Be back soon

I will be back as soon as i get updated and broadband

Bush News Conference, Health Care, Iran, Fart Jokes, Welfare, Conrad Burns, Bill Kristol, Clean Air, Cuba and American Taliban.

Idiots say the darnest things. After years of trying to implicate Iraq in the 9/11 disaster, Ol' Simple has a news conference.

In Monday's news conference Bush shows how hard it is to keep up with all that misinformation and accidentally let's the truth slip out.

The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started
the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were ...

Q: What did Iraqi have to do with that?

Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attacks upon the World Trade Center.

Bush: Nothing. Except for it's part of __ and nobody's ever suggested in
this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a __ Iraq
__ the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully
materialize, Ken.

Another statement from that news conference that caught my attention was:

We reject the killing of innocents to achieve a radical and violent agenda.

Apparently, the killing of innocents is fine as long as you're trying to achieve a "noble cause".

After the news conference, Eugene Robinson of the WaPo, decided that Bush was on another planet. I like Robinson.

Here's another line from the president's news conference: "What's very
interesting about the violence in Lebanon and the violence in Iraq and the
violence in Gaza is this: These are all groups of terrorists who are trying to
stop the advance of democracy."

Now, whatever you think about George Bush's intellect, he knows full well
that the Hamas government in Gaza was democratically elected. He also knows full
well that Hezbollah participates in the democratically elected government of
Lebanon, or what's left of Lebanon. And so he has to know full well that
U.S.-backed Israeli assaults on Gaza and Lebanon -- even if you believe they
were justified -- had the impact of crippling, if not crushing, two nascent
democracies of the kind the Bush administration wants to cultivate throughout
the Middle East.

Bush is setting his sights on health care. My advice, don't get sick.

The initiative underscores Bush's belief that the nation's health-care system
would be more efficient if consumers could shop for the best care at the best
price, administration officials say. "The fact is, if you have excellent
information about quality, about service and about price, people make good
decisions," Bush said during a roundtable here to discuss the initiative.

If you believe that, check this out.

Iran wants to talk, Bush wants sanctions. Being the pampered, effete, rich, boy that he is and used to getting his way all his life, I'll bet he won't talk.

Iran offered yesterday to enter into immediate and "serious" negotiations on a
broad range of issues with the Bush administration and its European allies but
refused to abide by a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend work at its
nuclear facilities by the end of the month.

It seems our President also loves fart jokes. Talk about arrested development.

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up
with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes.
A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid
around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy
guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a
few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about
getting people to gas about that.

Speaking of noxious gas, The Heritage Foundation is now saying that Bill Clinton was right on welfare reform. Of course that means he was wrong.

As a conservative analyst who spent much of the 1990s working against most of
Bill Clinton's agenda -- including even some aspects of his welfare reform
proposals -- it pains me to say this.
Bill Clinton was right.

If Republicans would just stick to waving the flag and thumping the Bible, instead of opening their mouths, they'd still look stupid, but not as stupid. Senator Conrad Burns of Montana show us why.

A new video released this week by his Democratic challenger, Jon Tester,
shows Burns, 71, joking to a crowd in June about how a "nice little Guatemalan
man" fixing up his house might be an illegal immigrant. "Could I see your green
card?" Burns tells the crowd he asked the man. "And Hugo, says, 'No.' I said,
'Oh, gosh.' "

One week after the green-card crack, Burns recounted in a debate how after
watching an interview on television of an illegal immigrant headed to Virginia
for work, "I told my roofer, you better go out and get your help, or you won't
get my house roofed."

But we all know that God made illegals to save Republicans a few bucks.

And why are so many of these wealthy, draft-dodging, neo-con, wimps so anxious to start another war? Bill Kristol showing how clueless he is.

KRISTOL: I think we could be in a military confrontation with Iran much sooner
than people expect. I don’t think this is an issue that’s going to wait two and
a half years until President Bush leaves the presidency. I think he will decide
at some point next year — in 2007 — he’ll have to make some very tough decisions
about what the U.S. and the world can tolerate in terms of this regime – this
apocalyptic, messianic regime — which has made clear that it would use — would
feel free to use weapons if it had them, that has very deep ties with terrorist
groups, what we could accept in terms of their nuclear program.

Israel seems to be doing it's best to keep things stirred up. With friends like this, Kristol might get what he wants.

JERUSALEM, Aug. 22 -- The Israeli government's plan to dismantle some Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and redraw the country's borders is being shelved
at least temporarily, a casualty of the war in Lebanon, government officials said.

The plan, which propelled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to victory in March
elections and was warmly endorsed by President Bush as a way of solving Israel's
conflict with the Palestinians, is no longer a top priority, Olmert told his
ministers last weekend, according to one of his advisers.

Score one for the bad guys. Rupert Murdoch and our whore Congress screws us again. I guess I'll have to start going back outside to turn my antenna. A few years ago, local television station owners, read conclomerates, pumped a lot of money into Congress to keep satellite companies from showing any network coverage other than the locals. It's kinda like Congress passing a law saying that, if the town you live in has a newspaper, it would be illegal to read any other paper. All in all, it's just damned unAmerican.

Hundreds of thousands of Dish Network subscribers could lose access to shows on
traditional television networks as early as today after a Supreme Court
justice's decision yesterday that brings an end to lawsuits that have been tied
up in court for more than eight years.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yesterday let stand a May ruling
by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that ordered EchoStar
Communications Corp., the parent company of Dish Network, to stop transmitting
network programming to 800,000 subscribers -- those who live in mostly rural
areas too far to receive local stations with regular antennas.

But there's good news. Score one for the good guys, Bush and the polluters finally lose one.

Americans who live in areas with substandard air won another important round
last week in the tortured legal battle to force power companies, other
industrial polluters and the Bush administration itself to obey the Clean Air
Act. In a unanimous decision, a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld a
controversial provision of the act that requires older plants to install modern
pollution controls whenever they undergo physical or operational changes that
increase harmful
emissions.
The provision, known as New Source Review, has been critical to the efforts
of New York and other Northeastern states to reduce air pollution from
Midwestern power plants. But industry hates it, and the administration has spent
the last five years trying to get rid of it. This effort seemed very close to
success until the courts intervened, delivering two rebuffs in less than half a
year.

Say what you want about Cuba. But they are leading the way to a petroleum free future.

Cuba switched "the nation's agriculture from high input, fossil fuel-dependent
farming, to low input, self-reliant farming...farmers used new environmental
technologies offered as the result of scientific development--technologies such
as biopesticides and biofertilizers. Biopesticides developed the use of microbes
and natural enemies to combat pests, along with resistant plant varieties, crop
rotation, and cover cropping to suppress weeds. Biofertilizers were developed
using earthworms, compost, natural rock phosphate, animal manure and green
manures, and the integration of grazing animals. To replace tractors, there was
a return to animal traction."

And finally, who's keeping an eye on the enemy within? Certainly not Bush and the Republicans, who rely on their votes. But AlterNet is.

Two really devilish guys materialized in Toccoa, Ga., last month to harangue
600 true believers on the gospel of a thoroughly theocratic America. Along with
lesser lights of the religious far right who spoke at American Vision's
"Worldview Super Conference 2006," Herb Titus and Gary North called for nothing
short of the overthrow of the United States of America.

Hosting the "Creation to Revelation... Connecting the Dots" event was a
Powder Springs, Ga., publishing house, American Vision, whose pontiff is Gary
DeMar. The outfit touts the antebellum South as a righteous society and favors
the reintroduction of some forms of slavery (it's sanctioned in the Bible,
Reconstructionists say) -- which may explain the blindingly monochrome audience
at the gathering

At the heart of what was taught by a succession of speakers:

Six-day, "young earth" creationism is the only acceptable doctrine for
Christians. Even "intelligent design" or "old earth" creationism are compromises
with evil secularism.


Public education is satanic and must be destroyed.

The First Amendment was intended to keep the federal government from
imposing a national religion, but states should be free to foster a religious
creed. (Several states did that during the colonial period and the nation's
early days, a model the Reconstructionists want to emulate.)

The Founding
Fathers intended to protect only the liberties of the established
ultra-conservative denominations of that time. Expanding the list to include
"liberal" Protestant denominations, much less Catholics, Jews and (gasp!)
atheists, is a corruption of the Founders' intent.

Well, at least Tuesdays are usually better than Mondays.

Bush's New Secrets, Gulag Bush, Blame Mexicans, Chuck Hagel, Ted Stevens, Religious Right Pin-Up Girl Ann Coulter and Ned Lamont.

In the latest installment of I've Got A Secret staring G. W. Bush, our neurotic, paranoid hero, in a lame effort at convincing the American people that he is protecting us, has classified Cold War missile data that has been in the public domain for years. It's a laugh-riot and it's playing all over the country, right now.

The Bush administration has begun designating as secret some information
that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the
numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold
War.

"It would be difficult to find more dramatic examples of unjustifiable
secrecy than these decisions to classify the numbers of U.S. strategic weapons,"
wrote William Burr, a senior analyst at the archive who compiled the report. " .
. . The Pentagon is now trying to keep secret numbers of strategic weapons that
have never been classified before."

Co-starring Bryan Wilkes, as a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, who provides the twisted logic for this lighthearted farce.

"It's not our call to do missile data," Wilkes said. "There's no question that
current classified nuclear weapons data was out there that we had to take back,"
he added. "And in today's environment, where there is a great deal of concern
about rogue nations or terrorist groups getting access to nuclear weapons, this
makes a lot of sense."

Tomorrow's episode will be about how our lovable hero dumps on his friends by using his secrets for his own political benefit, despite the consequences.

Anti-terror police in Britain have made an angry request to their US
counterparts asking them to stop leaking details of this month's suspected bomb
plot over fears that it could jeopardise the chances of a successful prosecution
and hamper the gathering of evidence.

The British security services, MI5 and MI6, are understood to be dismayed
that a number of sensitive details surrounding the alleged plot - including an
FBI estimate that as many as 50 people were involved - were leaked to the
media.

Immediately following will be an encore episode about those who run afoul of our affable protagonist.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- On Jan. 18, 2002, six men suspected of plotting to
attack the U.S. Embassy were seized here by U.S. troops and flown to Cuba, where
they became some of the first arrivals at the Pentagon's new prison at
Guantanamo Bay.

The seizure was ordered by senior U.S. officials in defiance of rulings by
top courts in Bosnia that the men were entitled to their freedom and could not
be deported. Today, more than four years later, the six remain locked up at
Guantanamo, even though the original allegations about the embassy attack have
been discredited and dropped, records show.

Stay tuned, the show's been a runaway hit for five and a half years, but has been in a recent ratings slump, is promising something big for sweeps week. And be sure to keep an eye out for the show's spin-off, Don't Hate Us, Hate the Mexicans, starring the I Want to be Your Candidate Players.

It is a counterintuitive strategy: The way to win a swing district is not
with a campaign aimed at swing voters. Instead, the goal is to motivate
conservatives with anti-illegal-immigration appeals, hoping they overcome their
disenchantment with GOP policies in Washington.

Of course, Republicans also hope to snare independents and even some
wayward Democrats with the immigration issue. But they plan to do it with hot
words -- not with the cool centrism that is more typical in districts where both
parties have run competitively.

Later this year the GOP network will debut two new made for TV movies. The first will be, Voice in the Wilderness, starring Chuck Hagel as a sane man who wakes up in asylum where the patients are in charge.

Hagel asked: "Where is the fiscal responsibility of the party I joined in '68?
Where is the international engagement of the party I joined _ fair, free trade,
individual responsibility, not building a bigger government, but building a
smaller government?"

The second, titled simply "Tubes", stars Ted Stevens as a deluded Alaskan who believes that he can become rich by selling his tubal information relay system to the telecommunications giants.

Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens, the powerful Commerce Committee chair, is trying to line up votes for his "Advanced
Telecommunications and Opportunities Reform Act." It was Stevens who called
the Internet a "series of
tubes" as he tried to explain his bill. Now the subject of well-honed
satirical jabs from The Daily Show, as well as dozens of independently made videos, Stevens is
hunkering down to get his bill passed by the Senate when it reconvenes in
September.

The RRN, Religious Right Network, will soon have the premier of it's new mini-series, Darwin and Hitler: A Love Story. It stars Ann Coulter in dual roles. Early word is, it will be hotter than Hell.

An upcoming television special produced by a Christian broadcaster that features
conservative pundit Ann Coulter blames Charles Darwin for Adolf Hitler, RAW STORY has learned.

The only offering from the RDN, Real Democrat Network, is Like Moths to a Flame, it stars Ned Lamont along with many bit players on loan from the DLC network. The title says it all.

But since Aug. 8, when he defeated the 18-year incumbent by about 10,000 votes,
Lamont has discovered a lot of new friends _ especially those within the
Democratic establishment who originally backed Lieberman.

Hope your Monday don't suck.

GOP Scum, Conservatives Play Catch-up, Dems catch up, UN-Israel-Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gun Fun and Who Would Jesus Kill?

It's makes it easy to be a proud liberal when I see things like this.

As many as 61,000 military widows whose husbands died of causes relating to
their military service lose out on thousands of dollars a year in survivor
benefits because of a law that dates from the 1970’s.

Widows and
retirees have spent decades trying to persuade Congress to change the law, which
hits hardest at the widows of lower-ranking service members and is referred to
by many critics as the “widow’s tax.’’

The Senate passed such a change
last year and again this year as part of the military authorization bill. But
House Republican leaders oppose the change because of its steep price tag,
nearly $9 billion over 10 years, Senate legislative aides from both parties say.
A change was not in the military bill that passed the House, but lawmakers who
support the change are hoping to make it part of the bill’s final version, which
is now being worked on by a bipartisan Congressional committee.

The scum on the right will stoop to any low in order to protect the tax cuts of the rich whose butts they love to lick. After five years of failure under Bush and the Republicans, just how big of a cold-hearted dumbass do you have to be to keep voting GOP.

Even the less bright among us are starting to see that Bush is just a load of crap in a silk suit.

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George
Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad."
For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS
BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And
his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents
have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league
by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."

Yeah, after just five and a half wasted years, even the slow on the uptake conservatives are starting to conceptualize the obvious.

The GOP had their chance and blew it spectacularly. But then rolling over for big business, futher enriching the already rich and starting an endless war based on lies, does tend to wear thin after a while. And let's not forget those supposed Democrats that went right along with them. The GOP screwed up so badly that now the fundraising gap is starting to close. Democracy works, but it requires participation. Something the Democrtatic Party needs to learn.

The traditional fundraising advantage held by incumbent lawmakers -- which
Republicans have regarded as a safety wall in their effort to keep control of
Congress -- has eroded in many closely contested House races, as many Democratic
challengers prove competitive in the race for cash.

In a year of bad
omens for the GOP, the latest batch of disclosure forms filed with the Federal
Election Commission offers one more: Incumbency no longer means that embattled
Republican representatives can expect to overwhelm weakly funded Democratic
challengers with massive spending on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

The pendulum seems to be swinging back slowly to the side of sanity, but we are going to have one Hell of a mess to clean up.

It's much easier to start a war than to end one. You'd think that was common knowledge. It's not surprising that a sheltered dimwit from Texas might not know this, it's incredibly surprising that Israel would not. But Israel might have figured that they could use Bush's obsession with Iran to their own benefit. Although, it's hard to understand how a further degradation of U. S. power and credibility would be beneficial in the long run.

The Bush administration was informed in advance and gave the "green light" to
Israel's military strikes against Hizbollah ­ with plans drawn up months
before two Israeli soldiers were seized ­it has been claimed.

The US
reportedly considered Israel's actions as a necessary prerequisite for a
possible strike against Iran. A report by a leading investigative reporter says
that earlier this summer Israeli officials visited Washington to brief the
government on its plan to respond to any Hizbollah provocation and to "find out
how much the US would bear".

With a cease-fire in effect, Israel is playing fast and loose and neither the UN or Lebanon is impressed.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is "deeply concerned"
about Israel's commando raid Saturday in eastern Lebanon, which he said violated
the cease-fire resolution concerning Israel and Hezbollah, his spokesman said in
a written statement.

BEIRUT, Aug. 19 -- Helicopter-borne Israeli
commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley early Saturday,
setting off a fierce gun battle. Lebanon called the attack a "flagrant
violation" of a fragile six-day-old cease-fire and threatened to halt troop
deployments in protest.

Israel has every right to defend itself, any country does, but only fools use war as anything other than a last resort.

While I'm on the subject of fools and war, let's check in on our fool and his wars.

You remember Iraq, the country that the Bush Administration put on a media blitz to convince the sheep in this country that we were in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraq, with everything from anthrax to nuclear weapons? Then we learned that that was lies. The country that worked hand in hand with Osama to bring down the WTC. And once again found out we'd been lied to. You know, the country that we're going to present as a model of democracy for the Middle East. It's where most of our military are currently performing target duty for anyone with an AK-47, RPG or homemade bomb. Well it looks likes the Bush magic is working as well over there as it is here.

Civil war? Oh no, not according to Bush. Could this be more Bush lies? What do you think?

The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed,
the only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into total Bosnia-like
devastation is 135,000 U.S. troops -- and even they are merely slowing the fall.
The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only
Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with
instability, turmoil and war

.

Even our number one allies have caught on to this.

So are figures for the overall number of attacks on coalition forces, and the
statistics for American military deaths could be worse if not for some recent
improvements in armoured protection. With luck, money and the right kind of
international help, Lebanon can be put back together again. But can Iraq? That
is the stark question which faces both Iraqis and their occupiers. The people of
Baghdad note every day the ominous signs of descent into communal violence. One
week the gunmen go after bakers, forcing those of the "wrong" sect to close up
and leave, and murdering them and their workers if they do not. The next, they
turn to newspaper and magazine stalls, demanding that the "wrong" titles be
removed from sale. Again, death is often the price for disobedience. In the
mixed areas of the city, families are packing to move to safer areas, a process
which has not yet become a full-scale exodus but which certainly could become
one. Even in solidly Shia or Sunni areas, there are conflicts between different
factions and movements, as was illustrated this week when aggrieved tribesmen
attacked the city council headquarters in Basra, British troops hovering
uneasily on the edge of the fight. The grim pattern of intimidation, fear,
flight, murder and massacre is taking shape in all those parts of Iraq where the
communities are, or were, mingled. If this is not civil war, it is moving
sharply in that direction. Two wars, a war of Iraqis against Iraqis and a war of
Iraqis against Americans, threaten to blur into one in a way which could be
beyond anybody's ability, Iraqi or American, to manage or control.

Bush has worked his magic with gasoline in Iraq. Even though it sits on the third largest oil reserves on the planet, they're having to import oil! At the pumps gas is only 64 cents a gallon, but there's hardly any gas at the pumps. It's almost five bucks a gallon on the black market.

Even though Iraq has the world's third-largest proven oil reserves, it is forced
to depend on imports because of an acute shortage of refined products such as
gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas. Sabotage of pipelines by insurgents,
corruption and aging refineries have been blamed.

A gallon of gasoline
now sells on the black market in Baghdad for about $4.92, although its official
price is $0.64. Lines of cars at many Baghdad fuel stations stretch several
miles, and drivers sometime wait overnight to fill their cars.

And remember how Bush tried to mask his lies with more lies about bringing democracy to the Middle East? Well, maybe not anymore.

The last three paragraphs of this story revealed that “senior administration
officials . . . are considering alternatives other than democracy,” according to
a military expert who was just briefed at the White House.

Even a country that we needed to go into, but overstayed our welcome, is showing the fingerprints of the War President's military strategery.

KABUL, Insurgents killed four U.S. soldiers and wounded six others in clashes
Saturday during an upsurge in violence across the country. Two Afghan soldiers
also were killed.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded
during operations in the Pech district of the eastern province of Konar, said
Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman. U.S. troops in that area are
hunting for Taliban fighters and insurgents linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda
network in remote mountains hugging the Pakistani border.

In the
southern province of Uruzgan, one U.S. soldier and two Afghan soldiers were
killed and three Americans were wounded in a four-hour clash with more than 100
insurgents, according to a NATO statement

.

Thank goodness we live in America where there's not a bunch of nuts running around with automatic weapons. Uh, wait a minute, hold that.

The Knob Creek machine gun shoot in Kentucky attracts thousands of neo-Nazis and other extremists. But the orgy of firepower helps everyone get along just fine.

And for the short on change, fun-loving, uber-Christian that wants to pop a few caps at anyone who's not pale enough or religious enough, a new video game brought to you by those pillars of compassion of the Religious Right, Who Would Jesus Kill?. That's not really it's name, but it should be.

The object of the game is to recruit the members of New York's remaining
"neutral" population to the side of God during a seven-year reign of the
Antichrist. Players have to win over the remaining agnostics and unbelievers of
New York City or kill them -- either before or after they are pulled to the
forces of evil.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Sen. George Allen (Idiot-VA), Race and Immigration, Race and the Military, Haditha, Afghanistan, Dragon Roars, "Crap", Too Many Churches and Attytood.

Virginia Senator George Allen's recent foray into pumping up his white Republican base by ridiculing someone who was neither white or Republican and the crowd reaction to it has made me wonder just how far along this country is at understanding that aside from outward appearances, we're all pretty much the same underneath. My guess is that we have a long way to go.

That said, we have to keep in mind that in this country we are supposed to be free to have our own opinions and be able to express them. However, for a United States Senator to let comments like the ones he made to S.R. Sidarth come out of his mouth, shows that he's a fool. And trust me Virginia, being from Oklahoma, I have way too much experience with having fools for Senators, you don't want one.

The one good thing, besides showing another dark facet of the Republican agenda, is that this little glimpse of GOP reality has given Allen's challenger, James Webb, a shot at winning. Believe it or not, most Virginians, even Allen's supporters are upset with his Freudian slip.

"If the race wasn't on Democrats' radar screen before, it is now," said Charlie
Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.

The problem is even more prevalent, yet tacit, in the immigration issue. The Nation has an excellent article on this subject.

The synergy between mainstream anti-immigration groups and hardcore white
supremacists is founded on a common belief in a form of racial nationalism
(unconscious, in the case of some mainstreamers) that assumes European settlers
comprise a "native-born" population that constitutes the "real" America.
Organized white supremacist groups, however, talk about the survival of the
white race in explicit terms.

While the the idiot Bush says that "We need illegals to do the work that Americans won't do.", the problem keeps growing. Bush's reasoning that Americans won't do some types of work just shows the elitist upbringing of our President. A more appropriate remark would be "Americans won't work for the starvation wages that these greedy scum are willing to pay". Of course, to a Bush, work just means selling your name and influence to the highest bidder. So now Bush pays lip service to both sides and the racist undertones of the immigration issue will continue to play a big role in it.

An even bigger problem is the number of white supremacists joining the armed forces.

The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder,
William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration
and blueprint for Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal
building, had sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race
war.

The groups are being abetted, the report says, by pressure on
recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to
reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.

The report
quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters
are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed
forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we
positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

There is no place for racists in our government, especially the military. There is no need for us to provide the training that these fools can later use to fulfill their fantasies. The homophobes in the military have no problem finding gays and kicking them out, for no good purpose. Doing the same for racists would at least serve a purpose.

With Haditha back in the news, it makes me wonder if there has been any white supremacist influence in any of the atrocities in Iraq. Has anyone checked? Are they going to? Well, they'd better.

Even if there's no connection, the aftermath of Haditha is showing how we seem to be doing everything wrong, considering that our goal is pacifying Iraq. First we have the Marine battalion commander saying that 24 civilian deaths is "routine".

The Marine officer who commanded the battalion involved in the Haditha killings
last November did not consider the deaths of 24 Iraqis, many of them women and
children, unusual and did not initiate an inquiry, according to a sworn
statement he gave to military investigators in March.

Then we find out that they not only knew they screwed up, but were very amaturish in their attempts to destroy or hide evidence.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — A high-level military investigation into the killings of
24 Iraqis in Haditha last November has uncovered instances in which American
marines involved in the episode appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence,
according to two Defense Department officials briefed on the case.

We have to get a Commander-in-chief and a Secretary of Defense that has some idea of what they're doing, get our military home and give it a complete overhaul. Bush, Rumsfeld and their enablers have just about wrecked the military power of this country.

Another example of the pitiful shape that our military is in, puppet President Hamid Karzai is jacking Bush up over one of our airstrikes that killed 10 border police. It has to be troubling to think that the most expensive military in the world can't distinguish between a police convoy and a wedding party.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 17 -- President Hamid Karzai condemned a U.S. airstrike
Thursday that Afghan officials said killed 10 border policemen.

"I have
repeatedly asked the coalition forces to take maximum caution while carrying out
operations," he said in a statement, adding that such incidents "must not be
repeated."

Gen. Abdul Rahman, Afghanistan's deputy chief of border
police, said a coalition airplane killed 10 policemen in two trucks in the
southeastern province of Paktika. No one survived the strike.

While we're on the subject of military matters, as you well know China has been covering our huge tax cut based deficit, not to mention cleaning up on the trade deficit. Thanks Wal-Mart. And what do you suppose that they have been spending their new found wealth on? That's right, a military equal to or better than ours. They've just told our idiot boy President not to talk about it.

"It's better for the U.S. to shut up," Sha said. "Keep quiet. It's much, much
better."

Sha said the world need not worry about China's growing
economic and military might because "China basically is a peace-loving nation

."

Yeah, George W. Bush, leader.

Well, Bush has other things on his mind. His favorite lapdog's Deputy just called his administration "crap". And apparently the whole Labour Party agrees with him.

Ian Davidson Glasgow South West MP

"I think that John Prescott is to be
commended for the quality of his political analysis. His comment on American
policy is brief and accurate. Britain has got to ensure that it is no longer
seen as simply being the glove puppet of the United States."

It seems that there's just too damned many churches in Stafford, TX. All their untaxed real estate is putting a crimp in the city finances. Let's see, we have more churchs in this country than anywhere else in the world and the highest percentage of our population is behind bars than any other country in the world. We also have the most slimy, rich preachers. Maybe Stafford is on to something.

The problem: Thousands of acres owned by religious and affiliated institutions
are exempt from the property tax rolls, and with only 300 acres of undeveloped
land left, Stafford is looking for a legal way to say "enough."

Without the benefit of the internet and only television to get your news from, how much do you know? Not much, according to Will Bunch at attytood. He's so right.

Here's the bad news: A couple of times every day, usually around lunch and again
as I was drifting off the sleep, I had the urge to know that the world wasn't,
you know, blowing up. And the only sure way to do that was to flick on CNN. And
if you didn't know any better, there were times when
you would think the world was, you know, blowing up.

UPDATE; Just one more example of GOP stupidity and prejudice. Florida congressional candidate Tramm Hudson.

Republican Tramm Hudson, a banker, said earlier this year that "blacks aren't the best swimmers or may not even know how to swim." Hudson, speaking to a Christian Coalition political forum at the time, was commenting on efforts to rescue a black soldier he was training with in Panama 22 years ago. The remarks appeared on blogs Thursday.

Bush the Plagiarist, Bush takes on Constitution, Faith-Based NASA, FBI's new computers, Brit knows crap, Security Moms, Bush prosperity and W unloved.

The ATF is getting a new headquarters building. It was originally supposed to have a quote from Bush's 9/20/2001 speech to Congress engraved at the entrance. But that's no longer the case. The Bush quote has been dropped from the plans by the new acting director Edgar A. Domenech, a career ATF man.

In December, Carl J. Truscott , then director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, and David L. Bibb , acting administrator of the General
Services Administration, invited President Bush to the dedication of the ATF
headquarters, scheduled for Nov. 14 or 16.

The new headquarters at 99
New York Ave. NE, ATF's first permanent home, is an "architectural masterpiece,"
the letter said, combining "high security and openness" with "post-Oklahoma City
bombing design and construction standards."

But why would the president
attend? Because "memorable words from your speech before a Joint Session of
Congress on Sept. 20, 2001 will be engraved in stone at our entry threshold,"
the invite said. Whoa! This puts Dubya right up there with Lincoln and Roosevelt
and Jefferson.

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

Wow! "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail". A masterful and powerful quote, as evidenced by a Google search that shows many government agencies and the Right-wing Blogosphere are wetting their panties for a chance to use it.

My first thought was, "The idiot said this?". I'm sure many of you thought this quote sounds almost Churchillian, and you were right.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and
we will finish the job.
Sir Winston Churchill, BBC radio broadcast, Feb 9, 1941

Thank you Mr. Edgar A. Domenech.


It's official, Bush is a crook and his wiretapping scheme is unconstitutional.

A federal judge in Detroit ruled yesterday that the National Security Agency's
warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional, delivering the first
decision that the Bush administration's effort to monitor communications without
court oversight runs afoul of the Bill of Rights and federal law.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a halt to the wiretap program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, but both sides in the lawsuit agreed to delay that action until a Sept. 7 hearing. Legal scholars said Taylor's decision
is likely to receive heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th
Circuit when the Justice Department appeals, and some criticized her ruling as
poorly reasoned.

Down but not out, the Administration is fighting the decision and the Right has already started swiftboating the judge.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration "couldn't
disagree more with this ruling," calling it "carefully administered."

Congressional Republicans quickly condemned Taylor's ruling, and the
Republican National Committee issued a news release titled, "Liberal Judge Backs
Dem Agenda To Weaken National Security." Taylor, 73, was appointed to the bench
in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.

It's pretty obvious that the Constitution means squat to the Right.


Bush just signed a new revision of the pension laws. I guess that means that most folks hoping for a comfortable retirement will probably be screwed out of it.

But critics of the law, such as Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), called it a
smokescreen, warning that some companies would face fewer requirements to fund
their pensions. The Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday that the new
law would "lead to an increase in underfunding among plans that will be
terminated over the next decade."

Three NASA advisors have resigned in protest over Bush's NASA science budget cuts. Be sure to say a prayer for our new faith-based space program.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Aug. 18 -- Three NASA advisers who spoke out against budget cuts to the space agency's science programs turned in their resignations this week,
officials said Thursday.

The FBI has spent $170 million of your money for a computer system that don't work. Have you noticed that under Bush we spend an awfully lot on things that don't work. Iraq, FEMA, Congress, etc.

Within a few days, Azmi said,
he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III
that the $170 million system was in
serious trouble. A year later, it was
dead. The nation's premier law enforcement
and counterterrorism agency,
burdened with one of the government's most archaic
computer systems, would
have to start from scratch

.

Feel safer yet?


British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott shows that he has a firm grasp of the obvious by calling the Bush Administration "Crap". The real question is why did it take five years to come to this conclusion?

John Prescott has given vent to his private feelings about the Bush presidency,
summing up George Bush's administration in a single word: crap.

The
Deputy Prime Minister's condemnation of President Bush and his approach to the
Middle East could cause a diplomatic row but it will please Labour MPs who are
furious about Tony Blair's backing of the United States over the bombing of
Lebanon.

Things are getting so bad for Bush and the GOP that they are even losing the support of the so-called "securuity moms". These are the women that have fallen victim to the fear mongering propaganda that Bush and the GOP have been pushing, and still are, since 9/11. Welcome back to the real world.

CLINTONVILLE, Ohio, Aug. 17 -- Married women with children, the "security moms"
whose concerns about terrorism made them an essential part of Republican
victories in 2002 and 2004, are taking flight from GOP politicians this year in
ways that appear likely to provide a major boost for Democrats in the midterm
elections, according to polls and interviews.

Now, in the interest of fairness, I bring you two examples of Bush policies that have actually helped people.

First, the farmers in Afghanistan have a record crop production.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record
levels -- up by more than 40 percent from 2005 -- despite hundreds of millions
in counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.

Second, for some small businessmen in Iraq, business has never been better.

"During the Saddam era, we used to do one or two coffins a day and the price
ranged between $5 to $10," Mohammed said. Now he produces an average of 10
to 15 coffins a day and charges about $50 for each of them.


Um
Alaaa, 50, is a professional mourner who attends funerals to add emotion to the
ceremony. The profession is widespread in the Middle East, but lately demand has
been so great that she is training one of her six daughters to help with the
workload.

All this prosperity, it's just no wonder that Bush feels unappreciated by our colonies.

President Bush miffed that Iraqis aren't thanking him enough
by AJ in DC -
8/16/2006 01:42:00 PM


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