republicans still clinging to smoke and mirrors

Abu Zubaida's revelations after waterboarding triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms.

The interrogations led directly to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the man Abu Zubaida identified as heading an effort to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in an American city.

Padilla was held in a naval brig for 3 1/2 years on the allegation but was never charged in any such plot. Every other lead ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports.

"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.

Despite the poor results, Bush White House officials and CIA leaders continued to insist that the harsh measures applied against Abu Zubaida and others produced useful intelligence that disrupted terrorist plots and saved American lives.

Two weeks ago, Bush's vice president, Richard B. Cheney, renewed that assertion in an interview with CNN, saying that "the enhanced interrogation program" stopped "a great many" terrorist attacks on the level of Sept. 11.

"I've seen a report that was written, based upon the intelligence that we collected then, that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs," Cheney asserted, adding that the report is "still classified," and, "I can't give you the details of it without violating classification."

Since 2006, Senate intelligence committee members have pressed the CIA, in classified briefings, to provide examples of specific leads that were obtained from Abu Zubaida through the use of waterboarding and other methods, according to officials familiar with the requests.

The agency provided none, the officials said.

republicans buying guns in economic depression

There’s less wealth to spread around now as trillions of dollars has evaporated with increasing speed in the deepening crisis. In housing alone, more than $5 trillion has vanished. The gap between rich and poor, a gap of Third World proportions, has not changed. A full-time worker, on average, made $37,606 last year, considerably less than in 1973, adjusted for inflation.

While CEOs made 45 times as much as workers in 1973 they make more than 300 times as much today, according to Holly Sklar, author of “Raise the Floor, Wages and Policies that Work for All of US.”

To what extent those gaps will shrink under Obama remains to be seen and the outlook for swift action is not promising. There are, in fact, not many things for which the outlook is promising. Exceptions include Smith&Wesson. They expect revenue to double within the next three years.

Class warfare from the upper class

The reality is that, if the government had not stepped in to take over Fannie, Freddie and AIG; had not recapitalized Citigroup and Bank of America; had not provided the guarantees to allow for the orderly sale of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns; had not become the buyer of last resort for commercial paper and home mortgages, then the entire financial system would have melted down by now and taken Wells Fargo and its arrogant chairman with it.

Rather than bellyaching about how un-American it all is, Kovacevich, the chairman of Wells Fargo, ought to be thanking the government and asking what more he could do to help.

Like it or not, we're all in this together now. It's cooperation and compromise, not the usual every-man-for-himself competition, that is going to get us out of this mess. And the sooner people on Wall Street embrace that reality, the better it will be for everyone.

Was 9/11 a hoax?

read today about the 9/11 event at:

and there is a lot more.


"Regarding Flight 77, which allegedly hit the Pentagon, Capt. Wittenberg said, ”The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall.

The airplane won’t go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles. … To expect this alleged airplane to run these maneuvers with a total amateur at the controls is simply ludicrous ... It’s roughly a 100 ton airplane.

And an airplane that weighs 100 tons all assembled is still going to have 100 tons of disassembled trash and parts after it hits a building. There was no wreckage from a 757 at the Pentagon.

The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. We think, as you may have heard before, it was a cruise missile."

republican discipline and control

"It would be a pretty unseemly thing to launch an attack on Steele from within, that's not a Republican-style thing to do," said John Ryder, an RNC member from Tennessee. Humbug, that is exactly how they exact discipline and control in the Republican Party.

why republicans cannot solve the real economic problem

Republicans always say, "Small businesses are the job creators, they create jobs so we need to give them the breaks." Rubbish.
If that were true, why aren't they creating jobs now. Why are they laying off workers and going out of business.
The real and correct answer is that working men and women that have money to spend create the jobs, not small businesses.

Also, our big businesses are buying from and taking our jobs to overseas countries. That is the truth and it's not complicated.

republican diplomacy

These republicans think that the only way to deal with countries is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy. And it isn't likely to work in today's world.

New drug policy-reduce demand

The White House said yesterday that it will push for treatment, rather than incarceration, of people arrested for drug-related crimes as it announced the nomination of Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske to oversee the nation's effort to control illegal drugs. Well, it's about time.

Republican Idol

With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush Limbaugh, the leader of the Republican Party is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – the exact oposite of Barack Obama.

And those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we will be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Republican hypocrisy watch

Republicans need to be careful about opposing the budget that was created with and by them last year. Earmarks in excess of 40% of the total in the bill were inserted by REPUBLICANS so they could have it both ways as they knew it would pass. Talk about Republican hypocrisy.

Republican Uncle Tom

Michael Steele was suppossed to appear as a black face in the Republican Party but keep his mouth shut, so says Rush Limbaugh, now the Republican's driving force and leader. So what is the problem?

Well, Stelle also likes to talk and that is not what Limbaugh and his dittoheads wanted. They wanted what used to be called an "Uncle Tom" or a "house negro" and Michael Steele does not want to be known that way. Bravo for Michael Steele.

republican hypocrisy

Mark McKinnon, a top adviser in President George W. Bush's campaigns, acknowledged the value of picking a divisive opponent. "We used a similar strategy by making Michael Moore the face of the Democratic Party," he said of the documentary filmmaker. "That's why we gave him credentials to cover the 2004 convention and then turned the spotlight on him."

Republicans are hypocrites to complain too much about their "Boss Limbaugh" episode."

republicans afraid of Limbaugh

These Republicans are all afraid of Rush Limbaugh, including even Michael Steele the Chairman of the Republican National Committee who had to bow down and apologize for saying that Rush is just an entertainer after Rush chewed him out on his radio show.

So now for Republicans it is "all hail to Rush," the guy who had his maid go out on the street to buy illegally obtained drugs. How nice!

republicans redistributed wealth upward

The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade-long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.

After this moment's big spike -- necessary to get the economy moving -- federal spending will account for 22.8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product between 2010 and 2014, up from 21 percent in 2008.

Obama's opponents need to admit that increasing government's share of the economy by less than two percentage points is hardly a form of wild-eyed state socialism

And before the howling on the right gets too loud, consider that we have just gone through a long era involving a far less frank form of redistribution -- upward.

"Over the past two or three decades, the top 1 percent of Americans have experienced a dramatic increase from 10 percent to more than 20percent in the share of national income that's accruing to them," said Peter Orszag, Obama's budget director. Now, he said, was their time "to pitch in a bit more."