Presidential Debate

The Debate


Credit: www.cagle.slate.msn.com

My first comment would be to say that all the candidates did a great job of showing how they would save our country from the mess that GW Bush has made of it. Dick Gephart drove the point home clearly and often, saying that Bush and his policies have been a miserable failure.

I appreciated the fact that John Kerry was secure enough in his own candidacy that he did not feel he needed to attack Howard Dean.
Kerry was in fine voice and he articulated his stand on the issues with clarity.
He may have been last night's "winner", if there was to be one.
Howard Dean held his own as well, reducing Senator Lieberman to a lame retreat after he initiated an attack on Dean.

I was disappointed to see those couple candidates who attacked fellow Democrat Dean (rather than concentrating on Bush). For those who participated in the attacks, let's just say it diminished their 'leadership-aura'.

Rep Dennis Kucinich (introduced by the moderator as"Kucinchi") looked incredibly dopey when he said to Howard Dean (regarding Dean's claim to keeping a balanced budget in Vermont):
"You can talk about balancing the budget in Vermont, but Vermont does not have a military ...And if you are not going to cut the military and you are talking about balancing the budget, then what are you going to do about social spending?Hello?"
I had thought Kucinich was rather dignified in his presence until then.
Not that what he said wasn't worth saying..the question was reasonable.
It was the time..the place..the WAY he said it.
Perhaps Rep Kucinich was feeling defensive and/or vulnerable about the idea of another candidate who could balance a budget.
I'm not sure why he did that..I only know he looked rather goofy doing so.


Senator Lieberman proved that he knew he has been low on candidacy fuel.
We could see it in his attack upon Dean.
He attempted to jump start his viability by snobbishly feigning that he was "stunned" by a Dean statement he'd read.
(I didn't think it was oh-so-stunning myself).

Lieberman said:
" . . . He would not have bilateral trade agreements with any country that did not observe fully American standards. That would cost us millions of jobs. If that ever happened, I'd say that the Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression."

It sounded like a poor imitation of Johnny Cochran's "If it fits, you must acquit."
At least Cochran's statement raised rational doubt.
Senator Lieberman's statement was just a cheap and untrue shot.
We all know Lieberman is smart enough to know what he did was simply cheap.

Overall, I'd have to say Senator Lieberman was the big loser of the debate.
The DLC should turn into the Dump Lieberman Club
Hmm--what cute little rhyming arrow can I throw HIS way??

Joe is very much out of touch.
On the war, he's no Gore.
Closer to Bush--send him out on his tush.


Here's a real hoot.
Look at the headline...yes, I said the HEADLINE on an MSNBC article about the debates.
Do you think the headline is about the debate on the war?
Do you imagine it might be about corporate scandal discussion?
Healthcare?
No..the burning issue for America, according to MSNBC, is the issue of trade.
What IDIOTS our American pressroom editors have become!
It's no wonder we're so dumbed down in this country.
Those in journalism who could be helping Americans understand the issues better by reporting the relevant
points are instead reaching for the lowest common denominator.
Perhaps it sells, but it's gossip-quality schlock, pure and simple.
BOO! SHAME ON MSNBC.
Their article:
Lieberman opens anti-Dean offensive
Connecticut senator warns of ‘Dean Depression’ if trade accords must meet U.S. standards

Back to the debate.

I was comforted to see these candidates employing their fine sense of humor.
There has been so little of it in the press and from the Bush administration these past two years.
After 9-11, it seemed that humor was wiped away and replaced with fear-mongering by our Presidential leadership.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said that 'a sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.'
If this is true, and I believe it is, then these candidates are "stand-up" leaders! (Pun intended).
America needs to get back a bit of levity and our right to laugh ... as well as our collective sanity.

Carol Moseley Braun did a fantastic job, in my opinion. She was dignified, rational, and had some great basic ideas for restoring health to our democracy. She would make an excellent President..or a wonderful running mate.
Why aren't we giving her the attention she deserves?

Howard Dean's opening statements were concise and exactly on-point. Overall, I would have liked to have seen him put more "meat" into his reasoning on the issues. Many of his statements sounded like stumptalk rather than spontaneous reasoning.
His statement about the Bush Administration "not paying any attention to Latin America, which is the most important hemisphere in American history" was a little scary. The average voter would not know what he meant by that statement. I'm not even certain myself. I'm sure this will be going around the
right-wing talk shows today (payback for Bushisms, perhaps).

Here's the difference, however:
Governor Dean has to work on giving clearer, more precise answers....NOT answers that have to be clarified later.
Debate responses shouldn't be left to a manipulative media's assumption and analysis.

I believe that Howard Dean is truly an intelligent and compassionate fellow.
We know different about the compassionate conservative Chimp, don't we?

By the way, with the exception of Dean, they all looked pretty silly when they dabbled (badly) in Spanish.





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Albuquerque Tribune: 10 BEST THINGS ABOUT THE DEBATE

1. Best barb about President Bush: "The only jobs Bush has created are the nine of us running for president" - U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

2. Best catchphrase: "This president is a miserable failure" - U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

3. Best shot at making the first tier of viable candidates: Gephardt; Kerry; former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean; and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

4. Best shot at making the second tier: U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.

5. Best shot at bidding an early exit: U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York. (Sharpton couldn't make it past the rainy East Coast to take part in the debate).

6. Best job at exceeding expectations: Braun, whose calm, firm and informed presentation forced reassessments from many debate watchers.

7. Best attack on a fellow Dem: "The Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression" - Lieberman, describing the effect of Dean's economic policies.

*Jude's note:
I recall two such "attacks".
There was either Lieberman's attack or Kucinich's "Hello???"
Hmmm..not a tough choice.

8. Best flashback: "You remember: 23 million new jobs in seven years, unemployment was at 3 percent; we took a $5 trillion deficit and turned it into a $5 trillion surplus" - Gephardt, recalling the tenure of former President Clinton.

9. Best reality check: "You can talk about balancing the budget in Vermont, but Vermont doesn't have a military" - Kucinich to Dean.

10. Best audience: Albuquerque attendees politely applauded their favorites and refrained from disrupting the debate's flow with cheers, hisses or boos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God Not On Our Side--Pope John Paul II

To Catholics Who Support Bush's War on Iraq--
The Pope Gives It the Thumbs Down in the 'Just-War Theory Department'

From the Houston Catholic Worker:

Pope John Paul II calls War a Defeat for Humanity:
Neoconservative Iraq Just War Theories Rejected



Just?....say....no.

Fire Rumsfeld

It's time to fire Rumsfeld

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

".....Every day, Iraq's troubles make it more certain that Rumsfeld was wrong in his assessment of troop needs. His rapid action plan brought quick victories. But just as Gen. Eric Shinseki warned, security requires several hundred thousand military..."


As I blogged about on July 11, Rumsfeld needs to go.


Give Rummy the boot!

Death of a Schoolboy

Death of a schoolboy

After years of being relentlessly bullied, last month Thomas Thompson took an overdose and died. He was 11 years old. Here, his mother Sandra talks to Libby Brooks

Monday August 25, 2003
From The Guardian / UK

".....More than 200 mourners packed St Paul's Church, Wirral, to say goodbye to Thomas Thompson, many of them children. By the day after the funeral, Sandra had received so many cards that she had to display some of them on the floor around the mantelpiece. "He was a lovely lad," says his grandmother, "and he touched a lot of people's hearts."

His mother is inevitably suspicious of the motives of the children who attended the funeral. "If Thomas had had all those friends then he wouldn't have been where he is. Where were they every Saturday morning, knocking on the door and asking him out? Where were they on the bus that morning? Where were they when my son was getting bullied?...."

Iraq War Pricetag--Winners and Losers

Winners and Losers

Loser: U.S.-- ".....A $20 million budget shortfall is forcing cuts at U.S. ports of entry that could impact security..."



~~~~~

Loser: U.S.-- Bush set to double price tag for Iraq....



~~~~

Loser: U.S.--"....Bremer himself revealed the enormous economic toll of the occupation when he told reporters that it will cost "several tens of billions" of dollars next year alone--money that will come from even deeper cuts in education, health care and other social services at home..."



~~~~

Loser: U.S.-- "Meanwhile, Taliban Terror Surges in Afghanistan.."


~~~~


Where is the winner, you ask?

Sorry.

I haven't a clue.

9-11: Bush let Saudis Run

This story should make you shiver, knowing what you now know about the quality and reliability of U.S. Intelligence
at the time of 9-11.


9-11: Thanks to Bush, it was time to say "goodbye" to Osama Jed and all his kin.
Was it the bum's rush or a rush to protect the Bush family assets?

New York Times
September 4, 2003
White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

".....Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin
Laden, from the United States in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when most flights were still grounded, a former White House adviser said today..."

"...The adviser, Richard Clarke, who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks but has since left the Bush administration, said he agreed to the
extraordinary plan because the Federal Bureau of Investigation assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism..."

Note: Mr. Clarke's recent statements have provided the first acknowledgment that the White House had any direct involvement in the plan and that senior administration officials personally signed off on it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was far too great a risk.
Why did the President take it?
140 Saudis on 9-11.
Let go.
No questions asked.


"It's almost as if we didn't want to find out what links existed." Senator Charles Schumer

A season for sighs

A season for sighs



So, yesterday we learned that Wesley Clark is a Democrat.
Howard Dean is electable.
George Will is worried...
As he should be.
*Can you say: "running mates"?*

George Will: Don't underestimate chance of Dean victory

".....A Dean presidency is not inconceivable. Granted, it is unlikely for reasons that make it undesirable. He may not wear well with the public. If he is half as bright as he thinks he is, he is very bright. And his is no uncertain trumpet: the brio with which he proclaims his beliefs proves that he is not paralyzed by the difference between certitude and certainty.

But there is danger as well as benefit for Dean in his very Deanness. The obverse of his high opinion of himself is his low opinion of President Bush. So he probably would sigh, or do the functional equivalent.

If Al Gore had not expressed his disdain for Bush by those exasperated sighs during the first debate, Gore might be president. But Gore had to sigh. Expressing disdain of Bush was for Gore a sensual delight, almost a metabolic necessity. It might be for Dean, too. But most of the electorate would be unforgiving of bad manners toward any president...."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**HAHAHAHA! Hey, Dr. Dean---you're electable...just don't sigh!!

Seriously, if we had known THEN what we NOW know about Bush, we'd all have been sighing.
It's said: "To everything there is a season.."
This is a season for sighs.

Antiwar protest planned for Washington

OCTOBER 25, 2003
Mark your calendars.
Antiwar protest planned for Washington

".....Organizers predict the Oct. 25 march from the Justice Department to the White House and the Pentagon will attract tens of thousands of people."

Would you like some freedom fries with your crow, Mr. President?

Would you like some freedom fries with your crow, Mr. President?
*****************************



Six months after spitting in the face of the world, the Bush administration
is crawling on its belly before the U.N. If the world doesn't rush to help
it, the White House has only itself to blame.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Gary Kamiya
www.salon.com

Sept. 4, 2003 | Let me make sure I've got this right. After being insulted, belittled and called irrelevant by the swaggering machos in the
Bush administration, the United Nations is now supposed to step forward to supply cannon fodder for America's disastrous Iraq occupation -- while the
U.S. continues to run the show?

In other words, the rest of the world is to send its troops to get killed so that a U.S. president it fears and despises can take the credit for an
invasion it bitterly opposed.

The rest of the world may be crazy, but it ain't stupid.

The Bush administration's humiliating announcement that it wants the U.N. to bail it out officially confers the title of "debacle" upon the grand
Cheney-Rove-Wolfowitz adventure. Not even the world-class chutzpah of this administration can conceal the fact that by turning to the despised world
body, it is eating a heaping plate of crow. This spectacle may give Bush-bashers from London to Jakarta a happy jolt of schadenfreude, but it
does nothing to help Americans who are stuck with the ugly fallout of the Bush team's ill-conceived, absurdly overoptimistic attempt to redraw the
Middle East.

The bitter truth is that everything the administration told us about Iraq
has turned out to be false.

The biggest falsehood, of course, concerns the reason we went to war in the first place. President Bush's recent hints that we invaded Iraq to get rid
of the evil tyrant Saddam are patently false: The administration's entire prewar argument, until it began to grasp desperately for other explanations
on the eve of the invasion, was that Iraq represented an imminent threat to our security. That was, of course, a lie. Iraq never had any connection to
al-Qaida (not even the ever-serviceable Tony Blair tried to claim that) and
if it had weapons of mass destruction -- which in any case there is no reason to believe it would have used against the U.S. -- none have been
found. (In this light, Bush's somewhat peculiar attack on "revisionist historians" appears to have been a Freudian slip.)

However, the Bush administration has succeeded in making its fears come true: Iraq now does harbor enemies who represent an imminent threat to the lives of the 140,000 American servicemen who are hunkered down there. By
removing Saddam's dictatorial regime, the U.S. turned a nation that borders Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan and Syria into a lawless, anarchic swamp, open
to every jihadi and America-hater who wants to blow up the Yankee infidels who invaded a sovereign Arab state. A G.I. dies almost every day, and 10
more are wounded, and there is no end in sight, and the reasons why are beginning to seem even murkier than the reasons we were in Vietnam.

The Bush administration is probably hoping that the American people won't notice that the invasion created the very problem it was supposed to solve.
After all, half of all Americans believe that Iraq was behind 9/11 -- the result of months of the administration's repetitive, hypnotic demonizing of
Saddam and total silence about the embarrassingly uncaught Osama bin Laden. Why not go for an even bigger lie and claim that the Iraq nightmare shows that the invasion was needed because now we see just how evil those terrorist ragheads really are?

Perpetual war for perpetual reelection: According to this master strategy, even a losing "war on terror" is a winning hand for Bush, because it makes
the world a scarier place and when people are scared they vote for the tough guys. Even if the tough guys don't know what they're doing.

The administration, which in its supreme arrogance regarded postwar planning as beneath it (that's for sissy nation-builders), never acknowledged or
even considered that the war and occupation could be messy, long and ruinously expensive -- and it silenced those who tried to warn that it was
living in a fool's paradise. When straight-shooting Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, warned that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would
be needed to pacify Iraq, the insufferably smug Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld squashed the now-departed officer like a bug: "Any idea that it's
several hundred thousand over any sustained period is simply not the case."

Sober contingency analysis could not be allowed to derail the administration's carefully timed new product rollout. The misgivings and
warnings of professionals could not be allowed to spoil the grand visions of inspired amateurs embarked on a grand crusade.

Bush said the U.N. must sanction his war on Iraq or "become irrelevant." It did not. Yet today he is crawling on his belly to the supposedly irrelevant
U.N., begging it to bail him out of the quagmire he created.

The administration said that America was so omnipotent that it could afford to spit in the face of the rest of the world. Indeed, for the ideologues
who run the Bush show, flouting our solo might almost seemed to be a sign of God's special favor. Now, having burned our bridges to all of our allies
except Britain, the America über alles crowd is reduced to sputtering in rage as the rest of the world -- surprise! -- declines to rush forward with
open checkbooks.

Had the U.S. worked with the U.N. to deal with Iraq, as Bush's considerably more world-wise father did in 1991, we would not be facing this problem.
The community of nations would have regarded Iraq as its shared responsibility and stepped forward. But by alienating the world -- and
squandering the unparalleled goodwill created by 9/11 -- the Bush administration created a powerful disincentive to even those nations that
understand the vital necessity of rebuilding Iraq. The unpleasant truth is that for much of the world, helping this shattered nation, even if
understood to be a worthy and necessary goal, now equals lending aid and
comfort to an American regime that is perceived as blustering, simplistic, addicted to violence, self-righteous, and dangerously out of control.

In a nobler world, France and Turkey and Germany and Russia would forget all those nasty things that Bush officials (and their mouthpieces in the
Murdoch media empire) said about them and send tens of thousands of troops to bail us out. But the real world does not work that way. The "axis of
weasels" is now enjoying every minute of it while the Bush regime squirms.

By insisting that any U.N. forces be placed under U.S. control, the Bush administration is trying to save what little face it has left, but also
making it that much harder to enlist the help of other nations. Moreover, no one at the United Nations is likely to have forgotten that the bombing
that blew up the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad could never have been carried out except in the power vacuum that followed the ouster of Saddam. Had the Bush administration not poured contempt upon the U.N., that fact might not have led to acrimony and finger-pointing -- after all, it is unreasonable to blame the U.S. for that vile deed. But the Bush team is reaping what it has sowed.

To be sure, some kind of deal may yet be worked out. But if the terms of that deal are more niggardly than the Bush administration would like, if
much of the world stands on the sidelines and watches the bully twist in Iraq's deadly breeze, it will have only itself to blame.

The Ambassador Wilson Affair: The End of Karl Rove – And George Bush?

The Ambassador Wilson Affair: The End of Karl Rove – And George Bush?
by Al Martin

"....(Sep 2) This is the hottest and most explosive story behind the scenes in Washington in terms of how it could affect the Bush administration..."

".....Ambassador Joseph Wilson has been turning up the heat in this situation. He revealed on Friday August 29 in a symposium in Washington the person in the Bush administration, who had leaked it out to the Washington Post that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent of 26 years. As a consequence of this leak, her entire team of overseas assets were liquidated.

The leaker, it turns out, was none other than the notorious Karl H. Rove, Bush’s so-called White House advisor. Ambassador Wilson identified him as Karl Roverer, with the umlaut over the “o.”

According to reliable sources, as well as our own Al Martin Raw.com investigation, Karl Rove is, in fact, the grandson of Karl Heinz Roverer, the gauleiter of Mecklenburg, who was also a partner and senior engineer of Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurbüro AG. They built Birchenau, the concentration camp in Nazi Germany....."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OTHER BLOGS TALKING ABOUT THIS STORY:

ANONYMOSES

MARK A R KLEIMAN

World Council of Churches wants U.S. out of Iraq

World Council of Churches wants U.S. out of Iraq

September 2, 2003
Council's central committee says U.N. forces must take control

By Jerry L. Van Marter
Ecumenical News International

GENEVA - The governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has called
for coalition forces in Iraq to be replaced by United Nations personnel.

In its statement on Iraq, issued Sept. 1, the WCC's central committee also
implied that U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair might appropriately be charged with war crimes for their "illegal
resort to war" on Iraq.

"To do this, the U.N. Security Council would have to take action against two
of its permanent members, which is not likely," Peter Weiderud, director of
the council's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, conceded.
"But there is a need to look at the totality of the situation."

The WCC statement, approved unanimously with two abstentions, was praised by
several delegates as "forward-looking."

Among them was the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian
Church (USA), who said he was "deeply grateful" for the statement, which he
said "gives some understanding of what we're to do next, because we have been
so concerned with trying to stop the war."

The central committee reiterated its condemnation of the abuses of the Saddam
Hussein regime, but nonetheless called the U.S. and British-led war "immoral,
ill-advised and in breach of the principles of the U.N. charter."

It called for the U.N. Security Council "to insist on the establishment of a
legitimate, sovereign, elected and inclusive government as early as possible,
and (to order) the immediate and orderly withdrawal of the occupying forces."

The committee praised the lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq after 13
years, and called for cancellation of the country's onerous debt, which it
said resulted from "loans that merely financed the previous Iraqi regime."

It affirmed the inter-religious cooperation being demonstrated in Iraq, and
said the country's religious institutions must play a central role in its
reconstruction. It also urged all Christians to pray for the Iraqi people and
churches."

U.S. lays out new Iraq UN resolution

A proposal for a new UN Resolution?

It's about time!
Let's hope Bush is sincere and humble. He's made a real mess of things in Iraq....and in this world.
Let's hope it's not too late. You can almost be sure there will be intense UN negotiations to follow since Bush has regularly and ignorantly shown himself to be an international divider.
How much time is there to spare before we lose this war in shame?

U.S. lays out new Iraq resolution
From CNN's Dana Bash and Elise Labott
Wednesday, September 3, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) --"
A U.S. resolution strengthening the United Nations' role in Iraq and calling for a broader multinational force in the country could be presented to the Security Council as early as Wednesday, White House officials have told CNN."

Look, people...I'm just a writer in the wilds of upstate New York. I'm not a politician or a foreign policy expert.
I do, however, have good clean common sense. I could see this coming for months. If you don't believe me, go to my archives and read what I've been saying.
So many of us common folk could see this disaster on the horizon.
Why didn't our President see it?
Why didn't our Congress ask the hard questions before we began this fatal adventure in Iraq?
Did Republicans fall in blindly?
Did Democrats vote YES to give this duncecap-President the authority to make war upon Iraq....hoping he'd mess up and they would score political points?
Do you find it all disgusting?
Do you want your country back?

Another soldier has died tonight in a helicopter crash south of Baghdad.
The military says two more American soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack on their convoy in southern Baghdad on Monday.

This is madness.
Our Founding Fathers would die if they weren't dead already.

Bush is the worst President in U.S. History

So how much will the Iraq War cost us?
George Bush won't say right now because of the likely political fallout.
Bush will wait until the last possible moment so Congress won't have time to debate.
As usual, it's politics first, the American public last.
Bush is the worst President in U.S. History.


From USA Today Article Posted 9/3/2003 12:19 AM
Officials: No Iraq price tag for now


"....Administration officials, speaking on the condition that they not be identified, say they believe adequate funding is available for Iraq through December. Presenting the funding request in November gives Congress a limited amount of time to debate before acting.

The administration did not offer a prewar estimate of postwar costs. It has said profits from Iraq's oil wells would be used to offset expenses, but production remains below prewar levels.

Leon Panetta, who served as budget director for President Clinton, says the administration probably doesn't want to be specific about costs "for fear that it will set off a political explosion."

Other current articles:

Army Lacks Forces for Iraq Mission, CBO Warns
By Thomas E. Ricks and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 3, 2003


Frustrated lawmakers question Bush Iraq policies

Congress starts to grumble over Iraqi occupation
DOUBLE TROUBLE: Both sides of the political spectrum are engaged in a debate over whether to send more troops, while others groan about costs

Iraq occupation could cost from $8 billion to $29 billion, congressional analysts say
By Alan Fram, Associated Press, 9/2/2003 22:32

Latest Iraq threat: cash crunch: US administrator Paul Bremer says the coalition budget for Iraq will fall short by $3.5 billion this year.

Bush's Labor Day Charade
Richfield, Ohio is not convinced:



''If I had George Bush's economic record, I'd stay at Camp David on Labor Day,'' said Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, whose congressional district includes Richfield. "President Bush has the single worst economic record of any president since Herbert Hoover led the country at the onset of the Great Depression", Brown said."

I'll bet the Labor Day reception wouldn't have been much warmer in Galesburg, Illinois.

Defying the Dependent Deity

Defying the Dependent Deity
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, September 2, 2003

"...All over the world, people are hideously butchered in the name of God, which is to say condemned to death on account of an accident of birth. (This, after all, is how most of us get our religious convictions.) Religion can have a hard time being tolerant. To many adherents, the stakes are too high.
I am at a loss to explain this mentality...
...I am at a loss, too, to explain why the all-powerful deity needs some schoolteacher to lead a prayer -- why, for instance, the religious do not tend to this matter before their children leave for class. I do not understand why a God who once smote with abandon and authored miracles that science could never explain needs a statue here or a display there to remind us of his omnipresence......"

Salem Pax's home gets busted

From The Peking Duck blog: Salem Pax's home gets busted

Peking Duck writes:

"A shocking story over at Salem Pax about a recent raid of his house by American troops. It's not that they did anything brutal or cruel. But it certainly isn't the way to win friends and influence people. It told me me how much the Iraqis must despise us.

SP is educated, erudite and urbane, probably more so than your average Iraqi. So imagine how they must feel during events like this, which are apparently quite commonplace now. Are we welcomed and beloved by most Iraqis or feared and despised? My common sense tells me it has to be the latter, in which case I wonder, how can we ever succeed there? The whole thing was based on the premise that we'd be greeted with open arms and welcomed as liberators, if not saviors. And to a certain extent, we were. But as so many of the "weasels" and "anti-Americans" feared, there was no realistic plan to deal with the aftermath. We over-reached, the most common blunder of heady conquerors."


Fellow blogger Salem Pax tells the story firsthand at his weblog. Link HERE.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND - Army Burns Sarin Gas in Alabama Incinerator

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND!
-In Anniston, Alabama-
Acceptable Risk or Unacceptable Risk?
You Decide
Sarin Gas Burning in Alabama--35,000 People Live Within a Nine-Mile Range
Arkansas, You're Next.

Army Burns Sarin Gas in Alabama Incinerator
from the Associated Press

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are people in Anniston concerned?

You bet your bum they are!

See:
Alabamians worry as sarin gas burns
Army destroys nerve agents; nearby town preps for danger

"....The Army says burning chemical weapons is safer than leaving them alone at the Anniston Army Depot, where government employees have found 882 leaks since 1982, Abrams said...."

Oye---Such a Comforting Alternative!

Hard Talk On Labor Day
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 1 September 2003

Excerpt:

"....... I believe, at the end of the day, that America is an idea, a dream. You can take away our cities, our roads, our crops, our armies, you can take all of that away, and the idea that is America will still be there, as pure and great as anything conceived by the human mind. I believe the idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When used properly, it can work wonders.

I believe that the idea, the dream, that is America was made possible by the men and women who lived and worked and died for the right of workers to stand collectively for themselves. The idea that is America would not exist without unions, period. We must make people understand that. A great, great many Americans are well aware that the folks running things today do not have their interests in mind, but instead serve the interests of entities that would see workers' rights ground to powder.

That awareness is out there. We must make them aware that unions offer them the best possible chance to bring change, to turn back this tide, to bring us more fully towards the realization of that idea that is America. In your hands is the power to do these things. In your hands is the future of this great nation.

The word 'Union' is synonymous with the word 'Work.' I say let us begin this work, let us begin it today, let us not stop, let us not tire. I say let us begin. ...."

Will the Bush Administration Do ANYTHING to Try to Prove They Aren't Lying Sacks of Greed?

Get this:

The Bush Administration is now alleging that Saddam Hussein
sent out spies to spread false rumors that Iraq possessed
Weapons of Mass Destruction, thus forcing the United States to invade Iraq.

As if Saddam would risk an invasion of his country,
his assured removal from power, and the lives of his family!!

How gullible does this Administration think we are?


Read this article from the UK Mirror:

RIDDLE FOR SPY CHIEFS
Sep 1 2003
By James Hardy


BRITISH and US spy chiefs are desperately trying to discover if Saddam duped them into believing Iraq had chemical and bio weapons.

Former Iraqi officers have confirmed Saddam sent double agents disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence.

The regime is also thought to have tricked real defectors into giving phoney tips - knowing they would pass lie detectors.

Experts believe Saddam wanted to convince his enemies of his military might to boost his reputation as a strong man.

An inspector with the 1,400-strong Iraqi Survey Group - which has failed to discover WMDs - added: "We said Saddam was a master of deception. Then, when we couldn't find anything, we said that proved it."

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Once again, we have the infamous journalist Judith Miller popping up in the news. I've said all along she's a joke, so this is an appropriate blog entry in which she might appear. She's done far more damage than Jayson Blair ever dreamed of doing. Why is she still taken seriously in the world of journalism?
More importantly, why the hell did ANYONE within the Bush administration take her seriously?
More shitty leadership.
What a dirty shame!


An Important article From Slate:

Judith Miller: Duped?
Did the New York Times swallow Saddam's disinformation?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, August 29, 2003, at 2:38 PM PT

".....No reporter was more go-go on the prospect of finding caches of unconventional weapons in Iraq than New York Times correspondent Judith Miller, who published numerous stories during the 18 months leading up to the war that supported allegations that Saddam Hussein was illegally developing, building, and storing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons....."

"....No mainstream journalist bit harder on the Iraqi defectors' claims than Judith Miller. In the 18-month run-up to the war, Miller relied on their testimony again and again, as this earlier "Press Box" column documents. If the Iraqi defectors were indeed trafficking disinformation, they found a willing propagator of it in Miller and the New York Times. Although Miller salted her stories with disclaimers that the CIA and State Department tended to doubt many of the defectors, she and her editors continued to give prominence to their claims. Her closeness to Chalabi cannot be denied...."

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On the lighter side (as if all the above wasn't JOKE enough for you), read this piece by Argus Hamilton-host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood.

Excerpts:

"...CIA reports surfaced Monday saying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction may be hidden in containers deep inside Lebanon. They have to be somewhere. Americans don’t know where their jobs went either, but that doesn’t mean they never existed..."

"....The White House said Wednesday it will ask Congress for billions more to run Iraq. There must be a better way to pay for this show. If we sell naming rights to the country, the new nation of Jack Danielstan won’t cost the taxpayers a nickel.
Paul Bremer said it will take years and billions of dollars from outside Iraq to get the country on its feet and running. That’s at odds with what we all saw on television. The country was on its feet and running at the first sound of gunfire...."

ON LABOR DAY:

The National Maximum Wage
- a fanciful orwellian essay
by Todd J. Schneider
The Free Thinker's Page




Dec. 24, 2009 - The New York Times reports today that Representative Bob Whiteman, freshman Republican Congressman from Texas has introduced a bill that would set a federal maximum wage for all manufacturing and most service sector jobs.

"In order to be competitive with the industrial powerhouses of India, China, and all those 'other countries over there', after the recess I will bring to the floor of the house legislation that would bring labor costs more in line with a world standard. Although we have been successful in repealing The Clean Air Act under the guidance of President Jeb Bush, it's really not enough to make us competitive with the rest of the world. Outlawing labor unions, as we did last Spring, isn't really a substantial enough gain. We need to let foreign investors know that we are serious about increasing production, and cutting the cost of doing business. The Fairness In Profit for Freedom and Families Act of 2008 went a long way toward our goals, with the federally-mandated 10 hour work day, but there is still room for improvement. I know that we will meet some small opposition from those wanting to play politics with this issue, just as they did when we privatized Social Security. But if these few remaining Democrats really want to stand with the President and his patriotic approach to commerce, they'll vote with me on this bill."

An aid to another congressman confided that, "After reviewing it closely with some of his constituents in the Automotive and Pharmaceutical industries, my boss is starting to see the wisdom in it. After all, as long as the American worker makes enough to feed her family, so they have the energy to work their six 10 hour days, and has a 'manageable' credit card debt load of say, 10 or 15 thousand dollars, then they really shouldn't have any problem. After all, a portion of the average family is already supported by the government, doing their patriotic duty protecting American interests in Iran/Iraq, The Philippines, South America...You know, I think the average American now understands that the only way to keep American jobs and American freedom is to make sacrifices. And any argument from the other side is just old-fashioned politicking, from a bunch of whiners that weren't even patriotic enough to support our great president before Operation Venezuelan Liberty."

When asked about the bill, a Democratic Congressman who asked to not be named said, "The middle class is gone. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it. After the new mid-census redistricting, the recall of 3 Democratic governors and packing of three-quarters of the Federal Judgeships when filibustering was done away with, the presidency has become the only branch of government. And this Representative Whiteman is just another player in the Republican formula - let some young buck that's all full of himself take a shot at introducing some off-the-wall legislation. He has the chance to be hero or zero - to make a name for himself or be a chump. But in the end, the electorate gets used to the idea and eventually accepts it. But to tell you the truth, after the legislation two years ago that protects voting results and the companies that make the machines under the umbrella of national security, the electorate may not be even essential to the process anymore!"

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I never was much of a conspiracy theorist. Even though my political life began on 22 November, 1963, and I DON'T believe that Oswald was much more than a patsy, I noticed early on that the media had a way of spinning these searches for the truth into something akin to claiming to have been abducted by aliens. A few words from high-placed officials or academia, and the public tends to shun the subject and the messenger.

That's not to say that I didn't believe the theories myself; I just felt that, since they were being ignored so successfully, the person's energy was being wasted in a sad way. Let's move on, I thought. Things will work themselves out! The present state of the Union and the people (read Thinktanks) running it though, have proven me an ass and a fool.


In the above fanciful newsclipping, a law introducing a federal MAXIMUM wage is being put forth to make us competitive internationally. Far-fetched? If you would have asked me 10 years ago whether I thought something like this would take place, I would have said I was 80 per cent sure that there would be enough good people imbued with a conscience to never let that happen. You would always hear someone out of the corner of your ear say, "They want to destroy the middle class". Of course, as a blue-collar guy, I was always receptive to this sort of statement. But I lived in a semi fantasy world where good would triumph over evil at the end of the day, just like on TV. Even my dad, who isn't a real radical guy has spoken this phrase many times - and he owns the family company! But it has always been our family heritage to have a healthy distrust for the ruling economic elite. And you know what? We hillbillies was right, all along.

The creeping control of an ever-shrinking number of financial entities over our political system has been coming for a long time; in fact, our great republic has never been free of this sickness. But the coming of the Texans to Washington has accelerated this process at a speed that has been faster than the eye. But something caught my eye, and the eye of others before me. Note that the economy never seems to be much of an issue to the present occupier of The White House. Even though it was allegedly the issue that killed daddy's presidency, Junior doesn't really seem to be the least bit bothered by the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now, we can jot this down as bush's total inability to understand the life of a commoner. True enough. Or we can say that this guy is a moron, and isn't intelligent enough to grasp the long-term effects of job loss.

Though I agree heartily with both concepts as basic elements of the bush 'mystique', I am starting to see (taking points from the anti-globalization fighters, union folks, etc.) that there is a reason the powers that be aren't at all alarmed with economic downturns. When a person has a choice between feeding her family at a $5 an hour job, or seeing them starve because she has no job at all, she is going to take that job. This idea is summed up for me in something my dad said to me once. It was a few decades ago; somewhere around the early seventies. Our shop was slow for some reason or another, and one day my dad was half complaining about the current state of things. But switching to a lighter note, he proclaimed, "This is good for us, though", going on to say that if a guy lost his job in another machine shop, we had a chance to take on an experienced guy for the lower wages that we paid at our shop. Now, my dad is a good guy, and has since seen through the moneyed elite for what they really are. In fact, he has turned around to voting blue collar, even though he is a small business owner. But times were different then. We didn't fear the reality of exploited foreign labor, and we had a Democratic majority that boldly stood for the American worker against unfettered profiteering.

But now we have a president beholden' to the corporate cash that had him appointed to the office. The scary part is that these fellows (the ones that pull the puppet strings) are of the opinion that this is a GOOD thing. Almost daily, American workers are confronted with another removal of pro-worker legislation, with the gutting of a federal agency that would protect their job, with the rhetoric that unions are somehow destroying America's freedom (though the Teamsters have played ball with them for years). And all the while, the corporate media makes excuses for it, or ignores it all together, because 'you don't bite the hand that feeds you'.

Yes, a poor economy is good for corporate America - which, let's admit it - sees loyalty and patriotism in terms of how they can put an American flag on a product in order to increase sales. In fact, the international nature of today's global economy really nullifies any real loyalty to our country, let alone foster any egalitarian sentiments toward America's workers. Untold riches are their god, and the flag is just a promotional vehicle. And as much of a beneficiary is the Republican Party. Not only have they laid the red carpet of profit before their corporate friends, they have served to distract the voting public. When both Mom and Dad have to work at low paying jobs to make ends meet, they have very little time left to research the issues, and no funds to contribute to progressive (un-American, freedom-hating) candidates.

Yes, the above faux news release is fanciful, and God help us that it never happens. Maybe ALL the workers in the world will be raised UP to a decent standard of living, and our corporate overlords will be overcome with altruistic ideals of the betterment of mankind. But if you would have asked someone 15 years ago whether or not they thought that 20 or 30 unelected men in swanky D.C. office buildings would dictate that we preemptively attack a third-rate country for economic and political gain, you probably would have thought that it couldn't, or wouldn't happen. Or that if it came out, the people responsible would be at least going to some minimum security federal prison for 18 month's cooling-off. But that's not the case, is it? So, I begrudgingly have become a conspiracy theorist. And I believe that the ultimate conspiracy in play today is the Republican/corporate dream of the universal $4 an hour job. Remember, I tried to resist!