torture and murder. this trainwreck of a president catapults the propaganda "stay the course." the train charges on though most of the cars are destroyed. logos of our american ideals lay strewn about the wreckage site of debris. the "freedom" car is twisted around a tree, "liberty" is upside-down in a ditch, "honesty and integrity" are burned out shells of mangled steel. "justice" and equality have yet to be found. meanwhile, miles from the site of the carnage, the diesel-powered engine is charging on through fields and towns in america's fartland, picking up under-educated, under-employed, misguided and/or ignorant young men and women. engineer george keeps them entertained with random mumblings of barely comprehensible babble mixed with sheer contempt. they travel with george on his runaway locomotive wearing their insulation of faith, blind and otherwise, hoping it will keep them warm. keep them safe.

bush: worst president ever

2005-10-18T09:11:00.000-04:00

october polls are in [data from polling report, commentary by mydd.com]:

Just when you think it couldn't sink any lower, it does. Here are the six October approval polls for Bush, from polling report:


Poll   App   Dis
Gallup    39    58
Fox    40    51
NBC    39    54
Pew    38    56
AP    39    58
CBS    37    58
Mean    38.7    55.8

I believe all six of these are record lows. You know Bush is really in trouble when Fox and Gallup aren't propping him up anymore. And forget the 40% floor--the new goal is 60% disapproval.

corporate greed part 598972

2005-10-18T08:59:00.000-04:00

jobs creation act, like all bush laws, feeds the rich, starves the rest and sails through congress with a bullshit, made-up name, that does exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to:

A TAX break intended to create thousands of American jobs from billions of dollars made abroad by US companies could end up in shareholders’ pockets, leading economists say.

A year after the Jobs Creation Act was signed into law by President Bush, an estimated $206 billion (£116 billion) earned overseas by US multinationals has returned to America to take advantage of a one-off reduction in the rate of corporation tax.

Normally, companies face a 35 per cent tax on dividends when they repatriate their profits. But the Act reduces the levy to just 5.25 per cent on the profits of foreign subsidiaries.

But there is growing evidence that companies are instead funnelling the tax break into debt reductions and share buybacks, to the benefit of shareholders. The law does not require the companies to prove that they are using the money to raise investment levels above their original plans.

Kimberly Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College, Oregon, said: “Should (the profits repatriation) encourage US investment? Not really, because it hasn’t changed the attractiveness of doing business in the US rather than other countries.”

Companies could claim that they were investing in the US while actually using the money for other purposes, she said. “I say to my students, it’s just like if grandma sent you a cheque that was only to be used at the bookstore. You just take the money that you would have spent on books and you spend it on whatever you want. What grandma has effectively done is facilitated your spending on beer or pizza.”

She added that by setting a precedent for a tax amnesty, the new law might actually encourage companies to shelter their profits abroad until tax rates were cut again.

full story times of london

katrina: bush stumbles again

2005-10-18T08:38:00.000-04:00

maybe if the president stopped taking weekly trips to the region and focused on his promises, people in his party might think he's doing a good job. from latimes:

Almost two months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and a month after promising in a nationally televised speech to help rebuild the region "quickly," President Bush has settled on a cautious, piecemeal approach that even many members of his own party fear will stall reconstruction and sow economic disarray.

Bush has made highly publicized trips to Louisiana and Mississippi on average of once a week since the storm, but the administration has yet to introduce legislation for two of the three proposals the president highlighted during his September speech from New Orleans.

In the case of the third proposal, $5,000 accounts to help workers left unemployed by the hurricane, an administration-drafted House bill would provide aid for fewer than a quarter of the jobless. [allow me to interject, surely if that $5K was needed, it was needed yesterday not tomorrow. if you've survived for two months post disaster, what good is a promise of up to $5K tomorrow? are they waiting until no one needs the money? how hard is this to accomplish? are they feds just being lazy, or is this another bush lie?]

Despite mounting evidence that Washington is having trouble putting to use most of the $62 billion in emergency funds approved by Congress so far, the president has resisted appointing a recovery coordinator or further detailing his vision of how to tackle rebuilding. In interviews last week, he explained that he wanted state and local officials to act first.

"I recognize there's an attitude in Washington that says, 'We know better than the local people.' That's just not the attitude I have," Bush told NBC's "Today" show.
[note to the most absent president ever, WHAT LOCAL PEOPLE? THEIR CITY WAS DESTROYED AT LEAST IN PART BECUASE OF YOUR FAILURE TO HEED THE ADVICE OF THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, YOUR FAILURE TO PROVIDE THE FUNDS REQUIRED FOR PROTECTION, YOUR FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP FOLLOWED BY YOUR FAILURE TO FOLLOW WORDS WITH ACTION. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YOU'RE AN IGNORANT ASS.]
In addition, the scale and complexity of reconstruction pose special challenges for an administration that firmly favors market mechanisms over government action, at least domestically.

With the immediate crisis past, administration officials may be hoping that state and local efforts — and the free market — will relieve them of the thorniest decisions, as well as a substantial chunk of the estimated $200-billion price tag for the region's revival.

However, a variety of prominent Republicans warn that the president's approach is a recipe for trouble.

...Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). "But henceforth, we've got to be very careful how we spend the money, and that means we're going to need a plan and somebody in charge."

"With all due respect to the president, things are not going to bubble up from the bottom," said Jack Kemp, who was Housing and Urban Development secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "There has to be some federal leadership here."

Such devastation creates a sort of chicken-and-egg problem, Baker said. "The question is, Who goes first?" If firefighters and police officers return to their communities first, they will have no equipment or food. If car dealers and retailers are the first, they will have no protection.

By offering tax breaks and encouraging local leaders to come up with rebuilding proposals, the White House implicitly hopes Gulf Coast residents solve the riddle themselves.

FEMA, which received almost $60 billion of the $62 billion in emergency funds, had "obligated" or assigned only $15.6 billion as of last Wednesday — less than a third of the money available — according to a weekly report the agency sends Congress.

wapo on cheney

2005-10-18T08:27:00.000-04:00

page A01 bitch:

As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.

read more a good start but they seem to be repeating the mantra, 'just a few bad apples' in cheney's office and he probably had nothing to do with it. ha! of course cheney would never have anything to do with this kind of thing. so much for accountability.

could it be cheney?

2005-10-18T08:22:00.000-04:00

that fitzgerald is going to nail?

rawstory:

The case of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame is set to explode.

The New York Daily News is set to report in Tuesday editions that a well-placed source interviewed by the newspaper believes a senior White House official has flipped and may be helping the prosecutor in the case, RAW STORY has learned.

All eyes are on Dick Cheney, the News says, as the investigation wraps up.

9 cases of mad-cow in humans?

2005-10-18T08:18:00.000-04:00

are you still eating beef?

friday's krugman

2005-10-17T13:33:00.000-04:00

finally read it. right on:

Questions of Character
By Paul Krugman, The New York Times , Friday 14 October 2005

George W. Bush, I once wrote, "values loyalty above expertise" and may have "a preference for advisers whose personal fortunes are almost entirely bound up with his own." And he likes to surround himself with "obsequious courtiers."

Lots of people are saying things like that these days. But those quotes are from a column published on Nov. 19, 2000.

I don't believe that I'm any better than the average person at judging other people's character. I got it right because I said those things in the context of a discussion of Mr. Bush's choice of economic advisers, a subject in which I do have some expertise.

But many people in the news media do claim, at least implicitly, to be experts at discerning character - and their judgments play a large, sometimes decisive role in our political life. The 2000 election would have ended in a chad-proof victory for Al Gore if many reporters hadn't taken a dislike to Mr. Gore, while portraying Mr. Bush as an honest, likable guy. The 2004 election was largely decided by the image of Mr. Bush as a strong, effective leader.

So it's important to ask why those judgments are often so wrong.

Right now, with the Bush administration in meltdown on multiple issues, we're hearing a lot about President Bush's personal failings. But what happened to the commanding figure of yore, the heroic leader in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that the commanding figure never existed: Mr. Bush is the same man he always was. All the character flaws that are now fodder for late-night humor were fully visible, for those willing to see them, during the 2000 campaign.

And President Bush the great leader is far from the only fictional character, bearing no resemblance to the real man, created by media images.

Read the speeches Howard Dean gave before the Iraq war, and compare them with Colin Powell's pro-war presentation to the U.N. Knowing what we know now, it's clear that one man was judicious and realistic, while the other was spinning crazy conspiracy theories. But somehow their labels got switched in the way they were presented to the public by the news media.

Why does this happen? A large part of the answer is that the news business places great weight on "up close and personal" interviews with important people, largely because they're hard to get but also because they play well with the public. But such interviews are rarely revealing. The fact is that most people - myself included - are pretty bad at using personal impressions to judge character. Psychologists find, for example, that most people do little better than chance in distinguishing liars from truth-tellers.

More broadly, the big problem with political reporting based on character portraits is that there are no rules, no way for a reporter to be proved wrong. If a reporter tells you about the steely resolve of a politician who turns out to be ineffectual and unwilling to make hard choices, you've been misled, but not in a way that requires a formal correction.

And that makes it all too easy for coverage to be shaped by what reporters feel they can safely say, rather than what they actually think or know. Now that Mr. Bush's approval ratings are in the 30's, we're hearing about his coldness and bad temper, about how aides are afraid to tell him bad news. Does anyone think that journalists have only just discovered these personal characteristics?

Let's be frank: the Bush administration has made brilliant use of journalistic careerism. Those who wrote puff pieces about Mr. Bush and those around him have been rewarded with career-boosting access. Those who raised questions about his character found themselves under personal attack from the administration's proxies. (Yes, I'm speaking in part from experience.) Only now, with Mr. Bush in desperate trouble, has the structure of rewards shifted.

So what's the answer? Journalists who are better at judging character? Unfortunately, that's not a practical plan. After all, who judges their judgment?

What we really need is political journalism based less on perceptions of personalities and more on actual facts. Schadenfreude aside, we should not be happy that stories about Mr. Bush's boldness have given way to stories analyzing his facial tics. Think, instead, about how different the world would be today if, during the 2000 campaign, reporting had focused on the candidates' fiscal policies instead of their wardrobes.

melon condi

2005-10-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

secretary of state condolezza rice on sunday's meet the press:

"The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaedaor we could take a bolder approach." [thinkprogress] [full transcript]

condi rarely chooses words less than carefully. therefore, one must assume that her choice of bolder rather than better, more comprehensive, more effective, etc... approach was not by accident. and it pains me, but she's right. responding to an attack by "A" by ignoring "A" and instead launching an unauthorized, illegal, pre-emptive strike against "B" -an unarmed nation. yeah, that's bold alright. kind of like getting mugged on the way home from work, but instead of taking your vengeancee out on the mugger, you beat the shit out of an old lady. that's bold. smart is something different all-together.

blackout in bagdad

2005-10-14T17:30:00.000-04:00

good thing they don't YET use those diebold meachines

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents sabotaged power lines to the capital Friday evening, knocking out electricity across the greater Baghdad area and plunging it into darkness on the eve of the country's key vote on a new constitution.

propaganda thief

2005-10-14T17:23:00.000-04:00

here they go again:

The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the Education Department engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind Act without requiring him to disclose that he was being paid. The Education Department's inspector general has also reviewed the Williams deal, which was part of a broader contract that the education agency had with Ketchum, a public relations firm.
...
"It's bad enough the administration bribed a journalist to promote their policies, but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done," said Lautenberg.

thanks for the link johnnyboy

pot good for brain

2005-10-14T15:45:00.000-04:00

according to a new study:

Calgary — Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.

While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form.

bush to raise taxes

2005-10-14T15:32:00.000-04:00

don't worry, they're only on the middle class. have health insurance? have a mortgage? be prepared to bail out the wealthy once again. this is war.

govt. goes after us soldier $

2005-10-14T15:27:00.000-04:00

read this from the wapo. and then tell rummy to go cheney himself. this is how the admin supports the troops:

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

"I was shocked," recalled Loria, now 28 and medically retired from the Army. "After everything that went on, they still had the nerve to ask me for money."

Although Loria's problems may be striking on their own, the Army has recently identified 331 other soldiers who have been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The new analysis comes as the United States has more wounded troops than at any time since the Vietnam War, with thousands suffering serious injury in Iraq or Afghanistan.

AOL joins DHS

2005-10-14T15:21:00.000-04:00

jesus fucking christ!

DHS and AOL: An Unholy Alliance

October 3, 2005
by Martin McKinney
The Financial Reporter (U.K.)

Washington- The American-based internet giant, AOL, wholly-owned by Time-Warner, has formed a working partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to permit unlimited surveillance of the millions of AOL online members, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“AOL works ‘closely with the DHS’ to supply information on any AOL customer and allows agents from these entities‘free and unfettered’ access to AOL Hq at Dulles,VA for the purpose of ‘watching over and keeping surveillance’ on the millions of AOL customers,’according to the report.

The legal basis for this is the recently Congress-approved Patriot Act which permits warrantless searches of persons and property. While information gleaned from delving into personal computer messages is supposed to be kept confidential, it appears that the DHS has exceeded their brief and obtained what appears to be strictly personal information which is then circulated to entities outside the DHS.

The Department of Commerce report also states that news of this surveillance has leaked out and is causing serious concern in the American, and European, business communities who are fearful that trade secrets may be given to other business entities, considered as “friendly” to the Bush Administration.

[source]

what have dems done for america?

2005-10-14T10:20:00.000-04:00

diarist delaware dem over at dailykos has a nice little list:

The GI Bill
Endangered Species Act
Environmental Laws
The Space Program
The Peace Corps
Americorps
The Civil Rights Movement
Earned Income Tax Credit
Family & Medical Leave Act
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Americans With Disabilities Act
Freedom of Information Act
Women's right to control their reproductive future
Allowing citizens to view their own credit records
The Internet
Balancing the federal budget
The Brady Bill (5-day wait on handgun purchases for background checks)
Lobbying Disclosure Act
"Motor-Voter" Act
The Voting Rights Act
Unemployment Insurance
Medicare/Medicaid
Food Stamps/WIC
Social Security
Peace between Israel and Egypt
Peace between Israel and Jordan
The Department of Education
The Department of Energy
The Department of Transportation
The Department of Housing and Urban Development
Labor Laws
The Marshall Plan
Winning World War II
Food Safety Laws
Workplace Safety Laws
The Tennessee Valley Project
The Civilian Conservation Corps
The Securites and Exchange Commission
Women's Right to Vote
Universal Public Education
National Weather Service
Product Labeling Laws
Truth in Advertising Laws
Morrill Land Grant Act
Rural Electrification
Public Universities
Bank Deposit Insurance (FDIC)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Public Broadcasting
Supporting the establishment of Israel
The United Nations
NATO

and of course, there's always the day in the life of joe republican

care to add some more of your own...comments

terror alerts & politics

2005-10-14T10:06:00.000-04:00

olbermann's got 13 incidents of politically convenient terror warnings. something bad happens politically for bush & co, and suddenly there's a terror warning. olbermann takes great pains to state and restate that coincidence is coincidence, so judge for yourself... i'm ready to convict.

arianna: troubling times @ times

2005-10-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

she's written so many articles about judith miller and the times, all of them good. what now, old grey lady?

dress rehearsal

2005-10-14T09:36:00.000-04:00

this is important. with all of the bs in the press about the orchestration of the president's video conference a few select troops, it's important to keep things in perspective. no i don't mean what the msm has on loop now, that all presidents do this kind of thing, rather, here we go with another white-wash of reality.

when asked if this was a rehearsed event in which comments were pre-screened or 'anything' the white house said, 'no.' now it's clear that once again scotty the nazi was LYING, listen to the npr audio of the 'event'. it is impossible to listen to the solders prep and believe anything but that they were told exactly what to say and how to say it. listening to the one soldier give the 'status report' on what they themselves were doing in iraq, i couldn't help but feel this was the first time he had seen the information.

what's even funnier is that Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary seems to have bush's speaking manner down pat, she stumbles almost as badly as he does.

WH press sec. a nazi?

2005-10-14T09:10:00.000-04:00

i'm sure that scott mcclellan, the administration's mouth piece, is a card carrying member of the nazi party. even if he doesn't actually carry, that makes him no less a nazi [ they're more subversive these days ]. in the oct. 13 official white house press briefing, he was asked by a journalist "What does the President mean by 'total victory' -- that we will never leave Iraq until we have 'total victory'? What does that mean?" true to nazi form, instead of answering the question, he slammed her for being a terrorist sympathizer.

fuck that little shrimp. honestly, i just love to watch these press briefings. scotty the nazi is so clearly uncomfortable, stuttering and stammering like only the president could, repeating nothing but the talking points he's rehearsed so many times. watch this clip the press briefing, it's hilarious, especially when he has to say the fight them there so we don't have to fight 'em here bullshit. it's so clear that even he doesn't believe the lie.

GWB = girlie man w/ a hammer

2005-10-13T16:13:00.000-04:00

this really is too fucking funny. i don't call the potus a girlie man lightly, but for a person who's spent his entire presidency [ and before ] attempting to portray himself an über-masculine, rugged, cowboy who chops wood on his ranch...well you get the point. he's a fraud–watch him play handy-man with a hammer. maybe he learned how to hit a nail by his father [ HA! ] but honestly, here is our regular 'guy you'd like to have a beer with' president demonstrating that he's never used a hammer before in his life. [courtesy of onegoodmove]

faith and loathing

2005-10-13T09:19:00.000-04:00

all the chatter out of the whitehouse these days is about the born-again faith of harriet miers. bush says he has no litmus test for court nominees. i doubt very much that bush even knows what a litmus test is. he [ through his spokesperson ] says that miers' faith was not a determining factor in her selection, but that it's part of her character...part of who she is. but that it has nothing to do with her judicial philosophy.

bullshit

first of all, let's get this straight. a born-again is a fucking lunatic who has no concept of objectivity, let alone reality. someday we can all hope it will appear in the DSM as treatable mental illness. the very fact that someone is so weak-minded that they would fall for the cult of superiority that is religion should be enough to disqualify that individual for consideration for any court. the very definition of faith is a rejection of fact and reason in favor of blind allegence to an idea. the absence of critical thinking. how can that be a good trait in someone who stands to judge on the basis of fact and reason, oh yeah, and the constitution.

how can someone who allows fiction to rule their lives to objectively rule on the issues. and before some 'person of faith' bitches about my portrayal of religion as fiction, i prempt with a challenge. show me the evidence. provide some evidence to support your religion. otherwise, it's just a fairytale you choose to believe because it makes you feel good. like santa claus. one need only to look at the opus dei scalia to see how such faith distorts judicial vision.

when a person so unqualified as harriet miers can be nominated to such a position it speaks of the character of the person who nominated her. the president of the united states has spent the past five years doing his very best to destroy everything that is good about our country. now that our nation has been weakend and sold out, he's nominated harriet miers to make a mockery of the only federal branch he and his party haven't totally bastardized.

perhaps this is why only 28% of americans think the country is moving in the right direction?

blue skies

2005-10-13T09:11:00.000-04:00

marty kaplan on HuffPo sees the reason to be encouraged:

No one knows who’ll be indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald, but you have to think there's more than smoke there. Though the Harriet Miers story could play out in any of a dozen ways, all of them are delicious. Frist, Delay, Blunt, Ney and the rest of Jack Abramoff’s butt-boys could actually be in their last throes, and we're not talking Cheney-like wishful thinking here.
...
Much as the mainstream media pretend to be disinterested, or even skeptical, the narrative they’ve spun until now has been fawning. They love power, and they love to be loved by the powerful. But Valerie, Terri, Cindy, Katrina and Harriet have finally forced the chattering class to unstrap its kneepads and radically rewrite the story. No one knows how this will all end. But the possibility that the potentates and pundits they’ve slobbered over these past five years will turn out to be perp-walkers and propagandists has forced the media machine to wake up and smell Karl’s Kool-Aid. Their revisionism will be effortless; they’ll retroactively have seen this coming all along. Old conventional wisdom: Oval Office blowjobs means the century of the values voter. New conventional wisdom: Monica was a molehill. Throw the bums out.

read the whole post

more rumsfeldian waste

2005-10-12T10:51:00.000-04:00

war in iraq - not going well. us needs more troops. what to do? no draft - that would insure bush is the last repugnican prez for a generation. so you put on your thinking cap and come up with the most obviously wasteful solution. wasteful in terms of talent, skill, and taxpayer $:

take 3,000 highly (and expensively) trained air force 'airmen' and send them to iraq to be prison guards, truck drivers, and interrogators. these are people who've trained for years so that they can fly missions on cutting-edge, billion-dollar fighter jets. surely they can drive a truck or rape an iraqi into submission, right? they've got those skills, and surely this is NOT a waste of their skill, training, and taxpayer $. surely there's someone else who can fight this unwinnable war, right?

actually i guess not. the FBI may start hiring drug addicts. the military has already demonstrated they don't care if you're a 17 year-old highschool drop-out with a drug addiction. you got a pulse. that's great. just don't be gay.

LATimes:

WASHINGTON — Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks.
...
Nonetheless, the reassignments come as another sign that the Pentagon is struggling to meet the demands of what military officials have begun calling "the long war."

remember rummy, the secretary of defense?

Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

cheney: war profiteer

2005-10-12T08:07:00.000-04:00

who would think that the sitting vice-president would be making money off a war that he help incite? especially after cheney claimed on meet the press [2003]:

“Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest," the Vice President said. "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years.”

now you know mr. russet-potatohead had no follow up to that statement afterall, it's not a news show, rather a pr vehicle for conservatives. he should have followed up because it was just one more of cheney's lies. rawstory reports:

Cheney continues to received a deferred salary from the company. According to financial disclosure forms, he was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and $194,852 in 2004.

but of course that meager amount, $740,979.00, a.) is not in anyway linked to halliburton's award of no-bid contracts in iraq, afganistan, cuba, new orleans, etc. b.) that's no the limit of his finiancial interest: as of 2004 cheney held $241,498 worth of halliburton stock options [433,333 shares]. in the past year, those shares have increased 3281% to more that $8 million [he claims he'll donate the $ to a charity of his choice [ DeLay legal fund ? ]. even if he really does donate the $ to charity [ we already know he's a liar, see above ] he still has a financial interest in the company.

[T]he Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded in Sept. 2003 that holding stock options while in elective office does constitute a “financial interest” regardless of whether the holder of the options will donate proceeds to charities. CRS also found that receiving deferred compensation is a financial interest.

full story at rawstory

harriet the spy

2005-10-11T09:54:00.000-04:00

here's the thing about harriet. all the bitching...she's got no experience...she's got no record or writings to indicate her positions on issues... etc. who the fuck cares, and if you do care, why didn't you care when it came to roberts? the man had two years on a bench. would you want a surgeon only two years out of med school to remove a tumor from your brain?

jesus fucking christ, all the whining and you miss the real story. the real story is that she was bushie's personal attorney, friend, and pen pal.

as if he didn't have enough friends on the court already (witness bush v. gore, 2000, which fellow crony, john roberts, employed by the bush team, performed oversight and legal assistance) if she's confirmed he'll have one more. more than a friend actually. a lawyer. his personal attorney, with whom he has a privileged and confidential relationship guaranteed by law, would now be sitting on a court that is the final arbiter of constitutional law and justice. not only that, the scotus is supposed to be impartial remember? it's the third branch of the federal government? her loyalty to the president is something that should be regarded as an abuse of power on the part of the president. he is stacking the court with people not sympathetic with his ideology, but rather sympathetic with his administration. and that is dangerous. the executive branch constantly has matters before the court, should another bush crony with sworn allegiance to the president sit before him in judgment? no. no. no.

that's not why conservatives are steaming. they are steaming because they see a weak president who's no longer an asset to their party but a liability, putting himself ahead of the goals of the party. they see the forest for the trees, something democrats will debate into irrelevancy. i mean, when a defender of torture like ann coulter slams bush [via crooksandliars, bad wmv video from RTwBM] you know there's trouble on pennsylvania avenue. they want their scalia or thomas (opus dei or long dong silver) as the prez promised.

democrats can either love miers (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) or hate her and take a stand against the cronism, incompetence, etc. But they're really in a bad place, because this is a game bush will win no matter what decision they make. defeat miers and you'll surely get a more conservative nominee. embrace miers and the power of the senate's obligation for "advice and consent" with respect to presidential appointees all but evaporates. {she has no qualifications, no record, and her documents are not being released} so what is left? i guess they can question her, afterall that worked so well with the roberts hearings.

sting of the walrus

2005-10-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

i am no fan of john [ the walrus ] bolton. he is ~~a reformer with results~~ an asshole. plain and simple an arrogant, elitist, unstable, angry asshole. when bush side-stepped the federal SOP and slipped him in to the UN under the cover of journalistic darkness, he proclaimed that bolton was the right man for the job, the only one who can reform the UN. i hadn't realized at the time, and remain unconvinced, that it is the job of one member nation usurp power and dictate what they deem to be reform.

for all his sanctimonious ramblings about human rights, bush doesn't believe the words that come out of his mouth. bush's disdain for even the acknowlegement that humans have certain rights is wholy apparent when one examines his policy, precident, and his actions as president. really. we live in a world in which the culture of life actively promotes torture, murder, and even genocide. so this should come as no surprise.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy on Monday from briefing the Security Council on grave human rights violations in Sudan's Darfur region, saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them.

Bolton, joined by China, Algeria and Russia, prevented Juan Mendez, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser for the prevention of genocide, from briefing the council on his recent visit to Darfur, despite pleas from Annan and 11 other council members that Mendez be heard.

"I strongly regret and deplore that Mr. Mendez ... was not authorized to brief the council today as Mr. Kofi Annan had asked," French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told reporters outside the council chambers.

But Bolton said he had objected to the briefing to make the point the council should be "talking more about the steps it can take to do something about the deteriorating security situation" in Darfur. He gave no new proposals.
...
They noted Bolton had lined up with the three council members -- Algeria, China and Russia -- which have watered down action against Khartoum.

"He's playing into the hands of people who don't want to do anything," said one council diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to irritate Washington.

under the guise of less talk, more action, bolton sides with russia, china, and algeria (who basically oppose UN intervention in Darfur to halt the ongoing genocidal campaign that has already killed at least twice more people than the asian tsunami. good going! with friends like those, who needs enemies? what does it say about us, that we side with those nations? and for what?

that's my girl

2005-10-10T09:49:00.000-04:00

wow, randi rhodes on the span, and i missed it. partial segment from crooksandliars. too funny when confronted with reality, the lovely jesus-woman [janet parshall] puts her fingers in her ears repeats the favorite refrain of the immature "i can't hear you..."

miller's notes

2005-10-10T09:23:00.000-04:00

yeah, fresh out of jail, she just happened to find some more notes about her conversations with L. Lewis Scooter Libby and handed them over to the prosecuter. good job girly! so sad, that time in jail must have been for you. you are a pillar of integrity. fighting for the journalists who tell the truth and the people who need to hear it. or at least that's what you and that god awful rag for which you scribe would like us to believe. judith miller, martyr.

daily show take

reading bullshit

2005-10-10T08:15:00.000-04:00

the AP has a nice little article on the nyc subway/baby carriage terror threat that wasn't. they of course don't say it wasn't. the article mentions some details of the story*, like that the threat came from one unreliable source that was not corroborated. so here we have the article in full, with comments in, oh i don't know, i guess red for terrorism. *this in no way should be percieved as an attempt by me to delegitimize the terror warning announced the same day as the president's first speech on the subject in years. the facts do that without any help from me.

NEW YORK - A reported plot to bomb city subways with remote-controlled explosives has not been corroborated after days of investigation, law-enforcement officials said Sunday amid an easing sense of concern. ah, i feel better already.

Interrogations of suspects captured in Iraq last week after an informant's tip about bomb-laden suitcases and baby carriages have yet to yield evidence that the plot was real, officials said. woah, the subjects were in Iraq, i thought we were fighting them there so we wouldn't have to here. a.)how were they going to bomb the subway from thousands of miles away? b.)law enforcement officials in NY have informants on the ground in Iraq? or was it simply that the "intell source" was in NY but the bombers weren't?

"The intelligence community has been able to determine that there are very serious doubts about the credibility of this specific threat," Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said. "This is after ongoing review and analysis." this is after the terror warning expired. strange that DHS would hold comment until after the alleged threat had passed. there are now "serious doubts about the credibility"??? are you kidding?

Homeland Security officials have been skeptical about the threat since it was publicly announced Thursday, but officials who were more assertive about the potential danger last week also appeared to be softening their assessment. if DHS had been skeptical since the threat was announced, who announced it? isn't that precisely their job?

"I believe in the short term we'll have a much better sense of whether or not this has, you know, real substance to it," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said on CNN's Late Edition. WTF? gee, i believe in the short term, we'll have a much better sense whether or not it, you know, rained last week. this brainiac is the NYC police commissioner? whose dick did he have to suck for that appointment?

A Homeland Security memo said the attack might have been planned to take place on or around Sunday. wait, i thought DHS was skeptical and thought the threat was bogus? who's on first?

The city has no immediate plans to pull extra officers out of the subway system or reduce the number of bag searches, according to Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Police doubled the number of daily bag checks and sent thousands of extra officers into the transit system, some in plainclothes and many others in uniform. i wouldn't pull the extra officers & bag searches either. what good is a police state without the police. and just think of all the extra cocaine the cops will be able to abscond with.

Bloomberg said he had no regrets. he also said that he enjoyed giving tony blair, bush's #1 bitch, the week off.

"We've got to take every threat seriously and that is what we are going to do," he said. note bloomie's use of future tense. does that imply some sort of deviation with what was done previously?

The mayor said he planned to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium Sunday night for Game 4 of the American League Divisional Series. good for him, he truly is a man of the people. how he'll get to work on Monday would also be news.

The informant who prompted the plot investigation has provided a mix of true and false information in past investigations, [police commissioner] Kelly said on CNN. Asked whether the informant had passed a polygraph test, he replied, "That source was deemed to be, yes, believing in the information that was put forward." i had to add emphasis to this paragraph. do i need to point out the bullshit any further? yes? a.) a person who provides a mix of true and false, is NOT someone you sole-source. duh. that is not an informant, that's the NYTimes. b.) so i take it the police commissioner is admitting that no lie-detector was administered, but for some unspecified reason, the source was "deemed to be, yes, believing in the information..." HUH? but let me back up slightly. "...believing in the information that was being put forward." does that mean that the so-called source wasn't even the source? seems a deliberatly strange way to say that the informant believed what he was telling them to be true. rather, he was "believing in the information that was put forward." that smacks of scott mcclellan's kind of bullshit.

The commissioner said he remained confident that the city acted properly.

"This threat was very, very specific. It had specific time, specific object and modality. So, you know, we had to do what we did," Kelly said. the, you knows, are really starting to get to me. if the threat was so specific regarding time, why warn on thursday about sunday's "threat"? wouldn't you try to catch the terrorists before announcing that you heard there's rumors on the internets? doesn't sound like law enforcement to me, but it sure sounds political.

The informant, who had spent time in Afghanistan, told U.S. intelligence that a group of men were plotting to attack New York subways with timed or remotely detonated bombs in strollers and bags. U.S. forces in Iraq arrested two plotters Thursday, prompting Bloomberg, Kelly and the FBI's New York office to announce security was being increased in the subways. A third suspect was arrested Friday. well, saying that the informant spent time in Afganistan doesn't carry the street cred it used to. that's so nineties, like so. central los angeles. digression aside, notice how the AP follows the bush admin like poodles. "U.S. forces in Iraq arrested two plotters Thursday..." excuse me? first of all, just because bush & co. don't believe in our constitution, bill of rights, etc. doesn't mean we all should simply toss it aside. jesus christ AP they are alleged plotters, and given the accuracy of the this terror story in its entirety, you should have capitalized the word alleged. so let me make sure i've got this correct. because the informant spent time in the US occupied territory of Afganistan, he was able to supply somebody in DHS or the NYPD with "credible" information about a terror attack in NY resulting in the aprehension of two obviously guilty (they're going to be tortured anyway) individuals in the US occupied territory of Iraq. all this for a terror attach involving baby carriages on the subway in NYC on Sunday.

i can't be the only one who finds this story beyond fishy. sometimes the simplest explanation is the most truthful.
Bush=bad poll numbers.
give speech on terror, follow with a terror warning in a city that has experienced real terror.
bush=good poll numbers.

it's worked for the administration too many times before (care to remember the years 2001-2004?) for one to believe they wouln't inject politics into the terror equation.

pelosi: shameful repugnicans

2005-10-07T18:25:00.000-04:00

today's house vote was nothing new under republican leadership. they call a vote, in this case on an energy bill, and when they realize they're losing the vote they keep it open in order to extort enough dissenting gop'ers to change their vote, thusly the outcome.

said house minority leader [ and carrier of the dem nutsack ] nancy pelosi [ to rawstory ]:

"What you saw on the House floor this afternoon was a shameless display of the Republican culture of corruption, as it exists in the House of Representatives. It demonstrated once again that the Republican majority will go to any length to satisfy the greed of the energy companies over meeting the needs of the American people.

"A vote that was supposed to take five minutes took more than nine times that long because the indicted Republican leader of the House of Representatives needed extra time to twist the arms necessary to pass a bill that is against the interests of the American people, against consumers, against taxpayers, and against the environment.

"The fact that the Republicans are handmaidens of the special interests is nothing new. The fact that they would shamelessly display their servitude should come as no surprise. But today's extortion is an especially shameful display - a sad day for democracy. The people spoke and the vote was clearly against this bill.

"How long will the Republican caucus condone this behavior? Until the rank-and-file Members break with the culture of corruption, they are all complicit and they all enable. The American people must object.

"Our country's democracy is based upon every American having his or her voice heard on the floor of Congress. Republicans have shut down debate here. Now they are shutting down the reasonable outcome of a vote.

"Democrats have proposed guidelines for how we think the House of Representatives should operate, a Minority Bill of Rights. Included in this document is the declaration that 'No vote shall be held open in order to manipulate the outcome.' When we take back the People's House, we will heed that declaration."

give 'em hell, pelosi. and when the msm actually breaks from non-news to cover the story, their incompetence and incoherence really shows. watch wolf blitzer and others completely miss the point. the votes were in, the bill defeated, and gop leadership said, basically, that's not the result we want, let's revote until it works out the way we want. that's when the extortion began. cnn is not capable of understanding something so simple. see your government in action-this is good.

rover

2005-10-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

is toast.

looks like delay may be as well.

could the culture of ~~life~~ corruption be coming to an end. probably not:

the seattle times: WASHINGTON — Rep. Doc Hastings, the Washington state Republican who chairs the House ethics committee, touched off a political controversy this week with statements supporting embattled Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Hastings told the Yakima Herald-Republic that his committee would not investigate a 15-month-old complaint about DeLay's role in alleged illegal campaign contributions in Texas.

bigmouth strikes again

2005-10-07T09:28:00.000-04:00

hmmm. could this be that ever elusive flip-flop from thinkprogress:

George W. Bush, 10/6/05:

Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory.

CBS News, 8/30/04:

In an interview on NBC-TV’s “Today” show, Mr. Bush …suggested an all-out victory against terrorism might not be possible. Asked “Can we win?” Mr. Bush said, “I don’t think you can win it.”

gore v bush

2005-10-07T09:18:00.000-04:00

who should have been our president:

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

compare that to the man who is and tell me we weren't robbed:

As Americans, we believe that people everywhere -- everywhere -- prefer freedom to slavery, and that liberty, once chosen, improves the lives of all. And so we're confident, as our coalition and the Iraqi people each do their part, Iraqi democracy will succeed.

gore's speech
bush's speech

bush's ticks - wtf?

2005-10-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

someone tell me, exactly how much cocaine does one need to do to end up like this:

click the img to see huffpo's montage of bush's ticks from yesterday's speech. curious

here we go again

2005-10-07T08:29:00.000-04:00

in desperate need to pat his administration on the back for something [ gannon/guckert left a big vacancy in the WH ] the president made an interesting ~~lie~~ claim on thursday. ~~in his address to the nation~~ speech at the national endowment for democracy, he stated that since september thee eleventh, ten, count them, TEN al qaeda terror attempts including 3 in the US, had been foiled.

as usual he came up short on details. thinkprogress has them:

So letÂs review what we know about the 10 incidents:

1. Jose Padilla. "Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld deputy, stressed on Monday that 'there was not an actual plan' to set off a radioactive device in America and Padilla had not begun trying to acquire materials. Intelligence officials said his research had not gone beyond surfing the internet." Since being detained in O'Hare airport in 2002, Padilla has not been charged with any crime or permitted to talk to a lawyer. [Daily Telegraph, 12/06/02; Washington Post, 9/10/05]

2. Iyman Faris. Faris was an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty in June 2003 to two felony charges of supporting a foreign terrorist organization. He was charged with plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, but U.S. officials admitted that Faris had abandoned the plot because he deemed it unlikely to succeed. "After scouting the bridge and deciding its security and structure meant the plot was unlikely to succeed, he passed along a message to al Qaeda in early 2003 that said 'the weather is too hot.'" [CNN, 6/19/03]

3-10: Classified.

To recap: One three-year old arrest in a case where no charges have been filed, one two-year old arrest related to a plot that was already abandoned and eight 'incidents' the administration won't tell us anything about.

the nytimes [shut up about that bitch miller, she's no martyr]:

The White House said they included a failed effort in 2002 to use hijacked airplanes to attack "targets on the West Coast," and a similar plot on the East Coast in 2003.

so it should be no surprise that within hours of the mdisingenuousd disengenious speech ever made by a president, we have this:

terrorists determined to attack in ny subway

we've seen this before, and just because ~~mr duct tape~~ tom ridge is no longer the dhs secretary, doesn't mean that terror warnings are any less politically motivated.

which doesn't make me wonder. we live in bush's land of make believe. i wonder if all this terror talk has anything to do with this: in the latest cbsnews poll, only 46% of americans approve of the president's handling of terrorism. and that's his strongest issue. in fact slightly more americans think that bush himself, rather than terrorism, is america's greatest problem

U.S. MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM

War in Iraq
Now 18%
9/2005 13%

Economy and jobs
Now 16%
9/2005 14%

Gas/oil crisis
Now 5%
9/2005 9%

President Bush
Now 5%
9/2005 5%

Terrorism
Now 4%
9/2005 6%

extraordinary

2005-09-14T08:55:00.000-04:00

video of the bumbler patting himself on the back.

grey lady cuts off nose looking for green

2005-09-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

as you may be aware, as of this coming monday, the increasingly irrelevant nytimes will begin charging readers of the op-ed pages. this includes the important and relevant work of paul krugman, the wit and sarcasm of moreen dowd, and so forth. funny, just as other news outlets are opening up and offering more features, the nytimes closes the door.

i bet they'll sell more papers. i bet people will line up to fork over a monthly fee for what was once free. really i do. isn't it bad enough they track everything you read via a required log in? isn't it bad enough that their reporting has become so benign that the op-ed columns are the only ones worth reading?

absent msm part 65,993

2005-09-14T08:31:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: the full CRS report is now available from the house judiciary committee [ pdf ].

the mainstream media was, lead by the wapo/newsweek pieces, eager to levy blame at the state and local efforts, spreading false assumptions, and repeating republican spin as fact. you'd think that when the non-partisan congressional research service publishes a report finding NO FAULT with the efforts and actions of the state of louisiana, they might find the time to mention it.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report Tuesday afternoon asserting that Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government, RAW STORY has learned.

The report, which comes after a request by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to review the law and legal accountability relating to Federal action in response to Hurricane Katrina, unequivocally concludes that she did.

"This report closes the book on the Bush Administration's attempts to evade accountability," Conyers said in a statement. "The Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time."

full story here

victims or parasites?

2005-09-14T08:26:00.000-04:00

nice read over at 1115.org:

"they ain't messin' with no broke niggas"

Some see a group of people who have just lost what few possessions they had, are terrified about their immediate future, and need help from their fellow Americans. Others see an undesirable minority, a zero-sum political football best punted as far down field as possible. Take a good look, it’s one or the other.

they hate us for our freedom, pt. 93,456

2005-09-14T08:21:00.000-04:00

from the sf chronicle:

Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.

"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.

body-hiding firm hired in louisiana

2005-09-14T08:11:00.000-04:00

this is unbelievable. a firm with [ of course ] financial and personal connections to the bush crime family has been hired to take care of all of the bodies in louisiana. the catch with this contract? the firm and its divisions have a clear record of ~~competence~~ body-dumping, making corpses disappear, and exacting political retribution against whistle-blowers. i cannot do the story justice, the must read is over at rawstory. the firm was hired first by brownie's fema and now the state of louisiana. we may never know the true death toll.

this is why they hate judges

2005-09-10T10:49:00.000-04:00

from cnn who filed the suit:

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order against a "zero access" policy announced earlier Friday by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

price gouging is good

2005-09-10T00:49:00.000-04:00

at least that's how abc's john stossel sees it:

"Consider this scenario: You are thirsty -- worried that your baby is going to become dehydrated. You find a store that's open, and the storeowner thinks it's immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won't charge you a dime more than he charged last week. But you can't buy water from him. It's sold out.

You continue on your quest, and finally find that dreaded monster, the price gouger. He offers a bottle of water that cost $1 last week at an "outrageous" price -- say $20. You pay it to survive the disaster.

You resent the price gouger. But if he hadn't demanded $20, he'd have been out of water. It was the price gouger's "exploitation" that saved your child.

It saved her because people look out for their own interests. Before you got to the water seller, other people did. At $1 a bottle, they stocked up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.

The people the softheaded politicians think are cruelest are doing the most to help. Assuming the demand for bottled water was going to go up, they bought a lot of it, planning to resell it at a steep profit. If they hadn't done that, that water would not have been available for the people who need it the most."

like any decent fascist, he forgets to mention that those with the most means, aren't ALWAYS the neediest [paris hilton excluded]. as he says:

The people the softheaded politicians think are cruelest are doing the most to help. Assuming the demand for bottled water was going to go up, they bought a lot of it, planning to resell it at a steep profit. If they hadn't done that, that water would not have been available for the people who need it the most.

those people "the soft bellied ..." should have been mutha fuckin FEMA. and they should have been GIVING that water to the woman with the infant. this man deserves the southern hospitality shown to james byrd.

you may want to write disney about this... they love the suffering of po'black folk

delay: stupid is fun

2005-09-10T00:33:00.000-04:00

jesus fucking christ. there is no shame for republicans:

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

not as much fun as raping your mother, you arrogant, indignant asshole.

i shouldn't feel the need to say this, but of course i would never advocate violence against women, for if i did, i'd be a republican.

wow. 'blacks are stupd'

2005-09-10T00:28:00.000-04:00

'blacks are too stupid' no comment needed. just watch, from crooksandliars:

no food for victims.

2005-09-09T23:57:00.000-04:00

only for hungerstrikers.

The U.S. military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said Friday.

Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantanamo have not eaten for a month, said Guantanamo detention mission spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens. The others have refused at least nine consecutive meals, he said.

force-feeding hunger-strikers? what more evidence does one need to prove that we are the evil-do'ers? come on, i beg someone to tell me. force-feeding people who are acting in civil disobedience? even the god-awful british we once fought against didn't do that [let's tube feed ghandi, torture him a little, maybe he'll tell us where the insurgents are]. and before you get all indignant, just because one is rotting in git-mo doesn't mean they've done ANYTHING wrong. if they had even been suspected of evil-doing, they've have been TRIED in court. but, that was another country, one that believed in the rule of law, justice for all, respected the rights of the people. oh wait, that was just the lie from civics class.

FUCK THE USA. i want out.

brownie, we hardly knew ye!

2005-09-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

mike brown was doing such a good job at disaster relief, chertoff decided to relieve him of command. fired, no. step down, no. resign, no. he's still head of fema, but they deported his sorry ass back to dc.

incompetence ok, lying on resume and to the press, ok. but we gotta make it look like we're doing something.

imus

2005-09-09T09:39:00.000-04:00

i have absolutely no love for don imus. i find him insufferable to the point of suicide, but this is funny. clip of whitehouse v. david gregory {nbc} plus a little commentary via crooksandliars

analysis by krugman

2005-09-09T09:30:00.000-04:00

read the whole thing. it's good background and summary.

All that's missing from the Katrina story is an expensive reconstruction effort, with lucrative deals for politically connected companies, that fails to deliver essential services. But give it time - they're working on that, too.

Why did the administration make the same mistakes twice? Because it paid no political price the first time.

Can the administration escape accountability again? Some of the tactics it has used to obscure its failure in Iraq won't be available this time. The reality of the catastrophe was right there on our TV's, although FEMA is now trying to prevent the media from showing pictures of the dead. And people who ask hard questions can't be accused of undermining the troops.

But the other factors that allowed the administration to evade responsibility for the mess in Iraq are still in place. The media will be tempted to revert to he-said-she-said stories rather than damning factual accounts. The effort to shift blame to state and local officials is under way. Smear campaigns against critics will start soon, if they haven't already. And raw political power will be used to block any independent investigation.

Will this be enough to let the administration get away with another failure? Let's hope not: if the administration isn't held accountable for what just happened, it will keep repeating its mistakes. Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff will receive presidential medals, and the next disaster will be even worse.

update on pelosi's balls

2005-09-09T09:14:00.000-04:00

i have always hated kyra phillips of cnn. she's a gop hack and a nit-wit [ those usually go hand in hand so don't think she's something special ] so i was very happy to nancy pelosi give her the what for yesterday and call her on her bushshit. kyra was attempting to say that because things are going better, we dems should stop being critical of the administration [ remember how they said the same thing about iraq after the 'election' that really turned out well ] rough transcript from americablog, video on crooksandliars:

Phillips: "Are you changing your mind, at all, about how you feel the Bush administration is handling this crisis up to this very minute?" [ before they weren't responsible, but now that it's going better {is it?} the feds are the heros? ]

Pelosi: "It's not a question of how I feel. It's what I know.... If the FEMA head had reacted appropriately a week ago, there would have been less cost in lives and livelihood and people's homes in the region and a lot less cost in money to the taxpayer.... I call once again on the President to replace the head of FEMA. FEMA was a failure last week. Many, many hardworking FEMA workers were out there in the field. But they didn't get the leadership and the accountability they needed.... As we go forward, we can do better if we have professional, capable leadership in position at FEMA to do the job."

They're [conveniently] interrupted by [non] breaking news that 14 bodies have been recovered at a New Orleans hospital. Phillips seems overwhelmed emotionally and can't look up at the camera for a good thirty seconds but keeps talking.

Phillips went on to repeat the White House claim that Pelosi lied about what the President said to her, even though Pelosi repeated it immediately to the media after speaking with the President, has remained consistent on it ever since and the White House at first would only smear her off the record and no one actually at the meeting has stepped forward on the record to say she's lying. Pelosi, of course, is telling the truth. Then Phillips rambles on about being "historical" and who didn't fund the massive levee project and says this:

Phillips: "I think it's unfair that FEMA is singled out. There are so many people responsible for what has happened in the state of Louisiana."

Pelosi: "That is true and I'm sorry you think that it's unfair. But I don't. I think it's unfair to the people who lost their family members, their lives, their livelihood, their homes, their opportunity. And FEMA did a poor job."

Phillips butts in to say: "What about the Army Corps of Engineers with all those warnings --"

They talk over each other, until Pelosi finally says, "Kyra, if you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll."

daily show funny

2005-09-09T09:12:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart: The president has vowed to personally lead the investigation into the government's failed response to Katrina? Isn't that a job perhaps someone else should be doing?

Samantha Bee: No, not at all, Jon. To truly find out what went wrong, it's important for an investigator to have a little distance from the situation. And it's hard to get any more distant from it than the president was last week.

post 9/11 world?

2005-09-09T08:56:00.000-04:00

you hear that phrase often out of politicians trying to sell something. but does it actually mean anything? yes and no. yes, in that administration is now crushing civil liberties. no, in that adminstration has actually learned anything. in today's nytimes, there's a piece discussing the fact that bush debated whether or not to get involved and take control of the emergency effort [ as he did so masterfully on that fateful sept day, hiding with children and they zigzagging across the country ] but the third paragraph must make one stop and think:

As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.

For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.

The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

are they fucking kidding??? good thing their not in the business of disaster preparedness and terrorism. oh wait, that is their job. article here

FEMA head lied on resume

2005-09-09T08:42:00.000-04:00

Time [online ed.] has some real dirt on troubled fema head michael brown. we knew it was bad, but shit check this out! you know it's bad when the best thing your former boss can say about you is that you always wore a starched shirt!

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., [ suburb of oklahoma city ] from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."
...
Under the "honors and awards" section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University". However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University).
...
The FindLaw profile for Brown was amended on Thursday to remove a reference to his tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association [from which he was fired for incompetence] which has become a contested point.
...
"There was a feeling that he was not serious and somewhat shallow." Jones says when his law firm split, Brown was one of two staffers who was let go.

whoa! and there's more in the time piece.

interesting comment from zogby

2005-09-09T08:15:00.000-04:00

zogby has new poll numbers out and they don't look good for the president. you can see the results here. no big surprises, but something in his analysis struck me:

“Ironically, the Republican message to Americans is to rely less on government. And it looks like that message is getting across, as Americans have more faith in the Red Cross in this crisis than government.”

that should be inconceivable, given the vast resources, financial and human, of the federal government. but the current administration has done nothing as well as lowering the bar of expectations.

could this help explain the lethargic and dissinterested federal response? could it have actually been intentional to further the ultimate goal of republicans [ and libertarians ] to 'starve federal government?' one in which the citizenry no longer expect the federal government to provide for the defense and protection of the people? if the people have no faith in the government it reduces expectations, and in turn, reduces popular support for governmental programs and efforts to provide services for the people.

diane rehm's unbalanced panel discussing the disaster yesterday had a member of both the ultraconservative wall street journal editorial board and the non-partisan economics policy institute. i won't get into the bias inhierent in the panel, but the main suggestion seemed to be that we should privitize disaster relief because the government is incapable of doing anything better than the private sector. can you imagine? that would require profit motive instead of humanitarian motive, but perhaps halliburton is looking for new work [ oh wait, the contracts for katrina are just starting to roll in ]. the point missed on the panel, and the usually apt rehm, was that if government is not doing its duty, you don't get rid of government, you make sure that it does work. if you have a cavity, you don't pull all of your teeth, you fill the cavity. you replace the parts that don't work, starting with the people.

sound like a conspiracy theory? perhaps, but the only other explaination is gross incopetence that excedes the threshold of criminal neglegence. it's either the cronyism and corruption rampant in this administration that lead to a complete breakdown, or it's a purposeful attack on the citizens of the united states by warmongering profiteers, that is the problem.

until that's addressed, by the media and by the people, we're fucked. and it will only get worse.

FEMA: no press in affected areas

2005-09-07T15:49:00.000-04:00

first came the government's announcement asking the media to refrain from reporting numbers of casualties [what are they trying to hide]. then came their request the media refrain from taking/publishing photographs of the corpses littering the gulf states. now it seems the national guard are under orders to prevent members of the press from traveling to the affected areas.

they hate us for our freedom.

somebody watch and report while they enron the bodies. the inaction of the federal govt. has directly led to (some have reported as many as) 40,000 deaths. more than 10x greater the number killed sept. 11. while sept.11 was arguably preventable, this was definitely 100% preventable. if only members of the administration could tear themselves away from their vacations. if only.

she's got the balls

2005-09-07T15:41:00.000-04:00

it didn't take long for atleast one democrat to get a set. not long unless your sitting there in your own shit without food & water, sanitation, and other luxuries to which those in new orleans had become accustomed.

but finally, so many days later a dem get a big set indeed. of course it took a meeting with the grand incompetent one, but if that won't do it, what will. from the ap:

At a news conference, [nancy] Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

She related that she urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Brown.

"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.

blame game pt.2

2005-09-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

after the rove's talking points "now is not the time to point fingers/play the blame game, we've got lives to save, but by the way, the mayor of new orleans and governor of louisiana [both dems] didn't prepare or mobilize as they should have." failed to catch on, even with every gop'er who wasn't personally affected by the disaster scene repeating the same words, we've got the new spin.

rick [man-on-dog sex afficianado] santorum [R-PA] leads the charge with the new republican blame/rally cry: it's the victims fault:

In a weekend interview with WTAE-TV about the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Santorum said: "You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

now to suggest that the government should financially penalize the victims of this national disaster, instead of trying bush on crimes against humanity, frankly leaves dumbstruck. i can't fathom that kind of lewd thinking. as bill mahar said on friday's real time:

And this is what I call “unintentional racism.” Because this guy – that's the whole thing with the Bush people. They just can't imagine, “Why don't you just pack up your Range Rover grab a case of Poland Spring water out of the garage, and go to your summer home? What is the problem?!” They just don't get it.

they don't get it, these people had no transporation. if they owned a car [how many city dwellers own cars?] there was no gas. if they didn't own a car they were fucked. assuming they had money, the flights were cancelled. although amtrak offered to donate trains to evacuate people, their offer was denied by fema. nobody seems to know where the buses were. there was simply no way to go. why don't republicans understand this? because they only know the suburban model, where you live in a grotesque mcmansion with a two-suv garage, purposefully located in isolation from any kind of people who differ from yourself. their self-imposed seggregated exile permits them to think everyone is like them, or street-walking, tv-looting heathens that deserve to die or be fined for living.

FEMA: ineptitude required

2005-09-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

no this one is not about the department's criminal inaction and ineptitude (to say nothing of their lies and deceit) this is about their technology. oh wait, again it is about ineptitude, via macworld:

FEMA locks Mac users from hurricane relief By Jonny Evans

Mac and Linux-using hurricane survivors are unable to use Federal disaster relief claim form services online.

This is because the much-criticized US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has created a service that only works with Windows and Internet Explorer 6.

This acts to the frustration of survivors lucky enough to be able to access a Mac or Linux computer, and to the reported consternation of disaster relief teams on the ground.

However, some Mac users exploiting the Opera browser (which by default identifies itself as Internet Explorer 6) report being able to access the claims service.

FEMA and the US administration face strong criticism that it failed to act fast enough to help save thousands of hurricane survivors.

Some local Louisiana representatives complained that following last week's terrible natural disaster, FEMA agents actually stopped other forms of help getting through.

What happened in terms of US disaster relief last week will in future be assessed by a cross-party team led by current US president George Bush, who returned from holiday after the disaster happened but just in time to see Federal aid begin to reach affected areas, four days after the storm levelled the Gulf Coast region.

Ars Technica claims many relief workers are frustrated at being tied to Windows by FEMA's online services, as it means they need to spend precious aid money on Windows OS licenses as they set up terminals to help thousands of hurricane victims initiate the claims process.

"Workers on the ground have told Ars Technica that they would prefer to avoid setting up Windows XP workstations because they take longer to setup, and even longer to properly patch and configure for use," the report states.

"The issue isn't only security", the report continues. "Windows XP hardware requirements, while not impressive by today's standards, rule out using some donated hardware as well. Furthermore, legitimate copies of Windows also cost money, and relief workers are trying to stretch their dollars as far as they can go," it reports.

internet/s police

2005-09-07T11:41:00.000-04:00

another giant takes a fall. web service provides info to totalitarian government that leads to the arrest of a journalist. the govt. was china, the service was yahoo. the journalist will sit in jail for 10 years and likely be tortured. great.

there's a lesson in this, capitalism does not equal democracy or freedom, as they are irrelevant. free-market capitalism like its polar opposite, communism, are economic models for the distribution of wealth. in historical practice both poles in the spectrum work to curtail freedom and democracy in favor of the subjugation of the people. whether under oppressive regimes or corporate titans the people are the victims.

with the so-called defeat of communism, unrestrained capitalism is speeding towards global fascism led by the united states, which is in-turn led by huge multinational corporations. these companies have know no border and have no loyalty to any expressed will of any people. they are free to rule with impunity because no nation alone is great enough to restrain their tyranny. and they also own every major media outlet from newspapers to broacast to cable to internet to film/video/music.

this action by yahoo! is an affront to universal human rights and the belief that the people rule-or atleast count. simply, they no longer do. corporations manipulate science, public policy, international policy [inc. war] and governments while the people starve, get sick, are jailed, persecuted, prosecuted, raped and pillaged, corralled and beaten.

corporations control every senator and representative in congress, the president, state legislators and to a slightly lesser extent judges and justices. don't believe me? look at their voting records, statements, proclaimations, and judicial opinions... it's all there. corporate constituencies are always held in higher regard than that of the people. the supreme court ruled that corporations are to be given all the rights of citizenship (even if they're based in some off-shore tax haven like the caymen islands) like free-speech (legalizing false advertising) but none of the responsibilities like taxation. in 2004 less than 45% of corporations paid any income tax. now that's either a scam, or the economic health of our nation has been grossly exaggerated.

pay attention to what is happening, because if we have not yet, we'll soon cross the threshold and be firmly in the grip of global fascism. when you hear free-trade zones know that they're talking about slavery and runaway capitalism, not jobs and economic development. there is a difference between free-trade and fair-trade. free means unmitigated or free of restriction/regulation. fair means paying someone an honest living wage for work being done. free trade is coffee selling for $16.95/pound while the farmer who grew and havested the beans got less than $00.10 for his work. free trade is sweatshop labor produced goods for nike, walmart and kathy lee gifford. fair trade is permanent economic development that brings a third world nation out of despair and international dependency. free trade promotes oppression of the people while fair trade promotes the dignity of human life and work.

and fascism is the end of democracy. thanks yahoo! you've proved which side you're on, and it's not the side of the people, freedom, democracy, social justice. no. you've taken the side of oppression and that can be neither forgiven nor forgotten. in your quest for domination, you've turned your back on the very freedom that gave you birth. fuck you.
story link here

the money shot:

"We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Western internet companies have regularly been criticised for agreeing to China's strict rules governing the internet, which Communist Party leaders fear could be a tool to spread dissent.

Microsoft was criticised in June for censoring what bloggers write.

The companies say they have to abide by local regulations, and point out that since China is set to be the world's biggest internet market, they cannot ignore it.

fmr. first lady shows her colors

2005-09-06T08:09:00.000-04:00

first of all, no matter your personal feelings regarding the word CUNT, most agree it has an unbelievably strong negative connotation. i have probably uttered it four or five times in my life. maybe six. point is, the rare use of the term insures its strength. so when you need to use it, you've got your word in all its glory.

so when i call the former first lady, bitch-ass barbara bush a CUNT, it's only because i cannot find a word that more perfectly describers her. she is, pure and simply. a mean, nasty, gaping, puss-filled cunt. wow, i was able to make it worse afterall. she's never been known for her compassion, but to read the comments she made about katrina victims, she makes it clear she is what she is. a very rich, mean, nasty, gaping, puss-filled cunt.

after touring the survivor camps in texas with bush sr., bill clinton, and media whore barak obama she had this to say to [apm's marketplace : listen to the story] about the victims of our worst natural disaster:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

fuck you all the way back to your kennebunkport compound you overprivileged, blue-blood, cunt.

cnn actually breaks for news

2005-09-02T17:23:00.000-04:00

i was so used to cnn being the source for misinformation, distraction, and government propaganda. finally, they've gone back to their roots and deserve commendation for their unusually excellent coverage. this is just one example:

two americas, one on the ground, one in washington

unmitigated gall pt.2

2005-09-02T17:19:00.000-04:00

you knew this was coming right?

halliburton awarded first of katrina disaster contracts they promise to only misplace $5billion this go around.

pigs

the gall of the vapid prick-in-chief

2005-09-02T15:46:00.000-04:00

from his comments on the gulf coast today:

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. [how about saving people first?] First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)Again, I want to thank you all for -- and, Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA Director is working 24 -- (applause) -- they're working 24 hours a day.

unmittigated gall. fuck you georgie pie, your elistism and indifference is killing people. and fuck you to anyone involved in the aforementioned laughter and applause.

i got your FEMA right here

2005-09-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

just a tibit to consider as the reports of the disaster and the barely existent federal relief effort continue to unfold. the head of the fed's effort, Mike Brown [FEMA] has [whoa, get this] no experience dealing with disaster. he's an estate-planning lawyer who before joining FEMA worked for the international arabian horse association.

from his whitehouse.gov bio:

Prior to joining FEMA he practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. He had been appointed as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters. While attending law school he was appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee of the Oklahoma Legislature as the Finance Committee Staff Director, where he oversaw state fiscal issues.

just more corporate incompetence masquerading...this is what happens when you hire morons with no relevant expertise [ FDA, FCC, FEC, EPA, DHS, VP, the President, et al] are appointed to positions of public trust as political paybacks. in the words of a survivor/sufferer in biloxi, the "president don't need to be president no more"

this is fucking outrageous. bush said "we could never have anticipated this" fucking moron. of course that's a lie the record speaks for itself. the money for constructing better levies and other methods of flood control was cut and sent to iraq [perhaps it's hiding with the missing billions?]

this president is directly implicated in the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in the us and abroad and must be, as he likes to say, "held to account" time for impeachment, time him to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

how many more have to die for this man's huberous, incompetence, arrogance, and greed?

nytimes ed nails it

2005-09-01T10:19:00.000-04:00

nytimes : September 1, 2005

Waiting for a Leader

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.

vengeful god

2005-09-01T09:52:00.000-04:00

no doubt you've heard the story of how the trees fell in some park in new orleans, yet spared the statue of jesus. no doubt it was divine intervention–in fact the story was so big that npr broke from repoting on the disaster and urgent need for action to inform the country of the miracle (without any sarcasm) as did cnn, which also had video.

but the breaking news right now is that Sen Landrieu (D-LA) says she understands that there are thousands dead in louisiana right now. so obviously god still holds the likeness of his alledged son in high regard and is always ready to intervene [except when he's not, church fire anyone?] but we all know how god feels about us humans. fuck em.

good thing bush got back from vaca so quickly. nothing like waiting days to get started on the 'hard work' yeah, i agree one hospital ship with 1K beds ought to be enough.

oh yeah and the ill-planned evacutation of the superdome has been aborted, at least for now, after shots were fired at the aircraft. welcome to bagdad, louisiana.

with regard to the looting in gulf states, bush this morning said 'ah have zero tolerance for people who break the law' hear that troops? (whoops, no troops here) stop looking for survivors, stop delivering relief supplies (huh? what supplies), and start arresting people who break into grocery stores to scrounge for food and water. yeah, law and order man! fuck the staving plebes, now watch this drive. btw georgie, you do know that there's no place to put lawbreakers, right? not with the power out in jails and prisoners rioting and holding hostages. why is the man such a stupid m-f? why are closed grocery stores hoarding food now that they'll have to throw away anyway?

why does new orleans resemble a third world city hit by disaster? aren't we supposed to be better prepared? don't we have the resources to prevent such wholesale suffering? isn't this what the government is supposed to be doing? oh shit, they were busy giving 8 $26m fighter jets to the dictatorship of pakistan (they hate us for our freedom).

bush policies work

2005-08-31T16:49:00.000-04:00

no really, they do, just look! new poverty numbers were announced yesterday. the nytimes did an ok job on the story today, but they gloss over the poverty info and concentrate on median incomes. whatever, it's not like the nytimes has ever cared for poor or oppressed peoples [unless it's politically expedient]. yesterday's baltimore sun ran with a better explanation of what the numbers mean.

basically, poverty rose slightly in 2004. so yes, his policies are working. ceo pay up 400% and for the rest of us, down, down down. the closer you are to the top, the more your salary went up. the closer you are to the bottom, the more you're being left behind.

but this is not to gripe on all that. it is about this. the percentage of americans living in poverty went from 12.5% to 12.7% that's not a huge change. this is the story:
12.7% of the american population is roughly 3.5 million people. so big deal right, 3.5 million poor people. do you know how poor you have to be to be considered poor? $12,649 per COUPLE, it goes up to just over $19K for a FAMILY of four. i have yet to see anyone report how little you have to make to be considered poor as a single person. single people don't count in america anyway. think about that. there's a billboard i see often that says "a baby costs $785 [or is it $864?] a month, how much is your allowance?" yes, it's sanctimonious, but by those numbers [using the 785 figure] a baby costs $9420 a year. now if you're a poor married couple with one child, after you figure the cost of the child, you're left with $3229/year for things like, oh i don't know, perhaps a mortgage? rent? and that's BEFORE taxes!

for a retiree, who's single, poverty is $9060/year. wow!

this is what it means to be poor in america. now do something about it.

the dems:

"The growth in the economy is not going to families," said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. "It's in stark contrast to what happened during the Clinton administration."

it seems the conservatives agree:

"It looks like the gains from the recovery haven't really filtered down," said Phillip L. Swagel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "The gains have gone to owners of capital and not to workers."

right-wing fascists at the american enterprise institute says trickledown don't work! wow, that's news!

vaca - 2

2005-08-31T15:57:00.000-04:00

great news sufferers everywhere! the president took the unprecidented step to cut short his five week summer vacation because of his need to coordinate a national disaster response, at least that's how the msm is reporting the story. but the problem with that excuse is that the disaster didn't happen today, nor will response coordination need to commence tomorrow. the disaster happened two days ago. inbetween the president found time to link 911-the iraq war-ww2. he found time to blame Carter, reagan and Clinton for al qaeda. he found time to eat cake with the 4th most partisian republican, john mccain. he found time to go golfing at a country club. he found the time to play the guitar with some hillbilly country 'star'

americablog:

From today's AP:
The president decided he should be in the nation's capital given the magnitude of destruction and death caused by Katrina, one of the most severe storms to ever hit the United States.
Yeah, AP, he decided on the third day of the disaster, a good 5-7 days after the disaster was predicted, that he should be in the nation's capital and you write it as though he's a hero.

The obvious question any reporter worth his salt would ask, and put in the story, is if the president decided he should be in the nation's capital given the magnitude of the destruction and death, then why didn't he return on Sunday or Saturday when we thought the destruction would be even greater (remember, they expected an even BIGGER hurricane to have hit New Orleans DIRECTLY, and it didn't)?

Why didn't Bush return on Monday or Tuesday when we already knew the level of the destruction?

You don't just report the man coming back 3 days late and act as though he's really early and doing a good thing.

throughout his vacation, his aides have insisted that he can do all his work at the ranch. so why this need for a dramatic flight to dc to coordinate disaster relief? public relations of course, and when you're polling between 36-40% approval, you've gotta pretend like you care to do something. especially when disaster strikes.

now ~~tonight~~ at 5pm he's going to address the nation. why? he has proven to be consistently a day late and dollar short when it comes to information or intellegence. what could he possibly have to say?

'i'm sorry that you don't have the national guard forces you need to get through this disaster because i sent them to die in an illegal war.' he doesn't make mistakes remember. the fucking son of a bitch [literally] was golfing yesterday – watch him shed a tear tonight.

so, here we are. new orleans will be closed for business for three months, thousands may have died due to the poor planning of DHS, FEMA, and the country's worst governor. gas is inching passed $3/gallon [$4/gal in some places affected by the hurricane, like michigan].

the extent of devastation is unreal, as many as 80K people may be trapped in new orleans alone. and the president is still on vacation. unbelievable the fucking audacity of the man is the biggest national disaster EVER.

there's simply too much to cover on this and the absentee president in one post. go read americablog.org and dailykos.com for really good coverage.

w is barbara's boy

2005-08-29T17:35:00.000-04:00

so wonderfully damning. bush has often been called a son of ~~a bitch~~ his mother. by this i mean an angry, volitile, nasty elitist who becomes positively explosive under stress. [ al franken has a funny about meeting barbara bush sr in his v. funny book lies and the lying liars... ]

from capitol hill blue comes some amazing insight into our leader's state of mind:

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again i[f] they can’t keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.

“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”

wow how very presidential–he's sounding more like nixon everyday. read on

blair payoff?

2005-08-26T09:44:00.000-04:00

amy goodman reported aug 24th that after his stint as ~~bush's bitch~~ uk prime minister, tony blair will join fellow war-profiteers george bush sr, john major, and james a. baker* the third, frank carlucci, et al in the 'investement club' the carlyle group. now it all makes sense.

* the same james a baker the third that:
was meeting with the bin laden family on sept 11, during the attacks
represented the saudi's in the lawsuit brought by sept. 11 families
headed the effort to 'restructure' iraq's debt
represented w in the florida debacle
lead the campaigns of the last 4 repugnican presidents
sec. of state 1989-92 under daddy bush
sec. of treasury 1985-88 under reagan
white house chief of staff for reagan 1981-1985

real media stream on the carlyle group

ethics test

2005-08-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

thanks for this amy, it made my friday:

Ethics Test

This test only has the one question, but it's a very
important one. By giving an honest answer, you will
discover where you stand morally. The test features
an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which
you will have to make a decision. Remember that your
answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous.

Please scroll down slowly and give due consideration
to each line.

You are in Florida, Miami to be specific. There is
chaos all around you caused by a hurricane with severe
flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions.

You are a photojournalist working for a major
newspaper, and you're caught in the middle of this
epic disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless.
You're trying to shoot career-making photos.

There are houses and people swirling around you...some
disappearing under the water. Nature is unleashing all
of its destructive fury. Suddenly you see a man
floundering in the water. He is fighting for his
life, trying not to be taken down with the debris.

You move closer...somehow the man looks familiar. You
suddenly realize who it is. It's George W. Bush! At
the same time you notice that the raging waters are
about to take him under... forever.

You have the two options: You can save the life of
G.W.Bush, or you can shoot a dramatic Pulitzer Prize
winning photo, documenting the death of one of the
world's most powerful men.

So here's the question, and please give an honest
answer:

Would you select high contrast color film, or would
you go with the classic simplicity of black and white?

burned out

2005-08-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

and in need of humor?

from 1115.org

The Inevitable Light Bulb Joke
Posted by Jason on August 24th, 2005 at 12:00 am

Via Froomkin:
How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb? Ten.

One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed

One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed

One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb

One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness

One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb

One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner ‘Bulb Accomplished’

One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally ‘in the dark’ the whole time

One to viciously smear No. 7

One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along

And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Good stuff, but the Bush Administration never got anywhere by thinking small; they would need at least a few more people than ten.

11. One to be an anonymous source for the New York Times and Washington Post, claiming that the Democrats should come forward with their own light bulb changing plan.

12. One to claim that changing the light bulb is a necessary response to 9/11.

13. One to explain why switching to a more efficient light bulb design would be bad for the American economy.

14. And, of course, Condi Rice to stand in complete darkness while praising all the light that is being generated.

bullshit doesn't go on vacation

2005-08-25T14:32:00.000-04:00

from the san bernardino sun:

[White House spokesman David] Almacy said the reason that Bush is in Crawford, Texas, is due to the renovation of the West Wing of the White House.

like i said, bullshit doesn't go on vacation. must be they were feeling the heat from bush's employer [ we the people ] who don't get anything close to the vacation time this man gets. his demanding schedule and the requirements of the office don't afford bush a casual friday, instead after working 4 days, he takes the 5th off. speaking of his 20% time off for bad behavior, dowd was right on yesterday:

W. vacationed so hard in Texas he got bushed. He needed a vacation from his vacation.

The most rested president in American history headed West yesterday to get away from his Western getaway - and the mushrooming Crawford Woodstock - and spend a couple of days at the Tamarack Resort in the rural Idaho mountains.

"I'm kind of hangin' loose, as they say," he told reporters.

just who are the 'they' to whom he refers? hangin' loose? the president of the united states is hangin' loose? we're under constant yellow [elevated] alert for a terrorist attack in the us and the president is hangin' loose? and this is the man the ignorant elected because they felt he could best secure our nation. but of course his vacation was not all she talked about, more important points were the NEW, new, revised justification for war, to defend the honor of the 1,800+ who've lost their lives* for bush's ego thus far:

"We owe them something," he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion). "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for."

What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.

Just because the final reason the president came up with for invading Iraq - to create a democracy with freedom of religion and minority rights - has been dashed, why stop relaxing? W. is determined to stay the course on bike trails all over the West.

This president has never had to pull all-nighters or work very hard, because Daddy's friends always gave him a boost when he flamed out. When was the last time Mr. Bush saw the clock strike midnight? At these prices, though, I guess he can't afford to burn the midnight oil.

read the whole column.
*the number dead is not the number dead. it is the number killed while in direct combat or under attack. thus if you've served a year in iraq, been shot at, wounded, etc, but killed in a transport accident you don't count. does that bother you? do you care what the real number is?

why not ask the whitehouse? comments@whitehouse.gov

or dick [i don't have lesbian wife or daughter, or a financial stake in this war] cheney? vice.president@whitehouse.gov

i'd say ask rummy, but he can only respond to a question with a question. but try:
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000

if you get an answer, tell me. tell the MSM too, they don't seem to be capable of understanding and communicating such nuance.

american legion loses it

2005-08-24T17:15:00.000-04:00

The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all "public protests" and "media events" against the war, constitutional protections be damned.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.

The delegates vowed to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

full story
was it not bush who encouraged terrorists with the ever brilliant "bring it on"?

the american legion can't help themselves because, you see, they hate us for our freedom.

more called to die in iraq

2005-08-24T17:02:00.000-04:00

more of the same. stay the course. i'm curious, what IS the course and if there really is one, where is the end? i know the titanic analogies are getting tired, but they did stay the course, no? at least until it was too late. how long will wait?

now for some culture clash:

karpinski speaks

2005-08-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

The highest ranking officer to feel the heat for what went on inside the walls of the abu ghraib prison breaks her silence:

I had been hesitant to speak out before because this Administration is so vindictive. But now I will ... Anybody who confronts this Administration or Rumsfeld or the Pentagon with a true assessment, they find themselves either out of a job, out of their positions, fired, relieved or chastised. Their career comes to an end.
-- Janis Karpinski, interview with Marjorie Cohn, August 3, 2005

Karpinski said, however, "The truth has been uncovered, but it's been suffocated and it has not been released with the results of the investigation." She added, "McClellan and Rumsfeld can get up on their high horse and say that there've been no fewer than 15 investigations that were conducted. But every one of those investigations is under the control of the Secretary of Defense. And every one of those investigations is run and led by a person who can lose their job under Rumsfeld's fist."

"We're never going to know the truth until they do an independent commission or look into this independently," Karpinski maintains. "This is about instructions delivered with full authority and knowledge of the Secretary of Defense and probably Cheney. I don't know if the President was involved or not. I don't care. All I know is, those instructions were communicated from the Secretary of Defense's office, from the Pentagon, through Cambone, through Miller, to Abu Ghraib."

read the truthout article and interview

ads must prove claims

2005-08-24T16:36:00.000-04:00

did you know that broadcasters require claims made in advertising be based in fact? proof must be supplied to the broadcaster of any claim made prior to the ad being aired. wow! sounds like a win for the little guy right? except for one thing. and it's a big one thing. the rule applies only to one little guy. or one woman actually. from huffpost:

Boise, Idaho affiliates CBS and FOX have refused to air a television ad in which Cindy Sheehan asks President Bush questions about the Iraq war.

Sheehan “claims the President lied about, among other things, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” said Jeff Anderson the Vice President of sales at Fisher Broadcasting Inc., which owns KBCI (CBS). “There is no proof that we are aware of regarding the truthfulness of her claim. We require proof of claims such as this. Until that is provided, our station will not carry this ad.”

The same ad began airing in Salt Lake City on Monday on NBC CBS and FOX affiliates.

The timing of the ads coincides with the President’s visit to nearby Donnelly, Idaho where the President will be staying through Wednesday.

To view the ad, go to www.gsfp.org and click on “Watch Cindy’s Message.”

one must wonder, what if they held bush and his wmd claims to the same standard?

bush's america

2005-08-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

in which democracy looks like this:
Gary Muchler, right, of Wilkes-Barre attempts to disrupt a rally supporting Cindy Sheehan and criticizing President Bush as he grabs for a sign held by Robert Griffin, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The rally was part of a national observance for Sheehan's vigil in Texas.
(AP Photo/The Citizens' Voice, Dave Scherbenco)

gary hart with the smackdown

2005-08-24T15:30:00.000-04:00

from today's wapo:

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on?

...

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.

Who now has the courage to say this?

read the whole thing, it's good.

important read on roberts

2005-08-22T22:42:00.000-04:00

go ahead and read it.