Cheney, Iraq and Another Day In Bushland

   I haven't had a chance to pick on the press briefings that Tony Snow does since he has been back to work, so today I make up for some of it.

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow

May 9,2007

Aboard Air Force One
En Route Wichita, Kansas

Q A quick question on Iraq. It seems like the House Democrats' plan is taking shape to fund the war in the short-term for a few months and then require a progress report before releasing more money. What's the administration's position on that?

MR. SNOW: The bill that was at least being whipped yesterday contains elements of the bill the President vetoed already, and if it were to come to his desk, it would be vetoed.

We continue to have conversations with members of the House and Senate, trying to put together something that's acceptable. But again, you take a look, there are a number of spending items, there are also some of the restrictions. Again, this is what we saw yesterday at the end of the day, at any rate. And certainly conditions that were a part of a veto message the first time are still going to be vetoed if they were to come back.

Q Make sure I'm clear on that. As you understand the bill as it's working through the process, the President would veto it?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q And what are the specific criteria that he finds objectionable?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, if you take a look, there are restrictions on funding, there are a series of -- there are restrictions on funding, and there are also some of the spending items that were mentioned in the first veto message that are still on the bill.

   Always with the grip about the restrictions on funding! This bill being worked on is what I would consider more tasteful to the Bush regime and it would be in their better interest to sign this thing. But NOoooo, Bush and his crime lords would have to be accountable for the progress or lack of it in Iraq, so this bill is headed to the wastebasket if it stays in its current state.

Q Cheney's visit to Baghdad today, what's the purpose of it?

MR. SNOW: Well -- what's the purpose of it? He's there -- he's meeting with General Petraeus, he's meeting with the Prime Minister, he's meeting with key officials in Baghdad. And one of the things he's doing is not only reiterating support, but also saying something that I think a lot of Americans realize, which is it really is time for action; we're here to help, let's get going.

Q Is there going to be kind of warnings about the political situation in the United States, how political support over here is waning?

MR. SNOW: You know, I think what you -- you've got to be careful what you try -- because you're dealing with a sovereign government that has it's own political concerns, but on the other hand, I'm sure the Vice President -- look, when the President talks to the Prime Minister, they're candid with each other. They're also practical. The point here is not to engage in stagecraft, it's to engage in statesmanship. It is to find ways to work with this government so they can do things that are going to build confidence with the Iraqi people in terms of developing national unity and national capability, and certainly also developing confidence with the American people, as well.

   So Cheney is in Iraq and elsewhere to twist a few arms in order to get the Bush oil law passed by the Iraqi parliament. I see this as Cheney doing a " do this for us or else " kind of meeting. The major oil companies must be threatening to withhold funds from Cheney and company if they can't get a bill to keep all of that future Iraqi oil profit to themselves.

   If the bill is approved by the Parliament, then Bush will no doubt claim that we have seen some progress in Iraq, which is bullshit.

                       IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

 

Tags: Dick Cheney George Bush Iraq Congress

Impeachment of Bush From This Congress? Not Until You Make Some Noise

   I get a lot of emails from various groups and organizations dealing with politics in some form or another.

  One of those groups happens to be A28.org, which bills itself as the " peoples impeachment movement," and they do have quite a few members.

   One of their favorite things, it would seem, is to have their members send in candidates to be nominated for their Congressional Hall of Shame.

  These would be Congressman who state that Bush is running an illegal war, lied to get us into this war, and the unconstitutional and illegal use of unauthorized spying on American citizens, among many other issues.

   Yet, they do not wish to pursue the impeachment of this crook and his minions for various reasons.

  Below is the latest email from A28 and I think that it is worth the read because if all of our Democratic Congressman feel this way, then Bush/Cheney and the others will just continue to rob us and to rip the few remaining rights that we have left right out of our hands.

 

The Congressional Hall of Shame

Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) gets it. Almost.

In a recent letter explaining his position on impeachment, Farr condemns the lying, spying, and torture carried out by the Bush administration in no uncertain terms, calling these actions a travesty of justice that cannot be tolerated:

This Administration's actions with regard to the war in Iraq and lying about weapons of mass destruction, with regard to the torture of prisoners and foreign nationals, and with regard to the unconstitutional and illegal use of unauthorized spying on American citizens, are a travesty to the principles and integrity of a just society and impugn the honor of this country. These actions are in direct contradiction to the laws of this land and cannot be tolerated.

Unconstitutional. Illegal. Cannot be tolerated. Those are strong words. So it comes as a bit of shock when Farr goes on to say that actually, on second thought, he can tolerate these things:

However, even as the Congress changes to a Democratic majority in the 110th Congress, it is doubtful impeachment will be pursued... An impeachment effort would divert Congress' attention from restoring order to our government at a time when it needs it so badly...Though there has been renewed interest in impeachment due to Rep. Kucinich's bill to charge Vice President Cheney (H.Res. 333), an impeachment effort is not viable right now.

Having slipped into the passive voice to absolve himself of any and all responsibility to support and defend the Constitution, Farr then closes with some stirring and entirely empty rhetoric:

I agree that President Bush has failed in many ways to fulfill the duties of his office. The President has appeared to assume the power of the Presidency but not the responsibility, and that power has led to the deaths of American troops, Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians. I can only hope, however, that the American public begins to understand - as you do - that the White House must be held accountable for its failures.

So help him God, Congressman Farr seems a bit shaky on the content of the sacred oath of office he just solemnly swore:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

As far as I can see, there's nothing in this oath about supporting and defending the Constitution only when it's politically expedient. If you'd like to review the oath with Congressman Farr, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you at 202-225-2861.

Please submit your own candidates for the Congressional Hall of Shame to info@a28.org.

Peace,

Jacob Park
A28 National Coordinator

Tags: George Bush impeachment Congress Congressman Sam Farr

Dems and Repubs Want to Wait Until September for Iraq Results?

   So it would seem as if the biggest story thus far today is the article in the Washington Post stating that both the Democrats and Republicans are giving George Bush one last shot at showing improving conditions in Iraq. The deadline would be for September to have proof that his surge is actually working.

   The commanding general in Iraq,Gen. David H. Petraeus, has said that he will know by then if the troop increase has had any kind of affect on the bullshit going on over there.

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.): "Many of my Republican colleagues have been promised they will get a straight story on the surge by September. I won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq at that point. That is very clear to me."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.):  "September is the key. If we don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, September is going to be a very bleak month for this administration."

   Let us not forget House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, who said: "By the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B."

"There were always two debates in the debate over timelines to end the war," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). "George W. Bush is hellbent on January 20, 2009, when he walks out of the door, leaving a box stamped 'Iraq' for the next president. The Republicans are hellbent on not going through the next election with Iraq tied to their ankles. All Boehner said publicly was what Republicans have been saying privately for months."       WaPo

   September is it? I think that we all know how that will go, do we not? Gen. David H. Petraeus will come out with a report that says that there is improvement in Iraq concerning the sectarian violence and the political problems and that the surge is beginning to show some results and that things should be even much better in another six months. Of course, he will also say that we could use just a few more U.S. troops in the country to maintain the current progress.

   Here is some of what our troops are doing in Baghdad on a daily basis.

 

Seems we've heard this all before. I was chuckling this AM when I read that the spineless DC Dems are putting forth legislation that gives W until September and now I read that the Repubs and MSM are talking the same stuff.

But wait. In NOVEMBER, 2006 the American voter spoke and said GET OUT NOW. Isn't it amazing that BushCo and friends (including DC Dems) have managed to string this thing out for another year. And then what? Another "new way forward"? Another two years needed to "get our troops home".

"See you in September...." a great song title but crap when it comes to Iraq.

Posted by: Sha@ Talking Points Memo
Date: May 8, 2007

 

The real question is not what events on the ground look like in September. Or benchmarks. All goals and benchmarks should revolve around getting out of Iraq. That does not seem to be a goal of this admin. Once the US military leaves there will be no one to enforce the contracts with the US oil companies. Iraq can then find new companies that will pay better. THIS IS THE REASON BUSH DOES NOT WANT TO LEAVE. Arguing other goals and events is a complete waste of time. They do not want to leave. The oil is worth trillions of dollars. Why leave? The CEOs of these companies do not have sons and daughters in the conflict dying. Comments?

Posted by: Stephen Johnson@ TPM
Date: May 8, 2007

Paul, the report's already written. Trust me. Maybe I'm clairvoyant, maybe I'm the world's biggest cynic. But I can already see the report, and it says yes, there's been "real progress". There's hope that Americas will see "real change" in the Iraqi government "in the next six months". It'll conclude that the "surge must continue, however", that "timetables for withdrawl are damaging to this progress being witnessed", and "things may get worse before they get better".

This September report will be the most disingenuous, dishonest thing this Admin has ever produced (and that's saying a lot), but the media will eat it up. And we'll locked in for another 6 months. Bank on it.

Posted by: Punchy@TPM
Date: May 8, 2007

   I would tend to agree with all of the above comments. The Democrats, when you look at them closely, are doing absolutely nothing in dealing with Iraq and getting our troops out of there. You and I put them into office to do their jobs and get our people home NOW, not in September or next year or next summer.

   I believe that the Democrats have come down with the " Bush disease " and they must be cured, NOW!

Tags: Democrats Republicans Iraq troop surge Gen. David H. Petraeus Rep. James P. Moran Jr. war

Bush's Occupation Of Iraq Is About Oil

     Here are some interesting details about the United States invasion of Iraq and its quest to control all of the oil in the country.

   This comes from Michael Schwartz at TomDispatch

Eyes Eternally on the Prize
By Michael Schwartz

The struggle over Iraqi oil has been going on for a long, long time. One could date it back to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter -- before his Habitat for Humanity days -- declared that Persian Gulf oil was "vital" to American national interests. So vital was it, he announced, that the U.S. would use "any means necessary, including military force" to sustain access to it. Soon afterwards, he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would eventually develop into United States Central Command (Centcom) and give future presidents the ability to intervene relatively quickly and massively in the region.

Or we could date it all the way back to World War II, when British officials declared Middle Eastern oil "a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination," and U.S. officials seconded the thought, calling it "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

The date when the struggle for Iraqi oil began is less critical than our ability to trace the ever growing willingness to use "any means necessary" to control such a "vital prize" into the present. We know, for example, that, before and after he ascended to the Vice-Presidency, Dick Cheney has had his eye squarely on the prize. In 1999, for example, he told the Institute of Petroleum Engineers that, when it came to satisfying the exploding demand for oil, "the Middle East, with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies." The mysterious Energy Task Force he headed on taking office in 2001 eschewed conservation or developing alternative sources as the main response to any impending energy crisis, preferring instead to make the Middle East "a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." As part of this focus, the Task Force recommended that the administration put its energy, so to speak, into convincing Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment" -- in other words, into a policy of reversing 25 years of state control over the petroleum industry in the region.

The Energy Task Force set about planning how to accomplish this historic reversal. We know, for instance, that it scrutinized a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, together with the (non-American) oil companies scheduled to develop them (once the UN sanctions still in place on Saddam Hussein's regime were lifted). It then worked jointly with the administration's national security team to find a compatible combination of military and economic policies that might inject American power into this equation. According to Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, the National Security Council directed its staff "to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: 'the review of operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'"                Read More Here

Tags: oil Cheney Iraq Bush ExxonMobile BP

George Bush and Harry Truman

   Today is the 123rd birthday of Harry Truman, whom President Bush likes to compare himself to, as he did a year ago during a West Point   commencement address.

 From Daily Kos

by Bill in Portland Maine  Tue May 08, 2007

A year ago this month, in his West Point commencement address, President Bush compared himself to Harry Truman. On this, Truman's 123rd birthday, we take this opportunity to replay last year's C&J-sponsored debate in which the 33rd president mopped the floor with the 43rd:

Bush: I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor. I rarely read the stories.
Truman: A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him.
-

Bush:  Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Truman: In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation---or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.
-

Bush: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.  <<>>  [T]here's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out.
Truman: He's one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.
-

Bush: The FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world. And FISA is still an important tool. It's an important tool. And we still use that tool. But also...and we...look, I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do.
Truman: It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick.
-

Bush: Because the...all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those...changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be...or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled.
Truman: Why, this fellow don't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.
-

Bush:  There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that's the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring `em on.
Truman: Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below.

Score:  Bush 0   Truman 6

Tags: George Bush Harry Truman

Rudy Giuliani Liked Planned Parenthood Enough To Donate To Them

    Rudy Giuliani has said in his campaign speeches that he abhors abortion even though he believes that the right to choose should be kept legal.

   The Politico says dear Rudy was not always this way when it came to family planning and abortion rights groups, such as Planned Parenthood.

...But records show that in the '90s he contributed money at least six times to Planned Parenthood, one of the country's leading abortion rights groups and its top provider of abortions.

Federal tax returns made public by the former New York mayor show that he and his then-wife, Donna Hanover, made personal donations to national, state and city chapters of Planned Parenthood totaling $900 in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999.

The returns have been on the public record for years, but the detail about Giuliani's support for Planned Parenthood -- along with e-mailed copies of the returns -- was provided to The Politico by aides to a rival campaign, who insisted on not being identified.

   Provided by a rival campaign? I wonder which one that would have been?

On the campaign trail, Giuliani has a consistent mantra when the abortion issue comes up. "I'm against abortion. I hate it. I wish there never was an abortion, and I would counsel a woman to have an adoption instead of an abortion," Giuliani said last month in Columbia, S.C., in a typical comment.

Told of Giuliani's contributions to Planned Parenthood, Clemson University political science professor Dave Woodard said, "If he actually gave money to Planned Parenthood, boy, that puts him in a very precarious position, at least in the South Carolina Republican Party."

A Republican, Woodard noted that a personal contribution is something that is difficult to explain away to abortion opponents. "This isn't something like where your position is misunderstood," he said. "An overt act of giving money shows support for a position. That can't be a mistake or misinterpretation."

   I think that Rudy is now toast with the fundamentalist.

       You can read the whole story HERE.

    If the Democrats and Giuliani's rivals continue to bring this up, then I think that his chance of a presidential nomination are toast since this would pretty much make the social conservatives not want to back him.

  It is pretty funny with the Republicans and this election. You have John McCain ( wash-up ) as a choice and then you have Rudy Giuliani ( wannabe ) as a choice. That other character isn't worth the waste of time. McCain and Giuliani are both seeking the crown that Bush wears for the time being and they both wish to be like Bush, so they can't win no matter who the Democrats place in the running. That's provided the Dems don't screw up between now and November 2008.

Tags: Rudi Giuliani Planned Parenthood Republican Party

The Middle Class Economy Under George Bush

   Stats, stats, and more stats. I just love statistics, especially when they happen to make the spin machine from Bush and company look worse than idiots.

   Family Health Insurance has gone up 80.8 percent since the year 2000. the average premium for family health insurance comes in at $11,480 per year. It was at $6,348 in 2000.

The number of uninsured Americans is also up to 46.6 million in 2005 compared to 39.8 million in 2000.   Source

  The Wall Street Journal, “Since the end of the recession of 2001, a lot of the growth in GDP per person – that is, productivity – has gone to profits, not wages.   

The real median earnings of both male and female full-time, full-year workers declined between 2004 and 2005 by 1.8 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.[15]  Median weekly earnings have risen only 0.9 percent between 2000 and 2006 compared with 7.1 percent growth between 1996 and 2000 under the Clinton Administration.[16]

   Job creation? Not hardly.

   Non-farm payroll employment up by only 5.2 million since Bush was elected while it rose 22.7 million under President Clinton. Employment growth has averaged only 70,000 per month under Bush which is much lower than the roughly 150,000 per month job growth needed to keep up with the population growth.  Previous administrations have been known to have had gains of 300,000 to 400,000 per month job growth.

Private sector job creation has been especially poor during the Bush presidency, with an average annual job growth rate of only 0.5 percent per year since 2001. Just 3.8  million private sector jobs have been created during the Bush presidency, compared with over 20 million private sector jobs during the Clinton presidency.   Source

    Check out this fact on our United States poverty levels.

More American families and children face severe financial problems.  The average annual increase in the poverty rate during President Bush’s first term is second only to that during George H.W. Bush’s administration and contrasts sharply with the declines in the Clinton and Kennedy-Johnson Administrations.[35]  The poverty rate has increased 12 percent to 12.6 percent since 2000.[36]  Nearly thirty-seven million Americans were living in poverty in 2005,[37] an increase of 5.4 million over the 2000 level, the year before President Bush took office.[38]  Poverty has hit America’s children particularly hard.  According to the latest Census report, almost one out of every six American children lives in poverty.[39]  The number of children living in poverty has increased 6.5 percent during the Bush Administration.[40]  

   Democratic Policy Committee for more stats and info.

   Though I generally try to stay away from statistics provided by any political party, I went to their sources, and they are valid.

 

Tags: George Bush middle class poverty jobs income Bill Clinton   employment

VA Bonuses Paid Out In North Carolina

  I'm covering basically two stories here that just happen to merge into one story.

   First off, we all know about the ridiculous bonuses that some members of the VA have been paid even though this group has a budget short-fall, and our troops and veterans wait months to see a doctor.

     All of this has naturally caught the eyes of our oversight committees who know want an explanation.

The Gavel

Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans Affairs secretary explain hefty bonuses for senior department officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1 billion short and jeopardized veterans’ health care.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate after The Associated Press reported that budget officials at the Veterans Affairs Department received bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper “entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff.” He has sent a letter to VA chief Jim Nicholson asking what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism.

“These reports point to an apparent gross injustice at the VA that we have a responsibility to investigate,” said Mitchell, D-Ariz. “No government official should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers, and the VA should not be handing out the most lucrative bonuses in government as veterans are waiting months and months to see a doctor.”

A list obtained by the AP of bonuses to senior career officials in 2006 documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

     Next, we go to North Carolina and look at some of those bonuses that were paid out.

    According to the News&Observer, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid out more than $335,000 in bonuses to some of the top NC VA hospital managers while they were getting reports of bad patient care and of suspicious deaths.

Regional director Daniel Hoffmann received the largest bonuses, including more than $29,000 in 2004 - the year investigators looked into deaths at the hospitals.

In 2005, bonuses for regional managers and Salisbury hospital executives tallied nearly $80,000, which was the largest total paid in the years reviewed by The Charlotte Observer. That same year, VA investigators concluded the Salisbury and Asheville hospitals provided poor care.

In 2004, Steinberg received a $5,000 bonus less than two weeks before he led an executive meeting on an "unanticipated post operative death." Steinberg received a $12,500 bonus in 2005, though he didn't receive a bonus in 2006.

In January, Steinberg and associate director James Robinson each received $5,000.

   Getting paid a bonus while running  a shoddy service. Sorry folks, but this sounds more Republican than anything else. Since this is a government run ( not very well ) institution in the first place, why are these people getting a bonus? Is this government or a corporation because it is getting hard to tell the difference anymore.

Tags: North Carolina Veterans Administration bonuses

This Is What President Bush Vetoed

  This comes from The Gavel

What President Bush Vetoed

May 7th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Extra armor causing Humvee doors to trap troops
Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today (Army Times republication) - May 7, 2007

Kits to fix the problem were included in vetoed bill

The Army is fixing the doors of every armored Humvee in combat in Iraq because the doors can jam shut during an attack and trap soldiers inside, Pentagon records and interviews show.

The door trouble, the latest in a series of problems with the Humvees since the Iraq war began, is an unintended consequence of the Pentagon’s effort to add armor to protect troops from makeshift bombs. Improvised explosive devices are the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, causing 70 percent of injuries and deaths. Armored Humvees, the primary troop transport vehicle, are often targeted by insurgents who plant bombs on roads.

One quick fix to the jamming problem was to weld D-shaped hooks to Humvee doors so another truck could rip them off with a cable. The hook is built in to the latest version of armor added to the Humvee, known as the Frag Kit 5, said Lt. Col. William Wiggins, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. “Every Humvee outside [a fortified base] will have a hook,” Wiggins said. There are about 18,000 Humvees in Iraq.

The Army plans to spend $284 million this year on armor kits, which also include improved door latches and stronger hinges to handle the heavier doors. The money is included in the emergency Iraq spending bill President Bush vetoed last week. Bush rejected the bill because it contained a timeline to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Rep. John Murtha closed the debate on final passage of the Iraq Accountability Act for House Democrats, and explained more about what was in the bill, what Republicans in Congress voted against, and what President Bush vetoed:  SEE THIS

  What Bush did was veto any support for our United States troops in Iraq. Impeach the bastard and Cheney along with him!

Tags: President Bush veto U.S.military Iraq

Some George Bush Quotes as Governor of Texas

      For those of you who aren't sure if Bush is a total idiot yet, this should seal it.

Comedy Central

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
...George W. Bush

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
...Governor George W. Bush

"Welcome to Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts."
...Governor George W. Bush

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
...Governor George W. Bush, 8/11/94

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
...Governor George W. Bush, 9/15/95

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy -- but that could change."
...Governor George W. Bush, 5/22/98

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."
...Governor George W. Bush, 12/6/93

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
...Governor George W. Bush, 11/30/96

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
...Governor George W. Bush

"The future will be better tomorrow."
...Governor George W. Bush

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."
...Governor George W. Bush 9/21/97

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."
...Governor George W. Bush

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
...Governor George W. Bush to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93

"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."
...Governor George W. Bush

"Public speaking is very easy."
...Governor George W. Bush to reporters

"I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican."
...Governor George W. Bush

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
...Governor George W. Bush

"When I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct & simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame."
...George W. Bush

"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it."
...Governor George W. Bush 5/20/96

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
...Governor George W. Bush 9/22/97

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
...Governor George W. Bush, 9/5/93

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."
...Governor George W. Bush , 9/18/95

"The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that George Bush may or may not make."
...Governor George W. Bush

"We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made."
...Governor George W. Bush

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
...Governor George W. Bush

"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."
...Governor George W. Bush

Tags: George Bush Governor Texas quotes

George Tenet's Other Income

   I was making my usual rounds through the Internet this morning ( DKos, TPM, Salon, ect.) when I ran across this story on George Tenet and his un-publicized income as a director and/or advisor for four companies which earn money from contracts with the U.S. intelligence agencies and with the Department of Defense.

Tim Shorrock at Salon has the details.

When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in his book. But according to public records, Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation. Meanwhile, one of the CIA's largest contractors gave Tenet access to a highly secured room where he could work on classified material for his book.

By joining these companies, Tenet is following in the footsteps of thousands of other former intelligence officers who have left the CIA and other agencies and returned as contractors, often making two or three times what they made in their former jobs. Based on reporting I've done for an upcoming book, contractors are responsible for at least half of the estimated $48 billion a year the government now spends on intelligence. But exactly how much money will remain unknown: Four days before Tenet's book was published, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence decided not to release the results of a yearlong study of intelligence contracting, because disclosure of the figure, a DNI official told the New York Times, could damage national security.

That may be a real break for Tenet. Under his watch, according to former CIA officials and contractors I've interviewed, up to 60 percent of the CIA workforce has been outsourced. A spokesman for the CIA told me last week that that figure "is way off the mark," but wouldn't provide the actual figure, which he said is classified. But publication of that number could prove embarrassing to Tenet, particularly in light of his own deep involvement in the privatization of U.S. intelligence.

   Tenet and his positions with these companies isn't the only problem. I wonder if the government really is looking out for the United States best interest when it outsources intelligence work to private firms.

   This will be just another Republican scandal given enough time.

Tags: George Tenet CIA U.S. intelligence privatization

A British Soldier's View On Iraq

  Crossposted from Common Dreams

Published on Sunday, May 6, 2007 by the Independent/UK

We Soldiers Once Assumed Our Political Bosses Would Not Lie to Us. That is Over.
We realized the actual issue was about long-term access to oil

by Leo Docherty

Four years ago, I watched, with other young officers, the invasion of Iraq on TV in the mess. We were sick with envy. Our brother officers were having the most exciting time of their lives, at the center of history, while we, on ceremonial duties in London, marched about in red tunics and bearskin hats.

The invasion, it seemed, was a necessary evil to be redeemed by the creation of a free, democratic Iraq. The WMD issue was a pretext, we all concurred, an honorable white lie to knock an evil dictator off his perch and breathe new hope into the lives of a brutally repressed people.

Our turn soon came, and the ground truth in Basra and Maysan provinces was a shock. The statue-toppling euphoria had been replaced by the horrific chaos of a state in collapse, exacerbated by a rising insurgency and sectarian bloodshed. The truth gradually emerged. The police and army we were training were corrupt and probably loyal to the insurgency. The first supposedly democratic elections for half a century were a façade, dependent on the presence of our Warrior fighting vehicles at polling stations.

Then we realized the issue was not replacing tyranny with democracy, but gaining long-term access to oil. Blair, in bowing to American oil-mad energy hunger, had deployed the British Army on a lie, a much bigger lie than the one about WMDs. Today, the appalling sectarian violence killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians every week is the direct result of our invasion and botched occupation. As Blair prepares to leave office, Iraq is descending into deeper human tragedy, and British troops are still dying.

Those in the forces who, like me, were frustrated and disillusioned after Iraq, took new optimism from British intervention in Afghanistan. It looked like being everything Iraq should have been: reconstructive nation-building to improve the lives of poverty-stricken Afghans.

Sadly, political ill-preparation and haste dropped the military, again, into lethally hot water. Last year, British forces were sent into volatile Helmand, ill-equipped and inadequately supported. Scattered across the north of the province (the size of Wales), small teams occupied “platoon houses” in remote towns.

I was in Sangin where, as in everywhere else, we had no means of starting developmental reconstruction and stood no chance of winning Afghan hearts and minds. To the locals, the presence of British soldiers seemed to presage destruction of their poppy crop and their livelihoods.

Helmand produces 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s opium crop, the source of 90 per cent of global heroin. And the people there are tribesmen, infamous for their ferocious hostility to foreign interference. The savage backlash rages still; more than 50 British servicemen are dead in this sub-campaign, countless Afghan civilians have been killed, and opium production is at an all-time high.

The Taliban are thriving on this: every Afghan civilian killed by the British artillery round or helicopter gunship has a dozen brothers, cousins, and friends seeking British blood for vengeance. Today, our troops are risking their lives in a pointless conflict, a nightmare scenario of counter-insurgency gone wrong.

There is the mismatch between Blair’s huge military ambition overseas and the scarce resources the forces get to fulfill it. The Army has lost four infantry battalions. Soldiers serving a fourth tour struggle to maintain relationships at home. Half the Navy’s fleet is threatened with mothballing.

When you join the Army, you swear allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and, by extension, the Prime Minister. We commit ourselves, with unquestioning loyalty, to the State. This is founded on trust in our political masters, and the belief that they are honorable people who will not lie to us, will resource us correctly and deploy us with sound judgment, after thorough strategic planning. This bond is unique, set in stone regardless of party politics. Today, this bond is broken. Catastrophes in Iraq and Afghanistan and years of resource-starvation have taken their toll; this is Blair’s legacy.

Late last year, the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannat, publicly called for our withdrawal from Iraq. Other senior officers voiced concern. Such public statements, unthinkable before Blair, are a glimpse of the military’s anger and frustration.

Of those officers I sat with in the mess four years ago, many, like me, have left the Army. Those who remain have no trust in the Government. One told me: “We won’t be fooled again.”

Leo Docherty is author of ‘Desert of Death: A Soldier’s Journey from Iraq to Afghanistan‘, published by Faber and Faber.

   I think that the same can be said from our U.S. soldiers. The same can also be said by our U.S. citizens, with the exception of some 28% who are still either ignorant or stupid.

 

Tags: Leo Docherty General Sir Richard Dannat Iraq Afghanistan Tony Blair

Nuke Iran and Save the GOP?

   Only Jon McCain could come up with something like this, if needed.

Published on Saturday, May 5, 2007 by the Guardian/UK

  Crossposted From Common Dreams

Saved by the Bomb: Senator McCain has Hit Upon a Solution to All the Republican Party’s Woes: A Nuclear War with Iran

by Terry Jones

Campaigning in Oklahoma the other day, the Republican senator John McCain was asked what should be done about Iran. He responded by singing, “Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran”, to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann. (Join the hilarity and see for yourself on YouTube.) How can any thinking person disagree? I mean, any country with a president who doesn’t shave properly and never wears a tie deserves what’s coming to it - a lot of American bombs, with a few British ones thrown in to ensure we don’t miss out on the ensuing upsurge in terrorism.

The problem is how to unload enough bombs on Iran before next year’s US election to bring about enough flag-waving to get the Republican party re-elected. This is essential if we are to safeguard the revenues of companies such as Halliburton - particularly at a time when the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction is discovering what a shoddy job Halliburton has been doing. In projects at Nasiriya, Mosul and Hilla - declared successes by the US - inspectors have discovered buckled floors, crumbling concrete, failed generators and blocked sewage systems - due not to sabotage but largely to poor construction and lack of maintenance.

The trouble is that the re-election of the GOP is becoming more problematic as opinion turns against George Bush’s little invasion of Iraq. Even Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah recently condemned the US action as “an illegal foreign occupation”; his nephew, Prince Bandar, hasn’t been returning calls for weeks.

More worrying is the plummeting popularity of the party, as White House corruption becomes ever more difficult to disguise. The LA Times reports that what Representative Thomas M Davis III called a “poisonous” environment has begun to dent fundraising - an unheard-of problem for the Republicans.

So the only solution is to bomb Iran, as Senator McCain so wisely and amusingly suggests. The real issue is whether to use regular weapons or do the job properly and go nuclear.

Nuclear bombs have the advantage of being much bigger, and they will also pollute vast swathes of Iran and make much of the country uninhabitable for years. With a bit of luck some of the fallout will sweep into Iraq and finish off the job the US and UK have begun without incurring more costs.

But the biggest advantage of nuclear weapons is that the repercussions would be so enormous, the upsurge in terrorism so overwhelming, that the world would be totally changed. A year before 9/11, Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis “Scooter” Libby signed a statement for the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative thinktank. They rather hoped for “some catastrophic and catalysing event like a new Pearl Harbor” to kickstart their dream of a world run by US military might. A nuclear war would do the trick in spades. The Republican party could expect to stay in power for the next 50 or even 100 years.

Of course, a large proportion of the human race could be wiped out in the process, but that shouldn’t be a problem as long as there are anti-radiation suits for White House and Pentagon staff. Such a shake-up would give the US a golden opportunity to corner what’s left of the world’s oil reserves.

In 1955 Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell said the world was faced by a “stark and dreadful and inescapable” choice: “Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” Senator McCain wasn’t bothered by such questions; the human race may be standing on a precipice, but the Republicans have a chance of permanent re-election.

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. Terry-jones.net

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

Tags: John McCain Iran GOP nuclear weapons

I.G.s, Snow Jobs and More Dubya Talk

From  Jeff Huber

Friday, May 04, 2007

Woe is you if you land a plumb appointee job in the Bush administration and decide to take your job and your oath of office more seriously than you take loyalty to the Bush administration. Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, whose investigations of waste and corruption in Iraq have repeatedly embarrassed the Bush administration, is now under investigation himself.
How about them bad apples?
According to James Glanz of the New York Times , both the White House and a spokesman for Congressman Thomas M. Davis (R-Virginia) say the investigations "were not started in retribution for the work undertaken in Iraq by Mr. Bowen." But, Glanz adds…

…the investigations are coming to light just a few months after Mr. Bowen’s office narrowly escaped what amounted to a termination clause tucked away in a large military authorization bill by staff members of another Republican congressman. A bipartisan group of lawmakers later managed to reverse that provision, but the latest action has renewed suspicions that Mr. Bowen--a Republican himself--has come to be seen as a serious political liability by his own party.

The investigation, according to Glanz, "originated with a complaint put together by roughly half a dozen former employees who appear to have left his office on unhappy terms." From whom did Glanz glean this information? "…Several officials familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is still going on."
Anonymous officials. How convenient. How familiar. Here's testimony from another anonymous source:

One of the former employees who filed the complaint, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern that he would face reprisals, agreed that all of those who brought the misconduct accusations had been unhappy with demotions, terminations or other sanctions during their time in the inspector general’s office.

Reprisals? This "former employee" either quit or got canned. What kinds of reprisals is he worried about? The kind that might come about if he doesn't help the Bush administration put a muzzle on Inspector General Bowen?
The investigation of Bowen is being conducted by "…an oversight committee with close links to the White House and by the ranking Republican on the House Government Reform Committee." That ranking Republican would be Thomas M. Davis. Funny thing about Thomas M. Davis. Back in 2004 when he was chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Davis and his staff knew about the problems at Walter Reed hospital. His staff supposedly made phone and fielded phone calls on the issue, but Davis never pressed other congressional committees or Republican leaders to pass legislation or make money available to address the issue. Why not?
“We are not appropriators," Davis said. "I don’t know what else we could have done. If generals don’t go around and look at the barracks, how do you legislate that?”
Tommy, can you hear this? As members of Congress, especially the House of Representatives, you are appropriators. In fact, you're the only appropriators. And Article I of the Constitution assigns the power "To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" to the legislature. So how is it you couldn't appropriate money to fix the problems at Walter Reed or pass a law that ordered a general to get up off his duffel bag and look at what was happening across the street from his sumptuous, government provided quarters?
A spokesman for Tom Davis says that politics played no role in the decision to investigate Inspector General Bowen, but one has to cast a skeptical eye at that claim in light of the fact that Bowen is seen as a potential political candidate in Davis's home state of Virginia.
Snow Jobs and Dubya Talk
Don't get the idea, though, that the Bowen investigation will be conducted by a congressional committee. Oh, no. The investigating council is drawn from the executive branch, and its chairman is Clay Johnson III, a longtime friend of one George W. Bush.
But that makes no never mind, as Bush administration mouthpiece Tony Snow tells it. Snow says the council is “an independent investigative organization” that doesn't follow the White House's direction. “The White House has no role in this, zero,” Snow says.
Yeah, right.
Snow also says that the council's investigation is being conducted by inspector generals from throughout the administration, and that Clay Johnson "is not, in fact, involved in the process.”
Clay Johnson is chairman of the council but he's not involved in the process? What in the wide world of sports, arts and sciences?
I once thought that despite its deplorable record over the past six years, I didn't want to see the GOP go completely down the sink for the sake of preserving a two party system. But I've changed my mind. For the foreseeable future, if I have a choice between Bugs Bunny and a Republican, I'm pulling the lever for the wabbit.
#
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at Pen and Sword.

Tags: Stuart W. Bowen, Jr. GOP White House Tony Snow inspector general

Rudy Giuliani Would Raise Troop Levels higher Than Bush

Giuliani Backs Army Buildup Nearing 600K

JIM DAVENPORT  |  AP  |  May 5, 2007

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Saturday called for boosting the Army by another 35,000 troops, saying the nation must project strength and better handle the aftermath of war.

"President Bush has increased our military strength and further increases are planned, but we need to do more _ much more. We need a force that can both deter aggression and meet many challenges that may come our way," the former New York City mayor told a class of 438 cadets during a commencement speech at The Citadel, a public military college.

"I believe America needs at least 10 new combat brigades above the additions that are already proposed by President Bush and are already in the budget," Giuliani said.

Brigades typically have about 3,500 troops. The Army now has almost 512,000 troops, the limit set by Congress.

   Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January recommended to Bush that the Army over the next five years increase its active-duty soldiers by 65,000 to 547,000. Giuliani would raise that limit to 582,000.        Huffington Post

   Rudy Giuliani's plan would be the first step towards the ( D ) word, that word being  DRAFT. This would be the only way to increase troop strength to the levels that dear old Rudy would like to have and with so many of our current troops opting out of re-enlistment and many citizens not even thinking of joining because of this Iraq fiasco, the draft is it.

"The reality is that in this world today, there are people _ terrorists, Islamic, radical terrorists _ who are planning as we sit here at this graduation, who are planning to come here and kill us," Giuliani told them.

    Maybe when they get here, Giuliani will step in to save one of us, but, I doubt it. He'll be to busy hiding his sorry ass!

Tags: Rudy Giuliani Iraq terrorist U.S. troops Congress

Bush Approval Down to 28%

   According to the latest poll done by NEWSWEEK, George Bush is down to a 28% approval rating.  I didn't think that he was still up that high!

 

19. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

                        Current Total

Approve                    28%

Disapprove                64%

Don't Know                 8%

   Bush continues to drag the rest of the immoral Republicans down into the hole with him, which is just great if you are a Democrat, or anything else for that matter!

The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.

     Check out this info from the poll:

When the NEWSWEEK Poll asked more than 1,000 adults on Wednesday and Thursday night (before and during the GOP debate) which president showed the greatest political courage—meaning being brave enough to make the right decisions for the country, even if it jeopardized his popularity —more respondents volunteered Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (18 percent each) than any other president. Fourteen percent of adults named John F. Kennedy and 10 percent said Abraham Lincoln. Only four percent mentioned George W. Bush. (Then again, only five percent volunteered Franklin Roosevelt and only three percent said George Washington.)

A majority of Americans believe Bush is not politically courageous: 55 percent vs. 40 percent. And nearly two out of three Americans (62 percent) believe his recent actions in Iraq show he is “stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes,” compared to 30 percent who say Bush’s actions demonstrate that he is “willing to take political risks to do what’s right.”

     Out of the 28% who approve of Bush and the job that he is doing, I would venture to say that 20% of them are family members, 20% Fox News viewers, and the other 60% are GOP politicians and companies with their hands in the cookie jar!

Tags: George Bush 28% Republicans Iraq Bill Clinton

Iraq Troop Surge Going Downhill

   We have checkpoints with police and Iraqi military troops all over Baghdad but Iraqis are afraid of them because they never know if these are the real thing or if they are death squads, according to   Patrick Cockburn who writes this for AlterNet:

"Be careful," warned a senior Iraqi government official living in the Green Zone in Baghdad," be very careful and above all do not trust the police or the army." He added that insecurity in the Iraqi capital is now as bad as it was before the US security plan came into operation in the city in February.

The so-called surge, the dispatch of 20,000 extra American troops to Iraq with the prime mission of getting control of Baghdad, is visibly failing.

There are army and police checkpoints everywhere but Iraqis are terrified approaching them because they do not know if the men in uniform they see are in reality death squad members. Omar, the 15-year-old brother-in-law of a friend, was driving with two other boys through al-Mansur in west Baghdad a fortnight ago. Their car was stopped at a police checkpoint. Most of the police in Baghdad are Shia. They took him away saying they suspected that his ID card was a fake. The real reason was probably that the name Omar is used only by Sunni. Three days later the boy was found dead.   Follow me!

     This can't be right because Bush, Cheney, and John McCain say that there is improvement in Iraq.

Tags: Iraq troop surge Shia Sunni Baghdad

Why Aren't Americans Protesting In The Streets Yet?

Crossposted from Common Dreams

 

Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 by The Middle East Times

Where Is The Dissent In America?

by Charles R. Larson

Washington - When viewed through American eyes, the recent protests in Istanbul and Tel Aviv demanding that their governments become accountable are truly impressive and extraordinary.

For a US liberal - which is what I consider myself to be - the Israeli and the Turkish protests are also a disturbing reminder that Americans have apparently forgotten one of their constitutional rights: the right to protest. Americans are loud at proclaiming their rights, but, lately, they have been reluctant to practice them. Indeed, a couple of years ago, when Iraq was writing its new constitution, a joke was frequently repeated in limited circles: “Why not give them the US constitution, since we’re not using it?”

The George W. Bush presidency has articulated, ad nauseam, America’s plan for exporting democracy to the rest of the world - especially to the Middle East. Yet, rarely does the Bush administration proclaim the need for democracy outside of areas where oil is of our concern.

Take Africa, for example. A couple of years ago, it was Liberia, which, under Charles Taylor, became one of the most wretched places for human rights in the world. Taylor could have been unseated quickly and expeditiously with minimal force, and the United States certainly had historical reasons for “liberating” Liberia from its monstrous dictator. But Taylor stayed in power until he wrecked his country, at which stage the US sent in a handful of marines to make a belated push to force Taylor to leave.

More recently, Zimbabwe and Nigeria ought to be of major concern regarding constitutional abuses, but Robert Mugabe still reigns supreme in the former country (that has no oil) and the rigged election in Nigeria two weeks ago, which ought to have triggered a barrage of criticism from the American State Department, resulted in hardly a puff of smoke. (Actually, in the case of Nigeria - one of America’s major oil suppliers - it looks as if oil did contribute to Bush’s decision to do nothing.)

But it is the war in Iraq that ought to have led to major protests in the United States by now, because of the administration’s “selective” push for democracy around the world.

Three weeks ago, a lone gunman at Virginia Tech murdered 32 innocent students and faculty members, triggering a massive outcry for a few days, but no one expects that America’s obsession with guns is about to change. One hundred US soldiers have died in Iraq in the last month alone, and there is nary a protest or airing of concern from Americans, who have clearly stopped paying any attention to the debacle - except to say that they “want our soldiers to come home.”

Americans have so compartmentalized the war that hardly anyone pays attention to what’s happening in Iraq, except the families of the 150,000 US soldiers who are dying there. Most other Americans have stopped reading articles in the newspapers about the war and muted their TV sets during the evening news when the declining minutes of daily coverage are broadcast.

In part, the utter lack of concern about the war is because Americans are convinced that it has nothing to do with them economically - they have certainly not been asked to make any sacrifice to pay for the war. So, the war continues to drain the country of billions of dollars, while the American consumer continues to prop up the economy by increasing personal debt. That is, of course, a mirror of the government’s own massive debt because of Bush’s folly.

And it is not just the war that Americans are reluctant to protest about - but just about everything else involving George W. Bush’s vision for the country and the world. The country’s top law enforcer, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been disgraced by recent partisan acts that clearly were designed to support the Republican agenda. Yet, Gonzales is praised almost daily by President Bush, while he violates other parts of the constitution in acts that have systematically eroded all of our individual rights.

Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, is similarly lauded by President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, though Wolfowitz has also compromised his position and run the morale of the World Bank into the ground.

The list of abuses at the hands of the neocons in their attempt to cram right-wing conservatism down the throats of every American are so ubiquitous that the only pleasure a sane person can take these days is the occasional smile, and the remark, “I told you so,” which echo a bumper sticker seen on many vehicles in the country for the past six years: “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.”

Americans are asleep. They have tuned out and shut down to recent events because of the staggering amount of outrage and abuse by their government during the past half-dozen years. Even in the best of times, a large portion of the population pays little attention to world events. If you visit the outlying sections of the country and pick up a local newspaper, you might conclude that the readers of that gazette were only concerned about local events. An international incident, which ought to be of concern for everyone, is either given no attention at all or buried in a minor paragraph at the back of the paper.

One wonders what kind of outrage would finally draw Americans into the streets as the citizens of Istanbul and Tel Aviv did earlier this week.

Charles R. Larson is Chair of the Department of Literature at American University in Washington, DC. He is a frequent Contributor to Salon, The Nation, and The Washington Examiner magazines. He submitted this commentary to the Middle East Times.

© 2007 The Middle East Times

Tags: Americans Alberto Gonzales Paul Wolfowitz neocons George Bush

Alaska State Legislator's Indicted and Arrested

  More Republicans come under the guns of the F.B.I. as two were snagged up in Alaska today.

Anchorage Daily News has the complete rundown.

Former Alaska state legislators Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch have been indicted by a federal grand jury on several counts of extortion, bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud.

Kott was arrested at home in Juneau around 9 a.m. Friday, a spokesman for the FBI said. Weyhrauch was arrested later in the morning.

FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez would not say if additional arrests are coming. “It’s a continuing investigation,” he said.

Some of the charges against Kott and Weyhrauch involve the Legislature’s consideration last year of a natural gas pipeline and a petroleum production tax proposed by former Gov. Frank Murkowski. Kott, a former House speaker from Eagle River, is accused of seeking and accepting bribes to push positions favored by executives of a company that is not named in the indictment. Weyhrauch traded votes for the promise of a job, according to the charges.

   Things are just peachy for the Republican party these days! This current administration and its side-kicks are apparently going for the all-time record for corruption and criminal activities as the list gets longer almost everyday.

Tags: Alaska legislators Pete Kott Bruce Weyhrauch corruption

Support Our Troops At Home

Save The Troops.

by georgia10    Daily Kos   

 Fri May 04, 2007

What no war-cheerleading Republican dare address:

WASHINGTON - The military is putting already-strained troops at greater risk of mental health problems because of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon panel said Thursday in warning of an overburdened health system.

Issuing an urgent warning, the Defense Department's Task Force on Mental Health chaired by Navy Surgeon General Donald Arthur said more than one-third of troops and veterans currently suffer from problems such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

With an escalating Iraq war, those numbers are expected to worsen, and current staffing and money for military health care won't be able to meet the need, the group said in a preliminary report released Thursday. [...]

The task force found 38 percent of Soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological concerns such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment.

Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher - 49 percent - with numbers expected to grow because of repeated deployments.

You cannot support this war and "support the troops," whatever that hollowed-out, abused phrase means anymore.

Congress has an obligation to save the troops from a president blinded by ego. It must bring them home.  It must begin the long process of fighting that other aftermath of this war which is  silently being fought by these brave men and women right here, on American soil.

It must bring them home. And help them heal.

Tags: Iraq troops health care mental health

Candidates For GOP and A Dead President

   I have to admit that I did not watch the Republican debate last night as I saw no reason to endure such torture for 90 minutes. Why waste my time listening to the participants telling us how great Ronald Reagan was and how much they wish they could be like him?

  It strikes me as funny since they all want to embrace the Reagan legacy, but that would be only because the Bush legacy is one of stupidity, corruption, and cronyism. If things were going half as well as Bush claims that they were, all of the debate candidates would have been telling you how they will continue along the same path. I guess that they have forgotten that they voted for this current mess that the Bush administration is in with the war in Iraq and with the scandals. They gave Bush a blank check and they helped him along with his agenda, no questions asked, and now they are trying to run from it by invoking Reagan's ideas?

John McCain: "Ronald Reagan used to say, we spend money like a drunken sailor."      Source

   You helped Bush spend like a drunken sailor, Mr. McCain, and you would continue along the same path.

They stressed the importance of persisting in Iraq and defeating terrorists, called for lower taxes and a muscular defense, and supported spending restraint.

  Iraq is a waste of our resources and they all know this. Lower taxes are great when you are not wasting billions of dollars per month on a war. Spending restraint for a Republican? Give us a break! It ain't gonna happen.

   They used Reagan's name some 19 times and barely mentioned their current wannabe king, Bush.

   It really doesn't matter all that much. If the only thing that the GOP has going for it is a trip back into time, they are screwed in November, 2008.

I'm sure that most blogs and maybe some MSM aren't letting them run away from the Bush support that they were so willing to give to him.

Tags: Mitt Romney John McCain Rudy Giuliani GOP

General Sir Michael Rose: U.S. and Britain Should Admit Defeat and Leave Iraq

The Guardian

General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military solutions, the sooner they will come home and their lives will be preserved."

When he was asked if he thought the Iraqi insurgents were right to try to force the US-led coalition out, he replied: "Yes I do. As Lord Chatham [the politician William Pitt, the Elder, who, in the second half of the 18th century called for a cessation of hostilities in the colonies and favoured American resistance to the British Stamp Act] said, 'if I was an American - as I am an Englishman - as long as one Englishman remained on American native soil, I would never, never, never lay down my arms'. The Iraqi insurgents feel exactly the same way. I don't excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting the Americans."

   I would guess that General Rose just about says it all in this piece. He also goes on to say that the U.S. and the British should admit defeat and leave before more troops are killed.

Tags: Sir Michael Rose U.S. British Iraq

Iraq Parliament Vacationing While Our Troops Get Killed?

  It looks as if our GOP and Democratic lawmakers can agree on at least one thing, that being the Iraqi Parliaments decision to take a two month recess while our United States troops get killed trying to bring some sense of order to their own country. If this isn't a slap in the face of our military, then there is no such thing!

Rep. Chris Shays, R-CT: "If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight -- that would be the outrage of outrages."

   This would mean that there would be more than likely no oil bill resolution from the Iraqi government and a host of other things.

Sen. John Warner, R-VA.: "That is not acceptable.An action of that consequence would send a very bad signal to the world that they don't have the resolve that matches the resolve of the brave troops that are fighting in the battle today."

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-NE: "I certainly hope they're not going to take any sort of recess when the question is whether they're going to make any progress."

On Monday -- the same day Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, issued a statement urging the Iraqi politicians to reconsider their summer break -- the Iraqi parliament called for a ban on U.S. troops near a holy Shiite Muslim shrine. Protests were led by the radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc after U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted a raid near the shrine.        CNN

  This shit gets worse by the day, does it not?

    IT IS TIME to let the Iraqi government deal with their own sets of problems. If they can afford to take a two month break, then they can afford to handle their own messes.

    Someone will surely say that Iraq wouldn't be in this mess were it not for the United States invading and occupying Iraq, which is true. But, since the Iraqi government has done nothing of importance to help with bringing stability to the country and have so far screwed around with getting the job done, it is time for the U.S. to go home! It is also time to send Cheney and Bush home, or to prison. I like the latter option better!

Tags: Iraqi Parliament Bush U.S. troops Ben Nelson Congress withdrawal

Mission Not Accomplished, Democrats

Mission Not Accomplished (and I'm not talking about Bush)

by Red Wind  Wed May 02, 2007

It is easy—really easy—to look at the beady-eyed maniac who vetoed the Iraq supplemental (now! with timelines!) and laugh at the folly of his flyboy stunt and photo-op speech of four years prior. Since then, over 3,200 more dead Americans, 360 billion more dollars down the sinkhole, the number of Sunni insurgents increased 14-fold, the number of attacks up by a factor of 17—mission so not accomplished.

It is easy, too, to laugh at the rationale President Bush used when issuing only the second veto of his administration: timelines are a “prescription for chaos and confusion; an early American exit would turn Iraq into a “cauldron of chaos”—as if Iraq today is a model of warm, fuzzy order rivaled only by Build-a-Bear Workshop.

But, it is because of the additional dollars and the additional dead, because of the inflating number of terrorists and the inflamed global tensions, and because of the current carnage and chaos that I cannot laugh.

Republicans and reporters might want to frame the debate over the future of the occupation as a game, pissing match, or staring contest between Bush and the Democratic leadership, but what is truly at stake is not just bragging rights or a stack of play money. Everyday the US stays the course and continues to splurge on the “surge,” the numbers of dead and wounded Americans, the numbers of dead and wounded Iraqis, the numbers of radicalized Moslems, and the numbers of dollars that could have been spent on something better will continue to increase—and the power that we as a nation have to do anything about it all will continue to decrease.

The clearly deteriorating situation in Iraq—with violence of all kinds as high as ever, the Iraqi parliament in disarray and now on hiatus, the al Maliki government using the US to kill Sunnis and arm their own Shiite militias—coupled with the contempt held by the White House for the feelings and wisdom of the majority here at home, makes this no time for easy jokes. . . or expedient compromises.

And that is why when I say “Mission not accomplished,” I am not looking at the president—not this time—I am looking at the Democrats. George W. Bush has vetoed one strategy to end the occupation—and more the visible fool he for doing so—but that is not an invitation to the Democrats to find their own USS Abraham Lincoln and declare major combat over. Democrats may have won the day, but they have not accomplished their mission.

Voters made it clear last November—America wants its troops out of Iraq. And while this round has done much to tie the Bush Administration and its Republican enablers to a fiasco of historic proportions, it has not stopped the architects of our misfortune from perpetuating, and exacerbating, the nightmare. If Democrats take this moment to feel satisfied with the political points gained, victory will be beyond pyrrhic, and voters will all too soon come to mock them as much as they now do the calcified commander-in-chief.

Any talk of compromise that does not include real and binding restrictions on the President’s long war is not so much compromise as capitulation. Any discussion of drafting a bill that Bush might sign must keep the Democrats’ mission—emphasizing political and diplomatic solutions over military force—in mind, and the final goal—effectively withdrawing all US combat forces from Iraq—in plain sight. Returning to the status quo ante, voting for another supplemental funding bill while paying aggressive lip service to the president’s problems, will not end the carnage nor calm the chaos, and thus, it will not do.

Over four years in, Bush’s original mission—however you frame it—lies in blood-soaked ruin. It is not accomplished, but it needs to be over. The occupation must end. American troops must come home.

President Bush has now made it his mission to prevent that from happening—it is the Democrats’ mission to see that this time, this Bush mission is (also) not accomplished.

  ( Crossposted from Daily Kos )

Tags: Democrats Bush Iraq

Bush Goes AWOL With Funding Veto

Military Leaders Against the President’s Veto

May 2nd, 2007 by Karina    The Gavel

“With this veto, the president has doomed us to repeating a terrible history. President Bush’s current position is hauntingly reminiscent of March 1968 in Vietnam. At that time, both the Secretary of Defense and the President had recognized that the war could not be won militarily - just as our military commanders in Iraq have acknowledged. But not wanting to be tainted with losing a war, President Johnson authorized a surge of 25,000 troops. At that point, there had been 24,000 U.S. troops killed in action. Five years later, when the withdrawal of U.S. troops was complete, we had suffered 34,000 additional combat deaths.”
- Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, USA, Ret.

“By vetoing this bill and failing to initiate an immediate and phased withdrawal, the President has effectively gone AWOL, deserting his duty post, leaving American forces with an impossible mission, suffering wholly unnecessary casualties.”
- Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, USA, Ret.

“The rhetoric of Congress not supporting our troops is pure ‘hogwash’. The real non support of our troops is the Presidential Veto. Vetoing this Bill sends a message to our troops, that the President will fund them to fight but is not concerned about returning them to their families.”
- Maj. Gen. Mel Montano, USANG, Ret.

“The President vetoed our troops and the American people. His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration.”
- Maj. Gen. John Batiste, USA, Ret.

“This administration and the previously Republican controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America’s Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever apparent, only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war - alone, without their President’s support.”
- Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.

“Almost 5 years ago, Congress trusted the President enough to give him the power to transform Iraq. Bush violated that trust and deceived us with a misuse of force. Today, the President violated the trust of the American people, our troops, and their families by vetoing this bill and not choosing to do what is right. He has let us down.”
- Brigadier General John Johns, USA, Ret.

   Like we should expect anything less from the " Resident Evil " in the White House. I still say that the Congress should hit Bush with an impeachment since we all know that he is deserving of one.

Tags: Bush veto war funds Congress General John Johns General Paul Eaton

John Edwards Campaign Airs Challenging Ad

    From Talking Points Memo comes this piece on the new ad that John Edwards has running in the Washington, D.C. area that features voters demanding that Congress keep standing up to Bush when it comes to Iraq.

Edwards' supporters will also be encouraged via online outreach to record their own voices making the case to Congress in the ad's script. According to the Edwards campaign, a new version with all the new voices will at some point be posted on the Web -- the idea being that the effort will snowball as more and more people add their voices to the chorus. Seems unique to us.     TPM

      Watch the ad.

Tags: John Edwards Bush Iraq Congress