8065. jexster - 7/2/2007 9:44:22 AM

They're blowing up cars in the car park outside a Glasgow hospital. Seems the terruhrisses were doctors! One at least was an Iraqi doctor.

No doctors left in Iraq of course, most have fled apparently to Europe.

Whatever happened to those flowers and candy???

I think it's high time those Iraqis had a Gratitude Adjustment

8066. jexster - 7/2/2007 3:21:57 PM

Happy Fourth!!!

4th Anniversary "Bring Em On"!

8067. jexster - 7/3/2007 4:41:42 PM

Holy Skid Marked Temple Thong Batman!


COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who as Massachusetts governor refused to pardon an Iraq war veteran's BB-gun conviction, on Tuesday called President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence "reasonable."

8068. jexster - 7/3/2007 8:08:12 PM

It's as obvious as a mushroom cloud


Bush: 33 Months Reasonable For Rita, Not Libby


Vietnam and Gulf War veteran, Victor Rita's case is another with interesting similarities.

Last month the Supreme Court heard Rita's appeal for a lighter sentence after being convicted of perjury and giving false statements. At the time, the Bush Administration wrote a friend of the court brief in support of upholding the sentence. ...

Great 2008 Presidential debate topic!!!!

8069. jexster - 7/3/2007 8:18:23 PM

The Fix

In commuting I. Lewis Libby Jr.’s 30-month prison sentence on Monday, President Bush drew on the same array of arguments about the federal sentencing system often made by defense lawyers — and routinely and strenuously opposed by his own Justice Department.

Critics of the system have a long list of complaints. Sentences, they say, are too harsh. Judges are allowed to take account of facts not proven to the jury. The defendant’s positive contributions are ignored, as is the collateral damage that imprisonment causes the families involved.

On Monday, Mr. Bush made use of every element of that critique in a detailed statement setting out his reasons for commuting Mr. Libby’s sentence — handing an unexpected gift to defense lawyers around the country, who scrambled to make use of the president’s arguments in their own cases.

Given the administration’s tough stand on sentencing, the president’s arguments left experts in sentencing law scratching their heads.

“The Bush administration, in some sense following the leads of three previous administrations, has repeatedly supported a federal sentencing system that is distinctly disrespectful of the very arguments that Bush has put forward in cutting Libby a break,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who writes the blog Sentencing Law and Policy.


High Crime

8070. jexster - 7/3/2007 8:19:24 PM

"What you’re going to see is people like me quoting President Bush in every pleading that comes across every federal judge’s desk.”

Indeed, Mr. Bush’s decision may have given birth to a new sort of legal document.

“I anticipate that we’re going to get a new motion called ‘the Libby motion,’ ” Professor Podgor said. “It will basically say, ‘My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.’ ”

8071. jexster - 7/5/2007 7:38:46 PM

Via Think Progress

Reagan’s NSA Chief: Withdraw funds, pull out, impeach.


Gen. William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency under President Reagan, writes that Congress should begin cutting off funds for Iraq and must force Bush to begin a withdrawal before he leaves office:

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what “supporting the troops” really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.
The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the “high crime” of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

Gen. William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency under President Reagan, writes that Congress should begin cutting off funds for Iraq and must force Bush to begin a withdrawal before he leaves office:

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what “supporting the troops” really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.
The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the “high crime” of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

8072. jexster - 7/5/2007 7:41:30 PM

'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them
COMMENTARY | July 05, 2007

Gen. William Odom writes that opponents of the war should focus public attention on the fact that Bush’s obstinate refusal to admit defeat is causing the troops enormous psychological as well as physical harm.

8073. jexster - 7/6/2007 5:23:59 PM

Lies They Live By

Bush's al-Qaeda Problem

8074. jexster - 7/7/2007 10:52:34 AM

8075. jexster - 7/7/2007 8:03:08 PM

Hillary's Bizarre History of the Iraq War
Blame the Puppet

8076. jexster - 7/7/2007 8:06:45 PM

The horror of the numbers becomes enhanced by the horror of non-learning. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s similar statements flowed from politicians' mouths, placing blame on US puppet governments of South Vietnam for not making enough progress. When US forces finally withdrew in 1973, the South Vietnamese army outnumbered their northern adversary 3 to 2 and possessed immensely better equipment. The façade quickly fell apart as soon as battle erupted. The puppet army disintegrated.

In Iraq, the US military destroyed Iraq's government and its national integrity. The US fabricated a government and now places responsibility on that miserable entity for failing to solve problems created by the United States.

The United States lost in Vietnam because it could not defeat a people fighting on their own soil, nor could the US sustain indefinitely ongoing casualties. When this concocted government failed in its elementary duties--as the Iraq government fails -- whiners blamed its lack of will and institutionalized corruption. They then turned on the US media and accused it of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

8077. wonkers2 - 7/8/2007 7:49:03 AM

Landau devastates Hillary on Iraq. Nevertheless, she's looking more and more like our next president. I wonder who'll be her running mate? Obama? Richardson? Richardson could end up as Secretary of State.

8078. jexster - 7/8/2007 8:57:43 AM

Don't count your chickens, count your contributions.

She goes in with anywhere from 40-60% of the party opposed to her. That isn't going to change

8079. jexster - 7/8/2007 8:58:43 AM

Base to Bush: It's Over

8080. jexster - 7/9/2007 1:16:05 AM

Iraq outposts plan may be flawed


BAGHDAD — The neighborhood outposts that the U.S. military launched with great fanfare in Baghdad early this year were supposed to put more American patrols on the streets and make residents feel safer. But some soldiers stationed at the posts and Iraqis who live nearby say they are doing the opposite.


Predicted.
Predictable

8081. jexster - 7/9/2007 3:34:49 AM

Powell tried to talk Bush out of war



THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.
“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”
Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”
He added: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.” All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew”.

Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Said he was fighting on arrival
Fighting for survival
Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America

8082. jexster - 7/9/2007 3:41:40 AM

Chimes of Freedom
The Byrds
Monterey Pop Festival 1967

8083. jexster - 7/10/2007 11:07:23 AM

Say WHAT?

US Faces New Problem: Iraqi Army "Turncoats"


It's a bitch when the Loyalists turn Patriot ain't it

8084. jexster - 7/10/2007 12:31:08 PM

Heckuva job


BAGHDAD - Ali Ahmed is living "the garden life," as a new bit of Iraqi slang puts it. Two years after earning his engineering degree, the 27-year-old is among Iraq's teeming numbers of jobless with nothing to do but hang out in Baghdad's parks.



Frustrated, Ahmed says his 16 years of study were "a big mistake" and that he should have dropped out long ago to get a more menial job.

"I was dreaming to be a governmental employee or working in the private sector, but I realized later that these were only dreams," said the electrical engineering graduate from Iraq's University of Technology.

Iraq's soaring unemployment rate is estimated at 60 to 70 percent, and attempts to lower it are caught in a bloody Catch-22.

Joblessness helps fuel the country's insurgency, since idle young men can be lured into the ranks of militant groups — but that same instability is hampering rebuilding efforts and economic growth that could generate more jobs.




Have they no gratitude for the Freedom we brought them? Do they hate our values? Where in the hell are the flowers, the candy????

8085. jexster - 7/10/2007 5:22:37 PM

Attacks on Supply Convoys Surge even as another US soldier is lost in a mortar attack on the "Heavily Fortified Green Zone". Maybe Bush ought to surge his ass to Central Baghdad.

Bring Billy Kristol and the WSJ editorial staff along

8086. jexster - 7/11/2007 8:13:19 AM

The Green Zone is For the Immediate Loading ....


Cole:

On Tuesday, guerrillas launched some 20 katyusha rockets and mortar shells into the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, killing 3 persons, including a US soldier, and wounding 25 persons.

The Green Zone was originally supposed to be the safe place in Iraq, with the area outside it (everything else) called the "Red Zone." The US Embassy in Baghdad appears to have forgotten what the phrase "Green Zone" means, since a spokesman there told the LAT, "There's fire into the Green Zone virtually every day, so I can't draw any conclusions about the security situation based on that . . ."

Let me draw the conclusion. If you've got fire into the friggin' Green Zone every day, then we can draw the conclusion that the security situation in Baghdad sucks big time. When you've got people killed and a large number of people wounded in the one place in Iraq that was supposed to have a "permissive" security environment, then security in general is the pits.

Now you might say that we can't draw many conclusions from the events of a single day. And, being able to lob mortar shells over a wall doesn't speak to that much organization. But then what about these two nuggets in the LAT story?

1) "There were about 39 attacks [on the Green Zone] in May, compared with 17 in March, according to a U.N. report."

2) "Tuesday's attack came the same day gunmen kidnapped Iraqi Police Col. Mahmoud Muhyi Hussein, who directs security inside the Green Zone . . .

In other words, the security situation in the Green Zone is spiralling down at an alarming pace, and the guerrillas have such good inside knowledge that they can kidnap the very person responsible for security in it, as he drives in Jadiriya. That, my friends, is an inside job. And such an inside job doesn't bode well for future security in the Green Zone. For one thing, presumably they are "debriefing" Col. Hussein as we speak, looking for weak points.

People I know and respect are in the Green Zone, so I'm pretty distressed by this situation, and not amused by the embassy spokesman's attempt to blow smoke up our posteriors. This looks bad.

I.F. Stone was right, all you have to do is read the newspapers carefully and you'd be surprised what you can find out

8087. jexster - 7/11/2007 12:04:33 PM

Now THAT's hard up

"I love anything with a score at the end"
Cunnilingus Rice

8088. thoughtful - 7/11/2007 1:08:48 PM

jex...re 8081...that was powell's big mistake...not realizing it was cheney he had to convince, not bush.

8089. wonkers2 - 7/11/2007 2:10:22 PM

Powell occasionally has correct insights, but he's always been a don't rock the boat, take care of number one kind of guy.

8090. jexster - 7/11/2007 2:36:44 PM

Let's call a spade a spade on this thread if you don't mind there Wonkish






IMUS BE FREE!

8091. jexster - 7/11/2007 7:17:16 PM

So Why Did Osama Vote for Kerry????


WASHINGTON, (AP) -- U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.

The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it....

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment called it a stark appraisal to be discussed at the White House on Thursday as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.

The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the secret report remains classified.

Counterterrorism analysts produced the document, titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West." The document focuses on the terror group's safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said.

Al-Qaida is "considerably operationally stronger than a year ago" and has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001," the official said, paraphrasing the report's conclusions. "They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States."

The group also has created "the most robust training program since 2001, with an interest in using European operatives," the official quoted the report as saying.

At the same time, this official said, the report speaks of "significant gaps in intelligence" so U.S. authorities may be ignorant of potential or planned attacks.

8092. jexster - 7/12/2007 6:25:41 AM

We've Seen This Movie Before

Remember the Alamo
Tejas to Mexico

8093. jexster - 7/12/2007 6:43:06 AM

Bush's propaganda unit says we're making progress on 8 of 18 goals in Iraq

With the caveat that the term "AlQaeda" as used here is itself another turd created by the propagandists...

l Qaeda's Strength 'Undiminished' in Iraq
Despite U.S. Assertions, Terrorists Thriving in Iraq, Senior Military Official Says
By JONATHAN KARL

July 12, 2007 —

A military intelligence report that concludes al Qaeda has largely restored itself to pre- 9/11 strength will be the focus of a meeting at the White house today. The meeting was called to discuss a pending National Intelligence Estimate.

While the military has maintained that al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, by any number of measures the terror group and its affiliates are as strong as ever, and June was the most violent month since the start of the war, a senior U.S. military official told ABC News.

"Despite our successes in taking out leaders and infrastructure," said the official, "al Qaeda's operational capability appears to be undiminished."

Al Qaeda operations are marked by the use of suicide bombers, and the latest intelligence assessment shows that suicide attacks were near an all-time high in May and June. According to the report, al Qaeda in Iraq is responsible for 15 percent of the attacks in the country, often the most deadly. Sunni insurgents are blamed for 70 percent of attacks, and Shiite militias 15 percent. Shiite attacks, however, have sharply increased and are now probably higher than 15 percent.

ABC News has learned the most recent military intelligence assessment of Iraq also shows that the overall level of violence in the country -- measured as the number of "violent incidents" -- hit its highest level in June since the war began.

According to the assessment, an average of 178 attacks a day were carried out in June. By comparison, there were only 94 attacks a day in March 2006, the month after the attack on the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra touched off a wave of sectarian violence.

The record level of violence comes despite significant progress in a few key areas. Anbar Province, for example, was once the most dangerous area in Iraq and has experienced a turnaround a senior military official calls "miraculous." Attacks on civilians are also down significantly. But in other areas, the trends are moving in the wrong direction:

The number of attacks on U.S. soldiers is way up, now accounting for 70 percent of all attacks in Iraq.

While violence has dropped dramatically in Anbar Province, the number of attacks has risen sharply in four other provinces: Baghdad, Salahaddin, Diyala and Basra.

In June, there were a record 55 attacks with Iranian-made roadside bombs -- called explosively formed penetrators. This is the deadliest form of roadside bomb seen in Iraq.

Mortar attacks on the Green Zone have dramatically increased.

The increase in violence can be attributed to a sharp rise in attacks on U.S. forces, including a record number of attacks with Iranian-made explosives in June, as well as a sharp increase in attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone, 90 percent of which are fired from Shiite neighborhoods.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

8094. jexster - 7/12/2007 6:43:53 AM

If that's progress I hate to think what things will look like when Bush declares victory and goes home

8095. jexster - 7/12/2007 9:08:23 AM

The Benchmark Blame Game
Impossible Tasks for an Embattled Government

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Arbil, Iraq.

The benchmarks the Iraqi government is meant to achieve in exchange for US support were never realistic and have more to do with American than Iraqi politics....

No shit. Same same for the moribund ISG Report

8096. Ms. No - 7/12/2007 9:39:45 AM

Love how we've all of a sudden gotten increased terror watch or color codes or whatever. Surely it can't have anything to do with the President's lousy approval ratings, the Libby travesty or the increasing numbers of Republican officials abandoning Bush's war plans.

"Quick, Dick! Blow some more smoke, those pesky citizens are twitching at the curtain!"

8097. jexster - 7/12/2007 9:54:06 AM

Not officially No. What we have is leaks that the Bush War on Terror has failed - Al Qaeda as strong as ever plus a code Red agida from Chertoff - his "gut feeling"

In the larger sense what seems to happening is that Bush is trying to extend his propaganda war so that people think we're fighting all AlQaeda all the time in Iraq.

This has been in the works for a while - at least 4 months - an operation set for final launch guess when?

But those obstreperous Republican surrender monkeys threw a monkey wrench in the works bringing September in July

8098. jexster - 7/12/2007 10:08:51 AM

More BushKill

TRACY / Daredevil infantryman was armed with humor -- even about the war
Pfc. Bruce Salazar Jr. was killed by an explosive device Friday in Iraq, where he had been since May.

8099. Ms. No - 7/12/2007 10:50:25 AM

I just don't understand how anyone not brain-dead can look at the facts and what is being said and still believe anything this administration has to say.

They're saying they're they only ones who can save us from the terrorists.

They're saying the terrorist threats are worse now than they've been in years.


They're saying abandoning their methods will lead to certain doom for us all.


Except, if they're the best at fighting terror then why are things worse now since they've been in power? If they're doing such a great job why are we still at war and why are we LOSING SO BADLY? If we've come to this point by following their methods then that seems to be the strongest argument in favor of abandoning those methods.

Seriously, why does this argument convince people? "More of the same thing that's leading us into destruction will lead us out."

8100. thoughtful - 7/12/2007 11:26:25 AM

No no, ms no...just imagine how much worse things would be if those lily livered pansy toting peace-nik dems were in charge!

8101. jexster - 7/12/2007 11:46:49 AM

I am SO confused

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.

8102. jexster - 7/12/2007 12:13:50 PM

Chertoff slays me.

We are facing an enemy that constantly adapts(!!). We don't have the luxury of sitting back and saying we've prevailed

8103. jexster - 7/12/2007 2:44:02 PM

OOOPS..Lied again


US Intel Report Contradicts Points in WH Release
General Security Assessment Paint Grim Picture of Iraq


Big surprise there

8104. jexster - 7/12/2007 8:23:47 PM

From the Central Front in the War on Bullshit

Bush Lies Again About AlQaeda

8105. jexster - 7/13/2007 12:52:59 PM

A trend???

MSM Begins Calling Bush on AlQaeda Lies

8106. jexster - 7/13/2007 6:52:38 PM

Supporting the Troops with Yellow Ribbons

Soldier Shoots Himself to Avoid Iraq Duty

Meanwhile the Loyal Republicans support the troops with a filibuster of the Webb Amendment restoring adequate home rotations.

8107. jexster - 7/13/2007 6:56:40 PM

Reservist tries to stop 5th deployment

8108. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/13/2007 11:59:24 PM

8110. jexster - 7/14/2007 9:39:43 AM

I missed it last night but I suppose they re-run Bill Moyers on Impeachment

8111. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/14/2007 10:44:21 AM

It was extraordinary and a video link (if one exists) should be sent to everyone's congressional representatives. It's what inspired me to jujitsu my outrage into the above idea for a political button.

8112. jexster - 7/14/2007 11:36:25 AM

See AP

8113. jexster - 7/14/2007 11:36:40 AM

GO VIRAL!!

8114. jexster - 7/14/2007 5:46:06 PM

Via Kevin Drum

PROGRESS REPORT....So how are we doing on training the Iraqi security forces? Compare and contrast:

September 2005: The number of Iraqi army battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday....

Today: The number of Iraqi army battalions that operate independently, with no assistance from U.S. forces, has dropped from 10 to six over the last two months, the top U.S. general said on Friday.

Two years - 3 to 6 battalions. Drum calculates it'll be 2067 at this rate

8115. jexster - 7/15/2007 5:03:54 AM

The Military Bush Broke


FORT EUSTIS, Va., July 11 — Cpl. April Ponce De Leon describes herself and her husband as “gung-ho marines,” and in two weeks she deploys to Iraq, where her husband has been fighting since March.

But she says she stopped believing in the war last month after a telephone conversation with him.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”

In voicing her shifting view on the war in Iraq, Corporal Ponce De Leon is not alone.....


Morale shattered by violence and multiple deployments while the Republicans dither and filibuster legislation to support the troops with longer rotations.

It's all been a lie from before the very start and no, the lies of Vietnam pale by comparison

8116. jexster - 7/15/2007 9:11:48 AM

Saudis Make Up Half of Foreign Fighters in Iraq

8117. jexster - 7/15/2007 9:55:02 AM

Cole's Comment:

Ned Parker of the LA Times reports that of 19,000 "insurgents" held by the US military in Iraq, only 135 are foreigners.

Think about that when you hear Bush say that the US is fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq or that "al-Qaeda" would take over Iraq if the US left. The foreigners just are not that important to the guerrilla war. Only .7% of detainees are foreigners, and unless they run faster than Iraqis, that is likely their percentage share in the "insurgency," too.

The US is fighting Iraqis in Iraq, who are nationalists of various stripes, whether religious or secular. Theya re Sunni. They haven't given fealty to Bin Laden and are not "al-Qaeda."

So you'd think after all the ink spilled on Iranian and Hizbullah contributions to the troubles in Iraq, that they'd be prominent among the foreign fighters, right? Wrong. It is not clear that the US has any Iranians at all in custody. There was a big deal made at the NYT about one Lebanese Hizbullah guy who may have been a freelancer.

So if they aren't from Iran, where are they from? Saudi Arabia--- 45%! Only 15% are from "Syria and Lebanon," and I'll bet you that all but one of those are Sunni. 10% are from North Africa, which is only about 14 guys. North Africa is Sunni.

That is, the numbers Parker pulled out of a US officer in Iraq demolish the entire image that the Bush administration and the Washington press corps has been presenting of the war.

Foreign "al-Qaeda" is almost irrelevant to it. Iran is entirely trivial to it. The Baathist, Allawi-dominated Syrian government is trivial to it. The Lebanese Hizbullah may not be involved at all, as an organization. Certainly it is not involved in any significant way.

Which country is providing a lot of foreign suicide bombers? US ally Saudi Arabia. Has any general or Bush administration official called a press conference to denounce Saudi Arabia? No. Has Joe Lieberman threatened it with a war? No. Everything is being blamed on Iran because powerful American special interests want to get Iran, regardless of the facts.

There isn't any significant cadre of foreign "al-Qaeda" fighters in Iraq if this is all we could capture. They can't take over the country because they are such a tiny group. Everything Bush and Cheney have said about the nature of the war and the supposed dangers of a US withdrawal is transparent falsehood.

8118. jexster - 7/15/2007 10:17:44 AM

The State Department is requiring personnel to wear body armor when going out to a restaurant inside the Green Zone,

8119. jexster - 7/15/2007 3:13:25 PM

Saudi Suspects Overwhelm Iraqi Legal System
Iraqi Official: 160 Saudi Suspects Tried, Hundreds More in Prison Awaiting Trial


Let's invade IraN

8120. jexster - 7/15/2007 3:23:48 PM

Bush's Latest AlQaeda Hooey

At Least Give Bozo Chertoff Credit
Frank Rich

8121. jexster - 7/16/2007 11:22:30 AM

GENEVA - The situation for Iraqi children is getting worse and, in some respects, was better before the war began, a senior U.N. official said Monday.

"Children today are much worse off than they were a year ago, and they certainly are worse off than they were three years ago," said Dan Toole, director of emergency programs for the United Nations Children's Fund. He said Iraqis no longer have safe access to a government-funded food basket, established under Saddam Hussein to deal with international sanctions

8122. jexster - 7/16/2007 12:42:32 PM

Americans and in particular the US media have no idea about the nature and scope of the destruction we've inflicted on Iraq, no conception of what it must be like to live in a country in which the fundamental social fabric has been shredded. We can't conceive it from modern experience in the US, even riot torn US cities are models of social stablity by comparison
There are four million refugees, nearly 2 million displaced interally, the equivalent of 48 million/24 million US citizens!

Can you imagine what this country would look like - the streets of NY, DC, Phil. LA, Chicago, Houston???

No you can't.

BAGHDAD, 16 July 2007 (IRIN) - For two months, Obeid Jaafar Khalifa, 52, has been worrying about how he will cope with looking after his deceased brother's four children. Obeid already has six of his own children to look after.

"In total, I have to feed 10 children in addition to my wife and me," said Khalifa, an employee at Iraq's Agriculture Ministry. He took over responsibility for the children when a car bomb killed their parents five months ago.

The example of Khalil's nephews highlights the plight of children orphaned by the violence in Iraq. The UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) said in its update last week on the plight of Iraqi children that the number of war orphans was rising because of the high civilian death toll.

UNICEF is increasingly concerned that the number of vulnerable children in Iraq has outstripped the country's capacity to care for them.

"Stressed to the limit"

"Families left to care for children who have lost one or both parents are already stressed to the limit, unable to cope with extra burdens. Many of Iraq's skilled social workers have been leaving the country," the report said.

Citing the UN's civilian casualty figures for 2006 which indicate up to 100 civilian deaths per day, UNICEF said: "Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of children will have lost at least one parent. And if violence continues at current levels, even more will lose a parent in 2007."

"Such children will be automatically deprived of their rights and are likely to fall into potentially harmful forms of labour," said Kholoud Nasser Muhssin, a researcher on family and children's affairs affiliated to the University of Baghdad.

"Some 60-70 percent of Iraqi children in Iraq are suffering from psychological problems and their future is not bright," Muhssin said.

"Some lost their parents or one of their family members or relatives; others witnessed traumatic events or were subjected to sexual harassment," Muhssin added.

Worse than Saddam: he Latest
Iraqi Children Suffer Psychological Trauma
UN Warns of Long-Term Social Impact on Entire Generation of Iraqis

8123. jexster - 7/16/2007 5:07:00 PM

Damned Fine ROI!

$2.4 Million Iraq Mission Nets Mongolia Hundreds of Millions From US

Talking point - priceless

8124. jexster - 7/17/2007 9:21:37 AM

In his novel 1984, George Orwell portrayed a future time in which the explanations of recent events and earlier history are continually changed to meet Big Brother's latest purpose. Previous explanations disappear down "the memory hole."

Sound familiar? Any American who pays attention can observe the identical phenomenon occurring in the U.S. today.

Think about the Bush regime's changing explanations for the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq..

A Free Press or a
Ministry of Truth?
by Paul Craig Roberts

8125. jexster - 7/17/2007 10:03:58 AM

The Terrible Turk is ready. The writing is on the wall. The Kurdish question will be answered soon

Juan Cole:

The LAT reports on the three bombings that roiled the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday and which its interviewees blamed on "al-Qaeda."

I am horrified at the loss of innocent life, and hate to see the incident used for politics. I would be very suspicious of assigning blame to "al-Qaeda" for this one. The bombs hit the party offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Kirkuk as well as (Kurdish) policemen. The Kurds are trying to annex oil-rich Kirkuk province to their Kurdistan provincial confederacy. Turkmen and Arabs do not want to be annexed. Turkey does not want to see it annexed.

There are lots of social forces that would like to hit the PUK over this issue, not just "al-Qaeda." The Kurds know that blaming the bombing on that organization (does anyone in Iraq really have Bin Laden`s phone number?) will gain them the sympathy of clueless Americans for their planned annexation. Everyone in the US now complains about the way we were spun by corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi. But it is seldom appreciated how much Kurdish leaders like Jalal Talabani and Hoshyar Zebari were involved in feeding the US loads of bull about Iraq. Their ultimate goal is partition of the country, and they are manipulating Washington toward that end.

Kirkuk has been growing in instability for some time. It will be even hotter later this year when there is a referendum on its future, which the Kurds will win. This bombing is the writing on the wall.

8126. jexster - 7/18/2007 4:31:50 PM

Our Doofus is Dangerously Desperate

Stop training local forces in Iraq

By William Odom and Lawrence Korb

[Financial Times]
Once again, as in previous times when the US has supported a battle against insurgencies, our political leaders are suffering from the illusion that success can be won by training local security forces.

All sides to the debate about Iraq agree that we should continue training and equipping Iraqi security forces. Both the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and President George W. Bush, through his surge strategy, support this policy because they believe that these forces will prevent the outbreak of a genocidal conflict as well as a regional conflict when we withdraw.

But continued training and equipping of the security forces will have the opposite effect. In effect we are arming different sides in a civil war.

8127. jexster - 7/18/2007 8:13:49 PM

Say what you will about him, but Osama sure knew what he was doing when he voted for Bush

A "safe haven" for al-Qaida in Pakistan
A conversation with Buzzy Krongard, the executive director of the CIA from 2001 to 2004, about the new National Intelligence Estimate and al-Qaida's resurgence in Pakistan.

8128. jexster - 7/19/2007 5:15:20 AM

Finally there's some genuine political progress in Iraq to report where the top seven Sunni insurgent groups have formed a political front in anticipation of US withdrawal

8129. jexster - 7/19/2007 10:46:53 AM

In war the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
James Madison

8130. jexster - 7/19/2007 1:49:08 PM

Rumsfeld's Fantasies - The Bush Gulag
Rorschach and Awe

America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical "black site" operation.

8131. robertjayb - 7/19/2007 3:42:42 PM

Take heart, jexster. I just heard General Petreaus on the NPR saying that a degree of momentum has been achieved. Just what I've been waiting for...

8132. wonkers2 - 7/19/2007 4:04:44 PM

But which way is the momentum?

8133. jexster - 7/19/2007 4:32:21 PM

Oh it is going to get worse between now and September.

Hey I got an idea

Bush is going to give a rousing speech on Sept 11

8134. jexster - 7/19/2007 4:33:01 PM

BushKill: How Sausage is Made

8135. robertjayb - 7/19/2007 9:50:58 PM

The right thing to do---What a concept!

KARUP, Denmark (AP) - Before the withdrawal of its 480
combat troops from Iraq next month, Denmark has pulled
out scores of Iraqi aides and their families.
........................................................



The aides, many of them translators, worked with the
Danes in Basra, a risky job that has turned them into
traitors in the eyes of militants fighting the U.S.-led
coalition. The government decided in June to offer the
aides a chance to seek asylum.

.........................................................

“It's the right thing to do,” said Capt. Joergen Christian
Nyholm, who returned to Denmark in February after
commanding a mechanized infantry company in Basra for
six months. “My personal opinion is that they are at a
pretty high risk.”

8136. jexster - 7/20/2007 8:17:42 PM

Josh Marshall on the Bush AQ Banboozle

8137. jexster - 7/20/2007 8:19:29 PM

Josh Marshall on the Bush AQ Banboozle

8138. jexster - 7/21/2007 7:47:45 AM

Break out your Big Thicket Hip Boots Robert

Cole:

Reuters obtained from the US Department of Defense statistics that show there were an average of 177.8 attacks on Iraqi military and civilian and US targets per day in June-- an all-time record for Iraq. The only other month during the past 4 years with such a high rate of attacks was October, 2006, with 176.5 per day. Somehow I don't think these statistics bear out the sunny talk by the Bush administration and US military spokesmen about how much better things are in Iraq now that we have had the surge. If you listen to the American Right, the surge is working, things are "improving," and the US is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But where the Department of Defense gives us actual statistics, we find that they only have like 135 foreign detainees out of 19,000 suspected insurgents in their custody (with the rest being mostly just Iraqi Sunni Arabs who don't want foreign troops in their country). So al-Qaeda is a tiny part of the insurgency and the US is mostly fighting Iraqi nationalists, whether religious or secular. And now instead of a substantial improvement of the security situation because of the "surge," we discover that there were more attacks in June than ever before during the Iraq War (and probably more than ever before, except during hot conventional wars, in the whole history of Iraq. And that is saying something, since you're going back past Hammurabi).

8139. jexster - 7/21/2007 11:15:58 AM

Bullshit, Inc.

Pentagon Takes Cue From Madison Avenue
Study urges U.S. military to adopt more upbeat marketing strategy, citing failure of current "show of force" brand to win over Iraqi people.


Amazing

8140. jexster - 7/21/2007 12:10:34 PM

Dan Quayle's Brain

8141. jexster - 7/21/2007 12:21:06 PM

Death and Denial, Death and Denial: Eric Alterman

8142. jexster - 7/21/2007 12:33:49 PM

KBR Bribery Network Alleged

8143. jexster - 7/21/2007 5:45:52 PM

The Slurge may be working in Billy Kristol's little world but then again, his vision is no doubt obscured by mushroom clouds

Life in the 'red zone'
The hell of Baghdad

8144. jexster - 7/22/2007 11:19:40 AM

A Montage of Bush Lies

8145. jexster - 7/22/2007 12:59:54 PM

Kirkuk: 800 Pound Fat Lady in the Basement

8146. jexster - 7/22/2007 1:33:24 PM

Day 1540 Since "Mission Accomplished"

"You will be free to build a better life ... free to join in the political affairs of Iraq. And all the people who make up your country -- Kurds, Shi'a, Turkomans, Sunnis, and others -- will be free of the terrible persecution that so many have endured."


George W. Bush
Address to Iraqi People
April 2003

8147. jexster - 7/23/2007 6:33:53 PM

Senate GOP Has Blocked Legislation With Fillibuster 42 Times This Session

8148. jexster - 7/24/2007 11:17:10 AM

Saturday's Colonoscopy removed the remains of his brain

8149. jexster - 7/25/2007 9:38:42 AM

The Life and Times of the CIA

Wall Street brokers, Ivy League professors, soldiers of fortune, ad men, newsmen, stunt men, second-story men, and con men on active duty for the United States
by Chalmers Johnson

8150. jexster - 7/25/2007 7:03:27 PM

Quick somebody alert Ace!

8151. jexster - 7/26/2007 5:56:11 PM

Analysis: Gonzales Testimony Part of Broader Effort to Conceal Surveillance Program

8152. jexster - 7/26/2007 6:20:11 PM

Caught in the act

WASHINGTON - The U.S. and its allies have delivered a little more than a third of the equipment in the pipeline for the Iraqi Army and less than half of what is destined for the Iraqi police, the Pentagon said Thursday, underscoring lags that Baghdad officials have complained about in recent days.

8153. jexster - 7/26/2007 7:32:09 PM

Bush's Poster Boy

Tillman's Death May Have Been Homicide

8154. jexster - 7/28/2007 12:04:54 PM

Intially reported as a rumor, now confirmed


The Daily Telegraph reports from the Bush Totentanz


Iraqi Leader Tells Bush: Get Gen. Petraeus Out

8155. jexster - 7/28/2007 12:59:07 PM

Some people are asking, ‘Are we any longer part of the solution, or part of the problem? An Iraqi told me: ‘You stay here for three years you will be our friend. You stay for four years, you will be our enemy.’

Capt. Toby Skinner
Fourth Battalion, HRM Rifles Regiment,
Basra

8156. jexster - 7/30/2007 10:00:44 AM

War Proponents Pollack and O'Hanlon: Let's Sustain Surge "Into 2008"
By Greg Sargent | bio

Okay, here's another entry for the Atrios Friedman Unit Database -- which as you know is keeping track of the endless times over the years that GOP pols and pundits have called for giving it "one last shot" in Iraq.

Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack have jointly published an Op Ed in today's Times called: "A War We Just Might Win." Here's what the two men have to say about their previous support of the war:

As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

...and that's it. No mention anywhere of the fact that both men very prominently backed the initial invasion and the "surge." Now we're expected to see these two experts as merely administration "critics" -- and harsh ones, at that.

That seems pretty questionable in and of itself -- readers who don't know their histories are unable to ask themselves whether they should be trusting their judgment and can't ask themselves to what extent their professional reputations may be tied up in what happens in Iraq.

What's more, here's what O'Hanlon and Pollack have to say in their Times Op ed on the question of how long we should continue the "surge":

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

But...but...but...



...here's Pollack on Meet the Press back in January, which is to say, over six months ago:


MR. POLLACK: Well, the basic point that we’re trying to make is that the president wants this one last shot, it’s obviously very late in the game, there is no guarantee that it’s going to work out. I think that even the administration would say that the likelihood of it working is probably less than 50-50.

How long is a "shot," anyway?

Here, meanwhile, are both Pollack and O'Hanlon expressing optimism (mixed with criticism of tactics) after an earlier trip to Iraq, this one way back in December of 2003 (via Nexis):

EXPERTS RETURNING FROM IRAQ GIVE U.S. MANAGERS MIXED REVIEW

BYLINE: By Jim Geraghty States News Service

LENGTH: 723 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

American efforts to rebuild Iraq into a stable, secular, pluralist democracy are achieving mixed results, according to a trio of foreign policy experts who have recently visited the country.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, had the most optimistic view, predicting that the next three months would see fewer coalition casualties and more stability than the last three months.

He said that while the American public was hearing a great deal about coalition casualties, they haven't heard about the significant casualties that the U.S. is inflicting on resistance forces. He estimated that since the war ended, U.S. and coalition military forces had captured or killed about 5,000 insurgents, Baathists, and foreign fighters.

"We have already killed and captured a number of Iraqi insurgents comparable to the number that Gen John Abizaid, [the chief of the US Central Command] thinks that are left," O'Hanlon said. "Sunday's firefight was only the most visible manifestation."

...

Kenneth Pollack, director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a senior fellow at Brookings, estimated he had spoken to about 100 Iraqis during his recent one week trip to Iraq. Pollack analyzed Iraq and Iran for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1988 to 1995...

Pollack was also cautiously optimistic that the attacks against Americans would have limited effectiveness.

"The insurgents are not really committed," he said. "They're doing this because they're being paid to do this. The Iraqis making these attacks are not willing to stay and fight when more American soldiers show up."

Pollack said that a highly-ranked American soldier in Iraq, a veteran of Viet Nam, had told him that if the Iraqis were as dedicated as the Viet Cong he had fought against in that war, 'there would be 100 dead a day.'

It's been endlessly observed that being wrong repeatedly just hasn't disqualified experts from continuing to get platforms such as this one to continue making predictions about the disaster they helped create in however small a way by supporting the invasion and the "surge."

After grinding the gears about this at some length, I think I've hit on a very obvious reason for it: There's nobody out there to disqualify them. After all, many of their peers -- pundits, politicians, editors, think-tankers, etc. -- also supported the war. So these folks aren't in any position to question the judgment of experts who were wrong about Iraq, because to do so would be to call their own judgment into question and indeed to disqualify themselves. And we can't have that happen, can we?

Update: Matthew Yglesias adds this of O'Hanlon: "I'm told he's good friends, personally, with General Petraeus, from back in grad school or something."


That's amazing. Here's what O'Hanlon (with Pollack) wrote in today's Op ed about Petraeus: "The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy."

8157. jexster - 7/30/2007 6:12:54 PM

Back in the USSR

8158. jexster - 7/31/2007 11:34:14 AM

The Old War Ho is just like he usta b


Michael O'Hanlon - Joan Baez of Our Time
Glenn Greenwald

A new low of mindlessness for our media

It is difficult to remember a media spectacle to match yesterday's grand pagent where Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon were paraded across virtually every network and cable news show and radio program and heralded as "war opponents" and "Bush critics" who nonetheless returned from Iraq and were forced by The Truth to admit that we are Winning. For sheer deceit and propaganda, it is difficult to remember something quite this audacious and transparently false.

As was demonstrated yesterday, O'Hanlon and Pollack were among the most voracious cheerleaders for Bush's invasion and, as the war began to collapse, among its most deceitful defenders. But it goes so far beyond that.

Even through this year, they have remained loyal Bush supporters. They were not only advocates of the war, but cheerleaders for the Surge. They were, and continue to be, on the fringe of pro-war sentiment in this country. And yet all day yesterday, this country's media loudly hailed them as being exactly the opposite of what they really are. It was 24 hours of unadulterated, amazingly coordinated war propaganda that could not have been any further removed from the truth.

8159. jexster - 7/31/2007 12:00:04 PM

Totentanz BOOM
Boots on the Ground v. Flip Flops in the Alleys

WASHINGTON - The White House will soon forward to Congress a request for $5.3 billion for resistant vehicles, a top Pentagon official told a House panel Tuesday.


Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England told the House Budget Committee that the request for the vehicles — whose V-shaped undercarriages deflect roadside bomb blasts — will help keep production lines humming at full capacity.

The funding comes on top of $5.6 billion already approved for 6,400 mine resistant vehicles and will be added to the Pentagon's $141.7 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The additional money would help pay for those vehicles and purchase another 1,520 of them

8160. jexster - 7/31/2007 5:16:07 PM

Iraq(sic) in Chaos as Parliament (sic) Recesses

8161. jexster - 7/31/2007 8:21:56 PM

Alberto Gonzales: A Liar's Liar is Unfireable

Bush could never get another cover up stooge by the USS

8162. jexster - 8/1/2007 11:32:09 AM

The Electric Third Pussy

Giuliani's people call my article a "hatchet job". They ought to know. Those people are the kings of the hatchet job

Judith Giuliani always dreamed big, which got her out of small-town Pennsylvania, through two marriages, and into the arms of Rudy Giuliani. But, as her husband runs for president, people are asking, "Who does she think she is?"

8163. jexster - 8/1/2007 1:05:29 PM

TPMtv, Dick Cheney: Lying Liar Edition

One thing we learned last night is that not only is Dick Cheney a big liar, he's also probably lousy at poker. Because the guy has a classic tell. If you watch when he lies to Larry King, he can't make eye contact. Once you know what to look for it's really jarring and obvious.

In today's episode of TPMtv, we give you all the key highlights of last night's fibfest on Larry King Live (special bonus no-eye-contact moment comes toward the end) ...

8164. jexster - 8/2/2007 10:52:28 AM

8165. robertjayb - 8/2/2007 3:52:06 PM

Yes, things continue to go remarkably well...

BAGHDAD — Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water today and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the Baghdad summer.

Residents and city officials said large sections in the west of the capital had been virtually dry for six days because the already strained electricity grid cannot provide sufficient power to run water purification and pumping stations.

Baghdad routinely suffers from periodic water outages, but this one is described by residents as one of the most extended and widespread in recent memory. The problem highlights the larger difficulties in a capital beset by violence, crumbling infrastructure, rampant crime and too little electricity to keep cool in the sweltering weather more than four years after the U.S.-led invasion.
................................................

Why don't they luv us?

8166. jexster - 8/2/2007 6:04:17 PM

Iraqi MPs Warn Political Process Collapsing
Blocs Choose to Protect Interests at Cost of Cooperation

[Voice of Iraq]

The Purple Middle Finger of Fate

8167. jexster - 8/3/2007 11:33:30 AM

No Sand Niggers
Iraqis at US Base Must Use Separate Shitters

The Emancipation Nigger Nation is here!
Thank you Justice Roberts!

8168. robertjayb - 8/3/2007 12:21:14 PM

Just like the good old days, eh, jexster...

8169. jexster - 8/3/2007 1:16:11 PM

Before I die Robert I shall see the Promised Land




The SOUTH shall rise again over Wonker's dead carpet baggin Yankee carcas

8170. jexster - 8/3/2007 1:16:40 PM

Ted Stevens - The Baked Alaskan

8171. jexster - 8/4/2007 9:52:56 AM

Obe JC at YearlyKOS

8172. jexster - 8/5/2007 11:59:00 AM

Misunderestimated??

From Defense Secretary Robert Gates' interview on "Meet the Press" this morning:

Russert: You mentioned that we misunderestimated [sic] some of the divisions between the factions in the [Iraqi] government, the Shiites and the Sunnis. Mr. Secretary, for Americans watching today, many are saying to themselves, "The administration was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, wrong about the size of the force necessary to occupy Iraq, wrong about the costs of the war, wrong about Shiite and Sunni division. Why should we have any confidence in what they say about the future of Iraq?"

Gates: Well, what I think we should have confidence in is the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and Gen. Petraeus are going to make in early September. These men have been on the ground for quite some time now; they are best of our professionals; they will look at this.

First, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Bush administration.

Second, this notion of putting the onus on Petraeus is misguided. As Wesley Clark explained at YearlyKos on Friday, Petraeus is executing the president's Iraq policy, not the other way around. "Mr. President we're not questioning the generals, we're questioning you," Clark said. "Stop hiding behind Dave Petraeus and come out and defend your strategy. It's your strategy. You defend it."

And third, "misunderestimated"? Has the president really had this kind of impact on our discourse?

--Steve Benen TPM

8173. jexster - 8/5/2007 1:35:55 PM

A Grand Old Pigpile of Pissant Patriots

Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death
By Frank Rich

8174. jexster - 8/5/2007 1:50:43 PM

Manliness is Next to Godliness

A similar over-the-top tirade erupted on "Meet the Press" last month, when another war defender in meltdown, Senator Lindsey Graham, repeatedly cut off his fellow guest by saying that soldiers he met on official Congressional visits to Iraq endorsed his own enthusiasm for the surge. Unfortunately for Mr. Graham, his sparring partner was Jim Webb, the take-no-prisoners Virginia Democrat who is a Vietnam veteran and the father of a soldier serving in the war. Senator Webb reduced Mr. Graham to a stammering heap of Jell-O when he chastised him for trying to put his political views "into the mouths of soldiers." As Mr. Webb noted, the last New York Times-CBS News poll on the subject found that most members of the military and their immediate families have turned against the war, like other Americans.

8175. jexster - 8/5/2007 6:09:51 PM

His Master's Voice

Bush to Talibani: "Maliki Doesn't Understand My Messages"

That's OK. Neither do we.

8176. jexster - 8/5/2007 7:24:51 PM

Bitch slapped

“Mayor Giuliani, how do you answer — in Minnesota, Governor Pawlenty, who vetoed an increase in his state gas tax, said now he may consider one,’’ Mr. Yepsen said. “Is this Republican dogma against taxes now precluding the ability of you and your party to come up with the revenues that the country needs to fix its bridges?

Mr. Giuliani peered back at his questioner and addressed him by name. “David, there’s an assumption in your question that is not necessarily correct, sort of the Democratic, liberal assumption: ‘I need money; I raise taxes.’”

Mr. Yepsen, who is not known for either backing down or being remotely partisan, persisted.

“Then what are you going to cut, sir?” he asked sternly.

Mr. Giuliani proceeded to explain that when he was mayor of New York he had cut taxes, and that those tax cuts had produced revenues that allowed him to finance bridge reconstruction. (Actually, there’s a good argument that it was the stock market boom in New York that brought all that money into the city’s coffers, but we’ll let that pass for now).

Was Mr. Yepsen done with Mr. Giuliani? Maybe not, considering the way he posed the next question to Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts.

“Governor Romney, do you want to cut taxes to fix more bridges?” Mr. Yepsen asked.

8177. jexster - 8/6/2007 5:53:06 AM

Gives Good PR


Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For



Monday, August 6, 2007; A01

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. PetRaeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.

8178. jexster - 8/6/2007 6:04:38 AM

Surge of Suicide Bombers
The Iraq war has turned into a veritable 'martyr' factory, unlike any seen in previous conflicts, more than in all combined

8179. jexster - 8/6/2007 3:03:13 PM

PetRaeus’ "Hail Mary" Move
Militias Take the Field As the Clock Runs Down



What the fuck does he care? Got a bump from 3 to 4 stars. So what if he's out on his ass in a year??? He'll go double dip with the rest of em

8180. jexster - 8/7/2007 7:17:40 AM

Cole on the Phony Spin Surge


Again, that PetRaeus gives good PR! His propaganda operation produced a 10 percent poll bump in the number of Americans who think the surge is actually working. But then, this is the same guy who, while in charge of Iraqi force training, managed to loose 190.000 AK-47's to the Insurgents and before that, the entire city of Mosul. We can see the results of his training program can't we?

We can also see the results of his PR skills, this savior of the US adventure in Iraq.

8181. jexster - 8/7/2007 7:41:23 AM

In the Middle of a Civil War
Lt. Col. Gian Gentile

8182. jexster - 8/7/2007 7:41:44 AM

Beautiful name...

8183. jexster - 8/9/2007 6:48:34 PM

Revenge of the Surrender Monkeys

8184. jexster - 8/10/2007 10:07:55 AM

Same Trip
Same Place
Same Time

Different planets

Media Outlets That Went Nuts Over O'Hanlon Ignoring Cordesman's Pessimism About Iraq

8185. jexster - 8/10/2007 1:41:05 PM

Au Bunkport!

Just Another Vacation From Reality


You might have thought that now isn't the most opportune time for the elected leaders of both the United States and Iraq to pack up and head to the beach, ranch or villa for a nice long vacation. Silly you.

8186. jexster - 8/10/2007 4:26:57 PM

The United States has rarely lost any conventional military battle since at least 1950. Nor has it, at the same time, ever won a war. It has successfully overthrown governments through interventions or subversion but the political results of all its efforts – as in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Iran in 1953 – have often made its subsequent geopolitical position far, far more tenuous. In a word, in international affairs it bumbles very badly and it has made an already highly unstable world far more precarious than it otherwise would be if only the U.S. had left the world alone. No less important, Americans would be far better off thereby. Because – to repeat a critical point – it has failed to attain victory in any of the real wars it has fought since Korea. Its adversaries learned as long ago as the Korean War that decentralization would stymie America's overwhelming firepower, which was designed for concentrated armies, and provided a successful antidote for massive, expensive technology.

All this is very well known. The real issue is why the U.S. makes the identical mistakes over and over again and never learns from its errors.At the present time it is losing two wars and creating a vast arc of profound strategic and political instability from the Mediterranean Sea to South Asia, it has resumed the arms race in Europe, and it is making Russia an enemy when it could easily have been friendly


Mechanistic Destruction: American Foreign Policy at Point Zero

8187. jexster - 8/13/2007 6:59:07 PM

PetRaeus: Latest in the Bush League Line of Hucksters

Water Supplies Dwindle in Besieged Town
As US Seeks Mahdi Suspects, Husseiniya Residents Look to Militia for Protection

8188. jexster - 8/14/2007 1:04:33 PM

July 30, 2007 Issue
The American Conservative

The Grand Armee
The Surge That Failed

Iraq still lacks conditions for peace. More troops don’t change that.

by Paul Robinson
an associate professor in public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Military Honour and the Conduct of War: from Ancient Greece to Iraq.

8189. jexster - 8/14/2007 7:32:04 PM

The Eagle Has Crash Landed
US Comptroller General Warns "Learn from the Fall of Rome"


As soon as Caligula departs!

8190. robertjayb - 8/14/2007 9:46:22 PM

Truck bombs kill 190 in Kurdish area of Iraq...(IHT)

BAGHDAD: Four truck bombs killed at least 190 people on Tuesday in two villages in a Kurdish-speaking area near the Syrian border, destroying houses and sending hundreds of the wounded to at least six hospitals as far as 150 miles away, the Iraqi authorities said.

Hours after the blasts, victims were still buried in dusty rubble as American helicopters ferried away the wounded.

"Half the houses are completely collapsed because they were made from clay," said Captain Mohammed Ahmad of the Iraqi Army's 3rd Division. He said scores of families were obliterated in the blast that wiped out a market and a bus station.

General Petraeus, a.k.a. new Jesus, may have to rewrite his briefing...

8191. jexster - 8/15/2007 9:03:47 AM

Probably not. He wrote it last month. PetRaeus has failed at every operation he's undertaken in Iraq (Mosul, Iraq Force Training, Operation Together Forward). Don't look for ANYTHING to change this time either.

He gives good PR. That's why he wears 4 stars

Dick Now and Then

8192. jexster - 8/15/2007 10:30:15 AM

The NyT has the official death toll at 250. Time reports it probably will exceed 300 making it the single deadliest in Iraq and almost as big as some of those Chechen slaughters the Ruskies are so fond of

8193. jexster - 8/15/2007 11:48:37 AM

Status Report time and guess what? The Pentagon is lying about the civilian deaths declining.

Per McClatchy


Iraq's future seen as bleak
U.S. officials say factions aren't even attempting to reconcile at all


A remake of the 1968 Classic "Light at the End of the Tunnel"

8194. jexster - 8/15/2007 11:58:32 AM

Vietnam numbers

The Mercenary Revolution


If you think the U.S. has only 160,000 troops in Iraq, think again.

With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies.

There are now almost 200,000 private "contractors" deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished

8195. judithathome - 8/15/2007 12:24:34 PM

Blackwater USA

8196. jexster - 8/15/2007 12:52:51 PM

Those numbers retired the LAST Tejas Presidunce

8197. jexster - 8/15/2007 12:58:19 PM

Heavy Starch in My Temple Thong Pls


It's All About Them
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times


Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your father's political campaign.

Last week, at one of Mitt Romney's "Ask Mitt" forums, a woman in the audience asked Mr. Romney whether any of his five sons are serving in the military and, if not, when they plan to enlist.

The candidate replied with a rambling attempt to change the subject, but near the end he let his real feelings slip. "It's remarkable how we can show our support for our nation," he said, "and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I'd be a great president."

Wow. The important point isn't the fact that Mr. Romney's sons aren't in uniform - although it is striking just how few of those who claim to believe that we're engaged in a struggle for our very existence think that they themselves should be called on to make any sacrifices. The point is, instead, that Mr. Romney apparently considers helping him get elected an act of service comparable to putting your life on the line in Iraq.

8198. jexster - 8/15/2007 1:14:33 PM

CNN reports 850 casualties

8199. judithathome - 8/15/2007 4:45:55 PM

Where, Jex?

8200. jexster - 8/15/2007 4:49:16 PM

On the TV....


I never go to their site. Too confused

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Cole on Lehrer

Just taped a segment for the Lehrer News Hour on Iraq. Will be aired today, 8/15.

Labels: Iraq

posted by Juan Cole @ 8/15/2007 05:00:00 PM

8201. jexster - 8/15/2007 5:02:55 PM

Iraq Set to Disintegrate
Der Spiegel


Seems that the Germans have reached the same conclusion that I did a year ago

8202. jexster - 8/15/2007 5:09:16 PM

Al Jazeera now reporting over 500 in one of the towns alone.

8203. jexster - 8/15/2007 5:38:05 PM

I wonder whether PetRaeus's heavy hint at cut and run today had anything to do with this




Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.


LAT


Guess PetRaeus doesn't give good enough PR

8204. robertjayb - 8/15/2007 6:58:10 PM

GI's offing themselves at high rate...

WASHINGTON — (AP) - Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991.

"Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts," the report said.

8205. jexster - 8/15/2007 7:28:19 PM

That piece in the Guardian last weekend on US troop burnout really pissed me off.

We NEVER see reports like that over here and worse, never hear the grim truth that thousands of these guys will wind up homeless, sleeping on the sidewalks, addicted, and suffering from horrible mental illnesses.

and as ever

Cole on PBS: " I think people don't understand how dangerous this situation is."

8206. jexster - 8/15/2007 8:39:26 PM

8207. jexster - 8/16/2007 10:40:29 AM

Killary Klinton: Mindless Militarist

8208. jexster - 8/16/2007 10:53:45 AM

Shuffling Off to Crawford 2007 Edition

8209. jexster - 8/16/2007 11:00:48 AM

Surge Doesn't Compensate for Drawdowns by Other Countries
Dr. Hermann Mindshaftgap

8210. robertjayb - 8/16/2007 11:51:10 AM

From an LA Times article:

...Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Putting words in the mouth of their New Jesus.

Petraeus should give Colin Powell a shout...

8211. jexster - 8/16/2007 12:04:00 PM

Msg num 8203


When we give Tejas back to its rightful owners, we'll not only improve the health of the body politic but it's IQ as well

8212. jexster - 8/16/2007 2:10:32 PM

GOPer Drake: Iraqi Parliament Has "Better Track Record" Than Dem Congress

8213. robertjayb - 8/16/2007 4:02:32 PM

Iraqi women hooking to support children...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The women are too afraid and
ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.


Suha, 37, is a mother of three. She says her husband thinks she is cleaning houses when she leaves home.

"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."

A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.

"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.

Why don't they luv us?

8214. jexster - 8/16/2007 5:10:42 PM

U.S. paid $1 million to ship two 19-cent washers



The U.S. Defense Department said on Thursday that a flawed system designed to rush supplies to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan let a small-parts supplier improperly collect $998,798.38 to ship two 19-cent washers.

Loopholes in the automated purchasing system have been fixed and the ill-gotten gains were being returned to the U.S. Treasury, said Army Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a Pentagon spokesman.

The lock-washer incident was the last in a series of abuses by twin sisters running a South Carolina company that bilked the Pentagon out of about $20.5 million in fraudulent shipping costs, federal prosecutors said after obtaining guilty pleas earlier in the day.

8215. jexster - 8/17/2007 8:43:31 PM

and PetRaeus is passing out arms to Sunni insurgents like Santa Claus at Crimmus


Analysis: Oil Flows in Basra Power Vacuum


Washington - Political parties and their militias are fighting for power over the Basra government, the oil sector it controls, and the oil and fuels smuggling that bring in extra funds.

The southern area, where much of Iraq's oil wealth is located and nearly all its oil exports are sent to market, has been under the purview of British troops, who have allowed various factions to become the power base and their armed outfits to flourish.

Now the British are leaving, and the intra-Shiite fighting that bloodied the streets and complicated provincial politics will explode. Even if U.S. troops, already stretched thin, are sent to mediate, the situation will likely not be calmed - it will likely be inflamed.

8216. jexster - 8/17/2007 8:55:33 PM

¡Che vive!




The Sadr Party strength comes from "some really poor slums in Basra," said Cole.

It's "closest to the masses," said Rochdi Younsi, Middle East analyst at the business risk firm Eurasia Group, and its leader, "the Shiite Che Guevara," is rallying poor Shiites against Shiite, Sunni and U.S. adversaries throughout Iraq.

8217. jexster - 8/19/2007 6:40:20 PM

Back in those heady days of late summer 2002, Andrew Card, then the president's chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn't yet arrived. "You don't introduce new products in August," he said, sounding like the mouthpiece for the Big Three automakers he once was. Sure enough, with an efficiency Detroit can only envy, the manufactured aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds rolled off the White House assembly line after Labor Day like clockwork.

Five summers later, we have the flip side of the Card corollary: You do recall defective products in August, whether you're Mattel or the Bush administration. Karl Rove's departure was both abrupt and fast.....





He Got Out While the Getting Was Good
By Frank Rich

8218. jexster - 8/20/2007 11:12:53 AM

Thinking outside the box


ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, will likely testify to Congress about progress in the war on September 11 or September 12, the White House said on Monday

8219. jexster - 8/20/2007 12:37:20 PM

We've just witnessed the biggest mass attack of the war; assassins have killed the second governor in as many weeks; PetRaeus is so desperate that he's creating militias out of Sunni insurgents; CheneyBush are setting up an attack on Iran, and Southern Irag, including the critical oil and supply line hub, Basra, the Brits have been defeated according to US military officials.


So...


Hillary's triangulating again. There are truly no do-overs in ClintonWorld.

Billary: Surge is Working But It's Time to Go

8220. jexster - 8/20/2007 8:12:26 PM

Roadside bomb kills governor in Iraqi province lauded for progress


· Attack comes days after Bush hails political climate
· Victim is second regional leader to die in eight days


A roadside bomb yesterday killed the governor of Muthanna province, an area of southern Iraq which President George Bush singled out in his weekly radio address last Saturday as showing political progress.

Fancy that

8221. jexster - 8/21/2007 2:30:48 PM

Surging On - Iraq's Elite Fleeing in Droves

Der Spiegel

8222. jexster - 8/21/2007 5:06:58 PM

Triple down baby!



Barack Obama
Grade: A

His best debate performance so far. Stood up to sustained questioning on his alleged inexperience, which led the first seven minutes of the event, without losing his cool or backing down. He even made a well-received joke about preparing for the debate by riding the bumper cars at the Iowa State Fair. Tripled down on standing up for his recent controversial foreign policy statements on nuclear weapons, meeting with foreign leaders, and hunting al Qaeda, with firmness and good humor. Drew audience applause for again playing the I-opposed-the-Iraq-War card to tout his judgment. Sounded almost (Bill) Clintonesque in talking about trade and merit pay for teachers. Displayed the confidence of a leader.

Read the full article at Time

8223. robertjayb - 8/21/2007 5:37:12 PM

CIA honchos Hayden, Goss, Tenent whine about critical IG report...

WASHINGTON — The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released today.

Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found.

8224. jexster - 8/21/2007 6:50:53 PM

WARNING
















I warned you!

8225. jexster - 8/21/2007 6:52:45 PM

Don't Click This

8226. jexster - 8/22/2007 2:00:58 PM

8227. jexster - 8/22/2007 3:17:11 PM

Surge On


Yazidi Bombings - 572 dead, 1562 wounded

8228. jexster - 8/22/2007 7:36:04 PM

As Bush reaffirms his support for Maliki (PM of the Former Nation of Iraq),Haley BarBOOR and his high priced DC influence peddling firm are working for his ouster on behalf of Alawi

8229. jexster - 8/22/2007 8:19:42 PM

Surging Into the QWagmire


Historian Robert Dallek, who has written about the comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam, accused Bush of twisting history. 'It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president,' he said in a telephone interview.

"'We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will,' he said.

"'What is Bush suggesting? That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion,' he continued. 'We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.'"


Los Angeles Times


Fixin to Die Rag

8230. robertjayb - 8/22/2007 9:55:20 PM

Support the Troops? The Pentagon flubs...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon will fall far short of its goal of sending 3,500 lifesaving armored vehicles to Iraq by the end of the year. Instead, officials expect to send about 1,500.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that while defense officials still believe contractors will build about 3,900 of the mine-resistant, armor-protected vehicles by year's end, it will take longer for the military to fully equip them and ship them to Iraq.

''Production is on pace, the issue is delivery,'' he said, adding that the lag is a disappointment and the Defense Department is still committed to getting as many of the vehicles to the war as quickly as possible.

The vehicles -- known as MRAPs -- have a special V-shaped hull that provides greater protection against roadside bombs. According to the military, no troops have been killed while riding in one.

8231. jexster - 8/23/2007 8:59:27 AM

Lights Out America


Militias Seize Control of Iraq's Electricity Grid

8232. jexster - 8/23/2007 5:34:46 PM

Yesterday Bush said Maliki was doing a heckuva job. So is Haley BarBOOR's lobbying firm who hired a former Bush ambassador to Iraq to lobby on behalf of Ayad Allawi for Maliki's demise

8233. jexster - 8/23/2007 7:38:23 PM

Seeing as how he spent most of it AWOL, I guess it isn't surprising that Bush's history of the vietnam war is, as pretty much everything else with that huckster - ass backwards

8234. jexster - 8/24/2007 9:05:02 AM

LAT: The misleading Vietnam analogy

Bush needs to look no further for killing fields and refugees than modern-day Iraq, even without a withdrawal

With rhetoric that would stir any patriot but logic that should persuade few....

GI JOE GI JOE Fighting Man, Head to Toe

8235. jexster - 8/24/2007 9:40:46 AM

So the surge has "reduced sectarian violence at least in certain areas" eh?

That's the song the War Party Chorus is singing.

8236. jexster - 8/24/2007 1:41:40 PM

NoCali BushKill



Pfcs. Jason (L) and Nathan Hubbard from Clovis, California, pose at Fort Benning, a US Army base in the state of Georgia. Jason has been withdrawn from Iraq after his two brothers were killed in action, echoing the Oscar-winning film "Saving Private Ryan",

8237. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/24/2007 3:22:30 PM

The Prezzy to the rescue: BushyPoo will straighten everything out.

8238. jexster - 8/24/2007 4:34:54 PM

Now Wizzer..I sent a dog poo themed card to my 13 yo nephew and my brother responded "he's 13,not 5 like you are"

I like

8239. jexster - 8/24/2007 4:36:16 PM

Brzezinski Endorses Obama - Calls Clinton's Views "Very Conventional"

As have I from time to time

8240. jexster - 8/24/2007 9:41:49 PM

Bush Generals Waring Over Troop Cuts, Withdrawal Timing

8241. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/24/2007 10:31:56 PM

Immature minds think alike.

8242. jexster - 8/24/2007 10:50:37 PM

You gotta think like a child to age properly

8243. jexster - 8/24/2007 10:55:35 PM

The GOP's Worst Nightmare
Salon: Barack Obama's Republican edge
If he can win the Democratic primary, will his fans from the opposing party help take him all the way to the White House?


Aug. 24, 2007 | It was sort of like finding a Christmas tree in a cornfield. In late July and early August, Iowa Republican voters were asked to name their choice for president in a University of Iowa poll. Mitt Romney, who leads most Iowa surveys, got 22 percent of the total. Rudy Giuliani came in second with 10 percent. But third place went to a Democrat, Barack Obama, who got nearly 7 percent -- more than Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Sam Brownback combined.

Not to worry: The Obama campaign isn't likely to join the Grand Old Party, and pollsters are convinced that Obama has exactly zero chance of winning the Republican caucus in Iowa. But something is going on. "I don't want to make too much of it," says David Redlawsk, the professor who commissioned the poll. "But I do think that the message Obama is putting out right now is the most likely to reach across party lines"

8244. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:38:38 AM

Tina Sussman of the LAT finds that the privates and specialists among US troops in Iraq are dismissive of the 'happy talk' they hear from Bush and some of their commanders about the way the war is going. COle

8245. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:39:55 AM

YOUSIFIYA, IRAQ -- In the dining hall of a U.S. Army post south of Baghdad, President Bush was on the wide-screen TV, giving a speech about the war in Iraq. The soldiers didn't look up from their chicken and mashed potatoes.

8246. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:43:58 AM

"The only person I know who believed Iraq was improving was killed by a sniper in May," the blogger, identified only as Alex from Frisco, Texas, said in a separate e-mail.

8247. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:53:33 AM

Pogue Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?
Private Joker: Our side, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Don't you love your country?
Private Joker: Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Then how about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?
Private Joker: Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Son, all I've ever asked of my marines is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a hardball world, son. We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
Private Joker: Aye-aye, sir.

8248. jexster - 8/25/2007 9:13:58 AM

BAGHDAD: The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate has effectively discredited the dominant American hypothesis of the past seven months: that safer streets, secured by additional troops, would create enough political calm for Iraq's leaders to reconcile.

They have failed to do so in part, suggests the report, which was released Thursday, because the security gains remain too modest to reverse Iraq's dynamic of violence and fear. Baghdad after all, remains a place where women at the market avoid buying river fish for fear that they've been eating bodies.


Bush Lies - National Intelligence Estimate (IHT)

8249. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/25/2007 9:22:05 AM

And Fox continues the increase the drumbeat for the tribe of fools who support him . . .

8250. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/25/2007 9:23:21 AM

the = to

8251. jexster - 8/25/2007 9:36:48 AM

Who's the handsome gentlemen with the jowls Wiz...looks familiar

SOS

8252. jexster - 8/25/2007 9:39:54 AM

MR. HUNT: In that larger context then, would you argue that the widely advertised General Petraeus report in a couple weeks is really not very relevant?



MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, I would recommend that people read the report he delivered, I believe in 2004 or 2005, which was claiming at the time that we were making significant progress and that we were doing quite well.

8253. jexster - 8/26/2007 9:46:14 AM

Obama’s Plan to Restore New Orleans

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 — On the cusp of the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Senator Barack Obama will present a plan on Sunday aimed at hastening the rebuilding of New Orleans and restructuring how the federal government responds to future catastrophes in America.

The Gulf Coast restoration, Mr. Obama said, has been weighed down by red tape that has kept billions of dollars from reaching Louisiana communities. As president, he said, he would streamline the bureaucracy, strengthen law enforcement to curb a rise in crime and immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in order to restore wetlands to protect against storms.

8254. jexster - 8/26/2007 3:33:14 PM

Comeback Kid III - Brunehilde's Revenge

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

8255. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/26/2007 5:15:31 PM

Who's the handsome gentlemen with the jowls Wiz...looks familiar

You mean Joe Fuckin' Liebermann?

8256. jexster - 8/26/2007 5:56:20 PM

A canker on the Democratic Party. He's now pressing a bill to ban travel to Damascus airport


The man should be arrested as a Jizzraeli spy

8257. jexster - 8/26/2007 5:57:36 PM

In Flanders Fields the Poppies Grow

Another Bumper Crop for the Taliban!




How long do these idiots think we can continue to occupy that rat hole?

8258. jexster - 8/26/2007 6:06:25 PM

GIs' morale dips as Iraq war drags on

With tours extended, multiple deployments and new tactics that put them in bare posts in greater danger, they feel leaders are out of touch with reality.


Heckuva job Hillary..What WAS she thinking? Miss Armed Servies Senator Rod Ham?

In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five year old—even such a one as originally attacked him with a knife—will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore he will lose the support of bystanders and end up by being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up by losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops. Depending on the quality of the forces—whether they are draftees or professionals, the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, the nature of the political process, and so on—things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.

In other words, he who fights against the weak — and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed — and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat; if U.S. troops in Iraq have not yet started fragging their officers, the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one did. Namely, with the last US troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters’ skids.
van Creveld

8259. jexster - 8/26/2007 6:20:21 PM

I am sure that Senator Rod Ham would make a great president someday. Just needs a little seasoning. Maybe she should wait 8 years

8260. jexster - 8/26/2007 6:39:10 PM

What's in a Name
Desperate but Serious

US REBRANDS Insurgents

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term "concerned local nationals" to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.

8261. jexster - 8/26/2007 7:08:11 PM

I know when I go to sleep tonight I rest well knowing that Hillary Clinton's been toughened, hard as tempered steel in the furnace of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Obama Camp: Hillary Obsessed With Republican Attack Machine

Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod said that Hillary Clinton has been obsessed "with what she calls the Republican attack machine." Instead, Axelrod said, "I think we need a candidate who is obsessed with unifying this country again."

Chris Dodd Blasts Hillary, Calls Her Terrorism Remarks "Tasteless"

Chris Dodd released a statement lambasting Hillary Clinton for saying that a potential terrorist attack would give the Republicans a political advatange, and she was the best candidate to deal with that. "Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States," Dodd said. A Hillary spokesman offered this clarification: "Sen. Clinton was making clear that she has the strength and experience to keep the country safe."

Edwards Camp: Hillary's Terror Remarks "Deeply Troubling"


John Edwards spokesman Chris Kofinis also blasted Hillary: "Senator Clinton’s remarks are deeply troubling. After nearly seven years of George Bush and the politics of fear, the American people deserve a President who will focus first on keeping America safe, rather than calculating the political consequences. Unfortunately, Senator Clinton is seemingly taking a page straight from the GOP playbook that got us into this mess — using fear of another terror attack as a political tactic to bolster her candidacy, and that is just wrong."

Richardson: Hillary "Seems To Think" Bush Has Made Us Safer

Bill Richardson had a statement, as well. "We shouldn't be thinking about terrorism in terms of its domestic political consequences, we should be protecting the country from terrorists," said Richardson. "Senator Clinton seems to think that President Bush has made this country safer. I disagree with her. Our failed policy in Iraq is making us less safe."

8262. jexster - 8/27/2007 12:29:28 PM

8263. jexster - 8/27/2007 12:43:54 PM

“Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things."

-- Rahm Emanuel,

8264. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/27/2007 3:49:40 PM

8265. jexster - 8/27/2007 5:11:05 PM

Wiz you going to the New York Premier?


Comeback Kid III - Brunhilde's Revenge???

8266. jexster - 8/27/2007 5:17:28 PM

I almost feel his pain




Bush hauled off of Air Force I to announce "political progress" in Iraq(sic)

8267. jexster - 8/27/2007 5:49:56 PM

8268. jexster - 8/27/2007 6:12:24 PM

Al Qaeda and Other Insurgent Groups Siphoning Millions Off US Contracts in AlAnbar

Thank you Joe
Thanks Pillary

8269. jexster - 8/27/2007 8:59:33 PM

Heckuva job Sen. Rod Ham!

Dirge for the 'Surge'
Antiwar backlash building – in the US military

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members…

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”

Sen Rod Ham
Co-Sponsor Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History
Addressing the U.S. Senate October 10, 2001

8270. jexster - 8/27/2007 9:00:47 PM

I guess all that OJT will pay off one day.


She'll learn right off how to spot a Texas Huckster

Took her, by Madeline Albright's admission, a whole 3 years to figure out that Bush had screwed her

8271. jexster - 8/27/2007 9:02:37 PM

Same old bullshitters, new BS

The Americans are now opting for the Sunnis, with Iyad Allawi, the CIA's former favorite, openly lobbying for a Washington-sponsored coup against Maliki, and the Democrats, led by Senators Clinton and Levin, picking up on this blame-the-Iraqis line. The same complaints against the Iraqi government – they're ineffective and too sectarian, and then there are those militias – permeate the National Intelligence Estimate, which really is a blow aimed at Maliki.

8272. jexster - 8/28/2007 4:25:33 AM

In early November of 1967, the administration of President Lyndon Johnson ratcheted up a media campaign designed to convince the American people that victory in Vietnam was possible. Dubbed the "Success Offensive," it began with coordinated leaks to the press of cherry picked reports in order to manufacture the most positive spin possible.

On Meet the Press, Vice President Humphrey asserted that "there has been progress on every front in Vietnam," and Ambassador Bunker reported that the Saigon government was increasing its territorial control....

AND they're both Texicans - natural born hucksters.

Remember the Alamo?

Is "Petraeus" Dutch for "Westmoreland"
The General Reports

8273. jexster - 8/28/2007 8:42:44 AM

As Kevin Baker noted in an in-depth analysis in Harper's, the "stab in the back" thesis is the ur-right-wing credo. It brings together two keystone beliefs: the idea that America is omnipotent and incapable of defeat, and that any war the U.S. engages in must be noble and heroic. Therefore, if America is defeated, traitorous elites -- craven politicians, unAmerican punks, degenerates, longhairs, pinkos and agitators, and the cowardly elite media -- must be to blame. Nixon and Agnew's demonizing of "nattering nabobs of negativism" and Reagan's claims that war protesters were giving "comfort and aid" to the enemy sprang from this belief.

n fact, the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake, and America pulled out because politicians and the American people alike realized it was unwinnable. But the "stab in the back" myth never died: It stayed alive in the resentment-filled caverns of the American right, for whom it is an article of faith that America's wars are always justified and our military omnipotent. It is not an intellectually respectable idea, but it has currency with Bush's core supporters. Bush usually prefers not to make his ties to the far right so obvious, but his situation is so dire he felt compelled to reach gingerly into this muck of Ramboesque resentment.

As the Power of the War Myth Bush Prepares the Dolchstosslegende - The Last Lie to Die

8274. jexster - 8/28/2007 9:39:02 AM

Hillary trusted them until 2006 ..she woke up..that's her relevant "experience"
Heckuva job Brunhilde
Running for President since 2001 couldn't afford to look weak now could she Wizzer?



Iraq Weapons Are a Focus of Criminal Investigations

BAGHDAD, Aug. 27 — Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here.

The inquiry has already led to several indictments of Americans, with more expected, the officials said. One of the investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David H. Petraeus in setting up the logistics operation to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials said Monday.

8275. jexster - 8/28/2007 10:00:02 AM

Stoned Me Just Like Jelly Roll

8276. jexster - 8/28/2007 10:40:54 AM

Queer As a Three Dollar Bill

8277. jexster - 8/28/2007 10:49:11 AM

1982

"I did not have sex with that page"
Congressman Larry Craig

8278. jexster - 8/28/2007 11:48:22 AM

So many daggers in the back, even OJ Simpson couldn't keep up such a pace

5 wars
5 losses




5 Wars, 5 Losses



How can this bloody failure be regarded as a good war?


The western occupation of Afghanistan has brought neither peace nor development - and it fuels the terror threat

8279. jexster - 8/28/2007 11:48:51 AM

Al Gore told Dillary so

8280. jexster - 8/28/2007 1:29:44 PM

8281. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/28/2007 2:11:16 PM

8265. jexster - 8/27/2007 7:11:05 PM

Wiz you going to the New York Premier?

???

8282. jexster - 8/28/2007 2:23:33 PM

OF "CUMback Kid III - Brunhilde's Revenge"


Big Broadway premiere! Big Billary fundraiser...Larry Craig will be guest bathroom matron

Kiddin Wizzer

8283. jexster - 8/28/2007 2:37:07 PM

MOTE EXCLUSIVE!

Hidden Microphone: Grand Old Pigpile Caucus

8284. jexster - 8/28/2007 5:49:38 PM

8285. jexster - 8/29/2007 8:48:15 AM

Obama offers hard truths to supporters


WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama has a habit of telling interest groups what they don't want to hear, even at the risk of alienating audiences critical to the prospects of a presidential candidate.

8286. robertjayb - 8/29/2007 11:44:22 AM

$50 Billion..

Give me fifty billion more,

just just fifty billion more.

Let me stay, Let me stay..

in Iraq

8287. jexster - 8/29/2007 11:54:22 AM

The Dems are still cowardly enough to give it to him though, with all the recent reports of the Army's decimation, they'll probably pass the Webb Amendment, make him veto

Heckuva Job Hillary

8288. jexster - 8/29/2007 11:54:35 AM

8289. jexster - 8/29/2007 1:34:14 PM

Withdrawal Possible Over a Year - CAP Study

8290. jexster - 8/29/2007 7:37:59 PM

Active Duty US Troops Become Outspoken Critics of BushWar

8291. jexster - 8/29/2007 8:03:02 PM

Kimchee Eating Surrender Monkeys???


Has South Korea Surrendered to the Taliban?

8292. jexster - 8/29/2007 8:04:34 PM

SETH JONES, Rand Corporation: Well, I think there are at least two questions. One is, why did the South Korean government agree to a deal where they stated as part of the agreement to commit to downsizing their forces? Even if they were already going to downsize forces in the future anyway, why did they make this part of their negotiations? Why did they publicly state this?

And, second, my conversations recently with Afghan government officials this morning and United States and other NATO officials indicated that there's a high likelihood that the South Korean government paid for the release of these hostages or there was money that was transferred to the Taliban. That would set a dangerous precedent.


5 Wars
5 Losses

8293. jexster - 8/30/2007 11:42:32 AM

Sen. Rod Ham to "Vet" Crooks on Donor List

Same ole same ole on the bridge back to the 20th Century

8294. jexster - 8/30/2007 1:02:48 PM

BushKill


HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY BE - AGAIN?
SOMBER HOMECOMING: The Fresno County town of Clovis has lost seven sons to the war in Iraq, four in the past seven months. A heartbroken community asks ...

How?

Take a wild ass guess


Bring em home

8295. jexster - 8/30/2007 1:19:26 PM

The Rod Ham Experience




Fugitive Felon Norman Hsu with Sen Shillary 2005

8296. jexster - 8/30/2007 1:24:29 PM

At least we can be sure of one thing re: Rod Ham's "vast experience"

She won't be trusting your blood and treasure to George Bush for 3 years before figuring out she'd been had



The Great Iraq Swindle
By Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone

How Bush allowed an army of for-profit contractors to invade the US Treasury.

8297. jexster - 8/30/2007 3:27:01 PM

Stab in the Back Redux

The usual whack jobs are trying their best with their Support the Troops garbage to resurrect the Nixon Stab in the Back Lies (troops were never spat upon at SFO!)

But then as now, the first to know they've been fuckt are the guyz who are doin the dying

They know Bush Shit when they hear it


Here They Go Again.....Vietnam II

SOUTHEAST OF SALMAN PAK, Iraq — Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they'd raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore , Company A's senior enlisted man, shouted out.


"We're bringing democracy to Iraq ," he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.

8298. jexster - 8/30/2007 3:32:33 PM

Is it really possible to bilk American taxpayers for repainted forklifts stolen from Iraqi Airways and claim that you were just following orders? It is, when your commander in chief is George W. Bush...

That Taibbi piece is hell on wheels

8299. jexster - 8/30/2007 4:14:03 PM

The State of QWagmire

Even though we've out-stayed our welcome, in the big picture of whether we've helped or not, I know we have," said Sgt. Christofer Kitto , a 23-year-old sniper from Altamont, N.Y. "But now it's just in a state of quagmire. The U.S. time here has come and gone.

8300. jexster - 8/30/2007 4:48:58 PM

Grand Old Pigpile's Team Toilet

Allawi Changes His Story Again
How Many People Are Paying His Bills to Republican DC Lobbyists?



NOLA should have hired Haley Barbour's Boyz!

<

8301. jexster - 8/30/2007 5:49:43 PM

DOJ Inspector General Investigating Fredo's Lies

8302. jexster - 8/31/2007 9:38:21 AM

As good news continues to flow from the "surge" – some of it true, some of it false and all of it spun – it is easy to forget the bottom line. The bottom line is whether or not we are beginning to see the re-emergence of a state in Iraq. Three recent news stories throw some light on that question, and it is not a favorable light.

The first, by Steven Hurst of the AP, ran in the August 26 Cleveland Plain Dealer under the title, "Sectarian violence in Iraq nearly double '06 level." Relying on the AP's own figures, the story reported that:

* Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year – an average daily toll of 33 in 2006 and 62 so far this year.

* Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006…

* Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

Taken together, these figures illustrate an old saying about counter-insurgency, namely that it is like trying to pick up mercury. When counter-insurgency forces surge in one place, as we have in Baghdad, the insurgents roll someplace else. Meanwhile, the insurgency as a whole continues to grow.

Truth-Tellers
by William S. Lind

8303. jexster - 8/31/2007 10:02:08 AM

History Will Not Absolve Us
Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial

8304. jexster - 8/31/2007 6:23:48 PM

Friday Follies Redux

BushOgon Caught Cooking the Books on Iraq Sectarian Violence

8305. jexster - 8/31/2007 6:24:31 PM

8306. jexster - 8/31/2007 8:30:02 PM

Man Bites Dog



Freed from the need to keep his silence, Karl Rove has written a piece on the Bush presidency. Verdict: Best president ever.

I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.

President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.

He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.

8307. jexster - 8/31/2007 8:30:24 PM

Run Karl Run

8308. jexster - 9/1/2007 7:25:21 PM

8309. robertjayb - 9/2/2007 3:06:45 PM

The purpose of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq...

We hope Iraq will be the first domino and that Libya and Iran will follow. We don’t like being kept out of markets because it gives our competitors an unfair advantage – John Gibson, chief executive, Halliburton Energy Service Group, 2003.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was not preemption; it was – like our war on Mexico in 1846 – an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantages – Michael Scheuer, former senior CIA al-Qaeda expert.

I recommend this lengthy and well-linked article from democratic underground. It left me queasy and believing that impeachment (which we will never see) would be inadequate punishment for the sins and crimes of the * administration. Not a lot new but it is instructive to see the whole dog's breakfast laid out. Hyperbole is minimal.

8310. jexster - 9/2/2007 6:57:05 PM

Surge a Success

Thousands of other Sunnis like Kamal have been cleared out of the western half of Baghdad, which they once dominated, in recent months. The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent."


West Baghdad Cleansed of Sunnis

8311. jexster - 9/2/2007 7:40:20 PM

Defense & the National Interest

PetRaeus, Master of Deception
Mayor of Potemkin Village


Finally some folks are beginning to catch on. I said this when he was appointed. Not too fucking obvious - why Bush appointed him

8312. jexster - 9/2/2007 8:04:19 PM

AP's Count: Contrary to Claims -- Civilian Deaths Soaring in Iraq

8313. robertjayb - 9/3/2007 3:18:36 PM

* in six-hour visit finds success...Whatta Guy!!!

AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq, Sept. 3 -- President Bush, in a surprise visit to this isolated and well fortified air field in Anbar province Monday, said continued gains in security could allow for a reduction in U.S. troops in Iraq and called on the Iraqi government to follow that success with progress toward rebuilding and political reconciliation.

Bush received an update on Iraq from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, then met with Iraqi government officials and later Sunni tribal leaders here. He said he was "pleased" with what he heard from U.S. officials.

(WaPo)

8314. robertjayb - 9/3/2007 3:28:03 PM

Try this link...

8315. robertjayb - 9/3/2007 3:52:54 PM

...Bush said decisions about troop levels "will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground — not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media.

"In other words," the president told cheering troops, "when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq it will be from a position of strength and success — not from a position of fear and failure."

(AP)

8316. jexster - 9/3/2007 5:15:48 PM

The withdrawal of British forces from Basra Palace, ahead of an expected full withdrawal from the city as early as next month, marks the beginning of the end of one of the most futile campaigns ever fought by the British Army.

.....

In terms of establishing an orderly government in Basra and a decent life for its people the British failure has been absolute.

Patrick Cockburn: Ignominious End

8317. jexster - 9/3/2007 8:02:42 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush expressed frustration Monday with the slow pace of political change in Iraq but said he still backed the "evolving" leadership of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki

Oh migawd

8318. jexster - 9/3/2007 8:04:53 PM

8319. robertjayb - 9/3/2007 9:23:56 PM

Bremer contradicts * on dismantling Iraqi army...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.”

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents. In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

Which liar to believe?

8320. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/3/2007 9:51:13 PM

America is concerned . . .

8321. jexster - 9/4/2007 12:57:30 PM

Got Bush D's at Yale


Iraq Fails 11 of 18 Benchmarks

8322. jexster - 9/4/2007 1:42:53 PM

It's always "Three to six months" before "the light at the end of the tunnel"




WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraqi government has failed to take the political and military steps needed to cut sectarian violence, a U.S. congressional report said on Tuesday and a U.S. general said the next months were critical for creating security in the country.

It was "3-6 months" last January..."3-6 months" since 2003

"Fabius Maximus" - DNI

8323. jexster - 9/4/2007 6:13:11 PM

Empire of Stupidity - 7 Years in Hell

At least Little Goorgie'll be rakin in the big bucks

8324. jexster - 9/5/2007 5:26:01 AM

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in political infighting.

In the coming days, U.S. military and government leaders will offer Congress their assessment of the 6-month-old plan's results. But a review of statistics on death and displacement, political developments and the impressions of Iraqis who are living under the heightened military presence reaches a dispiriting conclusion

Another BushWar, Another Bush Failure
Los Angeles Times

8325. jexster - 9/5/2007 10:51:15 AM

Bush on Iraq: "We're kicking ass"

A day after the Government Accountability Office reported that the Iraqis have met just three of 18 benchmarks they had agreed to meet, George W. Bush offered a slightly rosier assessment of the war during his visit to Australia today. Asked by Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile to say how things are going in Iraq, the president of the United States declared: "We're kicking ass."

-- Tim Grieve

8326. jexster - 9/5/2007 11:28:39 AM

US, Jizzrael and BushWar

8327. jexster - 9/5/2007 11:37:42 AM

Key figures about Iraq By The Associated Press




Key figures about Iraq since the war began in March 2003:

U.S. TROOP LEVELS:

August 2007: 164,000

January 2007: 137,000

CASUALTIES:

_Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Sept. 4, 2007: 3,739

_Confirmed U.S. military wounded as of Sept. 4, 2007: 27,662

_U.S. military deaths for August 2007: 83

_Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of June 30, 2007: 1,001.

_Iraqi civilian deaths: Estimated at more than 66,000, with one controversial study last year contending there were as many as 655,000. According to Associated Press figures, there were at least 1,975 Iraqi deaths in August 2007.

_Assassinated Iraqi academics: 331.

_Journalists killed on assignment: 112.

COST:

_Stepped-up military operations are costing about $12 billion a month, with Iraq accounting for $10 billion per month, according to U.S. congressional analysis.

_Total cost to the U.S. government so far is more than $448 billion. A January 2007 study by Linda Bilmes of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government put the total projected cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at $350 billion to $700 billion.

OIL PRODUCTION:

_Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.

_Aug. 22, 2007: 1.15 million barrels per day. (Power outages on August 16 and 17 affected crude oil production.)

8328. jexster - 9/5/2007 12:55:21 PM

PRePaRing for PetRaeus's Lies


Click to enlarge

8329. jexster - 9/5/2007 12:58:20 PM

Is IraQ Becoming a Proxy War?
U.S.-Backed Sunnis Fight al-Qaeda -- and Maybe "Iran-Backed" Shiites?

8330. robertjayb - 9/5/2007 1:39:26 PM

Kicking ass...Heckofajob, bushie...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Three separate attacks in Baghdad killed six U.S. soldiers, and at least 13 Iraqi civilians died when a roadside bomb exploded today next to buses used by morning commuters, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.



Three of the soldiers were killed and two were wounded after their Humvee was hit with an explosively formed penetrator, a type of bomb that the U.S. alleges Iran has been supplying to Shiite militias. Iran denies the accusation.

8331. jexster - 9/5/2007 1:40:41 PM

8332. jexster - 9/5/2007 8:34:56 PM

The Circus is Coming to Town Again!

Clinton Donor Fails to Appear In Court Again


Norman Hsu, the wealthy Clinton donor who turned out to be a fugitive, failed to appear in court on Wednesday.

8333. robertjayb - 9/5/2007 10:15:40 PM

Leaving home...Joining the exodus...

Riverbend, the young Iraqi woman who blogs as Baghdad Burning, has left Baghdad with her family for refuge in Syria.

...refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

8334. thoughtful - 9/6/2007 7:37:30 AM

From Angry Bear:

A lie is an assertion, believed to be false, made with the intention to deceive.

That's essentially Bernard William's definition of a lie on p. 93 of "Truth and Truthfulness." It probably fits with how most of us think about a lie. But what about statements that use true facts to deceive?

August 31, Juan Cole was shrill about administration and media statements that GI deaths in Iraq were down for the year. His point was that temperatures get to 120 degrees, so summer means low combat. He produced a table contrasting 2006 with 2007 by month: deaths are higher in 2007 than 2006. He asked for a visual display and many responded. I'm posting mine here.



...So maybe, technically, these are not lies, because they assert true facts. But that doesn't make them true statements. Paraphrasing Robert Lewis Stevenson, a true statement does not just present true facts; a true statement is one that conveys a true impression. “July GI fatalities are the lowest for the year” is a true fact. On the other hand, “GI fatalities are higher every month so far this year compared with last”, is also a true fact. It's the latter, however, not the former, that conveys a true impression.

8335. jexster - 9/6/2007 11:13:11 AM

Stories or statistics? Read and compare to find the truth!

Part III of a series about our Long War

By Fabius Maximus

September 5, 2007

8336. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/6/2007 3:15:22 PM

Lying Zionist Bastard Department:

Lieberman: Mandated Troop Withdrawals Equal A Forced Retreat


WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman stood with House and Senate Republican leaders today and declared that any congressional effort to mandate Iraq troop withdrawals would amount to "an attempt to force a retreat" on American troops.

"It is high time," he said, "some of our colleagues remove their blinders and acknowledge reality," that the American effort in Iraq is succeeding.

8337. jexster - 9/6/2007 5:05:10 PM

There you go again airing your dirty laundry Wizzer

8338. jexster - 9/6/2007 5:05:41 PM

Speaking of which

8339. jexster - 9/6/2007 5:19:04 PM

Lies My President Told Me

The Myth of Fighting AlQaeda in Iraq

8340. jexster - 9/6/2007 5:23:33 PM

Four Independent Panels Say Wizzer's Senator is a Lying Chunk of Nutmeg

8341. robertjayb - 9/6/2007 6:16:30 PM

Osama has been at the Grecian Formula, tarting up for 9/11 anniversary videos...Coming soon!

CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin Laden will release a new video in the coming days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in what would be the first new images of the terror mastermind in nearly three years, al-Qaida's media arm announced Thursday.
.................................................

The al-Qaida leader has not appeared in new video footage since October 2004, and he has not put out a new audiotape in more than a year, his longest period without a message.

One difference in his appearance was immediately obvious. The announcement had a still photo from the coming video, showing bin Laden addressing the camera, his beard fully black. In his past videos, bin Laden's beard was almost entirely gray with dark streaks.

(Houston Chronicle)

8342. concerned - 9/6/2007 11:16:30 PM

In the interests of fairness, shouldn't this be labeled the thread where jexster tries to show he's the fastest liar around?

8343. concerned - 9/6/2007 11:36:48 PM

Re. 8341 -

Osama discovers the magic of music videos and tries to cut it without the music.

Fundamentalist Islam is the most bogus thing in the world. Osama and his nutcase Muslim buddies even adhere to the lunar year which has been obsolete for 2000 years.

8344. concerned - 9/6/2007 11:41:59 PM

Fundamentalist Islam may or may not be more bogus than Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. IAC, they are all on the same intellectual plane.

8345. jexster - 9/7/2007 4:46:14 AM

Welcome to a True Fanatic

Who Are The Fanatics?

by Paul Craig Roberts



President Jimmy Carter was demonized for pointing out in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that there are actually two sides to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Distinguished American scholars, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have suffered the same fate for documenting the excessive influence the Israel Lobby has on US foreign policy.

Americans would be astonished at the criticisms in the Israeli press of the Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinians and Arabs generally. In Israel facts are still part of the discussion. If the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, could replace Fox "News," CNN, New York Times and Washington Post, Americans would know the truth about US and Israeli policies in the Middle East and their likely consequences.

On September 1, Haaretz reported that Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents 900 Congregations and 1.5 million Jews, "accused American media, politicians and religious groups of demonizing Islam" and turning Muslims into "satanic figures."

Rabbi Yoffie is certainly correct. In America there is only one side to the issue. An entire industry has been created that is devoted to demonizing Islam. Books abound that misrepresent Islam as the greatest possible threat to Western Civilization and seek to instill fear and hatred of Muslims in Americans. For example, Norman Podhoretz proclaims "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism." Daniel Pipes shrieks that "Militant Islam Reaches America." Lee Harris warns of "The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West."

Think tanks have well-funded Middle East programs, the purpose of which is to spread Islamophobia. Fear and loathing pour out of the Middle East Forum and the American Enterprise Institute.

In the US it is acceptable, even obligatory in many circles, to hate Muslims and to support violence against them. Pipes has been described as a "leading anti-Muslim hate propagandist." He is on record advocating the use of violence alone as the solution to the Muslim problem. This won him the endorsement of the Christian Coalition, AIPAC, and the Zionist Organization of America for appointment to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. President George Bush used a recess appointment to appoint this man of violence to the Institute of Peace.

Pipes advocates that the Muslims be beaten into submission by force, the view that has guided the Bush administration. To brainwashed and propagandized Americans, the Pipes appointment made perfect sense.

Podhoretz believes that Islam has no right to exist, because it is opposed to Israeli territorial expansion, and that America must deracinate Islam, which means to tear Islam up by the roots.

While neoconservatives, Christian Zionists, and the Bush administration embrace unbridled violence against Muslims, Lee Harris warns that America is much too tolerant and reasonable to be able to defend itself against Muslim fanaticism. America's "governing philosophy based on reason, tolerance, consensus and deliberation cannot defend itself against a [Muslim] strategy of ruthless violence."

Islamophobia overflows with such absurdities and contradictions. Harris tells us that the Enlightenment overcame fanatical thinking in the West, leaving the West unfamiliar with fanaticism and helpless to confront it. Harris, who fancies himself an authority on fanaticism, is deaf, dumb, and blind to Communism and National Socialism and is completely ignorant of the fact that neoconservative fanatics are the direct heirs of the Jacobins of the French Revolution, itself a fanatical product of the Enlightenment.

If Americans did rely on reason, tolerance and deliberation, they might free their minds of shrill propaganda long enough to consider the "Muslim threat." Muslims are disunited. Their disunity makes them a threat to one another, not to the West.





8346. jexster - 9/7/2007 4:46:36 AM

In Iraq most of the fighting and violence is between Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs and between Arabs and Kurds. If Iraqis were unified, most of the violence, instead of a small part of it, would be directed against the American troops, and the remnants of a defeated US army would have been withdrawn by now. However much Iraqis might hate the American invader and occupier, they do not hate him enough to unite and to drive him out. They would rather kill one another.

Iran, the current focus of demonization, is not Arab. Iranians are descended from the ancient Persian race. Indeed, Iran would do itself a favor if it changed its name back to Persia. For eight years (1980-1988) the Iranians and Iraqis were locked in catastrophic war with horrendous casualties on both sides. Despite its military exhaustion, Iraq was considered a "threat" by the American Superpower and was bombed and embargoed for the decade of the 1990s, one consequence of which was the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

Not content with the complete crippling of Iraq by the Clinton administration, the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 and has been dealing more death and destruction to Iraq ever since.

Palestine has been under Israeli occupation for decades. Israel has simply stolen most of Palestine, and the remaining Palestinian enclaves are ghettos policed by the Israeli army.

The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates are Sunni Arabs. They are more afraid of Shi'ite Arabs than of Israelis. Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan are ruled by bought-and-paid-for American puppets. The Turkish military is also in the American pocket and suppresses any Islamist influence in the civilian government.

Afghanistan is a disunited country of tribal peoples, each holding sway in their area. The Taliban were attempting to unify Afghanistan, and the Bush administration's fear that the Taliban might succeed was the reason for the US invasion of Afghanistan. The US allied with the defeated Northern Alliance, in part a remnant of the old Soviet puppet government, and turned Afghanistan back over to warlords.

When the facts are considered – Muslim disunity and the absence of modern technology, navies, and strategic reach – the Bush/Cheney/neoconservative/Zionist propaganda that "we must fight them over there before they come over here" is such a transparent hoax that it is astounding that so many Americans have fallen for it.

To the extent that there is any Muslim threat, it is one created by the US and Israel. Israel has no diplomacy toward Muslims and relies on violence and coercion. The US has interfered in the internal affairs of Muslim countries during the entire post World War II period. The US overthrew an elected government in Iran and installed the Shah. The US backed Saddam Hussein in his aggression against Iran. The US has kept in power rulers it could control and has pandered to the desires of Israeli governments. If America is hated, America created the hate by its arrogant and dismissive treatment of the Muslim Middle East.

There is no such thing as Islamofascism. This is a coined propaganda word used to inflame the ignorant. There is no factual basis for the hatred that neoconservative Islamophobes instill in Americans. God did not tell America to destroy the Muslims for the Israelis.

In America today, blind ignorant hate against Muslims has been brought to a boiling point. The fear and loathing is so great that the American public and its elected representatives in Congress offer scant opposition to the Bush administration's plan to make Iran the third Middle East victim of American aggression in the 21st century.

Most Americans, who Harris believes to be so reasonable, tolerant, and deliberative that they cannot defend themselves, could not care less that one million Iraqis have lost their lives during the American occupation and that an estimated four million Iraqis have been displaced. The total of dead and displaced comes to 20 percent of the Iraqi population. If this is not fanaticism on the part of the Bush administration, what is it? Certainly it is not reason, tolerance, and deliberation.

8347. jexster - 9/7/2007 5:06:11 AM

Petreaus the phony pretends to be a COIN specialist. New tactics no strategy but new tactics...


America swallows another Bush turd. Folks this is the last thing anyone who has the most rudimentary knowledge of Fourth Generation War or the War in Iraq for that matter would do

What a fucking fraud...another one

Samarra Under US Attack

by Ali al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD - Residents are fleeing Samarra city in the face of fierce fighting between US forces and resistance groups.

New defiance is rising against US forces following military "crimes," fleeing residents say.

"On Sunday the 26th of August, there was fierce fighting between armed men and American forces in the Armooshiya district, and I saw Americans evacuate many of their soldiers by stretchers," a man who fled Samarra for Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "As usual, Americans took revenge by bombing the district."

A woman who also fled Samarra for the capital in recent days, who gave her name as Iman, told IPS that the US military had "committed another crime in the medicine factory residence area" when "they bombed a house there and killed a woman with her seven children."

8348. jexster - 9/7/2007 5:10:26 AM

Ahmed Hashim puts it so succinctly in his book Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, occupations are resisted simply because they are occupations . .

8349. jexster - 9/8/2007 10:40:42 AM

Bush to Lie to Nation on Iraq Next Week

8350. jexster - 9/8/2007 11:29:51 AM

US Auditor: PetRaeus/Bush Is a Liar

8351. jexster - 9/8/2007 12:22:59 PM

Romney says bin Laden is deluded AP

This from a guy who believes that an angel named MORONi talked to a heretic hayseed named Joseph Smith

8352. robertjayb - 9/8/2007 8:13:14 PM

Golly Gosh Gee, What a big surprise:

WASHINGTON - President Bush's top two military and political advisers on Iraq will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has been less forthcoming than Gen. David Petraeus in advance of his testimony, will join Petraeus in pushing for maintaining the U.S. troop surge, seeing it as the only viable option to prevent Iraq and the region from plunging into further chaos, U.S. officials said.

8353. robertjayb - 9/8/2007 9:24:20 PM

Read and believe this timely and spot-on NYTimes editorial. You will be better for it: Hiding behind the general...

...What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq.

President Bush, however, seems to be aiming for maximum political advantage — not maximum clarity on Iraq’s military and political crises, which cannot be separated from each other. Mr. Bush, we fear, isn’t looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public, scare Democrats into dropping their demands for a sound exit strategy, and prolong the war until he leaves office. At times, General Petraeus gives the disturbing impression that he, too, is more focused on the political game in Washington than the unfolding disaster in Iraq. That serves neither American nor Iraqi interests.

Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.

8354. jexster - 9/9/2007 12:28:23 PM

Great Robert I was just about to link that...

But the way I figure it, I called PetRaeus back when Bush appointed him.

FlimFlam man..failed at every IraQ project he's ever had, except one

Self-promotion


I've been preaching this sermon at Informed Comment, TPM ..wherever I've seen any "Petraeus - finally a competent commander"

8355. jexster - 9/9/2007 12:31:36 PM

PetRaeus is SO good he's even got the Bushies loudly telling everyone "THERE IS NO PETRAEUS REPORT!"

Well fuck me..the US has been waiting for 9 months for the Petraeus Report..and Bush has been telling us "WAIT FOR THE PETRAEUS REPORT"

Now there is no such thing as a PETRAEUS REPORT

Tole ya the guy was good at something..covering his ass and getting two extra stars in the process!

He ain't gonna fall on his sword for that idiot. He has an exit strategy

8356. jexster - 9/9/2007 1:07:26 PM

The BushShit Machine's Falling Apart

Defense Intel Agency Under Cuts BushPetRaeus WASHINGTON - In vertical bars of blue, green, gray and red, a briefing chart prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency says what Gen. David Petraeus won't.


Insurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians, their security forces and U.S. troops remain high, according to the document obtained by The Associated Press. It is a conclusion that the well-regarded Army officer who is the top U.S. commander in Iraq is expected to try to counter when he and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, testify before Congress on Monday and Tuesday.

8357. jexster - 9/9/2007 1:11:08 PM

8358. jexster - 9/9/2007 4:03:36 PM

8359. jexster - 9/9/2007 4:14:47 PM

Bush, officials pass buck over who ordered Iraq army disbanded

Occupations are resisted simply because they are occupations.

8360. jexster - 9/9/2007 5:55:24 PM

War Party Death Rattle

War Hawk Chaos

8361. jexster - 9/9/2007 6:34:35 PM

Xena - Warrior Princess


CNN is running a bit "Women of Iraq Yearn for the Days of Saddam"


Let's hear from Brunhilde Rod Ham's Chief Foreign Policy adviser

Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.
Madeleine Albright

I've never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.
Madeleine Albright

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.
Madeleine Albright

Iraq is a long way from the U.S., but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.
Madeleine Albright




Saddam's goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.
Madeleine Albright

8362. jexster - 9/10/2007 2:33:48 PM

Where's My Trickle?
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

8363. jexster - 9/10/2007 6:11:10 PM

Obama's CA Campaign Strategy

Mydd...


In the past, Obama's rallies have been used as list-building and donation-soliciting (via sales of merchandise) operations. This time, the rally in Santa Barbara was an organizing tool, a chance to activate local supporters into implementing Obama's California strategy. The LA Times had an interesting article last week explaining how it differs from Clinton's:

Clinton has been wrapping up the high-profile endorsements -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- and building a traditional, centralized campaign organization. Obama has been trying to harness the energy that has brought thousands of people to his campaign rallies.
The Clinton campaign has established two state headquarters, one in San Francisco and the other in L.A., and has hired seven full-time staffers. Obama has an L.A. office and four paid staffers, with another likely to be added soon. Both have fleshed out the staffs at their headquarters with a raft of volunteers.
The Clinton campaign has focused on high-density Democratic regions such as L.A. and the Bay Area. The Obama campaign is trying to build networks in each congressional district; most state Democratic delegates are awarded to candidates based on how well they do in each district, not statewide. So far Obama has committees in 40 of the 53 districts.

8364. jexster - 9/11/2007 9:44:56 AM

The Monday Follies - Envoy’s Upbeat Tone Glosses Over Baghdad’s Turmoil

A page out of Westmoreland's playbook. Doesn't the US Military ever do anything original?

8365. jexster - 9/11/2007 10:24:41 AM

BetrayUs and Betty Crocker - Obe Juan Is Too Too Gentlemanly

But essentially correct as always because he is the Obe One

8366. jexster - 9/11/2007 11:48:45 AM

Happy Day!


The Fifth Anniversary of Bush's Trifecta




"Lucky me! I hit the trifecta."
George Bush to OMB Director Daniels
2001

8367. jexster - 9/11/2007 12:01:05 PM

More Friedman Units: Give Us Another Six Months

8368. jexster - 9/11/2007 1:26:54 PM

WASHINGTON - Five senators vying to become commander in chief railed, postured and questioned the top U.S. general in Iraq about the war Tuesday — all they can do unless they get their wish, win the election next year and inherit the quagmire.

8369. robertjayb - 9/11/2007 2:52:42 PM

A huge success!

from Tom Ricks, WaPo's live blogger:


Iraq is going mighty well, says Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla).

"It's a huge success story," Inhofe says.

As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.

8370. jexster - 9/11/2007 3:06:37 PM

Just give em another year!

“This debate over progress may be less illuminating than determining whether the administration is finally defining a clear political-military strategy, planning for follow-up contingencies and engaging in robust regional diplomacy,” Lugar said.

Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., called the government in Iraq dysfunctional. “Where is this going?” he asked. “Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate as now? For what?”

8371. jexster - 9/11/2007 3:09:37 PM

Okies....the only form of life lower than a Texican

8372. jexster - 9/11/2007 7:46:47 PM

Barack Obama in San Francisco Finale (Part IV)

8373. jexster - 9/12/2007 11:11:09 AM

J'Accuse
By Gary Hart
Huffington Post

Monday 10 September 2007

Six years ago three thousand Americans lost their lives. They need not have. Their deaths could have been prevented. Their lives could have been saved.

The Bush administration was warned months before 9/11 that terrorists were going to attack America. They did nothing. They have yet to be held accountable for the preventable loss of American lives. Yet the administration blames its critics for not understanding the terrorist threat.

The perpetrator of those American deaths is still at large and the war to eliminate those who harbored him threatens to drag on inconclusively for many years. Instead, administration operatives, with the approval of their masters, find it convenient to use him to create fear, and therefore justify their positions of power.

The United States has suffered more than 30,000 casualties in another war that had nothing to do with those attacks. This folly is producing more haters of America than it can ever possibly eliminate.

The backbone of domestic security, the National Guard, is deployed in that war and is thus not at home being trained, equipped, and deployed to protect America.

The consolidation of federal border protection and attack response in a single agency did not begin until at least 18 months after it was proposed and, six years later, it has proved to be woefully inadequate, in large part because those responsible for its administration possess a political philosophy that does not believe government can or should be effective. And they use every occasion to prove it.

The U.S. is currently pursuing a foreign policy in the Middle East and throughout the Arab world that is dementedly designed to promote a clash of civilizations. When this policy produces further attacks, our current policy makers will respond that this is what to expect from those who hate America and only tough-minded conservatives know how to deal with them.

Those who claim to understand terrorism and the use of force, meanwhile, have so exhausted our combat forces that our true national security is greatly at risk and our nation is weakened.

This administration stands indicted for incompetence and mendacity. That it still commands the loyalty of even a quarter of our fellow citizens is testament to the persistence of willful ignorance. Against all the facts assembled in this indictment, that the administration's operatives can still make claims on strength, security, and determination is chutzpah on stilts.

That the media still treat these operatives and spokespersons, and indeed the president himself, seriously is witness to their desire for "access" and "sources" rather than their commitment to the truth.

America is today under the steady gaze of billions of the world's citizens and even more under the examining lens of history. Nothing is more difficult than to admit that we made a tragic mistake in selecting our leaders. But that is the first step toward redemption. Absolute rejection of those who lay claim to ownership of security is the next.

We are too old to behave as adolescents any longer. That includes particularly our president. America must grow up. We must redeem ourselves in the name of those who lost their lives unnecessarily six years ago. We must reclaim our dignity and our honor from those who have neither.

-------

8374. jexster - 9/13/2007 10:06:55 AM

Someone Has STOLEN My Identity!


Can you imagine? Someone wants to be me!

I use this abbreviated form from time to time but have taken to full surname over the past couple months.

I did not post this. But the one who did has been paying attention to The Mentor!!!

Only three things we need to know about counter-insurgency: 1. If you're counting bodies to determine if you're winning, you are losing. 2. If you are using artillery and airstrikes, you're losing. 3. If 60% of the population thinks attacks on you are 'justified', you've lost.

Posted by: JohnMcC
Date: September 13, 2007 10:31 AM

8375. jexster - 9/13/2007 12:13:29 PM

A recent New York Times poll found that voters – on both the left and the right – don’t trust Hillary.

“This wouldn't be that big a deal if it weren't for the last seven years,” said columnist Andrew Sullivan. “But we are at war; and we have lost trust - with very good reason - in the leaders of this war. One reason why the current debate about what to do next in Iraq has become so bitter so quickly is precisely because none of us can trust what the government says or its motives.”

8376. jexster - 9/13/2007 12:28:42 PM

Support the Troops TD

Study: Contributions To Dems From Military Members Soaring

8377. jexster - 9/13/2007 4:48:00 PM

More Americans Agree with MoveOn Than BetrayUS - Faux News Poll

8378. jexster - 9/13/2007 5:00:03 PM

8379. jexster - 9/13/2007 7:49:55 PM

Quote of the day...


Does the president live in that world or just sell it?
Chris Mathews

8380. jexster - 9/14/2007 9:59:10 AM

Bush can't even keep his own bullshit straight any more...

Bush Speech Riddled With Contradictions

In his speech last night, President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words.

8381. jexster - 9/14/2007 11:52:00 AM

Always Was All about the oil


Still is

A Surge, and Then a Stab
By Paul Krugman



To understand what's really happening in Iraq, follow the oil money, which already knows that the surge has failed.

8382. jexster - 9/14/2007 5:24:29 PM

Some democrats need to lay off their schadenfreude schnapps before trying to get on the bridge back to the 20th century


WASHINGTON - Norman Hsu was the politicians' dream who became a nightmare. He knew people, hosted fundraisers, solicited donations. And he was an unabashed fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now in disgrace, his role as one of Clinton's top money bundlers will dog him and her presidential campaign while law enforcement authorities investigate his business and political dealings

8383. jexster - 9/14/2007 5:25:00 PM

Comfort Girl, Lincoln Bedroom

That's a helluva resume she has

8384. jexster - 9/16/2007 7:34:52 PM

Invasion of Iraq was driven by oil, says Greenspan

Richard Adams in Washington
Monday September 17, 2007
The Guardian

Alan Greenspan, the consummate Washington insider and long-time head of the US central bank, has backed the position taken by many anti-war critics - that the invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil.

His claim comes in his newly published autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, in which he also castigates George Bush's administration for making "grave mistakes" in economic policy.

Sounding more like an activist than a lifelong Republican who worked alongside six US presidents, Mr Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview with the Guardian that the invasion of Iraq was aimed at protecting Middle East oil reserves: "I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point."

Mr Greenspan said it was clear to him that Saddam Hussein had wanted to control the Straits of Hormuz and so control Middle East oil shipments through the vital route out of the Gulf. He said that had Saddam been able to do that it would have been "devastating to the west" as the former Iraqi president could have just shut off 5m barrels a day and brought "the industrial world to its knees".

In the book Mr Greenspan writes:

"Whatever their publicised angst over Saddam Hussain's 'weapons of mass destruction', American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbours a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

8385. jexster - 9/16/2007 8:26:43 PM

A Honorable Texican

8386. robertjayb - 9/16/2007 9:25:15 PM

...representing the Free Republic of Austin.

8387. jexster - 9/17/2007 7:52:45 PM

Power to the People
Piss on Wonkers and his PC Plutocrats

The New York Times said Monday it is scrapping a two-year-old program to charge fees for access to parts of its Web site, including op-ed columnists and archives dating back to 1987.


As of midnight Tuesday, the Times will discontinue its TimesSelect feature, which cost $49.95 per year or $7.95 by the month. Home delivery subscribers were able to sign up for free.

8388. thoughtful - 9/18/2007 11:14:17 AM

You tube video: You Lied!

8389. jexster - 9/18/2007 9:24:32 PM

Sen Manly Man Dear Colleague...

Support the Troops

8390. jexster - 9/19/2007 3:35:14 PM

Bush's National Intel Chief Lied to Congress

8391. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:15:14 PM

Bush War Drags on...BushKill Mounts...over 1 million dead


Chris Crocker - Defeat Depression

8392. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:40:10 PM

Rosie O'Donnell Was Right About Fox New

FriendsOfXanax

8393. jexster - 9/20/2007 10:54:34 AM

Birds of a feather

Billary Chow Fun: Hsu to Face Fraud Charges

8394. jexster - 9/20/2007 5:50:31 PM

John Boner
"Small Price"

8395. jexster - 9/21/2007 6:39:41 PM

Dan Rather v. the Katie Couric Sunshine Show

Charge: Desperate To Curry Favor With Bush, CBS Execs Tried Not To Run Abu Ghraib Story

8396. jexster - 9/21/2007 8:30:16 PM

WaPo The Fix

Obama's Return to Message of 'Change'

Over the next few months, there will be hundreds of television ads run by the candidates for president and scores of interest groups hoping to influence the primary and caucus electorate.

But no ad may be more important -- both literally and figuratively -- to an individual candidate than the commercial that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) began running yesterday in Iowa. Take a look:

8397. jexster - 9/22/2007 5:44:33 AM

Democracy: Engine of Political Islam

8398. jexster - 9/22/2007 9:02:53 AM

Pentagon Report Gives Lie to Surge Success Claims of Bush and His Chicken Shit Ass Licker

8399. jexster - 9/22/2007 12:15:07 PM

Experience: Took Hillary Four Years to Figure Out

The time to end this war is now.

Five years ago, President Bush made his case for war at the United Nations. He was wrong.

But conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war. Too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask hard questions. Too many took the President at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves. xongress gave the President the authority to go to war, and our only opportunity to stop the war was lost.

I made a different judgment. I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. And I introduced a plan this January to remove all of our combat brigades by March 2008.



My plan for turning the page on Iraq is clear:

* remove our combat troops from Iraq’s civil war by the end of 2008
* take a new approach to press for reconciliation within Iraq
* escalate our diplomacy with all of Iraq’s neighbors and the United Nations
*confront the human costs of this war directly with increased humanitarian aid

8400. jexster - 9/23/2007 1:56:35 AM

Cole
You've been colonized!

Meanwhile, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani wrote a letter to Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker demanding that Iranian national Farhad Aghaie be released. The US military detained him in Sulaimaniya, alleging that he is actually an Iranian intelligence officer. Talabani seems confused as to whether he is president of Iraq or a representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government, since he complained that the US raid injured the sovereignty of the KRG. Uh, I don't think provincial administrations have sovereignty. And, shouldn't Talabani be representing the interests in sovereignty of all the provinces?

Plus, Mam Jalal, if you are a president and have to plead with a foreign general to release your own guest from prison, you don't have any sovereignty left and haven't had for some time. You've been colonized.

8401. jexster - 9/23/2007 11:39:46 AM

Obama's Campaign Manager Report


Last weekend’s Harkin Steak Fry -- Senator Tom Harkin’s annual event, where six of the Presidential candidates attended -- showcased the strength of the Obama Iowa operation in the first head-to-head battle of organization. It is estimated that 5-6,000 people attended who were committed to candidates. Of that number, approximately 3,000 Obama Iowa supporters attended. It was described by many press accounts as akin to an Obama rally

8402. jexster - 9/23/2007 12:25:18 PM

Mother

8403. jexster - 9/24/2007 5:08:29 PM

Giuliani Proposes Endless War on Behalf of Israel
Glenn Greenwald

8404. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:13:30 PM

Villary Kills Harsh GQ Article
Threatens to Cut Off Access to Bill

Ever cutting off poor Bill - but why?

Because

Green was not a particular favorite of the Clinton campaign, however. He took the assignment from GQ not long after finishing an unflattering 13,000-word profile in the November 2006 Atlantic Monthly, which concluded that the junior Senator from New York is, more or less, a timid, calculating pol.

“Today Clinton offers no big ideas, no crusading causes — by her own tacit admission, no evidence of bravery in the service of a larger ideal. Instead, her Senate record is an assemblage of many, many small gains.Her real accomplishment in the Senate has been to rehabilitate the image and political career of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Impressive though that has been in its particulars, it makes for a rather thin claim on the presidency. Senator Clinton has plenty to talk about, but she doesn’t have much to say,” he wrote.


The next spring, according to people with the story and sources Green spoke to, he spent digging into the tensions within Hillary Clinton’s campaign — widely speculated about among reporters, but at the same time notoriously difficult to report from a political circle known for keeping internal disputes inside the family.

8405. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/28/2007 4:47:56 AM

Dick Cheney (vintage 1992 & beyond belief)

8406. jexster - 9/28/2007 9:59:33 AM

War Crime of the Century: The Bush-Aznar Transcript

8407. jexster - 9/28/2007 11:40:46 AM

Hired Gun Fetish


By PAUL KRUGMAN


Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.

8408. jexster - 9/30/2007 11:40:56 AM

Wounded vets from Iraq, and families, now suffer economically; 185,000 seek help so far

8409. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/30/2007 3:00:18 PM

I just saw No End in Sight and saw the following trailer as well.



The American people are allowing wrong and injustice to escalate well beyond what caused 9/11.

America is destroying itself while more and more in the world feel that we deserve it.

The same old greed, pride and ignorance is animating the latest crop of gangsters and thug here and abroad. People don't want to think about it, let alone deal with the morass of evil that is headed our way.

All fools for short term personal gain. It's the Musical-Chairs-Apocalypse and when the music stops, the America of our fathers and mothers will be gone forever--if it isn't already.

8410. jexster - 10/1/2007 9:56:54 AM

Depressing is it?
At least Tiny Tom Friedman says it is "9/12" in America...until you read Sy Hersh's latest, you might almost want to believe it.

Bill Clinton's Culpability for the Iraq War by Andrew Cockburn

8411. jexster - 10/1/2007 2:13:19 PM

The Myth of Al Qaeda in Iraq
By Andrew Tilghman
The Washington Monthly

8412. jexster - 10/1/2007 2:45:25 PM

Bush's Mercenary Butchers


Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater


WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report to a Congressional committee said today.

The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets.


And why not!

Much much better pay, working conditions than the Army..and you get to fuck up all the ragheads you want..party hearty

Besides, Bush destroyed the US Army any way

8413. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/1/2007 10:15:36 PM

8414. thoughtful - 10/3/2007 2:22:07 PM

From today's froomkin, re the extra-FISA illegal wiretapping:

Georgetown University law professor Marty Lederman blogs: "Think about that for a second. Numerous telecommunications executives and technicians were informed about this top-secret program, and (presumably) were given some account of why their participation would be legal notwithstanding FISA. But the Administration continues to refuse to inform Congress about that legal justification (even though it is now asking Congress to immunize the telecoms for having relied on the legal advice that Congress itself cannot see!); and moreover, the White House would not allow the Deputy Attorney General or the General Counsel of the NSA itself to be let in on the secret! . . .

"Obviously, the reason these officials were not 'read into' the program until Goldsmith and Ashcroft insisted upon it was not fear that they would leak vital information to Al Qaeda, but instead that the legal justification was so transparently flawed that it could not withstand any independent review at all -- a judgment that turned out to be true, of course: As soon as anyone outside the Cheney/Gonzales/Yoo circle saw the legal analysis, they realized it was so extreme and untenable that they would have to resign if the President continued to act in reliance upon it. Goldsmith testified today that the NSA program was 'the biggest legal mess I encountered [at OLC].' In light of the August 2002 Torture opinion, that's really saying something!"

And to think of the role ashcroft played, as loyal as he was, he still had some independent respect for the constitution...can you imagine if bush appointed addington as AG???

8415. jexster - 10/4/2007 12:50:32 PM

Pakistan: The REAL Central Front in the War on Terror


How are things going in Afghanistan? Have we botched things so badly that the Taliban are about to take over again? And since al Qaeda, the Taliban and nuclear weapons are all in Pakistan, what happens if Pervez Musharraf falls from power? We asked each of those questions to renowned Afghanistan expert Dr. Barnett Rubin in today's episode of TPMtv ...

8416. jexster - 10/4/2007 1:30:03 PM

And that fucking idiot is chasing phantasms in Iraq! His latest - Can't leave Iraq because of Iran

Meanwhile back on Planet Earth, the Taliban is attacking Kabul and environs regularly and

Pakistan Seen Losing Fight Against Taliban And Al-Qaeda

8417. jexster - 10/4/2007 1:45:16 PM

Obama stops wearing flag pin

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he doesn't wear the American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Asked about the decision Wednesday in an interview with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Illinois senator said he stopped doing so shortly after the attacks and instead hoped to show his patriotism by explaining his ideas to citizens.
"The truth is that right after 9-11 I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9-11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.
"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."
Obama was campaigning in Iowa Thursday, the second day of a four-day trip to the early voting state.

8418. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/7/2007 2:35:55 PM

8419. jexster - 10/8/2007 7:53:26 PM

Send in Big Bird

Osprey finally arrives in a combat zone, after more repairs

BAGHDAD — The controversial V-22 Osprey has arrived in a combat zone for the first time.


It was an epic trip for the innovative tilt-rotor plane, one that took more than 25 years of development and cost 30 lives and $20 billion . Even the last short hop— from an aircraft carrier into Iraq — went awry, U.S. military officials said Monday....

8420. jexster - 10/8/2007 7:58:20 PM

V-22 Osprey - A Flying Shame
Time

8421. jexster - 10/8/2007 8:25:09 PM

Ass Kissing Little Chicken Shit

Former Petraeus Adviser: Congressional Testimony "potentially misleading"

8422. jexster - 10/10/2007 6:51:56 PM

Josh Marshall interviews Krugman re: New Book

8423. jexster - 10/10/2007 7:07:43 PM

Vsyo govno, krome mochee

The Beast Is Back!

Belgrade, Serbia - From the Baltics to the Balkans, Russia's resurgence is beginning to tie Europe in knots; creating tensions among nations and fears of ethnic instability and border disputes, and divisions between the US and its continental partners.

In nearly every key relationship Russia has with Europe, the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin – who this week hinted he may stay in power – has pushed its way back to a central place at the decisionmaking table on Kosovo, Iran, energy, military alliances, and nuclear proliferation. And as a key supplier of natural gas to Europe, it's managed to do so at very little economic risk to itself, say diplomats and experts in Europe

8424. jexster - 10/10/2007 7:09:19 PM

"But for some piss, the world is full of shit"

8425. jexster - 10/10/2007 7:11:42 PM

IraQ is NOT the "greatest strategic disaster in US History"


George Bush is


How Russian resurgence affects EU
Russian maneuvering on Kosovo is just part of a new geopolitical game that Putin has opened in the past six to eight months in the European neighborhood – one seeking to restore Russia's traditional sense of being a great nation, taking a tougher line on Russia's sphere of influence, and ending what many Russians felt was national humiliation during the 1990s, as Moscow struggled to adjust to post-Soviet realities.

Many experts in Europe have been slow to acknowledge Russia's resurgence – and its divisive effects on Europe's attempts to achieve a common foreign policy. But that is changing, largely due to recent Russian political, economic, and security moves, including opposition to the proposed US missile shield, Russia's cyber attack on Estonia, Gazprom's control of gas to Europe, spy scandal disputes with Britain, Russian bomber violations of Norwegian airspace, Moscow's reticence to sanction Iran on uranium enrichment, and Russia's exploding of the largest-ever nonnuclear bomb last month.

"Europe's strategic partnership with Russia isn't working properly," says Thomas Gomart, an expert with the Paris-based IFRI. "It is clear more and more that Russia is the biggest issue for Europe in the next decade. Moscow is the new player in setting up a multipolar world weighing against the US. What we haven't answered is whether Russia is a partner or a threat.

8426. jexster - 10/11/2007 11:10:00 AM

Will Bill's Dough Make Trouble for Hillary?

8427. jexster - 10/12/2007 7:10:41 PM

This Is What the Rodney Dangerfield Presidency Looks Like


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice listens as she and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates meet Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, October 12, 2007.


Later Putin told her "Otsosi, potom prosi"

[Blow me, then make a wish]

Rejecting entreaties from Gates and Cunnilingus on star wars in Europe and waltzed off to Tehran

8428. jexster - 10/12/2007 8:13:39 PM

The Courage to Stand Against the Jizzrael Lobby

via cole

Father Dease, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, has reversed himself and invited Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at UST. Dease had been misled by a smear campaign against Tutu launched by the Zionist Organization of America, which was angered by the archbishop's criticism of Israel for its mistreatment of the Palestinians. ZOA falsely charged that Tutu had compared Israel to Hitler and the Nazis, which was a bald-faced lie. Some Israeli newspapers were taken in by the propaganda and some Jewish community leaders in Minneapolis are continuing to spread the falsehood.

Father Dease's letter is remarkable for its intellectual humility and ethical high-mindedness. You have a sense of a man of God trying to do the right thing, in a very complicated world, and his powers of moral reasoning are humbling.

He writes:

8429. jexster - 10/12/2007 8:26:59 PM

Bush may have fucked up just about every major challenge he's faced save two

Price of Oil 1999 - $19
Price of Oil 2007 - $84


The Rich Get Richer
Income Inequality Highest Since the 1920's

8430. jexster - 10/12/2007 8:35:07 PM

Larry Craig and the Village People

8431. jexster - 10/12/2007 9:12:16 PM

Bush, aides 'grossly misjudged Putin'

8432. jexster - 10/12/2007 9:17:48 PM

The U.S.-Russian tensions are a far cry from June 2001, when Bush declared after his first meeting with Putin in Slovenia that he'd looked in the Russian leader's eyes, found him "trustworthy" and "was able to get a sense of his soul."

Bush and his aides "grossly misjudged Putin," considering him "a good guy and one of us," said Michael McFaul of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

The former KGB officer created that illusion partly by appearing to share Bush's political and religious convictions, standard tradecraft employed by intelligence officers to recruit spies, he said.

"Putin . . . is a brilliant case officer," said Carlos Pasqual, a former senior State Department official now at The Brookings Institution, a center-left policy organization in Washington.

8433. jexster - 10/12/2007 9:31:39 PM

Comeback later..we're all out of those


Commander Wants 40,000 GI's to Deal With "Resurgent Russia"
[Stars and Stripes]


Check out the Imbecile-in-Chief in Red Square!!!

8434. jexster - 10/13/2007 8:46:32 PM

"Seven countries in five years"

Wesley Clark's new memoir casts more light on the Bush administration's secret strategies for regime change in Iran and elsewhere.

And of course, Brunehilde didn't have a fucking clue

But she learned from her experience!

8435. jexster - 10/14/2007 7:17:15 PM

The Swift Boating of Graeme Frost


Graeme Delivers Demo Radio Address

8436. jexster - 10/16/2007 2:01:19 PM

Bush Has Until Sundown to Git Outta Town

Sun Sets Early on "American Century"

8437. jexster - 10/16/2007 2:03:56 PM

None of these, nor any of the other institutional critics, could be considered doves: Whatever their political affiliations (mostly Republican) or personal beliefs, they were – and some are still – guardians of U.S. power, managers of the national security state, and sometimes central actors in covert and overt imperial interventions in the Third World during the Cold War and post-Cold War.

As a social group, these realists cannot be distinguished from the object of their criticism in terms of their willingness to use force or their historically demonstrated ruthlessness in achieving state aims. Nor can the cause of their dissent be attributed to conflicting convictions over ethics, norms and values (though this may be a motivating factor for some). It lies rather in the rational realization that the war in Iraq has nearly "broken the U.S. Army," weakened the national security state, and severely, if not irreparably, undermined "America's global legitimacy" – its ability to shape world preferences and set the global agenda. The most sophisticated expressions of dissent, such as Brzezinski's, reflect the understanding that power is not reducible to the ability to coerce, and that, once lost, hegemonic legitimacy is hard to restore.

8438. jexster - 10/16/2007 4:43:09 PM

The Horsemen of Rudy's Apocalypse

8439. jexster - 10/16/2007 5:55:36 PM

Bush Crony Corruption

Democrats Move Inquiry Hunt Oil Contract in Iraq
By Dave Michaels
The Dallas Morning News

8440. jexster - 10/17/2007 3:59:15 PM

As Rudy Three Wives hires the most extreme NeoCons for his War Room in a bid to become the UberMensch of the War Party and Brunhilde the Bold madly triangulates to keep up and demonstrate her manliness, two articles ...the "anti-Islamofascist Axis of Evil Front" is alive and well

8441. jexster - 10/17/2007 6:20:28 PM

Ich Hatt' Einen Kameraden

8442. jexster - 10/17/2007 7:05:35 PM

Islamo_Fascist Awareness Week

8443. wonkers2 - 10/17/2007 7:13:04 PM

As with all polemicists, Hitchens is great when his views coincide with yours but awful when they don't. Which is most of the time in the case of Hitchens.

8444. jexster - 10/17/2007 8:41:16 PM

GOP Prez Candidates Outraise Dems ....


IN MICHIGAN

8445. jexster - 10/17/2007 9:35:06 PM

Oct. 18, 2007 | The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism. -- Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar to President George W. Bush, from the Crawford Transcript of Feb. 22, 2003


Bush "at peace" waging war

A new transcript reveals the president, on the brink of the Iraq invasion, full of faith, calm and unyielding optimism.

8446. jexster - 10/18/2007 11:36:27 AM

Giuliani's Christian-right foes to meet again

At a second meeting this weekend, leaders will mull mass defection from the GOP if the pro-choice New Yorker is the party nominee.

8447. jexster - 10/18/2007 1:38:36 PM

Poll:Bullshit Most Popular Issue in 2008


Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

8448. jexster - 10/18/2007 9:43:05 PM

Out of the Frying Pan…

William S. Lind



The Pentagon last week floated a trial balloon suggesting that all U.S. Marines might pullout of Iraq and head to Afghanistan, while the Army would do the opposite and concentrate on Iraq. The rationale was mere administrative efficiency or neatness, which hardly justifies the turmoil the proposal would cause. I would personally be happy to see my Marine friends leave Iraq before the roof there falls in, but trading Iraq for Afghanistan is little more than a jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

If, however, a Marine Corps takeover of the war in Afghanistan were used as an opportunity to change the way we are waging that war, then it would be more than justified. What would meaningful change entail?

First, we would have to adopt a realistic strategic goal, one that might be attainable. The present strategic goal of turning Afghanistan into a modern, secular, capitalist state with "equal rights for women" and similar claptrap lies in the in realm of fantasy. The most Afghanistan can become is Afghanistan in its better periods, which is to say a country with a weak central government, strong local warlords, endemic tribal civil war, a drug-based economy and a traditional Islamic society and culture. The dominant tribe, controlling the central government in Kabul, will be the Pashtun, because it always has been.

8449. jexster - 10/19/2007 7:39:22 AM

Clinton Rakes in Cash from US Weapons Industry


Be the first one on your block to have your child come home in a box

8450. jexster - 10/19/2007 10:27:06 AM

The Clinton Experience

1. Sponsor Great Health Care Debacle 1993
2. Co-Sponsor Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History 2002-2006

3. Madam, Lincoln Bedroom 1993-2001

An unlikely treasure-trove of donors for Clinton
Los Angeles Times

The candidate's unparalleled fundraising success relies largely on the least-affluent residents of New York's Chinatown -- some of whom can't be tracked down. >>

8451. jexster - 10/19/2007 11:28:09 AM

Be glorious, our free Fatherland,

Pat Buchanan Who restarted the Cold War?

Bush and the braying hegemonists he brought with him to power. Great empires and tiny minds go ill together.

8452. jexster - 10/19/2007 11:30:52 AM

8453. jexster - 10/20/2007 2:14:54 PM

An argument I made against the BushWar before it began, now has new force...


Fresh evidence

War is never simple but it must be just

Financial TImes

8454. jexster - 10/20/2007 4:04:26 PM

October 27

8455. jexster - 10/20/2007 5:16:59 PM

Turkey Lurking: The Turduquen Solution



Asiv Mandvi - Senior Ottoman Correspondent

8456. jexster - 10/21/2007 10:27:56 AM

The Fine Gov. Elect of the Great State of Lurziana

8457. jexster - 10/21/2007 11:17:46 AM

Four Years Later - A Coronation



Last week, hizzoner spied my Newsom t-shirt from '03 - "Old school!" as he saluted

What a charmer

8458. jexster - 10/21/2007 1:45:17 PM

Old Gorey - Long May She Wave!



Children Armed to the Teeth in Baghdad

8459. jexster - 10/21/2007 4:03:44 PM

Ali Hamed
BushKill
RIP

8460. jexster - 10/21/2007 4:07:27 PM

Toppled in Baghdad, clueless in Whitehall
For the first time, the British general at the heart of postwar planning for Iraq tells ...of the chaos in London and Washington

8461. jexster - 10/21/2007 5:05:46 PM

Hasta La Vista Little Mouse

Fired US Attorney: Gonzales Prosecution "Likely"

8462. jexster - 10/22/2007 2:27:56 PM

Diswashers for Clinton
WaPo

8463. jexster - 10/23/2007 10:28:46 AM

Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?
Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.
By Fareed Zakaria

8464. jexster - 10/24/2007 12:31:06 PM

Cheney: Running Out of Time to Wreak Havoc

He may have lost his buddy in belligerence, Rummy. He may have tapped out the military in Iraq. He may not be able to persuade Congress so easily anymore — except for Hillary — to issue warlike resolutions. He can’t cow Condi into supporting his bullying as he once did, and Bob Gates is doing his best to instill some common sense.
..he’s working for a president who is spending his waning days on the job trying to prevent children from getting health insurance.

But the vice president may have hit on a devious tactic used by his old boss Richard Nixon....to use madness as a method.

8465. jexster - 10/24/2007 12:55:02 PM

BoXer Nails Bush on Climate Coverup

via CAP

CLIMATE CHANGE -- WHITE HOUSE 'EVISCERATES' CDC DIRECTOR'S TESTIMONY ON GLOBAL WARMING: Yesterday, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that global warming "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans." But Gerberding gave few specifics in her opening remarks, instead focusing on CDC's current preparation plans. CDC officials are now revealing that the White House heavily edited Gerberding's testimony, which originally was longer and had more "information on health risks." The White House's deletions included "details on how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming and the scientific basis for some of the CDC's analysis on what kinds of diseases might be spread in a warmer climate and rising sea levels." A CDC official said that "while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly 'heavy-handed,' with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four." Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) also released a statement, calling on the administration to "immediately release Dr. Gerberding's full, uncut statement, because the public has a right to know all the facts about the serious threats posed by global warming."

8466. jexster - 10/24/2007 9:54:33 PM

If you see something that looks like a star
And its shooting up out of the ground
And your head is spinning from a loud guitar
And you just cant escape from the sound
Dont worry too much, itll happen to you
We were children once, playing with toys
And the thing that youre hearing is only the sound of
The low spark of high-heeled boys

The percentage youre paying is too high priced
While youre living beyond all your means
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit hes made on your dreams
But today you just read that the man was shot dead
By a gun that didnt make any noise
But it wasnt the bullet that laid him to rest was
The low spark of high-heeled boys

If you had just a minute to breathe and they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance?
Or something similar as this? dont worry too much
Itll happen to you as sure as your sorrows are joys
And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound of
The low spark of high-heeled boys

If I gave you everything that I owned and asked for nothing in return
Would you do the same for me as I would for you?
Or take me for a ride, and strip me of everything including my pride
But spirit is something that no one destroys
And the sound that Im hearing is only the sound
The low spark of high-heeled boys

8467. jexster - 10/25/2007 3:58:54 PM

Red Flag at the Texican's Bull


Bush heads for a dreadful miscalculation over Iran

Financial Times

8468. jexster - 10/25/2007 4:12:15 PM

Ha'aretz

Iran Little Threat to Jizzrael - FM

8469. jexster - 10/28/2007 1:44:19 PM

French Connections



Bush’s Dangerous Liaisons
By FRANÇOIS FURSTENBERG

Montreal

MUCH as George W. Bush’s presidency was ineluctably shaped by Sept. 11, 2001, so the outbreak of the French Revolution was symbolized by the events of one fateful day, July 14, 1789. And though 18th-century France may seem impossibly distant to contemporary Americans, future historians examining Mr. Bush’s presidency within the longer sweep of political and intellectual history may find the French Revolution useful in understanding his curious brand of 21st- century conservatism.

8470. wonkers2 - 10/29/2007 2:20:39 PM

Guesstimates Won't Cut It Anymore

8471. jexster - 10/29/2007 2:26:12 PM

Don't expect Villary to do anything about it do ya?

8472. wonkers2 - 10/29/2007 2:43:17 PM

She's not my first choice.

8473. jexster - 10/29/2007 9:11:29 PM

Who ya like Wonk?

My favorite game!


UK and US play Iraq 'blame game'

Both the British and American governments got just about everything wrong in their assumptions about what would follow the fall of Saddam, reports John Ware in the second of two articles linked to a new BBC TV series.

8474. wonkers2 - 10/29/2007 9:30:07 PM

Dennis would be my personal first choice.

8475. jexster - 10/30/2007 10:18:56 AM

Sheesh..what a girlie man! At least Hillary's a real man

8476. jexster - 10/30/2007 11:22:54 AM

Anyone have an Atlantic subscription???


On War #238
October 23, 2007
Mahan or Corbett?
William S. Lind


In an article in the November issue of the Atlantic Monthly, America’s Elegant Decline, Robert Kaplan reminds us of a geostrategic reality we can easily forget in the face of Fourth Generation wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: we are inescapably a maritime power.
When Kaplan says that "Hulls in the water could soon displace boots on the ground as the most important military catchphrase of our time," he engages in navalist hyperbole, unless he is anticipating the general Resurrection when the sea will give up her dead. We face no credible blue-water naval challenger. The Pentagon’s threat inflators keep trying to puff the magic dragon, but the Chinese Navy remains merely a collection of ships.
We do not need naval supremacy because, as Kaplan writes, “'Regular wars' between major states could be as frequent in the 21st century as they were in the 20th." If states are so foolish as to fight "regular wars," they will find most are won by non-state, Fourth Generation elements as defeated (and sometimes victorious) states disintegrate.
Rather, we need naval supremacy because in a world where the state is weakening, water, and transport by water, grow in importance.

8477. jexster - 10/31/2007 4:25:39 PM

My Kind of Republicans!


BALTIMORE - A grieving father won a $2.9 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted the size of the award for compensating damages "far exceeds the net worth of the defendants," according to financial statements filed with the court. The jury was to deliberate later on punitive damages.

Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."

8478. jexster - 11/1/2007 6:27:59 PM

Bridge to the 20th Century - the Corruption Continues

The Republicans are makin novenas to St. Jude to get this bitch

NEW YORK - On the wall of Hsiao Yen Wang's apartment, a cramped, 17th-floor public housing unit on the city's Lower East Side, are photographs of her husband, David Guo, a cook who specializes in Fujian cuisine.
One photo stands out: Guo shaking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's hand, a memento from a $1,000-a-person fundraiser for the New York senator held in New York's Chinatown last April.
Last week, Wang got another memento — a calling card from a Justice Department criminal investigator. ...

8479. jexster - 11/2/2007 11:38:56 AM

Obama to Hillary - Stop Whining

8480. jexster - 11/2/2007 1:30:41 PM

The Rare Double Talk Whine
Degree of Difficulty 8.7

Matt Ahrens wrote on November 2, 2007 2:26 PM:

I was for it being about gender before I was against it.

8481. jexster - 11/4/2007 7:16:08 PM

Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ Defeat?
By FRANK RICH

WHEN President Bush started making noises about World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran.

But what happens if President Bush does not bomb Iran? That is good news for the world, but potentially terrible news for the Democrats. If we do go to war in Iran, the election will indeed be a referendum on the results, which the Republican Party will own no matter whom it nominates for president. But if we don’t, the Democratic standard-bearer will have to take a clear stand on the defining issue of the race. As we saw once again at Tuesday night’s debate, the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, does not have one....

8482. jexster - 11/4/2007 7:16:45 PM

quel fucking surprise!

8483. jexster - 11/4/2007 8:05:49 PM

O! on SNL

8484. jexster - 11/4/2007 9:17:03 PM

Damned Activist Judges

Musharraf Adopts Bush-Cheney Doctrine of "Lawfare"

8485. jexster - 11/5/2007 9:17:21 PM

A Pakistani lawyer throws back a teargas shell towards the police during a protest in Lahore

8486. wonkers2 - 11/5/2007 9:23:15 PM

The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers.

8487. jexster - 11/5/2007 9:32:07 PM

That's what the Macacan's trying to do!

You're a Macaca Lover aren't you

CONFESS

8488. jexster - 11/5/2007 9:51:59 PM

Where HAVE we heard this B4?

Musharraf Evokes Lincoln as He Seizes Power

8489. jexster - 11/6/2007 12:06:12 PM

Clinton Pollster and Hit Man Mark Penn Rakes in Cash from Corrupt Paki Scumbag Benazir Bhutto

8490. jexster - 11/6/2007 12:11:10 PM

Bush Bets Fake Ranch on Musharraf

8491. jexster - 11/6/2007 12:40:14 PM

Rudy: I Can Fly!

8492. jexster - 11/6/2007 6:12:00 PM

All that silly Ching, Chang, Chong



That's Stockton St Chinatown ..just a couple doors from the Pigatorium (aka Gourmet BBQ)

8493. jexster - 11/7/2007 11:49:06 AM

Wonk has consequences


BANKRUPT GM!
BOYCOTT JUNK CARS!

Wall St sharply lower after GM losses

By Chris Bryant in New York

Published: November 7 2007 14:11 | Last updated: November 7 2007 15:30

US stocks were sharply lower at mid-morning on Wednesday after GM posted a massive $39bn quarterly loss and as the dollar plunged against the euro and the pound while oil hit a new record high above $98 a barrel. Bond yields were lower.

8494. jexster - 11/7/2007 7:51:08 PM

Dumb as a Sack of Hammers

You can't be President and head of the military at the same time

8495. jexster - 11/7/2007 8:13:30 PM

"The president has not presented this truthfully," said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. "He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There's no selection of anything, at all -- the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything."

What Klein unearthed -- you can read it here -- points to a nearly unbounded surveillance program. Its very location in San Francisco suggests that the program was "massively domestic" in its focus, he said. "If they really meant what they say about only wanting international stuff, you wouldn't want it in San Francisco or Atlanta. You'd want to be closer to the border where the lines come in from the ocean so you pick up international calls. You only do it in San Francisco if you want domestic stuff. The location of this stuff contradicts their story."

8496. jexster - 11/9/2007 10:07:10 AM

8497. jexster - 11/9/2007 2:48:07 PM

“we will not hesitate to pursue any public official who violates his oath and betrays the public trust as Mr. Kerik is alleged to have done. Nor can we tolerate lies to those who are given the critical tasks of vetting individuals for important public posts.”

Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York

8498. jexster - 11/9/2007 4:15:18 PM

Fleecing of America

WASHINGTON - A $150 billion contract to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has become a magnet for complaints from companies who want a piece of the action

Two firms on the losing end of an Army decision to award work on the project are claiming the service is not living up to a recommendation that bidding be reopened on the deal, known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP IV.

They've lodged new protests with the Government Accountability Office in an attempt to become players in one of the largest military support contracts issued since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The protests were filed last week by IAP Worldwide Services and Contingency Management Group. Just a few months ago each challenged the Army's selection of three others for the LOGCAP work — Fluor Intercontinental of Greenville, S.C.; DynCorp International of Fort Worth, Texas; and KBR Services of Houston.

8499. wonkers2 - 11/9/2007 5:03:19 PM

I saw Mr. Klein on television last night. He was quite convincing. Not a kook, nor a troublemaker.

8500. jexster - 11/9/2007 6:21:37 PM

Just cause he's from San Francisco...wait til I tell the boys at St Francis

8501. jexster - 11/9/2007 6:27:37 PM

Gavones R Us

8502. jexster - 11/9/2007 8:05:38 PM

Let this be a lesson to ya Wonkers

Sued for legal fees. Kerik retained law firm Fulbright & Jaworski after his nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security was squashed and authorities began investigating his ties to Interstate, the mob-connected construction company. In October 2007, the law firm filed a lawsuit, claiming that Kerik has failed to pay $202,384 in legal fees.

8503. jexster - 11/9/2007 8:44:11 PM

8504. jexster - 11/9/2007 10:55:30 PM

The Fall of the House of Bush - Part 1

8505. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/10/2007 12:18:15 AM

Bad link!

8506. jexster - 11/10/2007 9:49:39 AM

Fall of the House of Bush

Parte Un - Georgie Dumps Poppy

Parte Deux: Georgie Finds Jaysus


Parte Trois: The DickMeister Finds Georgie


Sorry Wiz

8507. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/10/2007 9:59:17 PM

Reading that shit is like reopening all of the wounds inflicted on this country in the past seven years. Arrogant, ambitious, reckless and disatisfied men unaware of their own greed for power and influence. What a tragedy – the death of America at the hands of fools who couldn't see the truth of their own limitations.

Dupes like connie brought this all about as well. People trying to keep what they got instead of sustaining the human spirit.

8508. jexster - 11/11/2007 10:18:40 AM

Depressing isn't it! But at least the ending seems it will be a happy one.

At least happier than what's gone before.

I was pleased but not surprised at the bit about how Cheney gained control of Bush foreign policy. I called everything except Wolfowitz for DCI

8509. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/11/2007 11:05:51 AM

The little short worm with the wandering circumcized worm! I want to lay a passionate kiss on Mrs.Wolfie for bringing her Shithead husband down,

8510. jexster - 11/11/2007 11:20:26 AM

Iraqi fighters 'grilled for evidence on Iran'


Interrogator says US military seeks evidence incriminating Tehran

8511. jexster - 11/11/2007 12:24:46 PM

Bush Intel Official: Say Goodbye to Privacy AmeriKa

8512. jexster - 11/11/2007 6:37:09 PM

Nobody's Fool

General Musharraf has always played our president for a fool and still does

8513. jexster - 11/15/2007 12:45:12 PM

Senate Democrats Ponder Butt Fucking the Old Fashioned Way

Forced Fillibuster Under Consideration for Iraq Funding Bill

8514. jexster - 11/15/2007 1:09:59 PM

Obama's Relaunch
The New Yorker


On Social Security, Clinton has avoided a detailed approach to fixing the system, which is expected to run out of money by the twenty-forties; for now, she would appoint a trusty “bipartisan commission” to recommend solutions. Obama proposes raising the ceiling on income that is subject to the payroll tax. As a political strategy, this appears to be a terrible idea. A potential crisis in the Social Security system is a long way off. Why, then, would a new President spend political capital on yet another tax hike when he will almost certainly seek to undo the Bush tax cuts for more immediate demands, like universal health care? When I asked Obama about this, he smiled and leaned forward, as if eager to explain that my premise was precisely the politically calibrated approach that he wanted to challenge. “What I think you’re asserting is that it makes sense for us to continue hiding the ball,” Obama said, “and not tell the American people the truth—”

I interrupted: “Politically it makes sense—”

He finished the sentence: “—to not tell people what we really think?”

Obama’s classroom lesson was not about Social Security but about the narrative of the Presidential campaign

8515. jexster - 11/15/2007 1:12:40 PM

Obama hopes to persuade voters that doing things “politically” is precisely the problem. He is sometimes criticized for being self-righteous when he berates politicians for behaving like politicians, for he is a skilled politician himself, and there is a political aspect to his argument: he wants voters to contrast what he sees as Clinton’s cynical calculation with his brave honesty. But Obama also wants to make a more substantive point, showing that an emphasis on truthtelling during a campaign can in the long run be better politics. “What happens when we finesse the big issues during the campaign is we never build a mandate,” he told me. “Because the American people start thinking, You know what, these problems are pretty easy to solve. Then we start to actually try to move something through, and then—oops! It turns out we might have to deal with the tax code or there might be a cost associated with capping energy costs. And people aren’t ready for it. Republicans exploit the gap between people’s expectations during a campaign and what actually has to get done. And that’s why we keep on putting things off. So if you believe that these are problems that are incremental in nature, that really you just have to do a tweak here and a tweak there, and that our big problem has been that George Bush has just been a poor manager of government, then I think that Hillary’s arguments are persuasive.”

Exactly

8516. jexster - 11/15/2007 1:23:40 PM

Obama is not the most liberal candidate in the race, so he’s not defining his boldness strictly in ideological terms but, rather, as a sort of anti-politics that prizes truthtelling above calculation. When I asked him about this new tack, he seemed supremely confident. “I’ve been an observer of politics for two and a half decades, and what I’ve seen is that Democrats have not been able to move their agenda through Washington,” he said. “They have not been able to get the American people to embrace their domestic agenda, and they have been constantly on the defensive when it comes to their foreign-policy agenda. And it seems to me that, you know, if you’re not getting the outcomes you want, you might want to try something different.” ?

8517. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/15/2007 2:24:29 PM

Yeah, but what is so different in what he intends to actually do, rather than the way he wants to package his his plans--plans that he still isn't sharing.

Look, Obama is a terrific speaker and he's as bright as anyone can hope for, but is he trustworthy? He hasn't had any defeats, setbacks or experience with failure. He is totally untempered and unproven. At least John Edwards has provided an extensive description of his plans and his skills; moreover, he has been tempered by failures and setbacks and, I think, proven to be more trustworthy than Obama.

8518. jexster - 11/15/2007 3:50:35 PM

Plenty of plans Wiz...you just haven't been listening

8519. jexster - 11/15/2007 3:52:15 PM

BTW..he was defeated once. A congressional race if I recall correctly

8520. jexster - 11/15/2007 3:59:28 PM

Wiz..."he gives great speeches but..."


I can't count the number of times I've heard that one. I guess if he gave bad speeches he'd be OK?

8521. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/15/2007 9:56:04 PM

jexster, your argument is just shallow evasion. No, Obama would be "OK" if he was tested more and had more experience. Moreover, George W. Bush was defeated just once in a congressional race too--and look how America faired.

Provide some convincing argumentation that Obama is trustworthy--based on his personal history and experience. You can't, because he's not done anything difficult except give some stirring speeches.

8522. jexster - 11/16/2007 1:26:06 PM

No ..I was speaking to YOUR shallow argument Wiz if you'll just read your own post again

In twenty years of public service he's done more than just give 'stirring speeches


Which is shallow as all fuck isn't it..

1. he's not done anything difficult
2. except give stirring speeches


We don't have to go any further than your own blather about Social Security in AP to prove out of your own mouth just how very shallow you are

8523. jexster - 11/16/2007 2:03:14 PM

Army Desertion Rates Highest Since 1980

8524. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/16/2007 3:03:12 PM

Jexster, you can't take the truth and you rail like a spoiled kid who isn't getting his way. Obama is untested and inexperienced and I don't want another untested and inexperinced politician in The White House again--even if he has my own ideolgy. Corporations and greed are the enemies and Edwards has a great deal of experience in fighting corporate greed and the corruption that's been destroying this country for decades

Your aguments are shallow and you're a compulsive asshole!

8525. jexster - 11/16/2007 4:46:02 PM

How much experience does John Edwards have Wizzer?

8526. jexster - 11/16/2007 5:07:12 PM

I don't want another untested and inexperinced politician in The White House again


Who do you think's been running the country for the last 8 years? Cheney and Rumsfeld have over 30 years combined experience at the very highest levels of government. They know how things work and they worked the shit out of em.

Or do you not believe your own artwork.


I am not putting down Edward's experience as a plaintiffs' PI lawyer. But "fighting corporate greed" puhleez. I am a lawyer Wiz go talk that shit to someone else who doesn't know his ass from a contingent fee

8527. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/16/2007 6:24:22 PM

The lady doth protest too much!

Of the three candidatess who are electable, (which rules out the other's with more experience) Clinton, Obama & Edwards, I ask myself which one has the best political and strategic brain, sincerity and the motivation to do what's right for this country. I also ask which one would likely get the the most crossover Republican and Independent votes. With that as my critera, Hillary is last, Obama is second and Edwards is first. If Edwards became a millionaire from wining over juries, then he beats Obama who was just a law professor.

And if you were a real lawyer, you wouldn't have as many obcessive/compulsive fixations and posts in this forum!

8528. jexster - 11/16/2007 8:07:54 PM

I WAS a real lawyer Wizzer. And I as for the bee in your bonnet today..who knows where the fuck that came from.

I've said before that Edwards is my second choice. I wouldn't mind at all if he took the nomination.

8529. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/16/2007 9:21:45 PM

Look, jex, there is no "bee in my bonnet" and I don't know why you're razzing me because Obama is my second choice. Nevertheless, there is something in my radar that is telling me Obama is still green enough to get rolled by the weasals in D.C. and I'd feel better with Edwards at the helm -- with Biden or Dodd as VP.

If I had my druthers, I'd vote for Kucinich, but that isn't going to happen with corporate media as corrupt as it is.

8530. wonkers2 - 11/17/2007 10:29:32 AM

Jex has a "bug up his ass," and he's accusing others of bees in their bonnets!

8531. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/17/2007 11:14:49 AM

He's obviously a True (Obama) Believer and doesn't want to hear anything that might dampen his ardor.

What I sense is the worse, however, is that corporate media is determining the outcome of this campaign with the same old drumbeats that drive the sheep into their consumer pens.

I'm convinced that big media want Hillary to run, no matter what the public wants or thinks.

This is from Crooks & Liars:

Chris Mathews, on Hardball, had progressive radio giants Mark Green and Ed Schultz on to talk about Hillary’s big win at the debate in Las Vegas Thursday night and apparently Schultz didn’t get the memo.

Schultz: “I think all this postmortem of this debate about how wonderful Hillary is a bridge too far. I think it’s a sad day when a candidate has to start saying well its mud-slinging if you point out what my voting record is.” … “CNN, and especially Wolf, I think they were bending over for Hillary big-time last night.”

Ed also went on to make several other good points too that went against what’s become conventional wisdom regarding who “won” the debate. I’m not saying Hillary did poorly, because it surely was an improvement over her last debate in Philly and clearly she owned the audience all night who were quick to come to her defense to boo Edwards and Obama when each tried to attack her record, but she had a lot of help from CNN too. Not only was the network completely unfair in the amount of time they gave to most of the other candidates, they also were caught planting a softball question from the audience specifically for her to end the night that they had to admit to and then they followed that by having James Carville and David Gergen featured on their post-debate show, both of whom had previously held positions in her husband’s administration and Carville is currently listed as an “informal advisor” to her campaign. That’s quite a coup for any campaign to pull off and should be cause for anyone to re-evaluate the entire evening. Quite frankly, if Hillary won the debate, then any record of the win deserves an asterisk beside it.

8532. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:30:25 AM

I'm an Obama supporter. I am going to vote for him on February 5 and when anyone comes along and willy nilly talks about "experience" I am going to put them to their proof.

"Bee in the bonnet" means you started this whole nonsense and Wonk just tries to aggravate the situation because the asshole's been an outside agitatin piece of carpetbagger shit from the fucking day he was born


Yankee STAY HOME

8533. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:31:34 AM

I just hope Huckabee, Thompson or Romney win the GOP nomination so I don't have to vote for HRC if she's nominated

8534. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:33:47 AM

Wonkers's Father on Plank Road

8535. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:44:50 AM

Divided Over Uniting

By Ronald Brownstein, NationalJournal.com


It says something about modern politics that Sen. Barack Obama has faced some of his sharpest attacks over the charge that he's too conciliatory.

8536. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:49:18 AM

Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars? These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them.

by Andrew Sullivan
Goodbye to All That

8537. jexster - 11/17/2007 4:59:58 PM

KOS: The Clinton News Network

8538. wonkers2 - 11/17/2007 5:14:16 PM

Jexter is either a double agent for the Pope or Pat Robertson.

8539. jexster - 11/17/2007 5:31:45 PM

8540. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/18/2007 12:47:26 PM

I've only read half of the Sullivan piece and his total disregard of Edwards is telling. It seems that he, like Jexster, has an emotional bias (and hard-on) for Obama. So far, it's boilerplate agitprop, but I'll read the rest and respond later.

8541. jexster - 11/18/2007 1:28:27 PM

Gee wiz you are one sharp muthafuckah there Wiz. Hell, here I was trying to fool people into thinking that Hillary was my gal. You figgered me out though!

Mind like a fucking steel trap.

8542. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/18/2007 3:39:59 PM

Go shit in your hat, Asshole.

8543. jexster - 11/18/2007 5:44:36 PM

That must be Scilian! Or is Nabolidan?

Good one Wizzer....


Speaking of shit

Detroit Ranked Most Dangerous City

Course Richmond and Oaktown right up there with Flint. The only thing those places have in common is Wonkers..Anything else Wonk?

8544. jexster - 11/19/2007 2:24:24 PM

Reading today's NyT on the latest Paul Kangas heartburn day and I looked to the right...Most emailed

Goldman Sachs Rakes In Profit in Credit Crisis

Curious

Stocks Fall on Fresh Woes in Banking Sector
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM 14 minutes ago
The retreat, which sent the Dow tumbling below 13,000, started after Citigroup was downgraded today to “sell” by a Goldman Sachs analyst.

8545. wonkers2 - 11/19/2007 6:38:47 PM

Nearly all the other banks besides Goldman have been taking gas, especially Citigroup, the world's biggest bank. And the bad news for those banks isn't over. Goldman put out a sell recommendation today on Citigroup. Wells Fargo has been a big seller of shakey subprime loans, too, BTW.

8546. jexster - 11/19/2007 6:41:30 PM

But why do I see Goldman Sachs making big money and causing big down turns with their recs?


Could it be that international conspiracy of JWords??? Wassup Wonk


and since Wizzer's all worried about O!'s honesty...he's not the only one....one of about 20

8547. wonkers2 - 11/19/2007 7:11:54 PM

Goldman said Citigroup may have to write of $15 billion in bad subprime mortgages. Hard to blame Goldman for the screwups at Citigroup, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide and many others. The ripple effect is still rippling. The next bad news will be losses by public pension and other funds who were put into SIVs and CDOs backed by flakey subprime mortgages. Lots more bad news to come. The lies by mortgage initiators, real estate appraisers, mortgage servicing sharks, and bankers are coming home to roost.

8548. jexster - 11/19/2007 7:13:40 PM

Wonk you STILL don't get it!


GOLDMAN, SACHS?????

Bad mouths Citigroup..rakes in the cash?


What's wrong with that picture? As you would put it "Citi's been jewed"

8549. wonkers2 - 11/20/2007 7:13:33 AM

The religion of the founders of Goldman Sachs is irrelevant. Besides, the founder of Citibank and one of its biggest stockholders is Sanford Weill, also Jewish. Also, irrelevant. My best friend in grade school was Jewish. He's now a shrink in New Orleans. I can help you get an appointment next time you are in Louisiana. He might be able to help you, Jex. But I doubt it. You appear to be beyond help.

8550. jexster - 11/20/2007 11:24:11 AM

Jewish shrink! Figgers...Robert Rubin's of the Hebrew persuasion as well.

Seems international high finance is under THEIR control after all eh?

PS =- some of my best friends are Jew too

8551. jexster - 11/20/2007 11:57:59 AM

Pity poor Wonkers

When he blurted that one out, I told him I'd let everyone hear of it.

What I didn't tell ya Wonk, is that I'd never let anyone forget either!!!!

8552. jexster - 11/20/2007 12:52:18 PM

The latest for the Wiz! ;)

8553. jexster - 11/21/2007 6:49:01 PM

WASHINGTON - Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.

8554. jexster - 11/23/2007 3:25:21 PM

8555. David Ehrenstein - 11/23/2007 3:30:13 PM

"It seems that he, like Jexster, has an emotional bias (and hard-on) for Obama."

Leave us not forget the "Brothers Welcome" on Sully's "barebackcity.com" profile.

8556. jexster - 11/23/2007 8:13:19 PM

Hillary's bought off the faggot political hackocracy too

8557. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/23/2007 9:06:58 PM

Watch it David, don't get between Jexster and his Bama! He's in love and nothin' can come between 'em--except Jexster and his masturbatory emissions here.

8558. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 9:34:33 AM

Oh yeah?

Then he doesn't want to read THIS

or

THIS!

8559. jexster - 11/24/2007 11:24:42 AM

Oh I've read them Cellar. That's why I made the comment.

As ever an informed comment.

Wizzer....I don't have sex with colored boys

8560. jexster - 11/24/2007 11:26:46 AM

Don't have much sex these days either but that's another subject

Heckuva Job Killary
20,000 US Troops with Brain Trauma Not Counted Among War Injured

Thank god she don't need no OJT

8561. jexster - 11/24/2007 11:37:34 AM

Some folks talk the talk...

During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting
Network's David Brody, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL),
seeking the presidency in 2008, responds to a question
on "special rights" for LGBT citizens.

8562. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 11:40:03 AM

Latest FaBlog: You're So Vague

8563. jexster - 11/24/2007 11:47:43 AM

Speaking of masturbation, David, can you fix me up with Jesse Plemons of Friday Night Lights?

8564. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/24/2007 1:07:10 PM

The Battle of De-Nile!

David, what are the intentions behide those ensightful LAT's pieces? Are you trying to keep Obama honest?– or do you think that he really dosen't have what it takes to be POTUS?

I'd also be curious to know the results of your responses to wonker's link: Select A Candidate Quiz

8565. jexster - 11/24/2007 1:29:41 PM

He's a HillShill

Back on the turnip truck Wizzer....next to the eggplant

8566. jexster - 11/24/2007 1:35:04 PM

Sleight of Hand Surge
Military.com

To beg from a favorite expression of my grandmother's, I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the latest "good news" from Iraq. As we begin the twelve-month countdown to next November's election, friends of the Bush administration are once again declaring "mission accomplished" in Iraq.

8567. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 2:39:32 PM

Sorry, jex, but I've passed him on to Dennis Cooper.

8568. jexster - 11/24/2007 7:44:34 PM

Unlikely in life, unlucky in love


Does she or doesn't she...


Drink from the Furry Bowl?
Hillary and Huma

8569. jexster - 11/24/2007 8:18:36 PM

Huma Abedin
Hillary's Bitch

8570. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 8:23:36 PM

In your dreams at any rate.

8571. jexster - 11/24/2007 8:55:08 PM

I'm dreamin about Jesse Plemons!


Lesbo love ...eeeewwww...

That's for straights

8572. jexster - 11/24/2007 8:57:22 PM

My candidate, at least at the moment, is Obama.
When I hear him discussing issues, I hear intelligence and reflection and almost a joy in thinking it through. (Okay, not all issues. He obviously gets no joy over driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.) That willingness, even eagerness, to figure things out seems to me more valuable than any amount of experience in allowing issues to wash over you as they do our incumbent president.

Warren Buffett likes to say, when people tell him that they've learned from experience, that the trick is to learn from other people's experience (BISMARCK!). George W. Bush will leave behind a rich compost heap of experience for his successor to sort through and learn from.

8573. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 9:06:02 PM

I'm dreamin' about Doogie and Tulsa.

8574. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 9:07:21 PM

I'm dreamin' about The Mauch Twins

8575. jexster - 11/24/2007 9:15:22 PM

O baby!

8576. jexster - 11/24/2007 9:16:19 PM

Obama the comeback kid learns to talk tough


Clinton now has a fight on her hands as her rival's gloves-off relaunch puts him ahead in Iowa
(Guardian UK)

8577. jexster - 11/26/2007 7:21:02 PM

I've tried and I've tried to start JUST this inquiry here at the Mote.


Right Wonkers?

Good for the Jews

When I was thinking about Will Saletan's essay on the supposed innate mental inferiority of Africans, I thought about this comment from behavorial geneticist Eric Turkheimer over at Cato's blog ...

If I may address my fellow Jews for a moment, consider this. How would you feel about a line of research into the question of whether Jews have a genetic tendency to be more concerned with money than other groups? Nothing anti-semitic, mind you, just a rational investigation of the scientific evidence. It wouldn’t be difficult to measure interest in money and materialism, and it wouldn’t surprise me if as an empirical matter Jews scored a little higher on the resulting test than other groups. As a behavioral geneticist I can assure you without reservation that the trait would be heritable, and, if anyone bothered to take the time to find out, specific genes would have small associations with it. Of course, this research program has already been carried out, at least to the extent the relevant technology was available in 1939. While we are at it we could open a whole scientific institute for the scientific study of racial stereotypes, and finally pull together the evidence on sneaky Japanese, drunken Irish, unintelligent Poles, overemotional women and lazy Italians.

Yes, just so. Actually, as Will noted in his piece in Slate, Jews have substantially higher IQ scores on average than the baseline white population in the United States, by something like a dozen points. Do we think they're genetically superior in intelligence to the mere flotsam of un-Jewified caucasians sloshing around the country?

Well, I guess I spoke my unspoken hypothetical a bit too soon. It turns out that Will does seem to think Jews may be the product of intellectual superior genetic stock, as he argues in this Slate piece from earlier this month. His discussion is based in part on a panel he attended at AEI, with panelists including Charles Murray, on the topic.

I don't have any strong argument for proving that higher average IQs for American Jews (which predominantly means European or 'Ashkenazi' Jews) is rooted in culture and child-rearing as opposed to genetic programming. But reading Will's piece it doesn't seem that he has much of any argument for the converse either. I guess a little broader familiarity with history provides a sense that it's not uncommon for ethnic groups or nationalities with a marginal or partly alienated relationship to the dominant culture to excel in rates disproportionate to their numbers. Look at the Scots in British culture in the 18th century.

In any case, put me down as unconvinced. It's quite true that there are no topics we should leave unexamined when evidence of new realities are clearly before us. But it's equally true that there are some topics that are odd to speculate about if there's no evidence for them at all, like the genetic intellectual superiority of the Jewish 'race'. As Yglesias says, there's something distinctly prurient about the fascination.

And as long as it's just free inquiry we're interested in, can we move ahead with that study into the Jewish propensity to dominate host nations and guile them into hopeless wars for their own enrichment? Or at least suss out the implications if the theory turns out to be true?

--Josh Marshall

8578. jexster - 11/26/2007 7:27:46 PM

Matthew 13:57

57And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house.’

8579. jexster - 11/27/2007 9:11:29 PM

MUSCATINE, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton will bring America "back to the future," husband Bill says, promoting his own legacy in public life almost as much as his wife's presidential campaign.

Showing inconsistency on an issue that has dogged his wife, the former president also told Iowa Democrats that he "opposed (war in) Iraq from the beginning."

8580. jexster - 11/27/2007 9:19:16 PM

Here's the Proof

8581. jexster - 11/28/2007 10:48:07 AM

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm’s way, that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something I’ve followed for more than a decade. If he were serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. . . . I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount the political or other factors that I didn’t believe should be in any way part of this decision.

Hillary addresses Code Pink, March 7, 2003.



“We must stay the course” in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked for more troops to finish the job.
“We have to exert all of our efforts militarily”

November 29, 2003 Hilary visits the troops In Iraq and Afghanistan

8582. jexster - 11/29/2007 10:52:24 AM

Sounds Like a Plan!

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Clinching a two-state solution with the Palestinians is essential for Israel's survival, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview Thursday as he returned home from a US peace conference.



"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished," Olmert told the Haaretz newspaper.

8583. jexster - 11/29/2007 12:09:43 PM

Obama - A Muzzie Sleeper Cell

8584. jexster - 11/29/2007 11:06:09 PM

Never Had Sexual Relations with that Woman

But where did Chelsea come from?


A former senior aide to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disputed Bill Clinton's statement this week that he "opposed Iraq from the beginning," saying that the former president was privately briefed by top White House officials about war planning in 2003 and that he told them he supported the invasion.

Clintonian Bullshit
2007 Vintage

8585. jexster - 12/3/2007 8:11:14 PM

Why this thread exists

First, Do No Harm

I haven't had a chance yet to weigh in on today's news about the IC's apparent conclusion that the Iranians shuttered their nuclear program in 2003. But it's awfully big news. There's a secondary, though still very interesting question, of just why the NIE findings were released at all, and what intra-administration in-fighting might be behind it. But it shows us once again, for anyone who needed showing, that everything this administration says on national security matters should be considered presumptively not only false, but actually the opposite of what is in fact true, until clear evidence to the contrary becomes available. They're big liars. And actually being serious about the country's security means doing everything possible to limit the amount of damage they can do over the next fourteen months while they still control the US military and the rest of the nation's foreign policy apparatus.

--Josh Marshall

8586. jexster - 12/4/2007 12:42:56 PM

Quote of the Day

People will say, if we’re trying to make the case on Iran, well, the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence in Iran?
Bush
2005

8587. jexster - 12/6/2007 12:34:28 PM

The Dreidle Is Turning

Israeli minister cancels London trip on arrest fears



Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter has cancelled a trip to Britain over concerns he could be arrested on war crimes allegations, his spokesman said on Thursday.

"Minister Dichter has cancelled this trip following threats of him being arrested in Great Britain. This is an intolerable situation," Barak Sari said.

Dichter was due to travel to Britain to participate in an "after Annapolis" conference to focus on the aftermath of the November US conference at which Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were revived.

But he cancelled the trip on the recommendation of the foreign ministry, which said it was possible that a leftist organisation could file a complaint against him that could lead to an arrest warrant, the Haaretz daily reported.

As head of Israel's Shin Beth internal intelligence agency, Dichter was involved in the 2002 Israeli attack in Gaza in which an Israeli warplane dropped a one-tonne bomb on the house of the head of Hamas's military wing, Salah Shehade, killing him, his bodyguard and 15 civilians, many of them children.

Britain allows legal investigations against foreign nationals provided that the defendant's own country is unwilling or unable to handle such complaints.

8588. jexster - 12/6/2007 1:47:13 PM

Israel Lobby in Deep Shit - CD 12(SF/San Mateo)

Ex-California Legislator Claims She Can Beat Lantos In Dem Congressional Primary
By Eric Kleefeld - December 6, 2007, 9:28AM

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) might be on the verge of facing a really tough primary challenge. Former state Sen. Jackie Speier claims she has an internal poll that shows her beating Lantos in the primary by a 57%-27% margin. Speier has some name recognition built up after she ran for Lt. Governor in 2006, narrowly losing the Democratic primary, but she has not yet officially announced a campaign against Lantos.

Speier's pollster also told Roll Call that her poll did not include any push questions, but simply asked, "Who would you most likely support in the Democratic party primary for United States Congress, if the choice was..." and then the two candidates' names given in rotation.

8589. jexster - 12/6/2007 7:53:48 PM

In Consequence: The Lies and Times of George Bush

Support for Bush Slips as Military Families Question His War

8590. jexster - 12/12/2007 8:55:11 PM

8591. wonkers2 - 12/12/2007 9:27:33 PM

Somebody must have photoshopped somebody else's head onto Hillary's body.

8592. jexster - 12/12/2007 9:36:08 PM

World War III - A Look Back

8593. jexster - 12/14/2007 2:11:53 PM

America's trinity of terrorism
The network of U.S.-sponsored terrorism now on global display relies on death squads, disappearances and torture.

8594. jexster - 12/14/2007 8:29:38 PM

8595. jexster - 12/14/2007 8:40:15 PM

8596. jexster - 12/14/2007 9:42:32 PM

Hillary Precinct Captain and next door neighbor of Hill Hack Tom Vilsack....


Make the switch!

8597. jexster - 12/15/2007 2:38:25 PM

At least he stood tall against health care for kids

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military paid a Florida company nearly $32 million to build barracks and offices for Iraqi army units even though nothing was ever built, Pentagon investigators reported.
The project had to be abandoned because the Iraqi Defense Ministry couldn't obtain rights to the land where the headquarters were to be built, according to a report released this month by the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General. Contracting records show the buildings would have housed one brigade and three battalions of the Iraqi military in Ramadi, a hotbed of the Sunni Muslim insurgency and capital of Anbar province.

Still, the Air Force agency overseeing the project paid contractor Ellis Environmental Group $31.9 million of the $34.2 million obligated for the project, the report said.



Isn't Mrs. Bill on the Armed Services Committee with that worthless Carl Levin?

8598. jexster - 12/15/2007 2:53:16 PM

All washed up, nowhere to go

8599. wonkers2 - 12/15/2007 7:08:10 PM

What have you got against Carl Levin? He's one of the best and most uncorruptible Senators. Levin always votes the way he should--no on the Iraq invasion, no on the bankruptcy "reform" bill which was written by the credit card companies. If you want to knock somebody from Michigan, try Debbie Stabenow. She's for sale to the highest bidder.

8600. wonkers2 - 12/16/2007 3:26:17 PM

Credit Card Mafiosi

8602. jexster - 12/18/2007 7:00:22 PM

Fine lookin woman




Put dat HO back in HOpe

8603. jexster - 12/18/2007 8:42:21 PM

Legal in November 2008 in ALL states!

8604. wonkers2 - 12/18/2007 9:25:10 PM

They need speech therapy. I couldn't understand a word they said.

8605. jexster - 12/18/2007 9:35:20 PM

Ready to give the boyz all the therapy they need

8606. jexster - 12/19/2007 10:51:10 AM

Experience Mrs. Bill

Hillary Can't Be Trusted On Iraq The Record

8607. jexster - 12/19/2007 5:29:26 PM

Brunehilde's Secret Plan

Hillary Voted For the War to Stop the War!

8608. jexster - 12/19/2007 7:21:32 PM

Go crazy Honkers!

8609. jexster - 12/20/2007 8:37:00 PM

Big Chief

Professor Longhair
Dr. John
Earl King
The Meters

8610. jexster - 12/21/2007 12:47:17 PM

AntiWar.com Man of the Year - Thomas Fingar, the principal author of the recently-issued National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. As the Guardian put it: "Almost single-handedly he has stopped – or, at the very least, postponed – any U.S. military action against Iran."

8611. jexster - 12/22/2007 1:52:15 PM

On War #244: Major Wormwood Reports

By William S. Lind

From: Major Wormwood, III Section (Current Ops)
To: General Screwtape, Chief-of-Staff, Supreme Infernal Headquarters, Chateau de Malpense
Re: End of year net assessment

Sir:

Your Lucifership asked for a short report on the state of the world before the week of December 25, when all Hell is too weak to work. Please forgive my non-use of our wonderful invention, PowerPoint, but we are short of majors to make up the slides.

I am happy to be able to report that our net assessment is favorable. Fourth Generation war, and the disorder it represents, continue to expand their reach. The formerly Christian West, crippled by two of our favorite tools, hubris and ideology, flails helplessly before it. II Section, Intelligence, shares our view that the 21st century promises to be even bloodier than the 20th.

We have suffered what we believe will prove a temporary setback in Iraq. Our Glorious Ally on the Eastern Front, Marshal Mohammed - war be upon him - screwed the goat, to use one of our troops’ expressions. Al Qaeda’s premature enforcement of Sharia led Iraqi Sunnis to rebel, even to the point of making tactical alliances with the Americans. As a result, the level of violence is down.


This is, however, just a calm before the storm. The American leadership does not understand 4GW and persists in seeing the Iraq war in binary terms. It therefore misses the developments favorable to disorder: rising Shiite-on-Shiite violence, endemic crime of every sort, sectarian hatreds that grow ever more bitter and, most important, the lack of anything recognizable as a state. We assess that the current relative quiet in portions of Iraq is illusory and will be followed by further disintegration and stateless disorder. Let me add one minor but happy assessment from Hell’s standpoint: the American invasion has virtually destroyed Iraq’s ancient Christian community.

8612. jexster - 12/23/2007 7:36:57 PM

8613. jexster - 12/27/2007 7:42:53 PM

Hillary strong like bull!

Evan Bayh
Hill Ho

8614. jexster - 12/27/2007 7:54:22 PM

Welcome to the Second Tier

McCain has the foreign policy experience that his two main rivals Huckabee and Romney don't
Patrick J. Buchanan

8615. jexster - 12/28/2007 11:00:11 AM

8616. jexster - 12/28/2007 5:10:56 PM

Huckabee Sees Pakistan as Reason for Border Fence

8617. wonkers2 - 12/30/2007 11:39:06 AM

That's keep al Qaeda out. He's a deep thinker.

8618. wonkers2 - 12/30/2007 11:39:44 AM

He's what we used to call a "dip shit."

8619. Magoseph - 1/3/2008 7:47:32 AM

The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007

8620. wonkers2 - 1/3/2008 11:23:52 AM

Interesting list. I can buy most of it. It's a bit of a stretch to include Hillary, however.

8621. jexster - 1/3/2008 11:28:06 AM

A bit of a stretch mark.

17th? Top 10 easy...

8622. jexster - 1/3/2008 11:28:56 AM

8617

That's a TExican leaf blower Honkers...guess black folks do your lawn

8623. jexster - 1/3/2008 11:47:50 AM

8624. jexster - 1/4/2008 8:37:48 PM

From NH - Obama's Music

8625. jexster - 1/4/2008 9:19:39 PM

From Joe Conason
AR HillBilly


Jan. 4, 2008 | Barack Obama's convincing victory in Iowa is more than the story of an African-American politician who rose above our racial divisions in an overwhelmingly white rural state, although that surely would be enough to drive his campaign forward. It is also the story of a politician who delivered on a promise.


Barack Delivers

8626. jexster - 1/4/2008 9:46:59 PM

Big Dog Howling Again

Bill Clinton takes a swipe at media
By: BEN SMITH
Bill Clinton suggests that biased media coverage will force Hillary Rodham Clinton to go negative.


If Mrs. Bill had any sense, she'd chain him in the basement

8627. jexster - 1/8/2008 11:58:45 AM

Nobody Do Voodoo Like He Do
Obama's double magic
By allowing voters to both vent their anger and overcome it, while embodying the transcendence of America's racial wound, Barack Obama offers not just hope, but alchemy.


Jan. 08, 2008 | Barack Obama's stunning victory in Iowa was a moment of national alchemy. It represented an outpouring of righteous Democratic anger, and its simultaneous transformation into hope. That double process -- the cathartic expression of rage, and its purification -- is exactly what Democrats have needed after seven nightmarish years of Bush. It is politics both as payback, and as spiritual transcendence. And the fact that it is a black man who is serving as America's philosopher's stone, turning the base metal of bitterness into the gold of forgiveness, is extraordinarily moving. The possibility that our nation's deepest wound, and the source of our political divisions, could also be the agent of our redemption is like a banner appearing in a darkened sky.

8628. jexster - 1/8/2008 12:15:04 PM

Yabadabadoo

8629. jexster - 1/8/2008 4:53:59 PM

Obama Girl!

8630. jexster - 1/10/2008 6:10:25 PM

Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?
By MAUREEN DOWD


When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes.

A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?”

Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t usually work in campaigns. Only in relationships.”

8631. jexster - 1/10/2008 9:32:35 PM

Dear fellow supporters of Barack,

My Mother forwarded this virulently xenophobic attack on Obama, yet again mischaracterizing his religious background as "Muslim" and "radical." I thought this dangerously ignorant series of myths had been put to bed many months ago when it first made the rounds, but apparently not.

Does anyone know of a counter fact sheet one can send to such people (e.g., my Republican Mother who will vote otherwise, but also others of her generation who like Barack and would consider voting for him but are frightened by these myths)?

As I said, I am in the midst of reading Obama's first book, and obviously NONE of these falsehoods are warranted by his actual background. However, these folks are not go ing to read his book, I suspect. Is there another way to combat this misinformation - attempting to stir up xenophobic fears against electing a "foreign," "Muslim," and "foreign/UnAmerican" "Black man"?

Best,
Cat Myser
Berkeley, CA

> > Who is Barack Obama?
> >
> > Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born
> > in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM
> > from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from
> > Wichita, Kansas.


> > Obama's parents met at the Univers ity of Hawaii. When Obama was two
> > years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His
> > mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.
> > When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama
> > attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a
> > Catholic school.
> >
> > Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is
> > quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also
> > attended Catholic school."
> >
> > Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that
> > that he is not a radical.
> >
> > Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this
> > influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned
> > to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct
> > influence over his son's education.
> >
> > Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham,
> > introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school
> > in Jakarta.
> >
> > Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim
> > terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since
> > it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major
> > public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined
> > the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim
> > background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he
> > DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.
> >
> > Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor
> > will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their
&n bsp; hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.
> >
> > Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential
> > candidacy.
> >
> > The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside
> > out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the
> > President of the United States, one of their own!!!!
> >
> > Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading
> > our country?...... NOT ME!!!
>
>> >
> > We checked this out on " snopes.com". It is factual. Check for
>>
> > If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all
> > your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us
> > here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it
>and
> > share it.yourself.
>Let us ne ver forget that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

8632. jexster - 1/10/2008 9:40:11 PM

From the Likely Story Department


Barack Obama's campaign responds

Barack Obama is Not Now Nor Has He Ever Been a Muzzie

8633. robertjayb - 1/11/2008 1:58:02 PM

Bush's buddy says stay offa my land...or else!

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Despite the growing threat from Islamic extremists, President Pervez Musharraf said U.S. troops are not welcome to join the fight against al-Qaida on Pakistani soil.

Musharraf warned in an interview published today that Pakistan would resist any unilateral military action by the United States against militants sheltering in its lawless, tribal regions close to the Afghan border.

"I challenge anybody coming into our mountains," he told Singapore's The Straits Times in the interview notable for its unusually strident language. "They would regret that day."

8634. jexster - 1/15/2008 2:03:06 PM

Send Billary to Baking Class

8635. jexster - 1/15/2008 2:41:08 PM

Odious Slime Peddler

MJ Rosenberg has more here on Richard Cohen's column this morning and Cohen's decision to sign on to the 'get the Jews freaked about Obama' crowd.

I'm not saying Cohen has become an odious slime-peddler on a par with the Swift Boat guys or that his new gig is juicing up racial anxieties about blacks, but I do think he needs to address the issue.

--Josh Marshall

8636. jexster - 1/15/2008 6:19:06 PM

Down on Plantation BillHill

The Clinton-Obama contest gets rougher

Will the battle for the Democratic nomination turn into a debate about race and gender?

Code Pink in on our side

Personally I'd prefer to see a purge of the War Wing of the Democratic party but whatever works

8637. jexster - 1/15/2008 8:17:27 PM

john mccutchen wrote on January 15, 2008 8:13 PM:

Hillary campaigning in Florida?

WELL DUH!

First the Clinton machine strong armed the Democrats into holding a 2/5 primary in the vain hope that her Inevitability Campaign would scare off all opponents before the first vote was cast

Then the Clinton machine strong armed the SuperDelegates and lined up its Inevitability Shills


Then came Obama


So the Clinton Machine took out Coronation insurance. They strong armed their hacks in Michigan and Florida to move their primaries up so that Mrs. Bill would either take an outright victory before 2/5 or failing that, attempt to seat these delegates in a Convention Floor challenge to the two delegations


It ain't rocket science

It's all about Bill

8638. jexster - 1/16/2008 3:37:56 PM

Dear Obamanians,

Quickly want to share with you my experience on Muni this morning.

Wearing my "Obama for President" along with a smile, I was approached by an elderly fellow rider who told me the following:


"You know, young man, the fact that you have a kind smile on your face tells me more about your candidate than any amount of talking. I'm not registered with any party, but I'll tell you this: Obama has my vote."


I thanked her and my smile became even broader.

So, please be aware that when wearing your Obama button, you are "representin'"!

8639. jexster - 1/16/2008 5:23:07 PM

More Clowtoonish Bullshit TD

WASHINGTON - It's become something of an urban legend that the Bush administration is out to retrieve enlistment bonuses from wounded veterans of the Iraq war, a claim perpetuated by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the latest Democratic presidential debate.



The New York senator told a national TV audience Tuesday night that the administration has shown negligence in its treatment of veterans and gave as a leading example a policy that doesn't exist.

8640. jexster - 1/16/2008 5:31:35 PM

SC: In August it polled 18% in a Clemson U Survey


Clemson Poll: Paul 6%
Rudi 3%

8641. wonkers2 - 1/16/2008 5:38:24 PM

Jex, you're sounding more and more like TD every day!

8642. jexster - 1/16/2008 5:45:21 PM

Voted for Kucinich in a race which is part of the Clinton/Blanchard scam to steal the Democratic Nomination from the people..this despite the fact that you claim an Edwards/Obama preference to Mrs. Bill



And you expect to have credibility on "lies Have Consequences" exactly why?

8643. jexster - 1/16/2008 5:45:50 PM

Don't shit where I eat

8644. jexster - 1/16/2008 10:19:24 PM

Bet the Bloomfield Hills plutocrats were partying on their yachts last night.

Kevin Drum: The Heretic, Last Republican Standing

8645. jexster - 1/17/2008 8:18:21 PM

(Spanish language Radio Ad Las Vegas)
Hillary Clinton no respeta a nuestra gente

UNITE HERE Negative Ad
(Translation)
Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.

Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless. Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; there’s no respect

Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people.

Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).

Paid for by UNITE HERE Campaign Committee

8646. jexster - 1/17/2008 8:33:04 PM

Do the Math

Billary's Years of Experience Claims Just Don't Ad Up
HuffPo

8647. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:44:48 PM

SF MLK Freedom March (Organizing)
Monday, January 21 at 10:00 AM
4th & Townsend (San Francisco, CA)
A Call to Bay area Obama Supporters Join us as we march in the SF MLK freedom march From 4th & Townsend to Bill Graham Civic...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event

Report Objectionable Content
One Day – 100,000 Calls Challenge (CA Jan 26 Phonebank)
Saturday, January 26 at 10:00 AM
SF Office (San Francisco, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day – 100,000 Calls Challenge (CA Jan 26 Phonebank)
Saturday, January 26 at 1:00 PM
San Francisco Office (San Francisco, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day – 100,000 Calls Challenge (CA Jan 26 Phonebank)
Saturday, January 26 at 4:00 PM
San Francisco Office (San Francisco, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day – 100,000 Calls Challenge (CA Jan 26 Phonebank)

8648. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:46:07 PM

Saturday, January 26 at 6:00 PM
San Francisco Office (San Francisco, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
San Francisco Office Opening Extravaganza (Organizing)
Wednesday, January 23 at 6:00 PM
San Francisco Office (San Francisco, CA)
Come and check out our new San Francisco Office! Party Party Party at 6:00pm. Then help us test out the space - Phone Bank starts promptly at...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Supporters that believe in Obama (Meeting)
Friday, January 25 at 12:00 PM
African American Arts & Culture Complex (San Francisco, CA)
Ministers, community, family and friends together for a positive cause to listen and gain strength, power and the desire for change with Mr. Obama, A...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Go Out to Get the Vote Out #4 (Meeting)
Wednesday, January 30 at 5:00 PM
Rye (San Francisco, CA)
Come out to Rye for a few drinks and to discuss why Obama is the CHOICE for your VOTE on FEB 5th! Every vote counts,...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Go Out to Get the Vote Out #2 (Meeting)
Wednesday, January 23 at 5:00 PM
Hotel Biron (San Francisco, CA)
Event #2 of many to get undecided voters out to share some delicious wine and snacks and to hear more about what a great candidate...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA)
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Debate : Who is the best democrat candidate (Meeting)
Tuesday, January 22 at 7:00 PM
Commonwealth Club of California (San Francisco, CA) - 0.32 miles away
SFDebate, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco is hosting a debate on who is the best candidate for president. Tuesday, January 22nd (7pm) Find...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 0.32 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Inner Mission Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Mike and Hilary's Place (San Francisco, CA) - 0.64 miles away
Mike and Hilary Benson invite Obama supporters to our flat for refreshments, friendly political discussion, and a chance to meet the neighbors.
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content

8649. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:46:29 PM

Athletes for Obama Nor CA Superbowl Watch Party (Meeting)
Sunday, February 3 at 1:30 PM
Jillian's (San Francisco, CA) - 0.64 miles away
ATHLETES FOR OBAMA NOR CAL* - Join us at Jillian's in San Francisco to watch the Superbowl on Sunday, February 3, 2008; 2 days before...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content

8650. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:47:01 PM

Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 0.64 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Russian Hill Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Meghan's Apartment (San Francisco, CA) - 0.96 miles away
This event is part of California Precinct Captain House Party Day! A highlight will be a statewide conference call at 3:30 to hear about...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Libby's Apt. (San Francisco, CA) - 0.96 miles away
Be A Part of California Precinct Captain House Party Day! Here's what we'll be doing at the party: • There will be a state-wide conference call • Meet...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Nob Hill/Chinatown Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Top O' The Tunnel (San Francisco, CA) - 1.05 miles away
Nob Hill/Chinatown/Union Square Precinct Captain House Party - Join us with the thousands of volunteers statewide to learn more about the Obama campaign, get mobilized,...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Open House (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
1021 Washington Street (San Francisco, CA) - 1.05 miles away
Precinct Captain Open House - Meet your neighbors, learn about Barack, share your story about Barack, volunteer to Canvass, Get out the Vote or manage...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Union Square / Nob Hill / Tenderloin - Get Fired Up for Obama! (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
3347 Precinct Captain's House (San Francisco, CA) - 1.05 miles away
Ready to support Barack Obama for President? Or are you just interested and want to hear more about Obama's vision for America? Come to a...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
SF MLK Freedom March (Organizing)
Monday, January 21 at 10:00 AM
4TH & Townsend (San Francisco, CA) - 1.26 miles away
A Call to Bayarea Obama Supporters We are building a contingent to march in the SF MLK freedom march From 4th & Townsend to Bill Graham...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)

8651. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:47:09 PM

Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 1.33 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Potrero Hill Precinct Captain House Party! (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Riya's flat (San Francisco, CA) - 1.35 miles away
I'm hosting a get-together for the Obama California-wide Precinct Captain House Party Day. I'll feed you, there's going to be a statewide conference call,...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event

Saturday, January 26 at 9:00 AM
The Ferry Building (San Francisco, CA) - 1.49 miles away
Tabling at The Ferry Building during The Farmers' Market (9am-2pm) - hand out literature, sell T-shirts and bumperstickers, create enthusiasm as the day of decision...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Tabling at The Ferry Building (Organizing)
Saturday, February 2 at 9:00 AM
The Ferry Building (San Francisco, CA) - 1.49 miles away
During The Farmers' Market (9am-2pm) - Hand out literature and sell T-shirts, bumperstickers, etc on the last Saturday before the primary: generate enthusiasm and momentum....
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 1.57 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 1.68 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Sign Making Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Maggie's House (San Francisco, CA) - 1.71 miles away
There will be a state-wide conference call at 3PM and sign making afterwards. Bring art supplies and make awesome signs. Let's root for Obama in...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Saviano/Toker Condo (San Francisco, CA) - 1.71 miles away
Dear Obama Supporters Please come to the party at my home on SUNDAY, JANUARY 20TH at 3 p.m. and bring a guest, if you wish. This event...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
10 X 10 X 10 Castro Precinct House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
210 Diamond Street (San Francisco, CA) - 1.71 miles away
Precincts all over California will be hosting a house party on January 20, 2008, at 3 PM. Come and meet your fellow Obama supporters...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Phonebanking Fun in the Castro (Organizing)
Tuesday, January 22 at 6:00 PM
Castro Precinct Tree House (San Francisco, CA) - 1.71 miles away
We have a list of 500 voters to call to determine whether they are Barack supports and/or to convince them to become one. Bring...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Farmer's Market Get out the Vote! (Organizing)
Tuesday, January 29 at 9:00 AM
Ferry Building (San Francisco, CA) - 1.74 miles away
The week before the California Primary, lets meet at the weekly Tuesday morning Farmers Market held at the Ferry Building to build momentum for Barack...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
RSS Feed for Event Search Results
Report Objectionable Content
Potrero Hill 4 Obama House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Kim & Nick's (San Francisco, CA) - 1.35 miles away
Come to your House-Party-4-Obama Day JAN 20! Hosted by your San Francisco Precinct 3006 captain (20th to 22nd, Carolina to Texas Streets) Be there for the...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Fundraiser to Beat Out Special Interests (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 20 at 12:00 PM
See the Link Above! (San Francisco, CA) - 1.37 miles away
Dear Supporters of Senator Obama, Please consider giving a small donation to Senator Obama's campaign and show the special interests that they are not going to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Western Addition SF campaign (Organizing)
Thursday, January 31 at 12:00 PM
TBD (San Francisco, CA) - 1.47 miles away
There is a strong Obama campaign effort in the Western Addition of San Francisco. Let's come together and get OUR MAN in THE HOUSE! Big...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Tabling at The Ferry Building (Organizing)

8652. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:49:29 PM

Within 5 Miles Of Center city Oakland


Precinct Captain Training (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 10:00 AM
Oakland Field Office (Oakland, CA)
Join other Obama supports and current volunteers to find out how you can get involved in spreading Barack Obama's message of change in your community....
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain Orientation/Training (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 10:00 AM
Obama Headquarters Oakland (Oakland, CA)
Please attend the Obama Precinct Captain training and volunteer orientation! Take control of your precinct, get the tools for your neighborhood grassroots campaign, and help...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day -- 100,000 Calls Challenge (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 10:00 AM
Obama for America - Oakland Office HQ (Oakland, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content

8653. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:49:58 PM

2 hour Calling Squad shift (Organizing)
Sunday, January 20 at 11:00 AM
Obama Oakland HQ (Oakland, CA)
Join a group of volunteers at the Oakland Obama Headquarters to reach out to local voters. This is THE most important thing you can do...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
2 hour calling squad shift (Organizing)
Sunday, January 20 at 1:00 PM
Obama Oakland HQ (Oakland, CA)
Join a group of volunteers at the Oakland Obama Headquarters to reach out to local voters. This is THE most important thing you can do...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
2 hour Calling Squad shift (Organizing)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Obama Oakland HQ (Oakland, CA)
Join a group of volunteers at the Oakland Obama Headquarters to reach out to local voters. This is THE most important thing you can do...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
2 hour Calling Squad shift (Organizing)

8654. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:50:19 PM

Sunday, January 20 at 7:00 PM
Obama Oakland HQ (Oakland, CA)
Join a group of volunteers at the Oakland Obama Headquarters to reach out to local voters. This is THE most important thing you can do...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
2 hour Calling Squad shift (Organizing)
Sunday, January 20 at 5:00 PM
Obama Oakland HQ (Oakland, CA)
Join a group of volunteers at the Oakland Obama Headquarters to reach out to local voters. This is THE most important thing you can do...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day -- 100,000 Calls Challenge (Organizing)

8655. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:50:41 PM

Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Quinn Delaney's House (Piedmont, CA) - 3.6 miles away
Join your neighbors to learn more about Barack Obama for President. This is part of California House Party Day, when neighbors will be meeting...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Party at Katie's Apartment (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Katie's House (Oakland, CA) - 3.6 miles away
Everyone is invited to Katie's apartment to exchange thoughts, pose questions and share views on the upcoming primary! I'll serve food and we will...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
165 Taurus Ave (Oakland, CA) - 3.6 miles away
Precinct Captain House Party - Be apart of a state-wide conference call - Meet other...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Neighborhood Obama supporters and Undecided voters welcome. (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Eva Wise/Ralph Bartholomew (Berkeley, CA) - 4.0 miles away
We're gathering to celebrate all the good news, and welcome new folks into this historical and uplifting campaign. Each of our efforts is important: what...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Register to Vote and Discuss Obama (Meeting)
Monday, January 21 at 5:30 PM
Casa Goldsmith-Tanner (Berkeley, CA) - 4.0 miles away
We'll have voter registration forms (the deadline is Tuesday!), drinks, food, and casual discussion. Stop by anytime from 5:30pm to 7:30pm Monday evening. ...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
North Berkeley/ Women for Obama House Party (Women for Obama House Party)
Sunday, January 27 at 3:00 PM
Jenny's house (Berkeley, CA) - 4.0 miles away
Join us for food and drink, good conversation, mingling, chatting about out Barack. Anyone in the North Berkeley area, women, or just about any...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Chabon, Eggers, Wolff, Handler,Waldman in Berkeley for Barack (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 27 at 7:00 PM
Home of Linda Schacht and John Gage (Berkeley, CA) - 4.2 miles away
Lemony Snicket meets Kavalier and Clay in a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius...This Boy's Life and a Daughter's Keeper.... All for Barack Obama 7 to 9 PM $1000....
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Writing for Change (Fundraising)
Sunday, January 27 at 7:00 PM
The home of Linda and John Gage (Berkeley, CA) - 4.2 miles away
Join authors Tobias Wolff, Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler (aka. Lemony Snickett), Michael Chabon, and others in celebrating Barack Obama. Donation: $1000 Those who donate $2300 will receive...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Julie Nachtwey's house (Berkeley, CA) - 4.2 miles away
Julie and Belle invite our neighbors, both Obama supporters and undecided, to share light refreshment and friendly political discussion.
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Kerry Prichett's home (Berkeley, CA) - 4.8 miles away
Scenic/Hilgard Precinct House Party. Come meet neighborhood Obama supporters. Undecided voters welcome! Statewide conference call planned at 3:30pm to hear updates on the California campaign. Light refreshments...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content

8656. jexster - 1/20/2008 12:50:48 PM

Saturday, January 26 at 10:00 AM
OBAMA FOR AMERICA - OAKLAND FIELD OFFICE (Oakland, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California history –...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day -- 100,000 Calls Challenge (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 1:00 PM
OBAMA FOR AMERICA - OAKLAND FIELD OFFICE (Oakland, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day -- 100,000 Calls Challenge (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 4:00 PM
OBAMA FOR AMERICA - OAKLAND FIELD OFFICE (Oakland, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
One Day -- 100,000 Calls Challenge (Organizing)
Saturday, January 26 at 7:00 PM
OBAMA FOR AMERICA - OAKLAND FIELD OFFICE (Oakland, CA)
Be a part of history. Please come join thousands of Barack Obama supporters across California for the largest one-day phone bank in California – we’re...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Get To Know Barack House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
O'Regan/Kronemeyer Home (Piedmont, CA) - 1.59 miles away
Please come for refreshments and refreshing dialogue about the 2008 presidential campaign, and why we consider Senator Obama such a compelling candidate. This is the...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
California for Obama House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 1:00 PM
Amy's House (Oakland, CA) - 1.59 miles away
Good People --- Join us for a Barack Obama House Party this Sunday. The purpose is to gather to catch up with good...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
California for Barack Obama House Party (Meeting)
Sunday, January 20 at 1:00 PM
Amy and Chris's Home (Oakland, CA) - 1.59 miles away
Come and find out more about how you can get involved in the Barack Obama's campaign for meaningful and lasting change in America. Brought...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Precinct Captain House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Old Town Square - Condo Complex (Oakland, CA) - 1.60 miles away
Get involved with Obama's historic campaign for President of the United States. Meet other voters in your neighborhood. Join in a statewide conference call to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
House Party 62nd and Shattuck (Women for Obama House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Faith and Rob's House (Oakland, CA) - 1.77 miles away
Neighbors welcome
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Temescal For Obama House Party (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 2:30 PM
Adam and Dede's apartment (Oakland, CA) - 1.77 miles away
There will be a neighborhood house party to support Barack Obama's campaign for president. We will discuss ways to get involved in the movement and...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Neighbors welcome (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Faith and Rob's House (Oakland, CA) - 1.77 miles away
Listen in on the conference call at 3:30 and discuss how to get involved in the campaign.
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Obama House Party in Emeryville (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Clipper Club (Emeryville, CA) - 2.04 miles away
Obama House Party in Emeryville @ Watergate Condo There will be a statewide conference call. Come meet other voters. Find out how to help leading to...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Neighborhood House Party (Meeting)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
My home (Oakland, CA) - 2.88 miles away
Please join Pam and Marc McDonald for a neighborhood house party. Our precinct neighbors will be invited to our home for a meeting to discuss the...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Obama Conference Call (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
Wheeler House (Oakland, CA) - 3.5 miles away
Will will be having a Gumba house party. Starting at 3:00 p.m., with a conference call at 3:30 p.m.
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Oakland Canvass (Organizing)
Sunday, January 20 at 11:00 AM
Obama Oakland Headquarters (Oakland, CA) - 3.6 miles away
Join us in talking face-to-face with local voters about Senator Obama. We'll be strategically knocking on doors in Oakland to identify Obama supporters and give undecided...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
CA Precinct Captain House Party: Piedmont (CA Precinct Captain House Party)
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 PM
The Papanek Home (Piedmont, CA) - 3.6 miles away
Barakin' and Rollin' All Night Long! For the first time in a long time, the CA primary can make a real difference. Please join with your friends...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content
Phone Banking In The Alley (Organizing)
Tuesday, January 22 at 5:00 PM
The Alley (Oakland, CA) - 3.6 miles away
This is a unique and fun meeting I've planned to bring Obama supporters and precinct captains together for a terrific Tuesday January 22nd evening of...
View Event Details
Signup To Attend This Event
Report Objectionable Content

8657. concerned - 1/20/2008 3:25:46 PM

Jex, you're sounding more and more like TD every day!

What caused you to dream that one up?

8658. wonkers2 - 1/20/2008 4:15:48 PM

My comment referred to #8639 "more Clowntoonish bullshit" and his recent mysogynistic diatribes against Hillary.

8659. concerned - 1/20/2008 4:18:52 PM

I have posted nothing remotely similar to jexster's spewings about Hilliary.

So, I repeat, what caused you to dream that up?

8660. concerned - 1/20/2008 4:21:32 PM

Could it be how I spell her name?

8661. jexster - 1/20/2008 4:22:39 PM

Clowntoon's lies have consequences every bit as much as George Bush's

8662. concerned - 1/20/2008 4:26:26 PM

Well, there you go.

8663. jexster - 1/20/2008 8:10:52 PM

Sins of the Son - The Bush Tragedy
by Jacob Weisberg

8664. jexster - 1/20/2008 10:01:01 PM

Peter Principle the Ho


The NyT reports that the Pentagon's mulling a Betrayus "promotion" to NATO commander...they can't stand him and his Bush butt kissing.....



Sweet

8665. wonkers2 - 1/21/2008 12:32:59 PM

Another Colin Powell suck-up.

8666. jexster - 1/21/2008 12:39:29 PM

He's worse than Powell..now the long knives are out for his ass

The follow up stories have "experts" worrying that axing Petraeus could "doom the mission"

Sheesh...I can't believe the press takes such shit seriously

8667. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:16:40 PM

Hundreds of Lies

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

8668. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:18:40 PM

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida


And Mrs. Bill believed every one of em

8669. concerned - 1/22/2008 9:23:42 PM

Of course, to get numbers like that, these hacks had to count every adjective that they wouldn't have personally endorsed in their most fevered Leftist dreams as a 'lie'.

8670. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:26:12 PM

Perhaps you'd like to read the study before engaging moron mouth????

8671. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:29:43 PM

War Card
Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War


Easier to count the number of times Bush told the truth

8672. concerned - 1/22/2008 9:34:33 PM

They can't even correctly determine who is 'first' and 'second'. I'm not about to accept their word as to what constitutes a 'lie'.

8673. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:36:11 PM

Bush first
Powell second


How about five examples when they told the truth?

Three?
2?

8674. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:37:57 PM

As a general rule, only the relevant excerpts of public statements have been included in the database; deleted material is marked "[text omitted]." (In a case of a lengthy press conference in which Iraq is mentioned only briefly, for example, only the relevant passage is included.) Where deleting text might have rendered the remaining material misleading or difficult to understand, longer passages were left intact. And in some cases public pronouncements of Bush administration officials that did not include direct statements were included if they provided useful context.

Wherever possible, hyperlinks are provided.

"False Statements" — Definitions

In press briefings, interviews, and other question-and-answer venues, each answer was categorized for purposes of this study as a distinct statement. In speeches or briefings, only when one statement clearly ends was the next statement considered, and then only if a "buffer" of at least 50 words separated the statements.

Direct false statements. False statements by the eight Bush administration officials were counted as "direct"—and included in the total count of false statements—when they specifically linked Iraq to Al Qaeda or referenced Iraq's contemporaneous possession, possible possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons). In addition, any use of the verb "disarm" was categorized as a direct statement because of the literal meaning of the word. (Example: "Saddam Hussein has got a choice, and that is, he can disarm.") These false statements can be found within the passages that are highlighted in yellow in the project database.

Indirect false statements. Statements were classified as "indirect" if they did not specifically link Iraq to Al Qaeda but alleged, for example, that Iraq supported or sponsored terrorism or terrorist organizations, or if they referred to Iraq's former possession of weapons of mass destruction or used such general phrases, for example, as "dangerous weapons." These indirect false statements are not included in the total count of 935.

8675. concerned - 1/22/2008 9:38:20 PM

Well, they said Powell was first, and Bush was second.

You're a fool who believes idiots like this who haven't even mastered second grade arithmetic, let alone how to determine the truth about anything.

They can go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned. What they write isn't worth shit.

8676. jexster - 1/22/2008 9:39:23 PM

Obvious AP typo