April 29, 2004
Everything's under control, nothing to see here, just some dead-enders...
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He loves to rub those bald heads:
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April 28, 2004
More Foto Sunday - The Gloves Are Off
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Foto Tuesday
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I love this picture" Will Smith, The Big Dog (the twice fairly-elected President Clinton [42]), and Kinky Friedman. Kinky's running for Governor of Texas. He has a great slogan: "How hard could it be?"
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We should see these. All of these.
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April 27, 2004
Bush's Record Against Terrorism: Osama Continues to Rack Up Wins
Scotsman.com Sport - Latest News - Spitz Raises Spectre of US Missing Olympics
United States Olympic hero Mark Spitz has raised the spectre of an American withdrawal from this summer's Athens Games due to security concerns.
April 26, 2004
James Bath, Bush's Coke Buddy From Alabam...
5. James R. Bath was appointed by your father as a CIA operative in 1976 leasing aircraft in Houston and serving as a liaison between wealthy Arab sheiks (including the Bin Ladens) and American entrepreneurs. According to all sources, Baths company served as a front for the CIA. Before 1976, Bath was broke, according to all accounts. What was it that prompted your father to select James R. Bath in 1976? Did he hold incriminating evidence against you?
April 25, 2004
Karen Hughes, Bush's Mouth, says Pro-Choice = Pro-Terrorist
Daily Kos || Karen Hughes: Pro-Choice=Pro-Terrorist
When asked about today's pro-choice rally, Hughes revealed that the administration would prefer that voters not distinguish supporting terrorists from supporting a woman's right to exercise control over her own body:
"I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life," she said. "President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."
Translation: In terms of respect for human life, supporting pro-choice policies and politicians is the same as supporting al-Qaeda.
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Then one of Kos's raders, Joe Willy, spells out the real tryth of the matter:
(Hey, Karen,) If you support the Saudi monarchy that oppresses its own people, gives money to terrorists, and from where a large majority of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from, then you support the terorrists.
If you make war on a country that did nothing to us, allowing terrorism to flourish while destabilizing the entire region, then you support terrorists.
The real terorists are the people actively working to kill Americans and turn the world against us- actually I guess that includes Karen Hughes and the rest of the Bush administration doesn't it?
April 23, 2004
First the Spooks Quit in Disgust, Then The Generals, and Now even the Counter-Taris Guys...
from the terrific list of administration officials who have quit in disgust over at TV News Lies:
U.S. Terrorism Policy Spawns Steady Staff Exodus - Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has faced a steady exodus of counterterrorism officials, many disappointed by a preoccupation with Iraq they said undermined the U.S. fight against terrorism. - Some also left because they felt President Bush had sidelined his counterterrorism experts and paid almost exclusive heed to the vice president, the defense secretary and other Cabinet members in planning the "war on terror," former counterterrorism officials said. - "I'm kind of hoping for regime change," one official who quit told Reuters.
Guy @ Atrios picks some points of light...
a poster in Atrios comments named Guy puts it together nicely:
Yes, George W. Bush is definitely the greatest and most popular president ever. No one could possibly deny this, and that's why...
...that's why 23 of his own hand-picked Republican staff members have resigned in the last three years (more than any President ever)....and more are on their way....
...that's why 3 of his former staff members have publicly denounced his policies (Clarke, O'Neil, and Wilson).....
...that's why Randy Beers, former CIA agent and Republican longtime staff member now works for the Kerry campaign.....
...that's why, even with a Republican majority in both the House and Senate, Bush has been unable to get any bills passed in the last year. (with the exception of a watered down version of his bill to eliminate overtime pay did pass on this week.)
...that's why Bush found it necessary to publicly humiliate two Republican Senators (Maine & Ohio) who questioned his policies....(he ran advertisement campaigns in those states, comparing them to Bin Laden and Hussein).
...that's why Bush needed to seek revenge on Ambassador Wilson, by exposing his wife as an undercover CIA operative.
...that's why Bush limits his public appearances to military bases and Republican enclaves.
...that's why a political coalition has been formed "Republicans Against Bush".
...that's why Republicans have set up their own "Republicans for Kerry" websites:
Atrios Nails It - Bush Stole Hundreds of Millions For His Oedipal Crusade, Weakening the War on Terra
$700 Million
"David Sirota discusses the legal and important constitutional issues surrounding the $700 million the Bush administration illegally siphons off. He correctly argues that congress cannot abdicate its reponsibility to investigate this situation. Otherwise, future governments will feel unencumbered by pesky things like "the constitution" or "laws."This story is astounding.
What's more astounding is the fact that there is been no outrage from the op-ed pages or from the TV bobbleheads. Let me try and explain it to them very carefully.
After 9/11, we went to war in Afghanistan to punish those responsible as well as to remove support for the al Qaeda network more generally. We didn't put enough troops on the ground either finish the job of rounding up the terrorists or to rebuild and install a stable governmenment. The consequence of this is that Bin Laden and many other al Qaeda members were allowed to escape, and much of Afghanistan has reverted to their Taliban-era existence. We know now that part of the reason was that the Bush administration was diverting resources allocated to that purpose in order to attack a country which posed no threat to us or its neighbors. They stole money allocated to make us safer, and used it to make us less safe.
Shame on them. Shame on Republicans in Congress for not being outraged. Shame on our media for not being outraged.
This administration always says that everything after 9/11 changed. What changed is that they decided they could do anything they wanted to, in violation of law and Constitution, and the media wouldn't hold them accountable. So far, they've mostly been right."
from Atrios
April 22, 2004
April 21, 2004
Terminal Velocity
Democratic Underground Forums - Belief in WMD and Iraqi Links to Al Qaeda Remain Virtually Unchanged
We are now engaged in the terminal velocity dive that you refer to. I'm afraid I see no way out of it at this point in time.We are now the world's biggest debtor nation, both in financial debt owed to foreigners, and in balance of trade.This country is hemoraging good paying jobs to foreign countries with the encouragement of the government.The only jobs being created are "McJobs".We have a populace that is kept fat, dumb, and happy by a media which itself is a wholy owned subsidiary of the republican party. What's worse, the people just don't care that they are being led by the nose.Financially, I have severe doubts that the country will ever recover from the position we have been put in.No, dear Cher, the final dive is not in the future. We saw the beginning of the dive in November and December, 2000, when the constitution was destroyed by the very court that is charged with defending it.And the real hell of it was that the people just sat around on their asses and accepted this travesty.Of course there is a bright side to all this. It's not often that we can be witness to the destruction of an empire. We should take notes cause our grandkids will want to know the truth.And there is the chance to expand our knowledge by seeing other cultures. If * gets four more, we are leaving. I tend to Canada, but my spouce cant stand the cold, so it may be Costa Rica.
The above comments, by a poster at Democratic Underground.com who goes by the name reprobate, came in response to this Harris Poll:
These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 979 adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive® between April 8 and 15, 2004.
-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.
-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.
-- A 51% to 43% plurality continues to believe that "intelligence given before the war to President Bush by the CIA and others about Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction" was "completely" or "somewhat" accurate.
In February a 50% to 45% plurality believed this.
-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040421/nyw132_1.html
April 20, 2004
Only Idiots Think We're United
from the Whiskey Bar:
And my personal favorite:Q: Overall do you think George W. Bush has done more to unite the country, or has done more to divide the country?
Unite: 50%
Divide: 48%
Don't Know: 2%
Kind of sums it up, don't you think?
BartCop spells it out: Why Should They Stop?
The Bush Gang has been breaking the law for years - why should this be an different? Hell, the Bush-Cheney team was illegal because they were both from Texas, but the Democrats are too timid to point out that they ran illegally, and then stole power illegally. If they are invulnerable to arrest - then nothing is illegal for them. When you're taking over the entire planet - why bother with some stupid laws? Of course they're going to rob this country blind. If nobody's going to say, "Stop that," why should they stop?
On an open thread, Mr. Nobody puts it so succinctly:
Take it to the bank, Bandar!
Stolen election
Plame outting
$700 million misappropriation
Niger yellow cake
More scandals than we can possibly keep track of.
Just what does it take to get Americans to take notice?
How will we get a real media back?
What happens when we end up with four more years?
/relurk
Mr. Nobody
later, trancer added:
You are so right! America hates to be told how dumb it is, and that's why we get a leadership that affirms them in their ignorance (Bush: I don't read the newspaper - or anything else - and I'm the leader of the free world. Americans: See? Our opinions are valid whether we know anything or not!).
I've traveled extensively in the last several years and the most outstanding lesson I learned is that Americans are less aware than any other population I visited. Sadhus in central India have a better grasp of world events than soccer moms and NASCAR dads. Boatmen in Laos have a better grasp of US history than truckdrivers in Kansas. Cab drivers in Bangkok know more about US foreign policy than US college students. It goes without saying (or I guess it doesn't) that retailers in Europe are better informed about American actions than bankers in Iowa.
"BUSH IS DUMB." - Wherein Digby Packs So Much Truth Into a Small Space
Throughout the 90's the Republicans cried wolf on average of once or twice a week. Clinton was the anti-christ. A corrupt, murdering, philandering communist was running the country. When he was finally caught with his pants down (literally), the American people were fascinated but unmoved. His approval rating remained strong even through impeachment procedings. And that, of course, is what saved him.
And it was because they believed what they saw with their own eyes --- a competent president caught in an entertaining political spectacle that didn't affect their lives.
Bush is dumb. People can see that with their own eyes, too, and Fred Barnes knows it. That's the real subtext of that whole "the grown-ups are back in charge," nonsense. Most people thought that Bush was a middle of the road fella who would listen to his Dad if anything big came up and would calm the partisan waters. After all that wild sex with Clinton he was supposed to be the cigarette in the afterglow. But, they knew he was dumb. Times were so good that quite a few people didn't think it mattered all that much who was president.After 9/11, people wanted to believe that Bush had risen to the occasion because it was too frightening to think otherwise.
April 19, 2004
How Corrupt Can They Get?
ABCNEWS.com : Saudis Pledged Oil Price Cut Before U.S. Vote -Report
Prince Bandar pledged the Saudi's would try to fine-tune oil prices to prime the U.S. economy for the election -- a move they understood would favor Bush's re-election.
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Please note: There is no oral sex in this story , please move on, these are not the droids you are looking for.
April 18, 2004
What we drop on Iraq...(your tax dollars at work)
April 16, 2004
Foto Friday
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Sending the Wrong Message
Radical Theories And Reality (washingtonpost.com)
No, Mr. President, what sends the wrong message is when our country doesn't put enough troops on the ground in the first place to do the job right. It doesn't help that you were unwilling to make clear in advance that bringing democracy to Iraq would involve a long struggle and a great expenditure of American treasure. It doesn't make our troops more secure for a president to divide the country by trashing his critics as unpatriotic. And it doesn't build support for a great experiment in democratization when the president fails to explain how he is going to win the thing
April 13, 2004
Shut Up And Act - Some Great Analysis From Atrios
The media pretend they don't set the agenda, as if members of feminist organizations can come on their shows and talk about anything they want to, and that they regularly do, but of course that's crap.Similarly, when we were in the run-up to the war, the media wouldn't book any people with actual credentials to take the "anti-war" side - they'd book actors and then spend most of the interviews asking them why they should care what the hell some stupid actor thinks. There were more credentialed people out there willing to speak out, but the liberal media didn't want to hear from them.
TV producers choose which issues they want to cover and who they invite on to discuss them. Then they pretend they're just passive actors, passing on the news of the day. It's a lie. They control what and who they show.
Remember?
President wants Senate to Hurry with new anti-terrorism laws
July 30, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess. "We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.
But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.
April 11, 2004
He Hip-Mo-Tyzed Her...
Newsday.com: Pre-9/11 doings are coming to light
"Ben-Veniste hypnotized her." Colton adds, "She fell into the rhythm of a smart lawyer's questions, and so blurted out the single most damning admission of these hearings."
Now Bush Has Lost the Generals, That's Good...
Generals weary of low troop levels
While Democrats roar, the generals are silent -- in public. Many confide that they will not cast their normal Republican votes on Nov. 2. They cannot bring themselves to vote for John Kerry, who has been a consistent Senate vote against the military. But they say they are unable to vote for Don Rumsfeld's boss, and so will not vote at all.
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Franken in a Flightsuit (snicker):
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Pandagon Pointed Me To Drum: The Verb For Bush Is "Squander"
Treating 9/11 as just another way to hammer his political opponents was an act of unsurpassed callowness, the response of a man who is congenitally unable to view anything except in terms of smallminded partisan advantage. Instead of using 9/11 as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to unite the nation, George Bush viewed it as a way to pick up a few seats in the House. It is this, more than any other single thing, that I most hold against him.
Senate: Plue Three
Boston.com / News / Politics / Senate surprise: Democrats pulling ahead in close races
Democrats, who less than a year ago faced dim chances of overcoming the GOP's 51-48 majority, now lead in the polls in all seven competitive races in which head-to-head public polling has been done, a trend that would produce a gain of three Democratic seats, in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Alaska
April 10, 2004
Bush is at the Pig Farm in Texas, Fiddling, While Iraq Burns - like the Trade Towers
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Empty Room
It's hard to imagine that the news out of Iraq could be more dreadful. After the loss of at least 634 American troops and the expenditure of countless billions of dollars, we've succeeded in getting the various Iraqi factions to hate us more than they hate each other. And terrorists are leaping on the situation in Iraq like rats feasting on a mound of exposed cheese.
April 08, 2004
The Real "Republican" Guards - letting Iraq devolve into anarchy, because it's "all about the 2004 election"
Iraq should not be the Mideast HQ for Bush-Cheney '04=The Hill.com=
And that approach is not at all uncommon among the younger GOP operatives who staff the CPA.
"Everything is seen in the context of the election, and how they will screw the Democrats" one CPA official said last winter. "It was really pretty shocking to hear them talk."
(snip)
“Senor lies so often and so easily most media just stopped trying to use him as a source, unless forced to,” he said. “Some of the junior reporters, lacking in-house research services, have no choice. But many of the major media represented in Baghdad found themselves spending too much time trying to sort out fact from fiction, and out of necessity developed other sources. … While [Senor] appears to represent White House interests, his handling of the media turns off so many that he is doing the president more harm than good.”
Hoosiers Who Have Died For Bush's Lies (so far)
Smith, Matthew R.
Anderson
May 10, 2003
Keith, Chad L.
Batesville
July 7, 2003
Frist, Luke
Brookston
January 5, 2004
Hudson, Christopher E.
Carmel
March 21, 2004
Boling, Craig A.
Elkhart
July 8, 2003
Jeffries, William A.
Evansville
March 31, 2003
Penisten, Brian H.
Fort Wayne
November 2, 2003
Rios, Duane R.
Griffith
April 4, 2003
Miller, Frederick L.
Hagerstown
September 20, 2003
Sanders, Gregory P.
Hobart
March 24, 2003
Halling, Jesse M.
Indianapolis
June 7, 2003
Allen, Ronald D.
Mitchell
August 25, 2003
Smith, Darrell
Otwell
November 23, 2003
Black, Jarrod W.
Peru
December 12, 2003
McKinley, Robert L.
Peru
July 8, 2003
Buckley, Roy Russell
Portage
April 22, 2003
Pahnke, Shawn D.
Shelbyville
June 16, 2003
Amos, John D.
Valparaiso
April 4, 2004
April 07, 2004
Here We Go - The Rats Are Looking Overboard Anxiously
CBS News | Growing GOP Dissent on Iraq | April 7, 2004 20:57:24
Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.
"Locked in the Cabinet" author Robert Reich explains what a second Bush term would mean:
W.'s Second Term: If you Think the First is Bad ...
Right-wing evangelicals will solidify their control over the departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services -- curtailing abortions, putting federal funds into the hands of private religious groups, pushing prayer in the public schools, and promoting creationism.Economic policy, meanwhile, will be tilted even more brazenly toward the rich. Republican strategist Grover Norquist smugly predicts larger tax benefits for high earners in a second Bush administration.
Atrios Finds Awesome GOP photos on "Compassion"
Read Atrios every day:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
All props to Atrios for finding this incredible thing:
GeorgeWBush.com :: Compassion Photo Album
A little analysis by ScreamingPoints:
This page of "Compassion" themed photos are from the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign's site. There, they have 7 subject tabs. Each "subject" features a photo album. Under "Compassion", there's 19 photos in the album.
14 of the 19 feature the Boy King with an African-American.
Another has no African-American, but Bushie stands in front of one of his famous "message-of-the-day" backdrops, this one saying AFRICA about 15 times. In another, there's no African-American, but the chimp strides across a stage under a "National Urban League" banner, the only word of which that is unobscured is "URBAN".
One shot features Bush alone, but with real "stoner" eyes. Is he supposed to be feeling compassion? Yuck.
In the rest of the photos, he's touching, listening to, sitting by, touching, teaching, carrying and working with smiling African-Americans of all types.
I guess when a group of voters goes 90% for the other guy, we shouldn't be surprised that this gang are so clueless about how they appear with this type of ghettoization. Soft racism of low expectations, indeed...
And now that JC Watts is gone, is there another black Republican official anywhere?
The Counter-Terror Spooks Want Regime Change...(wait for it)...in the USA!
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
Some also left because they felt President Bush had sidelined his counterterrorism experts and paid almost exclusive heed to the vice president, the defense secretary and other Cabinet members in planning the "war on terror," former counterterrorism officials said.
"I'm kind of hoping for regime change," one official who quit told Reuters...
April 04, 2004
Think how crappy the news from Iraq looks - then realize who's releasing the news - you can only conclude, things must be MUCH WORSE than we are allowed to believe.
Yahoo! News - Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office
One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted "good news" releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries.
Stratcom's schedule of news releases shows that stories were sent to media outlets in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and other states in the days before their Democratic primaries. But the schedule also shows releases sent to Virginia, Ohio and Florida after the primaries were over. Senor said any correlation to the vote was a coincidence.
Rich Galen, 57, a well-known Republican strategist, oversees the daily news releases sent directly to media outlets in the United States. Before joining the CPA press operation late last year, Galen wrote a GOP insider column and appeared on Fox News to harpoon liberal critics of Bush.
April 03, 2004
I Pay About 15%. How About You? Corporate America Laughs At You and Me...
In 2000, the most recent year for which data was available, an estimated 94 percent of American corporations and 89 percent of foreign corporations paid less than 5 percent of their total incomes in taxes.