Yep! DeLay's seat might end up under short 2-yr Rental by Lampson! But Sekula-Gibbs does a shot to pull off the near impossible! Will need 65% participation by Sugarland voters!

Panty:

David is definitely talking about you & kathleen...w/"For political junkies out there"!

Yeah right, Michael Brown is a credible source for accurate information.

No one, save political opponents of the current administration give a rat's ass what he says.

Now that we know the leak came from Armitage, do you think Plame will do he honerable thing and withdrawl her lawsuit against Rove, Cheney et al? She claims to have been harmed by their leak but it was neither of those she named in her lawsuit.

Did you know what conservative muslims think about your music?

Not one of us trolls cares what anyone says about anything.

ZZ Top rocks!

She claims to have been harmed by their leak but it was neither of those she named in her lawsuit.

Posted by: TRH at August 29, 2006 04:38 PM

Umh, do you know the names of the ten co-spirators to be identified at a later date? Have you read the pleading? Do you know what you;re talking about?

She did the boogey. She did the tube steak boogey.

Now that we know the leak came from Armitage. . .
Posted by: TRH at August 29, 2006 04:38 PM

and Rove and Libby and Hadley . . .

C&L's: A Look Back at Hurricane Katrina: Katrina Carnage 8-30-05

Countdown had a ten minute clip of the damage Hurricane Katrina brought to the coast. (Originally posted on 8/30/05)

Video-WMP

Video-QT

katrina

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

It is important to remember.

capt

Your mic is on

Kyra Phillips was in the bathroom and talked over the President with a friend not knowing her mic was live rough transcript:

Kyra: That's how you figure it all out. Moms got a good vibe? He's married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak..

KYRA: Yeah baby

Woman: Your mic is on

Kagan: All right, we've been listening in to President Bush he speaks..

Post the transcript please while I get the down-loadable files done. ( h/t Wonkette for the Youtube)

David: Right now, CQ is projecting the election will result in 203 Ds and 220 Rs, with 12 races featuring no clear favorite. (In other words, the Democrats will need one heckuva wind at their back to win back the House.)

Like a Katrina tailwind?

The Dems need to start downplaying any expectations that either the House or Senate will change hands. The only way to ensure that the troops are mobilized is to make it clear that this is still very much a long shot. Overconfidence is the enemy, especially when it's delusional.

Never understimate the stupidity of the American people.

THE NAZI PARTY (GOrPS) WILL KEEP CONTROL OF BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE. SOCCER MOMS AND SECURITY MOMS WILL VOTE FOR BUSH IN MASSIVE NUMBERS. RIP FOREVER DEMOCRATS!!! THE END OF A PARTY IS NEAR!!!

Brown says White House wanted him to lie

The ousted head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency says the White House wanted him to lie about the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Former Director Michael Brown told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday he stood by comments in a Playboy interview, and President Bush wanted him to take the heat for the bungling.

"The lie was that we were ready and that everything was working as a team. Behind the scenes, it wasn't working at all," Brown said. "There were political considerations going into all the discussions. There was the fact that New Orleans did not evacuate and the mayor (Ray Nagin) had no plan."

Brown said it was natural to "want to put the spin on that things are working the way they're supposed to do. And behind the scenes, they're not. Again, my biggest mistake was just not leveling with the American public and saying, 'Folks, this isn't working.'"

The former FEMA chief cited what he called an e-mail "from a very high source in the White House that says the president at a Cabinet meeting said, 'Thank goodness Brown's taking all the heat because it's better that he takes the heat than I do.'"

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Bush want someone to lie for him, how scandalous!

Why would anybody have to lie about anything? The whole government is always on the up and up, so why not just level with the public?

capt

hey you know what the '08 election should feature?
a surprising 3rd party candidate from out of the blue ala ross perot (whatever happened to him?) to bleed off votes from dems or reps (does it matter which?)- wow wouldn't THAT be exciting!

meanwhile, the war on arabs continues.

STAYING THE COURSE OF COURSE!
bushco '08

bushco inc. we're your go-to guys!
specializing in:
strategic tower removals
depleted uranium seeding
budget and pension appropriations
now featuring no-bid contracts!

David Corn, local bookstores need support. Especially locally OWNED bookstores.

#10 Drewp, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE STUPIDITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! These words can best describe the biography of the American people.

I think the real shock will be for the people that think the elections are not being stolen wholesale as well as on the margins (via disenfranchisement and voter suppression).

The midterm neocreep landslide will defy all odds, all predictions (to the contrary) and all exit polls.

They will say "the people have spoken" and any challenge will be called "sour grapes" and worse they will say "we went through all this before (as in 2004 and 2002)"

I hope I am wrong but they did not steal all this power not to abuse it. The real question (hypothetically) what do we do when the neocons steal a supermajority? Protest? Civil unrest? Pout?

Any ideas?

capt

Oops: Impostor scams Louisiana officials

In his speech, Bichlbaum said the department's mission was to ensure affordable housing is available for those who need it.

"This year, in New Orleans, I'm ashamed to say we have failed," he said.

To change that, HUD would reverse its plans to demolish 5,000 units "of perfectly good public housing," with housing in the city in tight supply, he said.

Former occupants have been "begging to move back in," he said. "We're going to help them to do that."

The government's practice had been to tear down public housing where it could, because such projects were thought to cause crime and unemployment, he said.

But crime rates in the city are at a record high and there is no evidence that people in the projects are more likely to be unemployed, he said.

The man added that it also would be essential to create conditions for prosperity.

Toward that end, he said, Wal-Mart would withdraw its stores from near low-income housing and "help nurture local businesses to replace them."

Wal-Mart was unmoved. "As evidenced by the fact that we recently reopened two stores in the New Orleans metropolitan area, there is absolutely no truth to these statements," said spokeswoman Marisa Bluestone.

In a comment that elicited applause from the contractors and builders, Bichlbaum said, "With your help, the prospects of New Orleanians will no longer depend on their birthplace, and the cycle of poverty will come to an end."

Finally, to ensure another hurricane does not inundate the city, Exxon and Shell have promised to spend $8.6 billion "to finance wetlands rebuilding from $60 billion in profits this year," he said.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

The only real absurd thing is the impostor sounded like he was onto some real solutions.

capt

Federal Judge Finds Bush Admin Broke Law by Ignoring Scientists and Allowing Pesticides that Harm Endangered Species

Last week, a federal district judge struck down rules created by the Bush Administration intended to make it easier for pesticides found harmful to endangered species to reach the market. The defeated policies had allowed political appointees and bureaucrats in the federal government to make unilateral decisions that ignored or contradicted research conducted by their own scientists. (click here to read the decision - pdf)

Existing laws and regulations require formal consultations for decisions "likely to adversely affect" endangered species and informal consultations for "decisions not likely to adversely affect" them, but the Administration's policy allowed officials to handle the latter cases without any oversight. "Although it may be true that 'Congress left it to the informed discretion of the Services to define the process of consultation,'" Judge John Coughenour wrote, "Congress did not leave it to the discretion of the Services to define consultation in a way that results in no consultation at all."

Worse, Coughenour wrote that the government's policies "would actually result in harm to" endangered species and that they completely ignored existing research from EPA and Fish and Wildlife Service scientists without using any real information of their own: "[T]he record does not reflect that the Services' approval, which ran counter to its scientists' consensus, was based on any science-based reason (i.e., differences in scientific opinion). Indeed . . . they were aware that the foregoing problems with the scope of EPA's inquiry had played a part in the registration of two chemicals known to have highly toxic effects."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Well if it was just the Bush administration breaking the law, no big deal. Any other administration - that would be a different story.

capt

#3
T,
There was nothing honorable about their acts against Plame. They leaked the information to other reporters before the story hit the newspaper. Their actions were done to discredit her husband.

Ouch! No wonder sCorn wants to change the subject from Isikoff's (I mean sCorn's)book.

The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET

Richard Armitage
I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak's—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president's war policy. (His and Powell's—and George Tenet's—fingerprints are all over Bob Woodward's "insider" accounts of post-9/11 policy planning, which helps clear up another nonmystery: Woodward's revelation several months ago that he had known all along about the Wilson-Plame connection and considered it to be no big deal.) The Isikoff-Corn book, which is amusingly titled Hubris, solves this impossible problem of its authors' original "theory" by restating it in a passive voice:

The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that:

The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."

What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there. But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department)

also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.

"[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House. In this instance, however, the evidence allows them no other choice. But there is more than one way in which a case can be played by the book. Under the terms of the appalling and unconstitutional Intelligence Identities Protection Act (see "A Nutty Little Law," my Slate column of July 26, 2005), the CIA can, in theory, "refer" any mention of itself to the Justice Department to see if the statute—denounced by The Nation and the New York Times when it was passed—has been broken. The bar here is quite high. Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.

The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."

capt, i like your commenting technique! (commentique?):
a link, an excerpt from said link, and then your take on the matter. very succint!

I wonder if the actions of the Bush administration before, during and after Katrina constitutes a crime. They knew that there was a catastrophic storm on the way, and they knew the damage that was done by the storm yet they did nothing to help and they instructed Brownie to lie. Isn't it a crime to knowingly place somebody in harms way? Isn't it a crime to knowingly withhold aid?

I have no respect for Brown but I will give him this. He's being honest about it now. He is giving enough details for the nation to know the real truth behind what the white house was doing and how they felt about the catastrophy. I find it interesting that he was trying to provide some help and in the aftermath they made him the fall guy. They even had someone leak memos.

This is what the Bush supporters don't get. In this administration you are used. If they can use you as a worker bee they do that. If they can use you as a fall guy...you're the fall guy. It's not about how good you did the job or can do the job. It's how they can use you.

what do we do when the neocons steal a supermajority? Protest? Civil unrest? Pout?
Any ideas?

mock? if you can't beat 'em and you have no intention of joining 'em, might as well mock 'em!

#14
Absolutely David B. Support your local bookstores! Mr. Corn I would also maybe suggest....just a suggestion...that when you hit the road with the book you take in a few local bookstores to promote. The little bookstores really advertise.

How can sCorn ask us to focus time on Katrina (the year after) when people are dying in Iraq?

I thought he said the news of Iraq was supposed to be front page, all day, every day?

#16
Capt,
If the elections were stolen I really believe there would be civil unrest and a grass roots effort to cause great political pain to the white house and congress. Boycotts. marches. The grass root effort would be much stronger than the congress and white house. It would wear the neocons down. It would wear the Republicans down. It is already happening.

If I was the Republican party I'd give it up. It's only going to get worse. Let the Democrats try to fix what the Republicans screwed up. The Republicans will try to do that of course but it's too late. The pain that has been inflicted upon Americans is now in the long term memory banks. How many times do you touch a hot stove? We know how many times the trolls do. Frightening.

Comments may cost GOP minority votes

One Republican senator described his house painter as a "little Guatemalan man." Another called an Indian man a "macaca," a type of monkey.

Just as the GOP is pushing for minority voters, the two recent gaffes have fed the perception among some blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans that Republicans are out of touch with the changing face of the nation.

"There is disconnect at some level," said Michael K. Fauntroy, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. "The country is becoming browner and new voters, particularly new immigrant voters, don't respond favorably to (offensive) comments.

"They may have already missed the boat on this."

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Racist comments MAY cost some minority votes?

The neocon landslide will be all the more miraculous.

capt

#17
Now that is a beautiful piece of performance art. Amy Goodman had a clip on him. Sooooo funny.

Jeanne,

IF? You really think it is an IF?

I hope I am completely wrong but really, Diebold, ES&S and the others are businesses and will be run for the bottom line. They will do what is profitable. Corporate welfare and tax cuts are their buzz words and are only used by figurehead GOPhers.

The last elections were stolen and the next election will be too. What do you see that might stop them from doing so? Civil unrest? Protest? Grassroots? Where are these powerful forces and where were they in 2004, 2002, 2000?

I predict any civil unrest will be dealt with in short order. They have been anticipating civil unrest since 2000 and are ready for anything the people can dish out. There is nothing they would like more than civil unrest - it separates the wheat from the chaff if you know what I mean.

Why do you think they have been laying the ground work necessary to hold American citizens without charges indefinitely? Terrorists? HA!

Mocking them might be the only recourse.

capt

#28
Here's the link on "Yes Man" posing as HUD officialfor anybody who's intersted.

One Year After Katrina, New Orleans Public Housing Projects Remain Closed

Activists and residents have condemned the government's refusal to re-open the city's public housing projects and point out that while tourist areas are being developed, affordable housing is not being built.

That all seemed to change yesterday in what appeared to be a surprise announcement form the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Speaking before a thousand construction-industry members at a privately-organized conference in Louisiana, Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin both introduced what appeared to be a HUD official.

Rene Oswin, Yes Man posing as HUD official.

That supposed senior HUD official Rene Oswin was actually Andy Bichlbaum - a member of the political pranksters group The Yes Men. Posing as Oswin, Bichlbaum went on to announce grandiose plans for HUD to reverse course in New Orleans such as: scrapping plans to demolish 5,000 housing units, spending $180 million dollars to fund one public health clinic per housing development, having Wal-Mart withdraw its stores from poor neighborhoods and having energy giants Exxon and Shell spend $8.6 billion dollars to finance wetlands rebuilding.
The prank was just the latest in a series pulled off by the Yes Men who have recently masqueraded as representatives of McDonald"s, Halliburton and Dow Chemical.

Soon after Bichlbaum's announcement, HUD confirmed that he wasn't part of their agency. HUD spokesperson Donna White called the hoax "sick" and "twisted." But not everyone felt that way. One New Orleans contractor said, "I'm not angry at them for pulling this joke, I'm angry that it is not for real."

....The prank was just the latest in a series pulled off by the Yes Men, who have recently masqueraded as representatives of McDonald’≥, of Halliburton and Dow Chemical. They went on BBC, and they apologized for Bhopal, and then Dow Chemical had to say, no, they were not apologizing for Bhopal.
----------
Absurdity is at it's finest during the worst of times.

I will go as far as making a predition for 2008 - Hagel.

The orginal gangster of evote stealing. He is still iinvolved with the evoting companies. I think his brother is still on the board of directors he left to run for the senate. A win (BTW) that defied all polls and predictions. The first GOPher in years to "win" that slot.

He is making plans as we speak.

AGAIN - I do hope I am wrong.

capt

What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.

by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47

DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops,
provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity whatsoever.

Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL posting from July 25:

Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.
Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly reinforced during the night and this morning with a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers."

This partiality is inconsistent not only with UNIFIL's mission but also with its own stated policies. In a telling incident just a few years back, UNIFIL vigorously insisted on its "neutral ity"--at Israel's expense.

Panty Queens pre-ejaculation dream coming to an end!

Snatching Victory . . .
Republicans can still salvage the midterm elections.

by Fred Barnes
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47

You could almost hear cheers of joy coming from the White House. President Bush, it seems, is back, no longer hopelessly unpopular and embattled. You could see a renewed vigor in Bush's bracing defense last week of his Iraq policy and his warning of the geopolitical disaster that would follow a pullout (or "redeployment" as Democrats call it). And you could even see it in polls. In a polling slump since Hurricane Katrina struck a year ago, Bush's job approval was back in the 40s again--42 percent in the Gallup, Hotline, Rasmussen, and CNN surveys--and rising.

That wasn't all. The closely watched "generic ballot" suggested congressional Republicans may yet avert disaster on November 7. This measures whether voters want a Democrat or a Republican to represent them in Congress. It is a flawed yardstick and has never been reliably predictive. Still, after trailing by as many as 20 percentage points, Republicans were buoyed by reaching parity (at 40 percent) with Democrats in the Hotline poll and trailing by only 47 percent to 45 percent in Gallup. Even the most threatened Republican senator, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, down by double digits last month, seems to have cut his opponent's lead in half.

And, surprise of surprises, there's some good news from Iraq. The new offensive to cleanse Baghdad of insurgents and terrorists seems to be proving a success--one qualified by the fact that Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army of Shia jihadists remains hunkered down in the city. "Everybody has seen an improvement," declared Gen.
George Casey, the American commander in Iraq. Even David Ignatius of the Washington Post was impressed, drawing an important lesson from the offensive. "With enough troops and aggressive tactics, American forces can bring order to even the meanest streets," he wrote.

Moreover, Bush and Republicans have an overriding issue to help them again: national security and the war on terror. This issue was the key to Republican victories in 2002 and 2004. With the foiling by the British of the plot to blow up airliners flying to America, the issue has moved front and center again--to the dismay of Democrats. They have tried to inoculate themselves by proposing a few defensive steps against terrorists. But Democrats remain highly vulnerable because of their efforts to weaken the more significant offensive tools against terrorists: NSA eavesdropping, the Patriot Act, the SWIFT bank surveillance program.

So bring on the midterm election, right? The answer is an emphatic no. As favorable as recent trends have been, they are not nearly enough to spare Republicans a nasty defeat, including the loss of the House and perhaps the Senate. The country is in a disagreeable mood and ready for a change. The Republican base is grumpy and apathetic. Bush may be America's choice to fight terrorism, but he falters on other issues. His boost in the polls doesn't mean he's now popular. He's merely less unpopular. And the August bounce may prove to be ephemeral, as earlier upticks have.

There's much to do. Standing pat and expecting terrorism to dominate the campaign would be foolhardy. Grim reminders of the threat on the fifth anniversary of September 11 won't make terror the paramount issue. Nor will presidential speeches or lacerating Republican TV ads. Neither Democrats nor the media will play along. It's Bush's actions, not his words, that will matter. Americans want to see him fighting for America's security. For Bush, good politics consists of following his instincts and doing the right thing.

A LOVE STORY! click here

#29
Considering the level of sophistication of the White House, the Republicans in general and the trolls on this site I don't think there is any hope in them succeeding. They are three lobes short of a brain.

Having written that however, I would predict that they would try to take the election because they ALWAYS underestimate the power of the grass root groups. They ALWAYS underestimate the anger of those who see the real damage being done. And they really don't get long term strategy. I'd get out now if I was a Republican. They are going to look mighty ugly in two years. If I was a Republican I'd be afraid of the anger this country is beginning to feel.

#34
I think they had a quarrel during the Israeli conflict.

Mocking them might be the only recourse.

absolutely! no time like the present! might as well get started on that - (see 13)

Blogosphere Unites in Pursuit of Masked Senator

Who's trying to stop the government from telling its citizens where their tax dollars are being spent? Help find out.

Just before the August recess, the Senate was set to vote on a bill introduced by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would create a public, searchable database of all federal grants and contracts. Envisioned as a Google-like website, it would provide free, immediate access the information, which can be alarmingly difficult to obtain.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed the measure July 27th, and S.2590 seemed to be speeding on its way to full Senate passage when, in the dark of night, an unknown Senator placed a "secret hold" on the bill. According to Senate courtesies, the bill will never come to a vote as long as the hold continues.

So who's the culprit?

Since he/she is unlikely to fess up, bloggers from the left and right have united in the effort of eliminating suspects one by one. The only way to do this is to call your Senator's offices up and get an answer. Over at Porkbuster.org, they're keeping a tally; 27 Senators have responded to readers and bloggers and said they weren't responsible for the hold. GOP Progress (via Wonkette) got that total up to 33.

We think TPM readers should get in on the act. If your Senator has yet to respond (see the Porkbusters tally), give his or her staff a call and politely ask if the Senator was the one who placed the secret hold. And let us know how it went (email us at comments (at) tpmmuckraker dot com).

Updates below the fold...

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

My money in on Saxby! He is just that kind of a guy and he is ducking and running from the question.

I bet all you political junkies are interested?

capt

#13,

Is an excellent mock.

I believe you can wear the order of the mock smock in high regard and great honor!

capt

One Year Later: The Real State Of New Orleans

Think Progress | August 28 2006

Standing in Jackson Square on Sept. 15, President Bush stated, "This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina" and promised to "get the work done quickly." But on the eve of Katrina's one year anniversary, here's a look at the current state of New Orleans:

Less than half of the city's pre-storm population of 460,000 has returned, putting the population at roughly what it was in 1880.

Nearly a third of the trash has yet to be picked up.

Sixty percent of homes still lack electricity.

Seventeen percent of the buses are operational.

Half of the physicians have left, and there is a shortage of 1,000 nurses.

Six of the nine hospitals remain closed.

Sixty-six percent of public schools have reopened.

A 40 percent hike in rental rates, disproportionately affecting black and low-income families.

A 300 percent increase in the suicide rate.

Eighty-four percent of New Orleans residents rate the government's recovery efforts negatively, while 66 percent believe the recovery money has been "mostly wasted."
==========
Non stop funds for endless war and billions for Israel to wage endless war, but the people of N.O. continue to languish while Hezbollah works night and day to rebuild Lebanon. bush is a disgraceful traitor and a terrorist to his own people.

23, yes mock 'em.

"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense." Mark Twain

Plame Out
The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET

I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has like Robert Novak's long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—çichael Isikoff and David Corn who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president's war policy. (His and Powell's and George Tenet's fingerprints are all over Bob Woodward's "insider" accounts of post-9/11 policy planning, which helps clear up another nonmystery: Woodward's revelation several months ago that he had known all along about the Wilson-Plame connection and considered it to be no big deal.) The Isikoff-Corn book, which is amusingly titled Hubris, solves this impossible problem of its authors' original "theory" by restating it in a passive voice:

The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who asserted in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction that:

"The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security."

After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."

What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could and should have ended right there.

But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department)also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.

"[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House. In this instance, however, the evidence allows them no other choice. But there is more than one way in which a case can be played by the book. Under the terms of the appalling and unconstitutional Intelligence Identities Protection Act (see "A Nutty Little Law," my Slate column of July 26, 2005), the CIA can, in theory, "refer" any mention of itself to the Justice Department to see if the statute denounced by The Nation and the New York Times when it was passed has been broken. The bar here is quite high. Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.

The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical".

Capt: I think the real shock will be for the people that think the elections are not being stolen wholesale as well as on the margins (via disenfranchisement and voter suppression).

I think this sort of fatalism just provides another excuse for people not to get their ass to the polling place. Ah, what's the point. They'll just steal my vote anyway.

Maybe the Dems should do what they said they were going to do before the '04 election: station a lawyer at every precinct in every state that has a Republican Sec. of State, especially precincts with lots of minority voters.

Kerry and Edwards huffed and puffed about that before the election, then they both took a dive the day after.

#38
Who has the most to lose if the information is disclosed? Who is up for re-election?

Rummie, the dummie, urges patience as more soldiers are killed and maimed in a wrong and an immoral war.

The '08 Election and the Housing Bubble

There's been a lot of discussion over the last few years about how another terrorist attack on American soil might influence the electoral fates of the Republican and Democratic parties. The conventional wisdom among the Beltway crowd seems to be that such an event would obviously help the GOP (as everything always does). The reasoning goes like this: Americans trust the Republican party more on security issues, particularly in presidential elections, and therefore anything that brings the threat of terrorism to the forefront helps the GOP. I suspect the electoral reality is a little more complex than that-- and a little more context-dependent. That said, I have little doubt that potential '08 candidates like John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Mark Warner--who have very little foreign policy experience and are likely to face an opponent like John McCain--realize that such an event could potentially dash their presidential dreams.

But there's another potential X factor in the '08 election that has so far received almost no attention: the housing market.

... A growing chorus of economists is predicting that the floor may be about to fall out from under the housing market. The bubble appears to have already popped in many regions; sales have slowed to a trickle and the market is clogged with unsold inventory.

...A collapse of the housing market might well send the U.S. economy into recession, perhaps a prolonged one. And unlike the bursting of the tech-stock bubble, which disproportionately affected the upper middle class and rich, the bursting of the housing bubble would be a body blow to the middle class. For most families, their house is not only their home, it is their chief asset and investment. And a great many people in recent years have paid their bills by borrowing against the rising value of their homes.

#45
Put him on the front line.

Hitchens: It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation . . .

Circulation? Here's the Oxford English Dictionary definition (second definition):

"the public availability or knowledge of something "

Hitchens is implying that once Armitage told Novak about Plame, it was "publicly available," so Libby and Rove could not have "leaked" it.

Which is, of course, absolute rot, and Hitchens knows it. Novak's article was published in July, AFTER LIbby and Rove mentioned Plame's occupation to reporters.

Although Hitchens was never much of a thinker, he was somewhat amusing for his florid style. Now that that's grown tiresome, there's little reason left to read him.

How Long?

Bush Appointee Used Taxpayer Resources For His Personal Horse Racing Operation

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is the federal agency resposible for all U.S. government international broadcasting, including Voice of America and U.S. broadcasts into countries like Iran and Cuba.

President Bush appointed "staunch conservative" Kenneth Tomlinson to the board of the BBG in 2001, and nominated him to serve as Chairman in 2004. Today, a State Dept. inspector general's report was made public showing that Tomlinson has abused his position and effectively defrauded taxpayers. Among the lowlights, Tomlinson:

-used BBG resources to support his personal horse racing operation;

-requested the hiring of a personal friend as a contractor without the knowledge of other board members or staff, and signed invoices providing almost $250,000 in compensation even though the contractor provided no written reports or other supporting documentation required by the contract;

-requested and received compensation that exceeded the maximum allowed by law;

If this story sounds familiar, it is. Tomlinson resigned last year from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after the CPB inspector general found Tomlinson had used “agency money to hire consultants and lobbyists without notifying the agency’s board,” among various other offenses.

Today, Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) wrote President Bush urging him to immediately remove Tomlinson from his position.
-------------
It's amazing how many incompetent appointees are out there. Somebody should keep a tally of the numbers.

How Long?

On Dec. 29, 2002, The New York Times published this brief letter by Rita Lasar: "Since my brother died on Sept. 11, 2001, his death has been used to justify the deaths of thousands of Afghan men, women and children. His death has been used to justify the possible pre-emptive strike against Iraq. His death has been used to justify the rounding up and incarceration of many ordinary citizens of Islamic heritage, all in the name of making America safer. I don't feel safer, and if you ask most Americans, neither do they. And now the steel removed from the World Trade Center is going to be used to build a Navy warship to bring death to countless others. Is there no end to this senseless killing our country is embarked on?"

#12 Capt

I saw Brown on Hardball interviewed by a pure Bushbot, Norah O'Donnell, subbing for Chris Matthews. He said exactly that. That he was asked to lie by the Bush administration. And you know what, I believe him. What's a lie to them? That's their modus operandi. I do see, however, an effort to make himself look better in the public light. He was scapegoated, to be sure, but he's still a complete showoff and prone to genuflection.

LBH and all,

Christopher Hitchens is a *8#&^*. Just watched him on last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on my DVR. What a complete nincompoop and arrogant asshole. He flipped off the audience at one point uttering "f**k you." He accused Moveon.org of distributing photos of Bush with a Hitler mustache holding his hand up in a Nazi-like salute next to a swastika. Hitchens continued by accusing the organization of conspiracy theorizing on Bush completely instigating 9/11. Maher responded by thanking him for the red herring and was further interrupted. Maher was obviously displeased throughout the show with Hitchen's behavior.

Moveon.org has been cited by Scholars for 9/11 truth (as has David Corn) for not going along with all of their theories. Moveon has not endorsed these ideas. I'm just setting the record straight as to how Hitchens proceeds in argument, much like Alexander Cockburn, his onetime colleague at The Nation. He was David's onetime colleague too. They resort to lies, a sure sign of no journalistic integrity. Again, a case of some professional jealousy perhaps (as it appears in the Amazon commentary), but more of a case of Hitchens being a complete asshole.

Mr. Corn,

Thank you for the tip on the new website, political junkie that I am. I appreciate it.

This is an interesting take on what's sure to not necessarily be a GOP landslide even with Diebold voting machine corruption, but a probable GOP victory this fall.

Losers, Left and Right

by Jonathan Chait

One of the odd things about the current political moment is that everybody thinks they're losing. Liberals are bitter that the government has been run by incompetent reactionaries. And even those hopeful ones who anticipate winning control of Congress in November know in the back of their minds that the only thing they'll gain is the ability to limit the damage George W. Bush could inflict on the country. Conservatives, meanwhile, are bitter that Bush's presidency is going down in flames, and they blame the Repubublican Party for abandoning small-government principles.

But in politics, somebody has to win every fight. So it can't really be the case that everybody is losing, can it?

Actually it can. We don't realize it, though, because ideologues tend to think that if they're doing badly, the other side must be doing well. Call it the zero-sum fallacy.

(Conclusion)
The politics that has dominated Washington the last half-dozen years is a corrupt brand of right-wing corporatism. People who reside in the highest 1% of the income spectrum or have K Street lobbyists at their command have done very well. But the philoshical program that most conservatives advocate--and by "most" I'm excluding the small minority who value tax cuts over everything else--has lost.

Conservatives and liberals both feel beleaguered for a good reason. The fact is, both of them have been losing.

_____________________________________________

By the way, my taxes have finally been finished for 2005. We made about $5,000 less than 2004 and paid higher taxes.

Jeanne,
I don't think there will be such an uprising against perceived voter fraud. The atmosphere is just not ripe enough yet, unfortunately. It's going to have to be the perception that we're at the ultimate bottom of the barrel. Methinks the upcoming attack on Iran will bring that about most assuredly.

I've been thinking for a long time now that it will be McCain in 2008, what with the feelings of insecurity wrought by security issues that will be bandied about by GOPers.

A logistical point--it took me one hour to get this damn thing posted properly. Apparently, all of the kinks have not been smoothed out yet.

Juan Cole

makes an important point today...

Bush claims to be literate

DETROIT -- President George W. Bush and his handlers lie about all things great and small. They are addicted to deception and are always able to propagate their prevarications with the reliable assistance of the mainstream media.

From the ridiculous claim that Bush is a voracious reader to the laughable suggestion that he had never linked Iraq and Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks, this administration treats the American people like they are dumb as rocks.

Because Bush is smart enough to know that the American people are as dumb as rocks!!!

#48 Drewp

....his excessively superfluous, hyperbolic style (HITCHENS). It has always been tiresome.

#51
That letter should be put at the base of a bronze statue of a soldier. And it should be placed in a spot that senators have to walk past everyday. The soldier should be staring at the senators as they walk to the floor of the senate.

"I think this sort of fatalism just provides another excuse for people not to get their ass to the polling place. Ah, what's the point. They'll just steal my vote anyway."

Read for comprehension?

Did I mention disenfranchisement?

I fully endorse MAKING THEM STEAL MY VOTE BY VOTING!

Self disenfranchisement is as dumb as a box of rocks, anybody that reads what I post knows that is what I am about. I think anybody that does not vote is giving their power away and I have posted at lengths about it. Have you missed those?

Shall I re-post?

Do you read anything in my post to support your claim that my post should make people not vote or are you inventing something to entertain?

Have we ever met? I am capt I vote and think any non-voter is unpatriotic, lazy, a knucklehead and the problem with this country.

Voting is a responsibility not a privilege to be discarded out of angst or anger.

If a person does not vote they are voting for the opposition. Might as well because they do not have to steal the non-votes.

I cannot believe you would post such a thing about me.

I assume you must be bored? or WTF?

capt

Wasted lives used as cannon fodder

In the world of mainstream media, there is always something "breaking." Who wants to hear about old news when there are so many new disasters to keep up with?

As a new hurricane threatens, the watch is on and reporters get out their storm gear. JonBenet is still getting massive coverage, and Tom Cruise is back in the news -- always good for a story or three.

And this is the week of the Katrina anniversary and every news organization in America is doing specials and recycling footage.

But there is one word missing, and that word is, class?

Iraq!

Carey & Drewp,

That's right; nobody likes Hitch. That's why the two of you have such a huge national audience and no one has ever heard of him.

No, wait. It's the other way around.

Plame Out
The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET

He used to be a liberal before he became a conservative. I thought you guys hated flip-floppers. What, you don't hate flip-floppers any more? YOU are the flip-floppers!!!!!

Talk about a beer and a whiskey for political junkies, Hitchens has more than his fair share of both, not that there's anything wrong with it.

Just think where we were two years ago. People still thought old George would be great to have a beer with. Now he's the guy everybody tries to ignore.

59 I thought you reserved most of your piffle for incompetent Republicans. You would find them here. Off with you!

That also does not mean they are NOT stealing our votes. I think they have and they will again.

Are those conflicting ideas too much to bear at one time?

"I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic." ~ Lisa Alther, Kinflicks, 1975

capt

Hitchen's crawled out of his bottle?

What for this time, a little Bush fawning?

The guy is an insult.

Anybody that believes anything he puts to print is a victim of their own bad judgment.

IMHO

capt

Nazi Party Quotes and their Stupidity

59

THAT was funny.

64

You should know about crawling out of a bottle.

64 You should know about crawling out of a bottle.
Posted by: MP5 at August 29, 2006 08:35 PM

You should too MP3

Pay to be Saved

The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster-response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co-production of Big Aid and Big Box.

This, apparently, is the lesson learned from the government's calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina: Businesses do disaster better.

Here is my suggestion! Bush should assign Hezbelloh to run all relief services in the world. Hezbelloh will get the job done and proclaim mission accomplished.

Bush's Broken Promises to Katrina Victims
By Matthew Rothschild
August 29, 2006

In the one year since Katrina, Bush has failed to follow through with some key promises he made to the victims.

And he's forgotten the meaning of the two words he learned back then: poverty and race, words that barely have passed his lips since his opportunistic speech down in Jackson Square last September.

You remember that one, don't you? Bush standing alone in the lit square, while the rest of New Orleans had no electricity.

That night, Bush pledged many things.

I remember listening to the speech and thinking, wow, he sounds almost like FDR.

Take this passage, for instance: "To help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act," said Bush. "Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government, and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge."

Or this one: "I propose the creation of Worker Recovery Accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work," he said. "Under this plan, the federal government would provide accounts of up to $5,000, which these evacuees could draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job, and for child care expenses during their job search."

Well, guess what?

Nothing ever came of the Urban Homesteading Act, and nothing ever came of Worker Recover Accounts.

Bush appears to not even have lifted a finger for them.

The Urban Homesteading Act went to a Senate subcommittee on December 13, 2005, and a House subcommittee on January 10, 2005, never to be heard from again.

A similar fate befell the Urban Homesteading Act.

Had Bush wanted to, he could have pressed his Republican colleagues, who control Congress, to pass these bills. He did not.

Bush's speech was too good to be true. Like much of his propaganda, it was a mere mask of compassion.

#68
Here is my suggestion! Bush should assign Hezbelloh to run all relief services in the world. Hezbelloh will get the job done and proclaim mission accomplished.
-----------
That is a very interesting observation, Gerald.

"All the great conceptual discoveries of the intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jew has this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without the Jews, it might have been a much emptier place."--Paul Johnson

No personal insults to other members or you will get banned.

#29 Capt

So very astute and right on. That's exactly why we've been steadily losing our civil rights. Instead of a repeat of the sixties, rife with civil unrest, everyone who protests will be jailed indeterminably. I'm quite surprised more has not been written about such an obvious ploy. It has nothing to do with terrorists, does it?! Thus the NSA illegal wiretapping and all other forms of FBI surveillance. We're on their list.

This appeared in yesterday's LA Times.

Hezbollah Chief Indicates Regret for Kidnappings

Nasrallah says he would not have ordered the seizure of Israeli troops had he known the result.

The leader of the Hezbollah militia said Sunday that he never would have ordered the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that led Israel to declare war had he known the consequences for Lebanon.

...The cleric said that Israel and the United States had been planning a strike on Hezbollah before the kidnapping of the soldiers, an operation apparently aimed at a prisoner swap. Nasrallah cited a recent article in the New Yorker magazine by Seymour Hersh, which alleged that Pentagon planners wanted Israel to attack Hezbollah as a precursor to an attack on Iran.

"The war was planned for the end of September or the end of October with or without an excuse," Nazrallah told the interviewer. "There was a U.S. decision. All the elements indicate it was not about the two prisoners."

_________________________________________________

Well, well, well. Wayne Madsen? The Netanyahou/Cheney plan? Again, Hersh is way out in front of the pack as is Madsen! As is Poisonplanet.com, etc., etc., etc.

Look-out Iran. AND, look-out U.S. occupiers in Iraq. I think, however, the attack may come after the election, but it is coming, whatever the timing. About this, I'm not so sure what with the "unexpected" civil war raging in Iraq. Diplomacy is an unthinkable option for neocons.

As I said before, Jeanne, I think with the devastating consequences for the U.S. as a result of attacking Iran, and they will be utterly destructive, you might begin to see some popular uprisings.

An Apology From a Bush Voter

A great article to read!!!

#68 Gerald & #70 Jeanne

Yes, Gerald's observation is accurate. Guess who's funding Hezbollah's providance? Gives a moments pause, doesn't it?

#68 Gerald & #70 Jeanne

Yes, Gerald's observation is accurate. Guess who's funding Hezbollah's providance? Gives a moments pause, doesn't it?

#68 Gerald & #70 Jeanne

Yes, Gerald's observation is accurate. Guess who's funding Hezbollah's providance? Gives a moments pause, doesn't it?

Sorry about the triple post. Having some problems still.

Remember the good ole' days when "progressives" would think this was a bad thing?

TEHRAN, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Police in Tehran have been ordering Iranian women to cover up, stopping those they perceive as "badly veiled."

The crackdown followed the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We are certainly seeing a return to behavior we haven't seen for 10 years," Hadi Ghaemi of Human Rights Watch told The Telegraph. "Generally, the imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing under Ahmadinejad."

Ghaemi said that the penalty for violating a code that requires the complete covering of women's heads and bodies in public depends on the officers involved and the women's political connections.

"The person could end up in jail depending on their relationship with the authorities," he said. "Generally, the imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing under Ahmadinejad."

Just as women in recent years had pushed the boundaries by wearing head scarves that revealed more than they hid, many Iranians had flouted the law banning them from owning satellite dishes, the report said. The government has been cracking down on them as well.

Capt: Read for comprehension? Did I mention disenfranchisement? I fully endorse MAKING THEM STEAL MY VOTE BY VOTING! Self disenfranchisement is as dumb as a box of rocks, anybody that reads what I post knows that is what I am about. I think anybody that does not vote is giving their power away and I have posted at lengths about it. Have you missed those? Shall I re-post? Do you read anything in my post to support your claim that my post should make people not vote or are you inventing something to entertain? Have we ever met? I am capt I vote and think any non-voter is unpatriotic, lazy, a knucklehead and the problem with this country. Voting is a responsibility not a privilege to be discarded out of angst or anger. If a person does not vote they are voting for the opposition. Might as well because they do not have to steal the non-votes. I cannot believe you would post such a thing about me. I assume you must be bored? or WTF?

Boy, did you ever misinterpret. I wasn't paraphrasing you. I was referring to the faceless masses who may or may not decide to show up. Telling these people that they may be turned away or be forced to stand in line for 10 hours -- which is what I assumed you meant by "disenfranchisement" and "voter suppression"-- probably won't encourage them to turn out.

At ease, Capt.

MP5: Remember the good ole' days when "progressives" would think this was a bad thing?

Still do. What makes you think liberals support religious tyranny in Iran any more than they support it here?

f'er: That's right; nobody likes Hitch. That's why the two of you have such a huge national audience and no one has ever heard of him.

It's not so much that nobody likes him. It's more that he doesn't seem to have much to say (to wit: his latest contribution). For a pundit, that's not good. Carey and I, on other hand, don't make our living pundificating.

#74
Gerald,
That is interesting.

Pay To Be Saved: The Future of Disaster Response

[..]

Here's a snapshot of what could be in store in the not-too-distant future: helicopter rides off of rooftops in flooded cities ($5,000 a pop, $7,000 for families, pets included), bottled water and "meals ready to eat" ($50 per person, steep, but that's supply and demand) and a cot in a shelter with a portable shower (show us your biometric ID -- developed on a lucrative Homeland Security contract -- and we'll track you down later with the bill. Don't worry, we have ways: spying has been outsourced too).

The model, of course, is the U.S. healthcare system, in which the wealthy can access best-in-class treatment in spa-like environments while 46-million Americans lack health insurance. As emergency-response, the model is already at work in the global AIDS pandemic: private-sector prowess helped produce lifesaving drugs (with heavy public subsidies), then set prices so high that the vast majority of the world's infected cannot afford treatment.

If that is the corporate world's track record on slow-motion disasters, why should we expect different values to govern fast-moving disasters, like hurricanes or even terrorist attacks? It's worth remembering that as Israeli bombs pummeled Lebanon not so long ago, the U.S. government initially tried to charge its citizens for the cost of their own evacuations. And of course anyone without a Western passport in Lebanon had no hope of rescue.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

In a "for profit" world there is no humanity, no compassion for the less fortunate or poverty stricken. That is the evil that thrives in this twisted take we call community. Instead of lifting others up the more profitable reward is to trod on the least of us.

Corporate takeovers of social services is just a way to dissolve them. Most social services are provided in the spirit of charity and charity will never be profitable.

capt

"What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?": Madeleine Albright, to General Colin Powell, as quoted in Powell's book 'My American Journey', 1995.

=
"The business of America is business": President Calvin Coolidge

=
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power.": President Franklin D. Roosevelt

=
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." : John Kenneth Galbraith

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Reclaiming The Issues: Islamic Or Republican Fascism?

[..]

Genuine American fascists are on the run, and part of their survival strategy is to redefine the term "fascism" so it can't be applied to them any more. Most recently, George W. Bush said: "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

In fact, the Islamic fundamentalists who apparently perpetrated 9/11 and other crimes in Spain and the United Kingdom are advocating a fundamentalist theocracy, not fascism.

But theocracy - the merging of religion and government - is also on the plate for the new American fascists (just as it was for Hitler, who based the Nazi death cult on a "new Christianity" that would bring "a thousand years of peace"), so they don't want to use that term, either.

While the Republicans promote the term "Islamo-fascism," the rest of the world is pushing back, as the BBC noted in an article by Richard Allen Greene ("Bush's Language Angers US Muslims" - 12 August 2006):

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

The article goes much further into the issue.

capt

The `near impossible' for Ms. Sekula-Gibbs maybe just a tad less impossible! Now, that's what I call putting the ole Thinking Cap On! Gov. Rick Perry, you da Man!

How To Give A Write-In Candidate An Advantage?
Keeping Texas-22
By Erick

Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is not the easiest name to remember for a write-in, but she is the candidate the Texas GOP settled on to keep Tom DeLay's seat out of the hands of Nick Lampson. Ms. Sekula-Gibbs has two problems in this heavily Republican district: (1) she is running as Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, which is not exactly an easy name to spell and (2) she's a write-in candidate.

Today, Governor Rick Perry made things a little easier for her. He called for a Special Election to fill the remainder of Tom DeLay's term, which does not end until January. The Special Election will be held on November 7, 2006, the same day as the general election race to succeed him in the next session of congress.

Candidates have until Friday to pay a qualifying fee. That means Ms. Sekula-Gibbs' name will appear on the ballot, making it easier for people to write her in on the ballot in the separate race. The tactic might confuse some voters. It is not often one gets to vote for a listed candidate in one section of a ballot and then write in the same candidate in another section of the ballot. However, should the Sekula-Gibbs campaign and the Texas GOP work together to educate voters, things should turn out nicely for the GOP in Texas 22.

Some who returned to New Orleans consider leaving
Aug 24, 8:12 AM (ET)
By Peter Henderson

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Jack Sutton's family has sold antiques and art in New Orleans's French Quarter for three generations, but if things don't getter better soon, the clan may head to Las Vegas.

Every day life in New Orleans brings more recovery from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city a year ago on August 29. But some long-time residents feel they may be forced to move if the improvement does not accelerate, and they could take an important part of the culture -- small shops and neighborhood professionals -- with them.

A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 15 percent of Katrina survivors who had returned to the community they lived in before the storm hit would like to move away, and that an additional 15 percent would like to stay but may move. Only 68 percent definitely planned to stay.

Some who are considering leaving see a leadership vacuum in local and state government, fretting that bureaucracy is not easing and there are no signs of help, such as a national campaign to reassure and draw tourists.

"You know that things are bad when you know everybody walking up and down the street," Sutton said. "If business doesn't return, we'll have to go elsewhere."

....Small businesses throughout the French Quarter are reducing inventory and living on savings and reduced cash flow, said John Williams, director of the University of New Orleans hotel, restaurant and tourism school.

....Katrina killed about 1,500, according to the National Hurricane Center, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and flattening much of the Mississippi coast.

About half of the New Orleans city population has returned,...

But large parts of the city are still in trouble.....

....Ultimately the fate of the city's professionals and business people may rest in the hands of government.

Kronberger is adamant that he wants to stay in New Orleans, but he said that he has not seen leadership in the city that would bring in people such as himself. The city is still working on a reconstruction plan, for instance.

"At a city-wide level what has prevented people getting together is a lack of leadership," he said. "If there is a meaningful role for me to play, I think I'll stay."

Sutton sees his best hope as a massive media campaign by the state to let America know that the French Quarter is open for business -- and needs its help.

....The city and state have launched a national advertising campaign, spending about 80 percent of $10 million allocated, and the state has applied for $28.5 million more to promote the city, convention center chief Stephen Perry said.
...............................................

pundificating
Posted by: Drewp at August 29, 2006 10:19 PM

good malaprop Drewp.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin all by myself,
than share a velvet cushion.

We're still waiting for the New Mexico company's report on WTC 7, but here's some new pictures I hadn't seen. Shows the big gouge on the south side went all the way to the top. See the explanation in several pictures of the east penthouse falling first.
As the collapse progressed down the sourtheast, the mass landed on the cantilevered section of the lower floors (7 seconds later) and pulled the 7th floor eastward, pulling columns out of alignment across most of the south and middle of the building at once:
Then it shows a diagram.

Check it out, it's a small post... not a looooong page to scroll thru...
new pictures of 7

Bush had a National reality in his lap, he chose to ignore this........do I Really think he is reading Camu? or anything else above the reading comprehension level of MY PET GOAT.......no.

I daily read Neocon talking points......do I comprehend them, yeah pretty much.

I got good grades in reading comprehension, kinda doubt bushbunny did.

I too have read existentiallist's. Difference is.........Comprehending. W lacks this.

Im reading FIASCO, and I have just come to the point where Powell brought in Armitage to preview his UN speach.

There was resounding silence.

Could they have picked (again) a better scape goat??????

The list of these is endless......Powell, Scooter, Brownie, Armitage...etc.

Smoke and Mirrors disguised as Shock and Awe.

Brown's statements are ludicrous. Telling the truth in the Bush administration are grounds for termination. Being a non-player can mean cleaning your desk out rather quickly.

One inner-circle economist predicted that the cost of the Iraq War would be much higher. He was terminated rather quickly. His body may have been fat, but his brain was not fat in his accurate cost assessment.

Post-Katrina, the Bush administration's tune is just a little different. They're finally owning-up to miscalculations and blunders. Surprise! Surprise! Brown's
statements, a year down the road, are a just a little hard to swallow.

Nice to hear all you blokes punchng holes in saucy ol' Hitchy. He deserves it; what with his Tory hubris and downright rude manner. I'd say he deserves to be spanked. When will he come around??!

How many false dialectical talking points can the RNC possibly synthesize from their party's lie pile and the truthful assertions made against them?

Can't wait to read Hubris. I wish the corpo-media outlets will put away their infotainment long enough for the nation examine the facts: what the frightning right calls "the mythical narrative."

Google: [impeachment Bush] -guess how many hits???
14,200,000

Plames...set Blame...Dems play Games...to (to their)Shame...to Maim...and apply Stain...for Gain...but now in Flame(s)...Born form Corn to Scorn..now Torn (poor baby)...now what new Horn (against truth)will he Adorn? Apology to Bush Administation in order? Naw...that would take too much character...oh well Davy, back to the drawing board....