Retired US generals, diplomats criticize Bush Middle East policy

Bush only pretends to listen to Generals and such. Actually, he doesn't give a flying rat's ass what anyone says, except Unka Dick, whom he cofuses with God.

Print Story: Retired US generals, diplomats criticize Bush Middle East policy on Yahoo! News:

A group of former diplomats and retired generals called on President George W. Bush to open negotiations with Iran, warning that the use of military force would have catastrophic consequences for the region.

The open letter signed by 21 former senior officials comes amid growing criticism of US refusal to deal directly with Iran and Syria despite crises in Iraq and Lebanon.

'As former military leaders and foreign policy officials, we call on the Bush administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and settle differences over the Iranian nuclear program,' the letter said.

'We strongly caution against any consideration of the use of military force against Iran. The current crises must be resolved through diplomacy, not military action,' it said.

It warned that an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for the region and for US forces in Iraq, further inflaming Muslim hatred and violence.

Among the signers were retired general Joseph Hoar, a former commander of US forces in the Middle East, and Morton Halperin, a former State Department director of policy planning.

Halperin accused the Bush administration of stifling debate on Middle East policy 'by accusing anybody that disagrees with it of being disloyal or somehow helping the terrorists.'

Attacks Aimed At GIs In Iraq On Rise

...and it is about to get worse....much worse.

Attacks Aimed At GIs In Iraq On Rise, U.S. Confirms Sharp Increase In Bombings; Car Bombs Kill 10 In Baghdad - CBS News:

U.S. Confirms Sharp Increase In Bombings; Car Bombs Kill 10 In Baghdad"

An expensive no-decision

We simply must get the big money out of politics, period!

WorkingForChange-An expensive no-decision:

WASHINGTON -- We are so accustomed to arguing about the decisions politicians make that we often forget about the importance of non-decisions.

'Non-decision making' is a wonderful concept introduced many years ago by the political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, who spoke of how demands for change 'can be suffocated before they are even voiced.'

Americans are on the verge of making a non-decision about how we pay for presidential campaigns. If Congress does nothing, a system that succeeded in limiting the impact of special interest money on elections for our highest office will collapse.

Opponents of campaign finance reform love to claim that the money-in-politics problem is insoluble. But the public financing of presidential campaigns, instituted in response to the Watergate scandals of the early 1970s, was that rare reform that accomplished exactly what it

Edwards says his vote on Iraq was wrong

I don't believe it was wrong to give a president the backing he needed to get the U.N. inspectors into Iraq and hold Saddam accountable.

What was a mistake, was giving THIS president permission to do anything, because he cannot be trusted.

Edwards says his vote on Iraq was wrong - Yahoo! News:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Former Sen. John Edwards said Thursday he made a mistake in 2002 when he voted to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq.

Chinese envoy tells U.S. to 'shut up'

Condi gets uninvited too Lebanon, Bush runs from protesters, as the Brittish second in command calls hinm, "crap," and China tells the U.S. to shut up.

Does anyone else see a pattern emerging?

Chinese envoy tells U.S. to 'shut up' - Yahoo! News:

LONDON - The United States should 'shut up' with its
concerns about China's growing military spending because the increase is no threat, a Chinese ambassador said Thursday.

Reaping and Sowing

It's high time for some reaping!

Reaping and Sowing:

The political ideology (or 'movement,' as they laughingly call it) that has been labeled 'conservative' for the last 30 years or so was built largely on lies and deceit, and that is why it's going down, and going down hard.

That sounds like a strong statement, but it's not. And if you doubt the assertion, think hard. The last truly honest conservative was Barry Goldwater, and he was soundly trounced by Lyndon Johnson, a true conservative who saw the writing on the wall and adopted the inevitability of civil rights for blacks, and the need for the government to do something about the rampant poverty that continued to thrive in pockets all over the country, and was thereby labeled 'liberal.'

The Goldwater defeat motivated the far right to attempt a different strategy; one in which they held the same beliefs as before, but couched them in more 'acceptable' language, so as to hide their true intent. In addition, they also adopted very subtle, but very strong racist overtones that definitely had to be hidden behind 'code words.' Richard Nixon's 'Southern Strategy' was a blatant attempt to exploit the racist feelings of those who objected to the federal government's actions on behalf of blacks, in order to ensure their civil rights, and to prevent discrimination. The 'Southern Strategy' (a phrase coined by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips) used the code word 'states' rights' to secure the Southern states as a stronghold for the Republican Party. The entire 'Southern Strategy' was basically dishonest, because it was a wink and a smile to Southern racist elements, in language that couched its true intent, as such intent would never have been found acceptable to most reasonable people.

ATF Strikes Bush's Words

Thank God, If we somehow manage to survive this nightmare, called the Bush administration, I do not ever wish to be reminded of it again.

ATF Strikes Bush's Words:

The letter said Bush's words -- 'We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail' -- 'remind us daily of the dedication and commitment with which we at ATF pursue our missions' of fighting terrorists and criminals.

But then Truscott left the agency, and deputy director Edgar A. Domenech , a career employee, became acting director. Although the idea of putting Bush's words on the entry originally came from the construction team and was approved up the ladder at ATF, GSA and apparently the White House, Domenech a week or so ago ordered that the project be dropped.

Was this politically related? Not at all, we were told yesterday. It was 'strictly a cost-savings measure,' ATF spokeswoman Sheree L. Mixell said. 'The removal of the cornerstone engraving is one of many cost-cutting measures we have made,' she said. 'These decisions are made daily,' she added, as officials try to trim costs by 'reevaluating noncritical items.'

USATODAY.com - Wiretap ruling affirms that presidents aren't monarchs

Unfortunately, Diggs-Taylor doesn't have the last word, even though her words were stright up right.

This will go all the way to the Scalitos, of Unitary Executive fame.

USATODAY.com - Wiretap ruling affirms that presidents aren't monarchs:

For the past five years, the Bush administration has operated as if the horrific events of 9/11 not only changed fundamental aspects of national security and public safety, but also changed the very nature of government.

GAO report stings Bush's faith-based initiative

They are probably ripping us off 40 ways from Sunday.

WorkingForChange-GAO report stings Bush's faith-based initiative:

The GAO study entitled 'Faith-Based and Community Initiative: Improvements in Monitoring Grantees and Measuring Performance Could Enhance Accountability' found that 'While officials in all 26 FBOs [faith-based organizations receiving federal grants] that we visited said that they understood that federal funds cannot be used for inherently religious activities, a few FBOs described activities that appeared to violate this safeguard. Four of the 13 FBOs that provided voluntary religious activities did not separate in time or location some religious activities from federally funded program services.'

The report also noted that '[L]ittle information is available to assess progress toward another long-term goal of improving participant outcomes because outcome-based evaluations for many pilot programs have not begun.'
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who along with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., requested the report, said 'The Bush administration has failed to develop standards to verify that faith-based organizations aren't using federal funds to pay for inherently religious activity or to provide services on the basis of religion.'

Boguswar on three fronts.

I am sure that Jesus would be so proud! (Snark)

Disinformation :: The gateway to the underground - news, politics, conspiracy and weirdness.:

'Five years after September 11, it is possible to take stock of what parts of the battle against terrorism are succeeding and failing, and why. The thwarting of an elaborate terrorist plot against trans-Atlantic flights last week prevented what some maintain could have been a second September 11-style attack. Regardless of what the would-be perpetrators were actually capable of, credit goes to the intelligence, law enforcement and transportation security agencies that uncovered the plan, caught the culprits, and protected the public.
'The rest of the picture is bleaker. The announcement that more than 3,400 Iraqi civilians died in unrest in the month of July is a shocking reminder that the world's most powerful military has, let's face it, failed in its chief aim of stabilizing Iraq. The Israel Defense Forces' inability to vanquish Hezbollah in a month-long fight further shows that when in on-the-ground combat, terrorist groups can stand up to the world's most advanced armies.'

CNN.com - Opium hits record in Afghanistan - Aug 16, 2006

CNN.com - Opium hits record in Afghanistan - Aug 16, 2006:


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record levels -- up by more than 40 percent from 2005 -- despite hundreds of millions in counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.
The increase could have serious repercussions for an already grave security situation, with drug lords joining the Taliban-led fight against Afghan and international forces.
A Western anti-narcotics official in Kabul said about 150,000 hectares (370,650 acres) of opium poppy was cultivated this growing season -- up from 104,000 hectares (257,000 acres) in 2005 -- citing their preliminary crop projections. The previous highest recorded figure was 131,000 hectares (323,700 acres) in 2004, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

'It is a significant increase from last year ... unfortunately, it is a record year,' said a senior U.S. government official based in Kabul, who like the other Western officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

Final figures, and an estimate of the yield of opium resin from the poppies, will be clear only when the U.N. agency completes its assessment of the crop, based on satellite imagery and ground surveys. Its report is due in September.
The United Nations reported last year that Afghanistan produced an estimated 4,500 tons of opium -- enough to make 450 tons of heroin -- nearly 90 percent of world supply.

For the GOP, a Heartland Plunge

WTF do you expect?

Americans are busy, not stupid, in the majority.

Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Rice, not to mention the NeoCon egg-heads, who are always slithering about, are about to get Nuremburged!

Election stealing will be right behind that, in issues of importance, if we have anything to say about it, at all.

For the GOP, a Heartland Plunge:

"COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When the Columbus Dispatch's respected poll recently reported that Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was trailing Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland by 20 points in the race for governor of Ohio, there was dismay but no shock among his fellow Republicans. Those I interviewed during a recent visit here said they had seen it coming for a long time.

But it is a political earthquake. Democrats have not been able to win a single statewide office in Ohio for most of the past decade -- and are completely shut out of power in the capitol at this moment. Strickland has never run a statewide campaign and is trying to become the first person since Rutherford B. Hayes to go from Congress to Ohio's governorship. Blackwell has won election in Ohio and led the successful campaign that gave George Bush this state -- and the presidency -- over John Kerry in 2004.

(Bull-shit! Do you ever read anything that doesn't fit with you world view?)

NRSC Takes Lieberman

Does anybody not see what's happening here?

The New York Observer Politicker: NRSC Takes Lieberman:

It's no coincidence that a purposeful silence has replaced the well-publicized calls from Republicans last month for no-hope GOP Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger to make way for someone more credible.

The state and national party, it seems, have concluded that they can't succeed in Connecticut this year under any circumstance, and would rather see Joe Lieberman win -- which polls show he's likely to do, absent a credible Republican candidate -- than risk handing the election to Democrat Ned Lamont.

This morning, a source at the National Republican Senatorial Committee confirmed in a phone interview that the party will not help Schlesinger or any other potential Republican candidate in Connecticut, and it now favors a Lieberman victory in November.

'We did a poll and there is no way any Republican we put out there can win, so we are just going to leave that one alone,' said the NRSC source.

Instead, the NRSC is pulling for Lieberman over Ned Lamont, who rode an anti-war message to a victory in the Aug 8 primary.
'
Most Republicans would agree that he'd clearly be a better choice than Lamont,' said the source.
--Jason Horowitz

Why I Don't Live In Israel

This is the kind of article we love.

It is personal and, therefore, lends itself to lived history, from which wisdom, eventually, emerges, unless your government kills you first.

AlterNet: Why I Don't Live In Israel:

This war is not different from the others. It's just the same. It reminds us of the wars that preceded it. I was born into the Yom Kippur War and lived through two other 'official wars': the first Lebanon war, the first Gulf war. I remember as a kid: lists of soldiers killed in battle read on the radio after the hourly news; knowing the next name could be one of my friends' brothers or fathers. I remember as a teenager: sirens, gas masks, and fireworks shows of patriot missiles chasing Scuds in the sky. I remember as a mom: driving in the farthest possible lane from a city bus, just in case it was the one carrying the suicide bomber that day.
Wars are all the same and this one is no different. For Israelis, they all go back to 'that' war. That war that turned my great-grandparents into smoke, that horrible, monstrous act of genocide that keeps creeping up on us.

Jews were not a party in World War II. They were victims -- they had no army and no choice. But Israel does have an army and a choice. Israel is choosing to endanger its citizens and soldiers, to ruin once again the lives of many civilians in Lebanon, in order to prove its strength and to keep 'that' from happening again.

This is What Democracy Looks Like?

There is no more USA. Now, it is some twisted image of itself: Empty, spiritless and, quite frankly, damned, if her people do not rise up for decency and real American principles.

This is What Democracy Looks Like?:

Celebrity is no substitute for an honest and vigorous debate on a matter as fundamentally important as war.

That is what antiwar Senate candidate, Jonathan Tasini, told New York Times columnist Bob Herbert last May in describing his rationale for making a Democratic Party primary run against incumbent-Goliath, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Tasini has since qualified for the ballot with 40,000 signatures, far surpassing the required 15,000, and he is polling at a surprising 13 percent (or, perhaps not so surprising, if one considers the outrage over Iraq.) But, despite Tasini's strong run, the voters of New York might not get that vigorous debate after all.

Cable news station, NY1, owned by Time-Warner, declared that Tasini canno participate in its televised debate series because he hasn't raised the arbitrarily required $500,000. Tasini nearly triples the 5 percent polling requirement but he doesn't have the cash flow NY1 is looking for to legitimize his candidacy.

Now there's democracy in action for you: only the wealthy or those who raise enough money are welcome in this contest of ideas, no matter how critical the moment in our nation's history and no matter how many voters pledge their support.

As the New York Post (whose owner Rupert Murdoch held a July fundraiser for Senator Clinton) points out, 'Traditionally, the test of seriousness in a statewide candidate in New York is successful completion of the grueling ballot-access process. It ain't easy, to put it mildly - but Tasini has made that grade.'

The Post editorial goes on to argue that '70 percent of New York Democrats consider Iraq to be a major Election Day issue.' Don't the citizens of New York deserve to hear a range of views now that so many have expressed support for Tasini's candidacy?

Hizbullah Has Achieved What Arab States Only Dreamed of

I don't pretend to be a middle east expert, but it seems like Israel and the U.S. are losing bigtime.

Hizbullah Has Achieved What Arab States Only Dreamed of:

The sixth Arab-Israeli war, as some have called it, has ended in the first real setback for Israel's deterrent power

by David Hirst

There was nothing new about the broad objective behind Israel's war on Lebanon: through the destruction of Hizbullah it was to wreak fundamental change in a strategic, political and military environment that it had come to regard as menacing to its future. Nothing new about its methods either: the use of massive violence not merely against its military adversary but against the civilians and the infrastructure of the country in which it operates. Or about its official justification: seizing upon one single act of 'terrorist' violence from the other side as the opportunity to strike at the whole 'terrorist' organisation that was responsible for it. Or about the international support, even outright collaboration, it enjoyed, although in the case of the US and Britain this support was unprecedented in its partisan degree and in the perception of the vast dimensions, nature and menace of the 'enemy' against which Israel was waging war. For Condoleezza Rice the 'root causes' of the Lebanese crisis lay not on the Israeli side but in the wider Arab and Muslim world: Hizbullah was but the cutting edge of 'global terror', of the Islamic fanaticism that nurtured it, and of those states, Iran and Syria, that succour these forces for their own purposes, whether inspired by ideology or realpolitik.

Top Chinese Diplomat Tells US to 'Shut up' on Arms Spending

In all of my cold-war years, I have never heard a U.S. administration so back-handed.

This should tell us something, don't you think?

Top Chinese Diplomat Tells US to 'Shut up' on Arms Spending:

China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, throwing diplomatic language to the wind, has told the United States in no uncertain terms to 'shut up and keep quiet' on the subject of Beijing's growing military spending.

Top Chinese Diplomat Tells US to 'Shut up' on Arms Spending

In all of my cold-war years, I have never heard a U.S. administration so back-handed.

This should tell us something, don't you think?

Top Chinese Diplomat Tells US to 'Shut up' on Arms Spending:

China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, throwing diplomatic language to the wind, has told the United States in no uncertain terms to 'shut up and keep quiet' on the subject of Beijing's growing military spending.

US Suffers World's First Climate Change Exodus: Study

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK

US Suffers World's First Climate Change Exodus: Study:

The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the world's richest country, a US study said.
'The first massive movement of climate refugees has been that of people away from the Gulf Coast of the United States,' said the Earth Policy Institute, which has warned for years that climate change demands action now.

This 29 August, 2005 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite image shows Hurricane Katrina as it makes landfall. The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the world's richest country, a US study said.(AFP/NOAA-HO/File)

Institute president Lester Brown said that about a quarter of a million people who fled the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina a year ago must now be classed as 'refugees'.
'
Interestingly, the country to suffer the most damage from a hurricane is also primarily responsible for global warming,' he said.

The United States is the world's largest consumer of energy, but has refused to sign up to the Kyoto pact aimed at reducing emissions of gases that scientists say are to blame for heating up the Earth.

Many environmentalists had expected the first big population shift to come somewhere like the Tuamotu islands in French Polynesia, the world's largest chain of atolls which rise barely metres (feet) from the Pacific.
Rising sea levels are part of the problem afflicting low-lying places but, experts argue, so are tropical storms that are mounting in ferocity because of warmer ocean temperatures.

Judge nixes warrantless surveillance

The Supremes already made Bush president; will they, now, make him a king?

Judge nixes warrantless surveillance - Yahoo! News:

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

'Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution,' Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The Justice Department appealed the ruling and issued a statement calling the program 'an essential tool for the intelligence community in the war on terror.'

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration 'couldn't disagree more with this ruling.'
'United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives,' he said. 'The program is carefully administered and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist.'

The ruling won't take immediate effect so Taylor can hear a Justice request for a stay pending its appeal. A hearing on the motion was set for Sept. 7, Snow said.

John Bolton and Judy Miller Breakfast at the Waldorf... As His Confirmation Battle Looms

Fillibuster Bolton!

The Blog Arianna Huffington: John Bolton and Judy Miller Breakfast at the Waldorf... As His Confirmation Battle Looms The Huffington Post

Cunningham's Wife Tells All...

...and it ain't pretty

TPMmuckraker August 17, 2006 10:05 AM:

It's not a pretty picture: the night before Duke Cunningham was sentenced and taken into custody, he dumped a duffel bag filled with dirty underwear and $32,000 in $20 and $100 bills in his wife's driveway as a desperate attempt to salvage some of his ill-gotten gains.

That's according to Nancy Cunningham, Duke's estranged wife, who granted an exclusive interview to Kitty Kelley, queen of Washington dirt. Kelley's article will be out in this week's issue of The New Republic, but we got a sneak peek. The piece will be posted online later today.

Mrs. Cunningham (who says she promptly turned that bag of cash over to her attorney) also reveals that Duke -- whom she coldly refers to as 'Mr. Cunningham' -- once slept with a knife and then a loaded gun under his pillow; that he frequently threw temper tantrums and once physically threatened Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) because he was passed over for a leadership position; that he planned to strike it big as a lobbyist after he left Congress; and that she called him 'Mr. Fun Ball' because of his aggressive flirtation with women.

Bush told to stop unconstitutional wire-taps

Of course, Junior don't need no judge telling him what to do. (More later)

Latest News The Huffington Post#a027468:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

Ohio Voting Problems Deemed Severe

Why the hell can't something be done about this?

Perhaps, if a state cannot get it together to have an election that people in that state can trust as representing the will of all people who exercise their right to vote, should not be represented in D.C. at all.

Or, perhaps, the people of that state should refuse to pay taxes as they have no way of knowing if they're being represented, even with their vote?

Right now, the-powers-that-be, have no reason to change what seems to be working for them.

I say, we need to give them a reason!!!!!!

Ohio Voting Problems Deemed Severe:

CLEVELAND -- Problems with elections in Ohio's most populous county are so severe that it's unlikely they can be completely fixed by November, or even by the 2008 presidential election, a report commissioned by Cuyahoga County and released Tuesday says.

A nonprofit group hired to review the county's first election with new electronic voting machines found several problems with the May 2 primary, the results of which were delayed six days because roughly 18,000 absentee ballots had to be hand counted.

No freedom on July 4th

We can only imagine how much less freedom there will be by the next 'Independence Day.'

No freedom on July 4th:

Being as it was just the sort of thing agents of King George might have done to help provoke the American Revolution, it was fitting that it happened on the Fourth of July.
But it wasn't agents of King George III who ordered Jeff and Nicole Rank to be shackled and led off to jail for showing public disrespect to their sovereign.

It was agents of President George W.

The Ranks aren't radical sorts.

Jeff, 31, grew up a 'Navy brat,' born in Virginia and schooled K-12 in the Flour Bluff section of Corpus Christi that houses the Naval Air Station. He served as the marine extension agent for Matagorda County, and voted mainly Republican.
Nicole, 32, worked for FEMA as an environmental compliance officer, making sure that reconstruction projects in the wake of disasters complied with federal regulations.

NeoCons' last chance....

We can only hope this is the last chance and that the NeoCons are done.

But, these people never seem to go away.

NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas' News Source:

In politics, it's crucial not to be overwhelmed by irony.

Nobody knows what will happen in the Middle East. But if the U. S. and France, working through the U. N. Security Council, have succeeded in negotiating a lasting cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the temptation will be to make jokes. How long ago was it that a (pardon my French ) rapprochement with France would have been deemed suspect by all hairy-chested, God-fearing Americans ? Diplomacy may fail. Powerful forces inside the Bush administration are trying to circumvent it. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, like her predecessor Colin Powell, is ridiculed as an incompetent weakling by the same geniuses who predicted a 'cakewalk' in Iraq. True, Rice may not be the second coming of George Marshall, but they liked her fine when she was emitting warlike noises and 'end times' gibberish.

The stakes are higher than many Americans understand. Should the ceasefire hold, French diplomats and U. N. bureaucrats will have rescued Israel and Hezbollah from a conflict both appear to have blundered into, saving countless civilian lives. A brokered peace also would confound neo-conservative zealots eager to start what Newt Gingrich excitedly calls World War III to 'defend civilization.' As such, a cease-fire could mark the beginning of the end of a period of temporary insanity in American life. Or not.

Administration's odd calm, as middle east flared up.

Yeah, we noticed that.

The New Yorker: Fact:

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. 'It's a moment of clarification,' President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. 'It's now become clear why we don't have peace in the Middle East.' He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the 'root causes of instability,' and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until 'the conditions are conducive.'

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel's retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

The Smell of Fear

More people will die of the Flu this year, than by the hands of terrorist.

The Smell of Fear:

Turns out that those of us who thought something smelled funny about the timing and all - peace had just broken out in Connecticut, for instance - were getting a whiff of more than just discarded aftershave.

It's outrageous enough that the arrest in London last week of 24 terror suspects was premature and dovetailed not with the accumulation of evidence against them, but with the White House's need to call the voters who dumped Joe Lieberman 'Defeatocrats' (House Majority Leader John Boehner) and coddlers of 'al-Qaida types' (Dick Cheney).

But the outrage is magnified by the fact that the Bush administration, even as it stoked national paranoia over a plot to detonate carryon liquids aboard transatlantic flights, was, according to the Associated Press, quietly defunding the development of technology to detect those very bombs. Indeed, the research arm of the Department of Homeland Security has become a 'rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course.' This is the bipartisan assessment of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the AP said.

Only Republicans are allowed to be this incompetent! It's 'heckuva job, Brownie' all over again, but with a wicked twist. When it comes to national security, the clueless fumbling of the Homeland Security bureaucracy feeds the Bush administration's politics of fear.

'Weeks before Sept. 11, this is going to play big,' a White House official, speaking anonymously about the London arrests, told Agence France Presse. Yeah, I'll bet, especially if the Defeatocrats can do no more than cringe and whimper that they're tough on terror, too.

British Deputy PM: Bush is CRAP

Whoa!!!

This is quite huge, actually.

Daily Kos: British Deputy PM: Bush is CRAP:

For a long time I -- and I presume most of you -- have wondered if Blair had lost his mind supporting Bush the way he does. Well, it seems that the British Deputy PM is no slouch, and feels much less constrained by diplomatic etiquette. In an eloquent and elegant moment of english, John Prescott succinctly summed up his view of the Bush presidency: Bush is crap."

Billions Face Water Shortages, Crisis Looms

I think I need to find a piece of property with a well or a spring or something like that. Hoist some buckets up in trees, with tubes to a main resevoir on the ground, but uphill from the tent.

Billions Face Water Shortages, Crisis Looms: Agency:

A third of the world is facing water shortages because of poor management of water resources and soaring water usage, driven mainly by agriculture, the International Water Management Institute said on Wednesday.

Water scarcity around the world was increasing faster than expected, with agriculture accounting for 80 percent of global water consumption, the world authority on fresh water management told a development conference in Canberra.

Globally, water usage had increased by six times in the past 100 years and would double again by 2050, driven mainly by irrigation and demands by agriculture, said Frank Rijsberman, the institute's director-general.
Billions of people in Asia and Africa already faced water shortages because of poor water management, he said.

'We will not run out of bottled water any time soon but some countries have already run out of water to produce their own food,' he said.

'Without improvements in water productivity ... the consequences of this will be even more widespread water scarcity and rapidly increasing water prices.'
The Sri Lanka-based institute, funded by international agricultural research organisations, is due to formally release its findings at a conference in Sweden later this month.

Rijsberman said water scarcity in Asia and Australia affected about 1.5 billion people and was caused by over-allocating water from rivers, while scarcity in Africa was caused by a lack of infrastructure to get the water to the people who need it.

'The water is there, the rainfall is there, but the infrastructure isn't there,' Rijsberman told reporters.
He said more needed to be done to promote rain-fed agriculture and to increase water storage in Africa, where many people live with water scarcity.

Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief

Its just a big old Monoply Game and we all don't even rate peing the top hat or the iron.

Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief:

Israel's army chief, under fire for selling shares hours before launching an offensive in Lebanon, was looking set to become the first head to roll in the outcry over the state's handling of the month-long war.

Israel's media have piled opprobrium on Dan Halutz since the Maariv newspaper revealed Tuesday that he had sold shares hours before the start of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon on July 12.

The story, confirmed by Halutz himself, has focused the anger of many in a country struggling to come to terms with the less than decisive outcome of its war against the fundamentalist Hezbollah militia sparked on July 12.

'There's an old Romanian saying that goes like this: 'the country is burning, but grandma is combing her hair.' The country was on fire, and all that interested Halutz was his investment portfolio,' member of parliament Colette Avital said Tuesday.

Resignation calls have come from parliament but also from the highest circles of the defence establishment.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz, also under fire for his performance since the start of the war on July 12, defended the army chief's 'loyalty and dedication'.

'His attention is entirely devoted to the war and the success of the army's missions,' said Peretz in a statement.

British Arms Merchant With Passport to the Pentagon

Well, well....do tell!

British Arms Merchant With Passport to the Pentagon:

It is hard to tell whether BAE Systems should be flying the Union Jack or waving the Stars and Stripes.

BAE, the British military contractor, manages top-secret programs in England and the United States and makes weapons for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the world's fourth-largest military contractor and the seventh-biggest in the United States, the only foreign Pentagon supplier to crack the top 10.

BAE says it is neither British nor American, but a new breed of military contractor, a trans-Atlantic supplier. Its American subsidiary, based in Arlington, Va., has operations in 36 states as well as England, Sweden, Israel and South Africa. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, but nearly 50 percent of its shares are held by American investors.

The chief executive, Mike Turner, has even hinted he might move the company to the United States if he gets more Pentagon business, a goal that is central to his strategy for growth.

It's been the absolutely right strategy for BAE to enter the American market,' said Alexandra Ashbourne, head of Ashbourne Strategic Consulting, a London research firm. 'Although others are trying to do the same, BAE has been more successful. No doubt they will be looking for more in the U.S. It's where the defense spending is.'

Of course, BAE's ability to get Pentagon business is, in large part, the result of a special relationship between Britain and the United States that allows BAE to bid more easily on Pentagon business than companies from other foreign companies. BAE has capitalized on that advantage by moving boldly and quickly. It has acquired American businesses worth more than $7 billion since 1999 and wants even more.

Robert Scheer: Spinning Old Threats Into New Fears

I just cannot believe it will work again unless Americans have become such yelow-bellied cowards, while I wasn't paying attantion.

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer: Spinning Old Threats Into New Fears:

Government-induced hysteria thrives on public ignorance, which is why President Bush is so confident of turning the British bomb plot to his partisan purposes. Otherwise, how could he dare claim that his policies have made the nation safer?
Consider, first off, that the attack envisioned 'smuggling liquid-explosive ingredients onto 10 passenger planes' was outlined in chapter five of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report as a plot first exposed a decade ago. The originator of that planned hijacking of 12 U.S.-bound planes, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was also the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. According to U.S. prosecutors, his nephew, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, even managed to explode such a liquid-based bomb on a Manila-Tokyo flight, killing one passenger, as part of a plot code-named 'Bojinka.'

Because checking or banning fluids was not a focus of this administration's post-Sept. 11 airport security measures, this 'coincidence' would suggest either enormous negligence on the part of those charged with protecting us or a ludicrous overreaction this past week. Knowing as we did of Mohammed's earlier plan, why wasn't the Department of Homeland Security requiring fliers to dump their bottles of hairspray and mother's milk before?

Plame lawyer plans to force Cheney, Rove testimony

Well, we can only hope that information from this trial is a steady drip, dip, drip, until election day.

Then, I hope the Wilson's nail the bastards for all the money they have stolen from the treasury, since they lied us into iraq..

Reuters AlertNet - Plame lawyer plans to force Cheney, Rove testimony:

LOS ANGELES, Aug 15 (Reuters) - A lawyer plans to use a legal precedent that allowed President Bill Clinton to be sued while in office to force Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify in a lawsuit brought by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband.
California attorney Joseph Cotchett said he will ask a federal court to order Cheney, his ex-chief of staff Lewis 'Scooter' Libby and Rove to testify in depositions about their role in disclosing her classified status.

The civil lawsuit accuses them and others of conspiring to publicly identify Plame as a CIA agent to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for writing in an op-ed piece that the Bush administration twisted intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Bush poll numbers slide again.

Despite terror in the air, even Wallmart shoppers are not happy anymore.

Zogby International:

President Bush's job approval rating dipped two points in the last three weeks, despite the foiling of an airline terror plot and the adoption of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

The survey was conducted Aug. 11, - 15, 2006, included 1,018 respondents, and carries a margin of error of +/� 3.1 percentage points.

The numbers continue to reflect erosion in the President's political base, just 62% of Republicans give him positive marks for his job performance, while 38% give him negative marks. Even among weekly WalMart shoppers, a demographic group identified by Pollster John Zogby as a critical support group for Bush, just 45% now give him positive job marks, though his numbers among those shoppers have improved 10 points since early June.

More than three out of four, 76%, of weekly WalMart shoppers voted for Bush over Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, earlier Zogby polling showed.
Among both conservatives and those who consider themselves very conservative, 59% give him positive marks, while 41% in each group gave him a negative job rating.
One third of respondents ' 34% ' said that, overall, the nation is headed in the right direction, while 59% said they think things are off on the wrong track.

Sirotablog: Is the FBI investigating the Lieberman campaign?

This sounded right like something out of Karl Rove's playbook right from the beginning.

Sirotablog: Is the FBI investigating the Lieberman campaign?:

Is the FBI investigating the Lieberman campaign?

Totally honest question: will Joe Lieberman's Senate campaign be prosecuted by federal authorities? As you may recall, the Lieberman campaign accused Ned Lamont's campaign of hacking its website on election day.

Lieberman's campaign has since admitted it had no evidence to support the claim. The major verifiable evidence that has been uncovered (here and here) shows that Lieberman's campaign skimped on its web service, and that its claims of losing email service on election day may have been lies. And as TPM Muckraker reported, the FBI said that if Lieberman's hacking allegations prove false, 'the FBI and federal prosecutors could pursue charges against those who reported them.' Specifically, if the charges were fabricated to slander the Lamont campaign, 'there's Title 18, Section 1001, which is providing false statements to an FBI agent. That can be prosecuted at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney's Office.'

Lieberman campaign spokesman Dan Gerstein has a long record of issuing public lies, as documented by Media Matters. And let's be clear - this is no small issue. Making deliberately dishonest claims about a campaign supposedly engaging in Watergate-style tactics goes beyond just the usual tit-for-tat and into pretty serious legal areas. Yes, yes,

I know Gerstein has said slandering other Democrats as terrorist sympathizers 'is what campaigns are all about' - but clearly, the law is pretty straightforward when it comes to making deliberately dishonest election day charges of fraud. Put in Gerstein's language, the law says that's 'not what campaigns are all about' and, in fact, could land people in jail.

Bush miffed with Iraqis......

.....they are just not grateful enough, to him, for all those hundreds of thousands of pounds of Demopcracy he ordered dropped on them.

What the hell is wrong with those people, he wonders?

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth:

I nearly choked on my Wheaties this morning reading the headline: 'Bush Said to Be Frustrated by Level of Public Support in Iraq.'

Apparently the President met with some leading Iraq and Middle East scholars and informed them that he's 'frustrated that the new Iraqi government ? and the Iraqi people ? had not shown greater public support for the American mission.' Further, he was reportedly 'puzzled' as to how recent anti-American protests could draw so many people.

Everybody knows he's out of touch, but wow. Just . . . wow.

This coming from a man who apparently advocates 'constructive chaos' as a policy for an entire region of the world. I'm really running out of ways to be shocked by the incompetence of this administration. The leader of the free world is so clearly out of his depth that it's incredibly difficult for me to imagine his administration doing anything right -- anything at all -- in these difficult times. One despairs.

Idaho Mountain Express: GOP using tyrants' tactic

This crap is getting a little worn, me thinks.

Idaho Mountain Express: GOP using tyrants� tactic - August 16, 2006:

Whenever dissenters mustered courage to protest tyrants, the likes of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Russia's string of Marxist dictators and Communist China's Mao Tse-tung shared a common denunciation for rebellious citizens.
'Enemies of the state,' they were branded.

Nothing, however, so crude for Karl Rove, the Bush White House's brewmeister of dirty tricks. Rove has polished the tactic of Marxist tyrants just enough that gullible Americans won't recognize the genesis of shameful demagoguery.
The early example was then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer's warning to reporters to 'watch' what they write, lest U.S. media help terrorists.

Then, John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, compared criticism of President Bush's policies as aiding enemies of the United States.

Now Vice President Cheney, the five-time draft evader who champions sending other families' sons and daughters to war, condemns the primary election defeat of Connecticut's Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman by anti-war candidate Ned Lamont as encouraging 'al-Qaeda types.'

GOP STRATEGY FOR NOV ELECTIONS / BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID

Why does George Bush, etal. hate America?

GOP STRATEGY FOR NOV ELECTIONS / BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID:

'There Are Not Enough Pretty Words In All The World To Cover Up The Damage George W. Bush Has Done To His Country.'

Tide appears to be growing against GOP

By November, this wave could be an Indonesia style Tsunami.

Tide appears to be growing against GOP:

Despite a divisive Democratic primary in Connecticut and renewed attention to homeland security in the wake of a foiled terrorist plot, the political wave that Democrats hope will wash out Republican majorities in Congress appears to be getter larger.

With 83 days before the election, independent analysts and political observers say that the universe of competitive congressional races is broadening. Most of these newly identified endangered incumbents are Republicans, increasing the chances of a Democratic takeover of one or both chambers of Congress.

Republicans were expected to benefit politically from the thwarted plot to blow up airplanes bound for the U.S. and Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-Conn.) loss to Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate, in the Democratic primary. But lawmakers and political strategists noted that those events have not shifted perceptions about President Bush or the GOP-controlled Congress.

'I don't think this is much of a reprieve for the Republicans,' said a widely respected Republican strategist. 'This foiled airliner attack won't have a lasting impact on the electoral process because it didn't happen. I don't think it changes much of the dynamic.'

Bill Clinton Smacks Lieberman

The Big Dog reads the writing on the wall quite well.

Bill Clinton Smacks Lieberman Democrats.com:

Lieberman has characterized his loss -- and the need for his subsequent independent run -- as liberals in the party purging those with the Lieberman-Clinton position of progressiveness in domestic politics and strong national security credentials.

'Well, if I were Joe and I was running as an independent, that's what I'd say, too,' Clinton said.

'But that's not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was, 'I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction.''

'His position is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position, which was, 'Does it matter if they have weapons? None of this matters.' This is a big, important priority, and 9/11 gives us the way of attacking and deposing Saddam.''

Clinton said that a vote for Lamont was not, as Lieberman had implied, a vote against the country's security.

Democrats See Security as Key Issue for Fall - New York Times

It's about time, and they have plenty to work with.

Democrats See Security as Key Issue for Fall - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 - After being outmaneuvered in the politics of national security in the last two elections, Democrats say they are determined not to cede the issue this year and are working to cast President Bush as having diminished the nation's safety.

Has Bush v. Gore Become the Case That Must Not Be Named? - New York Times

We agree.

But if the Supremes and lower courts fail to even recognize Bush v. Gore, does that make the entire Bush presidency illegal?

Has Bush v. Gore Become the Case That Must Not Be Named? - New York Times:

At a law school Supreme Court conference that I attended last fall, there was a panel on 'The Rehnquist Court.' No one mentioned Bush v. Gore, the most historic case of William Rehnquist's time as chief justice, and during the Q. and A. no one asked about it. When I asked a prominent law professor about this strange omission, he told me he had been invited to participate in another Rehnquist retrospective, and was told in advance that Bush v. Gore would not be discussed.

The ruling that stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush is disappearing down the legal world's version of the memory hole, the slot where, in George Orwell's '1984,' government workers disposed of politically inconvenient records. The Supreme Court has not cited it once since it was decided, and when Justice Antonin Scalia, who loves to hold forth on court precedents, was asked about it at a forum earlier this year, he snapped, 'Come on, get over it. (Not a chance, you old goat)

A Gap In Their Armor

Karl Rove can kiss my ass. He doesn't scare me, nor should Democrats allow the pink frogman to cause them to doubt themselves.

I would advise Democracts to find some of the old speeches by Bobby and JFK, FDR and Martin. Read them. That is who we are.

A Gap In Their Armor:

The Democratic Party has a self-image problem.

Talk to Democrats at every level about the strong position the party is in for this fall's elections and the conversation inevitably ends with a variation of: 'Yeah, if we don't blow it.' Karl Rove's greatest victory is how much he has spooked Democrats about themselves.

Pre-election Terrorizing

Some people call us boomers, some call us the 60's generation; but what we really are is the Atomic Generation. My generation was the first to live their enitre lives under the ever-present threat of "The Bomb."

We all remember Civil Defense drills where we were told to hide under our desks and cover our heads with notebook paper, so as to protect ourselves from fall-out. Our generation was told many such ridiculous thing. We remember the Cuban missle crisis, and the bomb shelters people spent good money on building, when if they had had any real idea about the A-Bomb and what a 20 megaton blast would do, they wouldn' t have bothered.

Fear just doesn't work forever. I can remember my mother saying that if the "Russians" were going to drop The Bomb, she wished they would hit her square in the head with it, because she would want to be around afterard. Her sisters husband was a missles expert of somekind (all very secret) so my family never bought the "notebook paper will protect you from fall-out" idiocy, not did we spend money on fallout shelters.

By the time Regan was sworn in, I can remember thinking, if we are going to have nuclear war, let's just get it the hell over with, because I am sick to damn death of hearing about it. I never was one for living in fear, except of Mother.

That is pretty much where I am now, with terrorism.

I have a much better chance of being hit by an 18 wheeler on the highway, but I am not advocationg killing all truckers and their families, or blowing up trusckstops from coast to coast, just so I can feel safe.

The fact is, life isn't safe anymore than it is fair.

Americans need to get out of their wet pants and get on with life, which in my mind means getting rid of the people who play games with terrorism.

Pre-election Terrorizing - Los Angeles Times:

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is a past master at playing politics with terrorism, portraying critics of its various antiterrorism initiatives as naive or even accusing them, in the words of former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, of giving 'ammunition to America's enemies.'

The Raw Story | Moon-owned paper features Bush-Rumsfeld conflict

Uh Oh. This could mean the bombing of Iraq is being planned in earnest. As long as our troops sit in Iraq, it would be insane to bomb (nuke) Iran.

Rumsfeld isn't giving up. The words aren't in his vocabulary. He may be trying to clear the way.

The Raw Story Moon-owned paper features Bush-Rumsfeld conflict:

A report buried deeply in an April edition of the New Yorker--which claims it is an 'open secret' in Washington that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wants to exit Iraq--is being featured today as front page news in the Middle East Times, RAW STORY has learned.

The paper is published in Cairo, under the control of the Egyptian Ministry of Information.

| NYT: As weeks wore on, Bush Administration began to doubt Israel could win an outright military victory in Lebanon

Isn't this pretty much what the IDF thought about BushCo after the first 1 1/2 years in Iraq?

The Raw Story NYT: As weeks wore on, Bush Administration began to doubt Israel could win an outright military victory in Lebanon:

As the weeks 'wore on,' the Bush Administration began to doubt that Israel could win an outright military victory in Lebanon, according to an early version of an article published in Monday's New York Times.

An advance version of the Times article obtained by RAW STORY included references to such doubts as expressed by an unidentified senior Bush Administration official, but for unknown reasons it was left out of the published article.

'When the war in Lebanon began in mid-July, American diplomacy was predicated on giving the vaunted Israeli armed forces the time it needed to destroy Hezbollah militarily,' Warren Hoge had once written.

Still Battling Voter Suppression

Geeze Louise, the WaPo is just now figuring this out?

Still Battling Voter Suppression

Our Porous Air Defenses on 9/11

Sorry, still doesn't add up...........

Our Porous Air Defenses on 9/11 - New York Times:

No topic investigated by the 9/11 commission hatched more conspiracy theories than the failure of American air defense systems to intercept any of the four planes that had been hijacked by terrorists. That makes three new reports particularly welcome. Together, they shed some light on why civil aviation authorities, the military and the highest officials of the Bush administration failed to respond quickly enough to avert catastrophe.

The reports include a new book written by the co-chairmen of the 9/11 commission, a Vanity Fair article based on tapes released by the military, and a 2005 report from the inspector general of the Defense Department that was finally released last week. They paint a picture of confusion as civilian and military authorities struggled to grasp and respond to what was happening. There was absolutely no evidence that any air defenders deliberately stood aside to let the terrorists have their way or that the military itself fired a cruise missile into the Pentagon, as conspiracy theories have suggested.

FBI: No terror groups in cell phone case

Are they by any chance conneted to the Swiftboat Vets for truth?

FBI: No terror groups in cell phone case - Yahoo! News:

CARO, Mich. - The FBI said Monday it had no information to indicate that the three Texas men arrested with about 1,000 cell phones in their van had any direct connection to known terrorist groups.

Also, a prosecutor in a separate Ohio case said he can't prove a terrorism link to two men arrested after buying large numbers of cell phones and will drop terrorism charges against them.

In the Michigan case, authorities had increased patrols on the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge after local prosecutors said investigators believed the men were targeting the span.
Local authorities didn't say what they believed the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones, but Caro's police chief noted that cell phones can be untraceable and used as detonators.

The FBI issued a news release Monday saying there is no imminent threat to the bridge linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.

Religion-related fraud getting worse

They're getting ready for he Rapure.

Religion-related fraud getting worse - Yahoo! News:

Randall W. Harding sang in the choir at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, Calif., and donated part of his conspicuous wealth to its ministries. In his business dealings, he underscored his faith by naming his investment firm JTL, or 'Just the Lord.' Pastors and churchgoers alike entrusted their money to him.

By the time Harding was unmasked as a fraud, he and his partners had stolen more than $50 million from their clients, and Crossroads became yet another cautionary tale in what investigators say is a worsening problem plaguing the nation's churches.

Billions of dollars has been stolen in religion-related fraud in recent years, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state officials who work to protect investors.

Between 1984 and 1989, about $450 million was stolen in religion-related scams, the association says. In its latest count ' from 1998 to 2001 ' the toll had risen to $2 billion. Rip-offs have only become more common since

Hillary Clinton Doesn't Take Cheney "Seriously Anymore" - August 14, 2006

Why doesn't she call for a psych. exam for Cheney and Bush?

All Headline News - Hillary Clinton Doesn't Take Cheney "Seriously Anymore" - August 14, 2006:

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. Senator and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) says she has lost faith in what Vice President Dick Cheney says about the War on Terror.
Clinton lashed out against Cheney's comments that Ned Lamont's anti-war victory in a Connecticut Democratic primary against pro-Iraq Senator Joe Lieberman was sending a bad signal to terrorists worldwide.

Senator Clinton says, 'I don't take anything he says seriously anymore. I think that he has been a very counterproductive even destructive force in our country and I am very disheartened by the failure of leadership from the president and vice president.'

According to New York Public Radio, WNYC, during a campaign stop in the Bronx yesterday, Clinton accused the administration of shortchanging New York of its homeland security money. A spokeswoman for the vice president said his comments on the importance of a strong national security strategy 'speak for themselves.'

Gas prices inch up to hit another high - Yahoo! News

Fun in the sun is costing Americans bigtime this year, and next year will probably be impossible for most of us.

Gas prices inch up to hit another high - Yahoo! News:

CAMARILLO, Calif. - Nationwide gas prices hit yet another record in the last three weeks, rising just over one cent to nearly $3.03 per gallon, according to a survey released Sunday.

Lamont: Lieberman Sounded Like Cheney

Holy Cow! A Democrat who fights back?

Mr. Lamont, we love you.

ABC News: Lamont: Lieberman Sounded Like Cheney:

WASHINGTON Aug 13, 2006 (AP)- Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who toppled Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, says he was surprised by Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that his victory could embolden terrorists.

'My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive,' Lamont said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.

After British officials disclosed they had thwarted a terrorist airline bombing plot on Thursday, Lieberman warned that Lamont's call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be 'taken as a tremendous victory' by terrorists.

Lamont: Lieberman Sounded Like Cheney

Holy Cow! A Democrat who fights back?

Mr. Lamont, we love you.

ABC News: Lamont: Lieberman Sounded Like Cheney:

WASHINGTON Aug 13, 2006 (AP)- Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who toppled Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, says he was surprised by Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that his victory could embolden terrorists.

'My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive,' Lamont said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.

After British officials disclosed they had thwarted a terrorist airline bombing plot on Thursday, Lieberman warned that Lamont's call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be 'taken as a tremendous victory' by terrorists.

For GOP, Bad Gets Worse in Northeast

Sour mood isn't the word for it, in my environs. Actually, it wouldn't be prudent to publish the word for it.

For GOP, Bad Gets Worse in Northeast:

PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. -- When it comes to President Bush and the Republican Congress, Rep. Jim Gerlach says voters in his suburban Philadelphia district are in a 'sour mood.'

That's why when it comes to his reelection, the two-term incumbent says 'the name of the game' is to convince those same voters that he can be independent of his own party. He has turned his standard line about Bush -- 'When I think he's wrong, I let him know' -- into a virtual campaign slogan, repeated in interviews and TV ads. (Imagine that, an independent Republican. I believe they are extinct, aren't they?)

Governors Oppose Federal Control of Guard

Well, of course they do. They see the Authoritarian writing on the wall, even if the populace doesn't.

It can hapen here. As a matter of fact it already is happening here. Of course, some people will not realize that unitil they are in concentration camps surrounded by razor wire.

Governors Oppose Federal Control of Guard:

The nation's governors, protesting what they call an unprecedented shift in authority from the states to the federal government, will urge Congress today to block legislation that would allow the president to take control of National Guard forces in the event of a natural disaster or a threat to homeland security.

In a sharply worded letter that will be transmitted to Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress this morning, the governors ask that a House-Senate conference committee remove a provision included in the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act giving the president such authority.

Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security | BuzzFlash

True, true, so true. These Rethug jackasses have been playing the politics of fear and vengeance for so long now, because it is all they've got, it is going to take some pretty dim-witted people to vote for them again.

But that's the problem. eh? There are some very dim-witted people out there.


Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security BuzzFlash:

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

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

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

I am beginning to have some serious doubts about Fitzgerald.

More Evidence of Bush Administration Treason: The Valerie Wilson Affair Revisited BuzzFlash:

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

It is a subject worthy of a book.

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

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

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

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

Falluja police force disappeears

Oh, yeah....things are going so well in Iraq, who don't we stay their another 50 years?

THE NEWS BLOG: Full artcile

"Poof!

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

The next day -- poof!

Gone with the wind. Hasta la vista baby!

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

Temper tantrums at Big Money's Democratic Party embassy

Sirotta nails the DLC; a bad week for the corporate, money-sucking whores in the DLC

Sirotablog: Temper tantrums at Big Money�s Democratic Party embassy:

Temper tantrums at Big Money's Democratic Party embassy

It's been a rough few weeks for the folks at Big Money's Democratic Party Embassy, otherwise known as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). First, Rolling Stone cut through the DLC's seemingly friendly, subtly caustic, vaguely cultish rhetoric and exposed its rather odious agenda for all to see (an agenda I also try to detail in my new book Hostile Takeover). Then, DLC posterboy Joe Lieberman lost to a previously little-known reformist challenger named Ned Lamont, despite Lieberman grossly outspending Lamont with corporate dollars flowing to him from many of the same industries that fund the DLC. Then, populist Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D) dropped the hammer on the DLC in a speech at the Milwaukee Press Club - the first time in recent memory a Senator has publicly told the truth about the destructive influence the DLC has had on the Democratic Party. So, all in all, DLC staffers Al From, Bruce Reed, Will Marshall, Ed Kilgore, Marshall Wittman and the Big Money interests they rely on for their DLC paychecks are probably not so happy.

Davis urges Rumsfeld's ouster

Just about everybody agrees that the demento should resign, so what's the big deal. He isn't going to and ush won't fire him, because he knows too much.

Davis urges Rumsfeld's ouster:

HAMPTON -- U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis has joined the growing chorus of those who believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be out of a job.

'I told my husband that when (Sen.) Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) came out and said he should resign, it's probably the only thing in my life I've ever agreed with Hillary Clinton about,' said Davis, R-Gloucester.

Clinton's call came on Aug. 3 after she dressed down Rumsfeld before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

The unusual aspect of Davis' stance is that she is a Republican. In her most public comments on the issue in her district, Davis said she has felt this way about Rumsfeld for awhile.

Five Years After 9/11, Are We Any Safer?

Hell no we aren't any safer. We are less safe., because Bush and the NeoCons didn't keep their eye on the ball and capture bin Laden and his top commanders.

They had to have their dream of attacking Iraq no matter the cost. That cost has been huge, and promises to onl;y get bigger.

Five Years After 9/11, Are We Any Safer? - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com:

For the moment, at least, it appears that Osama bin Laden has been thwarted in his relentless desire to stage an even grander spectacular than 9/11. But no one can doubt that he, or his successors and many imitators and acolytes, will try again and keep on trying until they succeed. Their ideology may date from the seventh century, but the jihadists, especially bin Laden's sinister No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are eager to get control of 21st-century weapons of mass destruction. Five years after 9/11, Al Qaeda's top leaders may have been killed, captured or driven into the caves of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but they still exercise a powerful pull. Bush has made a personal mission of bringing democracy to the tortured Middle East, and his policies may one day succeed. But America's sometimes heavy-handed attempt to stomp out the terrorists with military force has reaped a whirlwind of anti-American hatred in the Middle East and turned Iraq into a terrorist training ground.

Kristol: Cheney's Claim That Lamont Win Helps Al-Qaeda Types Is,. Indisputably Correct

I see that the NeoCons all have their talking points down pat. They sound like a buch of parrots on Meth.

Hey Billy-boy; Go to hell!

Think Progress � Kristol: Cheney�s Claim That Lamont Win Helps �Al-Qaeda Types� Is �Indisputably Correct�: "Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney called Ned Lamont's win in the Connecticut primary 'disturbing' because 'the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.'
Today on Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol called Cheney's remarks 'indisputably correct.'

Kristol said that anyone who advocates redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq is helping al-Qaeda.

Desire is strong in Dems to impeach

If the Democrats don't bellieve in accountability, they will be fried in 2008, and maybe we will finally get a multi-party system.

Desire is strong in Dems to impeach:

Impeachment hearings? Nobody launches 'impeachment hearings.'

Should Democrats reassume control of the House of Representatives this fall, an increasingly likely event, they will not convene hearings focused on the possible impeachment of President Bush. Just ask any Democrat in Washington except the delightfully candid Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., whose lust for impeachment is almost refreshing.

'Impeaching the president is so far-fetched it's ridiculous,' Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told me last week while in Phoenix for Democratic Senate candidate Jim Pederson.

Machete-wielding woman outside White House

I guess someone is really fed up, eh?

CNN.com - Machete-wielding woman�outside White House - Aug 13, 2006:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A 32-year-old woman wielding a machete was arrested Sunday outside the White House, the Secret Service said.

Spokeswoman Kim Bruce said Ashwak Saleh was taken into custody and charged with possession of a prohibited weapon after she displayed a 13-inch machete on the sidewalk outside the White House.

Saleh was arrested at 2:20 p.m. and taken to Washington Metro Police Department 3rd district for processing.
Witnesses said Saleh was sitting on the sidewalk when she pulled the machete out of a leather sleeve and began sharpening it on the edge of the sidewalk.

The witnesses said passersby then alerted Secret Service officers, one of whom approached the woman and told her to 'Drop the blade.'

Sy Hersch on Wolf Blitzer - Encouraging Israel to attack

Is anyone really surprised by this?

Daily Kos: Sy Hersch on Wolf Blitzer - Encouraging Israel to attack: (Read full diary)

U.S. encouraging and abetting Israel.

Sy Hersh is out front again with a soon to be released article about the Israeli/Hezbahlla situation. According to his middleeast experts, Israel had shared plans with this administration to attack prior to July 12.

WaPo confirms US in dark about plot

They were too busy monitoring the Quakers, Code Pink and Lamont supporters.....

Daily Kos: WaPo confirms US in dark about plot:

At the FBI, several hundred agents and analysts had been assigned to the case beginning in late July, yet only a handful knew about the overall plot or other significant details, according to several law enforcement officials. Many knew nothing about the targets they were watching or investigating, officials said.

So the US intelligence apparatus was in the dark about the London plot - which had been on-going for over a year. OR, they knew about it but were not doing anything about it.
This also means the US and Bush can take little to no credit for thwarting this plot.

Only since the end of July did the FBI start to check phone numbers made by these suspected terrorists. And:
The arrests were carried out as Bush was taking a working vacation at his ranch in Texas. Aides said he and Vice President Cheney had been kept closely informed of developments starting Aug. 4, and were regularly briefed in the days leading to the arrests.

Where in Washington, D.C. is Reverend Moon?: Watch George H.W. Bush blow birthday candles for Mrs. Moon

Holy Crap (literally).

Watch the video at linked article.

Where in Washington, D.C. is Reverend Moon?: Watch George H.W. Bush blow birthday candles for Mrs. Moon:

Watch George H.W. Bush blow birthday candles for Mrs. Moon

UN Lebanon Force Could Start Deploying in 7 - 10 Days - New York Times

We'll believe it when we see it. It's hard to trust anyone about anything anymore.

UN Lebanon Force Could Start Deploying in 7 - 10 Days - New York Times:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United Nations expects Israel's ground offensive to wind down within 48 hours and an expanded international force to begin deploying in southern Lebanon in a week to 10 days, the U.N.'s envoy said on Saturday.

`We are not starting from zero,'' Alvaro de Soto, the U.N. special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said of preparations for an international force.

`We have building blocks in place as part of stand-by arrangements with a number of countries with earmarked contingents,'' he told Reuters.

The resolution approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday calls for a ``full cessation of hostilities'' and authorizes up to 15,000 U.N. troops to move in to enforce a ceasefire.

The resolution says Hizbollah must halt all attacks and Israel must stop ``all offensive military operations.''
De Soto said Israel's offensive was in its ``last throes'' and should wrap up in one to two days. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has backed the U.N. resolution, plans to put it to a vote of his cabinet on Sunday, officials said.

The 60% of American voters who oppose the war....

...should have their voting rights taken away.

Say What?

David Sirota:

Finally, oh thank God finally, the Washington media elite is making it easy. Usually, D.C.'s professional pundits, pontificators and partisan puppets very carefully package their language to hide their real motives and their real beliefs. But this week following the primary defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman by first-time candidate Ned Lamont, America is witnessing a good-old-fashioned watershed moment: the perfume is off, the restraint is removed, and the ugly, rancid, sweaty-lockerroom stench of truth is there for all of us commoners to waft. Sniff up, contain your dry heaving, and you will finally understand that all the talk of the Establishment's disdain for ordinary citizens is not just talk or conspiracy theory - it's very real, and very powerful.

Take, for instance, New York Times columnist David Brooks's piece yesterday - it is arguably the most brazen admission of elite disdain for democracy that has ever been printed in a major American newspaper. Before you dismiss that as hyperbole, read the third line of Brooks' piece:

'Polarized primary voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics.'

Maybe David Brooks should have his big megaphone taken away, at the very least!

A Boost for Lamont as Democratic Leaders Shift Support

Lieberman should bow out, as it ought to be extremely clear to anyone with more than one neuron firing that the American people are fed up and sick to death of Bush's and Cheney's (NeoCons) failed and extremely dumb policies in the middle east.

They have put Americans in more danger than any of us have been in since the Civil War.

A Boost for Lamont as Democratic Leaders Shift Support:

Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont will launch a general election bid in Connecticut next week with an expanded campaign operation of Washington-based reinforcements, in preparation for a bitter brawl with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman over the Iraq war and national security.

Lamont's upset of the three-term senator and former Democratic vice presidential nominee, who is now running to keep his seat as an independent, has forced a hasty reordering of political alliances, as prominent Democratic leaders and organizations shift their support to Lamont. The political novice is seeking help from party veterans in fundraising and communications, and in answering Lieberman's increasingly aggressive war defense.

What we know / A deadly airline plot and failed Bush policies

Amen, and if there is no change we can count on not having the country in which we grew up.

Editorial: What we know / A deadly airline plot and failed Bush policies:

Till then, however, there are some things we do know.

We know that the war in Iraq is not a 'war on terror.'

We know that the loss of 2,600 good Americans, the injuries of 19,000 others and the wartime expense of $320 billion have been a tragic waste.

We know that because of the cost of Iraq, measures that might truly enhance homeland security, like technology that would spot sinister liquids at airport checkpoints, are hardly affordable.

We know that while the president has cut taxes for the rich, at a time when he says all Americans must do their part, U.S. borders are porous, cargo ships are vulnerable and sophisticated identity scanners remain a fantasy.

Yes, there is much that we don't know. What we do know, based on the foiled plot against U.S.-bound aircraft, is that five years of policies by George W. Bush and the Republicans who control Congress have made the country no more secure and its people no more safe. It is time for a change.

NBC: Disagreement over timing of arrests

Surprise, surprise!

Can the Bushites GET more transparent in their never-ending attempts to scare the public. One of these days this shit is going to backfire big-time.

Maybe this is the time.

NBC: Disagreement over timing of arrests - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com:

LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.