winning hearts and minds in Iraq

U.S. soldiers killed 26 people before dawn Saturday during raids in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The U.S. military said the dead were terrorists who had attacked American troops, but Iraqi police and officials said the victims were civilians. Over 100 US troops are killed in June.

update Iraq

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War On Iraq is 3571 and going up.

immigration

Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina joined 36 of her Republican colleagues, 15 Democrats and one independent in the Senate yesterday in squashing the last, best hope for now of overhauling the nation's bankrupt and busted immigration laws. At some point Congress will come to its senses, steady its nerves and recognize that unimpeachable reality. Mrs. Dole and her colleagues may think they killed immigration reform yesterday. In fact the problem will just keep coming back, bigger each time than the last.

conservative republican Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday overturned a nearly century-old ruling that prohibited manufacturers from dictating the minimum prices retailers must charge for their goods.

It also destroyed policies whereby education districts may attempt to balance schools racially, thereby in the long run restarting segregated schools.

Iraq stats

The number Of Iraqis slaughtered In America's War On Iraqis At Least 655,000. The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) In America's War on Iraq is now 3568.

Iraq 3560

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War on Iraq has jumped to 3560.

Cheney-the real power and villian

Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

Convinced that the “war on terror” required “robust interrogations” of captured suspects, Dick Cheney pressed the Bush administration to carve out exceptions to the Geneva Conventions.

Working behind the scenes, Dick Cheney has made himself the dominant voice on tax and spending policy, outmaneuvering rivals for the president’s ear.

Dick Cheney steered some of the Bush administration’s most important environmental decisions — easing air pollution controls, opening public parks to snowmobiles and diverting river water from threatened salmon.

Vice President Dick Cheney usually wields his considerable power behind the scenes and is often the last person to talk to the president before important decisions are made.

Bush=figurehead, Cheney= real power

Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.

Bush declared himself as the decider to cover up the fact that Cheney is really running our government. Very clever!

religion

Right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division. Faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart.

The Christian Coalition even determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich. What Bible are they reading?

These days religion appears to be about organization, control and power. Spirituality is about morality, tolerance and love; the true concerns of Jesus.

loss of our civil liberties

A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorism and espionage cases criticized yesterday President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Royce C. Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington and a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, speaking at the American Library Association's annual convention.

your and your children's money to Israel

Congress skillfully gives Israel at least $10 billion a year to expand its brutal occupation of Palestinian lands in a manner that hides the amount from taxpayers.

Congressional Research Service confirmed assessments made previously by American Free Press that blank-check aid to Israel costs taxpayers in excess of $10 billion a year. Because, in the age of deficits, the United States has to borrow the money it gives Israel in one chunk at the start of the fiscal year, taxpayers are paying interest on all the money given Israel for the entire year.

Because of the uncertainties and ambiguities associated with U.S. aid to Israel, arriving at a precise figure for total direct U.S. aid to Israel probably is not possible. Parts of it are buried in the budgets of other government agencies—mostly the Defense Department (DOD)—or in a form not easily quantifiable—such as the early disbursement of aid, allowing Israel a direct gain and the U.S. Treasury a direct loss of interest on the unspent money. Given these caveats, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) conservatively estimates cumulative total direct U.S. aid to Israel of at least $107.961 billion.

another Republican goof

The deployment of the US Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe is a de-facto declaration of war on the Russian Federation . As Russian President Putin said in a recent press conference, “If this missile system is put in place, it will work automatically with the entire nuclear capability of the United States . It will be an integral part of the US nuclear capability.” This will disrupt the current configuration of international security and force Russia to begin work on a new regime of tactical nuclear weapons. This is a very serious development. Russia will now have to rethink its current policy vis a vis the United States and develop a long-range strategy for fending off further hostile encroachments into former-Soviet states by NATO.

Already, in the last few months, Norway , Iran , Syria , UAE, Kuwait , and Venezuela have announced that they are either cutting back on their USD reserves or converting from the greenback to the euro or a “basket of currencies”. Dollar hegemony is at the very center of American power, and yet, the downturn is visible everywhere. If the dollar loses its place as the world’s “reserve currency”; the US will have to pay-down its monstrous current account deficit and live within its means. America will lose the ability to simply print fiat money and use it in exchange for valuable resources and manufactured goods. Putin is now openly challenging the monetary-system that provides the flow of oxygen to the American superpower.

republicans protect big oil

Senate Democrats also fell short of their own goals. In a victory for the oil industry, Republican lawmakers successfully blocked a crucial component of the Democratic plan that would have raised taxes on oil companies by about $32 billion and used the money on tax breaks for wind power, solar power, ethanol and other renewable fuels.

Republicans also blocked a provision of the legislation that would have required electric utilities to greatly increase the share of power they get from renewable sources o

Iraq 3545 today

3545, going up

Bush opens mouth AGAIN

Speaking with the teachers, Putin suggested the United States' use of atomic weapons against Japan at the end of World War II was worse than the abuses of Stalin. He also cited the U.S. bombing campaign and use the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

"We have not used nuclear weapons against a civilian population," he said. "We have not sprayed thousands of kilometers (miles) with chemicals, (or) dropped on a small country seven times more bombs than in all the Great Patriotic (War)" _ Russia's name for World War II.

His remarks came just over a week after President Bush unveiled a monument to the victims of communism in Washington. At the ceremony, Bush compared those totalitarian regimes to modern terror groups.

3531 in Iraq

Iraq 3531

our shame in Iraq

We are trying to buy off survivors of our killing in Iraq as though that somehow makes it right.

The Pentagon has set $2,500 as the highest individual sum that can be paid. Most death payments remain at that level, with a rough sliding scale of $1,000 for serious injury and $500 for property damage. Beginning in April of last year, payments of up to $10,000 were possible for "extraordinary cases" but only with a division commander's authorization.

For example, two members of the same family are killed in a car hit by U.S. forces. The family could receive a maximum of $7,500 in condolence payments ($2,500 for each death and up to $2,500 for vehicle damage).

upsate Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War on Iraq now totals 3519 and continues in its fifth year, not including our wounded, and all the Iraqui dead and wounded.

republicans violate the law

President Bush has asserted that he is not bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes. The administration is thumbing its nose at the law.

republicans don't follow the law

Read today: "It is troubling that so many senior White House officials, including Karl Rove and his former deputy Sara Taylor, were engaging in an effort to avoid oversight and accountability by ignoring the laws meant to ensure a public record of official government business," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "This extensive end run around the laws leads one to wonder what these officials wanted to hide from the public and Congress."

our mercenaries in Iraq

Private security companies(mercenaries), funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq,
enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have beenunderreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies,out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said.

The industry's enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the up to 30,000 contractors (mercenaries) to offset chronic troop shortages. Private Army mercenary companies
include: Falcon Security, Agility, Granite Tactical Vehicle, ArmorGroup International, Public Warehousing Co, Hart Security, and Blackwater USA, to name just a few.

The U.S. military has never released complete statistics on contractor(mercenary) casualties.The majority of the more than 100 security companies (mercenaries) operate outside of Iraqi law.

brainwashed

The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons
at the target audience .

All of us are involved in enabling the whole U.S. military empire building plan. It is about corporate domination. Bush is just the front man for the big money. By keeping our collective military boot on the necks of the people of the world we get control of a higher percentage of the world's resources. We, 5% of the global population in the U.S., use 25% of the global resource base.

Learn to read again. Many of us don't read enough. We spend our time in front of the TV, which is a primary tool that the power structure uses to brainwash us. We've got to become
independent thinkers again and teach our kids to think for themselves. Reading and talking to others is a key. Read more history. All the answers and lessons can be found there.

what Republicans say is not what they do

The Bush administration and military leaders in Washington are always claiming that they will do anything to support American troops fighting in Iraq. That makes it all the more infuriating to
learn that,for more than two years, they largely ignored urgent requests from field commanders for better armor-protected vehicles that could have saved untold lives and limbs.

Improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, can blast through the flat underbelly of the military's standard Humvees, maiming and killing the soldiers within. These devices, a low-tech response to America's overwhelming military power, are now causing 70 percent to 80 percent of the American combat deaths in Iraq.

More than two years ago, according to newly disclosed documents, Marine commanders in Al Anbar Province, a center of the Sunni insurgency, submitted an urgent request for more than 1,100 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, or MRAPs, that have V-shaped bottoms able to deflect blasts from below. They sat on the request and then ordered relatively few.

Yet all you hear from these Republicans is "Support the troops."

another republican goof

The strategy of dividing moderate Palestinians from the extremists -- which was the core of Bush's strategy--- proved ineffective and may have led to the dilemma facing the administration today.

The less we try to intervene and shape Palestinian politics, the better off we will be. Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged."

which candidate is this?

Some are working for universal health care, so we never again have to worry about our families getting the care they deserve. Some are working to stop global warming, so that our legacy for our children is not global catastrophe. Others are working to end the war in Iraq, so we can bring our loved ones home and once again offer moral leadership to the world. And still others are working to end the injustice of poverty in America. Because in our America, opportunity should be more than a dream.

Iraq, the quagmire

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War on Iraq now totals 3513, and over 25,000 wounded, not counting Iraqi civilians. The cost is over $434 BILLION., WHICH IS being passed on to our children---NO END IS SIGHT WITH THESE REPUBLICANS.

FBI abuses

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial
transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling

how Republicans gorvern

President Bush yesterday tapped veteran GOP strategist and lobbyist Edward W. Gillespie as White House counselor, adding another Washington insider to a key position in his administration as it continues to battle with Congress over Iraq, the Justice Department
and immigration.

Opensecrets.org reported that Quinn Gillespie had income of $16.8 million from lobbying during 2006, including $320,000 from the American Hospital Association, $360,000 from AT&T and $600,000 from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Some of the firm's clients have major decisions pending before federal regulatory bodies and other government institutions.DaimlerChrysler, for instance, is worried about moves to raise fuel-efficiency standards, while XM Satellite Radio is looking for approval of its proposed merger with Sirius

bush 2

The arrival of Bush's former advisers has put an unofficial White House stamp of approval on McCain's effort, at a time when the Iraq war has rendered that a decidedly mixed blessing.

Despite the animosity of their 2000 clash, McCain has emerged as the president's biggest backer on the season's two highest-profile issues: the war and the immigration compromise that all but collapsed in the Senate last week.

another Republican scandal

The U.S. special counsel has called on President Bush to discipline General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan "to the fullest extent" for violating the federal Hatch Act when she allegedly asked political appointees how they could "help our candidates" during a January meeting.

In a June 8 letter to Bush, Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch accused Doan of "engaging in the most pernicious of political activity" during a Jan. 26 lunch briefing involving 36 GSA political appointees and featuring a PowerPoint presentation about the November elections by the White House's deputy director of political affairs.

another Republican scandal

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law.

Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

think immigration

In the late 19th century, rich countries had incomes about 10 times greater than the poorest ones.
Today’s ratio is about 50 to 1.

The key to breaking the political deadlock is to ensure that
the migrants go home, which is why they should remain temporary workers ( About 7 percent of the rich world’s jobs are held by people from developing countries.

For starters, the poor should get another 3 percent, or 16 million guest-worker jobs — 3 million in the U.S.

They would stay three to five years, with no path to citizenship, and work in fields with certified labor shortages. We could ensure that most receiving countries would not allow them to bring families.

Taxpayers would be spared from educating the migrants’ kids. Domestic workers would gain some protection through the certification process. And a revolving labor pool would reach
more of the world’s poor.

Guest work the only way to accommodate large numbers. To insist that migrants have a right to citizenship and family unification, he says, is to let men in the rest of the world go hungry. It is cruel to be kind. The choice is theirs.

Let the poor decide. Letting guest workers in America doesn’t create an underclass.. It moves an underclass and makes the underclass better off. Rich countries have jobs. Poor people need work.

killed in Iraq

3504 and accelerating.

these republicans

Arkansas GOP head: "We need more 'attacks on American soil' so people appreciate Bush." These republicans have no limits and have no shame.

deaths jump in Iraq

The total number of our U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War on Iraq jumped to 3,495 with May being the third highest ever with 132, not counting civilians, mercenaries (approx 120,000),nor all the wounded.

Facts about Iraq

On Aug. 13, 2002, the CIA completed a classified, six-page intelligence analysis that described the worst scenarios that could arise after a U.S.-led removal of Saddam Hussein: anarchy and territorial breakup in Iraq, a surge of global terrorism, and a deepening of Islamic antipathy toward the United States.

Titled "The Perfect Storm: Planning for Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq," the paper,written seven months before the war began, also speculated about al-Qaeda operatives taking
"advantage of a destabilized Iraq to establish secure safe havens from which they can continue their operations," according to a report about prewar intelligence recently released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In the "Perfect Storm" paper, CIA analysts offered what they described as "near-term tactical moves" that the administration could make to minimize the worst-case scenarios that the report
presented. Among them were taking "concrete diplomatic steps toward Arab-Israeli peace" and providing "back-channel assurances to Tehran on the duration and extent of U.S. force deployments" -- actions that were not taken.

no more republicans

read today: I want a president who reads newspapers, who reads books other than those that confirm his worldview, who bones up on Persian history before deciding how to deal with Iran's ambitious dreams of glory. I want a president who understands the relationship between energy policy at home and U.S. interests in the Middle East -- and who's smart enough to form his or her own opinions, not just rely on what old friends in the oil business say.

Actually, I want a president smart enough to know a good deal about science. He or she doesn't have to be able to do the math, but I want a president who knows that the great theories underpinning our understanding of the universe--general relativity and quantum mechanics -- have stood for nearly acentury and proved stunningly accurate, even though they describe a world that is more shimmer than substance. I want him or her to know that there's a lot we still don't know.

I want the next president to be intellectually curious -- and also intellectually honest. I want him or her to understand the details, not just the big picture.I won't complain if the next president occasionally uses a word I have to look up.

update Iraq

Read today: Americans might be honoring the dead from U.S. wars, but in no case did any of those dead whom we memorialize today die for "our freedom." They died, instead, because our political classes pointedly understand that promoting war is good for them.

3,464 not counting mercenaries, wounded and killed or wounded Iraqi civilians.

Republicans continue to lie

In defending the Iraq war, leading Republican presidential contenders are increasingly echoing words and phrases used by President Bush in the run-up to the war that reinforce the misleading impression that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Iraq =3,455 killed and counting

we trusted these Republicans

Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs, the indications that we had a rogue administration determined to use 9/11 as an excuse for war, were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning — even before Mr. Bush began explicitly pushing for war with Iraq. We trusted these Republicans.

In fact, the very first time Mr. Bush declared a war on terror that “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” people should have realized that he was going to use the terrorist attack to justify anything and everything. But, we trusted these Republicans.

When he used his first post-attack State of the Union to denounce an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries that had nothing to do either with 9/11 or with each other, alarm bells should have gone off. But, we still trusted these Republicans.

The question was whether the public would ever catch on. Well, to the immense relief of those who spent years trying to get the truth out, they did. Last November Americans voted overwhelmingly to bring an end to Mr. Bush’s war. Yet the war goes on.

mercenaries in Iraq

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors (mercenaries)and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq,

Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, described the ministry as "a powder keg" after the Iraqi driver was shot Thursday, with anger at Blackwater spilling over to other Americans working in the building. We have about 30,000 mercenaries operating in Iraq.

republicans did it anyway

Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.

The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war. But the neocon republicans did it anyway.

our mercenaries in Iraq

In the case of Blackwater Security Consulting, their contact releases the company from "any liability whatsoever" even if it is "the result of negligence, gross negligence, omissionsor failure to guard or warn against dangerous conditions."

The risks are considerable: the latest government figures say 916 civilian contractors (mercenaries)have been killed from the beginning of the war in Iraq in March, 2003 to April 30, 2007.

Iraq 3434

3,434 and the Pentagon is considering maintaining a core group of forces in Iraq, possibly for decades.

US wages declining

Today, American workers' take-home pay represents a smaller share of the nation's total income than at any time in the last forty years. At the same time, corporate profits as a share of national income are at an all-time high.

3422

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War on Iraq continues at 3,422.

a Republican quagmire and oil

Most U.S. soldiers interviewed by NEWSWEEK have long since stopped insisting that their greatest mission is to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. More and more, they talk about their desire to simply protect their buddies, and to get everyone home alive.

We are not winning new friends in Iraq. "We hate Al Qaeda," said Salman Awda, a 55-year-old tractor driver.
"But we hate the American troops more." This is what the
republicans got us into and insist on with no end in sight.

Since they can't win in Iraq, they are now trying to enlarge it to Iran since non who are making decisions are over there fighting. I wonder if their being heavily invested in oil has anything to do with it?

more republican scandals

Partial list of republican scandals:
Paul Wolfowitz in the World Bank With Nepotism.
Federal Employees in the Department of Education With
Corporate Ties.
Bushies in the Election Assistance Commission With Fraud.
Partisan Hacks in the Press With Bought Agendas.
Bernard Kerik in the Department of Homeland Security With the
Nanny and the Publisher and the Mob.
Karl Rove in the White House With the Delete Key.
Lester Crawford in the Food and Drug Administration With Tainted
Stocks.
Bushies in NASA With the Weird Science.
The GOP Leadership in Congress With Dirty Money.
Abu Ghraib
Eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency With the Wiretaps.
Bureaucrats at Walter Reed With Cockroachesack Abramoff on K
Street With the Wallet.
Steven Griles in the Department of the Interior
With the "Special Relationship".
Scooter Libby in the White House With the Faulty Memory.Alberto Gonzales in the Justice Department With the Pink Slips
John Doolittle in Congress With the Campaign Donations
Mark Foley in Congress With the Instant Messages.
Halliburton in Iraq With the Defense Contracts.
Tom DeLay in Congress With the Corporate Funds.
Randall Tobias in the Massage Parlor With Scented Oils.
Rick Renzi in Congress With the Land Deal.
Duke Cunningham in Congress With the Candlestick.
Dusty Foggo in the CIA With the Bribes

Iraq update

Admitted is now 3,442.

puppets want US to leave

The governments of Afghanistan and Iraq have indicated quite clearly that they want the United States to leave their countries. In Afghanistan, NATO cannot defeat the Taliban, and only makes matters worse by the indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians.

Republicans invaded Iraq anyway

Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials familiar with the prewar studies.

British to leave Iraq

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War On Iraq is 3,422 and counting, not countintg wounded, contractors/mercenaries and civilians.

GORDON Brown will remove all British forces from Iraq before the next election under a plan to rebuild support among disillusioned Labour voters. The Prime Minister elect is working on a withdrawal plan that could see troop numbers slashed from 7,000 to as few as 2,000 within 12 months.

Bush at the ranch

Since becoming president, Bush has made 64 visits here, spending all or part of 413 days of his presidency at his ranch, according to the White House. He was enjoying a month-long stretch at his ranch in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck, devastating the Gulf Coast.

An encampment is there with a cluster of double-wide mobile homes, adjacent to the president's 1,600-acre ranch,where a handful of traveling White House staffers, Secret Service agents and communications staff both work and sleep during Bush's stays here.
There are also bunkers and other facilities that were built for Bush.

Bush also regularly hosts foreign dignitaries at his ranch, which he sees as a valuable diplomatic tool and it's all tax deductible which means that we pay for it.

Republicans fail food safety

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Juices and fruits rejected as "filthy. Prunes tinted with chemical dyes not approved for human consumption. Frozen breaded shrimp preserved with nitrofuran, an antibacterial that can cause cancer. Swordfish rejected as "poisonous."

These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers
the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

Corporations and the federal government seem willing to put the interests of business "above the public welfare." Under the Bush administration in particular, DeWaal said,if a proposed regulation does get past agency or department heads, it hits the wall at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Gonzales, a Bushie

An aide to Ashcroft tipped Comey off that White House legal counsel Gonzales and chief of staff Andrew Card were headed to Ashcroft's hospital to get him to sign it. Comey rushed to the darkened room, where he briefed the barely conscious Ashcroft. Gonzales and Card entered minutes later, demanding that Ashcroft comply.

He refused, pointing to Comey, saying he was the attorney general. "I was angry. I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man," Comey testified.

Gonzales and Card then summoned Comey to the White House, where they attempted to intimidate him by telling him that Vice President Dick Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, were in favor of the reauthorization. Comey still refused. And the program went forward without the legal justice department approval.

Comey and other high justice department officials prepared their resignation letters. The next day, having heard about the planned mass resignations, President Bush met alone with Comey, who briefed him on what needed to be done to bring the program under the law.

Several weeks later Comey signed the authorization for a legal program. But during that period it was conducted outside the law.

Then, after Bush's reelection, Ashcroft was not reappointed. In his place Bush sent a new name to the Senate for confirmation - Alberto Gonzales. Every position he had held was the result of his undying loyalty to Bush.

The confrontation in Ashcroft's hospital room had been a turning point in his rise. Comey, who Bush privately derided as "Cuomo", quit.

In his confirmation hearing before the senate judiciary committee, Gonzales was asked about domestic surveillance, and he blithely misled the senators, acting as if he would always uphold the existing law, even though he had pressured Ashcroft and Comey to approve the illegal program

Iraqi secrets

It is estimated that total number of contractors (mercenaries) killed in Iraq is at least 917, along with more than 12,000 wounded
in battle or injured on the job, according to government figures and dozens of interviews.

The new contractor statistics suggest that for every four American soldiers or marines who die in Iraq,a contractor is killed. The contractor casualties were a symptom of a larger failure to send enough troops earlier to provide security throughout Iraq.

The military releases names and biographical information about its wartime casualties, but businesses are not required to provide such information, and the Labor Department refuses to do so,
They don't want us to know.

worth repeating on Iran and Iraq

Why would anyone hate us? The problem is that the military wing of the US government is very different from your neighborhood. After the Soviet Union crashed, US elites declared themselves masters of the universe,the only "indispensable nation" and the like.

All countries must ask the US for permission to have a nuclear program. If we don't like your government, we can overthrow it.

Meanwhile, we sought a global empire unlike any in history: not just a sphere of interest but the entire world. Laurence Vance has the details but here is the bottom line: one-third of a million deployed troops in 134 countries in 1000 locations in foreign countries.

All during the 1990s, the US attempted to starve the population of Iraq, with the result of hundreds of thousands of deaths. Madelyn Albright said on national television that the deaths of 500,000 children (the UN's number) was "worth it" in order to achieve our aims,which were ostensibly the elimination of non-existent, non-US built weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, that annoyed a few people. There were constant bombings in Iraq all these years. And let us not forget how all this nonsense began: the first war in 1991 was waged in retaliation for a US-approved Iraqi invasion of its former province, Kuwait. Saddam had good reasonto think that the US ambassador was telling the truth about non-interference with Kuwait relations. Saddam was our ally all through the Iran-Iraq war and before.

The enemy we are now fighting, the Islamic extremists, are the very group that we supported and subsidized all through the 1980s in the name of fighting Communism. That's the reason the US knows so much about their bunkers and hiding spots in Afghanistan. US taxdollars created them.

republican mess in Iraq

The point that libertarians have been trying to hammer home for many yearsis that the US government under these republicans has become the enemy of the American people and their values. It is not peaceful, it is not friendly, it is not motivated by the Christian faith, but rather power and imperial lust.

We invaded their country, Iraq, based on lies. The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War On Iraq continues at 3,403, not counting our wounded, our mercenaries or the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and wounded in their country.

last word on Falwell

Jerry Falwell’s professional life and his record speaks for itself.

March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals” on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.” When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened,Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,” but rather an “honest portrayal” of Carter’s position.

August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers
the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.” After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “God hears the prayers of all persons…. God hears everything.”

July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle.During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan
Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.” When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did so,
Falwell refused to pay and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.

October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.

February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell for “emotional distress” he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice William H.Rehnquist,usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v.
Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech.

February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour program were illegally funneled to a political campaign. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s
tax-exempt status for 1986-87.

March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a “Christian nation,” Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”

1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group
called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”

November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes.

April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.

January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”

February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay.

September 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say,‘You helped this happen.’”

November 2005: Falwell spearheads campaign to resist “war on Christmas.”

February 2007: Falwell describes global warming as a conspiracy orchestrated by Satan,liberals, and The Weather Channel.

Spirituality is about morality and ethics. Religion has become about power and institutions. Forgive me if I don’t cry.

the real Falwell

He said at an evangelical conference that the antichrist was a male Jew alive in the world today. He later apologized for his remarks but not for holding the belief.

He warned parents that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's TV show "Teletubbies," was a gay role model .On "60 Minutes" he labeled Muhammad a terrorist. He expressed racist views.

Perhaps his most provocative came Sept. 13, 2001, when he appeared on "The 700 Club," the Rev. Pat Robertson's TV show, and blamed pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, the ACLU and others for Sept. 11, 2001."I point the finger in their face and say,'You helped this happen,' " he said.

To Falwell, religion was about political influence and power.

republican war update

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq now totals 3,401 not counting US mercenaries, civilians,the wounded or the war on terror.

war mongers vs. Iraq

The republican war mongers belittle those who speak out against the war, saying that we are emboldening the enemy. Reading between the lines, freedom of speech is treasonous if you question the motives and actions of those who got us involved in the Iraq war. We can only wish that there had been more “good Germans” speaking out about the policies of Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust became reality.

The number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War On Iraq is 3,386 and continuing in the fifth year with no end in sight, not counting mercenaries (contractors), our wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

another Republican failure

Republican failures just keep coming:
The Bush administration's top education official admitted on Thursday that the U.S. college financial aid system is broken.
With scandal sweeping through the $85-billion student loan business, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told a congressional panel there is a desperate need for change.

Committee chairman George Miller grilled Spellings at a hearing about what he said was chronic inaction by her agency.
"The U.S. Department of Education has been conspicuously missing in action," said the California Democrat.

Republican war

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America's War On Iraq is now 3,381, not including military wounded, private contractors (mercenaries) and all the Iraqi civilians that have been killed.

republicans failed again

The tainted Chinese ingredient that was incorporated into U.S. pet food and later made its way into chicken and pig feed was neither wheat gluten nor rice protein as advertised, but was seriously contaminated wheat flour,government investigators said yesterday.

Moreover, officials said, some of that contaminated flour, mislabeled as gluten,was mixed into fish food in Canada and exported to the United States,where it was fed to fish raised for human consumption. Republicans have failed toprotect our food supply.

republicans credit card war

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved more
than $609 billion for the wars, a figure likely to stand as lawmakers rework their latest spending bill in response to a Bush veto. Requests for $145 billion more await congressional action and would raise the cost in inflation-adjusted dollars beyond the cost of the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
This time, the war bill is going directly on the nation's credit card. They even cut taxes on the wealthy, which adds even more to the ballooning national debt.

Like all debts, however, the bill for this republican war on Iraq will eventually come due. Economists foresee substantial increases in government spending to rebuild the nation's exhausted armed forces, care for its disabled veterans and cover rising interest payments.

boycot Chinese products

Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine made in China — cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs — a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products., some of which are making their way into the US.
The Chinese government is not prosecuting those responsible. Don't buy anything from China until their government ensures that their products are safe, and they prosecute their violators.

update Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in Republican America'sWar On Iraq is 3,333, not counting mercenaries, the wounded and civilians.

Christian Taliban

Can you imagine a contingent of religious zealots, with their contempt for secular values (and such manifestations of secular order as the U.S. Constitution) - and with their zest for holy war - in control of our Defense Department which is the most potent fighting force with its weaponry in human history?

who controls government

Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute.

why no Iraq exit plan?

For all the talk about timetables and benchmarks, one might think that the United States will end the military occupation of Iraq within the lifetimes of the readers of this opinion editorial. Think again.

There is to be no withdrawal from Iraq, just as there has been no withdrawal from hundreds of places around the world that are outposts of the American empire.

As UC San Diego professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson put it, "One of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq is that we didn't intend to leave." The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security."

In order to secure favorable access to Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.

new total for Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America'sWar on Iraq is now 3,351, not including mercenaries, civilians or wounded.

Tenet tells on Cheney, et al

White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet.

another Republican Scandal

Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said.
Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service.

spirituality vs religion

Spirituality is about ethics and morality; organized religion is about power. Worse, religion connected with government is about power without accountability.

republicans making us weaker

Does the President and wannabe McCain think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.

Of course, nothing about our being "over there" in any way prevents terrorists from coming here. Quite the opposite, the evidence is overwhelming that our presence provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.

Some 100,000 Iraqis, probably more, have been killed since our invasion. They have parents, children, cousins and fellow tribal clan members who have pledged revenge no matter how long it takes. For many, that revenge is focused on America.

At the same time, investing time, energy and resources in Iraq takes our eye off two far more urgent tasks at hand:
one, guarding the homeland against terrorism much better than the pork-dispensing Department of Homeland Security currently does the job;
and two, systematically dismantling Al Qaeda all over the world, from Canada to Asia to Africa. On both these fronts, the Bush administration's focus is sorely lacking.

Republican attack dogs fall flat

First, there was the G.O.P.-incited flare-up over Ms. Pelosi’s request for a military jet to transport her from Washington to her home district in California—the same service that had been provided to her Republican predecessor, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, for the previous five years.

The Republican National Committee, The Washington Times, the Drudge Report and a small army of Congressional Republicans fanned out to claim that Ms. Pelosi was simply trying to live like a queen at the taxpayers’ expense.

The story riled up elements of the G.O.P. base, but it quickly fell apart when—rather inconveniently—it came to light that Ms. Pelosi had made the request on the advice of the Pentagon and with Mr. Bush’s blessing, and that she also offered to simply fly commercial if the arrangement would be too complicated.

Then there was the Speaker’s recent trip to Syria, aggressively decried by the same chorus. Again, never mind that Republican members of Congress had taken identical trips in the preceding weeks and months, or that Ms. Pelosi’s own delegation included a Republican House member, David Hobson of Ohio.

At the tail end of her trip, her critics even stirred up chatter that Ms. Pelosi would next head to Iran—something she quickly put the kibosh on, though not before the massively influential Drudge Report gave it some play. They lie and lie until some people believe them.

human cost of Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America'sWar on Iraq is 3,332 and is growing faster, not counting the "contractors/mercenaries", or the wounded or any civilians.

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq is 3,323 and growing.

McCain

To this ‘hero’ of the Vietnam War, the White House means not only prolonging the Iraq war and the death of more Americans and slaughter of Iraqis, which he has strongly endorsed , but also the genocide of innocent Iranians. Given that he is lagging behind in fundraising, it comes as no surprise that he should target Iran, lie about Iran’s aspirations to destroy Israel, and hope to receive AIPAC’s blessings and be bank-rolled by them. No doubt, in spite of inciting mass murder, the mainstream media will boost his popularity with the backing of AIPAC, and he will be the frontrunner for the 2008 Republican elections - the war hero who learned nothing from Vietnam and the killing massacre that went on there.

food contamination

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food leading to people dying and getting sick, and leading to an unprecedented recalling of food products. Republicans do not like regulation of owners, they do not like spending money except in Iraq because it doesn't benefit owners, and they have a hostility toward government. The poisonous result is that a program like the FDA is going to suffer at every turn of the road,"

more republican scandals?

Removing Federal Prosecutors puts pressure on the others to drop investigations of Republicans. New scandals are brewing.

Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Calif.), under investigation by the FBI for a series of land deals, is now facing Democratic ads alleging that he lied about a land sale that he declined to pay taxes on.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) still faces FBI scrutiny of his work as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and this month, his campaign filings showed that he has racked up $892,951.69 in legal fees since July.

And for the first time, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) reported significant legal fees -- $15,620.60 -- in his campaign filing this month, as he tries to stave off accusations that he used taxpayer-funded congressional staff and resources to do political work.

"winning hearts and minds" in Iraq

Excerpts from Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell's report on the Haditha incident (the killing of innocents).
Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes.

These comments had the potential to desensitize the Marines to concern for the Iraqi populace and portray them all as the enemy even if they are noncombatants.
Yet the Military says we cannot win in Iraq without winning the "hearts and mind" of the people.

and another republican scandal

The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

Doherty, one of the two Education Department employees who oversaw the initiative, acknowledged yesterday that his wife had worked for a decade as a paid consultant for a reading program, Direct Instruction, that investigators said he improperly tried to force schools to use. He repeatedly failed to disclose the conflict on financial disclosure forms.

another neocon republican scandal

The World Bank's board on Friday delayed a final decision on bank chief Paul Wolfowitz's role in a promotion he arranged for his girlfriend and referred some issues to a committee for further investigation.

update Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq is 3,315, not including "conractors" and civilians,as is continuing.

USA like Germany?

What no one seemed to notice. . . was the ever widening gap. . .between the government and the people. . . And it became always wider. . . the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . . (it) gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated . . . by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . .From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45

they are not civilized

The civilized republicans have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement. They rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death.

These people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the conscience' of the civilized world. [3304 sacrificed (officially acknowledged) to date in Iraq.]

the religious right

The evangelical Christian movement conjures up a very negative picture is of a narrow, bigoted collection of pious people who wish to impose their politics and religion on the United States.

It is reinforced by the likes of James Dobson, an influential religious leader who recently pronounced a Republican presidential hopeful, Fred Thompson, as insufficiently Christian.

Warren's church draws more than 20,000 worshipers each Sunday, has a $30 million budget and his global offshoots are mushrooming. Dobson's Focus on the Family organization in Colorado publishes books, magazines and weekly newspaper columns and has a radio show.

Their approaches to American political and social life could not be more different.
Warren, to the consternation of some anti-abortionists on the religious right, invited Senator Barack Obama, Democratic of Illinois and a presidential candidate, to his church to talk about their mutual efforts to battle AIDS and world poverty. Warren is the establishment's favorite evangelical leader, comfortable going to Harvard and the Aspen Institute to preach about Jesus and tolerance.

"Dobson thrives on a role as a political kingmaker" said Charles Kimball, a religion professor at Wake Forest University, in North Carolina. And Dobson is willing to use almost any tactic, however incendiary and divisive. On his radio programs, publications and speeches, his favorite targets are gay civil unions, which Dobson would have you believe threaten the fabric of a moral society.

Dobson deeply immerses himself in Republican Party politics. He was part of a regular conference call with White House operatives during the 2004 campaign and was consulted by Karl Rove, the Bush adviser, before the nomination of two Supreme Court justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He has a close working relationship with a former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich.

Warren, though less political, resembles the Billy Graham, an evangelical minister, of an earlier generation. Graham drew the ire of fundamentalists in the 1960s by reaching across ecumenical and racial lines in his crusades.

Dobson is following in the footsteps of two preachers, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the Batman and Robin of the religious right who have long traded on fear mongering and personal invective.

Ralph Reed, a creative religious-right political operative, once noted the movement succeeded by flying below the radar. Its leaders could rally the faithful without alienating the larger population.

That worked until they overreached. Reed, a victim of personal greed, was ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and rejected as a political candidate in his home state of Georgia.

Then there was the Terri Schiavo case, where the religious right browbeat the U.S. Congress into intervening, under false pretenses, to try to force the authorities to keep alive a brain-dead woman. Much of the American public was appalled. It was a turning point.

Republican 2008 candidates beware: It is going to be a lot harder to fly below the radar screen especially if you are traveling with Jim Dobson.

racism

Being an old white guy myself, I am always amazed and saddened when old white guys come to the defense of white guys who spew racist downers toward people of other races.

It goes to prove that racism is still alive and well in our country and will destroy it unless we quit trying to protect these nitwits

another Republican Scandal

World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday.

Wolfowitz joined the bank in 2005 after working at the Pentagon, where as the neocon republican deputy defense secretary, he was a principal architect of the Iraq war.

winning hearts and minds

A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed or wounded by Marines in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians.

update Iraq

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America'sWar on Iraq continues to average about 3 a day and now totals 3,299.

if you join the military?

The decision to extend Army tours is a further buildup of a war that has no end in sight. The republican failed strategy in Iraq continues to stress U.S. forces to the breaking point.

Senior Army leaders have said it is approaching the breaking point. Military soldiers are were extended again and again and again, so finally no one believes them, Also if you join the military, you may not be able to get out when your term is up.

war without end

Number of U.S. Military Personnel sacrificed (officially acknowledged) in America'sWar On Iraq is 3,282 and couting in the republican war without end that they started based on lies and manipulation.

a republican blunder

The invasion of Iraq was the biggest diplomatic blunder in the history of the United States. It is not worth the fight. The invasion of Iraq has brought on Civil War and genocide there and has placed the US troops in a meaningless meat grinder.

While we waste out blood and money in Iraq the terrorists are growing, the influence of the US is dwindling and our actual enemies are growing stronger. The War in Iraq has divided our allies and unified our enemies.

There is no historical evidence that setting a timetable for troop withdrawal will embolden the insurgents, the history of insurgencies proves this. The Irish were willing to wait for 750 years, the Spanish waited for 700 years and the Hindis waited for 1100 years. The Bush Administration has placed OUR foreign diplomatic future in the hands of the Iraqi Arabs who hate our guts.

war on or is?

Today's slogan, war on terrorism, reverses its true meaning. The US war on Iraq is based on lies making in unjustified, thus this WAR IS TERROISM.

republicans wanted war on Iraq

Just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz dashed off a memo to a senior Pentagon colleague, demanding action to identify connections between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda.
Wolfowitz's memo, released Thursday, is included in a recently declassified report by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The memo marked the first days of what would become a controversial, yearlong Pentagon project (Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense) to convince the most senior levels of the Bush administration that Hussein and al Qaeda were linked -- a conclusion that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and discredited in the years since.

same republican lie again

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his LIES of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

The Sept. 11 Commission's 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network during that period.

THEY TELL THE SAME LIES OVER AND OVER SO SOME WILL BELIEVE.

mispoke means lied

A local hospital source and a resident said six people, including two children and a woman, were killed in the missile strike on a home in the centre of the city, 110 miles south of Baghdad.

A former captain in the Scots Guards who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq describes both operations as troops are dying in Iraq for a 'doomed project' and a political and military shambles in a book to be published next week. 3275 SACRIFICED AND INCREASING.

U.S. Senator John McCain said in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday he misspoke in his recent upbeat comments about security in Baghdad, where he traveled under heavy military protection. Did you notice that when these republicans lie and they get caught in it, they always say they "misspoke"?