Nat Hentoff asks:
"Who Made George W. Bush Our King?"
*He Can Designate Any of Us an Enemy Combatant*




"This is an unprecedentedly serious assault, folks, on the core of our system of justice. As Judge Motz said in her passionate dissent, "[This court's] decision marks the first time in our history that a federal court has approved the elimination of protections afforded a citizen by the Constitution solely on the basis of the Executive's designation of that citizen as an enemy combatant, without testing the accuracy of the designation. Neither the Constitution nor controlling precedent sanctions this holding." (Emphasis added). "

(see Village Voice article here)

July 26, 2003- Oil executive was found dead at his ranch..Ruled a suicide(here)

Oh---
he was also the Secretary of the Navy.

Cancer is rough stuff. I know from personal family experience. My heart goes out to this family.
I can't help but wonder if the stress regarding the stretching of our military and the exposed lies about Iraq contributed to this man's sorrows and burdens.
Do you agree?

From the Howard Dean Weblog: "The President Has Misled Us"

"Last week I asked sixteen questions about the war in Iraq that must be answered if the American people are to understand the truth around the rush to war and the failure to plan for peace.

"These questions are, however, only one piece of a far broader practice by this administration of misleading the American people and breaching the fundamental trust that they have placed in their elected leadership. This practice goes far beyond misleading the country and the world about the reasons for taking us to war in Iraq, this practice extends into the state of the nation's economy, its environment, its schools and beyond...."

DLC's From and Reed Shut Out Candidates from DLC Meeting in Philadelphia
Or: How to Sabotage, Damage, and Divide Your Own Political Party

Reed and From are at it again.
Creating "news" that is totally out-of-touch with most Democrats today.
They should be fired.
Immediately.

It all boils down to this point...a point which Reed and From are sorely mistaken and misleading:

They say, in this AP article from the NY Times:

"His {Howard Dean's} staunch opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq does not go over well with centrist Democrats, however, whose leaders circulated a memo in May that suggested Democrats could lose badly in 2004 if the former Vermont governor were their candidate.

On the eve of a Democratic Leadership Council summer meeting in Philadelphia, From said it was essential that the Democrats have a nominee strong on national security to be competitive with President Bush.'

A look at most recent polls will tell you that Americans are extremely doubtful about Bush's position on the Iraq war.
I dare say that Reed and From are being disingenuous, at best, to say that a Democratic candidate would have to cave in and agree with Bush on
Iraq in order to be competitive with him in 2004.

That is so far off-base it makes my head spin faster and more fluidly than Linda Blair's Exorcist dome.


The Democratic Party Needs An Exorcism

I hate to say this, but new RNC Chairperson Ed Gillespie is more accurate here than the DLC:
"In particular, Gillespie accused Senators John Edwards of North Carolina, Bob Graham of Florida, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut of switching their views on Iraq after the regime toppled in order to appeal to their party's liberal base. ''Their new rhetoric may be good positioning in a Democratic primary, but it will not make us safer as a nation,'' he said...."

To their detriment, the GOP is sucking every bit of mileage from 9-11 as possible: "Several Republicans who spoke made it clear that Bush's handling of Sept. 11 will be used as a shield against any criticism of his foreign policy." I wonder how long they'll go on thinking we're fooled and that we will forgive their criminal lies about Iraq's connection to Al Queda and Iraq's "great and imminent threat to America".

The DLC allows the GOP to duly criticize their wobbly stand on the wrong-minded Iraq folly.
The weak, unquestioning Democrats are now paying for the sin of not standing for what was right all along.
We need the Howard Deans to spit out the truth...unafraid..unashamed.

Read this snipe from a DLC candidate and be ashamed:
''Conspicuously absent from their attacks is Howard Dean. Eddie Gillespie goes to bed every night praying for the Howard Dean campaign,'' Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan said..."

It is easy to see through the DLC Democrats who voted for the Iraq resolution and, without serious question, helped to sell Americans down the wrong road to the unilateral preemptive strike on Iraq.The thing that would have made us safer as a nation would have been sticking with the United Nations instead of going off half-assed into a war for which we had the poorest intuitive strategy and a zero-endgame.

FIRE AL FROM AND BRUCE REED BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE TO REVIVE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!!

"I SEE DEAD PEOPLE"

Is it me..or is anyone else tired and disgusted at seeing Uday and Qusay's ever-swelling and bloating deadheads on the news every half-hour on the half-hour?

Using a Buzzflash quote, has anyone noticed that the 'gory photos of alleged sons of Saddam weren't meant for the Iraqi audience? They were meant to suck up television and headline coverage so that the 9-11 report wouldn't be seriously discussed?'


Good quotes from a recent Washington Post article (here):

"The idea is not to exploit but to report."



"As grim as the photos were, all the debate about the status of the brothers brought to mind a line sung by the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz" regarding a wicked witch who had been crushed by a house:
"She's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."

A Taxi Driver's Conversation With A Burly Bostonian

“To tell you the truth,” he continued, “any one of the current contenders would work for me. I just think your guy Dean has the balls to take on the Repub-lican machine. The thing is, we got to make Bush a one-timer. The greed, the lies — it’s killing the country.”



Scooting out towards Jericho, I glanced at this gruff old guy sitting next to me. This is a Democrat, I thought to myself. More than half the country voted for Gore in 2000, and they weren’t all effete, latté-sipping Volvo drivers. Not that I have anything against overpriced coffee or Swedish cars, but the media caricature of the “liberal Democrat” makes me want to scream.

That got me thinking about the tired mantra, “get government off our backs.” Ain’t that the biggest scam going? What — so unregulated corporate interests are free to shape every aspect of our country’s future?
Is that the deal?

While I was away last week, I paid attention to the news.

The list of last week's dead included a good many American soldiers. I suspect, sadly, this will go on and on. The fact that there is no end-game for Iraq is glaringly obvious.We think ambushing and murdering Saddam's sons is the answer. To me, it sounds like something Ariel Sharon would do to Palestinians. Bombing homes and exterminating its occupants. No trials..no taking prisoners. We are sinking to the savage eye-for-an-eye level of war. Look where it's gotten Israel in their "quest for peace" these past 60 years. Not very far.
An Egyptian political analyst was interviewed this week (article here):
"The US administration is wrong to think that the murders of Saddam Hussein's sons or of Saddam will bring an end to the armed resistance against the occupation," Egyptian political analyst Mustafa Kamel al-Said said. "The reasons for antagonism remain, there is no foreseeable withdrawal of US troops, living conditions are still bad, and the Americans are vetoing any political forces they deem unacceptable," Said told AFP."

The list of the dead last week also included a decent-but-despondent British scientist who was used badly by the government for whom he
worked....his fine work perverted to fit a bag of dirty lies aimed at the public to convince them of some great Iraqi threat. You could say that the British government virtually murdered David Kelly. George W Bush's determined vengeance and war-thirst contributed to Britain's fatal abuse of Dr Kelly. I hope they're all proud. I'd like to know what David Kelly's widow told Geoff Hoon. Hoon isn't saying.......(see here).
They like to blame the BBC for asking pertinent questions. Blaming the press is the facist-style M.O., you see.
other references:

-What David Kelly knew

-Dr David Kelly Timeline

Topping the dead-list, from the media standpoint, were two sleazy brutes who happened to be the sons of Poppy B and Dubya's arch-enemy.
What happened to the rule of law? When did we decide it meant nothing? I enjoyed reading Sandra Mackey's editorial in this week's NY Times. (here)
"In giving up on the attempted capture of the Hussein brothers as too risky, the American administration of Iraq has ignored the dictates of Iraqi culture. At the same time, it also runs counter to the kind of country we want Iraq to become — one built around the rule of law..."
I'm sure Bush and his blind supporters believe that this will assuage the families of Americans who have lost sons and daughters in the war...yet I ask you this---will those families soon forget that it was a mountan of Bush administration lies and criminal exaggerations that caused our troops to be in that land to begin with? Will any of us soon forget Bush's refusal to make any of his administration responsible for these lies?
The fact that Stephen Hadley still has his job this week tells me that Bush is intentionally harboring criminals in his administration...and I ask you to question why he is doing this. It can only be that he supports their lying and covering-up for him.
Hadley story commentary references:
-The Likely Story
-Stephen Hadley-Can This Guy Do Anything Right?

Best yet, our tax dollars ($30 million) are being paid to the scum-of-the-earth villa-owner/Iraqi sheik who turned the Hussein boys in. (here)

It's become painfully clear that, in order to maintain a stranglehold on their false truth, the Bush administraton is willing to do anything
to duck responsibility for getting us into what is truly a quagmire in Iraq.
Two very recent examples:
-The soldiers from the 3rd Division who complained to ABC News are under threat of punishment. The ABC reporter is dismissed as a homosexual Canadian.
see Andrew Greeley article here.
-Joseph Wilson's wife was exposed by the Bush administration as a covert CIA operative. Why? Because her husband dared to breathe the truth about
Bush lies and cover-ups.

I suppose you all witnessed Rep Thomas' calling of the police on his colleagues in the House of Representatives?



Perhaps you did not...and you certainly never would have heard the real story on FOX News. I witnessed FOX news giving only the Republican version of "the truth" after the watching the post-House discussion/floor activity on CSPAN. Thank GOD for CSPAN. It's the only place to get the truth nowadays...because you hear it yourself and are thus able to draw your own conclusions. Did you see Thomas' crybaby confession on the House floor last Wednesday? He has truly lost it! *You definitely wouldn't have seen it on FOX News.*
Thomas' fake humility shone through when he said: (article here)
"Because of my poor judgment, those outside the House who want to trivialize, marginalize and debase this institution were given an opportunity to do so," he said. "Because of my poor judgment, the stewardship of my party . . . has been unfairly criticized."

Here's what I think. Because of Thomas' poor judgement, the even poorer judgement of his GOP colleagues came through loud and clear in the immediate aftermath of the incident. They were most fairly and deservedly criticized. This is a party which I believe has truly lost its collective sensible mind.
If Thomas were truly humble and honest, he would never have fallen on his sword alone. He was obviously under the Hastert gun.....obviously having been read the riot act.


A last comment:
It does not seem that impeachment of Bush will occur. (See article from Village Voice here).
"Speaking of "civil officers" besides the president: During the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, Congress made no effort to investigate and showed little interest in obtaining independent information; instead, it meekly endorsed the resolution to go to war. If there are high crimes and misdemeanors involved, Congress is complicit in them."

Our Congressional representatives failed our nation and all of American democracy last fall by their blind unquestioning complicity in giving Bush carte blanche to attack Iraq. The fact that the blindly partisan and vitriolically loyal GOP has the majority in the House and the Senate would also zero out the chance that Bush would be impeached (and he SHOULD be impeached by all that is just and reasonable in a democratic nation- look at this bit of sarcastic comparison to see how ridiculous we have become).
This nation is in trouble, my fine readers.
What will you do?

* * * *"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."

* * * *

...Governor George W. Bush, to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93



Apparently, you've been the King of Whoppers a long time, George


This blog will be on vacation until July 25th.
Take a look around while I'm away...make yourself at home.

"Bush Is A Coward"
by Jack Balkwill- a Vietnam veteran

"On 9/11, when the nation needed leadership, Bush hid at an Air Force Base. The most protected person on the planet went into hiding, not because he was in danger, but because he is a coward. I cannot imagine another president who would have hid like that. Even the spineless Nixon would have seen it is the job of a president to go to the White House and assure the masses that everything is under control.


Big Texbush runs away when the going gets bloody.
He talks Texas talk; struts a chicken's walk.

The Democrats seem unable to locate an issue with which to oppose Bush, most having voted for everything he's requested to date. May I suggest the truth? The single image Bush has promoted is flag-waving hero of the Republic.

The evidence proves he is a coward.

A Firm Basis for Impeachment
Robert Scheer

'We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed — not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered.
However, that would have obviated the administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn't exist.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.'

Laurie Mylroie / Conspiracy Theorist

The Continuing Series: Get To Know Your NeoCons-
Today's Lesson: "Laurie Mylroie/Conspiracy Theorist"

Laurie-the NeoCon Conspiracy Theorists' Dreamboat


SEE: It Happened in Baghdad
9-11, Oklahoma City—You Name It
by James Ridgeway
From the Village Voice July 15, 2003

"....Mylroie, who at one time was a consultant to the Department of Defense, said she thinks the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, a botched plot hatched in the Philippines to blow up a dozen American airliners, and 9-11 all were the work of Iraqi intelligence. Under this theory, the Iraqis faked intelligence files in Kuwait to create false identities for their key agents, including master terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who then were dispatched to the U.S. As for Al Qaeda, Mylroie contended that Saddam and bin Laden were in it together but that the Iraqi intelligence apparatus was the key. Bin Laden on his own never could have put together the attacks within the U.S., said Mylroie. Only operatives from an actual nation would have the knowledge and resources to do so. Her evidence is tenuous and circumstantial, but she claimed authenticity on grounds it was embraced by Israeli spooks and the former head of the New York FBI office.

Mylroie also wondered whether the anthrax attacks were the work of Iraqi intelligence, and she has speculated that the Oklahoma City blast was suspicious because it occurred after Terry Nichols, convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh's cohort, visited Mindanao, a hotbed of Muslim extremism in the Philippines, and supposedly attended a meeting with Ramzi Yousef and other terrorists........"

"....If the commission seriously entertains Mylroie's ideas, its investigations could take an alarming turn of direction—away from Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein and Iraq—and in this way go down the drain for good."



Reference-recent articles by Mylroie:
The Baluch Connection
The Circle of Terror
**this one's a real beauty**
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters

GEORGE TO GEORGE




"Pssst....
Hey, pal..yeah..look over here...it's the Father of your country speaking....

I came clean when I chopped down that cherry tree.
The least you could do is to be a real man and fess up about all your dirty lies.

Don't make me come down from here and show you what for.
I may look like stone, but I can still kick your lying ass."

Re-post of an oldie-but-goodie....it rings just as true today
as it did on June 5th when I first presented it to you...maybe even more so!

Sing-a-long time!
Sing this to the oldies tune
"SINCE I DON'T HAVE YOU"



George W Bush singing to his missing adversary Saddam Hussein:

"I fibbed 'bout WMD..
And I don't have victory...
I don't have anything
Since I don't have you-u-u-u

I don't have proof you died..
And most folks think that I've lied...
I don't have anything
Since I don't have you-u





I ain't had much success..
And I guess..
I never will ever again
When you escaped from me..
In walked old mystery..
And it's been here since then..

Whoa,
I don't have your DNA
To prove I blew you away
I don't have anything
Since I dont have you-u,you-u....."

by Iddybud
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brights are coming out of the closet?

From NY Times July 12, 2003
The Bright Stuff
By DANIEL C. DENNETT

A recent Dennet interview from Reason Online: http://www.reason.com/0305/fe.rb.pulling.shtml

Brights network on the web: http://www.the-brights.net/

See Religion/Politics research statistics: Pew Research Center Report- Religion and Politics: the Ambivalent Majority

See Professor Larry Lessig's blog for Howard Dean's guest-blogposting!

Howard Dean begins.....

"It’s been a busy day, but it’s great to blog here on Larry Lessig’s blog.

I’ll be writing all week, but if there’s a day I can’t make it, Joe Trippi, my campaign manager, will fill in for me. Thank you Professor Lessig for inviting me.

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs......"

Instinct is an animal grace.
Truth eludes us in all these inner wars
between passion and prudence...
reason and spirit...



"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;
Cleverness is mere opinion
Bewilderment is intuition."

Jalal-uddin Rumi

P-I Focus: Power of presidency resides in language as well as law

By Renana Brooks
Clinical Psychologist

excerpt:
"...Bush's opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism in the coming years.
They should heed the example of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter and the "national malaise";
Franklin Roosevelt, who used it against Hoover and the pessimism induced by the Depression ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself");
and Clinton (the "Man from Hope"), who used positive language against the senior Bush's lack of vision. This is the linguistic prescription
for those who wish to retire Bush in 2004...."

The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

excerpt:
"....Tenet's confession is designed to take the heat off," says McGovern, "to assign some responsibility somewhere. It's not going to work. There's too much deception here. For example, Condoleezza Rice insisted that she only learned on June 8 about Former Ambassador Wilson's mission to Niger back in February 2002. That means that neither she nor her staff reads the New York Times, because Nick Kristof on May 6 had a very detailed explication of Wilson's mission to Niger. In my view, it is inconceivable that her remark this week - that she didn't know about Joe Wilson's mission to Niger until she was asked on a talk show on June 8 - that is stretching the truth beyond the breaking point...."

This was my response to comments made on today's "Truth Laid Bear" blog.
*See the discussion in question here*.

Here's what started it:

LT Smash said this:

'It really all boils down to this:
Just about everyone here would rather be at home right now—but nobody wants to go home a loser.
If we gave in to the snivelers and peaceniks who cry, “Bring our troops home now!” Iraq would undoubtedly descend into a bloody civil war, and God only knows who would come out on top. Saddam might even emerge from hiding, claiming to have driven the “infidels” out of his country. The United States would have suffered another black eye, and our enemies would be further emboldened to attack us again. We would have lost the war, and all of the brave Americans and British who gave their lives in this operation would have died in vain.
I am not willing to accept that scenario. You shouldn’t be, either.
What can I possibly add to that?'

My reply:

"This is an extremely interesting discussion.

Here's what it all boils down to:

We never, never, I repeat, NEVER should have
been hasty in going in to Iraq with the coalition for which we wound up "settling".

Clearly, it was inadequate.
Recent history is SCREAMING that it was inadequate.

Clearly, we needed an international peacekeeping force and a wider international effort... and our leader, GW Bush, and his administration did not see fit to do this thing right (since they were so determined to do it).They were prideful, hungry...wrong.

They didn't do it right.
They have made so many errors.
They were wrong in ignoring the concerns of the international community.
It was disrespectful and shameful towards the international community. It was ignorant of the basic rule of law.

We've made a mess of things.
Is it any wonder these nations aren't jumping at the chance to hop in and join the US effort in Iraq?


Now....today..we are at a point of no immediate return in Iraq.
We have to do whatever we have to do to see this thing through.
But all it truly amounts to is this dreadful feeling of "saving face" because so many of our courageous men and women have been brutally slain. We can't just drop all and say "so long". The Russians did that in Afghanistan. We did that in the last Gulf War. It doesn't work. It creates terrorism.

The Neo-Con ideals are not practicable when seen in real-time Iraq. They have not translated well at all. This nation, this America...what is to become of it? She's been brutally wounded by right-wing fanaticists. These are not your average Conservatives with a healthy respect for the true meaning of democracy (small-d). They are empire-driven.

No, we cannot be in denial about what we face in Iraq today.

At the same time, let us NOT forget WHY we are facing it..how it came to pass. And let us not forget all the lies, doublespeak, and exaggeration.

If we fail to learn that lesson, we are doomed to repeating it.

**Can you say Viet Nam?
When will we ever learn?

Jude"

Congratulations to Bill Keller!
New York Times names new executive editor

Posted: Monday, July 14, 1:01pm EDT

"Bill Keller, a columnist for The New York Times who previously served as the newspaper's managing editor and foreign editor and as its bureau chief in Moscow and Johannesburg, has been chosen as its executive editor, reports The New York Times.
Mr. Keller's appointment to the highest-ranking position in the newsroom was announced today by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The Times and chairman of The New York Times Company. It is effective July 30. "