After five years of dealing with obvious spin and disinformation from journalists and news anchors who behave more as stenographers for the Bush Administration and spewers of GOP talking points than they do as unbiased professionals, a courageous newsperson finally emerges from the murky sludge. And he comes out swinging at that. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown is drop dead awesome. Interesting that the extreme right wing is sending hate mail, including white powder, to Mr. Olbermann's home. The wingnuts will stop at nothing to cover up its heinous lies and sins against the American people. LS
KEITH OLBERMANN'S SPECIAL COMMENTARY
CONDI LIED ABOUT CLINTON NOT LEAVING BUSH A STRATEGY FOR AL-QAEDA.
What's another lie? The Bush Administration has spewed so many lies from their party's wing of the pathological lying liars that it's hard to keep track. It seems that Richard Clarke wrote a comprehensive report on Al-Qaeda, when serving under Clinton that was passed along to and ignored by the Bush Administration. LS
From Raw Story.com
Excerpts:
Rice made the comments in response to claims made Sunday by former President Bill Clinton, who argued that his administration had done more than the current one to address the al Qaeda problem before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She stopped short of calling the former president a liar.
However, RAW STORY has found that just five days after President George W. Bush was sworn into office, a memo from counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke to Rice included the 2000 document, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects." This document devotes over 2 of its 13 pages of material to specifically addressing strategies for securing Pakistan's cooperation in airstrikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The document also explores broader strategic approaches, such as a "need to keep in mind that Pakistan has been most willing to cooperate with us on terrorism when its role is invisible or at least plausibly deniable to the powerful Islamist right wing."
But Clarke also made it clear that the Clinton Administration recognized the problem that Pakistan posed in mounting a more sweeping campaign against bin Laden: "Overt action against bin Laden, who is a hero especially in the Pushtun-ethnic border areas near Afghanistan," Clarke speculated in late 2000, "would be so unpopular as to threaten Musharraf's government." The plan notes that, after the attack on the USS Cole, Pakistan had forbidden the United States from again violating its airspace to attack bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The memo sent by Clarke to Rice, to which the Clinton-era document was attached, also urges action on Pakistan relating to al Qaeda. "First [to be addressed,]" wrote Clarke in a list of pending issues relating to al Qaeda, is "what the administration says to the Taliban and Pakistan about ending al Qida sanctuary in Afghanistan. We are separately proposing early, strong messages on both."
CONDI LIED ABOUT CLINTON'S PLANS FOR AL-QAEDA
MAJORITY OF AMERICANS HOLD BUSH, NOT CLINTON, RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILING TO CAPTURE OSAMA BIN LADEN.
Well duh...of course it is Bush's fault. Only the disillusioned and poisoned kool-aid drinkers would think otherwise. LS
GALLUP POLL SHOWS AMERICANS BELIEVE BUSH RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILING TO CAPTURE BIN LADEN
NATURALLY WE ARE LESS SAFE NOW THAN BEFORE 9/11 THANKS TO BUSH'S HAIRBRAINED AND EVIL WAR IN IRAQ.
The more recent NIE Intelligence Report on Iraq will very conveniently not be available until after the election in November. Shocking? Not really considering we are living in a Bush imposed dictatorship. LS
INTELLIGENCE REVEALS U.S. LESS SAFE BECAUSE OF WAR IN IRAQ
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
SPECULATION ON A DESPERATE BUSH AND AN OCTOBER SURPRISE
A friend of Ken's made the following astute and highly disturbing obsesrvation about a stunt an increasingly desperate Bush will pull off in October to win the election in November. LS
Bush is on record "guaranteeing" that the Repubs will keep both houses. So the speculation is what the "October Surprise" will be that will ensure this happens. Here's the most interesting (properly snarky) conjecture....
The Surprise will get rolling about the 10th of October. President Cheney and his Amazing Meat Puppet will keep their whole Iranian sanctions pot a boilin' over until then. But they will not attack Iran preemptively.
That won't work, not after the debacle in Iraq. Nor will they actually engage in sanctions, a boycott or a naval blockade, which the world will neither observe nor countenance. They need a war, but America can't start it.
That's why the plan is for Israel to attack a few nuclear enrichment facilities inside Iran, using conventional bunker buster bombs. This won't accomplish a damned thing, since those bunkers are a full hundred feet underground. But it will let Bush hold up his hands and say, "There's jes' no holdin' them Israelis back, heh heh . . ."
Then, when mean, bad old Iran responds with missiles at Israel, at US troops, or at oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, or at Saudi, Kuwaiti or other oil fields, or simply stops shipping oil -- well, Bush will put on a ten gallon white hat, give a speech about brimstone and Jesus, and begin the 30-day 4,000-target bombing campaign that's been planned for well over a year.
He carries the speech in his breast pocket, and he reads it to his bathroom mirror every night after he brushes that crooked smile of his. He's ready. We're ready. We've already moved several aircraft carriers to the region, and now we're sending minesweepers to the Gulf from the first of October.
We're primed and pumped for CNN's next video war, but Israel has to start it so Bush can ride in on a white horse and save poor, defenseless Israel from the slavering Muslim hordes. And save Western civilization, too. And white wimmens everywhere, and kids, and puppies, and our precious bodily fluids. Just like Audie Murphy used to do.
Buy yourself some Exxon, some Blackwater and some Halliburton stock, or run the risk of working for a living from here on out.
Bush doesn't bluff. He's not going to lose this election and be investigated and impeached and imprisoned. None of the above. He's down to a pair of deuces, and not much left to lose. He's going to kick over the table, and start shooting. He figures it's a heap sight better n' playing out a losing hand.
A man has got to know his limitations.
Bush hasn't a clue.
PROOF THAT ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES CAN BE EASILY HACKED
Some of us have known in our gut that the GOP stole the election in Ohio in 2004 by both hacking software and by disenfranchising mostly minority voters. The CEO of Diebold is on record as having arrogantly promised to deliver the election to W. and that he did. His enabler, Kenneth Blackwell, made it happen.
After two years of screaming fraud by a vast number of groups, including The Brad Blog, mainstream media has finally gotten a grip on election fraud reality. But why did it take them so long to “get it?” Probably because the mainstream media knows it is losing credibility on all fronts, second-by-second, thanks to bloggers.
Although 50 days prior to an election is hardly enough time to correct the evils, the cowardly whores in the media can say they exposed the heinous crime to our democracy. LS
CNN'S LOU DOBBS ON HACKING ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
THERE IS SO MUCH CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON THAT THE FBI HAS TO TRIPLE ITS STAFF TO INVESTIGATE LAWMAKERS, LOBBYISTS AND INFLUENCE PEDDLERS
From The New York Daily News via Raw Story.com
Excerpts:
For decades, only one squad in Washington handled corruption cases because the crimes were seen as local offenses handled by FBI field offices in lawmakers' home districts.
But in recent years, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and other abuses of power and privilege have prompted the FBI to assign 37 agents full-time to three new squads in an office near Capitol Hill.
FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus told The News yesterday that he wants to detail even more agents to the Washington field office for a fourth corruption squad because so much wrongdoing is being uncovered.
"Traditionally, a congressional bribery case might be conducted on Main Street U.S.A., but a lot of the stuff we're finding these days is here in Washington," said Burrus, who heads the FBI's criminal division.
He said typical crimes involve lawmakers' illegal interactions with lobbyists and "people who have a lot of savvy about how the congressional process works and appropriations."
SO MUCH CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON THAT THE FBI MUST TRIPLE ITS STAFF
Bush is on record "guaranteeing" that the Repubs will keep both houses. So the speculation is what the "October Surprise" will be that will ensure this happens. Here's the most interesting (properly snarky) conjecture....
The Surprise will get rolling about the 10th of October. President Cheney and his Amazing Meat Puppet will keep their whole Iranian sanctions pot a boilin' over until then. But they will not attack Iran preemptively.
That won't work, not after the debacle in Iraq. Nor will they actually engage in sanctions, a boycott or a naval blockade, which the world will neither observe nor countenance. They need a war, but America can't start it.
That's why the plan is for Israel to attack a few nuclear enrichment facilities inside Iran, using conventional bunker buster bombs. This won't accomplish a damned thing, since those bunkers are a full hundred feet underground. But it will let Bush hold up his hands and say, "There's jes' no holdin' them Israelis back, heh heh . . ."
Then, when mean, bad old Iran responds with missiles at Israel, at US troops, or at oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, or at Saudi, Kuwaiti or other oil fields, or simply stops shipping oil -- well, Bush will put on a ten gallon white hat, give a speech about brimstone and Jesus, and begin the 30-day 4,000-target bombing campaign that's been planned for well over a year.
He carries the speech in his breast pocket, and he reads it to his bathroom mirror every night after he brushes that crooked smile of his. He's ready. We're ready. We've already moved several aircraft carriers to the region, and now we're sending minesweepers to the Gulf from the first of October.
We're primed and pumped for CNN's next video war, but Israel has to start it so Bush can ride in on a white horse and save poor, defenseless Israel from the slavering Muslim hordes. And save Western civilization, too. And white wimmens everywhere, and kids, and puppies, and our precious bodily fluids. Just like Audie Murphy used to do.
Buy yourself some Exxon, some Blackwater and some Halliburton stock, or run the risk of working for a living from here on out.
Bush doesn't bluff. He's not going to lose this election and be investigated and impeached and imprisoned. None of the above. He's down to a pair of deuces, and not much left to lose. He's going to kick over the table, and start shooting. He figures it's a heap sight better n' playing out a losing hand.
A man has got to know his limitations.
Bush hasn't a clue.
PROOF THAT ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES CAN BE EASILY HACKED
Some of us have known in our gut that the GOP stole the election in Ohio in 2004 by both hacking software and by disenfranchising mostly minority voters. The CEO of Diebold is on record as having arrogantly promised to deliver the election to W. and that he did. His enabler, Kenneth Blackwell, made it happen.
After two years of screaming fraud by a vast number of groups, including The Brad Blog, mainstream media has finally gotten a grip on election fraud reality. But why did it take them so long to “get it?” Probably because the mainstream media knows it is losing credibility on all fronts, second-by-second, thanks to bloggers.
Although 50 days prior to an election is hardly enough time to correct the evils, the cowardly whores in the media can say they exposed the heinous crime to our democracy. LS
CNN'S LOU DOBBS ON HACKING ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
THERE IS SO MUCH CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON THAT THE FBI HAS TO TRIPLE ITS STAFF TO INVESTIGATE LAWMAKERS, LOBBYISTS AND INFLUENCE PEDDLERS
From The New York Daily News via Raw Story.com
Excerpts:
For decades, only one squad in Washington handled corruption cases because the crimes were seen as local offenses handled by FBI field offices in lawmakers' home districts.
But in recent years, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and other abuses of power and privilege have prompted the FBI to assign 37 agents full-time to three new squads in an office near Capitol Hill.
FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus told The News yesterday that he wants to detail even more agents to the Washington field office for a fourth corruption squad because so much wrongdoing is being uncovered.
"Traditionally, a congressional bribery case might be conducted on Main Street U.S.A., but a lot of the stuff we're finding these days is here in Washington," said Burrus, who heads the FBI's criminal division.
He said typical crimes involve lawmakers' illegal interactions with lobbyists and "people who have a lot of savvy about how the congressional process works and appropriations."
SO MUCH CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON THAT THE FBI MUST TRIPLE ITS STAFF
Saturday, September 16, 2006
THE GOP: HORRIFIC PHOTOS FROM KATRINA TELL IT ALL
Heartbreaking And Appalling Photos of Katrina's Victims
More on the Amoral and Corrupted Party of Bush
HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS INCREASING IN THE UNITED STATES WHILE THE BUSH GOP HAVE $50 COOL MIL TO BURN ON A PERSONAL ATTACK, FEAR AND SMEAR MACHINE.
God help anyone who dares to disagree with Bush. Off with your head! Burn at the stake! Hang' em first, try 'em later. LS
As hunger and homelessness rise in the United States, the Bush administration plans to get rid of a data source that supports this embarrassing reality, a survey that's been used to improve state and federal programs for retired and low-income Americans.
In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to whack the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on mass layoffs and in 2004 and 2005 attempted to drop the bureau's questions on the hiring and firing of women from its employment data.
Sources: "New Report Shows Increase in Urban Hunger, Homelessness," Brendan Coyne, New Standard, December 2005; "U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire," Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net, March 2006.
HALLIBURTON CHARGED WITH SELLING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO IRAN
Cheney rails against terrorism while he raids the piggy bank.
Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.
Source: "Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team," Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005.
FASCISM AT ITS VERY FINEST: FEDERAL WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION IN JEOPARDY
Though record numbers of federal workers have been sounding the alarm on waste, fraud, and other financial abuse since George W. Bush became president, the agency charged with defending government whistleblowers has reportedly been throwing out hundreds of cases - and advancing almost none. Statistics released at the end of 2005 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility led to claims that special counsel Scott Bloch, who was appointed by Bush in 2004, is overseeing the systematic elimination of whistleblower rights.
Sources: "Whistleblowers Get Help from Bush Administration," Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Web site, Dec. 5, 2005; "Long-Delayed Investigation of Special Counsel Finally Begins," PEER Web site, Oct. 18, 2005; "Back Door Rollback of Federal Whistleblower Protections," PEER Web site, Sept. 22, 2005.
REPUBLICAN VOTERS ARE ANGRY AT THEIR PARTY BECAUSE OF BIG SPENDING
Republicans, excerpt perhaps 4 or 5, will bow down to anything W. wants as long as it doesn't impact their piggy banks. So what about the $50 million for personal attacks, fear and smear, Republoliars? LS
REPUBLICAN VOTERS FED UP WITH BIG SPENDING
CAPITOL PHONES JAMMED OVER WIRE TAP BILL
CAPITOL PHONES JAMMED
BUSH IS GOING OFF THE DEEP END. HE RANTS AT PRESS CORPS IN THE ROSE GARDEN YESTERDAY
From Raw Story.com. At the bottom there is a link to MSNBC Keith Olbermann's rebroadcast of the press conference. Watch the demented and crazed look in W.'s eyes. LS
BUSH IS GOING OFF THE DEEP END: RANTS AT PRESS CORPS
More on the Amoral and Corrupted Party of Bush
HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS INCREASING IN THE UNITED STATES WHILE THE BUSH GOP HAVE $50 COOL MIL TO BURN ON A PERSONAL ATTACK, FEAR AND SMEAR MACHINE.
God help anyone who dares to disagree with Bush. Off with your head! Burn at the stake! Hang' em first, try 'em later. LS
As hunger and homelessness rise in the United States, the Bush administration plans to get rid of a data source that supports this embarrassing reality, a survey that's been used to improve state and federal programs for retired and low-income Americans.
In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to whack the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on mass layoffs and in 2004 and 2005 attempted to drop the bureau's questions on the hiring and firing of women from its employment data.
Sources: "New Report Shows Increase in Urban Hunger, Homelessness," Brendan Coyne, New Standard, December 2005; "U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire," Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net, March 2006.
HALLIBURTON CHARGED WITH SELLING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO IRAN
Cheney rails against terrorism while he raids the piggy bank.
Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.
Source: "Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team," Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005.
FASCISM AT ITS VERY FINEST: FEDERAL WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION IN JEOPARDY
Though record numbers of federal workers have been sounding the alarm on waste, fraud, and other financial abuse since George W. Bush became president, the agency charged with defending government whistleblowers has reportedly been throwing out hundreds of cases - and advancing almost none. Statistics released at the end of 2005 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility led to claims that special counsel Scott Bloch, who was appointed by Bush in 2004, is overseeing the systematic elimination of whistleblower rights.
Sources: "Whistleblowers Get Help from Bush Administration," Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Web site, Dec. 5, 2005; "Long-Delayed Investigation of Special Counsel Finally Begins," PEER Web site, Oct. 18, 2005; "Back Door Rollback of Federal Whistleblower Protections," PEER Web site, Sept. 22, 2005.
REPUBLICAN VOTERS ARE ANGRY AT THEIR PARTY BECAUSE OF BIG SPENDING
Republicans, excerpt perhaps 4 or 5, will bow down to anything W. wants as long as it doesn't impact their piggy banks. So what about the $50 million for personal attacks, fear and smear, Republoliars? LS
REPUBLICAN VOTERS FED UP WITH BIG SPENDING
CAPITOL PHONES JAMMED OVER WIRE TAP BILL
CAPITOL PHONES JAMMED
BUSH IS GOING OFF THE DEEP END. HE RANTS AT PRESS CORPS IN THE ROSE GARDEN YESTERDAY
From Raw Story.com. At the bottom there is a link to MSNBC Keith Olbermann's rebroadcast of the press conference. Watch the demented and crazed look in W.'s eyes. LS
BUSH IS GOING OFF THE DEEP END: RANTS AT PRESS CORPS
Monday, September 11, 2006
EVEN TEXAS IS FED UP WITH W. AND CO.
Think Texas is mired in red forever? Think again. Stop packing your bags, Dems, to move to friendly blue states or abroad to escape the red nightmare. Our hard work and grassroots efforts are paying off and we've gone it alone with little or no help from our national party and with NO HELP FROM OUR LOCAL AND STATE MEDIA.
The so-called most popular elected official in Texas, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's numbers have plummeted to a mere 47%, according to a Zogby poll released today. Barbara Ann Radnofsky is at a cool 39%. This is drop dead stunning news. Ms. Radnofsky's campaign is a completely grass roots effort. She had made 500 trips across the vast state of Texas, in her own vehicle. She campaigns the old fashioned way by making face-to-face contact with Texans. She gives them honest answers. She offers hard and real solutions, not spin or talking point mendacity. Does Barbara Ann stay in swank hotels along the campaign trail? Nope. She stays with friends and volunteers along the campaign trail. Imagine the stuck up former prom queen sleeping on a kid's lower bunk bed.
Our local and state media and newspapers have refused to publish 99% of the letters Radnofsky volunteers have sent to our editors informing them about Ms. Radnofsky. When they do publish a letter or two, the paper will edit out sections about Ms. Radnofsky. It is obvious that Democrats do not have equal access to the media in Texas. The yellow-bellied cowards are all sleeping cozily with the Republicans in power. Fortunately for Texans, the media will soon be toast with the Party of Liars.
The Senator has systematically avoided invitations from sponsors to debate Ms. Radnofsky. She refuses to return Ms. Radnofsky's phone calls or emails. Why? Because Senator Hutchison has been nothing more than a rubber-stamp for the Bush Administration. We know how good this administration, which is based on a foundation of lies and disgraceful low life politics is for our country. Senator Hutchison has endorsed, supported and enabled it all along.
You can run but you cannot hide, Senator. LS
Below is the link to the Zogby poll data:
INSIDE THE BELTWAY BLOG
GREAT COMMENTARY ON 9/11
Notice that I am not viewing ABC's 9/11 crock-a-drama this evening, nor did I view the President's address. It's all attempt, in my book, for the Bush Administration and Republican Party to use the worse and most tragic event in our history for its own contemptuous and despicable political purposes. Speaking of the crock-a-drama, the liberal bloggers and talk show hosts are hunting down the financiers behind it. LS
My friend Ken sent this awesome piece tonight.
"THE SIXTEEN ACRE DITCH"
Excerpts:
If you had told me, five years ago, that on the fifth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history Ground Zero would still be nothing but an enormous hole in the ground, I wouldn't have believed you -- just as I wouldn't have believed that a major American city could be thoroughly trashed by a Category 4 hurricane and then left to moulder in the mud for a year while various federal, state and local bureaucrats and hack politicians tried to make up their minds what to do.
What I've learned (from 9/11, the corporate scandals, the fiasco in Iraq, Katrina, the Cheney Administration's insane economic and environmental policies and the relentless dumbing down of the corporate media -- plus the repeated electoral triumphs of the Rovian brand of "reality management") is that the United States is moving down the curve of imperial decay at a amazingly rapid clip. If anything, the speed of our descent appears to be accelerating.
The physical symptoms -- a lost war, a derelict city, a Potemkin memorial hastily erected in an vacant lot -- aren't nearly as alarming as the moral and intellectual paralysis that seems to have taken hold of the system. The old feedback mechanisms are broken or in deep disrepair, leaving America with an opposition party that doesn't know how (or what) to oppose, a military run by uniformed yes men, intelligence czars who couldn't find their way through a garden gate with a GPS locator, TV networks that don't even pretend to cover the news unless there's a missing white woman or a suspected child rapist involved, and talk radio hosts who think nuking Mecca is the solution to all our problems in the Middle East. We've got think tanks that can't think, security agencies that can't secure and accounting firms that can't count (except when their clients ask them to make 2+2=5). Our churches are either annexes to shopping malls, halfway homes for pederasts, or GOP precinct headquarters in disguise. Our economy is based on asset bubbles, defense contracts and an open-ended line of credit from the People's Bank of China, and we still can't push the poverty rate down or the median wage up.
When the public discourse on network news consists of Katie Couric introducting Rush Limbaugh's commentaries, you know the intellectual and ideological rot is well advanced -- maybe not quite as far as the Soviet Union in the '80s, but getting there. One of my favorite books about the Soviet collapse was titled "The Age of Delirium" which I think perfectly captured the progressive insanity of a system that could no longer even understand, much less believe, its own lies. I think of that book practically every time George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld open their mouths in public.
FROM BILLMON.ORG
KEITH OLBERMANN LETS BUSH HAVE IT AGAIN. THIS TIME IT IS ABOUT 9/11.
A huge thanks to Mr. Olbermann, the only mainstream media anchor so far, who has the courage and integrity to not only tell the truth, but to actually criticize Bush himself. LS
Excerpts:
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
OLBERMANN LETS BUSH HAVE IT AGAIN
The so-called most popular elected official in Texas, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's numbers have plummeted to a mere 47%, according to a Zogby poll released today. Barbara Ann Radnofsky is at a cool 39%. This is drop dead stunning news. Ms. Radnofsky's campaign is a completely grass roots effort. She had made 500 trips across the vast state of Texas, in her own vehicle. She campaigns the old fashioned way by making face-to-face contact with Texans. She gives them honest answers. She offers hard and real solutions, not spin or talking point mendacity. Does Barbara Ann stay in swank hotels along the campaign trail? Nope. She stays with friends and volunteers along the campaign trail. Imagine the stuck up former prom queen sleeping on a kid's lower bunk bed.
Our local and state media and newspapers have refused to publish 99% of the letters Radnofsky volunteers have sent to our editors informing them about Ms. Radnofsky. When they do publish a letter or two, the paper will edit out sections about Ms. Radnofsky. It is obvious that Democrats do not have equal access to the media in Texas. The yellow-bellied cowards are all sleeping cozily with the Republicans in power. Fortunately for Texans, the media will soon be toast with the Party of Liars.
The Senator has systematically avoided invitations from sponsors to debate Ms. Radnofsky. She refuses to return Ms. Radnofsky's phone calls or emails. Why? Because Senator Hutchison has been nothing more than a rubber-stamp for the Bush Administration. We know how good this administration, which is based on a foundation of lies and disgraceful low life politics is for our country. Senator Hutchison has endorsed, supported and enabled it all along.
You can run but you cannot hide, Senator. LS
Below is the link to the Zogby poll data:
INSIDE THE BELTWAY BLOG
GREAT COMMENTARY ON 9/11
Notice that I am not viewing ABC's 9/11 crock-a-drama this evening, nor did I view the President's address. It's all attempt, in my book, for the Bush Administration and Republican Party to use the worse and most tragic event in our history for its own contemptuous and despicable political purposes. Speaking of the crock-a-drama, the liberal bloggers and talk show hosts are hunting down the financiers behind it. LS
My friend Ken sent this awesome piece tonight.
"THE SIXTEEN ACRE DITCH"
Excerpts:
If you had told me, five years ago, that on the fifth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history Ground Zero would still be nothing but an enormous hole in the ground, I wouldn't have believed you -- just as I wouldn't have believed that a major American city could be thoroughly trashed by a Category 4 hurricane and then left to moulder in the mud for a year while various federal, state and local bureaucrats and hack politicians tried to make up their minds what to do.
What I've learned (from 9/11, the corporate scandals, the fiasco in Iraq, Katrina, the Cheney Administration's insane economic and environmental policies and the relentless dumbing down of the corporate media -- plus the repeated electoral triumphs of the Rovian brand of "reality management") is that the United States is moving down the curve of imperial decay at a amazingly rapid clip. If anything, the speed of our descent appears to be accelerating.
The physical symptoms -- a lost war, a derelict city, a Potemkin memorial hastily erected in an vacant lot -- aren't nearly as alarming as the moral and intellectual paralysis that seems to have taken hold of the system. The old feedback mechanisms are broken or in deep disrepair, leaving America with an opposition party that doesn't know how (or what) to oppose, a military run by uniformed yes men, intelligence czars who couldn't find their way through a garden gate with a GPS locator, TV networks that don't even pretend to cover the news unless there's a missing white woman or a suspected child rapist involved, and talk radio hosts who think nuking Mecca is the solution to all our problems in the Middle East. We've got think tanks that can't think, security agencies that can't secure and accounting firms that can't count (except when their clients ask them to make 2+2=5). Our churches are either annexes to shopping malls, halfway homes for pederasts, or GOP precinct headquarters in disguise. Our economy is based on asset bubbles, defense contracts and an open-ended line of credit from the People's Bank of China, and we still can't push the poverty rate down or the median wage up.
When the public discourse on network news consists of Katie Couric introducting Rush Limbaugh's commentaries, you know the intellectual and ideological rot is well advanced -- maybe not quite as far as the Soviet Union in the '80s, but getting there. One of my favorite books about the Soviet collapse was titled "The Age of Delirium" which I think perfectly captured the progressive insanity of a system that could no longer even understand, much less believe, its own lies. I think of that book practically every time George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld open their mouths in public.
FROM BILLMON.ORG
KEITH OLBERMANN LETS BUSH HAVE IT AGAIN. THIS TIME IT IS ABOUT 9/11.
A huge thanks to Mr. Olbermann, the only mainstream media anchor so far, who has the courage and integrity to not only tell the truth, but to actually criticize Bush himself. LS
Excerpts:
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
OLBERMANN LETS BUSH HAVE IT AGAIN
Friday, September 08, 2006
THE GOP CUT AND RAN FROM AFGHANISTAN
AND FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
No comments necessary. We know how bad things are, thanks to the Bush Administration and its rubber stamping, cowardly and corrupted lackeys, including Congress. The links below reveal the realities many of us have known for 5 years. LS
TALIBAN REGROUPING IN AFGHANISTAN WHILE PSYCHO BUSH AND HIS GOP ENABLERS SPIN A NIGHTMARE OF A FANTASY WAR IN IRAQ
From the New York Times.com
GOP CUT AND RAN FROM AFGHANISTAN
SENATE COMMITTEE REPORT REVEALS NO LINK BETWEEN SADDAM AND AL-QAIDA.
yawn. what else is new? LS
From TRUTHOUT.ORG
Excerpts:
1. Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Aq'ida to provide material or operational support.
2. Postwar findings have identified only one meeting between representatives of al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime reported in prewar intelligence assessments. Postwar findings have identified two occasions, not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative.
3. Postwar findings support the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000.... No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war.
"SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE BLOODIES BUSH'S NOSE"
FAKING THE FACTS ON A 9/11 CROCKADRAMA
The twisted wing of the GOP must be getting really desperate. Me thinks Rove called the neonut in Hollywood, imploring him to write a distortion on 9/11 and the moran went for it. Worse, so did the Disney owned ABC. I smell burnt toast. LS
A TRIP TO NEOCON FANTASY LAND
From The Huffington Post.
Excerpt:
In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.
DESPERATE NEOCONS FAKE THE FACTS ON 9/11
JOE AND JANE AMERICA FINALLY GET IT.
We have been getting poorer while Bush and his GOP buddies have been raking in boatloads of cash, most of which is tax free. The Bush GOP neonuts are freaked that we Joes and Janes know what's up. LS
From Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Whining Over Discontent"
Excerpts:
We are, finally, having a national discussion about inequality, and right-wing commentators are in full panic mode. Statistics, most of them irrelevant or misleading, are flying; straw men are under furious attack. It’s all very confusing — deliberately so. So let me offer a few clarifying comments.
First, why are we suddenly talking so much about inequality? Not because a few economists decided to make inequality an issue. It’s the public — not progressive pundits — that has been telling pollsters the economy is “only fair” or “poor,” even though the overall growth rate is O.K. by historical standards.
Political analysts tried all sorts of explanations for popular discontent with the “Bush boom” — it’s the price of gasoline; no, people are in a bad mood because of Iraq — before finally acknowledging that most Americans think it’s a bad economy because for them, it is. The lion’s share of the benefits from recent economic growth has gone to a small, wealthy minority, while most Americans were worse off in 2005 than they were in 2000.
Some conservatives whine that people didn’t complain as much about rising inequality when Bill Clinton was president. But most people were happy with the state of the economy in the late 1990’s, even though the rich were getting much richer, because the middle class and the poor were also making substantial progress. Now the rich are getting richer, but most working Americans are losing ground.
"WHINING OVER DISCONTENT"
No comments necessary. We know how bad things are, thanks to the Bush Administration and its rubber stamping, cowardly and corrupted lackeys, including Congress. The links below reveal the realities many of us have known for 5 years. LS
TALIBAN REGROUPING IN AFGHANISTAN WHILE PSYCHO BUSH AND HIS GOP ENABLERS SPIN A NIGHTMARE OF A FANTASY WAR IN IRAQ
From the New York Times.com
GOP CUT AND RAN FROM AFGHANISTAN
SENATE COMMITTEE REPORT REVEALS NO LINK BETWEEN SADDAM AND AL-QAIDA.
yawn. what else is new? LS
From TRUTHOUT.ORG
Excerpts:
1. Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Aq'ida to provide material or operational support.
2. Postwar findings have identified only one meeting between representatives of al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime reported in prewar intelligence assessments. Postwar findings have identified two occasions, not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative.
3. Postwar findings support the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000.... No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war.
"SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE BLOODIES BUSH'S NOSE"
FAKING THE FACTS ON A 9/11 CROCKADRAMA
The twisted wing of the GOP must be getting really desperate. Me thinks Rove called the neonut in Hollywood, imploring him to write a distortion on 9/11 and the moran went for it. Worse, so did the Disney owned ABC. I smell burnt toast. LS
A TRIP TO NEOCON FANTASY LAND
From The Huffington Post.
Excerpt:
In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.
DESPERATE NEOCONS FAKE THE FACTS ON 9/11
JOE AND JANE AMERICA FINALLY GET IT.
We have been getting poorer while Bush and his GOP buddies have been raking in boatloads of cash, most of which is tax free. The Bush GOP neonuts are freaked that we Joes and Janes know what's up. LS
From Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Whining Over Discontent"
Excerpts:
We are, finally, having a national discussion about inequality, and right-wing commentators are in full panic mode. Statistics, most of them irrelevant or misleading, are flying; straw men are under furious attack. It’s all very confusing — deliberately so. So let me offer a few clarifying comments.
First, why are we suddenly talking so much about inequality? Not because a few economists decided to make inequality an issue. It’s the public — not progressive pundits — that has been telling pollsters the economy is “only fair” or “poor,” even though the overall growth rate is O.K. by historical standards.
Political analysts tried all sorts of explanations for popular discontent with the “Bush boom” — it’s the price of gasoline; no, people are in a bad mood because of Iraq — before finally acknowledging that most Americans think it’s a bad economy because for them, it is. The lion’s share of the benefits from recent economic growth has gone to a small, wealthy minority, while most Americans were worse off in 2005 than they were in 2000.
Some conservatives whine that people didn’t complain as much about rising inequality when Bill Clinton was president. But most people were happy with the state of the economy in the late 1990’s, even though the rich were getting much richer, because the middle class and the poor were also making substantial progress. Now the rich are getting richer, but most working Americans are losing ground.
"WHINING OVER DISCONTENT"
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