Invading Iraq and
misleading the American people, Bush has launched the most foolish war
in over 2000 years since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost
them.
The number of American casualties in Iraq is now well more than 2,000,
and there is no end in sight. Some two-thirds of Americans, according
to the polls, believe the war to have been a mistake. And congressional
elections are just around the corner.
What had to come, has come. The question is no longer if American
forces will be withdrawn, but how soon — and at what cost. In this
respect, as in so many others, the obvious parallel to Iraq is Vietnam.
For
misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war
since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost
them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from
office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If
convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.
First and foremost, such a presence will be needed to counter Iran,
which for two decades now has seen the United States as "the Great
Satan." Tehran is certain to emerge as the biggest winner from the war
— a winner that in the not too distant future is likely to add nuclear
warheads to the missiles it already has. In the past, Tehran has often
threatened the Gulf States. Now that Iraq is gone, it is hard to see
how anybody except the United States can keep the Gulf States, and
their oil, out of the mullahs' clutches.
A continued American military presence will be needed also, because a
divided, chaotic, government-less Iraq is very likely to become a
hornets' nest. From it, a hundred mini-Zarqawis will spread all over
the Middle East, conducting acts of sabotage and seeking to overthrow
governments in Allah's name.
No,
that isn't a quote from some wild-eyed lefty, that was a quote from an
article by "Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the
Hebrew University, [who] is author of Transformation of War (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers."
Read
the whole article. It is cogent and educated and smart and credible. I
expect numerous personal attacks on Professor van Creveld to be
launched by the neo-con chickenhawks shortly.
Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention
withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems,
military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will
be handled by a team different from — and more competent than — the one
presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.
Al Jazeera is a hell of a lot more professional news organization than
Fox News, and it knows a hell of a lot more about the value of freedom
of speech. It's only the parochial idiots that populate parts of
America that think they know more than everyone else in the world.
DON'T BOMB US....In the ever expanding blogosphere, the latest entry is a blog from several Al Jazeera staffers titled, appropriately, "Don't Bomb Us." Here are five things they would like you to know:
1. Al Jazeera was the first Arab station to ever broadcast interviews with Israeli officials.
2. Al Jazeera has never broadcast a beheading.
3. George W. Bush has recieved approximately 500 hours of airtime, while Bin Laden has received about 5 hours of airtime.
4. Over 50 million people across the world watch Al Jazeera.
For what it's worth, item #4 is really the only one
that matters. After all, whatever war it is that we're fighting, it's
obvious that it's primarily a war of ideas — and the only way to win that
war is via persuasion. Al Jazeera's 50 million viewers are our core
audience for our ideas, and bombing their headquarters sure isn't going
to do anything to get those viewers on our side.
In any case, "Don't Bomb Us" is your one stop shop for all news
about George Bush's alleged desire to reduce Al Jazeera's headquarters
to rubble. Check it out.
Is Al Jazeera is the main propaganda outlet for the other side in this war?
Actually, the main propaganda outlet for the Islamist radicals and
Iraqi rebels is the Bush regime. From the talk of "crusades" to the
invasion of Iraq to Guantanamo Bay to the Abu Ghraib videos Bush and
his henchmen are busy working day and night to incite even more Muslims
to take up al Qaeda's cause.
As I've explained before, this was all a terrible misunderstanding:Bush never said he wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera, he may have just wanted to get
bombed on alcohol.
Votes are valuable, and each voter should have the knowledge-and the
confidence-that his or her vote was recorded and counted as intended.
Electronic voting has returned us to the bad old days of ballot-box stuffing and vote-rigging, when it didn't
matter who voted as long as the right-- i.e., connected -- people did the counting. Even if you don't think there
was monkey business with the votes in Ohio last year (and the number of people who still believe those votes were
counted fair and square is steadily diminishing), you have to acknowledge that electronic balloting without a
verifiable paper trail creates a wide-open door for all kinds of election fraud.
That's why everybody -- Democrat, Republican, Green, Socialist or whatever -- should stand with New Jersey's own
Rep. Rush Holt, one of the smartest guys in Congress, and sign the "Voter Confidence Petition" in support of the
Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, or H.R. 550.
This link will give you your info, but here's what the
bill (which is stalled in committee) would do in a nutshell:
* Mandate a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election,
nationwide (because the voter verified paper record is the only one verified by the voters themselves, rather than by
the machines, it will serve as the vote of record in any case of inconsistency with electronic records);
* Protect the accessibility requirements of the Help America Vote Act for voters with disabilities;
* Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county,
for every Federal election;
* Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and Internet connections in voting
machines;
* Provide Federal funding to pay for implementation of voter verified paper balloting;
And most importantly . . .
* Require full implementation by 2006
-- the election the Republicans are most worried about. Not that I'm
implying the GOP would be tempted even the slightest bit to put its
trunk
on the scale. Heavens to Betsy, I wouldn't dream of even suggesting such a thing. That's why I'm confident we'll
see support for this bill extending well beyond the Democratic side of the room. Otherwise I might have to think
uncharitable thoughts about Republicans! Goodness gracious, we don't want that to happen, so by all means
click here and do your bit for democracy.
It's sad that we even have to talk about why it's important to have an auditable voting system in this country.
It's even worse that there's a need for legislation to mandate a paper trail.
It's practically criminal that any member of Congress should oppose
such basic, fundamental principles about election integrity and the
people's right for a vote to count. The lack of Republican support for
HR 550 says it all.
Mr. Six, that freakishly festive old bald guy (actually, probably not old) with the oversized glasses and bad makeup is won't be invading our televisions again with his manic dancing and annoying "We Like to Party" song.
Now new owners will have finally put him to rest. He's
not an appealing character, and he would seem to frighten some
children. (He frightens some adults.)
Mr. Six memorabilia flies off the shelves. The look-alike contests draw
hundreds. He has his own roller coaster, Mr. Six's Pandemonium. All in
all, Mr. Six has been a huge, if annoying, success. Despite this, Dan Snyder, who took control of Six Flags amusement parks along with two partners yesterday, plans to force the old spokesgeezer into retirement, the New York Post
reports. Apparently, Snyder and his team want to shift the primary
marketing focus from thrill-seeking teenagers to mothers with young
children.
Bush Is Not In Reality, Lost in Religious Idealism, Like Ali Khamenei
Wolf Blitzer had Seymour Hersh on this morning, here is the transcript, and all I can say is, this nation is being run by a madman!
BLITZER: In this new article you have in The New Yorker, you also write this about the president: " 'The
president is more determined than ever to stay the course,' the former
defense official said. 'He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in
the adage, "People may suffer and die, but the Church advances." ' He
said that the president had become more detached, leaving more issues
to Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney. 'They keep him in the gray
world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,' the former
defense official said."
Could you be more specific on this former defense official?
HERSH: Sure, in this day and age, Wolf. No. I mean, that's -- we're having a war over sourcing right now.
BLITZER: But this is someone who had day to day or contact, direct contact with the president?
HERSH: Suffice to say this, that this president in private, at Camp David with his friends, the people that I'm sure call him George,
is very serene about the war. He's upbeat. He thinks that he's going to
be judged, maybe not in five years or ten years, maybe in 20 years.
He's committed to the course. He believes in democracy.
HERSH:
He believes that he's doing the right thing, and he's not going to stop
until he gets -- either until he's out of office, or he falls apart, or
he wins.
BLITZER: But this has become, your suggesting, a religious thing for him?
HERSH:
Some people think it is. Other people think he's absolutely committed,
as I say, to the idea of democracy. He's been sold on this notion.
He's
a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn't have all
the facts and all the information he needs and isn't able to change.
I'll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they're not sure how you get to this guy.
-snip-
BLITZER: Here's what you write. You write, "Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the
president remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring
democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure,
even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any
information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding."
Those are incredibly strong words, that the president basically doesn't want to hear alternative analysis of what is going on.
HERSH:
You know, Wolf, there is people I've been talking to -- I've been a
critic of the war very early in the New Yorker, and there were people
talking to me in the last few months that have talked to me for four
years that are suddenly saying something much more alarming.
They're beginning to talk about some of the things the president said
to him about his feelings about manifest destiny, about a higher
calling that he was talking about three, four years ago.
I
don't want to sound like I'm off the wall here. But the issue is, is
this president going to be capable of responding to reality? Is he
going to be able -- is he going to be capable if he going to get a bad
assessment, is he going to accept it as a bad assessment or is he
simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in
the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10
or 20 years.
A telling phrase
HERSH: He believes that he's doing the right thing, andhe's not going to stop until he gets -- either until he's out of office, or he falls apart, or he wins. What are the odds that the missing word there is "impeached"?
either until he's out of office, or he falls apart, or he wins. I'm rooting for Falls Apart and soon!
This latest bit from Sy Hersh seems to reinforce other
stories we've heard about Pres. Bush's isolation from the rest of the
administration. From the Newsweek's article in the middle of the
Katrina crisis, where Andy Card and others were afraid to confront
Pres. Bush to recent reports that he only talks to Laura Bush et al.
The more and more I hear about Pres. Bush lately, the more I wonder if
he's going to have a mental breakdown or something. This is simply too
frightening for words to think that no one can tell the "leader of the
free world" that we might have to nip the "freedom is on the march" in
Iraq and the Middle East in the bud. We live in scary times. I hope
that the defense official that Sy Hersh talked to was exaggerating or
something. That would be much more comforting than seeing "The Madness
of King George" play out in modern times. Scary stuff indeed!!
This just in!!!!
John Warner (Armed Services Chair) is publicly
pleading for Bush to go before the American people in a "fireside chat"
format, to explain what the hell is going on in Iraq. Talk about
synchronicity: a real-time news item that highlights this diary's
thrust, that Bush is hyper-insulated, even to the point that leaders of
his own party must resort to desperate public pleadings to get his
attention on matters of grave concern.
Not only are the wheels off this juggernaught, the undercarriage has been shredded and the oil pan is on fire.
My take on all this is that we have three years to watch Bushco
systematically gut the entire foundations of modern conservativism
through the rot of Republican corruption, ineptitude, deceit and
mismanagement.
We are
watching our enemy implode. Because this man represents far more of a
threat to this country and its values than al Qaeda. Sit back and get out the popcorn.
It appears that Iowa is promoting glorified prostitution as the preferred method of having sex.
Yes, the valuable lesson to young women is that jewelry is important.
Is there any better way to let the kids know you're 'hip' and 'down with that' than both using the word bling and putting it in quotes?
I've only heard that word successfully used once without making the
speaker sound like a complete jackass, and she was using it as a sound
effect, not as a noun. She was also kind of joking. In addition, she
was young, trendy, attractive, and black. The billboard satisfies none
of these requirements.
"Iowa's Abstinence Mission" (I AM) which sponsored the pathetic
billboard is run by the Iowa Dept. of Health. In other words, the "hip"
billboard represents Iowa's tax payers' money hard at work, yo.
The this brochure
(pdf) is a riot, too; it mixes all the born-again drivel about STDs,
pregnancy and the hassles of parenthood, and includes quotes like
14-year-old T.J.'s immortal line: "[...] I also know that by having sex my friends might not respect me any more.".
That's painful. One has to ask how something can go so wrong at every turn.
Is it me or does the pregnant model have a HUGE left hand? Or is she
sticking her left hand out to show that unmarried adolescent girls get
pregnant? So ...young girls can only get pregnant without a wedding ring? OMG, they've cured infertility!
Michael Brown is now channeling Stuart Smalley. "I'm moving on with my life," he said. "I'm doing a lot of good work
with some great clients. . . . My wife, children, and my grandchild
still love me. My parents are still proud of me.
He learned his lessons, and now they're for sale.
Ousted FEMA
director Michael Brown, who was vilified over his handling of the
Hurricane Katrina disaster, plans to make a fresh start in Colorado,
selling his expertise about how emergency planning can go right or so
very wrong.
"You have to do it with candor. To do it otherwise
gives you no credibility," Brown said Wednesday. "I think people are
curious: 'My gosh, what was it like? The media just really beat you up.
You made mistakes. I don't want to be in that situation. How do I avoid
that?' "
In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Brown
acknowledged key mistakes he made while overseeing the federal response
to the hurricane that ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi. He also lashed
out at the media and discussed plans to base his fledgling consulting
business in the Boulder-Longmont area of Colorado, where he lived
before joining the Bush Administration in 2001.
"Look, Hurricane
Katrina showed how bad disasters can be, and there's an incredible need
for individuals and businesses to understand how important preparedness
is," he said. "So if I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be
better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses
_ because that goes straight to the bottom line _ then I hope I can
help the country in some way."
Brown went from a little-known
political appointee to national lightning rod status just days after
Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29. Over the next several
days, national television viewers were outraged by images of evacuees
still waiting to be rescued or suffering in over-crowded shelters.
Although some congressional critics pointed the finger at state and
local officials for failing to order mandatory evacuations soon enough,
Brown took the heaviest fire over the federal response. Critics seized
on his appearance on ABC News' Nightline program, when he implied that
he was unaware of hundreds of people suffering without federal help at
an overcrowded New Orleans convention center.
"Don't you guys watch television?" host Ted Koppel asked pointedly.
Brown said he had simply misspoken, but that he never was able to recover public confidence.
"That was a mistake. That was a real tipping point for me because I
hadn't slept. I misspoke," Brown said. "People were seeing pictures of
these people in the convention center that FEMA had learned about 24
hours before that. When I said, 'We just learned about that,' people
misinterpreted that as, 'You mean this has been going on for 24 hours
and you don't know about it?' "
Brown said criticism comes with the territory for any public
official. The irony is that he was just days away from resigning his
job before Katrina struck.
"The original plan was to be gone
before the start of hurricane season," he said. "It couldn't quite get
done in time, and so . . . my leaving was delayed slightly. And the
rest is history."
He said that he and his wife, Tamara, have put
their Virginia house on the market. They plan to move to the
Boulder-Longmont area full-time, while he plans to commute back and
forth to a second office and apartment in Washington.
More details about Brownie's new disaster preparedness consulting firm,
"it seems that Brown's actual angle may be providing not generic
emergency response consulting services but rather consulting services
to incompetents who've been saddled with emergency preparedness
responsibility and fear becoming national laughing stocks when they
turn mid-size disasters in to full-on catastrophes through gross
mismanagement."
It's important to keep close tabs on everything going on in your disaster so as to avoid the true catastrophe of having the press think you're not on top of things.
Michael
Brown's consulting job is to teach people how NOT to be like MICHAEL
BROWN. Amazing! Is this is a Great country or What?
For all the readers who will be out of town for the festive
feasting, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. For all of the rest of you,
hang on -- it's a news-filled festival weekend. More to come...
Over 2,000 American young people are not going to be having
Thanksgiving dinner with their families on account of George Bush's
incompetence and sociopathology.
I pray for Americans like
Congressman Murtha and Patrick Fitzgerald this Thanksgiving. They and
millions like them are rays of hope in a desolate landscape.
President Bush has pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, and they are headed for Disneyland.
Marshmallow and its backup, Yam, are being shipped to Disneyland in
California, where Marshmallow will serve as grand marshall of the
annual holiday parade.
Turkeys have been known to look into the sky when it rains and drown
themselves, earning it the reputation as the world's dumbest animal.
Today at the White House, the turkey met his match.
Meanwhile, the unpardoned Dick Cheney is presiding over the mass torture of the turkeys.
Ha. So ANOTHER turkey figured out how to get a free pass into the White House press corps....
As visual metaphors go, it was a lavishly gilded lily of an image, a
hanging curveball across the plate, a George Tenet-style slam-dunk: A
weary President Bush, trying to escape a news conference in Beijing on
Sunday, strides away from the microphone to a pair of locked doors,
which he pulls and tugs in vain. No exit , the image screamed. No way out.
Of course, George Bush will inevitably get out of the mess he has made
-- he leaves office in three years and two months, not that anyone's
counting. But the rest of us will be left with his handiwork: crushing
national debt, rising economic inequality, a poisoned political
atmosphere and, oh, yes, the war in Iraq. We're the ones trapped in the
dark with no exit sign in sight.
The administration is losing the public debate because of its many
missteps and failures, but also because of its insistence on conflating
the war in Iraq with the larger "war on terror." Does anyone understand
what "war on terror" means? The country was attacked by a murderous
association of Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. Last we
heard, he was still alive and well, probably in some cave in
northwestern Pakistan. That's a long way from Iraq.
The
president says that Iraq is a test of our nation's resolve, that
anything less than victory will confirm the enemy's view that America
lacks the stomach for a fight. But "stay the course" doesn't play as a
strategy when the course seems to lead nowhere. What is victory in
Iraq? When will we know we've won? When the simmering, low-level civil
war we've ignited sparks into full flame and somebody takes over the
country? When a new government in Baghdad declares its eternal
brotherhood and friendship with Tehran?
The mess that George
Bush and Co. have created in Iraq doesn't have an unmessy solution.
Murtha's plan -- just get out -- isn't really attractive, but at least
it's a plan. The saying goes that when you're in a hole, the first
thing to do is to stop digging. But the president, like the optimistic
kid in the old joke, just keeps burrowing deeper into the pile of
manure, even though by now we can be pretty sure that there's no pony
down there.
UPDATE 1: Iraqi
leaders want US out of Iraq and call for a timetable for the withdrawal
of all foreign troops. Why do Iraqi leaders hate Iraq? Those darn
Iraqi leaders! Looks like
they have aligned themselves with the likes of Murtha, Michael Moore,
Moveon.org and 57% of America. Let's teach them a lesson and bomb the
crap out of their country...
Uh... wait... didn't we already do that?
When
the party's over and the hosts ask you to leave, only a fool would ask
for more dip and chips. Bush wants them to tap another keg, turn up the
music and piss off the neighborhood. This party needs a bouncer.
President
Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors
and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration
sources say. The president's reclusiveness in the face of relentless
public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks
regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr.
Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George
H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.
"The
sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people:
first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions."
I don't think this is a terribly bad idea considering the rut his previous knuckle draggers got him, and this country, into.
Not just worst president ever. But quickly becoming scariest president ever.
Why doesn't the public know more
about the fallen soldiers and their families? Partly it's because
there is little or no media coverage which helps keep the public from
knowing the 'real cost' of the war. Paul Fusco pulls back the
curtain in this photo essay..
A War without casualties? A war where only the evil get hurt? As much
as we would like to believe this, such an idea does not exist. War
produces casualties and destroys lives. Since the beginning of the
Iraqi war the government has consistently tried to divert media
attention both visually and factually. An obvious example of that
effort was closing Dover Air Force Base to the press so we cannot see
rows of flag-draped coffins ready to be shipped to grieving families.
As increasing numbers of families grieve in the small towns of America,
Paul Fusco shows us the bitter truth associated with the intolerable
loss and pain from this war.
About:
In November 2003 Magnum photographer Paul Fusco began
his essay on the funerals of the soldiers killed in Iraq. From the
first funeral, military officers confronted media saying the families
didn’t want the coverage. Fusco was never allowed to speak to the
families.
Jean Full Of Schmidt
posted by Jane at firedoglake
Jean
Schmidt, who defeated Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett for her seat in
Ohio, shut down the House of Representatives by challenging the courage
of decorated Vietnam War veteran Jack Murtha, saying "cowards cut and
run." The place exploded. It was probably everybody pulling out their
Blackberries and Googling Jean Schmidt's war record, where they no
doubt found her history as the head of Cincinnati Right to Life.
Presumably if Murtha's combat experience had been blowing up local
Planned Parenthood clinics, that would have qualified.
The
fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the
most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she received from
a Marine colonel.
"He asked me to send Congress a message - stay
the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message -
that cowards cut and run, Marines never do," Schmidt said.
Democrats booed and shouted her down - causing the House to come to a standstill.
Rep.
Harold Ford, D-Tenn., charged across the chamber's center aisle
screaming that it was an uncalled for personal attack. "You guys are
pathetic. Pathetic," yelled Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
And her little dog Toto, too.
Update 2:ThinkProgress has the video. Really, you should see it. The minute she steps up there you can just feel she's itching to make trouble.
re Schmidt's withdrawal - after the chaos erupted when she was speaking
and the sound was but for quite a while, when they came back, the first
order of business was permission for her to withdraw her remarks which
was granted followed by Hag herself doing a little "gosh, I was not
referring to any of my esteemed colleagues" dance.
IMHO - Dems should not have let her get away with that - sorry but they really need to learn how to play harder than this.
It gets worse: House Republicans request ethics probe (sub.req.) of Murtha.
The
good thing about the GOP attack on Murtha is that they are going to
totally alienate, once and for all, all the Yellow Dog Democrats,
moderate Republicans and Independents.
Murtha just finished his comments on Tweety by saying that the people
are way out in front of the pols "People come up to me and say they
agree while the members say they need to think about it." He concluded
by saying the repub motion distorted his view by calling for pullout
with no plan and that they were reprehensible.
That's how a real dem talks - perhaps some others would like to take lessons?
UPDATE 3: But an unanswered question remains, who is this Colonel Danny Bubp, and
why does his opinion matter so much to Ms. Schmidt? One would assume
that he would possess at least as much military experience as the man
he essentially termed a coward, in response to the Congressman's call
for the troops in Iraq to return home within six months.
Well,
we do know that Colonel Bubp is an Ohio state representative, in fact,
from a district contained within Ohio's 2nd Congressional district,
which Ms. Schmidt won in a special election earlier this year. And how
did he win that seat for the first time in 2004?
Nearly thirty
years in the Marines, and Col. Bubp missed every single military
engagement? Southeast Asia? Beirut? Grenada? Panama? Gulf War? The
Balkans? Somolia? He even missed embassy service in Paris!
But
that hasn't stopped Col. Bubp from attacking the character of decorated
veterans like Cong Murtha. Col. Budp campaigned for Schmidt in her race
against Iraq veteran Paul Hackett in the special election.
While
the Democrats are focused on the misuse of intelligence that misled us
into the war Bush is focused on how to misled us out of
war..... Rob Corddry Daly Show
Because We Don't Want the Smoking Gun to Take the Shape of a Falafel Cloud
Picture by Monk Last Tuesday, Bill O'Reilly encouraged terrorists to target San
Francisco because he was upset that the city voted to ban military
recruiters from high-school and college campuses. O'Reilly said "if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco."
At first, O'Reilly defended his comments as "not controversial." That didn't seem to work, so tonight he claimed the whole thing was a "satirical riff."
In O'Reilly's view the only real problem is the "internet smear sites" drawing attention to his comments:
Some
far left internet smear sites have launched a campaign to get me fired
over my point of view. I believe they do this on a daily basis. This
time the theme is O'Reilly is encouraging terrorist attacks.
Damn the Facts, this is Unbelievably stupid. Not unusual with these guttersnipes.
Fairly
typical comments from O'Reilly. But he added an unusual twist. O'Reilly
promised to publish the names of everyone who supported these "internet
smear sites" on his website:
I'm glad the smear sites made a big deal out of
it. Now we can all know who was with the anti-military internet crowd.
We'll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on
billoreilly.com. So check with us.
It's
unclear where O'Reilly would find such a list. But since he has labeled
everyone who supports websites like MediaMatters.org and
ThinkProgress.org as "anti-military" it seems to be an effort to
intimidate everyone who doesn't endorse the Iraqi clusterfuck.
Some bloggers are planning to email O'Reilly and insist to be placed
on His Enemies list. As a public service here are a few reasons
you might want to consider adding to your email to O'Liar.
Dear Bill O'Reilly. Please put me on your Enemies List because:
1.- You thought telling an entire city that you didn't
think they should be defended if Al Qaeda attacked them would be a
funny joke.
2.- You thought telling one of of your women coworkers
that performing sexual acts using a fried middle eastern food would be
a sexy turn on.
3.- I read ten pages of your goddamn porno book, and you owe me.
4.- You thought I forgot all about that whole "I'll be first to be mad if no WMDs are found in Iraq" thing, but I didn't.
5.- I was on McCarthy's Enemies List, and Nixon's Enemies List, and I want to continue the streak.
6.- I'm hoping to hasten your rapid descent into
madness. Possibly by The Holidays, if possible, because I haven't gotten
Al Franken anything yet.
Mission Statement 'Organization to Shoot Bill O'Reilly into the Sun:We are a group of people with a
common goal for the common good. To shoot Fox News celebrity Bill
O'Reilly into the sun. We do not wish any harm to Mr. O'Reilly, we
simply feel that he could better serve mankind in a rocket ship, on a
collision course with the center of our solar system. In fact, we feel
O'Reilly himself would be receptive to the idea, after a little
Cheney-style convincing...
Happy Veterans Day to All Who Have Served And Are Now Serving
Eleven
eleven has come round again, when we remember what used to
optimistically be referred to as the last great 'War to end all Wars.
As our nation celebrates the
contributions and sacrifices of America's Veterans today, today is more than just a day to give Veterans a parade and a thank
you. Veterans Day is about honoring those who have fought in service to
this nation. The best way to honor our sacrifice is to take care of their
needs and answer the questions they have. To date, all we have gotten from
most people in Washington
is a bunch of lip service and requests to be window dressing for advantageous
politicians.
We hope
that every politician – from the President on down – will finally tell us:
Why is
there no mandatory baseline funding of the Department of Veterans Affairs? You say you support the
Troops, but year after year, the VA is woefully underfunded because funding is
at the discretion of Congress and the President. The result has been the
agency charged with Veteran care has been continually underfunded by as much as
13-14%, according to the agency’s own Undersecretary. The agency does not
have enough centers and personnel to properly screen for and treat Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder or provide adequate and timely health care.
Some Iraq
and Afghanistan Veterans are already homeless. There is no system set up
to help them.
Why has
no one been fired for underestimating the VA’s funding need by billions? A wave of new Veterans is
coming and the VA is not ready. Earlier this year, Secretary Jim
Nicholson crawled to Congress with his tail between his legs to admit the
agency miscalculated its need by almost $3 billion for the next two
years. Who has been held accountable for this foul up? Has the
agency kept a closer eye on the developing need to make sure they aren’t caught
unprepared, as our Troops return from war?
Why did
we become Veterans in the first place? On behalf of the Veterans of Iraq, I ask that the
question is finally answered: Were we misled into war? We deserve
to know.
Does
anyone have a real plan for Iraq? Many of us who served in Iraq
feel there was never a well thought out plan for after the invasion. We
never felt there was a clear mission with attainable goals. We are told
by many of our friends still over there that there is still no clear mission.
Is there an exit strategy that is responsible and practical? Neither
Democrats nor Republicans have offered anything on that front.
Today, Sen. Dick Durbin demanded the truth on behalf of the American people.
We want to know how and why the Bush administration
distorted intelligence to lead us into war in Iraq. We want to know who
else was involved in Lewis Libby’s efforts to conceal the White House’s
deceptions. And we want to know why the Republicans who control
Congress have, until just last week, repeatedly accepted the deception
coming from the White House and refused to ask the hard questions about
the misuse of pre-war intelligence.
Most of all we want to know when George Bush will stop misleading
Congress and the American people, acknowledge the mistakes we’ve made
in Iraq, and develop a strategy to achieve military, political and
economic success to bring our troops home.
Electronic voting has returned us to the bad old days of ballot-box stuffing and vote-rigging, when it didn't
matter who voted as long as the right-- i.e., connected -- people did the counting. Even if you don't think there
was monkey business with the votes in Ohio last year (and the number of people who still believe those votes were
counted fair and square is steadily diminishing), you have to acknowledge that electronic balloting without a
verifiable paper trail creates a wide-open door for all kinds of election fraud.
As visual metaphors go, it was a lavishly gilded lily of an image, a
hanging curveball across the plate, a George Tenet-style slam-dunk: A
weary President Bush, trying to escape a news conference in Beijing on
Sunday, strides away from the microphone to a pair of locked doors,
which he pulls and tugs in vain. No exit
From 
A War without casualties? A war where only the evil get hurt? As much
as we would like to believe this, such an idea does not exist. War
produces casualties and destroys lives. Since the beginning of the
Iraqi war the government has consistently tried to divert media
attention both visually and factually. An obvious example of that
effort was closing Dover Air Force Base to the press so we cannot see
rows of flag-draped coffins ready to be shipped to grieving families. 
Last Tuesday, Bill O'Reilly encouraged terrorists to target San
Francisco because he was upset that the city voted to ban military
recruiters from high-school and college campuses. O'Reilly said "
As our nation celebrates the
contributions and sacrifices of America's Veterans today, today
I've only heard that word successfully used once without making the speaker sound like a complete jackass, and she was using it as a sound effect, not as a noun. She was also kind of joking. In addition, she was young, trendy, attractive, and black. The billboard satisfies none of these requirements.
"Iowa's Abstinence Mission" (I AM) which sponsored the pathetic billboard is run by the Iowa Dept. of Health. In other words, the "hip" billboard represents Iowa's tax payers' money hard at work, yo.
The this brochure (pdf) is a riot, too; it mixes all the born-again drivel about STDs, pregnancy and the hassles of parenthood, and includes quotes like 14-year-old T.J.'s immortal line: "[...] I also know that by having sex my friends might not respect me any more.".
That's painful. One has to ask how something can go so wrong at every turn.Is it me or does the pregnant model have a HUGE left hand? Or is she sticking her left hand out to show that unmarried adolescent girls get pregnant?
So ...young girls can only get pregnant without a wedding ring? OMG, they've cured infertility!