Moore jabs back at McCain

link

The Academy Award-winning documentary maker pointed out that "Fahrenheit 9-11" did not argue that Iraq was an oasis of peace. Instead, Moore noted, his film suggested that the Bush Administration stretched the truth when it argued that regime change had to be forced upon Iraq in order to avert the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be found.

Still, Moore was not complaining too loudly.

"To bring up the film in the speech tonight, it's not good for the Republican Party," he explained. "It's just going to make more people say: 'I'd better go see this movie.' And when people see it, they don't feel much like voting Republican."

Moore's documentary, which challenges the Bush Administration's pre-war claims about those weapons of mass destruction and about supposed links between Iraq and the al-Queda network terrorists who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001, was a hit. But Moore knows there are still plenty of Americans who haven't seen it.

While what he got from McCain was not exactly a plug, the film maker predicted many of those who had not bought a ticket might do so now. And that, he said, could turn McCain's jab into a problem for President Bush's reelection prospects in a closely contested November vote.

"A Republican pollster told me that, when they do surveys, 80 percent of the people going into the theaters are Kerry voters. But 100 percent of the people coming out are Kerry voters -- or at least they are open to voting for Kerry," Moore said. "The pollster told me that they couldn't find anyone who sees the film and then says they are definitely voting for Bush."

Now I know 1 outlier who wants to vote for Bush anyway, but then again, that particular person has some other serious issues, and neither Bush nor Kerry nor Benny Hinn can help him.

The Chicago Tribune picks up Ribbongate

link

Now, when the 9/11 Families for Truth start doing their ads, Bush is done.

Paul Krugmen's got the cold water today

The New York Times (on the web at least) has an article in which Giuliani lauds Bush's "leadership" (without the quote marks). Without a hint of intended irony, though, Bush's comments on his not being able to win the "war on terror" are below.

But for the real shocker, Paul Krugman's column is a must read today.

Last month a Knight-Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces were effectively ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Last Sunday The Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, like Samarra, have also fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Moktada al-Sadr: his Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its two million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."

For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was "Mission Accomplished" - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.

Now, serious security analysts have begun to admit that the goal of a democratic, pro-American Iraq has receded out of reach. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies - no peacenik - writes that "there is little prospect for peace and stability in Iraq before late 2005, if then."

Krugman goes on to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it's time to stop trying to put in a puppet goverment in places like this.

That'd be a problem, though, because we still have the Pakistan and Saudi Arabian "allies" (not to mention our "great friend" Israel) to deal with.

But Krugman lays bare the utter nonsense that the neocons have been spewing.

Iraq has been, to bring back a Vietnam era phrase, a clusterfuck. Not a mission to bring peace and democracy to the Iraqis, not a mission to rid the world of an evil tyrant, but a clusterfuck.

Hmm... the Mehdi Army goes political

link


This can't be good for Haliburton or the neocons.

"Liberal" media burying Bush's TANG desertion

link

which, of course, Bush has made an issue in the campaign with his "Mission Accomplished" flyboy stunt.

In case you didn't know it

Vietnam Vets Against the War is very much alive and well, and evidently as courageous as ever.

The De-branding continues- thanks to W himself

link

NEW YORK Aug. 30, 2004 — Democrats criticized President Bush's record on national security and military matters Monday, seizing on the president's comment that he doesn't think the fight against terrorism can be won.
"I don't think you can win it," Bush said on NBC's "Today," when asked, "can we win" the war on terror. "But I think you can create conditions so that the those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."



Democrats responded quickly at a morning briefing a half-dozen blocks from the Republican National Convention.

"I decided a year ago that he cannot win the war on terror," Gen. Merrill McPeak, a John Kerry supporter, said of Bush.

The former Air Force chief of staff said he supported Republican Bob Dole in 1996 and Bush in 2000.

"Iraq is a much bigger mess than it needed to be if we were competent to the task at hand," McPeak said.

And John Edwards says:

``After months of listening to the Republicans base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the president now says we can't win the war on terrorism,'' Edwards said, according to a copy of remarks the senator delivered in North Carolina, his home state. ``This is no time to declare defeat.''

Bush has admitted that this "war on terror" is an endless "war," and really has no big interest in seeing it to a conclusion.

More problems for the Bushistas

From Talkleft

If the protesters stay peaceful (and ignore the Republican agitators amongst them), this is going to put yet another nail in Bush's branding coffin.

Bush's 9/11 Cowardice

As Kos calls it, and calls it right.

Tucker Carlson may be a dweeb, but as quoted by Kos, Carlson's dead on about Bush's cowardice in 9/11.

Churchillian he wasn't. Hell, he can't be in the same company against any other world leader responding to their nation attacked.

The de-branding of Bush has begun.

AIPAC welcomes the Republicans!

According to CSPAN,

National and local Jewish leaders welcome the Republican National Convention 2004 with “A Community Celebration,” to be held August 29th at Pier 60 of New York’s Chelsea Piers. This event celebrates the special relationship between the Jewish Community and the Republican Party.


Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Bush-Cheney ’04 Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman are confirmed as headline speakers. Governor George Pataki, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani are invited, and numerous top Republican luminaries are expected to attend, including governors, members of Congress and countless state and local elected officials.


This major convention event is sponsored by The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, The Republican Jewish Coalition and The United Jewish Communities

Now we have even more evidence that the Republican Party is pro-treason (like the Valerie Plame affair wasn't enough).

Bush's medal scandal starts to get traction overseas

link

As polls showed that Mr Bush had edged ahead of Mr Kerry for the first time, a pro-Kerry organisation labelled the President an "impostor" over the photograph, taken in 1970 and discovered in his father's Presidential Library in Houston, Texas.

The ribbon is an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award - which was not awarded to the 111th Fighter Intercept Squadron in which Mr Bush served until 1975, five years after the photograph was taken, according to the group US War Report.

"Why is this fraud important? Because it betrays the Honour Code that every officer learns and carries throughout his or her career," said Walt Starr who investigated the medals for the group. Separately a new book, Deserter, by Ian Williams, a British-born author, challenges the President with details of how he used his father's influence to join the Texas Air National Guard as a trainee pilot, thereby avoiding service in Vietnam, and then allegedly disappeared from his base without fulfilling his duty.

"Bush has set himself up, and now that the issue is coming up he is going to have to answer questions on his own documented record," said Williams.

Williams's book offers evidence that Mr Bush stopped training in 1972, and failed to take an annual physical examination demanded of all pilots. Deserter also claims that Mr Bush failed to turn up for duty in Alabama, an omission which could have resulted in a charge of being absent without leave, or even desertion

.



Folks, if anyone had any doubts, Kerry really, really isn't Mondale or Dukakis.

We're going to win this, and we're going to tell the truth.

Bush made an issue of his Texas Air National Guard Service with his "Mission Accomplished" fly-in stunt, and we're going to take it apart.

John O'Neill was reduced to attempting to (impotently) trying to make Kerry's forays near or in Cambodia an issue on Bill Maher's program (too bad Maher didn't know aobut O'Neill's lies on this).

We've got better ammo against the forces of the Bush campaign, and it's going to be used.

Bob Dole Wallows lin slime

He admits Kerry was right while off-camera, to use McCain's words against the Swift Boat Liars.

I understand Atrios has this too.

Did Israel use a spy to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?

link

CBS) CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.

60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has "solid" evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.

At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

This should get interesting- the neocons' ties to AIPAC are decades old. Watch this space.

A Buddhist Response to Marvin Olasky...

link

My point, having lived through the 1960s-1970s confusion, is that the era was not one of uncommon resolution, at least not of the patriotic variety. I relished my high draft lottery number. George W. Bush played it smart like John Kerry and found a soft gig. He and I took different rotten paths -- he drank heavily, I became a communist -- but both of us could say the same thing: "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible."

The other thing both of us can and do say is that we did not save ourselves: God alone saves sinners (and I can surely add, of whom I was the worst). Being born again, we don't have to justify ourselves. Being saved, we don't have to be saviors.

John Kerry, once-born, has no such spiritual support, nor do most of his top admirers in the heavily secularized Democratic Party. It would be great if he could say: "I was young and vainglorious and often self-absorbed. I exaggerated and lied at times, and since then have thought it necessary not to disavow the fantasies I wove. But I do deserve credit for being there and serving my country in a mixed-up era in which I at times was also mixed-up."

Kerry can't say that because he evidently does not believe that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He and his handlers portray him as virtually perfect in the past and omniscient in the present

.

Aside from the obvious projection here (Bush cannot bring himself to admit he made mistakes or fire folks such as Donald Rumsfeld), this passage as well as the rest of the article merrit a response from a Buddhist perspective.


Now Kerry's not a Buddhist- I am.

But I can say, that as a Buddhist, Kerry's status as a Christian is not mine to determine, and neither should it be yours. Nor should you try to gauge his "spiritual suport" as somehow inferior to yours.

I, on the other hand, as a Buddhist, am constantly in the practice of perfecting myself. Like many Catholics, I experience the process of being "born again" as ongoing (though in my case without a shibboleth regarding enunciating a belief in a man-god, and might better be phrased as "being unborn").

I do not need to echo what someone else referred to as a sacred text to effect that change. In fact, for me, doing so would be morally repugnant, it would be too extra.

Now you might want to play "my religion's better than yours because of what I believe," but at the end of the day, what really matters is: have you made the world a better place? And George W. Bush has not.

Finally, John Kerry did not receive his nomination because of his Vietnam service, but because he ran a better campaign which showed that he could beat George W. Bush by critiquing his policies.


Finally, of course Kerry did not win the nomination because of Vietnam, but because of his overall ability to counter George W. Bush.

Mr. Olasky seems to have engaged in false witness here.

Alfred French gets some Swiftboat blowback...

Now, it's not just his extra-marital on the job affair...

The folks at the Democratic Underground DID complain to the Oregon State Bar Association.

Alfred J. French III, Esq.
Clackamas County DA's Office
Clackamas County Courthouse
807 Main Street, Room #7
Oregon City, OR 97045

Dear Mr. French:

The Oregon State Bar has received the enclosed correspondence and e-mails from numerous sources. Pursuant to Bar Rule of Procedure 2.5(a), the Client Assistance Office reviews all inquiries regarding lawyer conduct to determine whether there is credible evidence of misconduct. Some of these concerns may implicate the provisions of DR 1-102(A)(1) and DR 1-102(A)(3).

Many of the inquiries contend that your affidavit and the advertisement make representations that are misleading. Please explain what role you played in preparing and producing the affidavit and the advertisement, and your intent in doing so.

In order for me to make a fair and informed analysis, I would like to have your account of the matter on or before September 9, 2004. I am able to grant an extension of the time to respond for good cause if requested before the deadline.

A copy of your response will be sent to the inquiring parties. All material submitted by the parties in the course of this investigation is public record and both parties will receive copies.

After I review all documentation and information gathered in this matter, if I feel that further investigation is warranted or that there is credible evidence of a violation of the disciplinary rules, the matter will be referred to Disciplinary Counsel’s Office for further handling pursuant to BR 2.5(a)(2). Your failure to respond to this request will also result in the matter being referred to Disciplinary Counsel’s Office.

Sincerely,


Scott A. Morrill
Assistant General Counsel
Extension 344

Ouch! That's gotta hurt.

I understand that John O'Neill might be in similar hot water.

For those who think John Kerry ONLY ran on his war experience

Here's what he said.

We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared.

We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation – to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.

We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.

And the front lines of this battle are not just far away – they're right here on our shores, at our airports, and potentially in any town or city. Today, our national security begins with homeland security. The 9-11 Commission has given us a path to follow, endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, and the 9-11 families. As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that commission. We shouldn't be letting ninety-five percent of container ships come into our ports without ever being physically inspected. We shouldn't be leaving our nuclear and chemical plants without enough protection. And we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America.

And tonight, we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism. ...

We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.

So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America:

First, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.

Second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.

Third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong – in the good old U.S.A.

We value an America that exports products, not jobs – and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.

Next, we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field – because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's nobody in the world the American worker can't compete against.

And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare – and will make government live by the rule that every family has to follow: pay as you go.

And let me tell you what we won't do: we won't raise taxes on the middle class. You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as President: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.

Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and demands accountability from parents, teachers, and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and treats teachers like the professionals they are. And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.

When I was a prosecutor, I met young kids who were in trouble, abandoned by adults. And as President, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to keep a young person in prison for the rest of their life – when we could invest $10,000 to give them Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, the best possible start in life.

And we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans.

Since 2000, four million people have lost their health insurance. Millions more are struggling to afford it.

You know what's happening. Your premiums, your co-payments, your deductibles have all gone through the roof.

Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, greed, and abuse in our health care system and will save families up to $1,000 a year on their premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor – and patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions. Under our plan, Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.

The story of people struggling for health care is the story of so many Americans. But you know what, it's not the story of senators and members of Congress. Because we give ourselves great health care and you get the bill. Well, I'm here to say, your family's health care is just as important as any politician's in Washington, D.C.

And when I'm President, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected – it is a right for all Americans.

We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our national security when we only have three percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign countries for fifty-three percent of what we consume?

I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation – not the Saudi royal family.

And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future -- so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

You'd never know it if you just saw this week's media (with one notable exception: Keith Olberman), but Kerry's still on message.

More Swift Boat Blowback for the Resident

Originally it came from Democratic Underground.


Today, it's on democrats.com.


And it's linked on Bartcop. (Check out "Bush got zero ANG medals.")

Will the mainstream media pick it up?

I hope so, but I won't be the farm.

Can you say "moral turpitude?"

link

Oregon City -
The Clackamas County Prosecutor who appeared in an ad against John Kerry has been suspended from his job, but not for speaking out. Al French has been the target of local protests after his appearance in a political ad questioning the the Democratic candidate's war record.

On Thursday he was placed on leave by the Clackamas County District Attorney's office. It wasn't for his statements against Kerry, but for lying about an extra-marital affair. Reports say French misled his former boss ten years ago to avoid getting fired.

French has faced a great deal of scrutiny since the ad first aired, with veterans calling for his resignation. He said in the spot that he had served with John Kerry, and that Kerry exaggerated his war record. He also signed an affidavit, swearing to tell the truth during the taping. French later admitted he had not served with Kerry, but relied on accounts from his friends.

That irked local veterans, who complained to the Oregon Bar Association. They say French violated his duty as a state official by lying on the affidavit, and can no longer be trusted

.

Really, how could this guy be an attorney representing "the people" when he's a proven liar?

Republican family values...

You can't make this stuff up.

When you see things like this, you wonder how "father's rights advocates" can ever support Republicans.

They seem to only support parental rights insofar as it a) doesn't include their own personal lives, and b) creates more division amongst people.

A couple of notable quotes

Peace does not consist in one man, one party, one nation, crushing and dominating everyone else. Peace exists where men who have the power to be enemies are, instead, friends by reason of the sacrifices that they have made in order to meet one another on a higher level, where the differences between them are no longer a source of conflict.

- Thomas Merton

Even on a blog like this (to shamelessly paraphrase one of Merton's essays) such things need to be written.

Here's another:

The root of all war is fear.

Without hindrance in the mind, there is no fear.

That is how war is overcome.

This is something our friends on the extreme right do not fathom, I think. They rely on fear, usually fear of the Other. By going beyond fear, we can go beyond war, and we can prevail, actually.

This round goes to the partisans...

link

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 27 — Thousands of Shiites marched through the battle-scarred streets of Najaf to one of their holiest shrines today in celebration of an accord reached on Thursday to end three weeks of fighting between American forces and militiamen loyal to a rebel cleric.



Aides to the country's most powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said on Thursday night that they had reached a tentative agreement to end the siege in this Shiite holy city, after a day of chaos and bloodshed here that left at least 74 Iraqis dead and more than 300 wounded.

One of Ayatollah Sistani's aides, Hamed al-Khaffaf, said that Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric whose fighters have held the Imam Ali Shrine since early August, had agreed to the conditions set forth by the senior cleric to end the siege.

The proposal, which the interim Iraqi government quickly accepted, calls for the withdrawal of Mr. Sadr's fighters from Najaf and the neighboring city of Kufa, as well as a pullout of American forces and the introduction of Iraqi police officers into Najaf. The agreement would allow Mr. Sadr and his fighters to keep their guns and go free....

Since American troops toppled the Hussein government 16 months ago, Ayatollah Sistani has been careful to maintain an equivocal position on American military actions, usually condemning any use of force, by the Americans or the rebels. That left open the possibility that in Najaf, he could distance himself from the Americans by condemning the damage inflicted on the Old City by American bombs and tanks, and even leave Mr. Sadr free to claim that he acted all along to defend the shrine against American attacks.

One of the last American actions before the cease-fire went into effect involved the use of a 2,000-pound, laser-guided bomb to strike a hotel about 130 yards from the shrine's southwest wall, in an area known to American commanders as "motel row."

Yes, folks, "Mission Accomplished" in Najaf. Not.

Bush flip-flops on 527s

Then, regarding 527 organizations running ads:
In 2000, when Bush’s cronies from Texas set up a 527 to slander and help defeat John McCain, Bush thought they were just dandy…

[ CBS Face the Nation anchor Bob] SCHIEFFER: Well--but the fact is that you have launched these ads and that your friends have spent $ 2 1/2 million now…

Gov. BUSH: Well, these are--these are…

SCHIEFFER: ...on a, on an ad that you say you know nothing about, attacking his environmental record. I mean, isn’t that just exactly what Senator McCain says has gone haywire in America? Where somebody can come in, spend all this money, no one would have known who spent this money up there, attacking his environmental record if the reporters hadn’t rooted it out? And yet he--these friends may wind up spending more in New York than you and Senator McCain are spending up there.

Gov. BUSH: Bob, there are people spending ads that say nice things about me. There are people spending money on ads that say ugly things about me.

BORGER: Should…

Gov. BUSH: That’s part of the American--let me finish. That’s part of the American process. There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don’t particularly care when they do, but that’s what freedom of speech is all about. And this allegation somehow that I’m involved with this is just totally ridiculous. It is uncalled for. There is no--no truth whatsoever. This--the notion that this man who ran the ads spent the night in the governor’s mansion--I think Senator McCain just made that allegation--they’re--they’re just not true.

BORGER: Well, Governor…

Gov. BUSH: It is--yeah?

BORGER: ...do you think you should stop these ads?

Gov. BUSH: You know, let me--let me say something to you. People have the right to run ads.They have the right to do what they want to do, under the--under the First Amendment in America.

[Source: CBS Face the Nation, 3/5/00]

and now:

Friday, August 27, 2004 LAS CRUCES, N.M., -- President Bush's reelection campaign plans to join forces with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to take legal action to force the Federal Election Commission to crack down on political organizations that exploit a loophole in campaign-finance law to spend unregulated funds, the White House announced Thursday morning.

McCain had tried to block the so-called 527 groups with a complaint to the FEC, but because that body did not act on the complaint in 120 days, opponents of the 527s can now go to the courts.




"The president said he wanted to work together [with McCain] to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One after Bush spoke to McCain by telephone from the presidential jet Thursday morning.

Let's face it: the "My Pet Goat While the Twin Towers Burn" ad is on everyone's mind!

Les Payne gets it right. David Reinhard is an echo

link

.

Yet, Kerry's most telling blow landed on Bush most directly. In response to a question, Kerry was allowed to place himself in the president's chair in that second-grade classroom in Florida on Sept. 11, 2001.

When the second terror jet smashed into the World Trade Center, Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispered the tragic news into Bush's ear. The commander in chief stayed on message with the unknowing second graders around him. He fidgeted in his seat. At one point he seemed on the verge of raising his hand for a toilet break. Finally, after a full seven minutes - with WTC office workers leaping to certain death - the critical moment arrived for Bush. He read his assigned section of "My Pet Goat."

Kerry told the Unity convention that, as commander in chief, he would have acted differently. "Had I been reading to children and my top aide whispered in my ear that America was under attack, I would have told the kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States has something he needed to attend to." Kerry sounded sincere

.

And David Reinhard's lame, over-repeated rejoinder to the truth:

He's joined propagandist Michael Moore in roasting Bush for the minutes he spent listening to kids read after learning of the 9/11 attacks. "I would have told those kids very politely and nicely," Kerry said. "that the president . . . had something he needed to attend to."

Bush says he was calmly gathering his thoughts over those seven minutes. Kerry and Moore see some failure of leadership. It's a silly claim, and an especially odd one for Kerry to make. After all, here's what he recently told Larry King about his own 9/11 doings. "And as I came in [to a meeting in Sen. Tom Daschle's office], Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon."

And then we just realized nobody could think.

Really, they friggin' pay people at the Oregonian to repeat Republican talking points!

Advertisers must love that extra overhead!

Bush will be in a bulletproof platform at Madison Sq. Garden???

link

Hmmm... kinda brings to mind...



Not that I'm saying he's a Nazi war criminal. Oh no. I would never say that.

But some people are saying that.

About the Author

Mumon is my Buddhist name. I'm a Communications technology researcher/manager employed in the consumer electronics industry. I've got a ridiculous number of patents on which I'm an inventor; if you're using a 3G phone you're using technology created by me (in collaboration with others). Doing things that make stuff for people is in my lineage.

I'm married to a very wonderful woman from China, and we have one son, who is our pride and joy.

I abide in Vancouver WA, though I'm originally from NY. My wife originally comes from Wenzhou.

I've been practicing Rinzai Zen Buddhism.

One for the bookmarks: Conservatives, oil & coups..

link

Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Lady Thatcher, was arrested today over claims that he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. ...

South African prosecuting authority spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said: "We are currently conducting a search and seizure operation at the house of a Cape Town man who is a British citizen."

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are investigating the possibility that he has been involved in the funding of logistical support to the people who are involved in the alleged coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. This man is under arrest but he has not appeared in court." ...

Pumping 350,000 barrels of oil a day, Equatorial Guinea has become Africa's third-largest oil producer since offshore development began in the mid-1990s.

The country has accused British and South African oil broker Ely Calil and other foreign financiers of funding the alleged coup attempt. Mr Calil has denied any involvement.

President Obiang has ruled the isolated nation with an iron fist since executing the former dictator - his uncle - in 1979.

Nothing to see here, folks, move right along...

An honorable Bush

It was W.'s paternal great-grandmother, as noted by Democratic Veteran, who owned up to the fact that her son Prescott had fibbed about his war medals:

A cable received from my son, Prescott S. Bush, brings word that he has not been decorated, as published in the papers a month ago. He feels dreadfully troubled that a letter, written in a spirit of fun, should have been misinterpreted. He says he is no hero and asks me to make explanations. I will appreciate your kindness in publishing this letter....

Flora Sheldon Bush.

Columbus, Sept. 5

See? You can say something nice about the Bush family sometimes.

Is Free Republic going to be busted next?

The Swift Boat Campaign fiasco is turning into another Watergate.

Which is bad, bad news for Bush, 'cause he's running against the guy that made his bones on Iran-Contra and BCCI.

As we noted below, Kerry's got the goods on Bush's violations of the election law.

Now, people may start to poke around at the Free Republic website...

link

Free Republic is one of the conservative websites where Corsi's racist contributions were posted. Scott Swett, Free Republic's Director, is also the webmaster for the Swift Boat Veterans website - further indication that the group is neither unbiased or nonpartisan.

Now we know "Free Republic" is a Limited Liabilty Corporation (LLC). But there's something called the "Free Republic Network," that's a 501(c)(4)- which is not supposed to advocate for any particular candidate.

If we can connect the dots between the Free Republic Network and George W. Bush and Jim Robinson, then this thing is going to get much bigger than the Swift Boat Liars- perhaps much bigger.

Stay tuned.

BUSTED- Bush/Cheney caught red-handed!

Dailykos has the flier, which is as smokin' a gun as you could hope for!

Atrios has good feed as well on this.

Wes Nisker nails Bush with the religious argument...

link

Frankly, I wouldn't have voted for Kucinich, but this statement sums it all up as to why we shouldn't vote for Governor Bush:

In the end, the main reason I am voting against the Bush administration in November is that I just don’t see that lovingkindness there.

This also bears putting here:

If we were to put the Bush team to a Buddhist "religious" test, we would find it breaking all the basic precepts, except perhaps for the one against sexual misconduct (that was Clinton’s specialty).

I would argue, though, that there's plenty of sexual misconduct present in this administration, too, from John Aschroft's affair with the statue of Justice, and the suppression of sexual information.

Bush's contempt for Americans

is best shown by his avoidance of us.


Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said, "In a democracy, the highest
office is the office of citizen."

Bush is our employee. Be sure to give him a performance review that gets him out of Washington!

John Kerry rips the Swift Boat Liars to shreds...

And gets great coverage in this speech, too.

It's about time, John. I would have not denounced the Moveon.org ad, though; leadership IS an issue, and it's you against the coward who cowered behind a copy of "My Pet Goat." Perhaps people didn't know they were voting for a coward in 2000, but we need to get the word out.

Swift Boat Liars' Publisher Racist

Southern Poverty Law Center via Oliver Willis...

William Regnery II, an heir to the Regnery publishing fortune who's a prime mover and shaker in white nationalism publishing, is moving into a new line of business: match-making for "heterosexual whites of Christian cultural heritage."
In an appeal to potential investors titled "Population is Destiny," the famously reclusive Regnery wrote this March that the Caucasian dating service would be no ordinary money-making opportunity, but a chance to ensure "the survival of our race," which "depends upon our people marrying, reproducing and parenting."

Regnery, who says he's long been concerned with a "tendency to bachelorhood" among white men, told the potential investors that his latest effort to save the white race would not stop with match-making.

The dating service, he says, will be only the "first arrow in a business quiver" providing "services and products to whites."

So these are the folks pushing Ann Coulter, the Swift Boat Liars, G. Gordon Liddy, Gary Aldrich, etc.

The stench is overwhelming.

"My Pet Goat" - the ticking time bomb for the Bushies...

link

Put a fork in the "leadership" issue- Bush's done.

Still Fighting the Last Campaign...

link

For years, Kerry has said he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. He gave a detailed view of that experience in an article he wrote for the Boston Herald in 1979. "I remember spending Christmas Eve five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas," Kerry wrote. "The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real." A similar recollection by Kerry was mentioned in a Globe biography of the Massachusetts senator published earlier this year.

The anti-Kerry veterans have said Kerry's recollection does not make sense because Nixon was not inaugurated until January 1969. But Kerry campaign spokesman Meehan said Kerry was referring to a range of time that included when Nixon was president-elect and president. During the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon opposed a change in US policy that would allow "hot pursuit" of enemy forces into Cambodia; in March 1969 he authorized the secret bombing of Cambodia, which was followed by the 1970 invasion of Cambodia.

This is reminiscent of the tactics used by John O'Neill (then acting on behalf of Charles Colson!) in his debate with John Kerry on the Dick Cavett show 30 years ago: taking a minor point (speaking elliptically re: 1968 & Nixon now, saying Kerry spoke for "all" vets when he was using a "we" to mean Viet Vets against the War) and personal attacks were the Swift Boat Liars stock in trade then.

It's clear that Kerry was on missions near Cambodia, with secret aspects- sometimes very near-and if anyone doubts that, they should've joined the military 30 years ago rather than embarassing themselves. (EVERY combat mission has classified elements to it.)

If "Hugh Hewitt" (what'd he do in the war?), "Instapundit" (what'd he do?), "Sean Hannity" (chickenhawk) can't wrap their heads around it, too bad.

But the Kerry campaign's responded, and big time, as has venerable moveon.org.

You can't win on this issue righties- we won it 30 years ago, and we're winning it now.

Swift Boat Karma...

link...

"I agree with Senator McCain that the ad is inappropriate," Kerry said in a statement released by his campaign [condemning an anti-Bush ad that finally mentioned Bush's apparent desertion]. "This should be a campaign of issues, not insults."


Hours earlier, at a news conference organized by Kerry's campaign, two veterans accused Bush of using family ties to get out of combat.


Kerry served and fought, said retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark (news - web sites), who ran for the Democratic nomination against the senator but now is in his camp. "The other man scrambled and used his family's influence to get out of hearing a shot fired in anger,"


Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was CIA (news - web sites) director in the Carter administration, said Bush "used his father's influence to get into the Air National Guard and avoid going to war."


At the same news conference, Jim Rassmann, who credits Kerry with saving his life while under fire in Vietnam, noted that Kerry has said Bush served honorably. However, Kerry also said in February of Bush's Guard service, which included time in Alabama: "The issue here, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be? I don't have the answer to that question."


The Kerry campaign did not criticize Clark and Turner.


"Those are veterans who earned the right to their opinion," said spokeswoman Debra DeShong. "John Kerry speaks for John Kerry."

Yes, Bush seems to have been a deserter, who seems to have been AWOL for 30 days.


I saw John O'Neill debating John Kerry on the Dick Cavett show from 1971 on CSPAn the other night.

He wasn't very swift then, and neither was/is Bush.

Democracy...

link

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 16 - Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly to keep President Hugo Chávez in power, electoral authorities and international monitors said Monday. But a strident opposition movement refused to accept the results of the recall referendum, raising prospects for more turmoil in Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
With 95 percent of ballots counted, Francisco Carrasquero, the president of the National Electoral Council, announced early Monday that Mr. Chávez had the backing of 58 percent of the voters, against 42 percent for the opposition. Mr. Chávez drew nearly 5 million votes, while the opposition collected about 3.6 million.

As of Monday night, opposition leaders had not backed off from their charges that a "gigantic fraud" had occurred. Anti-government protesters threw stones at a group of pro-government demonstrators, who witnesses said pulled out guns and fired shots that killed a 62-year-old woman and wounded several others.

But the Organization of American States and the Carter Center of Atlanta - monitors invited by the government and the opposition to validate the outcome - said the results were legitimate.

I would like to see more confirmation on the "shooting" thing here- there has been alot of right-wing propaganda here-from people opposed to democracy.

Which of course, correlates with what Republicans are doing in Florida.

I have a simple solution for voting fraud: make its penalties Federal penalties identical to those of espionage.

50 years of hard time for messing with voting machines.

"Liberal" columnists at the Times...

link

You've heard "activist judges" so many times - from the president, from Congress, from the angry guys on the radio - that you can define it right along with me. Together then: Liberal activist judges make law, as opposed to interpreting it. They ignore the plain meaning of texts to invent new rights. Superimposing their moral views onto their legal reasoning, they brazenly advance the cause of the fringe liberal elites in the culture wars.

This canard really doesn't get debunked much in the media as much as it should.

The "conservative" "strict contstructionist" "position" on the consitution is founded on falsity and hypocrisy, and although Lithwick is going in the right direction here, she dones't go far enough at all.

To "believe" in the "conservative position," you have to assume that:

*there exists a single unique interpretation that the "founders" had,

*this position can be known by reading the entrails of source documents,

*this position should be applied today, despite the fact that the constitution embodied a host of contradictions that were previously resolved (e.g., slavery, women's rights, and so forth).

In the end, the "conservative" position is fundamentally nihilistic: it makes claims that are founded on nothing.

Republicans to tout Bush "leadership" at convention

link

This is a knee-slapper, folks!

The Republicans said they planned to tout Bush's gritty crisis management at the four-day gathering in New York opening on August 30, while Democrats braced for non-stop attacks on Kerry.

No, George- too many people have seen your "My Pet Goat-Deer in the Headlingts" crisis bungling.

Gwynne Dyer has a fun little game...

link

Here's a game the whole family can play. Pick any warning of a domestic terrorist attack issued by the U.S. Homeland Security Department, and replace the word "terrorist" throughout with some other frightening word. It greatly enhances the entertainment value of the statement without substantially changing its credibility.

Take, for example, Secretary Tom Ridge's recent warning that various "iconic" financial institutions on the East Coast would be on Orange Alert until - oh, probably well into November. Now do the substitution: "Let me be clear: While we have raised the threat level for the financial services sector in the affected communities, the rest of the nation remains at an elevated, or Code Yellow, risk of vampire attack.... The vampires should know (that) in this country, this kind of information, while startling, is not stifling. It will not weaken the American spirit, etc., etc." It works just as well if you substitute the word "werewolves" or "zombies" or even "aliens with anal probes."

...It's much more effective politically to portray them as faceless demons driven by a love of evil and an unmotivated hatred of Americans. When Basque ETA terrorists blow things up in Spain, or Tamil Tiger suicide bombers do the same in Sri Lanka, the target population knows that its attackers are real people with specific and limited political objectives. The terrorists that the Department of Homeland Security purports to be defending Americans against could easily be the baddies in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

...What you should not be able to do is to portray terrorism as the greatest danger facing Americans today. Americans face a bigger risk of drowning in the bath than of being killed by terrorists, and a far greater risk of dying by falling down the stairs. Even in the tragic month of September 2001, just as many Americans died in highway accidents as from terrorist attacks, and almost as many died of gunshot wounds.

The other thing I'd point out, is that it really doesn't work that well anymore. The first time I saw "The Exorcist" in a movie theater, the audience let out audilbe gasps as they first took in the next antic of the demon-possessed little girl, but then the gasp turned into giggling.


So it is with al Qaeda. We want to get them, but we just aren't really scared by them.

Besides, the Bush regime can do far more damage if they're allowed to continue in office.

Remember George H.W. Bush's WWII controversy? Guess what...

link (to Digby), again, thanks to Atrios:

And here is something worth quoting:

After 44 years of silence, Mierzejewski, who also was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that Bush had abandoned his crew to death when there was another choice.

He said he was approximately 100 feet in front of Bush's plane as the turret gunner for Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin's plane, "so close he could see in the cockpit" of Bush's bomber. Mierzejewski's close wartime buddy was one of the two crew members in Bush's plane.

According to Mierzejewski, the squadron was in a tight-formation bombing raid against a Japanese radio installation on an island reported to be heavily fortified. He saw "a puff of smoke" come from Bush's plane which quickly disappeared and was certain only one man parachuted from the plane and that it was Bush, the pilot.

Mierzejewski said the Avenger torpedo bomber was engineered so that it could successfully crash land on water and that Bush doomed his own crew by bailing out and leaving the bomber out of control.

Other World War II veterans also expressed concern about Bush parachuting out of the aircraft. "He had a moral obligation to put that plane in the water in an emergency landing," Robert Flood, a former B-17 bombardier told the press. "He violated the primary rule for a captain of a multi-crew aircraft: The pilot never leaves the airplane with anybody in it."

Pete Brandon, a Marine Corps Avenger pilot, who also served in the South Pacific, said an Avenger pilot had two choices: Set the plane down in the water or hold it steady until the two crewmen could prepare to jump.

"In an Avenger, only the pilot wore a parachute," Brandon said. "The two crewmen wore harnesses. If the order came to bail out, they had to take chest parachutes from a shelf and strap them on - and bail out. The Avenger was very unstable. The pilot had to be at the controls the whole time or it would go right over on its back."

It seems, though, that Ted Sampley, who wrote the junk above, indeed has a problem with war heroes.

Who should be asked to give up their citizenship?

Atrios has a great story from the WaPo on this really busy day, about Yasser Hamdi, who apparently, while in Afghanistan, didn't actually do anything against the US in any way that prosecutors can demonstrate.



The guy may be guilty or not- although in a court of law he's presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But the fact is, he's a citizen, and should have the full rights of a citizen. And if conservatives don't like that, maybe they should be asked to give up their citizenship and move elsewhere.

This attack on the constitution by the Bush gang is deplorable.

Two good opinion pieces in the NY Times today

I don't often recommend editorials from the Times, mostly because of their mixture of authoritarian-speak and "moderation," but today's is worth quoting, despite the somwhat tortured syntax:

link (Emphasis added.)

Mr. Bush and Mr. Greenspan have now exhausted almost all of their stimulus options. The economy is on its own, and it is not clear whether it is on track for a stronger recovery in the second half of the year.

No wonder, then, that Mr. Bush won't acknowledge the bad news on jobs. Doing so would imply a need to re-examine the policies that have led to this point, something he is not willing to do. Given the facts, his intransigence is appalling: according to a new research report by Economy.com, an independent provider of economic data and analysis, the $700 billion swing from surplus to deficit under President Bush accounted for nearly two percentage points of economic growth a year. But it has generated economic gains of just over one percentage point.

The main reason for the crippling discrepancy is that the tax cuts were mostly handed out where they did the least good - that is, lavished on the people least likely to spend the largess. The reduction in the tax rates, the largest of Mr. Bush's tax boons, provided only 59 cents of economic stimulus for every dollar of lost tax revenue. The tax cut for dividends and capital gains produced 9 cents of stimulus for every forgone dollar. (Did someone say, "Deficits as far as the eye can see"?) In contrast, the economic bang for a dollar of aid to state governments is $1.24. Yet such assistance accounted for only 3 percent of the total cost of Mr. Bush's fiscal policies

.

Presumably "economic gains" means an increase in income, and presumably as a total amount of all income- which, if that's what meant, means that John Edwards' pitch to those of us who are trying to make ends meet is spot on.

It is also clear, though that Bush's tax cuts have been every bit as effective as a terrorist attack at destroying the average Americans' prosperity.

Dahlia Lithwick has a good op-ed piece today, too:

It started with Attorney General John Ashcroft's declaration, shortly after 9/11: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." This was an early attempt to couple disagreeing on civil liberties with abetting terrorists. And while I'm not reflexively opposed to the entire Patriot Act, two provisions do serve more to quell protest than terrorism.

One section invented a broad new crime called "domestic terrorism" - punishing activities that "involve acts dangerous to human life" if a person's intent is to "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion." If that sounds as if it's directed more toward effigy-burning, or Greenpeace activity, than international terror, it's because it is. International terror was already illegal.

A second provision, already deemed unconstitutional in one federal court, was used to prosecute Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a Muslim graduate student at the University of Idaho who was charged with using the Internet to offer "expert advice or assistance" to terrorists by posting fatwahs and hyperlinks to a Hamas Web site. He was acquitted by a jury this summer, partly because the judge warned jurors that speech - even speech advocating the use of force or the breaking of laws - is constitutionally protected, unless directed toward inciting imminent lawless action.

Ashcroft, of course, in pushing these provisions (not to mention the Gitmo fiasco and the torture memos) has either been incompetent at understanding constitutional law or has been a malicious enemey of the constitution. His failure to even make progress against Zacharias Moussaoui suggests the former, but whichever it is, it's irrelevant: this regime must go, because of the wrongful acts they have committed against the fundamentals of the American way.

They have attacked our freedom, and they have attacked our prosperity. And if they can retain office because of "terrorism," then truly, the terrorists will have won.

A Divider Not a Uniter: Entertainment!

link

There's a showdown coming to Manhattan. Backed by the most intense security the city has ever seen, the Republicans are about to turn the blue-state bastion of New York City into the backdrop for George Bush's coronation. The RNC chose New York because it was the site of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which to Bush's opponents and even some ordinary New Yorkers seems a brazen provocation.

On one side are 36,000 cops -- a force that City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. calls "perhaps the world's tenth-largest standing army." On the other side are at least 250,000 protesters expected to converge on the city from all across the United States and Canada -- a demonstration six times larger than the legendary anti-globalization protests that rocked Seattle in 1999.

They're facing off at a time when police are increasingly adopting military tactics in response to protest, and protesters are responding likewise, conducting their own reconnaissance on Republican plans and plotting actions designed to hit where the cops are weakest. The police have infiltrated the protesters, but the protesters have infiltrated the convention; according to anti-RNC organizers, they have at least two moles working undercover with volunteers the city has recruited to help makes things run smoothly at Madison Square Garden.

Yes, folks, the whole world will be watching, and, in the manner of the Gang of Four song referenced above (the song that gave their first album its title), struggle will become entertainment on a scale that compares to the Chicago '68 convention.

Bush has divided this country like nothing since Vietnam, and not surprisingly so- people didn't like Vietnam because they might get dead for no good reason, and people don't like Iraq for the same reason. And the "War on Terror?" Well, let's face it, Bush has been an embarassment, more concerned with covering his but than making us safer.

BTW, rncnotwelcome.org wants money to help with their efforts. Evidently they're not funded by the "evil" George Soros.

Why not search your concience to see if they're right for you? I myself will not be giving them money, because I think they need to work on the guerilla theatre aspects of what they're doing: above all, Abbie Hoffman taught us, be entertaining.

I think these guys are too angry. Remember, guys, there's an audience out there.

A uniter not a divider?

link

Clashes at the Pensacola Civic Center between President Bush supporters and John Kerry hopefuls led to the arrests of four people Tuesday. All four were charged with affray.

Anti-Bush demonstrator Ryan Del Lewis, 27, of the 5400 block of Olive Road was arrested after reportedly kicking a Bush supporter in the buttocks and losing a short foot race with officers, Pensacola police said.

The man Lewis supposedly kicked, Nathan C. Hillman, 40, of the 2100 block of North Palafox Street, also was arrested. Police said Hillman, who attended the Bush rally, spit in Lewis' face after the two men began arguing.

The arrests occurred about 12:15 p.m. at the intersection of Alcaniz and Gregory streets where about 40 Bush protesters had gathered.

"We also had two women involved in an altercation who were arrested," police spokesman Chip Simmons said.

Really, isn't it about time that we got rid of the divisive George W. Bush?

Jim Rassmann speaks up

link

Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions. I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great commander in chief.

Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat.

Rassmann's right: the people behind this are simply people who have no sense of honor whatsoever.

They are scoundrels.

Good debunking of the Swift Boat Liars

Thanks to The Blue Bus, who pointed me to eriposte.

All in one place, at last: the Swift Boat Liars claims refuted.

This is pretty damning stuff, and refutes any doubt that anyone had that the Swift Boat Liars have any shred of credibility.

Moreover, the sources cited include "neutral" sources such as factcheck.org and snopes.com .

Meanwhile, we have Jerome "funny freeper" Corsi, the guys who did the Willie Horton ad, add it all up, and you have the kind of sleaze that is only associated with Republicans for Bush.

Thereare going to be surprises in October.

Sometimes, even righties reading things wrong can tell you things that make you think thoughts you wish you didn't.

Richard's thinking things are "turning the corner" in Iraq.

I say, and frankly with a feeling of nausea, if you look at the curves on page 3 of the Brookings Report, it's a bit obvious that troop deaths are correlated with political activity; the uprising (ongoing, really) prior to "handover" of "authority" was a time of increased violence.

Now, as Robert Fisk has pointed out,

One of the reasons why the Bush administration is getting away with so much at the moment is that the degree of anarchy, the sheer size of the area of Iraq outside government or American control is being hidden from ordinary people. For example, in the town of Baquba, there are now hundreds of armed men. In Ramadi and Fallujah, they're virtually people's republics in which even the Americans cannot move freely. We do not realize, though we should, the degree to which the country of Iraq is outside the control of the new American-established government of Ayad Allawi.

Now I predict that there will be an October Surprise: but it will surprise the Bush supporters, and I frankly wish this Surprise wouldn't happen. But I suspect that the Iraqi resistance is going to get somewhat more forceful before the US election.

Hold on tight- it's going to be a rough ride.

Jerome Corsi lies again...

link

...as he prepared to launch the book, "Unfit for Command," Jerry Corsi apologized for the remarks in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, saying they were meant as a joke and he never intended to offend anyone.


In chat room entry last year on freerepublic.com, Corsi writes: "Islam is a peaceful religion — just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed."


In another entry, he says: "So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican (news - web sites) altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."


Corsi, who described himself as a "devout Catholic," said the comments are being taken out of context. "I considered them a joke," said Corsi, who owns a financial services company and has written extensively on the anti-war movement.

"Out of context?" He's on the Free Republic Website- that is the freakin' context!

Let us re-vist the context....evidently that Freeper doesn't get the Internet yet...

One anti-Catholic remark in question is in response to:

Pope John Paul II may ask to personally address UN Security Council to stop Iraq war
AFP via Babelfish translation ^ | March 3, 2003


Posted on 03/03/2003 2:46:58 AM PST by HAL9000



The pope wants to go in front of UNO if its message with Bush does not stop the war
Jean Paul II will ask to address personally to the Security Council of the United Nations if its message with the American president George W Bush does not convince it to give up a war against Iraq, learned Monday the AFP from diplomatic source vaticane.L' possibility of a direct address of the pope in the United Nations was evoked during the maintenance of the pope with the secretary-general of UNO, Kofi Annan, there are two weeks in the Vatican, one added of the same source.Le cardinal Pio Laghi left Rome Monday morning for Washington carrying a message of peace as it must give to the American president

Here's his reply:

To: HAL9000
Maybe while he's there he can tell the UN what he's going to do about the sexual crimes committed by "priests" in his "Church" during his tenure. Or, maybe that's the connection -- boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press.

16 posted on 03/03/2003 3:46:01 AM PST by jrlc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

That's the context folks.

Do we need to continue? Is Corsi making you laugh like he's a clown? Does he amuse you? Tell, me, Corsi, just what the f*ck do you think is so funny?

Michelle Malkin: No excuse

link

I had seen this on other blogs- debunking Malkin's paen to internment, but this is incredible!

During World War II, Mineta was evacuated as a young boy from San Jose, Calif., to a relocation camp in Heart Mountain, Wyo. He remains deeply aggrieved about the so-called "Japanese-American internment" and his gross misunderstanding of history continues to blind him to current realities.

Mineta, like most Americans, has been brainwashed into believing that the decision to evacuate the West Coast and relocate ethnic Japanese to the interior of the country was motivated solely by racism and wartime hysteria — rather than bona fide national security concerns.

...The long-hidden truth is that the internment of Japanese, German, Italian and other European enemy aliens, and the mass evacuation and relocation of ethnic Japanese from the West Coast, were not the result of irrational hatred or conspiratorial bigotry. In fact, President Roosevelt's homeland security policies were firmly justified based on the exigencies and intelligence of the time

.


Now as an op-ed writer for a New York paper, she ought to be familiar with a place called "Yorkville," from which Germans were not interred.

The gall of Malkin to call a former internee "brainwashed" simply boggles the mind.

Some links to clear the air of Malkin's foul stench...

"Is that legal" is a good place to start...

Do you think it's too late for them to get a new keynote speaker?

link

I mean, Alan Keyes is just what the Republican Party needs to show that they appeal to African Americans.

The real rason the "Swift Boat" liars are lying...

link

The core issue is that George W. Bush, who campaigned eagerly for Republican pro-war candidates, joined the National Guard, ticking the box to refuse overseas service, at the height of the Tet Offensive, in what Senator Robert Byrd has called the "War of His Generation."

He did so with the aid of nepotistic influence, jumping a long line, despite a 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test--and despite a series of driving convictions that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School.

And then he went missing for a year, and as a reward was allowed to terminate his service early so he could go to Harvard Business School.

Pot calling the kettle black...

link

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the leader of the early military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq, agreed, calling criticism of Kerry's war record political hyperbole.

"Do you think Sen. Kerry is qualified to be commander-in-chief?" Franks was asked on ABC's "This Week."

"Absolutely!" he said.

Contrast this with Rush Limbaugh's lies here.

Meanwhile the drug addict, 3 time marital loser's hypocrisy knows no bounds...

He's a popular figure in the media, in the U.S. Senate, but I don't know. If I were McCain, I'd have some questions of myself. I'm sweating away for five years in a prison camp, here's a guy out faking injuries or inflicting them to get Purple Hearts?

And how did you dodge the draft, Limbaugh??? Of course if, as is more likely, Kerry wasn't faking his injuries, then why should McCain have questions? McCain knows these people are scoundrels; he's seen their handiwork before.

Didn't take 'em long to figure out what everybody but the neocons knew

link

Iraq has issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Chalabi, a former governing council member, on money laundering charges and another for Salem Chalabi, the head of Iraq's special tribunal, on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said Sunday.

Makes you wonder why the neocons sucked up to him so long, if even the handpicked "government" in Iraq sees through the Chalabis...

CNBC's Russert Show Shows O'Reilly to be a thug...

If anyone can find a link to the transcript, I'd appreciate it.

Russert had on Krugman and O'Reilly.

Krugman was great against O'Reilly, who appeared like he is: a bully, who, when cornered, descends into personal attacks.

His bellowing about Media Matters was particularly telling.

Without any substance, he tried to attack Media Matters as "radical," and used other invectives, but never could say they were false.

Some day, this clown's may be on the receiving end of some litigation, at this rate.

More from "Unfit" Jerome Corsi

link

Second, the politically incorrect humor I posted on this site is evidently not funny to everyone. Detractors should have interviewed my dog. No matter how I frame a comment, "Chico" has yet to laugh.

Finally, we all owe a huge salute to a great American patriot, Jim Robinson. Free Republic is a ground breaking forum, which allows us the free and robust expression of conservative political ideas.

I am honored to be associated with Free Republic, as I am honored to be participating in bringing the case against John Kerry as co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

"jrlc" on Free Republic
Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.

In case anyone had any doubt about Corsi's identity.

Tell me, folks, if you go back through the posts that Corsi did on Free Republic, where he make racist, anti-Catholic and personal attacks, did you find any knee-slappes?

I didn't find any. Maybe the problem with such "conservatives" is an advanced state of anhedonia wherein they just can't actually discriminate between what might be funny and what reflects their anger and resentment.

Maybe.

The latest "terror information" has a bad stench about it...

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - A Pakistani man whose arrest provided information about the reconnaissance of financial institutions in New York, Newark and Washington was also communicating with Qaeda operatives who the authorities say are plotting to carry out an attack intended to disrupt the fall elections, a senior intelligence official said Saturday.

Senior intelligence and counterterrorism officials said it was not clear whether the people behind the surveillance of the financial institutions and the people involved in the election threat were part of the same group, or belonged to overlapping or separate ones.

The arrest last month of the Pakistani, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, had already prompted a search in the United States, Britain and other countries to locate the people behind the surveillance, which took place three or four years ago. Now the authorities say Mr. Khan's arrest is also helping them unravel a threat to carry out an attack this year inside the United States.

It is not clear whether Mr. Khan represents the second channel of intelligence that officials have alluded to in recent days that, they say, convinced them that the reconnaissance of financial institutions was related to current threats

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Now, as reported earlier, the Brittish and others are kind of peeved that an assett/double agent was outed by the Bush Administration - that is, this guy Khan was working the al Qaeda side for us, and this information being released blew his cover.

Now, given that his cover was blown, how come they report this now?

There's only 2 conclusions I can make about this latest "revelation" to disrupt the vote:

1. It's all bogus and they're putting this stuff out to try to get a bump in the polls.

2. It's true, but they're managing the release of information to try to get a bump in the polls.

Either way, would you vote for Bush based on this behavior?

I guess Karnow's book has to be updated...

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Three months before the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger huddled together in the Oval Office to discuss when and how to get out of Vietnam. Despite a massive bombing campaign during the spring and summer in the north, the Republican president had concluded that U.S.-backed "South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway."

"We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important," Nixon told his national security adviser. "It's terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That's the real question."

Stanley Karnow had considered that both the North Vietnamese and the Nixon administraiton missed an opportunity to settle the war before 1972 as noted in his gold-standard history on the war in Vietnam: A History.

But now it looks like the real reason Americans and Vietnamese died after November, 1972 had more to do with re-election politics.

Bush compromises war against al Qaeda for political gain...

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Does this surprise anyone, given the way in which the war against al Qaeda morphed into a quagmire in Iraq?

The Times published a story Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts. The Times identified him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. ...

Intelligence and security experts said they were surprised that Washington would reveal information that could expose the name of a source during an ongoing law enforcement operation.

“If it’s true that the Americans have unintentionally revealed the identity of another nation’s intelligence agent, who appears to be working in the good of all of us, that is not only a fundamental intelligence flaw. It’s also a monumental foreign relations blunder,” security expert Paul Beaver, a former publisher of Jane’s Defense Weekly, told Reuters.

"Unintentional?" After all the "terror alerts" corresponding to drops in the polls by Bush, are we to believe it was unintentional?

As others are pointing out, this is another instance of Bush compromising the struggle against those who attacked us on 9/11, and is why he does not deserve anyone's vote.

Just when you think "SwiftBoatgate" can't implode anymore...

Geez, I thought I was done with SwiftBoatgate, but it gets weirder and weirder and weirder...

This one's about Jerome Corsi, "co-author" of "Unfit for Command," published by the folks who brought out Ann Coulter's tomes...

From David Brock's group via Atrios.

On August 6, Salon.com's Joe Conason documented links between Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the conservative online forum www.FreeRepublic.com. Conason noted that the designer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website is Robert A. Hahn, a director of the Free Republic Network, a conservative activist organization affiliated with FreeRepublic.com. Scott Swett, who is listed as the webmaster of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website, swiftvets.com, also appeared on FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity's August 5 radio show to discuss the group. Swett posts frequently to FreeRepublic.com, using the pseudonym "Interesting Times," and is also a director of the Free Republic Network. The wintersoldier.com website to which Swett has contributed articles is a project of the Free Republic Network.

Corsi is also a frequent participant in FreeRepublic.com's online forums, posting under the pseudonym "jrlc" since 2001. (Click here to read a full set of Corsi's posts; click here to read the post in which "jrlc" admits to being Jerome Corsi.)

On FreeRepublic.com, Corsi has, among other things, said that "ragheads" are "boy buggers"; referred to "John F*ing Kerry"; called Senator Hillary Clinton a "Fat Hog"; referred to her daughter as "Chubby Chelsie" Clinton; referred to Janet Reno as "Janet Rhino"; called Katie Couric "Little Katie Communist"; suggested Kerry was "practicing Judaism"; and expressed the wish that a small plane that had crashed into a building in Los Angeles had instead crashed into the set of NBC'S The West Wing, thereby killing actor Martin Sheen.

Ouch!

For anyone left out there who thinks that the "Free Republic" is not a hateful site, and that they don't cultivate some pretty nasty folks, and that their website provides "balance," Corsi's posts ought to tell you that these are not the kinds of Americans who should be driving policy in the United States.


Does Rush Limbaugh really want to know "Why didn't the mainstream media find these guys? Why did these guys have to surface themselves?"

I think the media's found 'em, and I think we're in for some really good instant karma on this.

Correlation may not be imply causation, but...

Julius Blog seems to have connected the dots regarding the incidence of "Terror Alerts" and Bush's approval ratings.
It's odd that the terrorists wouldn't threaten us when Bush's popularity would be on an uptick.

Moreover, it's obvious that this strategy's starting to fail, and that Bush, despite the real and contrived "terror threats," isn't going to get more popular anytime soon.



Any questions?

Alabama is pretty bipolar

That's kind of odd to me, since she clearly wasn't a conservative Republican.

In fact, she's probably the only person ever to appear on a US coin who wrote something like "How I became a Socialist.


Meanwhile, Alabama executed the oldest person in decades this week, a guy who was dying anyway.

Swift Boat Liars' Implosion is Accelerating!

Joe Conason's been on these guys like the jonesing of a heroin addict, and here's the latest poop on "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" [sic]:

Its guiding spirit is John E. O'Neill, a partner in Lezar's law firm and an early protégé of Nixon-era dirty trickster Charles Colson. (O'Neill's latest contribution to the cause is a book titled "Unfit for Command," selling fast thanks to promotion by the Drudge Report.) Its Web site was put up courtesy of William Franke, a St. Louis businessman with longstanding ties to Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Missouri Republican Party. Its chief financiers, according to the group's last quarterly IRS filing, are Houston builder Bob J. Perry and the Crow family, both major Republican donors from Texas.

Last November, the Dallas Morning News profiled the mysterious Perry. During the past four years, he has given more than $5 million to candidates and causes, nearly all of them Republican and extremely conservative. The article didn't say whether Perry himself ever served in the military. The Crow family, a clan of megadevelopers based in Dallas, are close Bush friends as well as generous backers. Harlan Crow is also a trustee of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

In short, the financial supporters of the Swift Boat Vets are not exactly strangers to George W. Bush and Karl Rove. ...

The hired help employed by the Swift Vets committee is thoroughly partisan, too. Aside from Spaeth and Thomas Rupprath, the private detective she recommended to provide research services, the group's IRS filing names several experienced Washington political operatives. The June 30 filing shows payments to Robert A. Hahn, a right-wing Internet activist and Web designer who also runs something called the Free Republic Network (apparently an affiliate of the extremist Free Republic Web site); and to Tom Wyld, a Navy veteran and former director of public relations for the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association.

But wait! There's more!

But yesterday, a key figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry's former commanding officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star -- one of the main allegations in the book. The affidavit was given to The Boston Globe by the anti-Kerry group to justify assertions in their ad and book....

''I still don't think he shot the guy in the back," Elliott said. ''It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here."

Elliott said he was no under personal or political pressure to sign the statement, but he did feel ''time pressure" from those involved in the book. ''That's no excuse," Elliott said. ''I knew it was wrong . . . In a hurry I signed it and faxed it back. That was a mistake."

The affidavit also contradicted earlier statements by Elliott, who came to Boston during Kerry's 1996 Senate campaign to defend Kerry on similar charges, saying that Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver Star.

Now, maybe, just maybe, these "liars" were played by the Kerry forces like a cheap fiddle.

Hope so. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

The Recent History of Iraq Told Entirely in Lies

An oldie but goodie from Harpers'

The number of lies- baldfaced, blatant lies, is astounding.

Wow! The "Swiftboat liars" are being dissected very quickly!

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...The real story is at the above link.

And it looks like if Kerry were lying, then we must conclude his accusers are lying too!!!

There goes the credibility of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" [sic] down the toilet!

Speaking of liars, Rush Limbaugh the draft-dodging, drug addicted, 3 time divorced guy about whom rumors have swirled about his former incarnation as Jeff Christie, has the nerve to ask why 60 Minutes doesn't do a hatchet job on Kerry!

Well, let's see 'em do an investigation on "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" [sic] first!

Stupid Smear by Swiftboat Liars was debunked before it ran...

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But we all knew this already- it was debunked on Air America by Joe Conason before the ad ran:

Another theme promoted by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is that Kerry somehow exaggerated the injuries that led to his Purple Heart awards, or may even have inflicted them on himself. Kerry's first wound occurred on Dec. 2, 1968, which was the very first night he went on a swift boat patrol. Although several witnesses who were present that night remember that Kerry's arm was creased during a firefight with National Liberation Front guerrillas, a former commander who wasn't there has claimed that there was no report of enemy fire.

Among the witnesses who does recall the firefight is Pat Runyon, a former crew member on Kerry's boat. He too spoke with Rupprath when the detective contacted him recently -- and told Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater that he was stunned to find serious inaccuracies in a version of the interview that Rupprath later sent to him. The most damning mistake, Runyon said, was an insinuation that Kerry's injury had been caused by a flare rather than a bullet.

Runyon isn't alone in suspecting that Rupprath may misuse his words, according to Wade Sanders, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy who served with Kerry in Vietnam and is publicly supporting the Democrat. Sanders said he has heard lately from a pair of other Navy veterans interviewed by the detective. "They told me that he sent them transcripts [of their interviews] and that they told him that his version was a misrepresentation of what they said."

Reached in Dallas, Rupprath referred all questions to Merrie Spaeth, the public relations executive and Republican activist who put together the "Swift Boat Veterans" group. Asked about the charges of distortion by Runyon and Sanders, the detective replied: "I want to just state that I am making no statement."

As Conason said on Al Franken's show, he could see the smear evolving.

Ho hum.


Another great gem by Conason features John Kerry's "CO" cut down to size by a conservative columnist:

Until now, Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 commission.

After journalist Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago, conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in Washington had merely left the military men to their own devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy Hoffmann."

From page 1 on that article:

Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as "the classic body-count guy" who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."

Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his "concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip" and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago, four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington debut.

So, it's just another Republican dirty trick.

Now, what about Bush's AWOL status? And "My Pet Goat???"