Be INFORMED

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Rice Not Ready To Discuss U.S. ' Mistakes' in Iraq

By LINDSAY HAMILTON

ABC News

Dec. 2, 2006 — Although she is not yet ready to explain herself, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is admitting that the United States has made mistakes in Iraq.

"As to whether the United States has made mistakes: Of course, I'm sure we have," Rice told the Arabic satellite television station Al-Arabiya. "You can't be involved in something as big as the liberation of a country like Iraq and all that has happened since, and I'm sure there are things that we could have done differently."

However, Rice told Al-Arabiya that now is not the time to talk about U.S. mistakes in Iraq.     More HERE

      Notice that Rice is still towing the Bushco line by calling the war a 'liberation'.

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GSA Cutting Spending On audits

   Once again the GOP and the rest of the Crime Family are doing their best to cover up many of their illegal activities!

Washington Post :

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

Doan also has chided Inspector General Brian D. Miller for not going along with her attempts to streamline the agency's contracting efforts. . . .

Doan compared Miller and his staff to terrorists, according to a copy of the notes obtained by The Washington Post.

"There are two kinds of terrorism in the US: the external kind; and, internally, the IGs have terrorized the Regional Administrators," Doan said, according to the notes.

New Chairman Opposed The Iraq War

 Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Texas congressman, will be the next chairman of the House intelligence Committee.

    This should be pretty interesting for Bushco as Rep. Reyes opposed the Iraq war. This is one posting that Nancy Pelosi has done right thus far.

   From NYTimes :

But Mrs. Pelosi chose him....in part because he has repeatedly taken a more combative stance toward Bush administration policies like the invasion of Iraq, military tribunals for terrorist suspects, and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program. MORE

 

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Friday, December 01, 2006

GOP on Nancy Pelosi..

   This is my last post for Friday, Dec. 1st!

    I keep saying that to myself but it never works out that way! It is our last warm evening here in North Carolina so I am going out to enjoy it for awhile. Everyone have a great night and be safe. You can't read me if you're dead! I'm kidding. Take care everyone.

    From The Carpetbagger Report

December 01, 2006

‘We’ll take her head off every day’

    I’ve long believed that both of the major parties have relative strengths, but the last several years have put both sides in roles for which they were poorly suited. Republicans are in their element, for example, when they’re in the minority, railing against the majority, and complaining about government. Putting the GOP in the majority was an uncomfortable fit — they’re not about governing; they’re about complaining about government.

    Likewise, Dems are lousy political bomb-throwers. They want to work on policy matters, hold hearings, pass bills … you know, govern. Put them in the minority and they’re lost. In this sense, the 2006 elections simply put things right.

    And now that the GOP has lost its power, Republicans are ready to show Dems a thing or two about how to be a merciless minority party.

Looks like the Republicans in the House aren’t planning to play nice-nice with the Democrats after all. The emerging House Republican plan on how to address the new Democratic majority is turning toward an aggressive effort to portray Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi and her team as out of touch and liberal.

“Come January, we’ll take her head off every day,” said a top GOP aide involved in the planning. “It will be a pure war of ideas over the next two years.” […]

“We are going to re-establish that we are the party of ideas, that they got elected in a fluke, and we’re going to make that known every day, every way,” said the official.

And when Republicans pledge to take Pelosi’s “head off every day,” I’m sure they mean that in a strictly policy-oriented way, right?

Meet the new congressional GOP, slightly uglier than the old congressional GOP….

 

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Voting Machines Are Insecure Says Government Group

    Here we come folks! Remember those inept voting machines that we all love so dearly?  The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a report saying that the machines can't be made secure.                                                                                                                  In a report hailed by critics of electronic voting, NIST said that voting systems should allow election officials to recount ballots independently from a voting machine's software. The recommendations endorse "optical-scan" systems in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by a computer and electronic systems that print a paper summary of each ballot, which voters review and elections officials save for recounts.

  From WaPo

A Paltry Pay Raise For Federal employees

About 1.8 million federal employees would receive a 1.7 percent increase in their basic pay and a 0.5 percent average increase in their locality pay next year under a plan that President Bush sent to Congress yesterday, administration officials said.

    This would be the smallest pay raise that the federal employees have had in 18 years!  Of course, the percentage that they get will depend on where they happen to be living. New York  area employees would get the highest increase at 3.02 percent while  Washington-Baltimore area would get 2.64. the rest would get 1.81 percent.

    That is par for the course is it not? The Senators and the rest of the dopes have gotten much more in their raises every year and we all know that other than  kissing Bush's ass, they have done nothing worth mentioning. Yet the real workers in our government are reduced to the scrapes. there's a surprise!

      Here is the story from WaPo

 

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The Dump and Run Congress

ThinkProgress.orgFor news and updates throughout the day, check out our blog at ThinkProgress.org.

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CONGRESS
The Dump and Run Congress

Next week, the 109th Congress returns for a final lame-duck session. With the election over, lawmakers "don't seem inclined to do any work." "In a blend of pique and laziness," members of the House and Senate "intend to show up and pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running at a basic level for a few more weeks." They plan to "dump everything else onto" the 110th Congress and leave Washington "one week earlier than previously anticipated." The current leadership is "preparing to walk away from their most basic constitutional responsibility - passing a budget," to allow themselves to "run out early." After being dumped by the American people, the 109th Congress is now dumping its remaining responsibilities.
PUNTING APPROPRIATIONS: "Conservative congressional leaders are expected to punt the issue of completing spending bills to next year's Congress rather than take the time to piece together the legislation, potentially the final act of the Do-Nothing Congress." The leadership has "decided to punt their annual spending bills until next year," a step that will push "almost a half-trillion dollars of spending bills" on incoming lawmakers. The move would leave the new Congress "with the responsibility of passing the nine remaining spending bills, totaling almost $500 billion for government programs ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the national parks." Passing the remaining bills should not be this difficult. "In 1994," GovExec.com reports, "when Republicans swept back to power in the House after four decades, there was no spending mess to clean up - all appropriations bills had been enacted by the Democrats before the end of the fiscal year." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has said he will try to accomplish "what is feasible and achievable," but the delay is a calculated move. "I know a lot of folks just as soon not to see [the spending bills] done this year" to let the next Congress "struggle here next year," Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said.

Is Keith Ellison Stupid or What?

November 28, 2006

A first for America...The Koran replaces the Bible at swearing-in oath

What book will America base it's values on, the Bible or the Koran?

Please take a moment to read the following TownHall.com column by Dennis Prager, who is a Jew. After reading the column, take the suggest action at the bottom of this email. After you have read it, please forward it to your friends and family.
America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on
By Dennis Prager - Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism -- my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.
Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.   More HERE

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

    I touched on this subject a little bit yesterday. My own view is that since God tells us not to swear by him that this would be no problem if Ellison used the Koran.

    After reading this article and thinking about the controversy, I am lead to agree with the majority of our citizens! Mr. Ellison should use either the Christian's Bible or stay the hell out of Congress! we do not need someone else coming in here and trying to change our values once again! We have had enough of that happen in our country already!

Gov. Mitt Romney using illegal's?

   Here we go now! This governor, who his on his last month in this office, has been using illegal  Guatemalans to do his land scaping! It seems that he has been doing this for quite some time.

    Four individuals were interviewed by The Boston Globe and three of the four said that they were illegal immigrants.

    To be fair. Romney himself did not do the hiring, but, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants.

    This man is considering a run the the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008.

 The Globe story is right HERE

 

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Travelers rated for terror potential

Millions of Travelers Rated for Terror Potential
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, AP Dec.1,2006

WASHINGTON (Dec. 1) - Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.

The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years

Click For More

 

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Jewish organizations gearing up for Democrats

    Two of the biggest groups are apparently worried about the Democrats ethics and lobbying oversite that is forthcoming!

 

Jewish Groups To Challenge Ethics Reform
Aipac, UJC To Face Off With Dems on Junkets, Earmarks
Nathan Guttman | Fri. Dec 01, 2006

Two of America’s most influential Jewish organizations are gearing up for their first direct confrontation with the incoming, Democratic-led Congress. The topic: Democratic proposals for congressional ethics and lobbying reform.
   At issue are two key congressional perks, targeted for elimination, that Jewish organizations rely on to achieve community goals: overseas junkets, including dozens of trips to Israel each year, funded by Jewish organizations; and an estimated $25 million a year in earmarked funds for Jewish communal projects. Both the trips and the earmarked funding face possible elimination as part of the Democrats’ pledge to fight corruption on Capitol Hill.    More HERE

 

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Arabs say Bush out of touch with reality

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        After Mr. Bush's meeting in Iraq on Thursday, even the Arabs think that he is out of touch with reality! Many Arab leaders said that they were baffled that nothing came out of the meeting.

 

As the Talks on Iraq Conclude, Arabs Wonder, Is That All?

By HASSAN M. FATTAH

Published: December 1, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 30 — For days, Arab governments lobbied against any American opening to Iran, Jordanians planned protests against President Bush and politicians braced for a possible announcement of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

But as the summit meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Kamal Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq concluded Thursday morning, the Arab world was left dumbfounded that nothing had come of it.

“I am baffled by what I saw,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo. “This was an expression of the Americans in deep trouble, but Bush’s approach to dealing with the Iraqi problem also bore the signs of someone out of touch with what is going on.”        READ ME!

Mr. Bush still an idiot

    From this point on I will not be calling our idiot leader President Bush. He is no president and he does not deserve the title.

    Mr. Bush had his little meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq on Thursday and at a press conference said that our troops will not be pulling out of Iraq.

“I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”   Mr. Bush

   Meanwhile, the Iraqi Prime Minister stated that the Iraqi forces could be able to take over a large portion of the security of the country by June.

“I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready,” Mr. Maliki told ABC News after meeting Mr. Bush in Jordan.

Here is more on the subject from The NYT

 

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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Pastor Defends Invitation to Obama

Obama is one of nearly 60 speakers scheduled to address the second annual Global Summit on
AIDS and the Church beginning Thursday at Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

Obama, who is mulling a run for president, plans to take an
HIV test during his appearance Friday and encourage others to do the same. The Illinois Democrat will be joined by a potential 2008 White House rival — Republican Sen. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) of Kansas — and is urging unity to fight AIDS despite differences on other issues.

Conservative evangelical Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, e-mailed reporters Tuesday to protest the visit because of Obama's support of abortion rights. "Senator Obama's policies represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality, not to mention supreme American values," Schenck wrote.   Follow ME!

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

    The fact that Mr. Schenck has the nerve to question anyone's ethics is appalling. I follow many of the so-called Christian teachings that some of these morons preach to their congregations and most have no room to question anyone's ethics or values. Most of those behind the pulpit today have even less ethics!                                                Michael d

 

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Iraq forces to take over security in '07

By THOMAS WAGNER and SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he believed Iraqi forces would be ready by June 2007 to take full control of security in Iraq, an issue on which he pressed President Bush during their meeting in Amman, Jordan. In making the argument that his military and police could handle security in the country, al-Maliki has routinely said the force could do the job within six months.     More HERE

the Iraqi League Website

 

The IL breaks its own record twice in one weekend

Iraqi League :: 2006-11-29 :: 

Saturday, the IL records 10,000
visitors and Sunday, the number of
visitors reaches approx 10,500 visitor

Views ( 12 )

The popularity of the Iraqi League (IL) continues to rise at an amazing rate. Indeed this weekend, saw the IL twice break its own personal record in the number of visitors to its web-site in one day!
On Saturday, the ILs web-server recorded 10,000 visitors for Saturday alone, which represented new personal record of the number of visitors in one day. Never before the ILs web-site was visited by this number of people, which is roughly at a rate of 7 visitors a minute!
The joy of the ILs staff was complete when Saturday’s record was broken again on the following day when a new record was established when approximately 10,500 visitors were clocked.
The continued success of the IL is attributed first and all to its mission and values. As a non-profit making organization, the IL has the sole aim of promoting the interests of the Iraqi people living in Iraq and abroad. The ILs vision is of a peaceful Iraq that guarantees its citizens rights. Thus, the IL has made its mission is to bring together all Iraqis under one nationalist umbrella and flag, irrespective of race, religion, gender, color or sect; and who share a common belief in the noble values of humanity of peace, liberty and justice to all. It is these values that are fundamentally responsible for the international success of the IL and continued increase its popularity.     MORE

War of words over 'Civil'...

   Gotta love our President. NOT! What part of 'civil war' does this idiot not understand?  the Iraqi civilians say it is a civil war. The generals say it  is a civil war as do many others yet this dumbass is trying to find words to make the war not sound so bad!

    Those who elected(?) this idiot should be deported!

Analysis

White House Wages War of Words Over 'Civil' Term

By Peter Baker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; Page A16

The carnage in Iraq is "sectarian violence," President Bush says. It's a "struggle for freedom," the "central front in the war on terror." It is not, no matter how much it may look like it, a civil war.

Forget the debate over what to do about the war in Iraq. The White House is still debating what to call the war in Iraq. With retired generals, analysts, politicians and pundits increasingly using the term "civil war," the Bush administration insists that the definition does not fit as part of its latest effort to control the words of war.   More From WaPo

 

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Bush agrees to speedy turnover in Iraq

AMMAN, Jordan - President Bush said Thursday the United States will speed a turnover of security responsibility to Iraqi forces but assured Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that Washington is not looking for a "graceful exit" from a war well into its fourth violent year.   MORE

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

      I'm wondering what Bush would consider as being speedy? Let's face it, he has done nothing in the normal pace of 'speedy.'  Well.   There are a few things but none of them are legal, so do they count?

 

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Webb Making Pundits Ill!!

    It looks like Jim Webb is getting under the pundits skin already! they're all making a big deal about his comment to Bush about bringing his son home from Iraq. Boo-Hoooooooooo!

   Here it is from DailyKos:

 

Jim Webb: Already Pissing off the Right Winger Pundits

by adigal
Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 05:12:41 AM PST

I have been impressed by Jim Webb since I first heard of him. That an ex-Republican, who served under Reagan, decided to run for the Senate in Virginia caught my attention. After watching him throughout his Senate campaign, I thought to myself, "Yes! THIS is the type of new Democrat we need in Washington. Tough as nails, not afraid to speak his mind, concerned about the lower and middle classes, and wants us OUT of Iraq."  

He has had my admiration for months now. And obviously, he has caught the attention of those on the other side, as George Will attacks him today , in an editorial entitled, "Already Too Busy for Civility"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Update: Just for fun, I sent George Will this diary, Kos' diary and the diaries of Delaware Dem and Wolverinethad. I doubt Will can handle being mocked for his absurdity.  Could this be his Tucker Carlson moment???

Let us put aside for one moment that this President responded to a rejoinder by Webb with his usual snippiness. Why should Webb be civil to this fool of a Commander in Chief??? He has lied to us to get us into war, he has mangled the war, killed thousands of us, killed tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. Why the hell should Webb be civil?

You know that Webb is hitting a nerve when Will comes out swinging, calling names, the old ad hominem attack and all that. I wonder what Will will do when Webb ignores him or, worse, responds without wilting as the Democrats have been prone to do the last six years?

That was certainly swift. Washington has a way of quickly acculturating people, especially those who are most susceptible to derangement by the derivative dignity of office. But Jim Webb, Democratic senator-elect from Virginia, has become a pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language before actually becoming a senator.

Oh, Will, all those big words don't hide the fact that Webb scares the hell out of you. He wants to make America a level playing field again, and that would hurt you and all of your other inside-the-Beltway wealthy pundits, wouldn't it? Could you imagine the audacity of Webb to point out the growing disparity in wealth, George??? How dare he???

Even before his studied truculence in response to the president's hospitality, Webb was going out of his way to make waves. A week after the election, he published a column in the Wall Street Journal that began this way:

"The most important -- and unfortunately the least debated -- issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country."

Well.

Will tries to take Webb to task for this editorial, saying that no, no, no, none of it is true. He quibbles over the word "literally," missing the big picture, as conservatives are wont to do:

And never mind his use of the word "literally," although even with private schools and a large share of the nation's wealth, the "top tier" -- whatever cohort he intends to denote by that phrase; he is suddenly too inflamed by social injustice to tarry over the task of defining his terms -- does not "literally" live in another country.

Yes, George, they DO live in another country. They never see poverty, never see kids who cannot afford dental care, adults with no teeth. I know, because I spend a lot of time with these privileged people, who truly have NO clue what America is like for many of us

My mother always taught me that when the argument is lost is when people start calling names. Watch George Will here:

Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency. Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being -- one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another. When -- if ever -- Webb grows weary of admiring his new grandeur as a "leader" who carefully calibrates the "symbolic things" he does to convey messages, he might consider this: In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

I said in a comment the other day that I think Bush is going to regret the day that Jim Webb was elected, and I think this column proves me right. They are already trying to damage Webb before he has even taken his oath of office, expecting him to tone down so that he wins the approval of the pundits.  I think Webb is going to continue to surprise and alarm them.

 

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

New U.S. Iraq policy?

    A bipartisan commission has reached a consensus and will announce its decisions next week on the exit strategy from Iraq. I'll bet that will be some report since the Pentagon is working on plans to add a few more battalions to Iraq early next year . The extra combat engineer battalions of Army reserves, would total about 3,500 troops and would come from around the United States, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deployments have not been announced. MORE

 

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Jefferson has to go!!

Will Voters Still Bet on "Dollar Bill"?
By Paul Kiel - November 27, 2006, 12:26 PM

In a little less than two weeks, we'll learn if the growing cloud of corruption allegations surrounding Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) will motivate his constituents to end his career before the Justice Department gets its shot to do the same.

On Saturday, December 9th, Jefferson's fate will be decided by a runoff election in which he faces Democratic state Rep. Karen Carter. Will voters be content to wait around for Jefferson's promised "honorable explanation" for why federal agents found $90,000 cash in his freezer?

MORE FROM TPMmuckraker

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GOP assholes are still at it!

From Crooks and Liars

Ed Rogers: Barack “Hussein” Obama

By: John Amato @ 4:36 PM - PST  Submit or Digg this Post

edrogers41.jpg Ed Rogers, is one of these wingnuts (a Lee Atwater man) that MSNBC constantly puts on the air and allows him to relentlessly smear people. I think Dan Abrams needs to hear about this one. On Hardball today, the topic was the 2008 possible Democratic nominees for president. When Obama'a name came up—this is how he Eddie described him.

Video-WMP Video-QT

Shuster: Barack Obama is going up to New Hampshire. He's somebody I imagine Republicans should be fearful of—he's a great speaker…

Ed Rogers: Count me down as somebody who underestimates Barack "Hussein" Obama. Please,…

Yes Ed, he does have a deep voice. Conservatives can call Democrats torturing murderers all day long on TV and never pay a price for it.

Update: Yes it is his middle name, but Rogers emphasized "Hussein" in the clip so that he could highlight Saddam in my opinion and if you think not, then you've never seen Ed in action. I should have been clearer in my post.

Ha! Bush supporters are nuts!

Bush Nuts
Are George W. Bush lovers certifiable?
November 23, 2006
By Andy Bromage
A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.         MORE HERE

 

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Evidence Shi'ite trying to clear out Sunni residents

U.S. soldiers uncover evidence that Shi'ite militia is engaged in a systematic campaign of violence to clear out Sunni residents

By MARK KUKIS/BAGHDAD

Posted Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006

The place was empty when U.S. soldiers burst in, raiding a house in Baghdad's violent Washash neighborhood in the hopes of finding killers involved in sectarian murders. By the look of things, no one had been there for some time, even though neighbors in the area reported seeing people dragged inside in recent weeks. But apparently someone involved in the area's sectarian violence had been there recently: left behind was a leather-bound day planner that gave a disturbing picture of the systematic nature of Baghdad's bloodshed.

Though the book was largely blank, inside were several sheets of loose paper covered in Arabic writing. Back at Camp Taji, a massive U.S. Army base north of Baghdad, translators sifted through the papers and found evidence backing up what some U.S.troops who patrol Washash have come to suspect — that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army are conducting what amounts to an ethnic cleansing campaign in Washash, a predominantly Shi'ite area with pockets of Sunni residents.

Ethnic Cleansing in 'Little Sadr City'?

AUDIO: Papers found by U.S. troops suggest Shi'ite militia are systematically killing or forcing Sunnis out of their homes. TIME's Mark Kukis reports from Baghdad.
Sadr's militia, the document suggests, are systematically driving Sunni families from their homes around Washash, which some U.S. troops who patrol there have taken to calling Little Sadr City. Among the papers found in the raid is a list of 65 houses around Washash where Shi'ite families have replaced Sunni families. On other pages were drafts of threat letters clearly intended for delivery to Sunni homes. And there was a roster of "virtuous families" in the Washash area with house numbers written next to their names, so the militia relocation agents could keep track of people deemed fit to stay.

"They're very well organized," said Capt. Johnny Sutton, whose troops head up U.S. patrols in Washash.     READ MORE

Today From Iraq...

AlDhari’s Outcry Must be Heard

alquds alarabi :: 2006-11-28 ::

    The rising sectarian bombings that have engulfed Iraq in the past few days are evidence that Iraq has sunk deeper into the ugliest civil war which cannot be brought to a halt with whatever means being adopted by the current rulers of Iraq at the moment. It is also absolutely clear that the current “Iraqi government” which was allegedly “democratically elected” under occupation is unable to provide the most basic form of security to the people it was supposed to be representing, nor do the US forces of occupation along with their allies and mercenaries all of whom are fundamentally responsible for Iraqi security as an occupation power.

    Dr Harith AlDhari, the head of the peaceful Association of Muslim Scholars, was 100% correct when he accused this government for being sectarian and placed the responsibility upon its shoulders along with the occupation for these hideous and despicable indiscriminate crimes against the ordinary and innocent people of Iraq irrespective of their ethnicity, sect, color, race or religion. He was also right to demand from the international community to withdraw their recognition of this evil regime which has proven to be a menace to its people.     MORE

 

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Doing away with the do-nothing congress

    Soon to be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he plans to keep senators working long hours and the he is doing away with the current "do-nothing" congress.

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

 

By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; 7:59 AM

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid said Tuesday he's doing away with the "do-nothing Congress" that Democrats campaigned against and plans to keep senators working long hours _ focusing first on ethics, the minimum wage and stem cell research.

The Nevada Democrat said he would tackle those priorities after cleaning up the "financial mess" the outgoing Republican Congress is leaving behind, a reference to nine long-overdue spending bills covering 13 Cabinet departments for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

"They're just leaving town, it appears," Reid said during an interview with The Associated Press in his Capitol office. "And so we're going to have to find a way to fund the government for the next year."

The must-pass legislation totals more than $460 billion and could divert time from other items on the Democratic agenda. "It's certainly not going to help it," Reid said.

He is wrapping up his final days as Senate minority leader. He will assume control of the Senate's agenda on Jan. 4, when the next Congress convenes with 10 new senators, at least 52 new House members and Democrats holding majorities in both houses for the first time since 1994.

"We're going to put in some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time," Reid said. That means "being here more days in the week, and we start off this year with seven weeks without a break. That hasn't been done in many, many years here.   MORE HERE

Fl-13 B.S. test showed serious problems

Crossposted from Dailykos

FL-13: B.S. test still showed serious problems
by kos
Wed Nov 29, 2006

It's amazing that even the most cursory test of these machines show that they don't work.

This was mentioned in the BeTheMedia diary promoted earlier by Georgia10, but this is local media confirmation:

An audit of the county's touch-screen voting machines Tuesday found several discrepancies, most prominently in the disputed 13th Congressional District race, but state elections officials said it is unclear whether the problems were the result of human or machine error.

All four voting machines that officials used to simulate the Nov. 7 election had miscounts, and three of them had miscounts in the District 13 race [...]

The voting machines tested Tuesday were among those that the state programmed for the county, but were not used in the Nov. 7 election.

State officials selected four precincts, and had their workers vote to reflect proportionately how votes were cast in the actual election [...]

Of the 251 ballots cast, five additional votes were counted for Jennings, including three extra votes in one precinct. There were also miscounts in five other races.

"Most likely it's human error," said Jenny Nash, spokesperson for the State Division of Elections.

If election workers can't get their votes to properly register, how the hell are regular voters supposed to ensure their votes are properly counted? Human error? These are elections professionals. And knowing their job performance was on the line, you can bet they were concentrating extra-hard on making sure they voted correctly.

More HERE

Bush's booming economy...

    You've all heard about Ford buying out quite alot of their employees and the debt that the company is going to be incurring.

    Thus far, some 38,000 workers have taken the buyout offer or are taking early retirement.

    Read More Here

 

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Dems instill fear already!

   The fear of being under investigation and maybe going to jail is already having an effect on the folks in D.C.

    The DoJ is launching an internal review of its participation in the Bush administration's controversial domestic eavesdropping program according the departments inspector general.

    Here's more from Yahoo News

 

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Gates Gate :Worse than Rumsfeld?

Gates Gate?
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

Republished from the Random Lengths News

   Is Bush’s nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld another scandal just waiting to happen? And why don’t the Democrats seem to care?
Over two decades before the Bush Administration first thought about politicizing intelligence to build a phony case for war against Iraq, Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey, played a trailblazing role in politicizing intelligence within the CIA, vastly inflating the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and blaming it for a wide range of terrorism it had nothing to do with. His right hand man was Robert Gates, President Bush’s appointee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
But Gates did more than politicize intelligence. His involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, selling weapons to the terrorist-supporting Iranian government to illegally fund the terrorist Nicaraguan Contras—came close to getting him indicted. As the Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh (a life-long Republican), explained in his final report, “The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth.” Just because he declined to indict did not mean he thought that Gates was innocent.
Furthermore, in his book, Firewall: the Iran/Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up,” Walsh explained that Gates set up an internal CIA investigation that hindered his criminal investigation. “No longer would we be able to question CIA witnesses while they were fresh,” Walsh wrote. Instead, they had time to get their stories straight.
   As for Iran-Contra itself, national security expert Ivan Evland, of the Independent Institute, recently wrote, “Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Iran-Contra affair was worse for the Republic than the Watergate scandal.... the Reagan administration’s evasion of a congressional ban on assisting the Nicaraguan Contras (the Boland Amendment) was a knife in the heart of the greatest power the Congress has under the checks and balances of the Constitution—the power of the purse.”
   It gets worse. The arms shipments actually began in 1981—long before the Boland Amendment was passed. A report from Russian intelligence—buried by a “bipartisan” committee in 1993—confirmed long-standing suspicions that the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign struck a secret deal with the Iranian government to not release 52 American hostages it was holding until after the 1980 elections. The secret deal was known as “the October Surprise.”
   Gates was part of the Reagan/Bush team—even though he officially worked for the U.S. government, headed by Jimmy Carter. The head of the committee that buried the report was then-Congressman Lee Hamilton, a conservative Democrat from Indiana, who formerly co-chaired the “Independent” 9/11 Commission and now co-chairs the Iraq Study Group.

Politicized Intelligence

   Even without the most explosive evidence against him, there’s a strong case against Gates for spinning intelligence.
“Here is a nation that went to war with politicized intelligence,” said former CIA Agent Mel Goodman—a senior Soviet analyst from 1966-1986 who clashed directly with Gates. And now to help clean up the mess, Bush is naming, “someone who was the most important practitioner of politicized intelligence in the history of the CIA,” Goodman stressed, adding, “As Yogi Berra would have said, ‘This is deja-vu all over again.’”
Goodman, is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and co-author of the book, Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk, one of the earliest warnings of the fiascoes we now face. Now that the neocon plans are in ruins, Goodman said, “There is an attempt now to soften the debate on Iraq,” both with the Gates nomination, and the Iraq Study Group—headed by Hamilton and Bush family crony James Baker, who helped steal the Florida election in 2000.
“This is not a legitimate way to expand the debate,” Goodman told Random Lengths News. “It’s an exercise in damage limitation to save the Bush legacy.”
   In 1991 Goodman was one of three former CIA officers who testified against the nomination of Gates as director of the CIA. Congressional Quarterly’s National Security Editor, Jeff Stein, recently wrote, “The charges [Goodman raised] were almost identical to those that would be raised against Bush administration officials, a number of whom held high positions in the Reagan and first Bush administrations — Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, in particular.”

Deja vu, indeed.

   Also testifying was Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl, tasked in 1981 with preparing an analysis of the Soviet’s alleged string-pulling behind international terrorism. Only it turned out that the Soviets discouraged acts of terrorism, for purely practical reasons.
   “We agreed that the Soviets consistently stated, publicly and privately, that they considered international terrorist activities counterproductive and advised groups they supported not to use such tactics,” Ekedahl testified, describing the a broad consensus among the analysts involved. “We had hard evidence to support this conclusion.”
   Perhaps if Gates had accepted what his analysts told him then, we might have seen al Qaeda coming years before we finally did. But the ironclad belief in evil states pulling terrorists’ strings persisted even after 9/11, Goodman pointed out. “As Richard Clark tried to tell the White House, these guys operate on their own. Bush never believed it,” Goodman said. Hence, the invasion of Iraq.
   Instead, Ekedahl testified, Gates accused the analysts of trying to “stick our finger in the policy maker’s eye.” He helped rewrite the report, to make it more politically correct. Soon afterwards, Ekedahl said, many analysts were “replaced by people new to the subject who insisted on language emphasizing Soviet control of international terrorist activities.”
   As senior analysts objected, restructuring was used to minimize their influence, Ekedahl explained. “Casey and Gates used various management tactics to get the line of intelligence they desired and to suppress unwanted intelligence,” she said.
   Another example Goodman cited was the alleged Papal assassination plot. Casey wanted a report blaming it on the Soviets. “It was Gates who picked the three people who wrote it. And he told them to write it in secret,” Goodman recounted. Yet, “He [Gates] had testified as late as 1983 that the Soviets had nothing to do with it.” Because of this willingness to do whatever he’s asked, Goodman calls Gates “a windsock,” without any core beliefs. For this reason, labels like “neocon,” or “realist” are both irrelevant and misleading, Goodman stressed.
    Gates was eventually confirmed, thanks to behind-the-scenes politicking by another conservative Democrat David Boren, then-Senator from Oklahoma, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee that held the confirmation hearings. “David took it as a personal challenge to get me confirmed,” Gates wrote in his memoirs. But 31 senators voted against Gates—more than had voted against all previous CIA directors combined.

Iran-Contra—Not Enough Evidence to Indict

   But Gates was first nominated four years earlier. He withdrew in the face of certain rejection because of his murky involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. At the very least, Gates was terribly negligent during Iran-Contra, and terribly forgetful afterwards.
   Two questions were foremost, Walsh recalled in Firewall: “Had Gates falsely denied knowledge of Oliver North’s Contra-support activities? Had Gates falsely postdated his first knowledge of North’s diversion of arms sale proceeds to the Contras?” Walsh had direct testimony from Alan Fiers, who struck a plea bargain, that “he had kept Gates generally informed of his Contra-support activities,” but no records had been found to corroborate his testimony—possibly because the internal investigation had already found and buried them.
   Investigative journalist, Robert Parry, who originally broke the Iran-Contra story for AP—only to have the rest of the media ignore it for six months—goes much further than Walsh. He begins with witnesses the committee called, but essentially ignored, without ever seriously investigating their charges. They pointed to active involvement on the Iran side of supplying arms, as well as involvement in supplying arms to Iraq—Iran’s enemy in the Iran-Iraq war at the time. There is a famous photograph of Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1983, but Gates was reportedly a far more significant actor in providing assistance for his regime.
   Congressional investigators have far more resources than journalists do, yet Boren’s committee left these questions hanging. Further allegations would be similarly ignored by the 1992-1993 investigation headed up Hamilton.

October Surprise—A Secret Deal to Steal the Election?

   Parry had interviewed one of the witnesses against Gates, Ari Ben-Menashe, for PBS Frontline in August 1990. In the interview, Ben-Menashe, who worked for Israeli military intelligence from 1977-87, tied Gates to arms dealings with both Iran and Iraq.
   Most chillingly, Parry wrote recently, “Ben-Menashe said Gates joined in meetings between Republicans and senior Iranians in October 1980. Ben-Menashe said he also arranged Gates’s personal help in bringing a suitcase full of cash into Miami in early 1981 to pay off some of the participants in the hostage gambit,” a reference to the October Surprise.
Long written off as a mere “conspiracy theory,” the October Surprise scenario is strongly supported by the fact that arms shipments to Iran began in 1981.” An off-course plane carrying weapons to Iran via Israel was shot down over the Soviet Union on July 18, 1981.
   Official Washington largely ignored the October Surprise until 1992, when Hamilton headed a low-profile investigation that, in Parry’s words, “debunked the charges by adopting an elaborate set of alibis for the key players, particularly the late CIA director William J. Casey.” The alibis lacked crucial corroboration at key points—a fact carefully glossed over by investigators and Beltway journalists alike.
   Two days before the report’s official release in early January, 1993, however, a cable came from Moscow. It contained a six-page report responding to an earlier query about any information Soviet intelligence may have had. The Russians confirmed the October Surprise as fact. With Clinton about to be sworn in, and the bipartisan storylines about the report already written, the Russian report was quietly ignored, filed away in a set of boxes where Parry stumbled across it several years later.
According to the report, William Casey, representing the Reagan campaign, “met three times with representatives of the Iranian leadership.... in Madrid and Paris.” What’s more, at the October meeting in Paris, “R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter and former CIA director George Bush also took part,” the report stated.
   Why does this so-called “ancient history” matter? Parry put it bluntly: “One risk of putting career intelligence officer Robert Gates in charge of the Defense Department is that he has a secret —and controversial—history that might open him to pressure from foreign operatives, including some living in countries of U.S. military interest, such as Iran and Iraq.”
   Because it was buried, the report has never been investigated. But neither has it been refuted. Once again, the Washington establishment is singing the praises of bipartisanship, after a somewhat jarring Democratic victory at the polls. Once again, Hamilton is heading a committee—the Iraq Study Group—that is papering over problems, rather than facing up to them. No one, it seems, wants to take a closer look at disturbing, upsetting facts.
   As Mel Goodman said, “This is deja vu all over again.” Or as philosopher George Santayana put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The RNSC wants your money!

    Elizabeth Dole has an email out that is asking the faithful for cash to wipe out  the debt they incurred from the past elections.

   Crossposted from Daily Kos

From: "Senator Elizabeth Dole" <news@gopsenators.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 12:02:24
To:
Subject: Recovering from our Post-election debt

Help us Retire our Debt!

You have already done so much these past two years to help us protect our Republican Senate Majority - Thank you!

But right now, the NRSC is being buried under an avalanche of post-campaign debt... We need to address this problem at once in order to wipe-out our debt and make sure we have the funds to start 2007 with the maximum strength possible.

Please make an online donation right now to help the NRSC retire our 2006 campaign debt and set the stage for a GOP comeback over the next two years.

Dear Republican Friend,

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous support of our efforts to elect Republicans to the United States Senate this year.

I just wish I could say I'm writing today to celebrate a Republican victory -- but as you know, we were beaten by the Democrats in a very difficult election year for Republicans nationwide.

But even though we were unable to retain our Senate Majority, I believe we can still walk away from this election with our heads held high...

...Despite the odds against us, we fought hard in all our U.S. Senate races and still managed to keep the Senate extremely close!

And given how close so many races were, I even authorized the NRSC to go into debt so we could put more money into important Election Day messages.

As a result, the NRSC is now in debt after we spent every last cent on last-minute advertising and other efforts.

That's why I'm reaching out to the NRSC's most loyal and generous supporters like you today.

If you are in a position to do so, please make an immediate online contribution to the NRSC in the amount of $25, $50, $75, $100, $250, or more to help us wipe-out our remaining debt and make sure we have the funds to start 2007 with the maximum financial strength possible.

Click here to donate to the NRSC's debt reduction campaign!: <https://www.gopsenators.com/contribute/contribute.aspx?category_meta_id=5101e>

I know you have already done so much this year. And I truly wish that I did not have to ask you for another contribution...

But if we let this debt linger, it will cripple our efforts to recruit great candidates for the next election and begin our drive to win the one additional seat we need to regain the Senate Majority.

So please, don't let me down -- Help the NRSC recover from our election debt at once.

Remember, the sooner we can pay off the debt from the last election and begin to focus on the next campaign, the greater our chances are of regaining the majority in the next election.

So please help me make sure the next NRSC Chairman can hit the ground running in 2007 with no debt.

Simply follow this link: <https://www.gopsenators.com/contribute/contribute.aspx?category_meta_id=5101e> to help fund our debt retirement efforts with an immediate, secure online donation today!

No matter how much you can contribute, I want you to know that I deeply appreciate all that you have done for our Party, our Senate candidates, and me during the past year.

As my term as NRSC Chair comes to an end, I look back and cherish the great friendships I have made with loyal Republicans all across this country. I am truly thankful to have friends like you who are committed to our cause, our ideals and principles.

With my warmest best wishes,

Senator Elizabeth Dole
Chair, National Republican Senatorial Committee

An Iraqi Website Worth Viewing

    Do you wish to see what the Iraqi people really have to say about the war that is ripping their country to shreds?  I thought that you might, so here is a link to an Iraqi website that you may want to visit.

    This is the English language site: Iraqi League

        Here is one article that is pretty interesting.

    “Indeed, Iraqis were better off under Saddam”

    aljazeera.net :: 2006-10-29 ::

    Blix: "Iraq is a pure failure"

    Spiraling violence and daily bloodshed that began with the early days of the US-led invasion and intensified in recent months have torn the fabric of the Iraqi society, breaking communities and their long-established social networks.

“All the elements of society have been dismantled,” said Fawsia Abdul al-Attiya, a sociologist and a professor at Baghdad University. “You are afraid because you are a woman, a man, a Sunni, a Shia, a Kurd.

“All these things start to change society.”

Comparing their life to that under Saddam, Iraqis long for the relative tranquility and safety they enjoyed during the era of their toppled leader Saddam Hussein.

Three years have passed since the U.S. invaders entered the country to “liberate” it, and none of the U.S. “promises” have been fulfilled. All development in the country point to the U.S. failure in Iraq.

Where are the designers of the Iraqi war now?

    Have you ever wondered where all of those fine folks that said the Iraq invasion would be a piece of cake went? I have, so here's my version of  ' where are they now.'

PAUL WOLFOWITZ

Role In Going To War: Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki’s estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was “wildly off the mark.” [Washington Post, 12/8/05]

Where He Is Now: Bush promoted Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in March 2005. [Washington Post, 3/17/05]

Key Quote: “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” [Wolfowitz, 3/27/03]

ELLIOT ABRAMS

Role In Going To War: Abrams was one of the defendants in the Iran-Contra Affair, and he pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs during Bush’s first term, where he served as Bush’s chief advisor on the Middle East. His name surfaced as part of the investigation into who leaked the name of a undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. [Washington Post, 5/27/03, 2/3/05]

Where He Is Now: Abrams was promoted to deputy national security adviser in February of 2005. [Slate, 2/17/05]

Key Quote: “We recognize that military action in Iraq, if necessary, will have adverse humanitarian consequences. We have been planning over the last several months, across all relevant agencies, to limit any such consequences and provide relief quickly.” [CNN,2/25/03]

More From Think Progress

'Nativity' booted from Ill. holiday fair

Crossposted from The Huffington Post

Associated Press | Don Babwin | Posted November 27, 2006 11:59 PM

From killermovies.com

A public Christmas festival is no place for the Christmas story, the city says. Officials have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival, the German Christkindlmarket, to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians.

New Line Cinema, which said it was dropped, had planned to play a loop of the new film on televisions at the event. The decision had both the studio and a prominent Christian group shaking their heads.

READ THE REST

   Can you imagine that? Some non-Christians might get offended! Oh what a shame! If the non-Christians don't like it then I think that they should just pack the hell up and go the home!

    "God bless America?" I do believe that God has pretty much stopped blessing America a long time ago as a nation because we have given into this sort of crap. We have forgotten how to look toward God first and we have worried to much about hurting someone else's feelings instead.

    It is a sad day when we are worrying about upsetting a group of non- believers.                                                       Michael d.

 

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Limbaugh on a tear again!

(November 27, 2006 -- 09:36 PM EDT    TPM

Here's Rush Limbaugh saying that because all the Bush mumbojumbo in Iraq hasn't panned, we should just "blow the place up." I know we're supposed to get really outraged over this sort of thing and bent out of shape. But why exactly? These guys -- really the whole movement -- are so pitiful, such utterly pathetic whiners and fools, it's hard to treat them as anything but spoiled children.

We'll bring democracy to the world because liberty isn't the property of one culture or civilization but God's gift to mankind. But if these friggin' towel-heads won't get with the program, then, well, just nuke'em.'

It's like talking to a five year old with behavior problems. And this is Russert's interlocutor, represents the mindset of those who still control the executive branch.
-- Josh Marshall

 

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Keith Olberman's Star is Rising..

Crossposted From The Huffington Post

Keith Olbermann, Talkin' Tough During Contract Negotiations With MSNBC

LAT | NYT | Posted Monday November 27, 2006 at 02:23 PM

The LAT is the latest to come out with a glowing profile of MSNBC' s Keith Olbermann, whose ratings have been a-climbing in recent months, contributing to and along with those of his network. Matea Gold's article hits on the Olbermann "Special Comments" excoriating the Bush administration, how his leftward tack resonated with viewers who felt unrepresented, and his gleeful attacks on Bill O'Reilly, saying that his gloves have "come off."

She notes something new, too — Olbermann, up 21% in the ratings since this time last year, is also up for contract renewal, and is in the process of negotiations with the network. The gloves seem to be somewhat off with respect to that development, as expressed in this comment:
"It is, to some degree, a perfect setup," he said of his relationship with the network. "They leave me alone, I leave them alone, and I deliver what they need, both in terms of journalism and the money end of it, the ratings."

Translation: The show is mine, the success is mine, and I can take it anywhere.     MORE STORY

 

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The Bush Library

   It looks like the Bush Crime Family is making plans for his presidential library to the tune of $500 BILLION dollars! He wants it built at SMU in Dallas, TX.

    I wonder if he'll put up any of the illegal executive orders that he has signed over the past six years?  What about the minutes from Cheney's meeting with the oil executives when  they were plotting our energy policies?    What I'd really like to know is how big his "My pet goat" section will be!

   The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Bush's institute will hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider said.

BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

The half-billion target is double what Bush raised for his 2004 reelection and dwarfs the funding of other presidential libraries. But Bush partisans are determined to have a massive pile of endowment cash to spread the gospel of a presidency that for now gets poor marks from many scholars and a majority of Americans.      The article

Iraq going down hill

   My how fast the climate in Iraq changes.

 

By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bloodiest bombings in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and the reprisals that swiftly followed, show that Iraq's sectarian conflict may be too far gone for leaders to stop, even if they want to.

The killings of some 250 people in just a few days last week marked a "high-water mark", analysts said. It demonstrated with savage clarity how little control Iraq's government exercises, with a security force accused of sectarian bias and a series of peace plans doing little to slow the pace of killing.  More From Reuters

What is America's Problem?

      It seems as if there is always someone somewhere getting pissed off about some trivial little crap.

   Out in the out-skirts of Denver, a homeowners association is threatening to fine a resident something like $25 a day because she put up a wreath with a peace sign that made a few neighbors a little ill.

    Some of them stated that it was an Iraqi war protest and others even said that it was a symbol of Satan!

    Do these people not have anything better to do? Last I heard, this was still a free country(for now) and we have the right to protest anything that we want to. We also have the right to worship, Christian or otherwise, whatever we choose to worship.

 More Here  via AP

Iraqi Leaders Plead For Killing To Halt

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders called Sunday for an end to
Iraq's sectarian conflict and vowed to track down those responsible for the war's deadliest attack.

But as they went on national television to try to keep Iraq from sliding into an all-out civil war, fighting between Iraqi security forces and Sunni Arab insurgents raged for a second day in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad.

By the end of the day, the province's latest casualty figures were a microcosm of the brutality in Iraq: 17 insurgents killed, 15 detained, 20 civilians kidnapped and three bodies found. The mayor of a municipality also narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his guards and wounded three.     More Here

 

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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Lott Speaking Of Rove

    Well hell! It looks as if Trent Lott and Karl Rove do not get along so well.

    Doing an interview on Fox News this morning, Mr. Lott said "I've had problems with some of the conduct of Karl Rove." Let's just sow some more ill will amongst each other, shall we?

Here's more from Think Progress

 

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Can A Mormon Be President?

Why Mitt Romney will have to explain a faith that remains mysterious to many
By MIKE ALLEN @ TIME

Posted Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006


    A Mormon church official and a public relations executive shuttled recently from the Fox News Washington bureau to the Washington Post to the online political digest the Hotline. The two were engaging in a little pre-emptive rearguard action, gearing up for the impending Republican presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor (Willard) Mitt Romney, 59, whose family has long been part of the church's elite.

    Although Mormons are known for family centeredness, hard work and clean living, many Americans remain suspicious of them, maybe because so many aspects of their faith remain mysterious. A poll conducted in June by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg found that 35% of registered voters said they would not consider voting for a Mormon for President. Only Islam would be a more damaging faith for a candidate, the poll found. That's why Michael Otterson, a Mormon convert who is now the church's director of media relations, was calling on political reporters when he visited Washington from Utah in October. He wants them to know that in its 176-year history, the church has never endorsed a presidential candidate and that much of the folklore surrounding its beliefs just isn't true. "The message in a nutshell is, Remember that we're politically neutral as an institution," he says. "The church is about preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything else is a distraction." Otterson says he has a "no dumb questions" policy and urges journalists to call his cell phone, day or night.  MORE HERE

 

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Democrats Plan Array Of Investigations

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, who will become the Senate's second-ranking GOP leader, said Republicans still have enough clout to block legislation "if it's really bad, not in the country's best interest." But he also said he wanted to find areas where the two sides can compromise.

More From Yahoo News

 

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More Voting Problem That Don't Exist

Voting experts say it is impossible to say how many votes were not counted that should have been. But in Florida alone, the discrepancies reported across Sarasota County and three others amount to more than 60,000 votes. In Colorado, as many as 20,000 people gave up trying to vote, election officials say, as new online systems for verifying voter registrations crashed repeatedly. And in Arkansas, election officials tallied votes three times in one county, and each time the number of ballots cast changed by more than 30,000.
-- David Kurtz      More From NYTimes

The Long War

But, no army or navy in the world can over come unending strategic incompetence or widespread corruption at the highest levels of government. Division's can at best only try to offset delusional planners, Company's can only work to survive IEDs despite the rosy ideological inventions of right-wing media, Platoon's can only doggedly persevere in the face of both small arms ambush and deadly Neocon affectations. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines deserve better, much better.

Today, another deadly milestone passes, another battle will rage, another tragedy unfolds, more lives will end. And once again we are forced to recognize that this White House, the outgoing Rubber-stamp Republican Congress, and their right-wing chicken-hawk cheerleaders, have betrayed the trust of We the People as surely as they have forsaken the life and limb of far too many brave Americans in uniform.

By Darkside@ DailyKos

War and the AK-47

7:16 AM 11/26/2006
Atomic bombs and other WMD? when it comes to war and great weapons on the cheap, the AK-47 stands above them all. This light-weight weapon has been the weapon of choice for foreign countries militaries,terrorist and any other group wanting to stock up on the cheap.
Here's a little AK-47 history for you from WaPo :

By Larry Kahaner
Sunday, November 26, 2006

In the grand narrative of World War II, the Battle of Bryansk is a minor conflict, barely deserving of a footnote. But Bryansk has another place in history. It was there that a then-unknown tank commander named Mikhail Kalashnikov decided that his Russian comrades would never again be defeated. In the years following the Great Patriotic War, as Soviet propagandists dubbed it, he was to conceive and fabricate a weapon so simple, and yet so revolutionary, that it would change the way wars were fought and won. It was the AK-47 assault rifle.

The AK-47 has become the world's most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken. Depicted on the flag and currency of several countries, waved by guerrillas and rebels everywhere, the AK is responsible for about a quarter-million deaths every year. It is the firearm of choice for at least 50 legitimate standing armies and countless fighting forces from Africa and the Middle East to Central America and Los Angeles. It has become a cultural icon, its signature form -- that banana-shaped magazine -- defining in our consciousness the contours of a deadly weapon.

The Beginning Of The End In Iraq?

    It is reported that  follows of Muqtada al-Sadr have taken over a television station to pretty much denounce the Iraqi government and, according to some viewers, to announce a call to arms.

FROM Mercury News:

Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station
By Hannah Allam and Mohamed al Dulaimy
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.

The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday .        Read More Here