NBC: GOP Candidates Can't Ride Our This War

NBC considered on Friday how the Iraq War and President Bush's 29% approval rating might "affect his party's prospects in the upcoming elections." White House correspondent David Gregory pointed out that, if historical trends hold true, a president as unpopular as Bush is unlikely to be succeeded by another Republican. However, the dilemma for potential candidates is that the president remains popular among Republican primary voters, making it difficult for them to distance themselves from him.

Tim Russert said there was nothing the president could do to improve Republican prospects in 2008 short of "a dramatic turnaround" in Iraq, politically as well as militarily, because the Democrats are not allowing the Republicans any middle ground. "You see what's happening in the Senate," Russert explained. "While those Republicans have broken publicly with the president, saying we need a change of policy, the Democrats aren't having anything of the sort. They're forcing them to vote simply 'withdraw' or 'not withdraw.'"

Russert concluded that although the president just wants to run out the clock, Congressional Republicans will have to face the voters in 2008. "They cannot wait and ride this war out," he said.

(Can't help but wonder, when Bush and Cheney set out to destroy The New Deal the Great Society and grab power like rabid bulldogs, did they know they would destroy the GOP as well? The entire country?)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Liberals More Dangerous Than Terrorists?

It's been apparent to us for years that so-called "libruls" are the greatest enemy of most Republicans, all neocons and, certainly, to the Bushites, according to them.

If the Bushites had gone after Osama bin Laden the way they went after John Kerry, bin Laden would have been in prison by now, instead of dead which is what he is, even though no one will admit it. Junior and Osama have always needed each other. Neither of them need or want "libruls." They both have nothing but contempt for liberals/progressives, and for many of the same reasons.

I, frankly, find it an honor to be called an enemy of the Neocons, as well as al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. They are the enemies of America.

Why Liberals are More Dangerous than Terrorists by John R Moffett http://www.opednews.com

Think about it. Terrorists are an absolute necessity for furthering the Bush regime’s plans. Without terrorists, they could not justify Afghanistan, Iraq, torture, illegal spying on US citizens, stripping away habeus corpus rights, Guantanamo, outing Valerie Plame, or any of the other debacles they have foisted upon America and the world.

There is only one thing standing it their way, preventing them from doing whatever they think will bring them more power and wealth.

Liberals.

In the absence of a functioning media to inform the public, liberals and progressives are the only thing standing in the way of a complete power grab by the neo-cons. This makes them far more dangerous than terrorists.

Indeed, the terrorists are a necessary part of their plans, so terrorists must not be brought to justice (think Osama Bin Forgotten).

Further, liberals threaten to bring back fiscal responsibility, including higher taxes on the wealthy, which is akin to a “war on wealth”, according to Kudlow the Crackpot on CNBC.

Liberals threaten their plans to dismantle government, deregulate business, wage endless and highly profitable wars, and control the strings of power in perpetuity. Terrorists aren’t a threat, they are a critical tool… a prop… a crutch.

Liberals, on the other hand, are the most dangerous thing in the world.

http://www.factinista.org/

Dr. John Moffett is an active research neuroscientist in the Washington, DC area, who has published articles on the nervous and immune systems. Dr. Moffett is also the author and webmaster of the political opinion website www.Factinista.org.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Another Gooper Set To Bail on Bush

This should have happened years ago.

What do we pay these people for exactly?

Republican Snowe, Saying `Tide Has Turned,' Backs Withdrawal

Laura Litvan
Mon Jul 9, 6:08 PM ET

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, saying the political ``tide has turned'' on the Iraq war, backed forcing President George W. Bush to withdraw U.S. troops and
predicted that more Republicans will abandon his war policy.

Snowe, of Maine, said that she is likely to support at least one of several Democratic amendments to a defense policy measure that will demand a reduction in U.S. forces.

``We have to set it in motion,'' she said of a withdrawal.


Snowe's decision, five days after New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici called for a new U.S. military policy in Iraq, reflects the wavering support for Bush's war policy within the
president's own party in the Senate.

Until now, Snowe has indicated she would side with a Bush administration request that lawmakers wait until September when Army General David Petraeus, the lead U.S. commander in Iraq, is to give a report to Congress on the war's progress.

Bush administration officials sought today to lower expectations about a report on the Iraq war that Bush is to send to Congress by July 15, saying it was unrealistic to expect the
study would show significant progress in meeting military and
political goals.

Snowe said she is considering lending her support to an amendment, still being drafted by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, which would
require troop withdrawals to begin within 120 days.

Snowe said she changed her stance after seeing few signs of progress in Iraq in recent months, and after learning of the death of another U.S. soldier from her home state.

Lugar, Voinovich

Republican Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, and George Voinovich of Ohio have also recently called for a change in
direction in Iraq in recent weeks.

Six Senate Republicans are backing legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee that implements
the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.

While it doesn't set a deadline for withdrawal, it aims to create conditions that could lead to a redeployment of U.S. troops as early as the first quarter of next year.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Julianna Goldman in Washington at
Jgoldman6@bloomberg.net ,
and Laura Litvan in Washington at
llitvan@bloomberg.net

Copyright © 2007 Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.

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They Thought They Were God's

They are going to find out they are anything but....

A BuzzFlash Editorial

In mythology, the Greek Gods dealt harshly with those who thought that they had the power of Gods. That’s what we learned in high school, isn’t it?

We were reminded of that when we re-read the infamous quotation of an unnamed – as always – "senior Bush aide" who boasted to author Ron Suskind:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Suskind calls this a revelatory moment about the Bush Administration – and indeed it was.

The quotation encompasses a hubris that is pre-Age of Enlightenment. More than that, it is an assumption of God-like powers by Cheney, Bush, Rove, (Rumsfeld while he was Secretary of Defense) and their underlings.

It is not that Bush believes that he is listening to the directives of God, as he has claimed. It is rather that he – and especially Cheney – believe that they have God-like powers.

No reality intrudes into the decision of a deity, because a deity creates reality, as revealed by the quotation that Suskind recalls.

Outing a CIA agent and threatening America’s national security, an endless series of failures in Iraq, hundreds of thousands killed, illegal wiretapping, shredding the Constitution, torturing people – and so many more actions (known and unknown) have defied the founding laws of America and basic standards of civilization. So many failures have been revealed in the broad daylight of reality, so many lies, so many broken promises, so much "collateral damage," so much failure based on empirical evidence.

None of this matters to the "Masters of the Universe," who in their own minds don’t follow the will of a specific God (the father of Christ, in their case), but who believe that they have a seat at the table of the Gods, that they walk among them.

Such is the horrifying dilemma that we face in the United States, that we are ruled by those, who have assumed that they have the power of Gods.

Reality is of no concern to them. They, like the Gods, claim to create reality.

In the Old Testament, the world was created out of chaos. And so the quotation above, cited by Suskind (in a 2004 New York Times article), refers back to the ability of God to create reality from unformed matter, only in this case the Bush/Cheney/Rove trio – and their support staff of Neo-Cons – believe that they are a God-force on earth.

In ancient mythology, those who tried to usurp the power of the Gods were smote, destroyed for their hubris.

Today, in this glorious nation, our recourse for dealing with those who believe themselves deities above the rule of law, and scornful of the Age of Enlightenment that produced our Constitution, is called impeachment.

Suskind began his 2004 article, written prior to that year’s presidential election, with this quotation from a Reagan Republican critical of Bush:

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that "if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3." The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

"Just in the past few months," Bartlett said, "I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do." Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican, who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: "This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded; they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."

Yes, it is possible that Bush is just the Christian fundamentalist mirror side of Osama bin Laden. No action is to be regretted because all actions are divinely sanctioned, for both of them.

But more likely, in the last few months, as the evidence of illegal behavior and justification for endless war has unfolded, it has become clearer that Bush and Cheney are not under the perception that they are carrying out a divine decree. Although Cheney never even used the pretense of acting on behalf of another God, he has always simply acted as if he were a God. Instead, they are divine directors themselves at the moment of recreating the world.

At the same time, Bush has been virtually disinterested in actually pursuing bin Laden, who is the person that got Bush on his war obsession in the first place.

America is a nation that was created to welcome people of all faiths, but not people who assume the power of Gods. America is the product of the post-Enlightenment age, an evolutionary advancement from the religious status quo of the Middle Ages, in which faith defined the social and political order.

We are free to worship – or not worship – whatever God we please.

But, under the rule of law, we are accountable to the three branches of government, the Constitution, and the judicial system created back during the American Revolution.

It was a Revolution indeed, not a devolution to a distant past that rejected rational thinking.

We elect a President and Vice President in the United States, not men who assume that they have the power of Gods.

It is time for the Democratic run Congress to bring this government back to earth and, once again, make it a nation "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Gooper Double Standard and More Crap

Can't help but wonder how old Lou Dobbs Feels about Amnesty for Libby?

---

$5.99
Proceeds go to the La Grange, TX animal shelter

http://www.cafepress.com/1408dna

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Quotes

"Bush is still running a no-fault foreign policy. Iraq is a quagmire, a tragedy of accumulated errors that may be unparalleled in American history. Yet the president has not held a single member of his national-security team publicly responsible for any of those errors. Seen in that light, the president's
commutation of Libby's sentence could hardly be less surprising."
-- Michael Hirsh, Link

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O'Reilly dropped in DC

smirkingchimp.com

Excerpt:
Yesterday, O'Reilly's Washington, D.C. radio station (WJFK,106.7 FM) dropped his show.
I'm sure on Monday when he returns from vacation, the No-Spinster, who is never shy about
telling us about the failure of liberal radio, will be telling them about his own.

Oh, if he does mention it he'll say that liberal talk isn't all that hot in Washington either.
Of course, if I have my math right, "isn't hot" is a lot better than "not at all."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

'L.A. Times' Finds Two More GOP Senators Breaking With Bush on War

Now we're getting into dangerous territory for Bush and Cheney, or for the rest of us. us

'L.A. Times' Finds Two More GOP Senators Breaking With Bush on War:

NEW YORK While much of the media on Friday focused on two new Republican defections from the White House on the war in Iraq -- namely, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Jerry Doolittle -- the Los Angeles Times found a couple more.

Staff writer Noam N. Levey secured quotes to this effect from two previously hawkish GOP senators.

'It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy,' said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. 'Our policy in Iraq is drifting.'

Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who had helped lead the effort against Democratic restrictions on the 'surge,' said: 'We don't seem to be making a lot of progress.' It is vital to have 'a clear blueprint for how we were going to draw down,' he added.

Massive Effort by GOP to Supress Voter Turn-out from 2004 to 2006

Out of all the many Gooper sins and crimes, this one makes me the angriest.

After all we went through to assure the right to vote for every American, especially African Americans in the deep south in the 60s, now the GOP is trying everything in their power to re-create barriers to voting for minorities, ethnic groups and poor people, who are likely to vote Democractic.

I guess this really says about all that needs to be said about a political party, any political party, when they feel the need to attempt to supress the vote in order to win.

If a voter ID is going to be required for every voter, then the state or federal government government should supply one, free of charge, other wise, the cost of the ID is nothing but a poll tax and we have already had that fight. The state cannot make anyone pay to vote.

Furthermore, states should not be allowed to continue to punish someone who is convicted of a felony and who has completed his/her sentence in accordance with whatever the court has ordered him/her to do. Ex-felons should not be deprived of the right to vote in any state of the union. That, alone, will stop a lot of these voter roll scrubbing scams, like the one used in Florida in 2000.

Sorry, but I just can't believe that there is such a huge number of dead people voting that it would change the outcome of a national election. The very idea is ludicrous.

And why, pray tell, should any political party have access to official state ducuments, like voter registration rolls is the first place? What possible good can come of it? We don't have to try to imagine the bad that can come of it, as the Goopers have managed to make it pretty clear what election skulduggery can come of it.

I think my head might just explode!

U.S. ATTORNEY FIRINGS
GOP links to vote-fraud push

Two nonprofits had a major role in Republican electoral strategy that included lobbying U.S. attorneys over alleged fraud in voter rolls.

By GREG GORDON
ggordon@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON -- A New Mexico lawyer who pushed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was an officer of a nonprofit group that aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pressing for tougher voter identification laws.

Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed.

Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.

He described Rogers, who declined to discuss the exchanges, as ``obsessed . . . convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it.''

Iglesias said he only recently learned of Rogers' involvement as secretary of the nonprofit American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund -- an activist group that defended tighter voter identification requirements in court against charges that they were designed to hamper voting by poor minorities.

Rogers, a former general counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party and a candidate to replace Iglesias, is among a number of well-connected GOP partisans whose work with the legislative fund and a sister group played a significant role in the party's effort to retain control of Congress in the 2006 election.

That strategy, which presidential advisor Karl Rove alluded to in an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, sought to scrutinize voter registration records, win passage of tougher ID laws and challenge the legitimacy of voters considered likely to vote Democratic.


THREE FRONTS

McClatchy has found that this election strategy was active on at least three fronts:

• Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.
• The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.
• The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

Nowhere was the breadth of these actions more obvious than at the American Center for Voting Rights and its legislative fund.


ALLEGED `HOT SPOTS'

Public records show that the two nonprofits were active in at least nine states. They hired high-priced lawyers to write court briefs, issued news releases declaring key cities ''hot spots'' for voter fraud and hired lobbyists in Missouri and Pennsylvania to win support for photo ID laws. In each of those states, the center released polls that it claimed found that minorities prefer tougher ID laws.

With $1.5 million in combined funding, the two nonprofits attracted some powerful volunteers and a cadre of GOP-allied attorneys.

Of the 15 individuals affiliated with the two groups, at least seven are members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and half a dozen have worked for either one Bush election campaign or for the Republican National Committee.

Alex Vogel, a former RNC lawyer whose consulting firm was paid $75,000 for several months' service as the center's executive director, said the funding came from private donors, not from the Republican Party.

One target of the American Center was the liberal-leaning voter registration group called Project Vote, which registered 1.5 million voters in 2004 and 2006.

The center trumpeted allegations that Project Vote's main contractor, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), submitted phony registration forms to boost Democratic voting.

In a controversial move, the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City announced indictments against four ACORN workers five days before the 2006 election, despite the fact that Justice Department policy discourages such actions close to an election.

Acorn officials had notified the federal officials when they noticed the doctored forms.

''Their job was to confuse the public about voter fraud and offer bogus solutions to the problem,'' said Michael Slater, the deputy director of Project Vote. ``And like the Tobacco Institute, they relied on deception and faulty research to advance the interests of their clients.''

Mark ''Thor'' Hearne, a St. Louis lawyer and former national counsel for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, is widely considered the driving force behind the organizations. Vogel described him as ``clearly the one in charge.''

Hearne, who also was a vice president and director of election operations for the Republican Lawyers Association, said he couldn't discuss the organizations because they are former clients.


PHOTO ID DEFENSE

But in an e-mail exchange, he defended the need for photo IDs.

''Requiring a government-issued photo ID in order to vote as a safeguard against vote fraud and as a measure to increase public confidence in the fairness and honesty of our elections is not some Republican voter suppression effort,'' Hearne said.

Hearne called photo IDs ``an important voice in election reform.''

Hearne and Rogers appeared at separate hearings before the House Administration Committee last year in Ohio and New Mexico. They cited reports of thousands of dead people on voter registration rolls, fraudulent registrations and other election fraud schemes.

As proof, Hearne, offered a 28-page ''investigative report'' on Ohio events in the 2004 election, and then publicly sent a copy to the Justice Department, citing ``substantial evidence to suggest potential criminal wrongdoing.''

So far, no charges have been filed.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

The GOP: An Empty Shell

The Party of No Ideas

The astonishing vacuousness of the GOP presidential campaigns.
Paul Waldman June 20, 2007 web only

Two years ago, in a much-discussed cover article for The New Republic called "The Case Against New Ideas," Jonathan Chait argued that Democrats should resist the pleas of pundits to look for their political salvation in new plans and visions. But as the 2008 race gathers speed, it appears to be the Republicans who have abandoned ideas -- new or otherwise -- in a quest for the GOP nomination that has been remarkable in its utter lack of substance, even by the standards of contemporary campaigns.

Think about it this way: Can you think of a single substantive proposal consisting of more than a sentence or two that any of the GOP candidates has made on the campaign trail? I'm not even talking about some lengthy policy paper or plan for overhauling a major sector of government.

But any idea to do something, anything, differently than the Bush administration has?

The closest one can come is the immigration bill that Congress is debating, of which John McCain is a co-sponsor. But one gets the impression that McCain wishes no one would bring it up, at least until the primaries are over and all those pesky nativists have nowhere to go but to the Republican nominee. Is there anything else the Republican candidates are actually proposing to do? Any discernable agenda coming from any of them? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

It's true that in practice, "ideas," particularly "new ideas," usually serve mainly as signifiers of change from the way things are currently done. This makes things harder on Republicans, as the party currently in charge of the executive branch. A Democrat can offer a relatively simplistic three-point plan for getting out of Iraq, and it sounds like a new idea. But for a Republican who still supports the war (as they all do, with the exception of Ron Paul), coming up with a "new idea" on Iraq would require some exceptional creativity. And this is not a particularly creative crew.

But one would think they'd come up with something, if nowhere else than on national security. This is where their strength is supposed to lie -- where their knowledge and experience are supposed to keep us all safe. But if anything, on national security the Republicans are even more substance-free than on domestic issues. The national-security discussion coming from the candidates resembles nothing so much as the dominance displays of lower primates ("Ooog! Ooog! Me double Gitmo! Ooog!"). Anyone looking for a serious analysis of our security challenges in the coming years will be sorely disappointed.

Likewise, one struggles to find a domestic issue in which the Republicans display any particular interest. Want to read Mitt Romney's health care plan? Don't worry -- you won't have to stay up all night slogging through mind-numbing details about employer mandates and risk pools.

Here it is, in its entirety:

The health of our nation can be improved by extending health insurance to all Americans, not through a government program or new taxes, but through market reforms.To repeat, that's the sum total of what Romney is offering on health care. And that's coming from the one GOP candidate who actually has experience on health insurance reform.

It isn't just Romney.

The entire "Issues" page of Rudy Giuliani's web site runs to a grand total of 788 words, including headings.

Barack Obama's health care plan alone is over six times as long (not including three pages of footnotes). And Obama is the one who keeps getting flack for being light on substance.

We should acknowledge that, from a political standpoint, there isn't much advantage in offering detailed proposals -- and a 20-page proposal certainly doesn't get you twice the benefit of a 10-page proposal. Political consultants routinely advise candidates against putting out position papers and detailed plans, the logic being that few will decide to vote for you based on the elegance of your blueprint for, say, reforming entitlements, but some people may just vote against you when they find something therein they don't like (helpfully pointed out for them by your opponent).

And one might also point out that Democrats have put a lot of energy into policy proposals in the past, to little discernible political effect (true to form, they've been pumping out the position papers this cycle, with John Edwards leading the way).

But a presidential candidacy has to be driven by some kind of policy rationale, some picture of where the candidate wants to take the government and the country. The level of detail isn't really the point, but you do have to offer the voters some sense of what is supposed to happen when you become president. With the GOP candidates, we get nada.

As with most of the Republicans' problems, this aversion to anything resembling an agenda can be traced in no small part to George W. Bush. Like a Bizarro World King Midas, everything Bush has touched has turned to garbage, with the consequence that the standard Republican agenda is almost irredeemably tainted by its association with the last six years.

Tax cuts? We tried that, and got huge deficits. Gettin' tough with terrorists? Not working out so well. Protecting the family? That song's getting older by the month. Nearly anything a Republican proposes can be answered with, "That's just another version of George W. Bush's plan for [insert issue here]. We don't need more Bush."

So every Republican candidate is probably dreading the moment in the general election debate when the Democratic nominee points to him and says, "If you're looking for four more years of George W. Bush, there's your guy." The clips for the ads have already been chosen: John McCain hugging Bush at a 2004 rally; Giuliani saying "Thank God George W. Bush is our president" at the GOP convention in New York.

According to an internal memo obtained in February by the Boston Globe, the Romney campaign's plan to distinguish their candidate from the president comes down to "intelligence." Hey, if it worked for Adlai Stevenson …

What Republicans have always understood better than their Democratic counterparts is that even though presidential campaigns are won on personality, issues are the vehicle through which personality arguments are made -- or as Mark Schmitt put it, "It's not what you say about the issues, it's what the issues say about you."

Once upon a time, John McCain's support of campaign finance reform communicated that he was a courageous reformer willing to antagonize entrenched interests to clean up the system. In 2000, Al Gore was apparently convinced by his advisors that global warming was a loser of an issue, so he never talked about it, depriving himself of an opportunity to show himself as passionate and visionary. The dynamic works in the negative too: John Kerry's complex position and history on Iraq enabled the "flip-flopper" charge to take hold. In each case, the issue offered voters a concrete way to understand the candidate's character (accurately or otherwise).

The Iowa caucuses are still seven months away, and it's entirely possible that the next few months will see a flurry of policy ideas from the Republican candidates. But in the meantime, GOP voters are being treated to a campaign of truly astounding vacuousness.

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Bloomberg Leaves GOP.

Is he running as an independent?

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaves GOP
By SARA KUGLER,
Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 19, 7:46 PM ET

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday switched his party status from Republican to unaffiliated, a stunning move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race.

The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the GOP for his first mayoral run, said the change in voter registration does not mean he is running for president.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," he said in a statement.
Despite his coyness about his aspirations, the mayor's decision to switch stokes speculation that he will pursue the White House, challenging the Democratic and Republican nominees with a legitimate and well-financed third-party bid.

Bloomberg has an estimated worth of more than $5 billion and easily could underwrite a White House run, much like Texas businessman Ross Perot in 1992. Bloomberg spent more than $155 million for his two mayoral campaigns, including $85 million when he won his second term in 2005.

The 65-year-old mayor has fueled the presidential buzz with increasing out-of-state travel, including New Hampshire last weekend; a greater focus on national issues and repeated criticism of the partisan politics that dominate Washington.

"The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy," he said in a speech Monday at the start of a University of Southern California conference about the advantages of nonpartisan governing.

A Bloomberg entry would roil the already volatile and wide-open race to succeed President Bush.

"If he runs, this guarantees a Republican will be the next president of the United States. The Democrats have to be shaking in their boots," said Greg Strimple, a Republican strategist in New York who is unaligned in the race.

The belief among some operatives is that Bloomberg's moderate positions would siphon votes from the Democratic nominee. Others say it's not clear and his impact would depend on the nominees.

Former Democratic Party Chairman Donald Fowler said Bloomberg would be "a disturbing factor to both parties," but the mayor would probably draw more Republican votes simply because "Republicans are more disenchanted than Democrats."

"Democrats are pretty happy with their candidates," Fowler said. "The Republicans are absolutely in disarray."

He called Bloomberg "an exceptionally capable guy" who is "hard-nosed and accomplished," but argued that the obstacles for a third-party candidate are so daunting that it would be nearly impossible for Bloomberg to win.

In 1992, Perot captured 19 percent of the popular vote as Democrat Bill Clinton seized the presidency from incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush. Independent Ralph Nader played the spoiler in the 2000 race, taking votes from Democrat Al Gore in a disputed election won by President George W. Bush.

Most polls find Bloomberg drawing votes from Republicans.

"He could have a significant impact on the campaign," said independent pollster Scott Rasmussen. "Nationally there's a significant segment of the electorate that would give serious consideration to Bloomberg as a candidate."

Strategists say he could mount a third-party campaign by stressing that he is a two-term mayor in a Democratic city and that he built his reputation as a political independent, social moderate and fiscal conservative.

Throughout his 5 1/2 years as mayor, Bloomberg has often been at odds with his party and Bush. He supports gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and stem cell research, and raised property taxes to help solve a fiscal crisis after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But he never seemed willing to part with the GOP completely, raising money for the 2004 presidential convention and contributing to Bush and other Republican candidates.

Just last year, he told a group of Manhattan Republicans about his run for mayor: "I couldn't be prouder to run on the Republican ticket and be a Republican."

On most occasions, Bloomberg has rolled his eyes at the suggestion that he might one day be a presidential contestant. But during a holiday party with City Hall staffers last December he performed a Bruce Springsteen rendition of "Born to Run."

Appearing Monday at Google Inc.'s California campus, Bloomberg teased questioners about a presidential bid, refusing to rule out the prospect but repeating that he plans to serve out his term through 2009. And he didn't debunk a report that he talked about an independent presidential bid with former Sen. David Boren, D-Okla.

Asked about a hypothetical independent candidate entering the race, Bloomberg launched a broad critique of the Bush administration and Congress and lamented the presidential debates to date.

"I think the country is in trouble," Bloomberg said, citing the war in Iraq and America's declining standing globally.

"Our reputation has been hurt very badly in the last few years," he said. "We've had a go-it-alone mentality in a world where, because of communications and transportation, you should be going exactly in the other direction."

His entry into the campaign would give the presidential contest a decidedly New York flavor, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York senator on the Democratic side, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani on the Republican.
___
Associated Press Writers Liz Sidoti, Jim Kuhnhenn and Libby Quaid in Washington contributed to this report.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Has fear-mongering reached the end of the line, with Americans?

Jeebus, let's hope so.

I'm surprised its effectiveness lasted this long. I guess I always thought that Americans were made of better stuff. I never believed that Americans were afraid of their own shadows, but the news media keeps telling us how afraid we are and many of us buy it.

Amazing and sad.

Fear-Mongering Giuliani Losing Ground to Clinton

Is the American voting public finally getting fed up with Republican politicians who continue to spew the infuriating and offensive rhetoric that the Iraq war and the 9/11 attacks are connected?

Are they sick and tired of the GOP's playing the politics-of-fear game?

If a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is any indication, the answer is yes.

Back in March, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani led Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY) 47%-42%. The new numbers are in, and the table has turned on Giuliani, as he now trails Hillary 48%-43%, and has seen former Tennessee Senator and TV star Fred Thompson hot on his trail, leapfrogging over McCain into second place among GOP candidates.

What's causing this downturn for the GOP's most famous crossdresser?

In the recent Democratic debate, Clinton came off extremely polished, poised and presidential. Her star is rising.

To the contrary, at the recent GOP debate, Rudy, like his fear-mongering counterpart Sen. John McCain (AZ), seemed utterly delusional and out of touch. Unbelievably, both McCain and Giuliani continue lying through their teeth about the origins and justifications for the war, and the need to continue the carnage. Despite the fact that four years after the invasion not one reason the Busheviks gave for toppling Saddam has been proven out (WMD, ties to Al Qaeda, Yellowcake uranium purchases, etc), Giuliani still invokes the 9/11 attacks at every possible turn, especially when justifying his delusional position on the war.

Despite the facts on the ground that would indicate the war is out of control, that the Bush "surge" has been a lesson in futility, and that victory is but a fantasy, Giuliani's been pounding the hawkish table on this debacle. And it's all about fear, fear, fear. Big bad scary terrorists are swallowing up Iraq. "We gotta fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" is the popular refrain of the GOP fear-mongers. "If we pull out of Iraq they'll follow us home."

Puh-leeze. Somebody get me a barf bag.

Apparently voters are finally sick of this deceptive rhetoric, and it shows in Rudy's numbers.

Let's get it straight: the invasion of Iraq was planned well before the 9/11 attacks. The attacks simply gave the insane White House Iraq Group the justification they were looking for to bring down Saddam.

We are not fighting the 9/11 terrorists in Iraq.

95% of those we're fighting are Iraqi insurgents who themselves are embroiled in civil war.

There was no connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq. No alliance between Saddam and Al Qaeda. In fact, the secular Saddam hated the Muslim extremists, and vice-versa with bin Laden. If we pull out of Iraq, we face no threat whatsoever from Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites "coming to America to kill us."

These factions--the Iraqi people--do not want us in their country. Statistics published in Sunday's NY Times show that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis believe their country is headed in the wrong direction. What does that say four years, $300 billion and 3400 dead U.S. soldiers later?

This relentless morphing of 9/11 into Iraq has finally disgusted voters to the point that those who continue to be guilty of the deception--Giuliani and McCain in particular--are being pounded to the pavement. I guess if you insult the intelligence of the American people long enough, they will eventually come back swinging.

Let's hope the rejection of these shameless fear-mongers continues unabated.

On another subject......we could use your help at The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated in my wife's honor to help carry out her spirit and passion, with the goal of assisting women filmmakers. As you may know, Adrienne was brutally killed in NYC on November 1, 2006. Through the Foundation, her commitment to filmmaking lives on. We've finalized a scholarship with NYU's Tisch School of the Arts/Kanbar Institute of Film; and grants with Columbia University, American Film Institute, NY Women in Film and Television, the Independent Feature Project, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Other initiatives will follow.

Please visit our website to learn more about our mission and to make a donation. Every little contribution helps preserve Adrienne's legacy, and to help create something positive out of this horrible tragedy. Thank you.

Adrienne's film "Waitress" opened in theatres May 2nd to incredible rave reviews from the NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, People, Entertainment Weekly, Ebert & Roeper ("Two Thumbs Up"), Leonard Maltin and more. Since then, it's been playing to packed audiences across America, and is currently #6 in America. It's a truly wonderful film that you're sure to love. A link to the trailer is below.

Enjoy.http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/waitress/trailer/

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Post-Bush GOP: Pathetic....and dangerous

By Brent Budowsky

The Republican presidential candidates have a big problem, which is why they spent the last debate criticizing George Bush.

Consider what these presidential candidates said about the incompetence, mismanagement and negligence of George Bush’s failures for the first four years of the Iraq war.

The core problem for Republican presidential candidates is this: They are forced to continue to support the escalation of the war, while they are forced to appeal to a hard-core, right-wing base that is far out of touch with American opinion.

What do they do? They start talking about the option of dropping nuclear bombs on Iran.

Everybody who believes this is what Americans want, a new war in the Middle East and our country dropping nuclear bombs, raise your hands.

Make no mistake: Iran is a problem and major multinational action to prevent Iran from being a nuclear power and from giving military aid to terrorist or hostile groups is needed.

Dropping nuclear bombs? This is certifiable, both as a lunatic policy idea and an example of why the United States has become so alienated in world opinion.

Throughout the free world, among America’s best friends, George Bush and his policies are widely despised at great damage to our credibility, our security and our worldwide role of moral leadership.

This kind of far-out, nut-case perversion of conservatism has nothing to do with Ronald Reagan and nothing to do with traditionally accepted policies that both Republican and Democratic presidents have historically agreed on.

What happens when the pundit-appointed savior of the Republicans, Fred Thompson, is asked to explain his desire for regime change in Iran and exactly how he expects to achieve it? Does he want another Middle East war, and which branch of the military service does he plan on using?

If not, besides dinner-party talk for neoconservatives and their discredited ideas, what does he mean?

Does Fred Thompson really believe it is honorable, patriotic and moral to be lying under oath, or risking the lives of our covert agents fighting against terrorists, by disclosing their identities?

This latest business of Republicans seeking to follow George Bush as commander in chief — hinting, implying or threatening to drop nuclear bombs on Iran — is another example of a party totally divorced from national security reality and American public opinion.

Dropping nuclear bombs? If Republicans believe that is what Americans want in the post-Bush era, and if they believe that is the way for America to regain our leadership of the free world, that is the stuff that Democratic landslides are made of.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Rethuggery In Conn.

HARTFORD, Conn. — A legislative leader was arrested Friday on charges that he tried to have a businessman at the center of a federal racketeering probe arrange to threaten someone the senator believed was abusing a relative.

State and federal authorities said Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca in 2005 sought help from James Galante, a Danbury trash hauler currently awaiting trial on 72 counts of tax fraud, racketeering, threatening and extortion.

"When you approach someone who is alleged to be a member of organized crime or affiliated with organized crime and you ask for this help, and you slip a note to them in a diner as opposed to even having a conversation, I think it's fair to draw an inference that you don't exactly have the best of intentions," U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Friday.

DeLuca, a Republican from Woodbury, was booked on a misdemeanor charge Friday of second-degree conspiracy to commit threatening. He was scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Waterbury Superior Court.

DeLuca, 73, said in a written statement that he made a bad decision and was embarrassed by his actions.

"I tried to protect a family member who was vulnerable, who was in a physically abusive domestic relationship and who needed help," he said. "My family and I went to the police three times to get help for my relative, but the police said that they couldn't help because the victim wouldn't file a complaint."

DeLuca said he was frustrated by the situation and discussed it with Galante, whom he met a few years earlier when Galante made a large contribution to a charitable cause sponsored by DeLuca.

Authorities said that in April 2005 at a Woodbury diner, Galante passed DeLuca a note that asked, "Do you want me to have someone pay him a visit?"

DeLuca told Galante "yes" and gave Galante the name and address of the alleged abuser, authorities said.

An assault never happened. Prosecutors, who recovered the note in a search of Galante's home, said they stopped it by parking a police car in front of the house of a Galante associate who was to deliver an assault.

Hugh Keefe, Galante's attorney, said the charge seemed "like much ado about nothing."

"I hope (DeLuca) takes it to trial and wins, because it sounds like a stretch to me," Keefe said.

Neither DeLuca nor authorities identified the relative who was allegedly being abused.
The misdemeanor charge has a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a fine of $2,000.
____

Associated Press writer Pat Eaton-Robb in Rocky Hill contributed to this report.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

"Voter Fraud" is Costing This Nation

Only our Democracy......


The Cost of a GOP Myth
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; A15

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales clings to his job much longer, he may end up as the only remaining employee of the Justice Department. By resigning on Monday, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty joined Gonzales's chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson; the department's White House liaison, Monica Goodling; and Justice official Michael Battle, who oversaw the dismissal of federal prosecutors, on the list of Gonzalesites who've left the building. At this point, the number of U.S. attorneys dismissed for political reasons still exceeds the number of Justice officials who've left because of their involvement in dismissing those attorneys or dissembling about it, but the ratio is tightening.

By now, it's abundantly clear that a number of the U.S. attorneys whom Gonzales's minions sent packing didn't live up to Karl Rove's expectations in one crucial particular: They had failed to ring up convictions, or even mount prosecutions, for voter fraud. As Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein reported in Monday's Post, five of the 12 federal prosecutors either sacked or considered for sacking last year had been singled out by Rove and other administration officials for nonperformance on voter fraud. Amazingly, all five came from states -- Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and Wisconsin -- where Republicans were embroiled in tight election contests.

With the home office in Washington breathing down their necks, why did these experienced prosecutors fail to bring voter fraud indictments? The crime, after all, had become a major Justice Department concern. Starting in 2002, Justice required every U.S. attorney to designate a district election officer, whose job it would be to end this epidemic of electoral fraud. These officers' attendance was required at annual training seminars, where they were taught how to investigate, prosecute and convict fraudulent voters. The statutes were adequate; the investigators were primed, well funded and raring to go.

And nothing happened. For the simple reason that when it comes to voter fraud in America, there's no there there. Voter fraud is a myth -- not an urban or rural myth, as such, but a Republican one.

As a report authored this spring by Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College of Columbia University, for the voter-rights program Project Vote makes unmistakably clear, the government's failure to prosecute or convict more than a handful of people for voter fraud isn't for lack of trying. Since 2002, the Justice Department's Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative has, as Gonzales put it, "made enforcement of election fraud and corruption offenses a top priority." And yet between October 2002 and September 2005, just 38 cases were brought nationally, and of those, 14 ended in dismissals or acquittals, 11 in guilty pleas, and 13 in convictions. Though a Justice Department manual on election crime states that these cases "may present an easier means of obtaining convictions than do other forms of public corruption," federal attorneys have failed to rack up those convictions, for the simple reason that incidents of fraud have been few and far between.

As the Republican Myth has it, nothing is more fraught with fraud than voter-registration campaigns waged in working-class and poor neighborhoods that are largely black or Hispanic. According to the 2004 Census, 15 percent of blacks and Hispanics were registered during such campaigns; the figure for whites is just 9 percent. But of those 38 prosecutions that the Justice Department brought between 2002 and 2005, a grand total of two were for fabricating or falsifying voter registration applications. This qualifies as one of our smaller crime waves.

From Rove's perspective, however, a crackdown on voter registration campaigns in minority communities made cold electoral sense. Shortly after George W. Bush became president, Rove began to impress upon leading Republicans the importance of the nation's changing demographics -- that with the nation becoming steadily less white, Republican survival depended on winning a greater share of black and Hispanic voters. That, of course, was just one way to address the party's electoral problem. The other, in close races, was to suppress black and Hispanic turnout -- a task that would become far easier if the airwaves were buzzing with news of voter-fraud indictments. It was a task that required federal prosecutors who would indict first and ask questions later.

And thus, as has so often been the case in the Bush presidency, a government department was instructed to negate its raison d'etre. Just as consumer protection and environmental protection agencies were transformed into agencies protecting manufacturers and despoilers, so Justice -- whose imperishable glory was its role in extending the franchise to African Americans during the civil rights years -- was told that its new mission was to suppress the franchise. When you think of it, it's surprising that anyone still works there at all.

meyersonh@washpost.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

GOP In A Feeding Frenzy. Eat Their Own.

Thieves, murderers, exploiters and abusers always turn on each other, eventually.

Too bad it takes so long.

Conservative pundit Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday this morning criticized the wavering on support for the Iraq war by some Republicans as "extremely stupid."

"The idea that they will get credit for deserting the war at this point, they voted for the war, they voted to fund the war, now they're going to what? Vote for withdrawal, for surrender," he mocked. "Then they're going to go to voters, Republican congressmen, in 2008 and say, 'Hey, re-elect us!'"

"It's a ridiculous political calculation, as well as dishonorable one," he continued. "The Democrats are behaving terribly, but the Republicans are behaving foolishly."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Goopers Employ SOYA Tactic At 1600 Penn.

SAVE YOUR OWN ASS

Oh no, boys and girls, this ain't gonna fly.

That Dog won't hunt!

Been there, done that, got three tee-shirts.

Seems that it was a Rethug who leaked this to the media. Surprise, Surprise.

Tim Russert covered it with a certain breathlessness that should be reserved for a president actually stepping down, getting shot or impeached and found guilty.

This is great political theatre, but that is all it is. It is, no doubt, designed to make the Goopers seem moral, strong and in command. But how many of these same people have been suppoprting, covering up for and looking the other way for this administration for these past long, seemingly endless years?

Polls came out. The GOP in Congress are smelling something in the air. Their own rotting political corpses , not doubt.

They see the writing on the wall, finally, and they want to survive the Arbusto Administration.

Well, we tried to tell you people this before the first bombs fell on Iraq and you wouldn't listen. Loyalty to this nitwit president and his Vice was more important to you than this nation and its people.

So, you can flounce your over-paid, over-fed butts down Pennsylvania Avenue until the cows come home, but it won't matter.

We won't forget the last 6 years of zero meaningful oversight.

NBC News is reporting that a delegation of House members called on Pres. Bush yesterday in the private residence of the White House to inform him that he has lost all credibility on the war among their constituents. He was advised that he and his spokespersons should stop making claims about progress in Iraq altogether. One of the congressmen told him, “We need candor. We need honesty, Mr. President.”

Couple of things here: The Rethugs leaked this to that "Commie" channel, NBC? Why not Faux News?

These guys told the Murder Monkey that he is, essentially, a known liar and the people in their districts are sick and tired of being lied to, so he needs to leave the lying to the military?

“My district is prepared for defeat.”– GOP rep to Bush

Defeat? What defeat? We went there to find WMD and remove Hussein. There were no WMD and Hussein was done in December 2003. If we have lost, whatever the hell that means, it is because we out-stayed our welcome, if there was any, and I seriously doubt that there was, for a Bush led invasion and occupation. It has been almost 3 1/2 years since Saddam was captured. Still, you Goopers excepted one lie after another about why we were there in the first damn place and refused to do your damned jobs. The GOP is done.

Here’s a rough transcript of the NBC News report:

TIM RUSSERT: All eyes on the Republican Party. How long will they support the president’s position on the Iraq war. Yesterday may have been the defining, pivotal moment. At 2:30 in the afternoon, in the private quarters of the White House, the Solarium Room, 11 Republican congressmen had a private meeting with the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chief political advisor, Karl Rove, and White House Press Sec. Tony Snow and others.

Geeze Louise, Russert, how many defining, pivitol moments do these guys get? Lord, Timmy, get a freakin' grip. Nothing has happened yet, except some good political theatre. Wake me, when impeachment hearings begin, will ya?

This delegation was headed by Mark Kirk of Illinois and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania. It was, in the words of one of the participants, the most unvarnished conversation they’ve ever had with the president. Another member said he has met with three presidents and never been so candid. They told the president, and one said, quote, “My district is prepared for defeat. We need candor. We need honesty, Mr. President.”

Who the hell are these guys? I watch a lot of news, and I have no idea who the hell they are?

Oh, by the way, we could have used some candor and honesty before hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq, our treasury was emptied and the national debt soared.

Why the hell aren't you people candid with a president, any president, especially one from your own damnable party? What the hell do we pay you for?


The president responded, “I don’t want to pass this off to another president. I don’t want to pass this off, particularly, to a Democratic president — underscoring how serious the situation was.

That's the dead give-away, right there, Of course he wants to pass this mess-o-potamia off to the next president, especially a Democratic president.

How do I know that?

It has to do with life patterns. I know he wants to run from this mess the same way I knew Bill Clinton was lying when he said he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinski.. Life patterns...

[The] Republican congressman went on to say the word about the war and its progress cannot come from the White House or even you, Mr. President. There’s no longer any credibility. It has to come from Gen. Petraeus.

Let The Military Lie. Yeah, that's it. Let Petraeus do the lying. Nobody knows whether he is a Republican or not.

The meeting lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, and was, in the words of one, remarkable for the bluntness and no-holds-barred honesty in the message delivered by all these Republican congressmen.

Yeah, right. Is anyone buying this, even for a moment?

I feel a new reality being shoved down our colective throats: "Bush bad, GOP good." Give us 'til September, then will hang Petraeus out to dry.

Update: Crooks & Liars has video of Keith Olbermann’s report on this story on Countdown.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

The Media Are Trying To Create Reality Again

Memo To Media: Public Supports Dems' Confronting Of White House
By Greg Sargent bio

In a front page Washington Post article today by Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton about how the Democratic Congress is faltering, the reporters quote Leon Panetta making the case that Dems had better watch out and not be too confrontational with the White House:

"The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country," warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House. "It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted ... will pay a price."

Panetta, it appears, has become the go-to person for reporters eager to make the case that Dems are at risk of overreaching or failing. Indeed, it just so happens that this is the second time in just over a month that WaPo has gone to Panetta to get a quote arguing this. Funny coincidence, that.

But let's put that aside and ask a larger question: Is it really true that the public is fed up with partisanship and "sick and tired of the fighting," as Panetta says, and as David Broder and Joe Lieberman keep lecturing?

No doubt one could dig up polls showing that people don't like generically defined "fighting" or "gridlock." But here's another way to look at this: The polls show clearly that the public strongly supports efforts by Dems to confront Bush both on Iraq and on corruption. Check out the numbers in this recent Pew poll:

Do you think Democratic leaders in Congress are going too far or not far enough in challenging George W. Bush's policies in Iraq, or are they handling this about right?

Too far 23%
Not far enough 40%
About right 30%
Don't know/
Refused 7%

So 70% say that Dems are being appropriately or even insufficiently aggressive in challenging Bush.

Multiple polls show that solid majorities back Dem efforts to end the war -- efforts which by nature are confrontational and basically partisan, since the GOP more or less (with a few exceptions) continues to back Bush's Iraq policies.

What's more, multiple polls have also found that solid majorities support Dem efforts to probe GOP malfeasance -- also efforts which by nature are confrontational and partisan.

Bottom line: Asking whether the public opposes generic "partisanship" in the current environment is utterly meaningless.

Here's the deal: Bush and the GOP are doing a bunch of things. The American people don't like those things, and want them changed. But Bush and the GOP just keep on doing them, anyway. So Dems are the ones now trying to force Bush and the GOP to change.

In other words, the choice the public faces isn't between "fighting" and "gridlock" on the one hand, and "bipartisan cooperation" on the other. Rather, it's between (a) accepting the disastrous Bush/GOP status quo; and (b) backing Democratic efforts to change it. And the public supports the latter. Even though those efforts are partisan and confrontational. Is that really so hard to fathom?

*****************************
Update: A commenter below notes that "the public supports continuing pressure and a willingness to stand firm from the Democrats," but also that independents do believe bipartisanship "is the key to good public policy." Let me clarify: I don't have a problem believing that. The point is, "bipartisanship" is not on the menu. And faced with the choice they do have -- that is, between the status quo and Dem "fighting" to change it -- the public wants the latter.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Jeb, The GOP and NOLA's Faulty Water Pumps.

Is there any disaster, off which the Bushies and their pals won't find a way to make money.

Didn't Babs even make money off the Katrina disaster?

Looks like these people hand out no-bid contracts, even when they take bids.

Corps asked to explain pump contract
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found.

The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.

While it may not be a violation of federal regulations to adopt a company's technical specifications, it is frowned on, especially for large jobs like the MWI contract, because it could give the impression the job was rigged for the benefit of a certain company, contractors familiar with Corps practices say.

The Corps' January 2006 call for bids for 34 pumps used the wording on how the pumps should be built and tested, with minor changes, found in MWI catalogs.

The specifications were so similar that an erroneous phrase in MWI catalogs — "the discharge tube and head assembly shall be abrasive resistance steel" — also appears in the Corps specifications. The phrase should say "abrasion resistant steel." An incorrect reference to the type of steel that would be required apparently was also lifted.

Eugene Pawlik, a Corps spokesman in Washington, said the agency is working on a response to Vitter's letter.

MWI declined to discuss how it won the contract. GAO would not talk about its probe.

Richard White, a federal contracting expert, said it is "not unheard of for a spec to be copied, in particular in cases of emergency purchases."

"It's not a good practice, but it's not anything egregious, especially if the Corps allowed other companies to negotiate to change it," White said.

After Katrina swamped about 80 percent of the city, Congress appropriated $5.7 billion to rebuild New Orleans' flood protection systems. Vitter and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., have excoriated the Corps over its workmanship since Katrina.

In his letter to the commander of the Corps, Vitter said the bid solicitation for the pumps "includes specifications identical to those written and marketed by Moving Water Industries."

In addition, "the testing specifications are also identical to the testing specifications developed and authored by MWI."

A May 2006 memo by a Corps inspector working on the project, provided to the AP earlier this year, warned that the pumps were faulty and would not work if needed to remove water during a hurricane. GAO opened its investigation after the memo surfaced.

The Corps and MWI insist the pumps would have worked, but last year's mild hurricane season never put them to the test. The pumps have been overhauled and are being reinstalled.

The Corps withheld about 20 percent of MWI's contract price — including an incentive of about $5 million to deliver them by June 1, 2006 — until the flaws have been resolved. But the Corps also spent $4.5 million for six additional MWI pumps for use in troubleshooting the defective ones.

The Corps contract officer overseeing the January 2006 bid, Cindy Nicholas, was told about the copied specifications during a conference call with FPI Inc., a Florida company that also bid on the project, shortly after MWI was awarded the contract. A recording of the briefing was provided to the AP by FPI.

"Are you folks aware that the specifications that you folks put out was a copy of the specifications in the MWI catalog?" asked Bob Purcell, who was an FPI salesman at the time the bids were taken.

"No, I'm not aware of that," Nicholas replied.

Corps official Dan Bradley said during the briefing that consulting engineers had a hand in drawing up the specifications.

Purcell then complained: "We were forced to meet someone else's specifications in entirety." He said the consultants did not cooperate with FPI, and he charged that MWI was given "a head's up" about the job. That, he said, was evident by MWI's order for pump engines before the contract was even put out to bid.

"I don't know anything about that, sir," Nicholas responded. She said that if MWI ordered the engines ahead of time, "they took a big risk."

"Obviously it was a risk that paid off, let's put it that way. They must have had some assurance!" Purcell exclaimed.

"Not from me," Nicholas said.

MWI would not comment on the alleged order for pump engines before the award of the contract.

Purcell, a former MWI employee, is a plaintiff in a federal whistleblower lawsuit accusing MWI of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary pumping equipment. The U.S. Justice Department has joined the suit as a plaintiff.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Is The Current GOP Just Another Cult?

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_len_hart_070426_bush_is_on_a_mission.htm

April 26, 2007

Bush is on a Mission from God
By Len Hart


Typically, Bush encourages the belief that he alone speaks with God. Meanwhile, there is evidence that like all cults, the GOP, communicates to its base in code words designed to assuage the base and dupe the rest of us.

The attack on Social Security was of this form. So, too, the war of aggression in Iraq.

There is only one reason a political party would want to communicate with its membership using "code words": it wants to hide its real agenda. It wants to keep non-members in the dark. That the GOP has eschewed good English for propaganda and "code words" is a dead give away: the GOP is not a political party. It's a kooky cult.A very recent use of "code words" to communicate covertly with a cultist base, was found in a statement by Condi Rice:

"What we're seeing here ... are the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.""Birth pangs" is found prominently in scripture:

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs."
(Matthew 24:3-8 RSV)

It is fair to ask if Condi Rice, a "self-professed evangelical" is, in fact, communicating a message to Bush's whacked-out, Republican base, many of whom have tried to justify the US war against Iraq with scripture and vague, weird references to rapture.

Was Condo re-assuring the dogs of war who still support Bush?

It would be alarming to know just how many of these folk truly believe that Bush is on a "Mission from God" to bring about Armageddon and, hence, the rapture.

The GOP has been taken over by hard core extremists and religious ideologues.

I became aware of this in the early eighties. A state rep race used the term dynamic conservative to describe its candidate. I was curious -never having associated the word "dynamic" with conservatives. In this case, the code word dynamic conservative had been the product of a Chicago based political consulting firm that had been associated, at some point, with Congressman Phil Crane who had been, until his defeat in the elections of 2004, the longest-serving Republican member of the US House of Representatives.

Interestingly, Crane went to Congress in 1969, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld who had been appointed to a position in the Nixon administration.

I had thought the phrase -dynamic conservative -an oxymoron. Was the candidate dynamic? Or was he conservative? Contradictory? Well, focus groups don't have a problem with that. And neither, apparently, do cults.

There is a difference between mere jargon and code words, used by the GOP to both reveal and conceal. A code word is a signal to initiates, but a mask to everyone else.

Code words are designed to keep the public in the dark while GOP cultists communicate in code with one another. When Bush tried to destroy Social Security, he wished to reassure his radical base of robber barons and fanatics while concealing that fact from normal, hard working folk who depend upon Social Security.

How to do it?

Bush uses code words, understood by the base for what they are, but taken at face value by the rest of us. In this case, Bush's solution was the code word: privatization!

Admittedly, more odious and overt bigots have gone underground. And that is Bush's problem: how to communicate with them without giving the game away, without revealing to the world what he really is.

Both dynamic conservatism and compassionate conservatism deserve special mention. Neither label, of itself, is a sure indicator of cultism. Both, however, serve a single purpose. They are the face the candidate shows his base; they are the glitzy store front he shows the world.

It is significant that both labels came into being at about the same time -a post Watergate world when the GOP began to realize that if they simply told the truth, they would lose.

Lying, therefore, became GOP strategy.

It must be kept in mind that the GOP had been under siege during Nixon's Watergate scandal and again when Ford pardoned Nixon. The bunker mentality born of those times is most certainly a defining characteristic of cults.

There are others.

A cult is unquestioning in its commitment to a leader just as the GOP rank and file were unquestioning in their support of George W. Bush. Indeed, there were numerous billboards, presumably paid for by local GOP groups, which proclaimed Bush "Our Leader" or "The Leader". In another language that is "Der Führer".

As with any cult, the GOP leadership dictates how members think, act or speak. Until Iraq fell utterly apart, it was verboten to question, doubt, or disagree with "Der Führer". This was a time of "freedom fries", the Dixie Chicks boycott, and the orchestrated demonization of Michael Moore.

At this time many fundamentalists considered Bush to be "the Messiah" who had come again on a special mission from God to save humanity, or perhaps, to start Armegeddon. Even if that were true, I prefer the Blues Brothers. Like many another cult, the GOP is elitist -but to point this out is called culture war, a code word understood by the GOP's elitist base.

There are two senses in which the term culture war or cultural war is used. It was Pat Buchanan who first used the term cultural war to assure the religiously inclined that the opposition -liberals and Democrats -are evil:

There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself. And in that struggle for the soul of America, Clinton & Clinton are on the other side, and George Bush is on our side.-Pat Buchanan, 1992 Republican Convention

Hitler used the same, simple-minded tactic.

Aryan good; Jew bad!

There is yet another sense in which the GOP uses the term culture war to assure the affluent base that "greed is good". In this sense of the term, culture war immunizes Gordon Gekko wannabes from evil liberals, indeed, anyone possessing a concscience.

It is a warning to those who might be inclined to blow the whistle on GOP economic policy. To criticize improvident tax cuts as benefiting only the super-wealthy, for example, is labeled culture war. Merely labeling is enough to make weak-kneed Democrats fear and tremble.

In the GOP, as in any cult, "der Führer" is thought to be above the law.

Nixon said "...if the President does it, it is not illegal".

Bush has claimed similar "executive privileges" that are equally cultist in tone and effect, equally absurd. Because Bush is thought to be above the law, exempt from the restrictions of the US Constitution, the GOP has internalized an "us-versus-them" mentality. In smaller cults, this often leads to conflicts with society as a whole. The situation is complicated, however, when the cult leader, der Führer, occupies the Oval Office.

A cult will teach or imply that its ends justify any means. Means, for Bush and the GOP that enables and assists him, means trashing treaties, breaking international law, committing war crimes, perpetrating torture, waging wars of naked aggression. Like other cult leaders, Bush has often claimed that his "higher mission" justifies the various tortures and atrocities that have their origins inside the Bush bunker...uh..White House.

For example, Bush could only have been referring to tortures and/or summary executions in his 2003 State of the Union address:

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way -- they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. (Applause.)-George W. Bush, State of the Union, 2003

As far as anyone knows, none of those referred to by Bush received a trial. If so, it was a secret trial and therefore, a violation of international law and treaty. Or, Bush was simply lying through his teeth as he most certainly lied in his first debate with John Kerry. It was at the end of one of John Kerry's stronger moments when he explained that George W. Bush would prefer the people believe that it was Saddam Hussein who attacked the US. Bush snapped petulently: "Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that." Then he stumbled:
"Of course we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean bin Laden. He's isolated. Seventy-five percent of his people have been brought to justice."

Oh really?

The fact is there is no credible data on al Qaeda at all. Then or now. The CIA had estimated at the time that al Qaeda consisted of about two dozen operatives. 75 percent of two-dozen doesn't sound very impressive. But it does raise new questions about the US capture, detention and torture of the 3,000 detainees referred to by Bush in his address.

We have only Bush's word that any were connected in any way with al Qaeda.

Since Bush made his remarks, the tortures of Abu Ghraib have come to light. It is fair to ask if Bush had merely communicated to his understanding base, his cult of torture and atrocity. In any case, true to the cultist nature of this illegitimate regime, Bush would justify both lie and atrocity on these grounds: he was on a mission from God. Again, I prefer the Blues Brothers.

They didn't murder or torture anyone.

If Bush is on a mission from God so, too, the GOP which makes it all possible with its money and support. Those cult members in danger of getting caught are often thought to be justified in lying in order to protect "der Führer". This occurred during the Watergate scandal to protect Richard Nixon and it has happened during Bush's illegitimate occupation of the Oval Office.

There are many other characteristics of cults. I am confident that all apply to the GOP, a society apart where members are encouraged to obey "der Führer" without question even as his policies have proven disastrous for the people of America, indeed, the world. -

The Existentialist Cowboy

Authors Website:
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio: Len Hart is a Houston based film/video producer specializing in shorts and full-length documentaries. He is a former major market and network correspondent; credits include CBS, ABC-TV and UPI. He maintains the progressive blog: The Existentialist Cowboy

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free