Following William F. Buckley's concession that the Iraq War is a fucked deal, Jeff 'Protein Wisdom' Goldstein takes up the genius argument that it's critics of the war who are are to blame for anyfailuresunrealized successes of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy. [my em]
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Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever, plus being blind.
Meanwhile, many Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to defend this country. We might rather be comedians or daddies or tattoo artists or flamenco dancers, but we must attend to first things.
The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly understandable, but not what is needed now. The U.S. Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.
...Frank argues against censorship and tells Washington Times wingnut John Lofton, to "kiss my ass" in 1986...
So it has come to this. After two stolen elections, a secret energy task force, Enron and assorted other corporate scandals, massive tax cuts for the rich, the largest federal debts and trade deficits in world history, blowing up the ABM treaty, killing stem cell research, laughing off global warming, allowing 9-11 to happen, stonewalling its (and every other) investigation, failing to catch Osama bin Laden, the PATRIOT Act, still-unsolved anthrax attacks, launching a secret prison system, denying due process to both foreigners and Americans, engaging in torture, monitoring Americans' phone calls, e-mails, and faxes without a warrant, launching unprecedented foreign and domestic propaganda campaigns, blurring the line between church and state, trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez, using lies to launch an illegal invasion of Iraq, badly mishandling both the occupation of Iraq and the resulting insurgency, outing Valerie Wilson (and lying about it), grandstanding on Terri Schiavo, pushing through a miserable Medicare prescription drug law, privatizing public lands, trying to privatize Social Security, securing CAFTA, appointing two reactionaries to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Abramoff scandals, and botching Katrina's aftermath as well as its rebuilding, among many, many other things -- after all that -- the tipping points that bring Cheney and Bush to this abysmal public standing are shooting a lawyer and defending an ordinary transnational corporate deal.
For the women of South Dakota: an abortion manual
I understand that you're probably really angry right now. Maybe you're reading a blog expressing that anger -- the anger that your state thinks it knows better than you what to do with your body. Maybe you're anxiously wondering where the nearest abortion clinic is, now that you will have to leave the state to get to one. If you have a serious medical condition, you might be doubling up on birth control methods, leading to a lot of worry and possibly negative side effects.
But what you need right now isn't the righteous anger the rest of the blogosphere will give you. You need more.
No textbooks or guides existed at that time to help them, and the equipment was hard to find. This is no longer true. For under $2000, any person with the inclination to learn could create a fully functioning abortion setup allowing for both vacuum aspiration and dilation/curettage abortions. If you are careful and diligent, and have a good grasp of a woman's anatomy you will not put anyone's health or life in danger, even if you have not seen one of these procedures performed.
DISCLAIMER: I am posting this as information only. Whether anyone chooses to act upon this information is their own concern. I believe in the free exchange of information and ideas. I believe this information has been kept from women for too long, and there is no reason they should not know about a procedure being performed on their own body, and no reason women should be kept in the dark about how to perform it -- especially if someone they know is having their health jeopardized by this law.
WASHINGTON - Seventy-two percent of troops on the ground in Iraq think U.S. military forces should get out of the country within a year, according to a Zogby poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 944 troops, conducted in Iraq between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14, said that only 23 percent of servicemembers thought U.S. forces should stay "as long as they are needed."
Of the 72 percent, 22 percent said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29 percent said they should withdraw "immediately." Twenty-one percent said the U.S. military presence should end within a year; 5 percent weren't sure.
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But Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, said troops who say the U.S. should withdraw could be concerned for their own safety, or they could be optimistic about progress so far, or they could simply be opposed to the idea of operations in Iraq.
"You have to pick apart each servicemember's thought process to understand what that means," he said. "I think this is about personal circumstances, and not proof there is a higher rate of troops who desire departure."
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But there's no worry in your camp, is there? No remorse over blood spilt in a War of Agression based on lies against a country that had done nothing to you. Your money will still be there in the bank when you're out of office and leave your inhuman mess behind for someone else to clean up, won't it?
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The Dubai company seeking to take over some terminal operations at six American ports formally asked the Bush administration on Sunday to conduct a deeper investigation into security concerns surrounding the deal. The request will leave President Bush in the politically delicate position of having to personally approve or disapprove the takeover.
But Democrats balked, insisting on their original demand that Congress should have the final say over the deal. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who joined a bipartisan group of senators on Friday in calling for a quick vote on legislation requiring a 45-day review, said Congress, not the White House, should make the final determination.
"We still believe that the report also has to go to Congress, that as much of it as possible ought to be public and that we would have the right of disapproval," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. "That is part of our legislation. That is constitutionally valid; you can have the right of disapproval."
Mr. Bush has vowed to veto any bill giving authority over the deal to Congress, rather than to the executive branch.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the centre of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.
The delivery of 80 U.S.-built F-16 E/F fighter planes -- described as one of the biggest single arms packages to a Middle Eastern nation and finalised back in March 2000 -- is to be completed only in 2007.
U.S. President George W. Bush's threat to veto any attempts to block last week's deal permitting a state-owned UAE company to take over the management of six U.S. port terminals has underlined the significance of the political and military relationship between the two countries.
"If I had to hazard a guess on the potential impact of the current imbroglio, there will be increased interest on the part of the UAE military to move to further arms source diversification" -- and away from relying too heavily on the United States.
Connecting Dubai Ports World, the Carlyle Group, CSX, John Snow, and David Sanborn
Which leads us to a further profoundly disturbing thought.
Maybe the Bush Administration, whose so called task force on the Dubai contract met only once, is really shoving this outsourced, kinky contract down our throats (and remember we are paying taxes to be betrayed by the Judas in the White House) for another reason.
Maybe the sheikhs of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates have some nasty goods on Bush, Cheney, the Carlyle Group, Halliburton (you name the corporate crony relationship) that the Bush dynasty can't afford to be revealed because it involves illegal financial transactions and questionable geopolitical agreements.
In short, maybe the national security of America is being blackmailed.
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Bremer knew nothing about Iraq. He had never been there, did not speak Arabic, had no experience in dealing with a country emerging from war, and had never been involved in "nation-building." During the two weeks he was given to get ready, he recruited a senior staff including several retired ambassadors, a former assistant secretary of state for administration, and a high-powered Republican Washington lobbyist. Only one of his recruits had any background in the region.
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The chaos on the ground in Iraq was matched by chaos within the Bush administration in Washington. President Bush decided on war with Iraq shortly after September 11, and from late 2001 planning for the war was underway. But the President never addressed the big issues of how postwar Iraq would be governed. Would the United States run a prolonged occupation as it had done with Germany and Japan? Would it hand over power to a provisional Iraqi government? If so, who would be in that government? What would be done about the Iraqi military and the Baath Party?
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Bremer says that Bush "was as vigorous and decisive in person as he appeared on television." But in fact he gives an account of a superficial and weak leader. He had lunch with the President before leaving for Baghdad - a meeting joined by the Vice President and the national security team - but no decision seems to have been made on any of the major issues concerning Iraq's future. Instead, Bremer got a blanket grant of authority that he clearly enjoyed exercising. The President's directions seem to have been limited to such slogans as "we're not going to fail" and "pace yourself, Jerry." In Bremer's account, the President was seriously interested in one issue: whether the leaders of the government that followed the CPA would publicly thank the United States. But there is no evidence that he cared about the specific questions that counted: Would the new prime minister have a broad base of support? Would he be able to bridge Iraq's ethnic divisions? What political values should he have? Instead, Bush had only one demand: "It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq." According to Bremer, he came back to this single point three times in the same meeting. Similarly, Ghazi al-Yawar, an obscure Sunni Arab businessman, became Bush's candidate for president of Iraq's interim government because, as Bremer reports, Bush had "been favorably impressed with his open thanks to the Coalition." [my ems]
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...I found a comment which linked to Factcheck.org. Following the link, I found enough evidence to convince me my statements about Cheney's personal benefit were wrong.
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 - Governors of both parties said Sunday that Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies.
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The governors said they would present their concerns to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday. In a preview of their message, all 50 governors signed a letter to the president opposing any cuts in the size of the National Guard.
"Unfortunately," the letter said, "when our National Guard men and women return from being deployed in foreign theaters, much of their equipment remains behind." The governors said the White House must immediately re-equip Guard units "to carry out their homeland security and domestic disaster duties."
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So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.
A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.
But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint.
The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story.
Should we be worried about the increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats. Both history and modern experience tell us that highly unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt. There's an arrow of causation that runs from diverging income trends to Jack Abramoff and the K Street project.
And I'm with Alan Greenspan, who - surprisingly, given his libertarian roots - has repeatedly warned that growing inequality poses a threat to "democratic society."
It may take some time before we muster the political will to counter that threat. But the first step toward doing something about inequality is to abandon the 80-20 fallacy. It's time to face up to the fact that rising inequality is driven by the giant income gains of a tiny elite, not the modest gains of college graduates.
The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years - misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as "enemy combatants," etc. - but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man (my em). We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal - known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?