Faith-based Hypocrite

Think Progress

Bill Donohue Defended Bush Catholic Outreach Staffer Who Was Outed As Sexual Predator

During the 2004 presidential campaign, George Bush's Catholic outreach coordinator, 54-year-old Deal Hudson, was outed as a sexual predator for taking advantage of a drunken 18-year old while he was a professor. The National Catholic Reporter reported:

According to documents obtained by NCR, Hudson invited a vulnerable freshman undergraduate, Cara Poppas, to join a group of older students for a pre-Lenten "Fat Tuesday" night of partying at a Greenwich Village bar. The night concluded after midnight in Hudson's Fordham office, where he and the drunken 18-year-old exchanged sexual favors. The fallout would force his resignation from a tenured position at the Jesuit school, cost him $30,000, and derail a promising academic career.

Hey, half of the college experience is trying to get girls drunk so you can get a little, usually doesn't pan out anyway, but it's 100% inappropriate for a prof to do that with a newby freshman who don't know shit. It's similar to priests molesting altar boys. Hell, the Big Dog got impeached for less.

Yet at least one prominent right-wing figure came to Hudson's defense: the Catholic League's Bill Donohue (Surprise, surprise! My em.), who has spent the last several days calling for the heads of two John Edwards bloggers. Donohue ardently defended Hudson in a statement, even invoking the Virgin Mary in downplaying his sexual assault:

In a press release, Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, minimized the charges against Hudson and attempted a joke at the Virgin Mary's expense. "Effective today," Donohue wrote, his organization had "a new requirement for all future employees: all candidates must show proof of being immaculately conceived, that is, they must demonstrate that they were conceived without sin."

The American Spectator reported later, "Responding to complaints, the Catholic League has removed the press release from its website."

I'm sure the 'complaints' were from Donohue.

This is the kind of asshole we are dealing with here, folks, and that's not near the worst thing he's said by a long shot, just that he said it in defense of a filthy old fool. Talk about "attack dogs"! Rabid ones. I know how we deal with rabid dogs where I come from. It's not pretty, but they don't bite anyone again.

Donohue needs to have his ass handed to him, along with many other wingnuts in the RS3M*. They need a rapid response, constant, factual hammer job. They need to be exposed for what they are so the world can see.

Candidates can only do it up to a point. It's a distraction from getting their message out and trying to popularize themselves to get elected. Also, they have to stick to the facts of the specific attacks in their rebuttal and can't get personal, unlike their attackers, who use any means.

And unlike us. I'm all for getting the personal goods on these pricks and shouting it from the rooftops. I'd just love to get the goods on some of the wingnut slimeballs' bedroom habits. Film at 11. That might be a little disgusting, but I'd do it for my country. Donohue himself probably doesn't do much in the rack besides sleep, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that he's a drunk.

When the light of day shines on these jerks, they'll go back under their rocks. The MSM won't do it unless it's about showbiz-type celebs, but we damn sure can.

All's fair in love and war, and this fer goddam sure ain't love.

Please pardon the rant, but this whole Sis and Amanda deal has me royally pissed off. The politicians and pundits can sling all the shit at each other that they want to. It's their game, it's what they do, it's their whole fucking lives. When they come down on two reg'lar gals to get at the guy they just wanted to help get elected, they're going way over the line as far as I'm concerned. It's like using a howitzer on a chipmunk. The ladies didn't sign on for that kind of abuse, don't deserve it, and probably don't have the experience or the killer instinct to defend themselves against it. They certainly don't want all the exposure and inquiry into their use of their own free speech and their private lives. I think I'm glad they saw the writing on the wall and got out of the cesspit.

I wish it had been me. I'da loved to go on one of the gasbag shows with Donohue. Or any wingnut asshole. I would like nothing better in this world than to create some 'must see TV' by knockin' the motherfucker on his ass live and on camera.

*Repuglican Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine.

Before the Invasion, There Was Feith

Robert Scheer

Someday, you are going to read a whole lot about the shenanigans of one Douglas J. Feith and an elaborate scheme to get the United States to invade Iraq. That is because Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has been determined to get to the bottom of this sordid tale and is now, fortunately, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee and thereby empowered to get at the truth.

Last week, his focus led to the partial declassification of a report produced by the Pentagon's inspector general. Although its shocking revelations did not get the coverage they deserved - what with a jealous astronaut under arrest and the death of a certain voluptuous stripper/heiress - efforts such as Levin's eventually will uncover the full picture of why President Bush committed to a war costing tens of thousands of lives and an expected $1 trillion that served no valid national security purpose.

Good piece, you should only go read.

Shorter: Normally, CIA intel would go directly to the President, if we had one. Instead, the intel went to UnderSecDef Feith, appointed by Cheney and Rumsfeld for the specific task of "correcting" intel that didn't agree with what they wanted the Chimp to see in its 'Agency analyzed' aka 'objective' form.

So was the White House in on this hustle? It is hard to imagine it wasn't, because Feith was selected by Cheney and Rumsfeld to run the "alternative" intelligence operation precisely because they knew he was an inveterate hawk, long committed publicly to a rollback strategy that would ensure Israel's security through regime change in the Arab world, beginning with Iraq.

Yeah, that worked, huh? I'm getting sick and tired of these assholes putting Israel ahead of the United States.

More important, why did the president raise Feith's analysis over that of the government's lavishly funded intelligence agencies? That is the basic question, and one that truth-diggers such as Levin eventually may be able to answer.

I'll take a wild-assed guess that the Chimp/Cheney/Rumsfeld wanted 'plausible deniability' and to be able to blame the faulty, aka 'cooked', intel on the CIA, which they've done.

Now that the cat's little nose is sticking outta the bag preparatory to jumping out with claws extended to scratch the livin' crap out of 'em, Bush and Cheney are gonna blame it all on Feith.

I saw this somewhere the other day: look for Feith to be the "new John Dean". Thrown under the bus by the Nixon Gang, Dean clambered back up to a table in front of a Senate investigating committee and spilled the beans big time. Let's hope.

Get 'em, Senator Levin. They all need to answer for what they've done.

"The weed is winning!"

Another good Texan, Jim Hightower, on the stupid War On Weed (WOW).

I tried to post it, but there's a broken tag in their 'embed' and I don't know enough to fix it. Almost did, though.

Bipartisanship

"Whenever a fellow tells me he is bipartisan I know he is going to vote against me." --Harry Truman

It's preposterous!

...

The president spent much of the hour-long televised session in the East Room addressing skepticism about his government's assertions regarding Iran and fears of a widening regional conflict. "The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing [explosives] is preposterous," Bush said. Repeating a reporter's question, he added: "Does this mean you're trying to have a pretext for war? No. It means I'm trying to protect our troops."

...

Yup, if the Chimp says it, it must be true. Pardon me if I don't believe it. At this point, unless the Chimp shows me pictures of Ahmedinejad riding a bomb like Slim Pickens, I ain't gonna believe shit coming from the White House. There's 3100 new markers in Arlington and we still haven't found Saddam's WMD. How many more lives are we gonna waste looking for Ahmedinejad's?



Welcome to readers of Salon's Blog Report.

Bloggers on the Bus

Here's an interesting article in Time about politics and bloggers that mentions Ms. Marcotte prominently and Sis less so.

But bottling the lightning of blogger authenticity is not easy. Many blogosphere activists suspect anyone signing on with a campaign of selling out. And in the era of drum-tight message control, campaigns are not inclined to tolerate the independence bloggers need to maintain their credibility.

Getting the marriage between campaign and blogger right is probably more important for Edwards than for any other Democratic candidate. The former vice-presidential candidate is moving hard to the left to differentiate himself from Clinton and Obama ahead of next year's primary contests. The blogosphere, with its surfeit of Democratic base voters, is a natural target audience: almost a third of the estimated 5 million daily political blog readers identified themselves as strongly liberal in a George Washington University study published last October.

The least tangible, yet most important, asset that bloggers bring to a campaign is their credibility with their fans, which is earned over years and gives their endorsement of a candidate real weight. Joe Trippi, who as Dean's campaign manager in 2004 employed up to six bloggers, says that letting the bloggers operate freely while on the payroll is crucial: he remembers cringing as he read Moulitsas' criticisms of Dean even as the campaign kept writing $2,500 monthly retainer checks.

Honesty requires biting the hand that feeds you when it's screwin' up.

Marcotte's pre-Edwards blogging oeuvre may have been provocative and profanity-laced, but it was still not far from the mainstream of the blood sport that is political blogging. And there is a welcome wonkishness to Marcotte, who, unlike some star bloggers, is not afraid to parse policy with her readers. Those qualities helped earn Pandagon, which will continue in the care of other bloggers while she's gone, a dedicated and sizable fan base. Marcotte has made it clear to her fans that working for a campaign requires a change in tone. "I know how the game works," she wrote in a recent post. "I'm more interested in helping my candidate win than anything—luckily we see eye to eye on most issues."

I think that last sentence says it all about why she quit so quickly. She wants Edwards to win and if bailing out to try and tamp down the uproar is required, so be it. I respect that.

If we liken the whole blogosphere to High School, which ain't that much of a stretch, I'm perfectly content to watch the BMOC and the jocks and the soshes run for student office, vie to be valedictorian, and stab each other in the back for whatever adolescent reason. I'm happy as a clam out here in the parking lot, sneaking a smoke and selling them their hubcaps back.

Trolls

I wasn't gonna write about it because it's really not worth it, but since we've been graced by the presence of a couple trolls today, it got me thinking about it. I mean, it seems like wasted effort on their part. Maybe one of them can stop breaking my balls for a minute and 'splain it to me.

Do they think they're going to give one of us or our readers some sort of epiphany? That somehow, because of their idiotic arguments they're going to change someone's point of view? This is the last place to attempt that.

Are they trying to piss somebody off? That's just playing with fire. A lot of the folks who hang around here don't take kindly to people pushing their buttons. So somebody tell me what the attraction is.

I'm a live and let live guy. I don't go on right wing sites and dick with 'em. I don't waste my time for the same reasons; I certainly don't think I'll be able to convice them of anything. If they dick with my friends (Shakes in particular today) I'm gonna take exception, but I'm gonna do it here. I don't give a damn what they write about her and I'm sure she doesn't either. I don't give a damn what they write about me on their blogs.

So, back to why they bother. Do they think this is a debating society? That I will somehow give any of their arguments enough credence and credibilty to debate? Do they think I will be somehow impressed with them because they can make convoluted arguments with third grade logic? Do they somehow think their arguments will get me to respect them as men and women?

At this point, if you're still swallowing the Rethug line, you're either employed by them or a gullible fool. If you watch Fox News and believe the crap they spread, you're nothing more than a brainwashed ignoramus. If you can't see, especially after reading this page and the comments from vets who've been there, what the occupation in Iraq is doing to our military, to our security, and to our integrity then you have no idea how the world works. I certainly will never respect you.

So, trolls will be ignored from now on. No engagement, no debate, no discussion. Their statements will be left to stand for themselves. They should take into account, however, that eventually I will get fed up.

So tell me, trolls. Why do you bother?

Injured GIs told to cough it up...

WPXI (Pittsburgh)

Soldiers who were paralyzed, suffered brain damage and lost limbs owe the government enlistment bonus money.

They must pay the money back because they didn’t fulfill their tour of duty.

Sometimes I am absolutely flabbergasted at the lack of decency and downright stupidity shown by the military bean counters. They offered 'em money to join, they joined, they sent 'em into harm's way, they got harmed, and now they want their goddam money back for breach of contract? Un-fuckin'-believable!

I am sure this won't stand, but for now it takes the fuckin' cake!

Repugs: "Don't debate Bush's War or we lose."

Think Progress

But a leaked letter obtained today by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's (D-MD) office reveals that conservatives have formulated a strategy to avoid talking about the central question of the debate.

In the letter, leading conservative Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) inform their allies: "The debate should not be about the surge or its details. This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily." Shadegg and Hoekstra warn, if conservatives are forced to debate "the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose."

Instead, they write, "the debate must be about the global threat of the radical Islamic movement." The problem is they lose that debate too.

This ain't exactly hot news, but they've already lost, both Bush's War and in the court of public opinion, and they know it. What they're trying to do is keep people who already know it from finding out about it, and save their political asses and their cushy big-bucks jobs with the attendant power and perks.

You lost because you supported stupid criminals in an immoral adventure, assholes. There's not much left to save, so admit you're caning a dead horse and then STFU and let real people try to fix the fuckin' mess you've made.

Calif. Senate OKs resolution against Bush's War

LATimes

Amid accusations that it would give comfort to America's enemies, the California Senate approved a resolution Tuesday calling for a halt to boosting the number of troops in Iraq or spending any more taxpayer dollars on the war without explicit approval from Congress.

As might be expected:

Republicans stood to oppose the resolution, which expresses the opinion of the Legislature but is legally meaningless.

One said the Democratic Party should be ashamed of supporting terrorists, who could soon be attacking California cities.

Hereafter follow some wingnut accusations. I'll spare you.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, a Santa Monica Democrat, responded: "Balderdash. If anything is supporting and emboldening our enemies, it is this war... This war was a mistake, and the rest of the world knows it."

Good on ya Sheila, and the rest of my state senate who voted for this too.

Ms. Kuehl, who played "Zelda" on The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis back around the Dawn of Time, is the state senator for the district chosen for refuge by Fixer's favorite verbal bamboozler. Why he chose Santa Monica is a mystery to me - the area, whose former senator was Tom Hayden of "Hanoi Jane's husband" fame, is so lefty it's known locally as "The People's Republic of Santa Monica". I hope he finds this out in the supermarket checkout line, or maybe when the valet 'loses' his SUV...

I am Spartacus

Driftglass:

...

Well the denizens of Crazyville – who are all terribly brave when it comes to threatening women, and yet for some reason seem collectively and conspicuously unable to find their way out of Mommy’s basement and down to the recruiting office to demand a Surge Billet in their Dear Leader’s Excellent Iraqi Adventure – should know that Shakes has lots of friends.

Lots and lots and lots of friends.

And we are all Spartacus.

So is he, and so is he.

And so are they.

Update:

Do you get what's going on here?

Trickling away

Liquid alert for Fixer only.

Since it's in my contract that I have to read Fixer's links, occasionally I do. This time, I'm glad I did. This jewel from My Left Wing:

Freedom, especially freedom of speech, is never lost in one big Hollywood moment, instead it trickles away, a grain of sand at a time until we suddenly find the vessel of freedom empty. Joe McCarthy knew this as he set about methodically picking away at individuals who were the 1950s equivalent to Amanda Marcotte, ruining their lives--in some cases forever.

Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have been the victims of a hate campaign as vicious as any Joe McCarthy conducted. They will survive this because they are survivors, but the wounds are deep. If John Edwards will not speak out against this as the Minnesota Democrats failed to defend Rick Kahn, then he may well have derailed his presidential train.

I am sorry for John Edwards, sorry for the Democratic Party and most sorry that as much as I keep hoping the Party will change it seems to keep shooting itself in the foot. There are too many bullets there already, which may be why the party keeps limping along.

I'm reminded of the campfire scene in Easy Rider where Captain America complains to Jack Nicholson's character about the treatment they receive from the citizenry just for exercising their Freedom, to which the reply is words to the effect of, "Freedom? They're scared to death of Freedom."

Happy Valentine's Day

Pic thanks to Watertiger, where you'll have to go for an explanation.

About 18 years ago I met the love of my life. How she's put up with me all these years is still a mystery but I'm glad she does. I love ya darlin'.

Update:

For those who aren't as lucky as we are.

Fuck it ...

I'm running for President (I already thought about my cabinet). Why not, everybody else is. Could a 45 year old pothead be much worse than what we have now or the current group of pretenders? What the fuck goes on with you people? Here's all you have to do and the American people will follow, at least the majority.

1. End the war in Iraq and bring the troops home. Explain to Lockheed, UT, Northrop, Raytheon, and the rest that the gravy train is pulling into the last stop. Explain to the generals and admirals 'Weapons r' Us' is closed.

2. Healthcare for everyone, don't care how it's done so long as Big Insurance and Big Pharma don't make a windfall. I've had it with seeing people with shitty or no insurance lose everything because they got sick. It's time healthcare ceases to be a worry for Americans.

3. Government spending; pay as you go, period.

4. Any initiative 'faith-based' in nature will be vetoed on arrival. Any 'faith-based' organizations coming to the government with their hands out can get lost. Go get some of your TV preachers to sponsor you or the Vatican for that matter. All you churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship who try to meddle in the running of the government will have their tax exempt status revoked forthwith and permanently. I wonder what the levy on the Catholics alone would do to fund universal health care? Just sayin'.

5. Real campaign finance reform. No lobbying. Businesses will not be able to lobby the government, neither will associations, unions, or any other 'entity'. Only non-profits will be able to lobby for government funds. You wanna lobby the U.S. government? Write to your elected representative. Other nations and their agents will not be allowed to lobby members of the U.S. government except through offical channels (your ambassadors to ours) Oh, you poor lobbyists will be out of jobs? Try earning an honest wage for once. By the way, the government will now fund campaigns. You get a set amount and you have to make due. Anything you don't use goes back into the fund until next election season.

6. Alternative energy. Time for Big Oil to pay their fair share. Say hello to taxes out the ass Exxon/Mobil and the rest. You want your tax breaks back? Give me a power source to replace petroleum and doesn't pollute. You'll get a tax break then. Oh, and by the way, the government will regulate your prices and profit margins from now on, you greedy motherfuckers. You don't like that? I'll nationalize the fucking oil companies, assholes.

7. Taxes. If you move your assets offshore to avoid taxation, you will be assessed a penalty equal to double your hidden assets. Don't like that? Gimmie your fucking passport. You're now a citizen of whatever country helps you hide your money. You ain't living here if you ain't paying your fair share.

8. National Service. A good portion of you don't give a fuck about this country because no one ever forced you to appreciate it. America ain't all about the bucks. You wanna be an MBA? You wanna be a basketball star? Well before you head off to that university, you owe the federal government a couple years. Military or civilian, your choice, but you're gonna have a stake in this country. Maybe you'd give a little more of a shit about who you're electing if you spent some sweat and blood on this nation's behalf.

Now, if a Dem came out and said this, tell me you wouldn't vote for them. What the fuck are you idiots waiting for?

Bottom of the barrel ...

Offered without comment via Oliver Willis:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army and Marine Corps are letting in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, reflecting the increased pressure of five years of war and its mounting casualties.

According to data compiled by the Defense Department, the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. The Army granted more than double the number of waivers for felonies and misdemeanors in 2006 than it did in 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

...

Update:

Fuck it, I am gonna comment. Do you realize the implications of the above? Do you realize we are turning our military into a haven for thugs and criminals?

"Ah, hypocrite," you say. "We know you went into the military to get out of an auto theft charge."

True, but we weren't at war. Yeah, we played little shit games, dicking with the Soviets and North Koreans, kicking over Grenada, but I wasn't taken in just because I was a warm body. The judge saw me as a semi-intelligent young punk who would only end up back in court at a later date if he sent me to juvenile hall. He did it to rehabilitate me, not to fill a dire need for cannon fodder and deck apes. To some it's splitting hairs, to me it makes a world of difference.

Now, my hope is some of these guys they've given waivers to, if they survive, might come back learning the lessons I did. Some might decide the military is what they were meant to do and stay in to make it a career. I wish them the best.

It's the ones who come back and use what they learned on the battlefield for nefarious means. The ones who would see the military as an education in the deadly arts and use that education for personal gain. The ones who've already proven they have no respect for authority. We've done posts before showing gang grafitti on American tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces.

Do you want members of the Cryps, Bloods, and MS-13 having advanced special warfare training? Do you trust these guys to show weapons discipline in an already tense situation over there? Me neither.

It's time to end this war, bring the troops home, and rebuild our military, returning it to the honorable institution it was before the Chimp and Rumsfeld got hold of it.

You just lost my vote

Dear Mr. Edwards,

So, now you accepted Shakes' resignation too. Good on ya. Nice to know you are so politically spineless and I no longer have to listen to you sound pretty good. It doesn't matter what you say anymore because I know, when push comes to shove, you will cave to pressure without prompting. We don't need someone like you in the White House.

Instead of using this 'scandal' to take a stand and expose hate mongers like Bill Donohue, show them for what they really are and how they have a negative effect on the serious discourse in this nation, you took the easy way out.

That tells me you will be stifled to inaction, if you do make it to the White House, every time the Republicans and their flying monkeys raise their voices a decibel. Sorry, Mr. Edwards, but I want a leader in the White House, not a pussy.

You are not Presidential material.

Fixer

PS - I see you learned how to stand up to your critics from John Kerry. You see where that got him. Go back to your 'mill town'.

Update:

Far better than I could have said it. But then, I'm usually not one for delicacy. Heh ...

And a 'by the way', our 17 year old intern at the shop has bigger balls and she wasn't issued a set at birth.

Update:

Brother Lurch is of the same mind. Again, said much better than I did.

And yes, I'm late for work, but as I watch the traffic report, I see there are accidents all along my 30 mile route. Ain't going nowhere until the sun comes up.

Update:

And do you think Mr. Edwards will say something about this? Yeah, I doubt it too.

Update:

Fuck work. Much as I love Harry, he ain't worth dying for. Seems like everybody on Long Island forgot what snow and ice were all about since last winter.

Tomorrow

Today's 'please read' is Anna Quindlen's column on Bush's War in the Feb. 19th Newsweek:

The course of this war has been a consistent scene of carnage with ever-changing underpinnings. Uncover weapons of mass destruction, lay hands on Saddam Hussein, oversee elections, teach the Iraqis to police themselves. Bring stability to the region. The last has been an illusion. Over the last year many Americans have finally realized how thoroughly they were sold a bill of goods. The picture of the peaceable kingdom painted by the Bush administration nearly four years ago was that of a country, riven by religious and ethnic violence for centuries, suddenly turned into the equivalent of a Connecticut suburb: town meetings, friendly neighbors, a common purpose, perhaps a shopping mall.

No one tries to sell that snake oil anymore. Now the party line is that American forces will get out, but they cannot get out now. They cannot get out now because Iraq would become a place of civil war, of untrammeled violence, of complete chaos.

Iraq has been a place of civil war, untrammeled violence, complete chaos for a long time now. American intervention has not made that better. It has made it worse.

Get out now. Provide plenty of consultants to organize police forces and help with reconstruction. Persuade the Iraqi government, such as it is, to ask for peacekeeping assistance from other nations. Put the arm on allies in the Middle East to participate for the sake of stability in the region. Recognize that much of this is about access to oil, and negotiate accordingly while trying to persuade Americans to go to rehab for their fossil-fuel addiction.

The most tangible pact America made with the Iraqi people was to capture Saddam Hussein and bring him to justice. Done. The most nonsensical and paternalistic one was to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. That they must do themselves.

Last paragraph. I have emboldened the "Quote of the Day".

The people who brought America reports of WMDs when none existed, and the slogan "Mission Accomplished" when it was not nor likely to be, now say that American troops cannot leave. Not yet. Not soon. Not on a timetable. Judge the truth of that conclusion by the truth of their past statements. They say that talk of withdrawal shows a lack of support for the troops. There is no better way to support those who have fought valiantly in Iraq than to guarantee that not one more of them dies in the service of the political miscalculation of their leaders. Not one more soldier. Not one more grave. Not one more day. Bring them home tomorrow.

I have nothing to add to that.

Three for one ...

Three alumni from one high school here on Long Island have been killed in Iraq. I lived in Mineola when Mrs. F and I got married and this has devastated the community. If it's up to the Chimp they'll give more lives before it's over.

Good question

Our pal Lambert:

If Bush wants to support the troops, why doesn't he get them some fucking armor?

Yeah:

The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs -- including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP) -- that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.

...

U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit, known as FRAG Kit 5, according to U.S. officials. The Army has ramped up production of the armor, giving priority to troops in Baghdad, but the upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer, Army officials said. That is well into the timeline for major operations launched last week to quell violence by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, which the U.S. military now views as the top security threat in Iraq.

...

The only 'surge' is gonna be in Bethesda, Walter Reed and Wilford Hall.

Stop Bush. Dump the Dollar

Paul Craig Roberts, an Assistant Treasury Secretary under Reagan has an interesting proposal for stopping Bush. From Information Clearing House:

"The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime’s military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.

If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the “sole superpower” myth would burst like the bubble it is.

The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government’s ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America’s will.

The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran."

Might just work, but I doubt it will happen.

R.