A Flurry of Posts Before Vacating

First... New details surface about the Cheney/Leahy flap...

After Mr. Cheney successfully delivered the epithet and started to walk away, Mr. Leahy—sotto voce—referred to the Vice-President using a term more often heard in taverns and locker rooms than in the august Senate chamber, a term that refers to a sexual act commonly acknowledged as taboo among all cultures that proscribe incestuous contact between a mother and a son.

Mr. Cheney—apparently hearing Mr. Leahy’s remark—stopped, turned, and invited his colleague from across the aisle to engage in a sexual act that is considered a felony in some states, and which involves oral-genital contact.

Hold tightly your sides!

The Republican Party Platform

Highlights from the Republican Party Platform

(1) PUT RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGY FIRST: We recognize that we need to cater to our right wing base rather than pesky moderates like Nancy Reagan and Orrin Hatch. Therefore will put ideology over science and deny all credible scientific evidence that stem cell research will save lives and that global warming exists.

(2) DENY A WOMEN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE: We will continue, at all costs, to ensure that women are denied their Constitutional right to choose. We will appoint judges who will work to rollback that right and we will fight for legislation that infringes on this right.

(3) REWARD OUR WEALTHY CONTRIBUTORS: We will continue to pass tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest Americans who fund our campaigns and get us elected.

(4) NEW BUSINESS FOR OUR FRIENDS WITH NEW NO BID CONTRACTS: We will provide no-bid contracts to our closest friends to ensure they will receive the largest contracts possible. Also, we will relaunch our secret energy taskforce so we can add more loopholes for big oil.

(5) ADD $10 TRILLION IN DEFICITS: In the past four years, this Administration has successfully taken the country from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $5 trillion deficit -- a $10 trillion loss of revenue. We want to take the next step by adding an additional $10 trillion to the deficits, leaving the burden on the next generation.

(6) HARM OUR ENVIRONMENT: We will rollback generations of environmental regulations that protect our air, land and water. We will poison our water with arsenic and mercury; we will allow drilling in our most pristine natural wilderness; and we will make sure taxpayers pay to clean up our toxic waste sites.

(7) CUT AID TO CHILDREN AND DECIMATE PROGRAMS FOR SENIORS: We will cut domestic programs that provide health care, early education and nutrition programs and after-school services to thousands of American children. We will continue to fail to live up to our commitment to fund our education mandate by $27 billion. We will also pass our $2 trillion plan to privatize Social Security.

(8) BREAK OUR COMMITMENT TO VETERANS: We will once again promise veterans will be provided for under a Republican administration. We will then fail to provide the funding veterans need for health care, cut 500,000 veterans from the system entirely and close veterans’ hospitals across the country.

(9) RUSH TO WAR IN IRAQ: We are proud that we stubbornly rushed to war in Iraq without our allies, sent our troops into combat without proper equipment, over-stretched our military, and failed to plan for the peace.

(10) LET AL QAEDA OFF THE HOOK: We will continue to divert our attention and resources from Afghanistan, break our promises to rebuild that nation. We let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora to continue planning attacks against the U.S. from his hideout reportedly in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

(11) LEAVE AMERICA VULNERABLE: We will under-invest in port, chemical and nuclear security, claiming the war in Iraq protects us here at home, and hope no one notices Ridge's and Ashcroft's warnings of an imminent attack on the homeland in the coming months.

Eminent Domain

Not only do we occupy a "sovereign" nation, but we have even heisted their internet domain.

"To me, having .iq is probably one of the most important steps toward giving Iraq its identity and independence," said Hisham Ashkouri, an Iraqi-born architect who has lived in the United States since 1972 and is designing several projects for Baghdad. "The information technology part today is extremely important."

more >

More Abu Ghraib... Children Sodomized

Seymour Hersh, in a speech to the ACLU last week, reported more abuse evidence in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, much of it more vile than had been previously reported.

The media in the States has been slow to report it, but it's been picked up in the Middle East at al-Jazeera.

Lifting from Kos, this was transcribed from the video of Hersh's speech:

Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok. Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib which is 30 miles from Baghdad [...]

The women were passing messages saying "Please come and kill me, because of what's happened". Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.

It's impossible to say to yourself how do we get there? who are we? Who are these people that sent us there?

These people and their children know nothing of Intelligence reports, yellowcake or Weapons of Mass Destruction, yet they have become -- for many soldiers who believed in Bush's war -- the face of Iraq... the enemy.

If This Doesn't Piss You Off...

...I don't know what will. This literally hits a little more close to home. A Michigander who had more than served his share of time in Iraq is dead. Quoting Lila Lipscomb's husband (in Fahrenheit 9/11), "For what? For what?!?

Local Soldier Killed Was Scheduled To Return Home
Man Joined Military To Serve Country, Pay Off Student Loans

LINCOLN PARK, Mich. -- A local community is mourning after one of their own was killed in an ambush in Iraq.

Craig S. Frank, a Michigan National Guard military police officer, died Saturday in an ambush while guarding a convoy traveling north of Baghdad, his mother said. She said her son was hit in the back with a rocket-propelled grenade as his unit drove through Beiji.

Frank, 24, of Lincoln Park, was due to come home Aug. 11 after two extensions of duty.

He reportedly came home for most of June to be with his father who was recovering from open-heart surgery.

Before heading back to Iraq, he spoke with one of his neighbors, Local 4 reported.

"I told him, 'Everybody here is proud of you. We're supporting you. You tell your guys back in your outfit … We're supporting them 100 percent.' And he said, 'OK. Thanks a lot, sir.' He's a good kid," said Andy Davis, of Lincoln Park.

Frank joined the National Guard just a few weeks after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

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For the phonied up connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda... That's what!

Bush's Polluter Protection Policy

It's about time that someone started calling the spades for what they are!

Republican Ex-EPA Chief Criticizes Bush
By ERIK STETSON
Associated Press writer
Tuesday July 20, 2004

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The head of the Environmental Protection Agency for two Republican presidents criticized President Bush's record on Monday, calling it a "polluter protection" policy.

Russell E. Train, who headed the EPA from September 1973 to January 1977 - part of the Nixon and Ford administrations - said Bush's record on the environment was so dismal that he would cast his vote for Democrat John Kerry.

"It's almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," Train said. "I find this deeply disturbing."

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Well... We're Wai-ting!

Blair should apologise for handling of war, says poll

Tony Blair should use tomorrow's Commons debate on the Butler report to repair his damaged reputation by apologising for his handling of the war in Iraq, an opinion poll suggested yesterday, as Michael Howard moved to distance himself from the conflict.

The prime minister last week said he took responsibility for errors and had searched his conscience. No 10 aides said an apology would be interpreted as admitting he had been wrong to go to war, which he repeatedly denies.

As Labour pounced on the Tory leader's claim that he would not have voted for the US-led war if he had known that it rested on faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal, the poll suggested that voters share the political elite's doubts and uncertainties about the conflict.

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Outfoxed



Tom Tomorrow has created a bonus This Modern World cartoon this week coinciding (accidentally) with the release of Outfoxed, which I ordered yesterday.

Speaking of poopyheads...

I discovered this cartoon tonight via xymphora... the Guardian's Steve Bell.

xymphora writes:

No mainstream American cartoonist would even attempt it. It is a more accurate depiction of the parallel American and British realities of misuse of intelligence on Iraq than either of the parallel American and British whitewash reports will ever reveal. The reports, coming out at the same time and with almost identical bullshit, might as well have been excreted from the same anus.

UPDATE: Yet another poopyhead funny.

UPDATE UPDATE: Found: a real, live poopyhead.

Iraq Gives Order to Reopen Paper G.I.s Had Closed

This should be interesting. Will Sadr pick up where he left off?

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 18 — Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Sunday ordered the reopening of a radical Shiite newspaper closed by United States soldiers nearly four months ago. The closing was a catalyst for some of the worst anti-American mayhem of the occupation.

Dr. Allawi's decree concerning the newspaper, Al Hawza, was a pointedly conciliatory gesture to Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric whose associates run the newspaper. The decree came on the same day as Dr. Allawi approved an American airstrike meant to pound another branch of insurgent fighters, in the city of Falluja, a center for attacks on American and Iraqi forces here.

Together, Dr. Allawi's two actions seemed early evidence of his stated strategy for taming the deadly insurgency by making concessions to fighters who cooperate and cracking down on those who do not. It is unclear, however, how much influence he has with the American military, though American officials said the airstrike in Falluja was carried out after Dr. Allawi had endorsed it.

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Successes Of The Bush Administration

One question keeps popping into my head amidst all of the posturing with regard to various issues in this election year: What has the Bush administration accomplished in the last three-and-a-half years that warrants being given four more years in the White House?

Certainly the economic picture hasn't been all that notable. While job creation has improved recently, Bush's job creation stats (according to the United States Department of Labor, December 2003) are pretty flimsy when compared to past presidents. (Actually, Republicans in general don't quite measure up.)

Roosevelt (D) +5.3%
Johnson (D) +3.8%
Carter (D) +3.1%
Truman (D) +2.5%
Clinton (D) +2.4%
Kennedy (D) +2.3%
Nixon (R) +2.2%
Reagan (R) +2.1%
Coolidge (R) +1.1%
Ford (R) +1.1%
Eisenhower (R) +0.9%
G. Bush (R) +0.6%
G.W. Bush (R) -0.7%
Hoover (R) -9.0%

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that hourly wages are not keeping up with inflation.

What is there, then, for Bush to run on?

Education? I think not!

Is the removal of Saddam Hussein from power reason enough to support him? There really seems to be very, very little on which to make a case for Bush's re-election [sic] once you remove the Saddam story from the mix. If indeed his overthrow can be considered an accomplishment, how does the war stack up with a cost/benefit analysis?

Bush has spent nearly 125 billion dollars and sent almost 900 of our children, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers to their deaths. Almost 5300 have been wounded, with less than half of them returning to action. Of course, the extent of their wounds and injuries -- and their subsequent costs (financially and emotionally) -- will likely never be demonstrated well with statistics.

Will a tangible benefit ever be realized? The war in Iraq has been a very high-risk, low-yield proposition.

With Bush's Weapons of Mass Destruction argument all but put to rest; with the 9/11 Commission's findings that there was no significant connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11, Bush has begun campaigning on the premise that the United States and the world are safer with a Saddam Hussein-less Iraq.

It's fruitless, of course, to say it now, but I would have been a hell of a lot more convinced that this nation's security was a priority of this administration had Bush paid attention to Richard Clarke's proposal for a Department of Homeland Security prior to September 11, or had he seriously considered the infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief.

Later this week, Stephen Flynn, a former national security official in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, releases America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism:

"Despite all the rhetoric, after the initial flurry of activity to harden cockpit doors and confiscate nail clippers, there has been little appetite in Washington to move beyond government reorganization and color-coded alerts."

"The measures we have been cobbling together are hardly fit to deter amateur thieves, vandals, and hackers, never mind determined terrorists."

Had Bush's response even slightly resembled Clinton's when he was given a similar PDB, perhaps I could trust him with our security.

A report by the presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will include the newly declassified document and a previously declassified PDB from Aug. 6, 2001, when it is released this week. It also will contain details of what the commission's executive director, Philip Zelikow, described Saturday as an "energetic response" to the hijack threat information by the Clinton administration, including its efforts to determine if the reports were true.

It's easy for Bush to claim he's doing everything to protect us now, but I'm not convinced. Even on the morning of September 11, 2001 -- as the World Trade Center signalled to the world just how vulnerable we were -- our security was a mere afterthought, held hostage by a photo opportunity.



With much of America behind him after September 11 (hell, most of America would have been behind Richard Simmons after that day!), Bush failed to be the uniter he claimed he would be, by pulling troops out of Afghanistan before we'd accomplished the mission of capturing Osama bin Laden, the true perpetrator of the attacks.




So, as this one "accomplishment" goes, when you consider the vast difference in might between the United States military and that of Iraq's prior to the war, I'd suggest that ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein was about as formidable a task as the New York Yankees might face in playing a Little League team.

Except that our closer hasn't been able to get the damned ball over the plate!

It's time to make a call to the bullpen.

Amen!

"How can Blair live with Iraq deaths?"

"I’m very angry, and I’m angry that young men like Gordon have to die in an unnecessary, unjust war.

"It was a difficult decision because I knew that if I said what I said I would be accused of grandstanding. I think this was a situation for people who are never asked their opinion about anything: nobody really cares what anyone in Pollok thinks, but they have lives and values and, unfortunately, the only time anyone pays attention to them is a tragedy like this.

"They are human beings who have the same hopes and dreams as anyone else. The world of George Bush and Tony Blair and people on that strata is so far removed from the Polloks of this world, and it is the same in the US."

Asked about last week’s publication of the Butler report, Mann said: "If my action is taken on faulty intelligence and causes the death of many soldiers under my command I don’t know how I could live with myself.

"It just seemed that, whatever the Butler report says, those who are in power will stay in power because that is the nature of it. What they got in their intelligence gathering was what they wanted to hear."

more>>

CAPTURED!

One of the world's most dangerous fugitive criminals was apprehended in Japan yesterday. His crime? Playing chess.

Ex-Chess Champ Fischer Detained in Tokyo
By Eric Talmadge, Associated Press

TOKYO - After decades of evading the public eye and U.S. justice officials, former world champion Bobby Fischer — possibly the best and certainly the most eccentric chess player ever — has been taken into custody by Japanese immigration after allegedly trying to leave the country with an invalid passport.

Fischer, 61, was detained at Narita Airport outside Tokyo while trying to board a Japan Airlines flight for the Philippines on Tuesday, according to friends and airport officials. The U.S. Embassy confirmed Fischer was detained.

It was not immediately clear if Fischer would be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted for playing a 1992 chess match in the former Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions. Japan and the United States have an extradition treaty.

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Negotiating For bin Laden?

Armitage arrives in Pakistan
Thursday, July 15, 2004

ISLAMABAD - U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage flew into Islamabad from New Delhi on Wednesday for talks with Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmoud Kasuri on bilateral and international issues of mutual concern, a Pakistani government official said.

Armitage will hold talks with Kasuri and Shaukat Aziz, a former banker and finance minister who will become Pakistan's next prime minister, the official said. (Kyodo News)

That would be my guess.

Gag Rules

Free speech takes another hit. As the SlimFast ads claim...

LOSE BIG.




We all are, Whoopi, we all are!

Let SlimFast know how you feel about this by contacting them at their website or by phoning them at 561-833-9920; or by writing to them at:

Slim·Fast Foods Company
P.O. Box 3625
West Palm Beach, FL 33402

The Bush Twins On Tour

It's all in the family...

Barbara and Jenna Bush have joined the Bush campaign tour this week, introducing the new Bush campaign theme.




Bar exams anyone?

Bush Unleashes His Big Gun



...and she does!

More Kennedy Flashback

"Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed a Lincoln; after Taft we needed a Wilson; after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt. . . . And after eight years of Eisenhower, this nation needs a strong, creative Democrat in the White House." -- John F. Kennedy, February 12, 1960

... and after Bush?

"this nation needs a strong, creative Democrat in the White House."

Proud To Be A Liberal

The Republicans have done well since the Reagan years to turn "Liberal" into a dirty word. It's interesting to note, however, that in one of his most well-known (and quoted) speeches that Reagan posed to Mikhail Gorbachev:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

As a matter of trying to reclaim the true meaning of the word, I'd like to cite John F. Kennedy from September of 1960, while accepting the New York Liberal Party Nomination:

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Most Iraqis 'oppose US presence'

It doesn't really make sense to me that these polls are being taken. In 2000, Most Americans opposed a Bush presence. You've seen where that left us!

BIRDS Of A Feather?

Not long ago, Vice President Dick Cheney made news with his potty mouth in the Senate chambers. Not to be outdone, our fearless leader uses sign language to get his point across.

Osama bin Lotto

You've got to play to win!

He Says...

He says...

George Bush (17 March 2003):
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

They say...

Tony Blair (6 July 2004):
"I have to accept we haven't found [weapons of mass destrutcion] and that we may never find them,"



He Says...

George Bush (29 January 2003):
"He is a danger not only to countries in the region but, as I explained last night, because of his al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he is a danger to Americans."

George Bush (16 June 2004):
"There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Bush said Thursday after a meeting with his Cabinet. "There were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda."

They say...

9/11 Commission (12 July 2004):
"The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is nearing completion of a final, probably unanimous report that will stand by the conclusions of the panel's staff and largely dismiss White House theories both about a close working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and about possible Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11, commission officials said."



He Says...

George Bush (12 July 2004):
"Today because America has acted, and because America has led, the forces of terror and tyranny have suffered defeat after defeat, and America and the world are safer."

We Say...

Betsy DeVos The Parrot

From the "Got Conservative Values?" Talking Points (PDF) at the Michigan GOP site:

John Kerry's Priorities…

Kerry Says He Didn't Have Time To Be Briefed on Terrorist Threats, Yet He Made Time to Attend a Hollywood Celebrity Bush-Bashing.

When asked about al Qaeda plans of large-scale attack on the U.S., Kerry responded: "Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me. I just haven't had time." (Larry King Live, CNN, 7/8/04)

From Betsy's Blog (9 July 2004):

KERRY'S PRIORITIES

Last night, at a star-studded fundraiser for John Kerry, a Hollywood actress quoted a bumper sticker that she had seen previously. It read: "Defend America. Defeat Bush."

It's a shame that Kerry's Hollywood buddies didn't watch Larry King Live just a few hours earlier. If they had, they would have discovered that John Kerry had neither the interest nor the time to defend America.

He said so himself. Kerry: "I just haven't had time" to read the national security and terrorism briefing offered to him by the Bush administration.

John Kerry did have time, however, to attend both that Larry King taping and the fundraiser (where Kerry’s Hollywood supporters, who he called the "heart and soul" of America, compared our President’s intelligence to an "egg-timer," no less).

The transcript of the interview reveals that Kerry had yet to receive the brief by the time he talked to King.

WINCE-INDUCING MOMENT!?!?

Referring to Michael Isikoff's "considerable journalistic skills," Brad DeLong doesn't pull punches...

Wince-Inducing Moment? Wince-Inducing Moment!? WINCE-INDUCING MOMENT!?!?

I wince when I hear George W. Bush try to pronounce "nuclear" or "Abu Ghraib." I wince when my daughter does a belly flop off the diving board. I wince when one of my students misses an easy question in class. One winces when Georgie seeks praise for his skeet shooting, or when Muffy misses her serve again.

When a Deputy to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency -- or somebody at that level -- refuses to do his job, saying that he is not going to provide intelligence to the Secretary of State because the Secretary of State is uninterested in whether what he is about to say to the United Nations is true or not, it is not appropriate to "wince." It is appropriate to be outraged. It is appropriate to demand the immediate firing of the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser who have created the climate in which intelligence is not wanted, to immediately fire the CIA Director who has failed to push back strongly enough by saying that his agency will provide intelligence whether the NSC principals wish to hear it or not, to fire the Director's Deputy who serves as the heavy squashing the reports of the only person who knows what he is talking about.

And to impeach the man who chooses and retains such servants to run the security policy of the United States of America.

"Wince." Feh.

All In The Family

It must be genetic.

Bush vs. Dukakis (1988):




Bush vs. Kerry (2004):



From today's Washington Times

Lessons Of September 11

George W. Bush (12 July 2004):
"America must remember the lessons of September the 11th," Mr Bush said. "We must confront serious dangers before they fully materialise."

Translation:
"Next time, I'll ask someone what the implication of "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" might be.


George W. Bush (11 September 2001):
"Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans."

Translation:
"Now, where's that photo opportunity?"


Both photos taken at 9:03am on 11 September 2001)

Speaking of Running... An Update

Eight Gored at Pamplona Bull Run

Eight people have been gored during Pamplona's Festival of San Fermin, better known as the running of the bulls.

One man suffered a series of injuries as he was repeatedly caught a bull's horns at the entrance to the bull ring. His trousers and shirt were ripped to shreds as he tried to crawl away.

A further nine people have been treated for cuts and bruises after being trampled and four people were admitted to hospital on Friday after being gored by bulls.

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Running From His Base, Bush Gets Caught In Rundown

In order to appear more palatable to the voting public, the Republican National Convention everyone will see on television will lack a very prominent face -- its right wing conservative base. Bush's base isn't very happy about it... kind of a "walk the talk" thing.

Social Conservatives Want More of Their Own to Speak at the G.O.P. Convention
By David D. Kirkpatrick
July 12, 2004

Some prominent conservatives say they are upset at the apparent exclusion of the champions of their favorite issues from the limelight of the Republican convention in favor of more moderate members of the party.

Conservatives said they were surprised to see former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Senator John McCain of Arizona - all moderate Republicans who oppose the proposed constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage - given high-profile roles at the convention, with few conservative Republicans on the list.

"I hate to say it, but the conservatives, for the most part, are not excited about re-electing the president," warned Paul Weyrich, the longtime Christian conservative organizer, in an e-mail newsletter on Friday. "If the president is embarrassed to be seen with conservatives at the convention, maybe conservatives will be embarrassed to be seen with the president on Election Day."

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Michael Moore Hates America

A very popular notion amongst those who don't like Michael Moore, his opinions or his moviemaking is that he hates America. For taking to task the current administration and voicing his views against the war in Iraq, he is considered by his detractors to be treasonous or anti-American; the antithesis of a patriot.

Of course, anyone who take such stances against war are similarly attacked, berated and belittled, often being dismissed with the very simple-minded catch-phrase (with regard to America), "Love it or leave it."

Lately, I've been perusing The Best of Sydney J. Harris and recognizing the pertinence of Harris' essays, decades old though they might be.

The "Love It or Leave It" Nonsense

One of the most ignorant and hateful statements that a person can make to another is "If you don't like it here, why don't you leave?"

That attitude is the main reason America was founded, in all its hope and energy and goodness. The people who came here, to make a better land than had ever been seen before by the common people, had been rebuffed and rejected by their neighbors in the Old World.

They didn't like conditions where they lived, and wanted to improve them. If they had been allowed and encouraged to, the Old World would have had a happier history, instead of the miserable tribulations that turned the eyes of the people to America as their last, best hope.

Now we find that many Americans -- smug and fat and entrenched in their affluent inertia -- are saying the same ugly thing to their neighbor: "If you don't like it here, why don't you leave?"

But most people who want to change conditions do like it here; they love it here. They love it so much they cannot stand to see it suffer from its imperfections, and want it to live up to its ideals. It is the people who placidly accept the corruptions and perversions and inequities in our society who do not love America -- they love only their status and security and special privilege.

Nobody should be faced with the mean choice of accepting conditions as they are or abandoning the place he has grown up in. We not only have a right, we have a responsibility, to make our environment as just and as flourishing as our Founding Fathers declared it must be if it were to live up to its aspiration as "the standard of the world."

Those who want to leave have a right to leave, but those who want to stay and work for what they consider a better society must be protected in that right -- for without it, our nation would sink into stagnation, and the process of change would harden into repression by those who benefit by keepings things just as they are.

If all the settlers who came here, with high hopes for a new and finer social order, had been compelled to "go back where they came from," we would have had no United States of America. This country was born out of dissatisfaction with the old scheme of things, and grew on the blood and dedication of men who were not afraid to speak and work for fundamental changes in the whole political and social structure.

Somebody who truly didn't like what America stands for ought to be invited to leave; but there is a vast difference between such a person and those who dislike what we have allowed ourselves to become, through greed and prejudice and provincial indifference to the great problems we now face. No community can afford to lose those good "agitators."

Brown Shirts

The General's mention today of brown shirts reminded me of John Gorka's song.

Brown Shirts
by John Gorka

Brown shirts here in the white house
Brown shirts up on top of the hill
Brown shirts can you hear them marching
I swear they are marching still

Brown shirts for the good of the country
Brown shirts pride all over the land
Brown shirts give us law and orders
You'll know when you raise your hands

Brown shirts is this how it all started?
Brown shirts oh no worse than their kids
Brown shirts sure they're tough on the bad guy
Though they made him what he is

Brown shirts
Brown shirts

They're a little more subtle now
Brown shirts than the "house painter" man
Brown shirts speak of God as their witness
But they would kill Jesus again

Brown shirts here in the white house
Brown shirts in their black limousines
Brown shirts over here in the new world
With fresh red unspeakable schemes

Betsy DeVos' Blatherings

Isn't this rich?!?

Last night, at a star-studded fundraiser for John Kerry, a Hollywood actress quoted a bumper sticker that she had seen previously. It read: "Defend America. Defeat Bush."

It’s a shame that Kerry’s Hollywood buddies didn’t watch "Larry King Live" just a few hours earlier. If they had, they would have discovered that John Kerry had neither the interest nor the time to defend America.

He said so himself. Kerry: "I just haven’t had time" to read the national security and terrorism briefing offered to him by the Bush administration.

John Kerry did have time, however, to attend both that Larry King taping and the fundraiser (where Kerry’s Hollywood supporters, who he called the "heart and soul" of America, compared our President’s intelligence to an "egg-timer," no less).

The transcript of the interview:

LARRY KING: Let's get to, first thing's first, news of the day. Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States, didn't increase the -- do you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

JOHN KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me; I just haven't had time. But all Americans are united in our efforts to defeat terrorism.

I believe that John Edwards and I can wage a far more effective war on terror than George Bush has. I think we can do a better job of making America safe. But in these days ahead, we all join together no matter what.

KING: So, you don't question the timing of this? Some are.

KERRY: It's not for me to do. I think that what's important is for the terrorists to understand that I and John Edwards will wage, using every tool available to us, the most effective war possible against terrorism.

KING: When do you get...

KERRY: And they -- the American people are going to decide this race, not terrorists. And they need to know that.

KING: When do you -- when do you get your briefing?

KERRY: We're arranging it. It's at the end of the week I'll get it.

KING: Should be pretty soon.

KERRY: I think it's tomorrow or the next day.

He didn't have the brief yet!! Jaysus!

Okay, Betsy... time to crawl back under W's desk...

Fortunately, our President understands that his job comes first and his campaign comes second. Our safety and security depend on it. We live in a dangerous world and though never safe, we are safer thanks to President Bush’s leadership. The proof: there hasn’t been another terrorist attack in America since that horrible day in September almost three years ago.



John Kerry should be elated that President Bush is in the White House; after all, the President is watching out for everyone’s security, including the Senator from Massachusetts.

Yup... Leadership. Elation!

Irony?

Ridge: Al-Qaeda may be poised to attack in U.S.

Above is the headline at Yahoo! News for a story in today's USA Today.

Remind you of anything?

Perhaps a certain Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB)?

I sure hope that someone in the Bush administration tells him about the "threat" since he's not apt to read about it!

What I wonder about is the purpose for these press conferences. Do they really serve a useful purpose? I mean, what are we supposed to do as a result? Look under our beds for Osama bin Laden? If these threats are to be taken seriously, wouldn't Ridge be able to inform us by way of a press release? There were no specific details given about these "threats" that a press conference was going to shed further light on, so what's up?

Why the theatre?

I have a question for Richard Clarke: If a credible threat exists, does it not benefit the people of the United States if the CIA, FBI and anti-terrorism personnel simply do their jobs to avert disaster?

Bush Destroyed His Military Records

I will let others dance around charges as to whether or not this was intentional. I will state here -- as fact, without hesitation -- that George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, in order to hide the fact that he was Absent Without Leave (AWOL) intentionally destroyed (by proxy, of course) military records which would have proven such absence.

George W. Bush is a deserter.

Pentagon Says Bush Records of Service Were Destroyed
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
July 9, 2004

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director who has said that the released records confirmed the president's fulfillment of his National Guard commitment, did not return two calls for a response.

The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card records. Sixty pages of Mr. Bush's medical file and some other records were excluded on privacy grounds, Mr. Talbott wrote.

more >>

The article also states, "Mr. Bartlett, the White House spokesman, said in February that Mr. Bush felt he did not need to take the physical as he was no longer flying planes in Alabama."

Since when does a soldier or pilot have a choice in such matters? So not only is he a deserter... he was insubordinate.

Edwards = Quayle

Michael Bérubé does have a point.

Valerie Plame... Ashcroft's Interest?

About what might yet be a major factor in the Presidential election, Murray S. Waas of The American Prospect reports:

Attorney General John Ashcroft received numerous detailed briefings last year regarding the criminal investigation of the unauthorized disclosure of a CIA agent's identity, during which he was told specific information relating to the potential culpability of several close political associates in the Bush administration, according to senior federal law-enforcement sources.

Among other things, the sources said, Ashcroft was provided extensive details of an FBI interview of Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's chief political advisor. The two men have enjoyed a close relationship ever since Rove advised the Attorney General during the course of three of Ashcroft's political campaigns.

The briefings for Ashcroft were conducted by Christopher Wray, a political appointee in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division, and John Dion, a 30-year career prosecutor who was in charge of the investigation at the time. Neither Wray nor Dion returned phone calls seeking comment for this story.

more >>

"Hello? Osama? Is that you...?"

Mullah Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader who has eluded capture for three years, has been contacted by Afghan intelligence agents on a satellite phone carried by a captured aide.

The brief conversation ended abruptly when Omar appeared to become suspicious and disconnected the call. He has ignored follow-up attempts to contact him.

more >>

George Bush and Enron

The Washington Post held an on-line chat with Robert Bryce, former reporter for the Austin Chronicle and author of Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron and Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas -- America's Superstate.

Bush's many connections with Enron were pointed out...

Los Angeles: On how many days during the 2000 election and its primaries did George W Bush fly on the Enron corporate jet?

Follow up: How many people with direct connections to Enron have worked in the Bush administration?

Follow up: If revealing the names of the people who wrote the Bush energy policy would violate the privacy of the administration, couldn't they at least tell us how many of those people have been indicted since that time?

Robert Bryce: By my count, the Bush campaign used Enron's jets at least a dozen times during the campaign. However, the critical use came during the Florida Recount. According to the campaign's IRS filings, Enron's jets were used 4 different times during the period that covers the recount. That period was crucial because time was of the essence.

Your second question is a bit harder to answer. A partial list of people with direct Enron ties to the Bush administration includes:

Tom White, former secretary of the Army, was at Enron Energy Services, a company that was little more than a sham from the get go.

Ed Gillespie, current head of the Republican National Committee, was an Enron lobbyist.

Marc Racicot, former head of the RNC, was an Enron lobbyist.

Robert Zoellick, current US Trade Representative, worked for Enron as an adviser.

James Baker III, former secretary of state -- and the man who was crucial to Bush's win in Florida -- was an Enron lobbyist.

Third question: The number of people indicted is about a dozen. I don't have recent figures.

[...]

re: Bush administration officials: One more to add to your list ...

Alberto Gonzales, current White House counsel and former partner at the Vinson & Elkins law firm. V&E was one of Enron's primary law firms and signed off on some of the controversial partnership structures. Gonzales still has strong ties with V&E.

Robert Bryce: I don't know what his ties are to V&E right now. But it's clear that V&E -- long one of the most powerful law firms in Texas -- is having serious problems. V&E was a key backer of LBJ. They also represented George and Herman Brown, the founders of Brown & Root, for decades. V&E also represented Halliburton until 2002 or so. Now, Halliburton is represented by -- drum roll, please -- Baker Botts*. It's a small world, no?

more >>

*James Baker's Law Firm

Bush's relationship with Kenneth Lay, in particular, is well documented at The Smoking Gun.

Weapons Of Mass Destruction Revisited

(I posted this to the DailyKos the other day.)

On the heels of Bush's most recent pronouncement that "America is safer because Saddam Hussein is in a prison cell," comes stories in both The Telegraph:

Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction before the war, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special envoy to Iraq, conceded yesterday.

His admission that it had been "wrong" to claim that Saddam had large quantities of chemical and biological weapons came as the intelligence services braced themselves for serious criticism from the inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war.
[...]
Lord Butler's inquiry reports on July 14 on the eve of two parliamentary by-elections. It is expected to criticise John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee; MI6, the secret intelligence service; and the Defence Intelligence Staff, over their role in a claim that Saddam's WMD could be deployed at 45 minutes' notice.

and The Scotsman:

Tony Blair's credibility over weapons of mass destruction is set to face its sternest test after his special envoy to Iraq conceded yesterday Saddam Hussein had stockpiled none.
[...]
The 100-page draft of Lord Butler of Brockwell's report, according to the Sunday Times, will criticise MI6 after it admitted its intelligence on WMD - at one stage Mr Blair's basis for the conflict to remove Saddam - was wrong.
[...]
"We were wrong on the stockpiles, we were right about the intention," he told the BBC.
[...]
One source said of the report: "Butler's conclusion will be that the intelligence was wrong and the system for checking it didn't work."
[...]
MI6 agents are now said to believe Saddam may have been "bluffing" the international community when he let it be known he was developing and producing chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
[...]
Sir Jeremy suggested that the US administration had allowed itself to be misled, notably by a prominent Iraqi exile, about the size of the security challenge which the coalition would face after the invasion.

How long will they stick with their story? And how long will half this country continue to believe them?

Running Of The... Nudes!

Now this I think I could support!

Bull Run

I don't know what it is about Pamplona's running of the bulls that attracts people. I suppose that being able to say "I survived it!" is one reason.




Another reason would be...?

Kids Killing Kids

I came across a story this morning in The Scotsman which I've not seen reported elsewhere yet...

Child is killed in US checkpoint shooting

UNITED States soldiers killed an Iraqi child and wounded another when they fired on a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

The army confirmed the shooting as at least ten people died in the city of Fallujah in a US bomb attack.

A US military spokesman said: "Soldiers fired on the vehicle after the driver failed to obey verbal and visual instructions to stop, switched off the vehicle lights, and forced guards out of the way as he attempted to bypass the checkpoint."

The statement said the mother and the wounded child were taken to hospital following the shooting on Monday, while the father, who was driving, was questioned by police.

Many Iraqis accuse US soldiers of being too hasty to open fire and of killing many innocent civilians.

Baghdad residents say they often fail to notice poorly-lit and unannounced checkpoints while driving at night.

more >>

Of course, I would be making a leap in guessing or assuming that the person who fired the gun that killed the child is but a child himself. I think, though, that it wouldn't be too big a leap, considering that eighteen- and nineteen-year-old soldiers are being killed everyday in Iraq.

I have a nineteen-year-old son and I fear to think how he might react given the above circumstances. Something tells me that it wouldn't be much different. As a soldier remarked in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, it is a shoot-first situation.

As I think about how this is one of the obscenities of war -- particiularly this war of choice -- I can hear the voices of war supporters who will say, "It's war. Kill or be killed."

I guess that that is exactly my point. If there were no Iraq war, children would not be killing children. Children wouldn't be in the position of having to make such snap decisions. Children wouldn't be living and dying in a war zone. Children wouldn't be amongst the ravages of war.

Where is their right to life?

As I began this post, I was watching the PBS program POV. Tonight's independent film was War Feels Like War, and was about the independent photographers and journalists who followed last year's military blitz into Baghdad; stories of the un-imbedded. The film followed Chicago photographer Stephanie Sinclair on her way from Kuwait into Baghdad, as she documented stories that the imbedded media weren't reporting at the time.

Following the program, I found Sinclair's website (via the PBS site) and checked out her journal, which was last updated on June 3, after she left Iraq for Afghanistan. Funny thing, synchronicity!

I had several close calls myself during that time period as well. About three weeks ago American troops shot up my car for no apparent reason. Alaa and I were approaching what looked like a US checkpoint and when we stopped to wait for a signal from the soldiers on whether we could continue to move forward, two soldiers ran toward us and shot our vehicle destroying our radiator, ac and fan. Four inches higher and this blog would never have been updated again. When I complained to the CPA about the incident, a soldier told me it was probably because of the kind of car we were in - a civilian Chevy caprice made in AMERICA. Ironic, but when you think about it, this shows the anger and distrust felt by US soldiers to the common Iraqi civilian.

Then, reading further...

Less than a week later, Alaa, Mitch and I were in my apartment having coffee and a car bomb exploded at the entrance to our building. The windows and doors shattered and the room was covered in dust, but we were ok. Mitch ran outside with his cameras to see what had happened, but I was too freaked to go. I just wasn’t prepared to see pieces of people, particularly because this time it would be people I knew. But after a few minutes, I regained my composure enough to go check out the damage. Fortunately, there were very few casualties as it was pretty early in the morning. Only a 12-year-old boy was killed who used to sell cigarettes and candy outside. Unfortunate, but not too bad an outcome when compared to the amount of deaths car bombs usually leave behind. And I will acknowledge that it is a sad day when the death of an innocent kid is not such a terrible thing when compared to expectations.

The innocent kids. Again.

Fahrenheit's Continued Heat Wave

To commemorate the film's continued success, a limerick from Dr. Limerick...

The movie the Right loves to hate
Has box office still doing great;
Ten thousand per screen
Shows plenty of steam
And no sign it's about to deflate.

Tori Spelling Gets Married

LOS ANGELES - Actress Tori Spelling, best known for her role as Donna on TV's "Beverly Hills 90210", has married, her publicist said Monday.

Far be it from me to take a cheap shot at one of America's finest actors, so I'm personally hoping for many happy years of marriage for Tori, blessed with many, many, many children. (One a year for the next twenty years or so would work.)

When Worlds Collide

Growing up in Toledo, Ohio in the 1960s, I became acquainted with the writings of Chicago columnist/philosopher/critic Sydney J. Harris via his five-day-a-week column Strictly Personal. The Blade ran his columns in the "The Peach" section of the paper, which was (actually) a salmon-colored (usually innermost) section of the paper. The "pink sheet", as we called it, contained Family Circle cartoon, puzzles such as Jumble, news about local people, helpful hints, television and radio listings, L.M. Boyd's Odd Facts and Strictly Personal.

Perhaps what hooked me on reading the column were Sydney's "non-column" stalwarts that appeared once or twice a week: the trivia-laden "Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things" and "Antics With Semantics" -- a word puzzle or quiz usually, intended as a vocabulary builder.

His columns were part of my daily diet once I entered Bowling Green State University at twenty. His essays served as models for me as I struggled to meet the writing standards of my English composition class -- a class which many BG students had failed on the first go 'round; a class which every BG graduate was required to take and pass. More importantly, his wisdom, his careful consideration of issues, and his passion for language inspired this (mostly) closet author.

In those years, I drove a Black 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle. It was the second car I'd owned and quite possibly my favorite. (I drove it for another nine years or so.) At the time I'd purchased it, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel had begun flexing its muscle with regard to the flow of oil into the United States, declaring an embargo on countries supporting Israel in its conflict with Egypt. Fuel efficient automobiles became more and more necessary and therefore more and more visible. I had always had a particular affinity for VW Bugs anyway, so my choice for a vehicle served both practical and aesthetic purposes.

Flashing forward almost thirty years, I pulled out the lone Sydney J. Harris book I own today, The Best Of Sydney J. Harris, to see what I might be able to glean from Sydney's words that would remain applicable to today's world events. I had read Michael Moore's recent message posted at another blog and felt compelled to add something to the discussion. I found something, posted it and moved on.

I then wondered why so few people have heard of Harris or his writing. I wondered if there was much information about him on the web. I found that most of the Google results were quote respositories. I did manage to find a site dedicated to Harris and his writing comprised of fifty or so of his essays. A good start, but far from what I was looking for. I was hoping to find biographical information.

Further search yielded very little.

I did find a link, however, to an excerpt from Small Wonder -- The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen by Walter Henry Nelson.

The kind of people who drive Volkswagens strike syndicated columnist Sydney J. Harris of the Chicago Daily News "as having what traffic officers call 'the right attitude' on the road... They seem sensible people, with decent values, and I would wager a sizable amount that the accident rate is quite low among them." Harris is right; insurance rates are often lower for Volkswagen owners than for owners of big cars. As for their being people with "decent values," Harris seems right too, as the "Police Blotter" column in the Sudbury, Massachusetts, Citizen shows. "On Saturday night," it reported, "a VW sedan struck a stone wall on the Haynes property on Morse Road. The next day a young man returned and rebuilt the wall."

The things you learn while looking up other things!

Rock, Paper, Saddam!

Even the most serious of times require a visit to Sillyville!

(by way of Joi Ito's Web)

More Fahrenheit 9/11...

From today's letters section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press...

Regarding the July 1 letter, Hollywood rules, get reasonable. If you put together a video consisting of half-truths, parts of statements made by others taken out of context and then interjected your own opinions, you would have a typical Bush-Cheney campaign commercial.

DEBORAH C. SWENSON

A Song Fit For Cheney


Courtesy of Monty Python's Eric Idle...

"Here's a little number I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge… It's a new song, it's dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."

The FCC Song

Betsy DeVos In Love

You know, I'd swear she types these things out from under the desk in the Oval Office!

Our President is a man with a clear vision - a vision we all saw displayed in 3 simple words: "Let freedom reign!" We have a President who understands that those who collaborate with, those who harbor, those who support terror and terrorists should not and cannot be leaders of nations. And President Bush doesn’t simply know these things, he acts decisively on them. And the world it [sic] better off because of those actions. The only people arguing against that today are Saddam Hussein, the tyrant, and his band of crooks, the terrorists.

Bill Clinton Blog

What the...?

Is this for real?!?


Hah!



UPDATE:It's gone now!

Eeew!

Hoping to compete with the wildly popular Google, Microsoft has unveiled a preview of its new search engine. Taking it for a test drive, I did a search for my name and came up with this as one of the top five results.

Using Google the same site ranked between 200 and 300.

I think I'll stick with Google.