Your federal agencies unsupervised.

Booman at Booman Tribune:

On October 22, 1975, the Ambassador to Iran and former Director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms, testified before the Church Committee. The Chairman, Frank Church (D-ID), wanted to know why the CIA had been opening American citizen's mail since the mid-1950's without a warrant. I fully expect that George Tenet, Michael Hayden, and John McLaughlin will have to give similar testimony before a future Congressional inquiry. Here's a trip down memory lane and a look inside the mind of the old CIA. Richard Helms knew more about the secrets of the CIA than any other living man. He was convicted of lying to Congress about the 1973 coup in Chile.

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Remember? Some time ago I mused about 200K troops at the end of a Long supply line?

That was here.

The latest good news is that the insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining(!)

Read Maha at The Mahablog.

Then there's this from the AP.

And this from No Quarter.

Don't know about you but I'm afraid of what news I might wake up to some morning, not too long from now...

When some right-wing yo-yo tells you it's gettin better in Iraq, try these headlines on them.

The lie is that Baghdad is no more dangerous than any large American city. So, ask this same person ask them if they'd like to fly in to Baghdad, take a taxi downtown, (no escort of course) and have dinner?

clammyc at Booman Tribune

Six Boston Catholics Burned Alive After Leaving Church

No, that didn’t happen.

But what would the reaction be around this country if that was the headline they woke up to today? And I didn’t mean to pick on Boston (especially since they already suffer enough with the Red Sawx) or on Catholics – it could just as easily have been Chicago or Detroit or Nashville or San Diego and it could just as easily have been Jews or Muslims or anyone else for that matter. And with everyone too preoccupied with the holiday shopping bonanza, it makes you wonder how many people even care about the living hell that this administration has created in Iraq.

The situation, if you can still call it that, in Iraq has reached a point that even our vaunted “fourth estate” is covering the horrors that have gone on over the past couple of days. And it certainly doesn’t help when statements like "Philadelphia is just as dangerous as Baghdad" or that "Iraq has a lower civilian death rate than Washington DC" are being taken at face value.

So, let’s play that game. How would the following story play out if it were reported on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer?

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Subverting Science Class: Exxoning Science Teachers

Steven D at Booman Tribune:

[...]I'm not talking about that idiotic Senator Inhofe who thinks global warming is a hoax perpetrated by evil, liberal, atheistic scientists trying to fraudulently obtain grant monies from the government. He's merely laughable.

No, I'm talking about a development that is much more insidious and disturbing -- the Exxoning of America's Science Teachers (from Laurie David's op-ed in The Washington Post):

At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.

The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.

The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

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Dubya's such a stand up guy...

Is there ANYTHING true about the crap the GOP used to sell that bar of soap , George W. Bush?
A uniter not a devider.
Not a nationbuilder.
A compassionate conservative. (Or for that matter, a conservative!)
A stand-up kinda' guy.
I could go on and on...

But now he 's now made baby Dick cry.
Political Wire:

The latest Evans-Novak Political Report suggests the way President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld caused considerable friction in the White House. "Even Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be profoundly disturbed by Rumsfeld's treatment."

Key points:

"On the day after the election, Rumsfeld had seemed devastated -- the familiar confident grin gone and his voice breaking. According to Bush Administration officials, only three or four people knew he would be fired -- and Rumsfeld was not one of them."

Novak also suggests Bush's "shrouded decision" came after he declared Rumsfeld would serve out the second term. "It fits a pattern of a President who is secretive and impersonal."

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He's also caused a lot of mental anguish for Novakula, who sees the Rumsfeld firing as a Bad Omen. Must be a Bad Moon Rising...

When you think about it, this is a HOOT!

James Wolcott

Help Buy Johnny New Shoes (Updated and Improved)

Me seen some pretty perthetic things in my many years here on the blogdeck, but nothing as lame-o as the Pajamas Media fund drive to keep "Joltin'" John Bolton at the UN. Claudia Rosett's bright idea:

If Congress is absolutely determined to reject the best UN ambassador the world has seen in about a quarter of a century--John Bolton--then the only alternative if President Bush wants to keep him is another recess appointment. For that, Bolton would have to work without pay. It???s enough to make a person want to suggest that if you really care about trying to do some good in the world via the UN, stop sending your kids out to collect for UNICEF, and start sending them out to collect donations to keep John Bolton in office.

[snip]

So, in the interest of fighting fire with fire, I wonder if anyone will start a campaign to scrap the UNICEF cans (they are not all about feedling wide-eyed children; they double-billed and padded their budgets in Iraq), and start collecting for Bolton.

I can't think of a better way to make the U.S. the world's laughingstock than to have a blog-supported UN representative who can't clear Congress, but needless to say the JM nitwits are ready to roll up their flannel sleeves and pitch in, with a blogger named AskMom offering to provide the shoebox to hold donations. "It would be an honor given that I admire Bolton as much as I detest Pelosi, and that is a very great deal indeed."

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109th Congress Republicans to the rest of us - F**k you. We're takin' our marbles an' goin' home.

Talking Points Memo:

Pretty amazing stuff. And it seems like it's being treated with a near total media blackout. Stung by the voters' rebuke, the out-going Republican Congress has decided to close its doors without doing it's mandated job, finishing the budget bills for next year. By all rights they should send back their paychecks too.

From the AP ...

Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills.

More from Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly

REPUBLICANS PICK UP THEIR BALL AND GO HOME....It's nice to see the modern Republican Party taking the business of governing the country so seriously:

....Driving the decision to quit and go home rather than finish the remaining budget work is a determined effort by a group of conservative Republicans to prevent putting a GOP stamp on spending bills covering 13 Cabinet Departments — and loaded with thousands of homestate projects derided as "pork" by critics.

....Some Republicans also look forward to using unfinished budget work to gum up an early Democratic agenda that includes raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cutting interest rates on college loans and repealing some tax breaks for oil companies.

It's like watching a bunch of first graders stomp off the playground after the teacher has told them to break up a fight. And keep in mind that these bills are already two months overdue: the new federal fiscal year started on October 1, and until the FY07 spending bills are passed the government is forced to wheeze along on continuing resolutions and temporary stopgaps.

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Rolling Stone: Can Dr. Evil Save the Planet?

Wood hooked up his laptop, threw his first slide onto the screen and got down to business: What if all the conventional thinking about how to deal with global warming was wrong? What if you could do an end run around carbon-trading schemes and international treaties and political gridlock and actually solve the problem? And what if the cost to get started was not trillions of dollars but $100 million a year -- less than the cost of a good-size wind farm?

Wood's proposal was not technologically complex. It's based on the idea, well-proven by atmospheric scientists, that volcano eruptions alter the climate for months by loading the skies with tiny particles that act as mini-reflectors, shading out sunlight and cooling the Earth. Why not apply the same principles to saving the Arctic? Getting the particles into the stratosphere wouldn't be a problem -- you could generate them easily enough by burning sulfur, then dumping the particles out of high-flying 747s, spraying them into the sky with long hoses or even shooting them up there with naval artillery. They'd be invisible to the naked eye, Wood argued, and harmless to the environment. Depending on the number of particles you injected, you could not only stabilize Greenland's polar ice -- you could actually grow it. Results would be quick: If you started spraying particles into the stratosphere tomorrow, you'd see changes in the ice within a few months. And if it worked over the Arctic, it would be simple enough to expand the program to encompass the rest of the planet. In effect, you could create a global thermostat, one that people could dial up or down to suit their needs (or the needs of polar bears).

Read the article

The Dark Wraith gives thanks for... George Bush!

I am thankful for our President, George W. Bush. I want him to know that; but more importantly, I want everyone to know that, and I want everyone to know why.

To Mr. Bush:

[...]You reminded me that my America is not everybody's America; and if I should want my America, I must be forever diligent, eternally at the guard, and permanently ready to fight for it, perhaps even with my life, which you, I am most certain, would be willing to take if I were to become too much a vexation to you and your kind.

[...]Even from the tiny hill upon which I stand here in cyberspace, I can see thousands upon thousands who share my revulsion at you. Not merely at your policies, Mr. Bush, but at you: you as a coward, you as a liar, you as a manipulator, you as a torturer, you as a breeder of death, you as a destroyer of America's future, you as a taker from the poor, you as a giver to the rich, you as a phony from the day you set foot on this good earth.

[...]You have made patriots, Mr. Bush, the kind who will not yield their country to an outcast from a bleak, brutish land of cruel people. You have made patriots of tens of millions, not just here in the United States, but around the world. Have you any idea how grateful the world will be when you are finally removed from the stage and sent back to the shadows whence you came?

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Could this be one reason Pelosi was pushing for Murtha?

Jane Hamshire at Firedoglake

From Steny Hoyer, the new House Majority Leader and major proponent of the Bankrupcy Bill:

TPM Reader KS: Mr. Hoyer, please explain how the passage of the bankruptcy bill last year will actually benefit anyone OTHER THAN the credit card companies and the big banks in light of the rising expense, employment instability, and healthcare uncertainty of living in the United States, especially given that more than half of all bankruptcies filed by individuals in the past were in response to a single catastrophic event, such as losing a job or experiencing a health-related crisis.

HOYER: I voted for it because I believe in personal responsibility. For people who incur debt but can't pay through no fault of their own because of a catastrophic event, obviously there needs to be protections.

Since there are no "protections" in the Bankruptcy Bill for people who develop cancer or other serious illnesses (or for those who must leave higher paying jobs when they are called into National Guard service), I guess these are not considered "catastophic events" and people who recklessly court them are, therefore, at "fault." Good to know.

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Perhaps we should all remind our congresscritters that this election showed that they too could be shown the door.

The Green Zone is no longer secure.

Update below

SusanUnPC at No Quarter

Inside The Green Zone

A.P., via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

U.S. troops blew up two cars inside the heavily fortified Green Zone after sniffer dogs indicated explosives were inside the vehicles that were used in the motorcade of the parliament speaker, an adviser to parliament said. In what could signal a major security breach, the explosives were found and detonated near the Convention Center, where parliament meets and government officials hold news conferences, Wissam al-Zubeidi said.

Update From Pen and Sword

Doesn't that make you glad we liberated all those freedom loving people in Iraq?

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, wasn't in the vehicle when it exploded. Wong's article doesn't specify whether the wounded American guard was active duty military or a contracted, but that really doesn't matter. The pertinent points are that a) an American was wounded in the course of protecting an Iraqi politician from other Iraqi's and b) Iraqi politicians can't trust other Iraqis to act as their security guards.

And let's not overlook that this was not a roadside ambush. Someone managed to penetrate the Green Zone, get into an armored car, and plant a bomb in it.

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By 2 to 1, the USA voted the worst place in the world to visit.

Digby:

It looks like the big money boyz are starting to get nervous:

The United States ranks worst in welcoming foreign business travelers and tourists, due to bureaucratic headaches and rude immigration officials, a survey showed.

[...]

"Foreign travelers are in agreement: the US entry process is unpredictable and unfriendly to foreign visitors, it is hurting America's image abroad and deterring many from visiting the US," said Thomas Riehle, partner, RT Strategies, which conducted the poll.

"These survey results help to explain the 17 percent decline in overseas travel to the US over the past five years and the 10 percent decline in business travel to the US over the past year."

I heard recently that a lot of financial industry business is shifting to Europe because it's just too much trouble to get into the country. The visa process is a nightmare even for people who come back and forth regularly. And treatment at the airports is downright frightening. I'm reminded of this story:

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Cut and Run, Cut and Run, all Gen. Odom says any more is Cut and Run,

And who is Gen. Odom? Must be some pussy, hippy, type, who hates America, right?
Try Ronald Ray-gun's head of the NSA.

From SusanUnPC at No Quarter:

[His] latest op-ed, which No Quarter already discussed briefly, begins with this compelling sub-headline:

We could lead the Mideast to peace, but only if we stop refusing to do the right thing.

The United States upset the regional balance in the Mideast when it invaded Iraq. Restoring it requires bold initiatives, but "cutting and running" must precede them all. Only a withdrawal of all U.S. troops - within six months and with no preconditions - can break the paralysis that enfeebles our diplomacy. And the greatest obstacles to cutting and running are the psychological inhibitions of our leaders and the public.

[...]

But reality no longer can be avoided. It is beyond U.S. power to prevent sectarian violence in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran throughout the region, the probable spread of Sunni-Shiite strife to neighboring Arab states, the eventual rise to power of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr or some other anti-American leader in Baghdad, and the spread of instability beyond Iraq.

A reverse domino theory may be playing out in the Middle East

Gen. William Odom says Vice President Cheney has it all wrong when he warns that the U.S. must stay in Iraq because failure there could prompt collapse elsewhere. In fact, now it looks like a new Arab-Israeli war could be breaking out precisely because our actions in Iraq have emboldened Iran and Syria.

Recently on national television, Vice President Cheney warned that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would prompt the collapse of governments in other countries in the region, namely Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, putting them in the hands of radical Islamist rulers.

Cheney has it exactly backwards. Our continued entanglement is what is destabilizing the region.

Read the rest

With a ruptured duck are we more or less likely to attack Iran?

SusanUnPC at No Quarter:

Seymour Hersh, who appeared this morning on Wolf Blitzer's CNN Late Edition, has a new story out in the November 27th edition of The New Yorker that alleges:

A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter said on Saturday.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week. (Khaleej Times Online)

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Get out your tinfoil hat! According to The Guardian, the RFK assasination was a CIA operation.

At first, it seems an open-and-shut case. On June 5 1968, Robert Kennedy wins the California Democratic primary and is set to challenge Richard Nixon for the White House. After midnight, he finishes his victory speech at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles and is shaking hands with kitchen staff in a crowded pantry when 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan steps down from a tray-stacker with a "sick, villainous smile" on his face and starts firing at Kennedy with an eight-shot revolver.

As Kennedy lies dying on the pantry floor, Sirhan is arrested as the lone assassin. He carries the motive in his shirt-pocket (a clipping about Kennedy's plans to sell bombers to Israel) and notebooks at his house seem to incriminate him. But the autopsy report suggests Sirhan could not have fired the shots that killed Kennedy. Witnesses place Sirhan's gun several feet in front of Kennedy, but the fatal bullet is fired from one inch behind. And more bullet-holes are found in the pantry than Sirhan's gun can hold, suggesting a second gunman is involved. Sirhan's notebooks show a bizarre series of "automatic writing" - "RFK must die RFK must be killed - Robert F Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68" - and even under hypnosis, he has never been able to remember shooting Kennedy. He recalls "being led into a dark place by a girl who wanted coffee", then being choked by an angry mob. Defence psychiatrists conclude he was in a trance at the time of the shooting and leading psychiatrists suggest he may have be a hypnotically programmed assassin.

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One for you to clip and then compare later.

Booman at Booman Tribune, notes:

Simply put, nearly a dozen NSA officers would not have risked their careers and freedom to leak word of a highly classified program to the New York Times...if that program was limited to phone calls from suspected terrorists abroad calling into the United States.

Booman refers to this article: In which AG Alberto Gonzales tells us that in the land of freedom, such freedom,

"is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."

Yessir! We have to distroy it to save it.

Remember when there wern't any WMD in Iraq and we went to war any way?

Well, Seymore Hersh reports the CIA says there are NO Nukes In Iran. At Crooks and Liars Here and Here

Given that our military resources are so thinly stretched now, I can't believe that we could even consider going into Iran. Sadly, little things like "reality" do not appear to creep in to the decision-making process in the White House.

Truthout :

A classifed draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

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Even SOME of the NeoCons are seeing reason

We know that most of them are stark-Staring Nuts, but a few may starting to inhabit the same planet as the rest of us.
This commentary by Arthur at Once Upon A Time alleges that Christopher Hitchens(!) may be seeing the light.

Christopher Hitchens -- yes, Christopher Hitchens! -- on the prospect of a nuclear Iran:

Assume that the Iranians are within measurable distance of nuclear status. Appearances sometimes to the contrary, they are not mad—or not clinically insane in the way that Saddam Hussein was and Kim Jong-il is. The recent fuss about the obliteration of Israel is largely bullshit: ... These people (who once bought weapons from Israel via Oliver North in order to fight Saddam Hussein) are cynical and corrupt. They know as well as you do what would happen if they tried to nuke Israel or the United States. They want the bomb as insurance against invasion and as a weapon of strategic ambiguity to shore up their position in the region.

But they have a crucial vulnerability on the inside. The overwhelmingly young population—an ironic result of the mullahs' attempt to increase the birth rate after the calamitous war with Iraq—is fed up with medieval rule. Unlike the hermetic societies of Baathist Iraq and North Korea, Iran has been forced to permit a lot of latitude to its citizens. A huge number of them have relatives in the West, access to satellite dishes and cell phones, and regular contact with neighboring societies. ... Opinion polling is a new science in Iran, but several believable surveys have shown that a huge majority converges on one point: that it is time to resume diplomatic relations with the United States. ...

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Shrub, You broke it, now it's yours.

You know Iraq is broken when Kissenger and Blair tell you.

Oh, Pundit! Oh,Bullsh*t!

Aren't we lucky to have the pundits to tell us what to think. Democrats are not even in power, yet the pundits can tell us that Nancy Pelosi must be dumped because of her 'bitchyness' and the loss of her preference for House Majority Leader. Must be nice to be all knowing, like Richard Cohen's assessment in 2003 that "Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise."(That Iraq had WMDs.)

Glenn Greenwald in Unclaimed Territory:

The mindless group-think driving the media's caricatures of Nancy Pelosi is truly astounding to behold, even considering the source. She's not even Speaker yet, and they've already pronounced her to be a bitchy, vindictive shrew incapable of leading because she's consumed by petty personal bickering rather than serious and substantive considerations. And all of this is based on nothing.

Unsurprisingly, all of this has been concocted by the herd of all-knowing Beltway analysts who fancy themselves to be such high-minded warriors against conventional wisdom even though they are its most obedient vessels.

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We've GOT to do something about voting before '08!

Either we do something about the voting process, or we might as well flip for it. It's pretty obvious that the current crop of machines is crap. The current crop of machines is embarrassing. How can anyone seriously consider a Diebold product in the light of the incompetence they have displayed in the production of their voting machine. Either the design team are idiots, or thecompany is as crooked as a hounds leg. And either prospect is unsetteling when you are considering votes, or large amounts of money. The software really needs to be reviewed. Combed for backdoors and gotchas. A few mistakes would be par, but I suspect there is a viper's nest hidden in the code.

Perhaps the Oregan mail-the-ballots plan should be considered. Whatever happens, there MUST be a hard paper trail left. Anything else is not acceptable.

Check these stories on BradBlog

That 'I' word.

Maha at The Mahablog

I’m about to explain why I support impeachment, and why I think it’s a mistake to push for it right this minute.

I believe strongly that Bush and Cheney should not be allowed to serve to the ends of their terms if they continue to operate outside the Constitution and ignore the laws of Congress. Congress must not allow extra-constitutional precedents to be set, which is what they will be doing if they simply wait out Bush. For the sake of the Constitution, history, and future generations, proper separation of powers must be re-established in the next two years.

However, I’ve been around the block enough times to know that unless impeachment has widespread popular support, and support among a substantial number of prominent Republicans, there will be a nasty backlash that could put the wingnuts back in power. And as unpopular as Bush is, I don’t think the public or many Republicans are ready to get on board the impeachment bandwagon. Yet.

Here’s my plan:

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There are lots of things the Dems must do. But the most important, address the unitary presidency of George W. Bush.

SusanUnPC at No Quarter

What matters most. For example, that Bush is STILL trying to run the show as the U.S.'s unitary president, its king if you will, without regard for, let alone concert with, the verdict of the American people on November 7, or the American people's newly aligned Congress:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations.

Mr Bush's refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said. "US plans last big push in Iraq," ("Strategy document calls for extra 20,000 troops, aid for Iraqi army and regional summit"), The Guardian, November 16, 2006

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Need I say anything other than 'Keith Olbermann'?

It's about that Fox News memo.
Go, Read

If (the Right Wing) only had a brain.

Steve Gilliard at The News Blog

These people are ultimately exactly the same as the radical Islamic clerics and jihadis they claim to oppose, and it's time we called them out as such. The Right Blogosphere is a cesspool of boiling hate and howling insanity and we need to stop pretending that these are people who can be engaged rationally, appeased, or tolerated. They stand in direct opposition to everything that America is about, freedom of speech, plurality of ideas, and equality before the law regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and ideological or spiritual affiliation. To Malkinites, ALL MUSLIMS ARE KILLERS, ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE DANGEROUS, and ALL LIBERALS ARE "UNHINGED".

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Here's how you clear the shrubbery. (Apologies to Monty Python)

Billmon at The Whiskey Bar

The Rovians may have been badly weakened by the loss of Congress, but they still control the PR high ground and a solid "unitary executive" majority on the Supreme Court. They can still defend themselves.

But the collaborators and co-conspirators on the outside can't simply defy a congressional subpoena or tell Pat Leahy to go fuck himself. Pretty soon, small fish will be talking about medium-sized fish, and then medium-sized fish will start talking about big fish.

Then will come the criminal referrals to the Justice Department, which will become progressively harder to sit on as the allegations move closer to the administration itself. Demands will be made for special prosecutors, demands which a deeply unpopular lame-duck president could find progressively harder to stonewall. By the time congressional subpoenas start being served on the top guys themselves, it will be much harder to spin the ensuing court battles over executive privilege as matters of principle.

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Stuff you need to know about at No Quarter

Read the words of a troop, "On the Ground in Iraq", It's Broke!

Also try reading "Behaving Like A Superpower in Iraq"

and "Iraq: Can We Face The Enormity of This Mess?" .

Now, remember Larry Johnson is a Republican and ex- CIA.
No shrinking violet.

I'm a bit under the weather right now.

(As listeners Sunday night will know, it's me and the frog . )
Posting will be sporatic for a few days.

Clyde

If you REALLY support the troops, read this. And tell someone with those damned magnetic ribbons on their SUV about this.

BlondSense Liz at BlondSense

About one quarter of all homeless people in the US are veterans. The VA estimates that nearly 200,000-300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. What's alarming is that veterans of the Iraq War are already arriving in homeless shelters, victims of PTSD, substance abuse, divorce, unemployment. About 28,000 veterans from Iraq sought health care from the VA and about 1 in 5 have mental problems. It breaks my heart. Says one homeless vet:

"We had a few situations where, I guess, people were trying to get out of the country. They would come right at us and they would not stop," Brown said. "We had to open fire on them. It was really tough. A lot of soldiers, like me, had trouble with that."

"That was the hardest part," Brown said. "Not only were there men, but there were women and children -- really little children. There would be babies with arms blown off. It was something hard to live with."

See The National Coalition For Homeless Veterans to find out what you can do for veterans in your community. The readers here know what a farce it is to slap a magnetic ribbon your SUV.

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Somebody is calling the 'Religious Right' out. Guess who?

Bret Hayworth at the Souix City Journal

A day after the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, Woodbury County Republican Chairman Steve Salem had harsh words for his own party, lambasting the influence of the conservative Christian right wing.

Salem said he coined a new phase: "You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."

Salem said "if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

Read more

More on this at Booman Tribune

I guess I'm a 'conservative' liberal...

Here I thought I was a Democrat Liberal. Now all the pundits tell me the election was an affirmation of how conservative America really is. Sooo... Since I'm cool with the way the election turned out, and I'm happy with the politics of the elected candidates, ...guess I'm a conservative liberal.

Susan G at Daily KOS

They've been beating the drums for 72 hours now - "conservative Democrats, conservative Democrats, conservative Democrats." Both Hunter and Markos tried to set the punditocracy straight, but I suspect this probably does as much good as spitting in the wind. So I'm ready to go all contrarian and Zen on right-wing blowhards and embrace the label.

Yes, I'm a "conservative Democrat" and I agree with the upcoming agenda I've seen floating around here and there: oversight hearings on Iraq and spending, raising the minimum wage, nationalizing health insurance for everyone under 25 as Howard Dean suggested on The Daily Show, using skillful diplomacy as a first resort and military force as a last one, restoring the checks and balances of the Constitution, outlawing torture, re-legalizing habeas corpus.

These are "conservative" ideas? Cool. I'm hinky with it. Call them what you like, just implement them.

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Oversight - It's a bitch

SusanUnPC at No Quarter

Do you have an incumbent Democratic senator or representative? Have you checked your local papers to see what new powers they'll be gaining?

[...]

The Los Angeles Times has a must-read piece today on renewed oversight and coming investigations:

Rep. Ike Skelton knows what he will do in one of his first acts as chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Democratic-led House: resurrect the subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The panel was disbanded by the Republicans after they won control of Congress in 1994.

Disbanded in 1994. Doesn't that go a long way in explaining the billions and billions that the GOP-controlled Congress allowed to disappear, particularly during the Iraq war?

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The rightwing tells Shrub how to handle defeat. (snicker)

Arthur Silber at Once Upon a Time

This is quite remarkable for several reasons -- as well as being awfully funny, albeit in a very disturbing way. At The Corner:

How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg]

I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."

This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.

Even playfully imagining that Bush could actually do anything remotely like this is ridiculously laughable, as laughable as thinking that Baker and Cheney would demand such a rite of passage. All these men have known only pampered, highly insulated lives of immense privilege and comfort. And when Cheney does go hunting, it's not actually "hunting," in the sense of a "sport." No: "It's disgusting bloody-mindedness, a lazy, cowardly, vicious sort of abuse." These people are all more than happy to send other men (and women) to fight genuine battles, and to suffer grievous injury and even death. But face actual physical peril themselves? Please.

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Does this surprise anyone at all?

Andy McSmith - The Independent

A former diplomat has revealed that the British mission to the United Nations opposed the policy of regime change in Iraq but was ordered by London to change its position in the lead-up to war.

The disclosure was made to MPs yesterday by Carne Ross, a member of the mission who resigned in protest at the Iraq war. He told the Foreign Affairs Committee that the US government was repeatedly warned by British diplomats that Iraq would fall apart if Saddam Hussein was toppled. But from mid-2002 instructions were received to change that view to fall in with the Bush administration.

[...]

He claimed that when official documents from the Foreign Office are made public, they will prove that the view of British officials, repeatedly conveyed to the Americans, was that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would cause chaos.

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Garrison Keilor - A Hint of Possibility in the Air

So now we have thrown some rascals out and left some rascals in power and sent some new folks to Washington to learn the art of rascality, and what in the end, after all the hoopla, will really change? Or will the town drunk continue to run the municipal liquor store?

Perhaps there will be some rational debate on the war. The voters have said they don't want the 30 Years War that Vice President Dick Cheney envisions, so it's time for him and his friend to start making other arrangements. This happens all the time in the real world. If you can't accomplish the mission, then you accept it and find a graceful way out.

The health insurance crisis may be addressed, and the crippled behemoth that is Homeland Security. And surely Congress will rediscover the use of the subpoena and require public servants to account for themselves under oath. This would be a novelty. After six years of ingenious spin, we could get a history lesson while we're still young enough to profit from it.

Continue

Rumsfeld to face 'difficulties'?

Tim Grieve at Salon War Room

Detainees' lawyers want Rumsfeld tried for war crimes

Donald Rumsfeld may be looking forward to living out his golden years at his vacation home on the Eastern Shore, but lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay have other ideas. In a message just sent to reporters, they say they intend to file war crimes charges against Rumsfeld next week in Germany, arguing that his departure from the Department of Defense means that he's no longer entitled to immunity from prosecution.

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Remember what 'Bipartisanship' means to Shrub.

Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory:

...what the Bush administration really means by "bipartisanship" -- as they are already making quite clear -- is that the Democrats in Congress do nothing to stand in their way and, most especially, that Democrats recognize that there will be no looking into what the Leader has done or subjecting his Decisions to any scrutiny. From Time's Mike Allen, today:

Advisers expect a battle royale over the balance of powers if Democrats use their new subpoena power to try to conduct what the White House is already calling "witch hunts." Bush and Vice President Cheney have made the expansion of executive power one of their hallmarks, and advisers say they do not plan to give up any of the ground they have won without a fight all the way to the Supreme Court. "We're going to have a fierce constitutional showdown over the boundaries of power between the executive and legislative branches," one adviser said. "The executive usually wins those battles, so we think we'll consolidate our gains."

To this administration, "witch hunts" means: refusing to allow them to rule in total secrecy and, instead, trying to find out what has really been going on in our Government.

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It must SUCK to be a rightwing blogger!

Your president lies to you .

Rush lies to you. (poor, poor dittoheads)

You don't get no respect from the stock market.

Speaker Pelosi.

And the terrorists have a shutout.

Make 'em clean up their own mess!

Kathleen Reardon at Huffington:

First, never try to clean up someone else's mess when you can get him or her to do it. George Bush and Karl Rove and friends would like nothing better than to have the Democrats take responsibility for correcting the Iraq debacle, the obscene debt, the Katrina shame, and a host of atrocities perpetrated on America and the world. Were the Democrats to come in on their white chargers ready to restore America, to FIX the problems, they'd fall right into the hands of clever Republican strategists planning for 2008. There is only one group that should FIX the messes we're in right now both at home and around the world -- that is the Bush Administration.

...When someone with an ounce of cleverness makes a terrible mess of things, they wisely welcome those with new power and invite their suggestions. These anxious-to-have a-say, often naïve, elated and optimistic, novice players usually fall into a trap. They provide options for recovery. The other side, knowing how deep a mess they're in, offers to implement these plans. The CATCH - they do so feebly and the result is failure. They get to say, "That's what the wanted us to do and we did it. We cooperated and their plan failed."

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Why do conservatives hate America?

November 20, 2006 Issue, The American Conservative

It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.

As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. [...]

The war will continue as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president can’t face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria.

[...]

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

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Don't Even Think About Not Voting Democratic!

Miles Mogulescu at Huffington:

DOES ANYONE STILL THINK THAT IT WAS BETTER THAT GEORGE W. BUSH BECAME PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF AL GORE?
Would Al Gore have invaded Iraq?
Would Al Gore have supported tax cuts for the wealthiest while turning a surplus into a multi-trillion dollar debt?
Would Al Gore have spent 6 years doing nothing about global warming?
Would Al Gore have appointed corporate lobbyists to key sub-cabinet posts to subvert laws that protect consumers, labor and the environment?
Would Al Gore have done nothing to raise the minimum wage?
ANYONE WHO STILL THINKS THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AL GORE AND GEORGE BUSH HAD BETTER WAKE UP RIGHT AWAY.

AND THE SAME GOES FOR ANYONE WHO THINKS THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DEMOCRATIC AND A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS.
A Democratic Congress will immediately raise the minimum wage.
A Democratic Congress will force big pharma to negotiate with the government to lower drug prices.
A Democratic Congress will make college more affordable for the middle class and the poor.
A Democratic Congress, coupled with disgruntled Republicans, will force a change of direction in Iraq.
Congressional Committees will be chaired by Democrats, many of them old line liberals like John Conyers, Henry Waxman and Charlie Rangel. They will take back congressional oversight, holding hearings on subjects like the misuse of pre-war intelligence to get us into Iraq, the war profiteering of treasonous corporations like Haliburton, the general profiteering of the oil companies.
Democrats will be able to get an up and down vote on their bills in Congress.
A Democratic Senate would block the confirmation of far right wing justices.

SO FOR YOU DOUBTERS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO HOLD YOUR NOSE, GET YOUR ASS AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO YOUR POLLING BOOTH, VOTE DEMOCRATIC, AND GET EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO DO THE SAME.

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The Big Dog rips repubs a new one!

Go to Crooks and Liars:

Then go to Keith Olbermann's Commentary.

Both are worth a listen.

Computerworld: E-voting state by state: What you need to know

By Angela Gunn:

It's a lot to keep up with, especially since most of us would rather be thinking about who to vote for, not how we'll do it -- and certainly not about what might go wrong. To that end, Computerworld.com presents what you need to know for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. You'll find out what equipment and systems are in place for voter registration and polling, any significant legal challenges to the systems, previous Computerworld coverage of individual states, selected coverage from other media, and links to government watchdog sites. We've also got concise FAQ-style information on the vendors, technologies and laws that are important to the issue. Finally, since e-voting is beginning to attract attention in the culture at large, we've asked watchdog Brad Friedman to review one of the highest-profile projects on the horizon: the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy, premiering Nov. 2.

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This is only the beginning. And that's tough for Republicans.

Bonddad at My Left Wing:

Tuesday is election day. Everybody will go to the polls and cast their ballot. If the current projections hold, the Democrats will have at least 1 chamber and we will greatly shrink the Republican majority in the Senate. For the remainder of the week, the Republicans will perform various acts of contrition and mea culpa, hoping it will be over.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is really just beginning.

[...]

According to Pollster.com, there are currently 27 districts that are toss-ups. Yes the Republicans have helped us a great deal by being incompetent.

[...]

This is our first real coordinated effort. And it is really good. Imagine what will happen in 2008 after two more years of coalition building, of message building, and infrastructure building.

In other words, this election is the beginning. There will be more and better things to come.

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The consequences of a democrat win.

Steve puts into words what I've been feeling. Although I'd love to see Shrub lose it, what he is capable of doing is terrifying to consider.
Paul Krugman via Steve Gilliard's News Blog:

I freely admit I am nervous. But not because I'm worried about a Democratic victory. I think it would take a miracle for that not to happen. They happen, but that isn't what bothers me.

What does bother me is what happens next. Iraq is increasingly untenable. The Military Times chain of newspapers are going to denounce the war in the strongest terms possible. Most of the new Congress will be very opposed to the administration. I just don't know how Bush can handle it. I seriously, seriously think he will have a breakdown if he's faced with a hostile Congress. Sure, Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to play investigator, but do you think he's gonna sign any Democratic bills?

[...]

Krugman doesn't say this, but I will: Bush breaks under pressure. Michael Ledeen said one smart thing in his sea of lies about Iraq, Bush is surrounded by women who are in love with him, his wife, Condi, Harriet Myers and Karen Hughes. This is not the retinue of a strong man. Bush is weak, he has been weak all his life.

The new Congress will not have weak people in it. Sestak, Murphy, some of these folks are anything but weak. They are going to demand answers.

But something else needs to be said. Cheney has limited his public appearances all year. My feeling is that between his heart and his meds, he's prone to actually doing very little. He's even fallen asleep in public, to little notice.

If you're worried about polls or GOP dirty tricks, stop. They don't matter any more. I think people just stopped listening to the GOP.

Worry about what comes next.

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The latest Dirty Trick. Nuisance Calls - Don't be fooled.

At Daily KOS by Republic Not Empire, and others below.

...yes, this is a serious possibility. Let's bankrupt the motherfrakers after this election -- kos)

As you may or may not know, 12-year Contract-w/-America breaker Charlie Bass is in the fight of his life against netroots candidate Paul Hodes.

Now that the polls are trending away from Bass, and his support among independents is weaker than it has ever been, the NRCC has been called in to bail his sorry butt out.

So in true GOP form, the NRCC decided to carpet bomb our state with robocalls that pretend to come from the Hodes campaign, while eventually providing misleading negative info.

So what, you say? Typical lowlife GOP sleaze tactic.

Well, there is a big difference here. The NRCC was calling Granite Staters on the Do-Not-Call list, which is a violation of state law, carrying a penalty of $5,000 per violation. To date, the NRCC admitted to 200,000 robocalls.

That means the NRCC is potentially facing a $100 million dollar penalty.

From Steve Gilliard's News Blog:

In a last ditch effort to suppress democratic votes, Republicans are illegally using robocalls to drive away Dems.

[...]

...these are the harassing calls paid for by the NRCC made to appear that they're from the Democratic campaign. And a lot of angry voters are getting fooled by the scam, it seems.

[...]

The Republicans are going to do their best to scam their way through this one. So it's up to the people on the ground to make sure they don't get away with it. If you're in the GOTV operation, it's all up to you.

The most important thing to do is to get people to call their local media with tapes of these calls. You start with the local radio, TV and cable news stations. You call the news editor or assignment desk, and tell them that Republicans are harassing Democratic voters with illegal phone calls.

[...]

This is it, this is their last ditch effort to save their seats. We know what they're doing, and if it takes driving around the neighborhood with a bullhorn or standing in a parking lot handing out flyers, we can stop them on the ground. Even if you just e-mail friends with the information, we can stop them. This is all they have. Surroundedby failure, incompetence and perversion, they have to trick their way into office

More on this, again at KOS by georgia 10:

In New Hampshire, state Democrats have already raised complaints with the Attorney General and have been working with state officials on the issue of the latest GOP voter suppression tactic, the automated, deceptive calls aimed at decreasing voter turnout.

The Attorney General's office apparently informed the state Democratic Party that the NRCC will stop the calls. But the NRCC says it won't stop:

"We were informed by the attorney general's office that the NRCC has agreed to immediately stop the calls to people on the do-not-call list." [Democratic Party spokeswoman] Strand said.

"We have not agreed to stop the calls," said Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the NRCC. "Our calls will continue independently of the Charlie Bass campaign and in compliance with all applicable laws."

The article has a bad headline that doesn't match the NRCC statement. Of course the NRCC won't stop the calls. "Laws"? Pfft. "Privacy"? Ha! When your party is full of criminals and liars who are addicted to power, there's nothing that can't be sacrificed at the 11th hour. Nothing.

There are more items out there about this. Tell your friends about these dirty tricks.

Republicans: You have been cruelly used.

Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis:

"Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."" Vanity Fair

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The men interviewed in this article were among those who made the case for war with Iraq, occupation of the country and revolution in the Middle East.

Perle, as usual, is slippery and deceptive. He falsely implies here that he, and his chums, did not use every propaganda, information operations and rhetorical tool available to make the case that Iraq was a menace, a current menace, to the United States in both the field of WMD and as an active ally of the international jihadis.

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Bush and Rove don't seem concerned by the polls. Is this the 'October Surprise'?

Paul Watson at Prison Planet:

The Bush Junta has quietly "tooled up" to utilize the U.S. military in engaging American dissidents after the next big crisis, with a frightening and overlooked piece of legislation that was passed alongside the Military Commissions Act, which greases the skids for armed confrontation and abolishes posse comitatus.

Frank Morales' recent article, Bush Moves Toward Martial Law, succinctly outlines the nuances of what the bill authorizes and why it is potentially more dangerous to freedom in America than even the Military Commissions Act.

"Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

[...]

Morales [Morales, an Episcopal priest in New York City and an anti-war activist]said that the authorities know full well that a widespread awakening is taking place and so the Defense Authorization Act was essentially part of a move to try and "tool up" for the reaction that will take place after their next lunge to destroy what's left of American liberty.

Morales speculated that the trigger event for the push to use the U.S. military against American dissidents under the bill was right around the corner.

"I think it's gonna be rather soon - we have these elections coming up very soon - that's telling - whether or not they attempt to steal them again, I think there are a number of factors coming together that insinuate the possibility that we're looking at some kind of false-flag operation, maybe an assassination, a bio-terror event....there are a lot of signs pointing to something alone that line in the near future."

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The latest from Homeland(Fatherland?) Security. Were you aware of this?

Updated below

From Friends of Liberty:

Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14, 2007, we'll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (HSA) has proposed that all airlines, cruise lines-even fishing boats-be required to obtain clearance for each passenger they propose taking into or out of the United States.

It doesn't matter if you have a U.S. Passport - a "travel document" that now, absent a court order to the contrary, gives you a virtually unqualified right to enter or leave the United States, any time you want. When the DHS system comes into effect next January, if the agency says "no" to a clearance request, or doesn't answer the request at all, you won't be permitted to enter-or leave-the United States.

[...]

Think this can't happen? Think again. It's ALREADY happening. Earlier this year, HSA forbade airlines from transporting an 18-year-old a native-born U.S. citizen, back to the United States. The prohibition lasted nearly six months until it was finally lifted a few weeks ago. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history that didn't allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission. If these regulations go into effect, you can add the United States to this list.

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Update: go to Hullabaloo for more.

I'm sending you to BlondSense to read what the election really comes down to. PLEASE read it all.

PeterofLoneTree at BlondSense:

"Special Blog Post: Weekend on the Homefront"

That's the title. Here's some text:

"One of the students is regular Army, in a unit that's between rotations into Iraq."

(...)

"...right there and then I knew he wouldn't kill me. I just knew it. Someday, he might have to, though. After all, that's what he's being trained to do.

The Dark Wraith hopes this story makes your blood run cold."

Again, please read it all.

The new, new world order.

Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword:

The shape of the Next World Order is starting to gel. Hopefully, America still has a chance to resconfigure the mold before the blob hardens.

From a November 2nd story by Steve Guttermanneocon and Edith M. Lederer of the Associated Press:

Russia and China indicated that they will not support a draft U.N. resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.

Shiver me timbers and blow me down. The only person on the planet who didn't see that coming was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On October 24th, she told conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity "I think we'll have a Security Council resolution with sanctions against Iran in the next few weeks."

The failure of diplomatic efforts regarding Iran's nuclear program was not only predictable, it was inevitable.

[...]


America's end zone fumble in Iraq took our eye of the real terrorist threat, but more importantly, it gave our Cold War nemeses the opening they needed to reemerge as major players on the world stage.

By the time the U.S. sprang Operation Iraqi Freedom on the world, China, Russian and Iran had already formed an energy partnership that included assistance from the two larger powers in helping Iran develop an independent nuclear energy program. The jury is still out on whether or not Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons, but the weapons aren't the key to that country's aim to become a dominant regional power. The more Iran can fuel its industrial growth with nuclear energy, the more of its oil it can sell to jumpstart its economic growth. What's more, as the rest of the world weans itself from oil dependency, Iran will become the portal through which the rest of the Middle East makes the transition to nuclear power and creates an industrial base to replace its petroleum revenues.

At that point, the "axis of energy" (which now includes Venezuela) will have all but shouldered the western nations out of the Middle East, and America won't have a friendly shoulder to cry on because the other western nations will have crawled between the sheets with the axis of energy.

Read the entire post

More on the MILITARY call for Rumsfeld's head.

From No Quarter

[Note from Larry Johnson: My friend and colleague, Brent Budowsky, a contributing editor to the Fighting Dems, was first out of the gate reacting to the news that the Military Times newspapers are calling for Rumsfeld to go. Here is his piece.]

The Military Times speaks truth to power and to America with its call for Rumsfeld to go. This is the beginning of the end for the Republican policy of failure, arrogance, corruption, dishonesty and war partisanship.

On Monday Marine Corps Times, Army Times, Navy Times, and Air Force Times are taking the extraordinary and courageous step of calling for Rumsfeld to go.

The voice of commanders, the troops and their families will speak. This madness must end. This policy must change. Rumsfeld must go. Enough is enough.

The pre-election timing of this statement is extraordinary; that the voice of our military and families would speak so powerfully for change, in the hours before the nation votes, is a breathtaking and decisive statement of how strongly they feel that this madness must end.

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More about the NeoCon rats deserting the shrub.

Digby at Hullabaloo

Everybody's talking about the the neocon rats deserting the sinking ship article that's coming up in the December Vanity Fair. It's a doozy. There are two excerpts however that I think are just priceless.

First, there's Michael Ledeen, who sent his totally inexperienced 29 year old daughter to Bagdad to work as a financial advisor for the Coalition Provisional Authority in the early days of the invasion, blaming it on the bitches:

"Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

The other is Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman:

And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can't execute it, it's useless, just useless. I guess that's what I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do. And that's very different from let's go."

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I never thought I'd reccommend an opinion piece by Ben Stein.

The money quote is at the end of the piece. Read all of it.
Ben Stein, Opinion at the New York Times:

America is becoming a nation of many rich people. I recently read that there were close to 10 million millionaire households. I read that there were hundreds of thousands who made more than $1 million a year. Good for them.

But it's unlovely for them to pay as little tax as they now pay. The real problem in this country is only temporarily about oil. That will right itself, or we'll get used to it and adjust.

The real problem is saving a nation that is beset by terrorism, and we cannot do that unless we feel that we are all in the same boat, pulling at the oars together. That includes the rich.

Whatever rationale there may have been in 2001 for lowering their taxes is long gone. It's time for them — us, because it includes me — to pay their (our) share.

It's not about oil. It's about fairness.

The entire article

Monday in the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. "TIME FOR RUMSFELD TO GO"

John in DC at AMERICAblog:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers' deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.

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Remember - You have to look at the foreign press to get the truth. "British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il"

From Simply Left Behind :

British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il

America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country's reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq.

Carried out as US voters prepare to go to the polls next week in an election dominated by the war, the research also shows that British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US president as part of an "axis of evil", but it is Mr Bush who now alarms voters in countries with traditionally strong links to the US.

There is Much More...

Neo-Cons to Bush(!!!) - Eat Shit and bay at the moon!!

Oh, geez! This is unbelievable! They really do eat their young!
Shakespeare's Sister:

Oh, this is just priceless. The architects of the Iraq War are throwing Bush to the wolves to save their own tattered reputations, claiming the problem wasn’t their idea, but Bush’s total and complete lack of the merest appearance of competency—which, apparently, they never noticed. Sing it, neocons!

Richard Perle: “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No’…”

Delphic, huh? Well, that’s the best euphemism for “vaguely cognizant of obvious facts” I’ve heard yet!

David Frum: “[I]t now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because ‘the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them.’ This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on ‘failure at the center’—starting with President Bush.”

Dayum! Bitch, that’s cold. After G-Dub turned your “axis of evil” speech into the Shit Heard Round the World, all you’ve got to give back is shade?! That’s some serious ice, playa.

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Another take from Carl at Simply Left Behind:

Tom Friedman: On who's zoomin' you.

I've read a bunch of Friedman's stuff and decided he was right in line for the Kool-Aid and haven't paid him much attention since. It appears he has lost his taste for the drink. And Bush has finally lost Friedman.
From Todd Mitchell at The Democratic Daily:

“George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

“They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

“Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

“They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

“What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?

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If your bank uses Diebold ATM's - Count your money!

If they'll screw you like this, you can bet they'd skim your bank account too!
Rebecca Abrahams - Huffington:

...Enter the world of electronic voting machines, the "cure" to hanging and dimpled chad.

It is a seamy world of secrecy, proprietary software, partisan executives "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President", politicians asking programmers to design software to flip vote totals, and lots and lots of money.

And it is a world of completely inconsistent realities. Diebold and the other manufacturers insist that their machines are safe and secure yet every single cyber security expert and computer scientist has, for years, been screaming into an empty wilderness of media attention, that . . .

The machines can be hacked, by the implanting of malicious code, at the factory.

The machines can be hacked during transport from the factory.

The machines can be hacked while on "Sleepovers" before the election.

The machines can be hacked (in 1 minute with a .50 cent mini bar key) during the election, and

These machines can be hacked, at the tabulator, after the election.

What makes this SAIC report, called "The Pentagon Papers of Electronic Voting" by some computer experts, so important is that:

1. It shows, in black and white, that what Diebold says to election officials and voters across the country is not the truth.

2. It shows that there are virtually no security protocols in place for certain Diebold machines and that the recommended security protocols were purposely removed.

3. It shows that the analyzed Diebold machines were not functional nor secure for use in elections and raises serious doubts that they are ready for the November 7, 2006 Midterm elections.

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You really can't make this shit up...

Ever political, the Bush (mis)administration set up a web site to 'leverage the internet'. I.E. to use some of Saddam's old papers to scare the crap out of us dumb non-drinkers of the Kool-Ade.
Weell, among those bits of flotsam and jetsam, are included the recipe for an nuk-you-lar bomb. I guess Bushies want us to know what they THINK they are protecting us from.
William J. Broad at the New York Times (I guess this means Ann Coulter will be shouting for his head, now.)

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

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That little yellow button...

Earlier I said don't count 'em before they're reported. Here's another reason why.
StevenD at Booman

It seems that electronic voting machines in use in California (and no doubt other states) have one teensy-eensy little election integrity concern that heretofore had gone unreported: a little yellow button that allows multiple votes to be cast by anyone who knows of it (via Brad Blog):

"Just push the yellow button and you can vote as many times as you want," Tom Courbat, an Election Integrity advocate from Riverside County, California informed The BRAD BLOG tonight. Not that we're in any mood to report more such stories, but this seems to be a big one. A very big one. It seems there's a little yellow button on the back every touch-screen computer made by Sequoia Voting Systems, that allows any voter, or poll worker, or precinct inspector to set the system into "Manual Mode" allowing them to cast as many votes as they want.

... it is now confirmed that all such systems are completely vulnerable to virtually anybody who wishes to cast as many votes as they please.

"I can do it in 18 seconds," says Watt. "I can train you to do it in 3 minutes. Just push the yellow button, wait 3 seconds and it chimes. Push the yellow button again, wait 3 seconds and it chimes again. Then it's all on the screen prompts. You're asked 'Do you want to enter manual mode?' and you push 'Yes'…And then you're on your way."

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Turn into the dogfight.

Actually, Democrats should welcome the attacks on Kerry... Then turn the tables and kick hell out of the accusers!
Cenk Uygur at Huffington:

A retired fighter pilot once called our show and said what the Democrats need to learn is the old Top Gun motto: Turn into the fight!

John Kerry's joke about the president -- which was twisted for propaganda purposes by the Republicans -- was an ... opportunity! It was an opportunity for Democrats to bring up every error that Bush and his Republican enablers in Congress have made -- and then demand an apology to the troops for those actions.

Anytime a reporter asked about Kerry's remarks, every Democrat should have started the sentence with the words, "Let me tell you who has to apologize to the troops, these Republicans in the administration and Congress for what they have done..."

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Reality, what a concept!

Remember when they bragged about creating reality? They have stopped bragging, but they are working even harder to create a reality that doesn't include a bite-in-the-ass reward for all their transgressions.
Geov Parrish at Booman:

That rare burst of on-the-record candor from our “senior advisor,” uttered just before the last national election, is present in every increasingly desperate tactic Republicans and the Bush administration are employing in the weeks and days leading up to Tuesday’s election. From fear-mongering, appallingly dishonest and sleazy campaign ads, and baiting of gays and immigrants, to the latest headlines, each of these tactics represents a Rovian attempt to create, in a staggeringly hostile political climate, the reality of a plurality of votes in a majority of congressional jurisdictions being counted for Republican candidates on November 7.

Bush’s Republicans are trying, in other words, to create the only reality that has ever truly mattered to these people: their ability to seize and maintain power. In 2002 and 2004, they succeeded. But with every gambit and at every turn this electoral season, they are failing.

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