What if you give a speech and nobody watched?

CNN reports that Bush garned the lowest TV ratings so far:

President Bush's latest address to the nation, urging Americans to stand firm in Iraq, drew the smallest TV audience of his tenure, Nielsen Media Research reported Wednesday.

Live coverage of Bush's half-hour speech Tuesday night from the Ft. Bragg military base in North Carolina averaged 23 million viewers combined on four major U.S. broadcast networks and three leading cable news channels, Nielsen said.

Designed largely to bolster sagging public support for the persistently bloody conflict in Iraq, the speech fell 8.6 million viewers shy of Bush's previous low as president, his August 9, 2001 address on stem cell research, which was carried on six networks.

It's like Americans are all saying in unison "HEARD IT" -- and they don't like what they've heard. Read the rest of this post...

Scandal brewing around Jeff Gannon's favorite Senator, John Thune

Senator John Thune, who was elected last year with great help from GOP male hooker Jeff Gannon, is in the center of a growing scandal back home. I read about it on Capitol Buzz which is, btw, one of my new favorite blogs. The Buzz links to a couple of blogs, Clean Cut Kid and ThuneWatch.com, who go into great detail, and who in turn, provide some other links. It's financial and it doesn't look good -- this one has legs, I think.

Thune is such a smug, sanctimonious prick. I hope this one sticks. Read the rest of this post...

Even Floridians Upset With Bush over Schiavo

From AP:

By nearly a 2-to-1 margin, Florida voters disagree with Gov. Jeb Bush's request to investigate any possible delay in a 911 call after Terri Schiavo's 1990 collapse, according to a poll released Thursday.

And those Sunshine Staters don't want Jeb to run for President:

The poll also showed that 70 percent of respondents, including a majority of Republicans with an opinion, say Bush shouldn't run for president in 2008. The governor has consistently said he has no interest in that race.

He's not interested in "that" race...meaning 2008....but he does intend to run for President, which is why Schiavo is so important to him....it appeals to the right wingers, not the mainstream. And you can't get the GOP nomination without the wing nuts. Read the rest of this post...

FactCheck.org savages Bush over his Iraq PR stunt speech

Why does FactCheck.org want to kill our troops? Read the rest of this post...

Why has the media now forgotten how only 2 weeks ago Bush stupidly helped get the new hardline Irani leader elected?

I'm very serious. This is a perfect example of how the media finds a story critical of Bush, then buries it.

Oh, there was a single AP story a few weeks ago. How Bush had mouthed off and helped advance the campaign of the Irani nutjob who's now their new leader. But now that the nutjob actually got the job, and now that it's looking like he may have been one of the leaders of the US Embassy takeover in Tehran 30 years ago, suddenly the media is silent about how Bush helped this nutjob become the leader of Iran in the first place.

I take you back to the Associated Press of June 19, only 11 days ago, to an article entitled "Bush Remarks May Have Spurred Iran Voters":

Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: "Thank you." His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident.

The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election Â? with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency.

"I say to Bush: `Thank you,'" quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. "He motivated people to vote in retaliation."

Bush's comments Â? blasting the ruling clerics for blocking "basic requirements of democracy" Â? became a lively sideshow in Iran's closest election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And they highlighted again the United States' often crossed-wire efforts to isolate Iran....

But the harder the United States pushes, even with the best of intentions, the more ground it has seems to lose among mainstream Iranians, who represent possible key allies against the Islamic establishment, say some analysts of Iranian politics.

"Unknowingly, (Bush) pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime Â? even if they are in disagreement with it," said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University.

In 2002, most Iranians were indignant when Bush placed their nation in an "axis of evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Since then, U.S.-led pressure over Iran's nuclear program has put even liberal Iranians on the defensive.

Bush's pre-election denunciations seemed to do the same. Iranian authorities claim Bush energized undecided voters to go to the polls and undercut a boycott drive led by liberal dissidents opposed to the Islamic system.

The unexpectedly strong turnout Â? nearly 63 percent Â? produced a true surprise in the No. 2 finish of hard-line Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, He will face the top finisher, moderate statesman Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a Friday runoff....

The president's words sounded too much like the pre-war rhetoric against Saddam, and many on-the-fence voters were shocked into action, said Abdollah Momeni, a political affairs expert at Tehran University.

"People faced a dilemma," Momeni said. "In people's minds it became a choice between voting or giving Bush an excuse to attack."

Another political commentator, Davoud Hermidas Bavand, believed the fallout from Bush's statements went beyond the election by destroying lingering hopes that Washington policy-makers finally would accept Iran's regime....

At a news conference Sunday, Iran's foreign minister, Kamel Kharrazi, said Bush "should apologize to the people of Iran for his comments." He also extended another wry "thank you."

"Bush's statements brought out voters who didn't want to participate in the elections," Kharrazi said. "We have to thank him for this."....

The Bush comments are an example of "the kind of American intervention" that often boomerangs in the region, said Egyptian political analyst Salama Ahmed Salama.

"Bush meant to discourage the hard-liners," he said, "but instead he mobilized their supporters."

Funny. I 've seen this fact mentioned NOWHERE in all the news reports about how the hardliner has now won, and how he may now be one of the student leaders who kidnapped our embassy officials decades ago. Ask the White House about THAT, boys. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread - yeah that apparently was AMERICAblog on NBC

I haven't seen it yet, but Joe has it on TiVO. A number of folks have been emailing, and Joe saw it too, that NBC Nightly News did a piece tonight on identity theft and they used our blog, all fuzzed out, as the background on a computer screen. Kind of funny. I've asked Crooks and Liars to send me a screen shot. Read the rest of this post...

Something disturbing about the Valerie Plame investigation

Here's my thinking.

1. Novak knows who his source was.

2. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has threatened the Time and NYT reporters with jail if they don't divulge who their source was.

3. There has been no public threat or legal action against Novak to compel him to speak.

4. That means Novak has either told the special prosecutor who the source was, or Novak has refused and the special prosecutor isn't prosecuting him anyway. The latter makes no sense, so we must assume that Novak squawked.

5. But if Novak squawked a year ago, then why are we here going after Time and the NYT, since we already know who the source is?

6. If Novak squawked, why didn't Fitzgerald do anything with the info - why did he not approach the White House, the CIA, the FBI or whomever and have this person's security clearance revoked? You don't need a court of law to rule in order to revoke someone's security clearance and get them fired - Novak's allegations are certainly enough for the former, if not the latter.

So that leaves us with certainly an interesting story about the Time magazine and NYT elements of this story. But the Novak question is still the more interesting point. Novak is apparently off the hook, yet the special prosecutor didn't feel his case was complete unless he went after Time and the NYT. The fact still remains that someone in the administration is apparently a serious security risk on the issue of WMD and that person appears to still have their job.

Did Fitzgerald learn last year who that person was from Novak? If not, why isn't Novak in jail? And if so, is Novak's source, a known security risk, still on the job? Read the rest of this post...

42% of Americans would impeach Bush if there was proof he lied about Iraq, Bush got NO bump from Tuesday's speech

Bush got NO bump from Tuesday speech. From Zogby:

The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

Just one week ago, President Bush’s job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President’s address, and the results show no discernible “bump” in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.

And among Red State voters, he's sinking too:

In a more significant sign of the weakness of the President’s numbers, more “Red State” voters—that is, voters living in the states that cast their ballots for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004—now rate his job performance unfavorably, with 50% holding a negative impression of the President’s handling of his duties, and 48% holding a favorable view. The President also gets negative marks from one-in-four (25%) Republicans—as well as 86% of Democrats and 58% of independents. (Bush nets favorable marks from 75% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 40% of independents.)

But what's particularly intersting is that one in four Republicans would support impeachment.

A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed.

Read the rest of this post...

Did Bush just take the first step towards setting up a "secret police" in the US?

I had only breezed over this article in this morning's Washington Post. Now I'm going to read it again. More from BradBlog.

A snippet from today's Wash Post:

Civil liberties advocates immediately criticized the changes at the FBI, arguing that they represent a radical step toward the creation of a secret police force in the United States. Many Justice prosecutors and FBI agents had also fiercely opposed the changes but were overruled by Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, officials said.
...
"Spies and cops play different roles and operate under different rules for a reason," said Timothy Edgar, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The FBI is effectively being taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House. . . . It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying, too."

Read the rest of this post...

Cheney's visit to the hospital in Vail gets more and more mysterious

Even more intrigue about Cheney's emergency visit to the hospital in Vail. Arianna has the latest. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off with John to find a digital voice recorder. Not as easy as it sounds. Read the rest of this post...

Battlestar Galactica blogging

I ask you, is Atrios this up on his Sci-Fi? I think not.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6 STARTING @ 10 AM

GET CAUGHT UP WITH SCI FI'S HIT SERIES

BEFORE SEASON 2 PREMIERES JULY 15!

Before the highly anticipated second season of Battlestar Galactica debuts, SCI FI is offering the chance to catch up on season one. All 13 episodes. Back-to-back. In order. Starting Wednesday, July 6 @ 10AM!

And for the rest of you, Sci-Fi Friday is a mainstay of AMERICAblog. Kind of like the orchids. Just go with it. Read the rest of this post...

There is going to be a draft

If you're under 40, you'd better start worrying.

Sen. John McCain, interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show," maintained that "one of the very big mistakes early on was that he didn't have enough troops on the ground, particularly after the initial victory, and that's still the case."

Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic opponent in last year's presidential election, told NBC's "Today" show that the borders of Iraq "are porous" and said "we don't have enough troops" there.

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," disputed Bush's notion that sufficient troops are in place.

"I'm going to send him the phone numbers of the very generals and flag officers that I met on Memorial Day when I was in Iraq," the Delaware Democrat said. "There's not enough force on the ground now to mount a real counterinsurgency."

He's gotten us in over our heads. This is bad. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

We love good thread.... Read the rest of this post...

Time will definitely hand over Plame leak notes

Time Magazine is going to reporter Matt Coopers notes about the outing of Valerie Plame to the Special Prosecutor according to AP:

Time Inc. said Thursday it would comply with a court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in the investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matthew Cooper, Time's White House correspondent, and Judith Miller of The New York Times for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters' appeal and the grand jury investigating the leak expires in October. The reporters, if in jail, would be freed at that time.

In a statement, Time said it believes "the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society."

I agree with John: Let it be Karl Rove. Read the rest of this post...

New DemsTV is up

As you may recall, I host this online political pundit show. Give it a gander. Read the rest of this post...

37 GOP Senator support testing pesticides on people

Ok, creepy. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What do you know? Read the rest of this post...

6,000 more job cuts

Oh yeh, and Bank of America is buying MBNA for $35B. Can't you just feel the benefit to consumers already? Read the rest of this post...

Blair plays the 9/11 card

Who's a good boy?!! Speak up! Roll over! Gimmee you paw! There's a good boy, now bring back the ball and you'll get a nice doggie treat!

The attacks, he said, made it necessary to "draw a line in the sand here, and the country to do it with was Iraq because they were in breach of U.N. resolutions going back over many years."

"9/11 changed the whole picture for me, it changed the politics of how we dealt with the threat," he said.

Ahhh, so what's the connection Poodle Boy? No wonder he's sending his son to work for Dreier. Read the rest of this post...

"Two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality"

As said by Spanish PM Zapatero as Spain legalizes gay marriage. Now that is the kind of freedom that we need more of these days. Read the rest of this post...

Late Night Open Thread

It's very exciting writing for a magazine now. What's going on out there? Read the rest of this post...

A win in California

So, the California legislature passed a domestic partners law and the nut jobs went to court to overturn it. They wanted to use the Courts to overturn the legislative process...hmmm...just more of their usual hypocritical actions....using the Courts to get their way. They LOST anyway:

Handing gays an important legal victory, the California Supreme Court on Wednesday let stand a new law granting registered domestic partners many of the same rights and protections available to married couples.

Without comment, the justices unanimously declined to review lower-court rulings that said the law does not conflict with a voter-approved measure against gay marriage.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who leaves Thursday to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, did not vote.

The domestic partner law, signed in 2003 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, represents the nation's most comprehensive recognition of gay domestic rights, short of the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts and civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut.

The California law grants registered couples virtually every spousal right available under state law except the ability to file a joint tax return.

Read the rest of this post...

Why is Novak off the hook? Inquiring minds do want to know

The press is finally focusing on the guy who endangered all of our lives by outing a spy:

Robert D. Novak, the columnist whose unmasking of a C.I.A. operative prompted an investigation of who had given her name to him and others, expressed disappointment yesterday that two other reporters faced going to jail for not cooperating in the case.

But Mr. Novak, in an appearance on "Inside Politics" on CNN and in a subsequent telephone interview, once again refused to answer questions about what contact, if any, he had had with the federal prosecutor conducting the investigation or about what extent he might have cooperated in the case.

Other press folks want him to fess up:

Gina Lubrano, reader representative for The San Diego Union-Tribune, which publishes Mr. Novak's columns on Sundays, said she found it baffling that someone who demanded answers to tough questions as part of his job could be so reticent when the spotlight turned on him.

"As a journalist, he would find that response unacceptable from others," Ms. Lubrano said.

In a column published yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, William Safire, a former columnist for the paper, urged Mr. Novak to "finally write the column he owes readers and colleagues, perhaps explaining how two sources - who may have truthfully revealed themselves to investigators - managed to get the prosecutor off his back."

Basically, Novak is a nasty guy -- he's proud of what he did, even though it undermined American security. He should be prosecuted and jailed. And actually, you know if he was in prison, he'd make someone a great bitch. Read the rest of this post...

I'm with Atrios

Welcome to AMERICAonlinemagazine Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off to bed for me. Read the rest of this post...

The White House's tall tales

Seems they're claiming an awfully large number of people tried to access that pro-military site last night. Suspicious. Read the rest of this post...

It's time for Bolton to withdraw his name

From the Washington Note. Read the rest of this post...

President Urges Patience on War, but it's LBJ, and it's 1965

When LBJ made this speech, only 400 American soldiers had died in Vietnam.

From Editor & Publisher (this is an excerpt, read the whole thing)

Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure....

Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream from North to South. This support is the heartbeat of the war.

And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to the government. And helpless villagers are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.

The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy. The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes....

We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist....

Read the rest of this post...

Maine to vote on gay rights

Again...looks like there will be a referendum this fall to repeal Maine's new gay rights law. The law, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, passed the legislature and was signed by the Governor this year. So, this wasn't court ordered anything. This was legislative, but that's not good enough for the hate groups. The haters circulated petitions to get the repeal effort on the ballot -- under the banner of "The Coalition for Marriage."

Funny thing, Maine's law has nothing to do with marriage the Advocate reports:

The pending measure was written to amend the Maine Human Rights Act by making discrimination illegal in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, and education based on sexual orientation or gender. Maine law now prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex, disability, religion, ancestry, and national origin. The new law would exempt religious organizations that do not receive public funds. The enacted legislation includes language declaring that the measure is not meant to address a right to marry.

So, the hate groups are so desperate to allow discrimination in Maine, that they have to lie about the issue right from the start.

I'm from Maine originally so this is personal. The campaign to defeat the hate groups is www.mainewontdiscriminate.org. And, while gay bashing may be acceptable in many states, Maine won't discriminate. Read the rest of this post...

Army abandons 20 year old soldier in need

I guess that "We Support the Troops" crap is only when Bush goes on TV to con more young Americans into fighting this hopeless quagmire of a lie. Really nasty story.

He could barely remember the excitement he carried to Iraq in early 2004. He was an excellent soldier, by most accounts, even though he was only 18 when he left. On one memorable night, his quick thinking helped his platoon defeat a group of insurgents in Baghdad.

Today, the same soldier, now 20, is wanted for desertion, a particularly loathsome act during wartime and one that could bring a prison sentence.

Hounshell's problems began after he returned to Texas in late February. He couldn't sleep, often wandering through Killeen's all-night Wal-Mart. He had panic attacks and sometimes exploded in anger at the slightest change in plans. He played chicken with other drivers on Central Texas highways.

When he asked the Army for help, he said, he was greeted mostly with indifference.

"I told them numerous times, 'I'm having problems here. I'm seeing ... [things] at night.' They didn't take it seriously," he said. "They did the minimum thing they had to do."

Finally, in May, at the end of an emergency leave, he vowed never to go back to Fort Hood.

It was May 15 when he wrote the suicide note. His mother found it before he could leave the driveway. She jumped in the pickup and wouldn't let him leave.

His family is desperate to get him help, but they have no idea where to turn.

"We're not trying to hurt our soldiers overseas, and we didn't want this fight with the Army," said his mother, Bobbie Hounshell. "But my son had problems when he came home, and all he was told was, 'Drive on.' "

An Army spokesman said Hounshell got help and should have taken the initiative if he needed more.

Read the rest of this post...

Is White House covering up Cheney's poor health?

Now the WH is denying, on the record, that Cheney had an EKG in Vail a few days ago. The thing is, hospital sources say he sure did. What is the White House trying to cover up, and why? I still think they're going to find a way to move Giuliani in as the new VP to save Bush's poll numbers. Then what the fundies crap. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Reid eviscerates Santorum on Senate floor

This is a big deal for the Senate, this kind of excitement just doesn't happen on the floor. This exchange happened earlier today - this is not an official transcript, so may have some small typos, etc.

Mr. Reid: Mr. president, I will not be lectured about civility by the junior senator from Pennsylvania who has repeatedly disrespected veterans. Three times he opposed funding for veterans, votes in committee and here on the senate floor. I ask consent that his voting record be submitted in the record. On those issues.

The presiding officer: Without objection.

Mr. Reid: Mr. President, now with an election cycle upon us, he supports, under pressure, voting for veterans. Talk about crass politics. The junior senator from Pennsylvania can't run from his record. He owes the veterans more.

The background is during Sen. Reid's speech on the veterans funding
Amendment Reid made the following statement:

Reid: Funding, VA. Secretary nymphlyon son: by the way, his qualifications are he was chairman of the national republican party. He's head of veterans benefits now. And he said -- and i quote -- "I can assure you that the VA Does not need emergency supplemental funds in fiscal year 2005 to continue to provide the timely, quality service that's always our goal. I do not foresee any challenges"

To which Santorum responded (then Reid came to the floor 30 minutes later to Deliver the rebuttal above.

Mr. Santorum) { not an official transcript }:
The congress has always had to come and add more money. This is nothing new. What is new in this case is that we have had to come here at a late time and -- and add additional resources. And i think it's -- it's unfortunate, as i said earlier, i was very, very critical of this administration for not being more forthright and felt, as the senator from idaho suggested, that when we cast our votes saying that there was -- against the Murray amendment, that we did so with -- with not the information we needed. And -- and i think the administration justifiably should be criticized for that. I think, unfortunately, the tone that the senator from Nevada took, the democrat leader, was not one of frustration at all

I think given the nature and tenor of what we've been work on here was very unfortunate. I think one of the most unfortunate comments which i hope the senator from Nevada will think better of and come back and -- and correct the record, the to suggest that -- quote -- "the only qualifications of the secretary of veterans affairs is that he was chairman of the republican national committee." is an insult to the secretary of veterans affairs and his service to this country. This is a man who is a west point graduate. This is a man who served eight years in the active military, and he spent tours in Vietnam, he earned the bronze star, he earned the combat infantry xxxxx he earned the meritorious service medal and two air medals. This is not a man whose only qualifications was he was chairman of the RNC. He went on and got -- served in the reserves for 20 years, earned additional degrees, ran a business and was ambassador to the holy see. This man has a lot more qualifications as secretary of veterans affairs than many prior secretaries. And i would hope that the senator from Nevada would reconsider his shot at this secretary. Do i have concerns about the information that was provided? Absolutely./ does the secretary have to come and have an accounting for what he said and what he did -- in his short term as secretary?

Absolutely. Has he been called on the carpet in both the house and senate?

Absolutely. Will he be over the next few months?

Absolutely. But to take a shot at him personally in such a partisan fashion is beneath the leader of the democratic party. I would hope the leader of the democratic party would show some leadership in civility when it comes to people who have served this country honorably and continued to do their best. Mr. President -- i yield back my time and ask that the votes on the Santorum and Murray amendments be stacked at a time designated by the leaders.

Then that's what lead to Reid making the response at the top of this post.

Man, I'll bet Ricky santorumed his pants after that exchange :-) Read the rest of this post...

Bush: Lame Duck And Lame Commander In Chief

Why are Bush's numbers falling? Why do the American people grow increasingly concerned about Iraq?

It isn't about people who supported the war but now have their doubts. It isn't about people who never supported the war and have seen their fears realized. It isn't about people who weren't sure about the war and still don't know what they think. It isn't about the people who get confused every time Bush's rationalization for why we invaded Iraq changes.

Ultimately, it's about George Bush.

The American people have lost confidence in George Bush as our Commander in Chief. The American people are reluctant to admit it, but they realize George Bush is a weak military leader.

Last night, Bush had a chance to restore our confidence. He failed. Bush gave the same tired speech he's been giving for the past few years. His idea of confronting cold, hard facts is to say that war is "tough" and "hard," as if this were news to the American people. Bush could have acknowledged mistakes, but he is incapable of that. Bush might have given a realistic picture of where we stand in Iraq and offered concrete proposals for making it better, but he only offered blithe happy talk that everything is great and we're going to prevail.

A real military leader faces the facts on the ground. Problems arise -- they always do -- and have to be dealt with. A real leader recognizes problems, attacks them and solves them. But Bush refuses to acknowledge any problems.

For example, the training of Iraqis to take over their own security -- the single most important task in that country -- is proceeding at a punishingly slow rate. Bush threw out the number of 160,000 troops and then casually mentioned they fall into three categories: trained and ready to fight on their own, trained and capable of fighting with our help and not ready to fight at all.

How many of those Iraqis are trained and ready to fight on their own? Half? A third? A tenth? After the speech, we're told the truth. According to Sen. Joe Biden, only 2,500are fully trained -- less than two percent. How many can fight with our help? About 8,900. In total, only about 8 percent can fight in any way. Of that 160,000 number he threw out, almost 150,000 are not trained in any meaningful way. Bush refuses to say what's going wrong, how he'll speed up the training or explain why he is refusing the offers of Germany and Italy and others to train soldiers in their own countries. But let's say he doubles the rate of training to 2,500 a year. Heck, let's say he quadruples the rate of training to 5,000 a year. How long will it take for Bush to actually reach the level of 160,000 troops he implies we have today? More than three decades.

Bush insists that the second the generals say they need more soldiers in Iraq, he'll send them. But then he turns around and says why he believes sending more troops would be a terrible mistake. What general will risk a request for more soldiers when he knows that Bush doesn't want to send them? Bush's claim he's ready to send soldiers on a moment's notice also ignores the cold hard fact that there may not be any more soldiers to send. Our troops are spread dangerously thin around the world, recruitment is down, retention is down and we've abused the National Guard and Reserve so thoroughly they may not recover for decades. Bush ignored all of this, other than to say young people should volunteer.

Bush says we can't set a deadline for when our troops will leave. Fine. But if he wanted to level with the American people, he could make clear how long he knows we're going to be there. In other words, it's obvious all our troops won't be home next week or next month. In fact, we know our troops won't all be home next year. The American people need to be thinking in terms of years. So how long does the President say he knows it's going to take, at a minimum? Two years? Three years? Four years? Ten? This isn't a deadline. This is a realistic appraisal of the task ahead of us. If everything goes great, we will still have forces in Iraq during the next Presidential election in 2008. When is Bush going to admit that?

Most Americans believe Bush lied to us about why he wanted to invade Iraq. We now know our closest ally, Great Britain, also believed he was lying to the the American people about why he wanted to invade Iraq.

Most Americans believe Bush doesn't have a clear plan in Iraq. That's because Bush hasn't laid out a plan or faced the problems that have arisen and explained how he'll solve them.

Most Americans are unnerved when Bush and his top officials insist the insurgency is in its last throes when the facts are obvious: according to the military, the insurgency was about 5,000 strong in NOvember of 2003. Today the military says the insurgency is anywhere from 16,000 to 20,000 strong; that's three to four times bigger today than it was 18 months ago. And they're killing more people this year than they were last year and they were killing more people last year than they did the year before. That's an insurgency that is bigger and more lethal. Even Rumsfeld admits the insurgency will likely be around for years, maybe a decade or longer. Bush's solution? He stops calling them insurgents and starts calling them "terrorists."

Our troops remain poorly equipped. New recruits joining the Marines are reportedly told to spend some $600 of their own money on equipment they need to survive because Bush won't be getting it to them. Bush hasn't said a word about this.

Five out of six Humvees in Iraq are still not fully armored. Bush doesn't seem to care because surely if he cared he would talk about it and get the problem solved.

And now hurt soldiers that return home find out that Bush somehow didn't realize a war would cause a big influx of wounded troops into the VA system and so they're dramatically underfunded.

The American people are not afraid of hard tasks. Tell them what needs to be done and they'll do it. But lie to them and they will get angry. Ignore the facts and they will lose confidence in you. Claim victory before the work is done and they will worry about your steadfastness.

Mission Accomplished? The mission is accomplished when every soldier is home and safe with their families and not one day before. A real Commander in Chief would know that in his bones.

The American people aren't worried about losing the war in Iraq. They're worried that George Bush is incapable of winning it. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Anything exciting going on...besides John's trip to Scotland? Read the rest of this post...

Is Big Brother censoring the AmericaSupportYou.mil Web site

Gee, that would be such a surprise.

From a Wash Post chat:

State College, Pa.: I posted a message of support at America Supports You that basically said "I support the troops, but I don't agree with the leadership" in very simple terms. Guess what, it didn't show up in the search results... I am not holding my breath. But it begs a larger question... is this a free speech violation?

Dan Froomkin: Well, try a more positive one, and see if it shows up, and then e-mail me at froomkin@washingtonpost.com with the results!

Silly, silly, State College, PA. Remember, the only Americans who actually "care" about our troops are the ones sending them to their senseless deaths without even giving it a second thought. Freedom is Slavery, babe - get with the program.

(PS This is that Web site that Bush et al set up to help his PR war in support of the quagmire war.) Read the rest of this post...

DeLay ethics inquiry set to move

Uh oh :-) Read the rest of this post...

Another GOP governor in trouble, now in KY

The governor's administration reportedly created a "hit list" of Democratic state workers to get rid of. Unfortunately, that's illegal. Read the rest of this post...

TIME may reveal source of Valerie Plame leak

Please let it be Karl, please let it be Karl, please let it be Karl... Read the rest of this post...

I'm going to Scotland to cover Live 8 and the G-8 summit

Wow. I just got picked to be one of the bloggers covering the Live 8 related events at the G-8 Summit in Scotland next week, and to cover the Summit itself. Wow. I'm still a bit blown away by all of this.

Joe Trippi, of Dean campaign fame, has been working with David Sifry of Technorati.com and John Hinderaker over at Powerline on a non-partisan effort to help Live 8's mission of "Making Poverty History." They recently solicited bloggers from the left and right interested in covering the events next week live in Scotland, so I put my name in, not exactly on a lark, but not exactly expecting to get it. Well, I got.

We'll be leaving for Scotland on Sunday from New York on the Live 8 plane, flight covered and hopefully accommodations too, then coming back on Thursday. I have to pay my transportation back and forth from DC to NYC, but hey, I'm not complaining.

I'm waiting for more details now, but wow. Now I need to go find me a digital voice recorder... :-) Read the rest of this post...

GOP vice chair of House Subcommittee on Terrorism outright lies about Saddam/Al Qaeda link to CNN

This is a big deal. The man knows better, or he should resign. He's the vice chair of the TERRORISM subcomitte in the House. Good God. And he's this much of an idiot? Or is this how Bush and the Republicans plan to get support for the war - outright lie AGAIN to the American people? This is a perfect opportunity to call Bush and the GOP on their repeated lies - this congressman needs to step forward and admit that he's wrong. Kudos to CNN for catching this.

From CNN.com

A Republican congressman from North Carolina told CNN on Wednesday that the "evidence is clear" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said.

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said that Saddam was a dangerous man, but when asked about Hayes' statement, would not link the deposed Iraqi ruler to the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

"I haven't seen compelling evidence of that," McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN.

Will Bunch has the text of the interview, it's CHOICE! The CNN reporter totally calls the congressman on the lies. A snippet:

CONG. HAYES: I don't think it's changed at all. It's very clear that terrorists are connected to what Saddam Hussein was all about. And that again faces up to the most severe threat going forward...

CNN'S COSTELLO: But there is no...

HAYES: We have to do a good job explaining...

COSTELLO: ... evidence that Saddam Hussein was connected in any way to al Qaeda.

HAYES: Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. There's evidence everywhere. We get access to it, unfortunately others don't. But the evidence is very clear.

COSTELLO: What evidence is there?

HAYES: The connection between individuals who were connected to Saddam Hussein, folks who worked for him, we've seen it time and time again. But the issue is where are we now. Nobody disputes 9/11. They would do that again if not prevented. Preventing 9/11 wherever it might happen in America, winning the war overseas, not bringing it here to our shores, is the issue in that regard.

COSTELLO: Well, are you saying that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11?

HAYES: I'm saying that Saddam Hussein -- and I think you're losing track of what we're trying to talk about here -- Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11. Did he make the phone call and say...

Read the rest of this post...

How Can The "Worst of the Worst" Be Average Soldiers?

Pakistan -- a corrupt military dictatorship not known for its softness -- released 17 former prisoners of Gunatanamo Bay and said they had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. Yes, hundreds of Pakistanis went to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban. That certainly makes them enemy combatants (and therefore appropriate to be held under the Geneva Convention). But that doesn't make them terrorists. But Bush insisted that ONLY the "worst of the worst" would go to Guantanamo Bay -- do foot soldiers with no connection to terrorism and with no reasonable expectation of having any useful evidence count as the worst of the worst? Of course not. Are they are buddies or purely innocent? No, they are soldiers who fought on the other side in a war. They were on the wrong side, the losing side and they were supporting a nasty government. But they and countless others who weren't even soldiers -- just innocent villagers handed over by tribal chiefs looking to score a bounty from the US -- make a mockery of Bush's claims about Guantanamo Bay. You can never ignore the rule of law and expect decency and fairness to prevail. It undermines everything the US stands for and everything we are supposedly fighting in the war on terror. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Cornyn (R-TX) feeling heat on Lynching too

Tell me again how this issue wasn't worth pursuing :-) Read the rest of this post...

UN to investigate US prison ship rumors

So what is Team GOP going to say about this? I suppose we're going to hear about luxury cruise ships and pampered service that American soldiers in Iraq only wish they had. Either that or somehow it's going to be the fault of somebody else, just as it always seems to be.

"There are very, very serious accusations that the United States is maintaining secret camps, notably on ships," the Austrian UN official told AFP, adding that the vessels were believed to be in the Indian Ocean region.

The use of prison ships would allow investigators to interrogate people secretly and in international waters out of the reach of US law, British security expert Francis Tusa said.

"This opens the door to very tough interrogations on key prisoners before it even has been revealed that they have been captured," said Tusa, an editor for the British magazine Jane's Intelligence Review.

Read the rest of this post...

Senator Kyl criticized over lynching resolution

It's the energizer bunny of issues :-)

From the AZ Republic (hat tip to Desert Rat Democrat). Read the rest of this post...

Bush and Rove: All 9/11, All the time.

NBC's First Read:

Now raise your hand if you still think Karl Rove’s 9/11 remarks last week were unintentional.

Facing mounting U.S. casualties, an increasingly skeptical public, and a growing chorus of criticism (even within his own party), a confident and resolute President Bush last night directly tied the situation in Iraq to 9/11 and the war on terrorism. To illustrate this renewed focus, he made five direct references to 9/11 and two references to Osama bin Laden.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP Busted Trying to Screw Health Care for Vets

Washington Post has the story:

The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

Veterans Affairs budget documents projected that 23,553 veterans would return this year from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek medical treatment. However, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told a Senate committee that the number has been revised upward to 103,000 for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. He said the original estimates were based on outdated assumptions from 2002.

"The bottom line is there is a surge in demand in VA [health] services across the board," Nicholson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

A surge in demand? Now why would that be.

So, last night, Bush was telling us to honor the troops. Meanwhile, he's trying to cut the deficit by cutting their health care:

As GOP House and Senate leaders scrambled to deal with the politically damaging shortfall and quell criticism from veterans' advocacy groups, Democrats intensified charges that the Bush administration and the Republican congressional majorities are failing to care for those who put their lives on the line for the country.

Nice. So don't give the troops armored vehicles or the right vests, then screw them on health care.

What a bunch of hypocrites. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What's the buzz today so far? Read the rest of this post...

The anti-Drudge

Interesting (new?) site. I already found some articles I hadn't seen. Worth a look. Read the rest of this post...

Wash. Post Editorial SLAMS Bush

NOTE FROM JOHN: Remember, this is the suck-up neo-con Washington Post editorial board that has been just this side of the Atilla the Hun since Katherine Graham died, especially on the whole Iraq thing. I seem to remember a Post editorial a while back about how only a partisan would believe that Bush would intentionally lie about the WMD - oh how times change (can someone find that editorial?). Now for Joe's analysis:

And they have been supporters of his foreign policy. Not today:

Mr. Bush didn't explain how a war meant to remove a tyrant believed to wield weapons of mass destruction turned into a fight against Muslim militants, a transformation caused in part by his administration's many errors since Saddam Hussein's defeat more than two years ago. The president also didn't speak candidly enough about the primary mission the United States now has in Iraq, which is not "hunting down the terrorists" but constructing a stable government in spite of Iraq's sectarian divisions and violent resistance from the former ruling elite. It's harder to explain why Americans should die in such a complex and ambitious enterprise than in a fight with international terrorists, but that is the case Mr. Bush most needs to make.

and

Once again, however, the president missed an opportunity to fully level with Americans, even though some of the hard truths he elided have been spelled out by his aides and senior military commanders. The insurgency, they have said, is not growing weaker; most likely, said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, it will never be defeated by American troops, and it will continue for many more years.

The whole editorial is a series of how Bush "didn't explain" and "didn't speak candidly" and "missed an opportunity" and "didn't answer the worrying questions" and "the president's evasion of the hardest facts"...they're right. It's just something to see the Post pile on like this. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Been a while Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post botches poll on Iraq - says only 12.5% support pull out when in fact it's 41%

The Washington Post released a poll today, and in their story accompanying it they claimed that only one in eight Americans (12.5%) supports an immediate pull out of US troops from Iraq. In fact, the St. Louis Independent Media Center discovered that if you look at the Post's own data they post on their Web site, it's actually 41% of Americans who said pull the troops out, the second highest number ever in their polling over the past two years.

Hello? Read the rest of this post...

We Love Canada :-)

House of Commons passes legislation granting marriage rights to gays. Expected to pass the Canadian Senate in July, then it's the law.

Some day our neighbor to the north will have a civilizing influence on us. Someday. Read the rest of this post...

Energy bill shenanigans

Hmmmm. Does anybody really believe the Republicans would use the energy bill simply to enrich their friends? Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post assoc. editor gives his review of the speech

I know, the comments are messed up - nothing I can do about it. Haloscan, where are you?!

Anyway, and interesting Q&A with the Wash Post tonight. Read the rest of this post...

What is on MSNBC right now?

Flipping channels I came across Chris Matthews on MSNBC with this panel talking about the President's Iraq speech. It's full of wing-nuts - and I think only wing-nuts. Perkins from the Family Research Council, a woman from the Eagle Forum, and a minister from a Baptist church. What's going on here?

-- Rob in Baltimore
(back because the spirit moved me...) Read the rest of this post...

Harry Reid responds to Bush

REID STATEMENT ON BUSH IRAQ SPEECH

Democratic Leader Harry Reid released the following statement:

(Washington, DC) “Tonight’s address offered the President an excellent opportunity to level with the American people about the current situation in Iraq, put forth a path for success, and provide the means to assess our progress. Unfortunately he fell short on all counts.

“There is a growing feeling among the American people that the President’s Iraq policy is adrift, disconnected from the reality on the ground and in need of major mid-course corrections. “Staying the course,” as the President advocates, is neither sustainable nor likely to lead to the success we all seek.

“The President’s numerous references to September 11th did not provide a way forward in Iraq, they only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and Al Qaeda remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America.

“Democrats stand united and committed to seeing that we achieve success in Iraq and provide our troops, their families, and our veterans everything they need and deserve for their sacrifices for our nation. The stakes are too high, and failure in Iraq cannot be an option. Success is only possible if the President significantly alters his current course. That requires the President to work with Congress and finally begin to speak openly and honestly with our troops and the American people about the difficult road ahead.

“Our troops and their families deserve no less.”

Read the rest of this post...

ABC reports that White House advance team FAKED the applause

ABC's Terry Moran just reported that the only time Bush got applause was in the middle of his speech when a White House advance team member started clapping all on their own in order to cajole the soldiers into clapping, which they dutifully did.

So even the applause was fake. Read the rest of this post...

Bush made Iraq the #1 training ground for Al Qaeda?

You gotta be kidding me. Stephanopoulos just said on ABC that the CIA said a few weeks ago that there were no real ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the war, but that now Iraq is THE NUMBER ONE TRAINING GROUND for Al Qaeda worldwide. Good God. Do people realize what that means? We basically handed Al Qaeda a new headquarters. They couldn't touch that country when the dictator Hussein controlled it. Now that Bush invaded, they own it. Lovely. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread - Watching Chimpy

Talk amongst yourselves. My TIVO is freaking out. I'm not happy. Read the rest of this post...

Full Text of Bush's speech tonight

From ThinkProgress.

Highlights:

I count five mentions of September 11.

The terrorists who attacked us – and the terrorists we face – murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent.

Sound like anyone you know?

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

Of course, they weren't there until Bush invaded and essentially brought them in.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: “This Third World War … is raging” in Iraq. “The whole world is watching this war.” He says it will end in “victory and glory or misery and humiliation.”

Liar. Some wonder if you realize you MADE Iraq a hotbed of terrorism when it wasn't before?

To complete the mission, we will prevent al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban – a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends.

Ironically, they're now turning Afghanistan into what Iraq is now - a quagmire.

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them.

That's the most important line of the entire speech. I feel a draft.

Then he begs for more recruits:

And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our Nation’s uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.

Read the rest of this post...

Generation Chickenhawk

Max Blumenthal attends a the Young Republicans convention, and asks them why they're not all volunteering in Iraq. :-)

In interviews, more than a dozen conventiongoers explained why it is important that they stay on campus while other, less fortunate people their age wage a bloody war in Iraq. They strongly support the war, they told me, but they also want to enjoy college life and pursue interesting careers. Being a College Republican allows them to do both. It is warfare by other, much safer means....

Munching on a chicken quesadilla at a table nearby was Edward Hauser, a senior at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas--a liberal school in a liberal town in the ultimate red state of Texas. "Austin is ninety square miles insulated from reality," Hauser said. When I broached the issue of Iraq, he replied, "I support our country. I support our troops." So why isn't he there?

"I know that I'm going to be better staying here and working to convince people why we're there [in Iraq]," Hauser explained, pausing in thought. "I'm a fighter, but with words."....

By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."

Read the rest of this post...

"It is worth it" for other families, not mine

Excerpt of the speech from AP:

"Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real," Bush said, according to excerpts released ahead of time by the White House. "It is worth it."

If it's so worth it, send Jenna and Barbara.

Read the rest of this post...

Conservative writer Cal Thomas takes on fundies

Not a bad article, for him. The fundies are ticked. Read the rest of this post...

Today is the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in NYC

Remember.

Read the rest of this post...

Just how many US soldiers died today in Afghanistan helo crash? Bet we won't find out until AFTER Bush's speech

Afghanistan, meet Iraq - Iraq, Afghanistan:

A U.S. CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed Tuesday while ferrying reinforcements for counterterrorism operations in eastern Afghanistan, the military said. The Taliban claimed responsibility in a phone call to The Associated Press....

The crash was the second of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan this year. On April 6, 15 U.S. service members and three American civilians were killed when their chopper went down in a sandstorm while returning to the main U.S. base at Bagram.

The U.S. military has launched operations in several areas along the border with Pakistan. Those offensives target remnants of al-Qaida and the hard-line Taliban movement, as well as foreign fighters using high mountain passes to cross over from Pakistan.

Tuesday's crash comes after three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed about 465 suspected insurgents, 29 U.S. troops, 43 Afghan police and soldiers, and 125 civilians.

The violence has left much of Afghanistan off-limits to aid workers and has reinforced concerns that the war here is escalating into a conflict on the scale of that in Iraq.

CNN is now saying around 16 US soldiers were on board. Jesus Christ. Read the rest of this post...

Excerpts of Bush's speech tonight

September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11 September 11

And by the way, how's that hunt for bin Laden going? Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

How many times will Bush invoke 9/11 tonight? Read the rest of this post...

Freeway blogger announces The Summer of Truth

Freeway is announcing an entire summer of freeway blogging. Join the fun.

THIS is freeway blogging:

Read the rest of this post...

The Nation does Coin-gate

Great piece in The Nation on the political implications of Ohio's GOP coin-gate scandal:

Thanks to the arrogance and corruption of the state GOP and the tireless investigative journalism of the Toledo Blade, every day Ohio voters are learning more about "coingate," a scandal at once farcical and outrageous, that touches nearly every prominent elected Republican in the state and could finally pave the way for a Democratic resurgence.

After detailing the entire scandal, which continues to grow each week, the article asks the key question:

...will this all add up to Democratic gains in 2006?

Man, if this mess doesn't lead to change in Ohio, nothing will. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's Energy Policy? Freeze The Poor

Brace yourselves for a cold winter, especially if you're poor. USA Today reports that heating oil prices are up more than 60% from a year ago. Bills won't go up that much, but they will go up. Lat year, average heating oil bills increased almost 30%. Almost ten percent of all homes are warmed with heating oil, but they're located mostly in the liberal bastion of the Northeast, so who cares? The hardest hit will be the poor and elderly, of course. Hey President Bush, if the elderly freeze to death, can we use them as tinder for our fires? That would help the Social Security plan as well, wouldn't it? Don't ever say Bush isn't thinking ahead.

Meanwhile, the Senate has passed the same old energy bill it always passes -- a few bones tossed for those who think we should launch a Manhattan Project to develop alternative energy, a refusal to take the quickest and most effective steps (like insisting on modest increase in fuel efficiency for automobiles) and the insistence that energy plants use "more" renewable fuels to generate electricity. (Naturally the White House objects to that.) And they tossed in partial immunity for big businesses that are responsible for polluting our groundwater all over the country. The House bill is even worse.

And in possible good news for our children's children, 30 nations have come together to start building the world's first nuclear fusion reactor in France. Greenpeace, rather foolishly, objects, says the NYT.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace estimates that if the project yields any results at all, it will not be until the second half of this century.

``At a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project,'' it said.

It will take decades and may not even work, but it's exactly the sort of long-range thinking that has to take place if the world is to solve its hunger for energy. And working on a fusion reactor doesn't mean you can't also tackle greenhouse gases. Read the rest of this post...

China Or Japan -- What's The Difference?

Paul Krugman weighs in on the debate over China buying up major players in our economy like Maytag and Unocal. Krugman compares it to Japan's buying frenzy of the 80s and the xenophobic reaction to that. Japan wasn't a big deal, he says, because they were dumb and made bad purchases like Rockefeller Center and movie studios and lost lots of money. China seems much smarter, says Krugman, and therefore more dangerous.

Talk about no moral compass. Japan is a major ally and a stable democracy for decades. Mutual investments between us and Japan and England and Canada and our other allies is good and stabilizing. Fear of Japan was stupid fear of foreigners and nothing more. But China, Mr. Krugman, is a totalitarian government that brutally suppresses its own people. We are not at war with them, but the Chinese government is the enemy of freedom and decency. And when a country like that gains a strategic advantage in our economy and especially our energy industry, it is of concern.

The people who can't tell the difference between China and Japan are the same people who can't tell the difference between Uzbekistan and France or Germany and Pakistan.

NOTE: Krugman does indeed believe China's purchase could be dangerous for our energy policy and national security. I was highlighting a secondary point of his that I thought was rather bizarre. In the 80s, the far right yelled and screamed that "foreigners," ie. the Japanese, were buying up our country. They were especially scandalized that the Japs would buy Rockefeller Center and one of our major movie studios from Coca-Cola. I always thought that was narrow-minded racism, especially since everyone knew that Canada and Great Britian and Australia also had huge chunks of investment in the US comparable to if not larger than Japan's (at the time) and we had big investments in their countries. But these created no hysteria because they looked like us. The Japs were another thing altogether.

Krugman referenced that hysteria and said Japan's investments didn't matter simply because they wasted their money and made bad choices and basically handed over lots of dough and propped up our economy with little to show in return. The implication was that if Japan HAD made savvier investments, that it WOULD have been dangerous, just as he says China's investments today are now dangerous. I think that's absurd.

Interdependent investments among stable democracies like the US and Canada and Great Britain and Germany and France and, yes, Japan are NOT a threat. Krugman is lumping in Japan with China and saying if the Japanese hadn't been so dimwitted that the far right's cries of hysteria over "foreigners" would have been justified.

We've got growing trade with India? Great. A major corporation in that country takes a majority stake in a major US company? Fine and dandy. A totalitarian country invests in a stragetic resource of this country? That's concerning, as Krugman rightly says. But I wouldn't compare India to China. And I wouldn't compare Japan to China. By his own logic, Krugman should be screaming about the dangerous encroachment of Canada. He is arguably right about China but wholly wrong about Japan.

Thanks to the threaders for pointing out I'd done a poor job of explaining myself. Hopefully, this is a little closer to the mark. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's Empty Words On Torture

Anyone catch this? The UN just celebrated the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Bush happily and unselfconsciously weighed in with these words, per USA Today of 6/27:

"Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law."

And if it takes torturing a bunch of thugs and criminals and terrorists to get to that world, by God you can be damn sure we're the ones to do it! Read the rest of this post...

Hillary further sucks up to conservative Dems

Do we really need another presidential candidate who thinks they're going to "reinvent" themselves because they're embarrassed about who they are, and who we are? Read the rest of this post...

Bush, Enron and the Chinese - it's not a good thing

Funny. The Chinese want to buy Unocal, so who do they hire? A firm with massive ties to the George W. Bush and ENRON. Isn't that special.

America for sale. Courtesy of George W. Bush. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Because you can never have enough political t-shirts and bumper stickers, I've created even more (man, I need to get a life). My two latest:





And be sure to check out all the other new t-shirts and stickers I posted last night, we have an entirely new storefront now, check it out here. Read the rest of this post...

So, the White House DID lie about Cheney's heart condition last week

As Will Bunch notes, why do we have to find out about our VP's health via a NY gossip column? Isn't this news that they're lying, again, about Cheney's health? Or has the MSM become so accustomed to living under the Soviet Politburo that we just expect to be lied to, and take it with a shrug? Read the rest of this post...

Only 10% of Americans could come up with more than 4 of the 10 Commandments

I came up with 6. Maybe if the religious right hate groups spent a bit more time practicing what they preach, the public would be a bit more informed of WHAT IT MEANS to do good, rather than simply talking about it. Read the rest of this post...

Karl Rove reportedly grooming Giuliani for VP spot in 2008

Note to Concerned Women for America: You have been officially screwed. Read the rest of this post...

DSM hits front page of Wash. Post - finally

Today, the Washington Post has a major article on the front page about the DSM:

In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.

The documents indicate that the officials foresaw a host of problems that later would haunt both governments -- including thin intelligence about the nature of the Iraqi threat, weak public support for war and a lack of planning for the aftermath of military action. British cabinet ministers, Foreign Office diplomats, senior generals and intelligence service officials all weighed in with concerns and reservations. Yet they could not dissuade their counterparts in the Bush administration -- nor, indeed, their own leader -- from going forward.

"I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister on March 14, 2002, after he returned from meetings with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and her staff. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."

A U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the events said the concerns raised by British officials "played a useful role."

"Were they paid a tremendous amount of heed?" said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I think it's hard to say they were."

Read the rest of this post...

Condi Spinning on the Today Show

My god, how many times can she mention September 11th? Like the rest of the Bush team, that woman just can't tell the truth.

Someone told her to keep smiling. And, just so you know, she is proud to be serving the American people at this time. Hmmm. We're not so proud to have her and her bonehead boss. That's why his disapproval is at the highest point of his presidency in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Read the rest of this post...

Sneak preview

New Dem online ad takes on Repubs. It's cute. Read the rest of this post...

New Poll: America hates Bush

They hate me, they really hate me!

The number of Americans disapproving of President Bush's job performance has risen to the highest level of his presidency, according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.

According to the poll, 53 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's performance, compared to 45 percent who approved.

The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The 53 percent figure was the highest disapproval rating recorded in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll since Bush became president in January 2001.

The approval percentage -- 45 percent -- matches a low point set in late March. The 8-point gap between those who disapproved and approved was the largest recorded during Bush's tenure.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Have at it. Read the rest of this post...

UK says bird flu "as grave a threat as terrorism"

I have been following the bird flu for a while and there certainly are a lot of bad signs out there which seem to be suggesting that it could be approaching soon and when it does, it is going to be very serious. Officials in the UK Civil Contingency Secretariat are saying that a flu pandemic could kill 700,000 civilians. Other international health organizations are also warning the public.

The World Health Organisation has warned that "the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic", while the Food and Agriculture Organisation calls it a "sword of Damocles" hanging over the globe.

On Friday, a new report in the US suggested 500,000 could die and 2 million hospitalized when the flu pandemic arrives. Considering the sorry state of US healthcare in the US those numbers could be conservative because the US has a limited supply of vaccine, for only 2% of the population compared to Western Europe where the numbers are ten times or more.

A more serious strain strikes every few years and a so-called pandemic strain emerges once every 27 years, on average. The more virulent strains sweep around the world within months.

Pandemics hit in 1918 -- killing up to 40 million people globally -- 1957 and 1968. Health experts all say the world is overdue for another and fear the avian flu in Asia may be it.

Read the rest of this post...

We've just launched a MAJOR AMERICAblog storefront

Our store is now open, for real, with a new storefront, and LOTS of new products.

Just FYI, we DO get a good portion of each sale, so shop liberally, as they say. This will, hopefully, become a reasonable source of income for AMERICAblog (I'm basically doing the blog full-time now, and trying to help Joe, Chris and Michael keep themselves clothed and well-fed). And I hope that the concept of t-shirt blogging, as I call it, will also help us further our agenda (as the Lynch Mob t-shirts helped created news in and of themselves).

Now for some of the details...

You can see the new storefront home page here to go there.

We've created a large number of new products, some of which I know you're gonna love - they made me laugh out loud. This is a collage of the new designs for t-shirts, mousepads, bumper stickers and more.



- You can find the new Gitmo Gear here.

- Draft the Bush Twins, and Are You Peppered With Obscenity? here.

- If I weren't gay... here

- I blog, therefore I am... etc. here.

- AMERICAblog logo gear here.

- Even more orchid photo stuff here (including some mousepads and stuff). Read the rest of this post...

Rumsfeld Shows Incompetence On Iraq (Again)

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video of Rumsfeld admitting that we're meeting with the insurgency. That was before he denied it today.

Anyone in the media or the Republican Party still wondering why Americans have lost total confidence in Bush's ability to lead our country in a time of war? The incompetence of his top advisers is one place where to start.

Rumsfeld went on the Sunday talk shows where he repeatedly and explicity confirmed over several shows and several hours a British newspaper report that the US military had been meeting with insurgents. In fact, he went FARTHER than the report and blithely claimed that these meetings had been going on all the time.

He blithely insisted that "none" of the insurgents we were negotiating with were terrorists, when Tim Russert pressed him about this on "Meet The Press." I was just about to post on this issue, wondering exactly which part of the insurgency WASN'T involved in terrorism or direct attacks on US troops, since that is their entire strategy. Did they say they weren't when he asked? And if they did, how could Rummy possibly check it out? And if it didn't check out, by what possible standards could they be considered insurgents? In short, Rummy confirmed repeatedly on Sunday that we were negotiating with terrorists or he simply was completely incompetent and had no idea what he was talking about.

Today, Rummy has seized on the "I'm a complete idiot" argument. Reuters and AFP are reporting that top military leaders in Iraq have insisted absolutely NO talks have been started or contemplated between the US military and the insurgents.

Rumsfeld chastised the news media for the attention given to the subject.

"I must say, I've been impressed how overblown these meetings are, these, quote-unquote, meetings. I don't know anything about specific meetings on specific days, nor does General Casey," Rumsfeld said.

"But there are meetings going on all the time between people in Iraq and other people in Iraq, attempting to get them to be supportive of the government, which is, obviously, the logical thing one does in a political process," Rumsfeld said.

So Rummy has completely contradicted himself and proven he doesn't have a clue as to what is going on in Iraq. No biggie for a Sec. of Defense who in those same interviews agreed the insurgency was in its last throes AND that it could continue for the next decade, if not longer.

When Bush, Cheney and Rummy repeatedly stare facts in the face and refuse to admit to them, they unnerve the American people and lose our confidence in their ability to even recognize a problem, much less respond to it and solve it. That is why the American people have lost faith in George Bush.

(Thanks to threader Mike V. for pointing us to this story.)

Read the rest of this post...

If I only were a cat, Rick Santorum wouldn't hate me

I'm not impressed with PETA helping to soften Santorum's image pre-election (which frankly, has got to be the only reason he's pushing this legislation). Someone needs to slap PETA on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Love it when the GOP self destructs Read the rest of this post...

When Will George Bush Stop Graverobbing The Dead of 9-11?

No, President Bush, we haven't forgotten. Your attack dog Karl Rove came to New York City and the sacred ground of 9-11 and made a nasty, partisan political speech and he used that national tragedy to do it. Rove very directly made a comparison between conservatives and liberals, but put that aside. Whether you believe Bush was using Rove to attack a small group of Americans he thinks are misguided or the 50 million Americans who didn't vote for him or the vast majority of Americans who now realize he lied about Iraq, using the dead of 9-11 to try and beef up your poll numbers is reprehensible and wrong.

No one should use the dead of 9-11 to try and further their partisan political agenda. Whomever Bush wants to pretend that screed was directed at, he used the innocent victims of 9-11 to do it.

Of course Bush hasn't apologized. He's abused the tragedy of 9-11 repeatedly. Bush used the carnage of 9-11 in a political ad. He showed the corpses of loved ones being pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center to try and score a few extra votes. Widows and children were put through the trauma of not knowing whether the ad might be showing their husband or wife, their brother or sister, their son or daughter being removed from that scene of horror. And Bush didn't care. The outcry was so immediate and intense over his crass use of a national tragedy for partisan political purposes that the ad didn't run. But Bush never apologized. In fact, he defended it to the hilt.

And Bush's Republicans have graverobbed the innocent dead of 9-11 again and again to push every pet project of theirs under the sun, from oil drilling in Alaska to the flag-burning amendment. The bereaved family members have begged and pleaded and prayed for everyone to stop politicizing their loved ones and making hay out of their pain and suffering. And George Bush has turned his back on them again and again.

The entire country was united behind our president after 9-11 and everyone, to put it bluntly, wanted revenge. George Bush has now had almost four years to hunt down and kill Osama Bin Laden and he has failed miserably. And because he's too weak to attack Bin Laden, Bush has resorted to attacking Americans. Because he's too weak to divide and conquer Al Queda, Bush is trying to divide and conquer America.

When will George Bush stop graverobbing the dead of 9-11? Never. Read the rest of this post...

When Repubs Attack -- Each Other

Love it when they start bashing each other. First, Cheney goes after Hagel. Now conservative leader Grover Norquist attacks three GOP Senators over at the College Chickenhawks conference:

Speaking to the same group a few hours later, party strategist Grover Norquist lambasted three Republicans who broke party ranks over the issue of judicial filibusters. He referred to them as "the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona" - Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain.

Seems to be more of this going around. Read the rest of this post...

Freedom and democracy in the new Iraq - girls beaten by police

Iraqi police beat up and shaved the heads of two Iraqi girls who dared wear jeans and long hair after first beating the girls in front of a crowd of people in Najaf. Did the US actually train these criminals? It's a type of democracy and freedom that I'm not familiar with but perhaps the White House can tell us more about what they are doing to protect the rights of women in Iraq. Better yet, why not send Laura to go save the day and show her support for Iraqi women. Read the rest of this post...

The TV networks shouldn't broadcast Bush's propaganda speech

I'd mentioned this last night. Atrios chimes in, as does David Corn. Bush's speech is nothing more than a PR stunt to raise his poll numbers. Nothing has happened to prompt the speech, there's no news on Iraq, no new policy he's unveiling, nothing. Why cover this speech? Read the rest of this post...

When GOP chickenhawks attack Republicans who tell the truth

The honest Republicans fight back.

Senator Hagel kept up his criticism of the Bush Iraq policy to vets in Nebraska according to the Omaha World Herald (hat tip to DailyKos):

The Bush team sent in too few troops to fight the war leading to today's chaos and rising deaths of Americans and Iraqis. Terrorists are "pouring in" to Iraq.

Basic living standards are worse than a year ago in Iraq. Civil war is perilously close to erupting there. Allies aren't helping much. The American public is losing its trust in President Bush's handling of the conflict.

And Hagel's deep fear is that it will all plunge into another Vietnam debacle, prompting Congress to force another abrupt pullout as it did in 1975.

"What we don't want to happen is for this to end up another Vietnam," Hagel told the legionnaires, "because the consequences would be catastrophic."

Read the rest of this post...

Rick Santorum says liberals are pedophiles

Rick "dog sex" Santorum is at it again. Writing in "Catholic Online" about the pedophilia problems facing the Catholic Church, he says:

it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

So now liberals aren't only responsible for 9/11, hating America and trying to murder our troops, they're pedophiles, too.

Small problem, however. The "center of the storm" isn't Boston, it's just gotten the most attention. The epicenter is really the diocese of Covington, Kentucky, where the catholic church has proposed the largest single sex-abuse settlement in history. The total is $120 million -- they want $80 million from their insurance policies (they actually included sex abuse in their policies) and another $40 million of their own assets.

Covington, of course, is one of the reddest districts in a very, very red state. Went HUGE for Bush, Bunning, and the R congressional candidate. Not a librul for miles and miles. Oh yeah, and there's nearby Burlington's "cross burning" problem. Why do GOP racists like to rape children?

So what's Santorum's excuse for Covington? Perhaps Rick Santorum should stop thinking about sex so much. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Gee, the GOP-appointed Supreme Court turned down the 10 Commandments. So, who does that make wrong - the "liberal activist judges" or the religious right and their suck up up politicians in Congress and the White House? Read the rest of this post...

CREW files FEC complaint against Bill Frist

CREW is one of the only groups in town with balls. The video doctor is in trouble. Read the rest of this post...

GOP threatens Major League Baseball, you'd better not sell Nationals to Soros

So now Republicanism stands for controlling the free market. Big-time Republicans, like, oh, George W. Bush, are permitted to own the Texas Rangers. But Soros is different because, uh, Democrats hate America, don't get 9/11 and want to kill our troops, so in uber-Christian-white America we don't let rich Jewish financiers do the same business deals that white Christian Republicans are allowed to do.

But this has nothing to do with Nazi Germany, circa 1934.

More on this here.

UPDATE: I had mentioned Peter Angelos earlier, but he's a Democrat, not a Republican. In any case, the Bush example nails this point home even better. Read the rest of this post...

Closet heterosexual, Ken Mehlman, believes in "social justice"

Baltimore Sun:

Mehlman, the first Jewish chairman of the Republican Party in modern times, said he believes "the values you're raised with have an impact on your political philosophy. ... I think that there's a belief I personally have in social justice that comes from my upbringing."

Yeah, our hero. A real Martin Luther King you are, Ken. Read the rest of this post...

Sup. Ct: 10 Commandments CAN be displayed NEAR Public Buildings

Latest from CNN, split decision from the Court on 10 Commandments which can be displayed near public buildings -- on public property, but apparently not in public buildings. Read the rest of this post...

Sup. Ct: No 10 Commandments Display in Court Houses

CNN reports that Supreme Court has ruled 10 Commandments cannot be displayed in Court Houses.

Link to AP Story. Read the rest of this post...

Supreme Court Open Thread

Awaiting big decisions and possible retirement(s)....what do you think? Read the rest of this post...

Could Frist be President?

Washington Post asks if he is up to the task and starts by examing Frist's recent Bolton fiasco:

By noon last Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist seemed done with John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador. Bustling from the Capitol to have lunch with President Bush, he told reporters he planned no further votes to try to end the Democrats' long-running filibuster of the embattled nominee.

But after his presidential chat, Frist announced he would keep trying, prompting newspaper headlines such as "Frist Reverses Himself," which his staff called unfair.

The next day, the Tennessee surgeon-turned-politician again seemed to wash his hands of Bolton. "It's really between the White House and Chris Dodd and Joe Biden," he said, naming two senior Democratic senators. At 11 p.m., however, he was working the phones, successfully urging another conversation between Biden and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. But the late-night Biden-Card call did not resolve a dispute over documents at the heart of the Bolton impasse, and Frist had little to show for his work but negative news reports and political headaches.

The Post article sure doesn't help his cause. The answer about whether Frist is up to being President is pretty resounding NO. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Getting the week started....what's new? Read the rest of this post...

Toronto Gay Pride And Where The Bigots Went

I checked out John's post about Toronto's Gay Pride, its biggest ever. And I couldn't help laughing over the kicker about the political bigot Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and where he spent Gay Pride. While the mayor and the police chief and other major figures in Toronto showed their support and respect for ALL of Canada's citizens, where was Harper? According to CBC News,

He was in suburban Toronto, where he spoke out against same-sex marriage while addressing a Muslim religious convention.

Yes, amusing, though Muslims who want to be part of a free and pluralistic society should learn that this means respecting the rights and dignities of everyone, not just people you agree with. Read the rest of this post...

Toronto gay pride, biggest ever

Note to the religious right hate groups: You can't stop Christmas from coming. Read the rest of this post...

Bush-Cheney now trying to shut GOP Senator Hagel up

And how are they doing it? By, of course, lying and saying that Hagel didn't believe we could win in Afghanistan. First, totally irrelevant to Iraq. But more importantly, Hegel never said that - he said we were winning in Afghanistan.

But Bush-Cheney have to discredit Hagel like they did Durbin and like they're doing with every other American who's figured out that this war is a disaster. So, they lie. Read the rest of this post...

Bush is going to use military to prop up his Tuesday night speech

Good God, does this White House know any shame?

They're going to use a US military base as the backdrop for Bush's speech to the nation Tuesday night. The TV stations shouldn't even cover it. This is just one more disgusting display of crassness by an administration who couldn't care less about our armed forces, unless they're needed for a photo op.

Hey, our servicemembers are dying over in Iraq because Bush hasn't even given them the equipment they need, because they're fighting a war based on a lie, and because Bush has given them no war plan at all, but what does all that matter, so long as Bush can use them as props to help boost his poll numbers.

Now who has contempt for our troops? I don't know how military guys can even stand Bush as their commander in chief. At some pooint they're going to realize that they and their buddies are dying because this man doesn't give a damn about them. Read the rest of this post...

33 die in new attacks in Iraq

I think I get the exit strategy now. We're just going to wait until everyone in the country is dead. Read the rest of this post...

More than 250,000 people expected at Houston pride

Jesus. In Houston. Over a quarter of a million. Jesus. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

Have we invaded anyone new while I've been out?

Read the rest of this post...

Rummy: the Problem in Iraq is foreigners....

From Today's Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: I think the concern that many people have is that if we were wrong or misjudged that, are we making some other misjudgments now? This is how The Washington Times reported in exchange before the hearings. "[Sen. Carl] Levin asked whether the general thought the insurgency was in its `last throes,' as Mr. Cheney said ... last month. `In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it was the same as it was' six months ago, Gen. [John] Abizaid replied."

For the sake of clarity for the American people, what about this insurgency? Is it in its last throes or is it alive and well and vibrant and strong as it was six months ago?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: Well, there are various ways to measure it. If you measure the number of incidents, it's gone up during the election period and now it's back down. If you look at lethality of those instances, it's up. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that the insurgency's stronger? Is it in its last throes? The last throes could be violence, as you well know from a dictionary standpoint. I think the way to think of it is that the insurgents are foreigners in some significant number. They are attacking Iraqis and killing them...

Bad foreigners, bad.

So, besides the whole semantics game about "last throes" and their complete inability to be honest, do the Bush people really not get that the US are foreigners who invaded Iraq first? Um, isn't that what got this whole quagmire started -- when Iraq was invaded by foreigners from America who were killing Iraqis. As it stands now, the trouble is that there is an insurgency, of mostly foreigners, who are fighting foreign invaders. Bush and Rumsfeld don't seem to grasp that we are considered foreign invaders, too. Read the rest of this post...

OPen thread

Off to enjoy the day. (Man, I thought that last post from Joe was "Last throes of a bitch" - and I thought, wow, he must be pissed!) Read the rest of this post...

Last Throes are a bitch

More last throes in Iraq via AP:

A suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup truck slammed into a police station near a market Sunday in Mosul, the first of three bombings that killed at least 33 people and wounded 19 in the northwestern city.

Attacks elsewhere killed at least five other people in Iraq, including a roadside bomb that killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others in central Baghdad.

Read the rest of this post...

General Abizaid is a liar

You'd think a US General would at least have the courage and patriotism, and care enough about his own troops, not to outright lie to the American people. Apparently General Abizaid puts politics ahead of the truth. What a profile in military courage that man is.

When asked if the war in Iraq has made America safer, he responded:

"Absolutely, I think this war has made us safer. We are fighting the same people in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and our partners are fighting the same people in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that brought us 9/11, we should never lose sight of that."

Ok, that was an outright lie of answer. General Abizaid wasn't asked if we were NOW fighting the SAME people in Iraq who were behind 9/11. We KNOW that NOW we are fighting the same people in Iraq who were behind 9/11 BECAUSE PRESIDENT BUSH AND GENERAL ABIZAID CREATED THE CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THOSE PEOPLE TO COME INTO IRAQ. That is NOT an answer to the question of whether the war has made America safer. In fact, it's an outright lie because he said "yes" the war has made us safer, and his reasoning was that Al Qaeda is in Iraq. But Bush's and Abizaid's war is the REASON Al Qaeda is now in Iraq.

Liar.

And what a wonderful job Face the Nation did of following up on this ridiculous assertion from the general. Did they follow-up with the obvious question, posed above? No. Face the Nation simply changed the topic. God forbid a real journalist in this town, or this country, actually called the Bush Administration on even ONE of their lies. The appropriate come-back was, "really General, you mean Al Qaeda was thriving in Iraq before we invaded?" Read the rest of this post...

Oh my God, Rumsfeld defends Cheney's "last throes" comment

Watching THIS WEEK right now, this is precious. When asked by Stephanopoulos if the Iraq insurgency is really in the "last throes" as Cheney recently said, Rummy replied:

"First of all, if you look up 'last throes' it can mean a 'violent' last throe."

Good God. They are twisting in the wind on this one. Attack! Read the rest of this post...