December 11, 2006
Taliban: killing teachers is fine

• 24. It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime, because this strengthens the system of the infidels. True Muslims should apply to study with a religiously trained teacher and study in a Mosque. Textbooks must come from the period of the Jihad or from the Taleban regime.

• 25. Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must receive a warning. If he nevertheless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him.

According to Zuhur Afghan, a spokesman for the education ministry, the death of the woman brought the number of teachers killed by insurgents this year to 20.

December 11, 2006
Nobel laureate condemns 'war on terror'
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus has urged world leaders to get on with the fight against poverty, upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

He has called on world leaders to stop spending money on wars like the one in Iraq.

The 63-year-old and the Grameen Bank he founded have won the peace prize for their work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans to the poorest of the poor, especially women in rural Bangladesh.

The GOP congress accumulated over $2.9 trillion of debt so far - more than the disastrous Reagan years ($1.6 trillion). There is no such thing as a tax cut, but there is debt. Debt can also be called "future taxes plus interest" so republicans passed the largest tax increase in human history - $2.9 trillion and counting.

It seems fitting that they couldn't write a budget (much less a balanced budget) but they found time to give away money. GOP = RIP. The next generation will pay the taxes the GOP failed to raise so it's unlikely republicans will ever have power again.

December 8, 2006
109th Congress Winds Down - No budget, $45 billion in tax cuts
The $45.1 billion tax cut measure, which includes provisions benefiting oil, coal and health-care interests, first passed the House 367-45 late Friday after Democrats narrowly failed 207-205 in a last attempt to disrupt passage with an amendment to the oil provisions.

Democrats will be as corrupt as Republicans if we let them get away with it.

December 8, 2006
CREW FOLEY REPORT: MEMBERS AND STAFF DID VIOLATE ETHICS RULE
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, stated today, "The fact that when faced with such egregious facts, the ethics committee did not find that so much as a single person acted in a manner that does not reflect creditably on the House just goes to show how utterly ineffectual the ethics committee is." Sloan continued, "This report is proof positive that the ethics committee is incapable of handling allegations of wrongdoing. To restore the public's confidence in the congressional ethics process, the new Congress should immediately move to create an Office of Public Integrity to handle complaints against members of Congress."

Are all conservatives bigots? The facts may show otherwise. We have conservatives accepting gay marriage in Canada, conservative rabbis accepting gay rabbis and a conservative lesbian who's pregnant. Times are a changing!

December 10, 2006
Cheney's gay daughter set to give birth
THE pregnancy of Mary Cheney, the daughter of the American vice-president, is being hailed as a milestone in public acceptance of gay parenthood in America.

Cheney, who is politically close to her father, has always declined to be a spokeswoman for gay rights yet subtly and persistently she is altering the terms of the debate about the family.

December 7, 2006
Canada upholds law allowing same-sex marriage
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Parliament upheld a 2005 law allowing same-sex marriage on Thursday when it threw out a bid by the minority Conservative government to revisit the contentious issue.

Legislators voted 175 to 123 to reject a motion by the right-leaning Conservatives to re-examine the law, which some religious groups and critics say undermines society.

December 6, 2006
Conservative Jewish leaders ease gay rabbi ban
NEW YORK — A panel of rabbis gave permission Wednesday for same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, a wrenching change for a movement that occupies the middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in Judaism.

But a third allows same-sex ceremonies and ordination of gay men and lesbians, while maintaining a ban on anal sex.

The author is a military historian.

November 25, 2005 (reposted December 11, 2006)
Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War
Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.

December 6, 2006
Judge weighs torture claim against Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Friday appeared reluctant to give Donald H. Rumsfeld immunity from torture allegations, yet said it would be unprecedented to let the departing defense secretary face a civil trial.

"What you're asking for has never been done before," U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan told lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Lieberman must think war is better than diplomacy even after the war is lost. The man is hopeless.

December 8, 2006
Senators Challenge Feasibility of Iraq Plans
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), along with several colleagues, took aim at one of the bipartisan commission's most controversial proposals: that the United States use diplomacy to find ways to get Syria and Iran to help stabilize Iraq. "I'm skeptical that it's realistic to think that Iran wants to help the United States succeed in Iraq," he said.

A republican president lost Vietnam and another lost Iraq. Afghanistan looks like it'll be a loss also, but the media will pretend Republicans are strong on defense during the next election. It's always been a sham. The media repeats this lie so many times it becomes an accepted truth - it's not true.

December 9, 2006
Poll: Only 9% expect clear-cut victory
WASHINGTON - Americans see no easy exit from Iraq: Just 9 percent expect the war to end in clear-cut victory, compared with 87 percent who expect some sort of compromise settlement, according to the latest AP-Ipsos poll.

The numbers evoke parallels to public opinion about the war in Vietnam four decades ago. In December 1965, when the American side of the war still had eight years to run, a Gallup survey found just 7 percent believed it would end in victory.

December 8, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
GOP Senator: Iraq War "May Be Criminal"
Many things have been attributed to George Bush. I have heard him on this floor blamed for every ill, even the weather. But I do not believe him to be a liar. I do not believe him to be a traitor, nor do I believe all the bravado and the statements and the accusations made against him. I believe him to be a very idealistic man. I believe him to have a stubborn backbone. He is not guilty of perfidy, but I do believe he is guilty of believing bad intelligence and giving us the same.

I welcome the Iraq Study Group's report, but if we are ultimately going to retreat, I would rather do it sooner than later. I am looking for answers, but the current course is unacceptable to this Senator.

I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal . I cannot support that anymore . I believe we need to figure out how to fight the war on terror and to do it right. So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home.

December 7, 2006
U.S. at root of effort to topple Lebanese government
BEIRUT, Lebanon - American political leaders watched with alarm during the past week as the Hezbollah militia laid siege to the U.S.-backed Lebanese government, but few would acknowledge publicly what most analysts and politicians here say is obvious: American policy may bear much of the blame.

Many in Beirut say that U.S. failure to stop Israel's onslaught against Hezbollah last summer crippled the Lebanese government - a U.S. ally - while strengthening Hezbollah - a U.S. enemy. That created an environment in which the Shiite Muslim militia could call for overthrowing Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his Cabinet.

December 8, 2006
Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestines
Jimmy Carter: We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high — except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

December 4, 2006
Right-Wing Radio Relevance Dead Following Sudden Onset of Truth
To be fair, they had to. It's was a Catch-22. If they had trusted their audience with the truth, they'd have no audience.

Limbaugh admitted he was shilling for Republicans who didn't deserve to be elected, then attempted to hush the death knoll rung by the ISG by recasting it, oh so hysterically, as the Iraq Surrender Group. Get it. He changed one of the words. Second-rate comics who are dying on stage always go for the insipidly obvious. Never gets the audience back.

December 8, 2006
Reservists losing jobs after call-up
WASHINGTON — The number of reservists and National Guard members who say they have been reassigned, lost benefits or been fired from civilian jobs after returning from duty has increased by more than 70% over the past six years.

December 8, 2006
Paul Krugman: They Told You So
At worst, those who were skeptical about the case for war had their patriotism and/or their sanity questioned. The New Republic now says that it "deeply regrets its early support for this war." Does it also deeply regret accusing those who opposed rushing into war of "abject pacifism?"

Now, only a few neocon dead-enders still believe that this war was anything but a vast exercise in folly. And those who braved political pressure and ridicule to oppose what Al Gore has rightly called "the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" deserve some credit.

December 7, 2006
Robert Fisk: The Roman Empire is falling - so it turns to Iran and Syria
The Roman Empire is falling. That, in a phrase, is what the Baker report says. The legions cannot impose their rule on Mesopotamia.

Just as Crassus lost his legions' banners in the deserts of Syria-Iraq, so has George W Bush. There is no Mark Antony to retrieve the honour of the empire. The policy "is not working". "Collapse" and "catastrophe" - words heard in the Roman senate many a time - were embedded in the text of the Baker report. Et tu, James?

And now they are told that the Americans are not winning the war; that they are losing. If you were an Arab, what would you do?

December 5, 2006
Muslim-American Group Targets Radio Host Over Koran Oath Comments
WASHINGTON —  A Muslim-American advocacy group has called on radio talk show host Dennis Prager to be removed from the governing board of the federally funded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum after Prager last week blasted a representative-elect for planning to use the Koran at his swearing-in next month.

Prager, who is Jewish, slammed Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress, after Ellison announced he plans to have his oath of office photo taken with the Koran instead of the Christian Bible, which is traditional.

December 5, 2006
NIH scientist charged with conflict
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Monday charged a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health with conflict of interest for taking $285,000 in fees from a drug company that was involved with his government research.

Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III is the first official in 14 years to be prosecuted for conflict of interest at the NIH, an agency rocked in recent years by revelations of widespread financial ties to the drug industry. Sunderland accepted the fees from 1998 to 2003 from Pfizer Inc.

December 2, 2006
'Wash Post' Sunday Debate: Is Bush Worst President Ever?
NEW YORK Five op-eds in Sunday's Washington Post may set off an intriguing debate, pro and con. On the front page of the Post's Outlook section, famed Columbia University historian Eric Foner proposes George W. Bush as the worst president in our history -- and author Douglas Brinkley disagrees, but very slightly: He thinks Bush only ranks as poorly as Herbert Hoover.

Another historian, David Greenberg, believes that only Nixon was worst. Meanwhile, Michael Lind pegs Bush at #5 --from the bottom. But Vincent J. Cannato, a historian at the University of Massachusetts, cautions: "Today's pronouncements that Bush is the 'worst president ever' are too often ideology masquerading as history."

Here begins the five part series on the question of Bush being the worst president in history. The Washington Posted printed all five on the same day.

I find it disheartening that conservative pundit ignore and praise the record deficits of Reagan and Bush.

December 3, 2006
Time's On His Side
What is disheartening is the tendency of many historians to rate presidents based on their support for liberal social policies. Just as frustrating is the inability to acknowledge the deep debates over law enforcement measures, such as the USA Patriot Act, enacted after 9/11. Rather than acknowledge the tough tradeoffs between security and privacy, we are left with the hyperbole that this administration is "trampling on civil liberties." Sometimes wisely and sometimes rashly, Bush has steered the nation through the post-9/11 world. It has been an uneven trip so far, but the country has not suffered another attack in more than five years.

December 3, 2006
He's Only Fifth Worst
By contrast, George W. Bush has inadvertently destroyed only Baghdad, not Washington, and the costs of the Iraq war in blood and treasure are far less than those of Korea and Vietnam. Yet he will be remembered for the Iraq conflict for generations, long after tax-cut-driven deficits, No Child Left Behind and comprehensive immigration reform are forgotten. The fact that Bush followed the invasion of Afghanistan, which had sheltered al-Qaeda, with the toppling of Saddam Hussein, will puzzle historians for centuries. It is as though, after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, FDR had asked Congress to declare war on Argentina.

It can just as easily be armed Democratic leaders are cowards.

December 3, 2006
At Least He's Not Nixon
While Nixon had his diehard defenders, something close to a national consensus emerged over the idea that his crimes were unprecedented and required his removal from office. Barry Goldwater conservatives and Lowell Weicker Republicans, libertarians and liberals, Main Streeters and Wall Streeters all agreed that Nixon was, if not necessarily the worst president in U.S. history, deserving of the most extreme reprimand ever visited on a commander in chief. Instead of being impeached and removed from office, Nixon resigned.

No such consensus exists for a Bush impeachment. On the contrary, in this fall's election campaign, Democrats pointedly quashed any talk of seeking his ouster if they were to win control of Congress. One can argue that Bush's sanctioning of illegal wiretapping by the National Security Agency constitutes an impeachable offense. His policy of depriving suspected terrorists and POWs of Geneva Convention protections may also strike some people as grounds for removal -- although Congress, by acquiescing in Bush's military detention policy last fall, made the latter argument a tougher sell.

Bush has two years left in his presidency and we don't know what they'll hold. They may be as dismal as the first six. Future investigations may bear out many people's worst fears about this administration's violations of civil liberties. And it's conceivable that the consequences of the invasion of Iraq may prove more destructive than those of Nixon's stubborn continuation of the Vietnam War. Should those things happen, Bush will be able to lay a claim to the mantle of U.S. history's worst president. For now, though, I'm sticking with Dick.

December 3, 2006
Move Over, Hoover
There is wisdom in Cannon's prudence. Clearly it's dangerous for historians to wield the "worst president" label like a scalp-hungry tomahawk simply because they object to Bush's record. But we live in speedy times and, the truth is, after six years in power and barring a couple of miracles, it's safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq.

December 3, 2006
WaPo on Bush: He's the Worst Ever
Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world. Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law.

Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

Bush reduced the US military to a "paper tiger." Shame on him.

December 5, 2006
Britain needs Trident as it cannot rely on US, says Blair
Tony Blair has argued that Britain needs to buy a new generation of nuclear weapons because it might not be able to rely on the United States to protect it if it were attacked. The Prime Minister, who flies to Washington tomorrow to discuss an exit strategy from Iraq with George Bush, surprised MPs by suggesting Britain could not take America's support for granted as he announced the Government was backing a submarine-based "son of Trident" system.

A US citizen denied access to a lawyer for 21 months? It's shameless. Even war criminals like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice deserve lawyers.

December 4, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect's Isolation
Now lawyers for Mr. Padilla, 36, suggest that he is unfit to stand trial. They argue that he has been so damaged by his interrogations and prolonged isolation that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to assist in his own defense. His interrogations, they say, included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of "truth serums."

In the brig, Mr. Padilla was denied access to counsel for 21 months. Andrew Patel, one of his lawyers, said his isolation was not only severe but compounded by material and sensory deprivations. In an affidavit filed Friday, he alleged that Mr. Padilla was held alone in a 10-cell wing of the brig; that he had little human contact other than with his interrogators; that his cell was electronically monitored and his meals were passed to him through a slot in the door; that windows were blackened, and there was no clock or calendar; and that he slept on a steel platform after a foam mattress was taken from him, along with his copy of the Koran, "as part of an interrogation plan."

Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., who examined Mr. Padilla for a total of 22 hours in June and September, said in an affidavit filed Friday that he "lacks the capacity to assist in his own defense."

"It is my opinion that as the result of his experiences during his detention and interrogation, Mr. Padilla does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation," Dr. Hegarty said in an affidavit for the defense.

December 4, 2006
Bush accepts Bolton's U.N. resignation
WASHINGTON - Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

Bolton's nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.

December 3, 2006
Mideast allies near a state of panic
The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America's steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of three simultaneous civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested largely with the United States.

Clearly everyone in the Bush White House knew they were lying when they tried to convince us everything was going fine in Iraq just before the election. They knew the truth and they chose not to speak it. For lying to the American people Bush should be impeached and removed from office.

December 3, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Rumsfeld Memo Proposed 'Major Adjustment' in Iraq
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 — Two days before he resigned as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld submitted a classified memo to the White House that acknowledged that the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq was not working and called for a major course correction.

"In my view it is time for a major adjustment," wrote Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a symbol of a dogged stay-the-course policy. "Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough."

December 2, 2006
GOP pays $135K in N.H. call jamming suit
CONCORD, N.H. - State and national Republicans will pay $135,000 to settle a suit involving a scheme to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote calls on Election Day 2002, officials said Saturday.

Republicans had hired a telemarketing firm to place hundreds of hang-up calls to phone banks for the Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters union, a nonpartisan group offering rides to the polls. Service was disrupted for nearly two hours.

The media is finally going after the right wing nuts on talk radio. What took them so long.

December 1, 2006
Newly elected Muslim lawmaker under fire
WASHINGTON — The first Muslim elected to Congress hasn't been sworn into office yet, but his act of allegiance has already been criticized by a conservative commentator.

In a column posted Tuesday on the conservative website Townhall.com, Dennis Prager blasted Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison's decision to take the oath of office Jan. 4 with his hand on a Quran, the Muslim holy book.

December 1, 2006
Memo: "Ignorant of what is going on" or unwilling or unable to stop it
The president's advisers need to tell him all the harsh truths about Iraq in the vivid terms they require; they need to tell him how little time he has left to act. This administration has been orchestrating a foreign policy disaster of epic proportions, and history will remember both that the president failed to hear the warning bells and that many others failed to ring them loudly enough.

December 3, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
Blowing the Whistle on Big Oil
Auditing and compliance review had generated an average of about $176 million annually in the 1990s, with an extraordinary peak of $331 million in 2000, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Interior Department. But from 2001 through 2005, a period when energy prices soared to new highs, enforcement revenue averaged about $46 million a year.

In 2004, the Interior Department's inspector general issued a blistering report about the auditing system, saying that many auditors were unqualified, that essential documents were being lost and that the internal review process was "ineffective."

BY 2002, Mr. Maxwell was fed up. He and a team of auditors had worked for months to dissect a complicated marketing deal by Kerr-McGee that they believed was cheating the government. He concluded that Kerr-McGee was selling all its oil at below-market prices to another company that compensated Kerr-McGee by assuming many of its marketing and administrative costs.

Despite rejoining the government, Mr. Maxwell filed his suit against Kerr-McGee in June 2004. The case was unsealed on Jan. 20, 2005; a week later, Mr. Maxwell lost his job.

Arriving at his office shortly before 8 a.m. on Jan. 27, Mr. Maxwell said he was summoned to a meeting with a senior M.M.S. official, who had flown in from Washington. The official handed him a memo, explaining that his job responsibilities were being moved to Houston and that his position would be eliminated.

It looks like we're losing the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs" in Afghanistan.

December 2, 2006
Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record
Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.

It appears a lot of people in the media don't care about the facts. These same people helped Bush take us to war for no reason. We might want to tell them to shut up.

November 26, 2006
Pelosi's Napa Business Scrutinized
Monsignor John Brenkle, St. Helena Catholic Church: "So I know exactly what his pay scale is."

And Monsignor Brenkle says the Pelosis pay a $1.25 an hour more than workers at Napa's biggest union winery.

Monsignor John Brenkle: "I don't think she has the possibility of finding other union workers here in the valley."

Of the more than 300 vineyards, fewer than four are union, and most of the farm workers in the Napa Valley get paid better. St. Helena is a town rich with wine and the money that it has generated.

December 2, 2006
Bush faces legal double whammy in terror war
WASHINGTON: Two court decisions in two days have seriously jeopardised President George W Bush's authority to carry out pre-emptive actions against anyone he suspects to be a terrorist or a collaborator inside the United States.

In the first judgment given by a known radical judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Bush's authority to designate groups as "terrorist organisations" was struck down while in another case in Portland, Oregon, the Bush administration on Wednesday agreed to pay two million dollars to a Muslim who was wrongly arrested and jailed by the FBI, suspected of being a terrorist.

The US can't keep Iraqis safe, how can the small Iraqi military?

November 30, 2006
Iraqi forces can take over by June 2007, says PM
AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday his government's forces would be able to take over security command from U.S. troops by June 2007 -- a move which could allow the United States to start withdrawing.

November 30, 2006
U.S. Settles Suit: Pays $2 million to Ore. Lawyer
The U.S. government agreed yesterday to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oregon lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain.

Under the terms of the settlement filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the government also issued an unusual apology to Brandon Mayfield for the "suffering" caused by his wrongful arrest and imprisonment. It acknowledged that the ordeal was "deeply upsetting" to Mayfield and his family.

Mayfield will be able to continue pursuing his legal challenge to the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which was used to obtain his personal records while he was under investigation.

November 29, 2006
15 Brigades Would Gradually Stand Down Under Plan
WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel's deliberations.

Bush has been butchering the English language for the past six years. Where was George Will?

Bush and Cheney even used foul words to address a US senator and reporters. Where was George Will?

The cesspool we call public discourse has gotten as bad as it is because republicans have spent the past 25 years attacking liberals over the smallest transgressions while allowing their side to heap mountains of sins upon us. These disagreements about about substance, they're about the myth-making and lies. We have over $8.5 trillion of debt - most of created by Reagan and Bush 43. Why isn't Will outraged at his own party? We now return to the real world.

November 30, 2006
Already Too Busy for Civility
Wednesday's Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb "tried to avoid President Bush," refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "I'd like to get them [sic] out of Iraq." When the president again asked "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy." Webb told The Post:

November 27, 2006
Impeach The President
The recently empowered Democrats have begun their sprint by running in the wrong direction. The above statement by Feingold coupled with the pre and post election statements by Nancy Pelosi show that the Democrats, whether they are in the minority or the majority, are willing to shirk their responsibilities in order to maintain a good face with the American people.

The Democrats stand on the brink of making the same mistake that Bush and the Republicans have made these last years; that the American people just don't get it. That somehow, things are "too complex" for average Americans to understand whether it be Iraq or torture or domestic spying or impeachment, hence we are expected to just trust them because they know what they're doing. This mindset in DeeCeeVille begs the question, "Do any of these dopes know what a newspaper is? Have they fired up their computers lately?"

November 28, 2006
Taliban Taking Back Afghanistan
Lahore, Pakistan - The majority of Afghans think the Taliban is winning its war against the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Afghans also think that U.S. and NATO forces who are battling the Taliban across the country are incapable of stemming the Taliban tide. So far this year at least 4000 people have been killed in Taliban attacks, including some 217 people killed in 97 suicide bombing attacks.

Read the following article if you don't know the name "Martin van Creveld." If you're familiar with his work jump to the next two articles. The second article (third in this series) is very long so if your time is limited go to the conclusion near the bottom. I'd suggest you read at least the final few paragraphs.

Military Historian: Impeach Bush and Remove Him From Office

November 29, 2006
The Most Foolish War in Over 2,000 Years
To describe Iraq as the most foolish war of the last 2,014 years is a sweeping statement, but the writer is well qualified to know.

He is Martin van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the world's foremost military historians. Several of his books have influenced modern military theory and he is the only non-American author on the US Army's list of required reading for officers.

Professor van Creveld has previously drawn parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, and pointed out that almost all countries that have tried to fight similar wars during the last 60 years or so have ended up losing. Why President Bush "nevertheless decided to go to war escapes me and will no doubt preoccupy historians to come," he told one interviewer.

Nov 25, 2005 (posted December 1, 2006)
Military Historian: Impeach Bush and Remove Him From Office
Martin Van Creveld Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from — and more competent than — the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

November 18, 2004 (posted December 1, 2006)
Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did
Martin Van Creveld 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.

November 29, 2006
Bush Failure in Iraq May Have Saved Our Democracy
It is hardly likely, had Bush been able to ride into these recent elections a victory rather than a debacle, that the American people –who always love a winner-would have hesitated to ratify the one-party state –that "permanent Republican majority"-toward which these Bushites have aspired. And it should be recalled that this was to be a one-party state fundamentally different in nature from that which the Democrats once enjoyed. This present regime, as we now know, is one that early on set out to transform our constitutional democracy into a system of government in which the Great Leader –our "war-time president"-- enjoyed unchecked power. Imagine how much further down this road toward fascism we would be now if Iraq had not dragged this president out of that cocky, swaggering posture which, it seemed, more than half of our countrymen were willing to applaud.

We Americans may well owe the survival of our democracy to this failure in Iraq.

November 29, 2006
Powell Says Iraq Is a Civil War
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday at a business conference here that the war in Iraq "could be considered a civil war," the conference organizer said.

Powell made the comment during a question-and-answer session after a keynote speech, according to David Hellaby, who organized the "Leaders in Dubai Business Forum." No cameras were allowed in to record the talk, but Hellaby was present and issued a press release quoting Powell.

Americans don't want to fund education so educators are forced to beg for money from Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil is more than willing to donate millions of dollar to make up these short-falls but in exchange teachers can't teach the truth - they must teach corporate propaganda.

Gore's movie is based on the best science available - just about everyone agrees. Denying children access to real science is shameful. NSTA should be ashamed of itself.

The Royal Society (UK) recently attacked Exxon Mobil for funding "junk science" and demanded they stop. This alone tells us what these educators are doing to students in this country.

November 26, 2006
Largest Science Teachers Organization Rejects Gore Video
Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.

Anbar has been lost for months. History will probably record Anbar as the place where the US was defeated in Iraq.

November 29, 2006
US weighs withdrawing troops from Anbar province
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military is considering withdrawing troops from Iraq's volatile al-Anbar province to reinforce the capital Baghdad, ABC television reported, citing Pentagon officials.

US forces deployed in the largely Sunni western province have faced fierce fighting and suffered high casualties in the area, where the Al-Qaeda network has built up a strong presence.

One of the first things the new congress should do is condemn Bush for allowing the CIA to torture POWs. A rapid condemnation would help restore our our reputation, but it must be done soon. We know the facts, now all we need is senators and congressmen with the integrity to do the right thing.

November 29, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
European parliament condemned Britain's role in CIA "torture flights"
Britain's role in CIA "torture flights" was roundly condemned yesterday by the European parliament in a scathing report which for the first time named the site of a suspected secret US detention centre in the EU - at Stare Kiejkuty in Poland.

It says EU governments, including the British, knew about the practice known as extraordinary rendition - secret CIA flights transferring detainees to locations where they risked being tortured - but made a concerted attempt to obstruct investigations into it.

November 28, 2006
6,000 Americans have refused to report for duty
Approximately 6,000 Americans have refused to report for duty or deserted in order to avoid taking part in this war, or to avoid taking further part in it. Many have objected to the stop loss program that requires them to serve longer than they had agreed to. Others have objected to the rationale behind the war and the horrors that are part of it.

"I was just following orders" doesn't work anymore - especially when it involved war crimes. Bush and the criminals in the CIA must go to jail.

November 29, 2006
An Impeachable Offense
German suing CIA wants apology, says mistreated
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A German who says he was kidnapped three years ago, held by the CIA and tortured for months in Afghanistan personally sought an apology on Wednesday and an explanation for his arrest.

"I want to know why this was done to me," said Khaled el-Masri, a 43-year-old German of Lebanese origin. "I would like an explanation and an apology."

Bush won't follow the recommendations because they're based on known facts. Bush and GOP supporters don't live in the real world (yet). Perhaps, we can help them a bit. Draft Bush's daughters to fight in Iraq and the war will end over night. Coward!

November 30, 2006
US Iraq panel 'to urge withdrawal'
According to the New York Times, the 10-member bipartisan panel has reached a consensus, after eight months of discussions, that the US should wind down its military commitment and make clear the US troop presence is not open-ended. The US currently has around 140,000 troops in Iraq.

However, the report, to be delivered next Wednesday, is to recommend that a military withdrawal start relatively soon, next year being the implicit message.

I get a kick out of the hypocrisy of pseudo Christians. First, there is no "Thou shall hate gays" commandment, but they still do.

Then there's the commandment about keeping the Sabbath holy. Very few people give a damn about that one. Keeping the Sabbath holy means absolutely no work on Saturday (not Sunday).

Finally, why don't these people put these monuments in their churches where they belong? I can honestly say I've never seen "a six-ton block of granite" slab in any church, but they insist on putting them in public buildings. Hypocrites.

November 28, 2006
Dixie courthouse unveils the Ten Commandments
CROSS CITY - Dozens of county residents took a few extra minutes on the way home from church Sunday or on the way to work Monday morning to drive past the Dixie County courthouse to see for themselves if what they had heard was true.

It was.

A six-ton block of granite bearing the Ten Commandments had been installed atop the courthouse steps. Inscribed at the base was the admonition to "Love God and keep his commandments."

Anti-immigration people, it's time for you to step up and be counted. We need about 29,000 of you in Iraq, fighting a war you say you support. Otherwise, shut up.

November 28, 2006
29,800 Immigrant Soldiers Serving in Iraq
They come from Mexico, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Colombia, Cambodia and a hundred other countries across the globe to find the promise of America. Increasingly they enlist to fight, and sometimes die, in America's wars.

About 69,300 foreign-born men and women serve in the U.S. armed forces, roughly 5 percent of the total active-duty force, according to the most recent data. Of those, 43 percent – 29,800 – are not U.S. citizens. The Pentagon says more than 100 immigrant soldiers have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Martha Stewart went to trial, was found guilty and went to jail in less time than it took the US military to figure out Halliburton took millions of dollars from US taxpayers. Something is seriously wrong with this picture. Why isn't Cheney in jail yet? He was running Halliburton when this happened.

November 29, 2006
Halliburton to Pay $8 Million in Fines: Overcharge in 1999 and 2000
Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co., was accused of double-billing the government and ordering unusable products while helping build Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said those incidents occurred between 1999 and 2000.

November 29, 2006
Message from "Iranian President to the American People
I am confident that you, the American people, will play an instrumental role in the establishment of justice and spirituality throughout the world. The promises of the Almighty and His prophets will certainly be realized; Justice and Truth will prevail and all nations will live a true life in a climate replete with love, compassion and fraternity.

The US governing establishment, the authorities and the powerful should not choose irreversible paths. As all prophets have taught us, injustice and transgression will eventually bring about decline and demise. Today, the path of return to faith and spirituality is open and unimpeded."

Bush cronies said we can fight this war by ourselves. They're getting their wish.

November 27, 2006
Britain, Poland, Italy to Pull Out of Iraq
LONDON - Britain said Monday it expects to withdraw thousands of its 7,000 military personnel from Iraq by the end of next year, while Poland and Italy announced the impending withdrawal of their remaining troops.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said his country, a U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, would pull its remaining 900 soldiers out of Iraq by the end of 2007. And Italian Premier Romano Prodi said the last of Italy's soldiers in Iraq — some 60-70 troops — will return home this week, ending the Italian contingent's presence in the south of the country after more than three years.

Justice is no more able to investigate itself than the US military. Only outside investigators will find the truth.

November 26, 2006
Justice Department Begins Investigating Itself - Spy Program
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has begun an internal investigation into its handling of information gathered in the government's domestic spying program.

However, Democrats criticized the review as not going far enough to determine whether the program violates federal law.

The inquiry by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, will focus on the role of Justice prosecutors and agents in carrying out the warrantless surveillance program run by the National Security Agency.

Big losers - McCain, retired generals who pop up on TV talk shows after being dead wrong for three years, the GOP, Bush, DLC and the pro war media.

November 24, 2006
Brzezinski Calls Idea to Boost U.S. Forces in Iraq a 'Gimmick'
"It's a gimmick because it satisfies McCain, it satisfies the hardliners," Brzezinski said, referring to Senator John McCain. The Arizona Republican, who is exploring a run for the presidency in 2008, said Nov. 19 that U.S. troops are "fighting and dying for a failed policy" in Iraq unless they get enough reinforcements to ensure a military victory.

A Defense Department review of Iraq options is likely to advocate an immediate increase of as many as 30,000 American troops, followed by a reduction to perhaps less than half the 140,000 now there, the Washington Post reported Nov. 20. President George W. Bush is also expecting advice from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group on stabilizing Iraq for an eventual pullout.

Remember how right wingers wanted to hear good news from Iraq? Talk about delusional.

November 26, 2006
John Roberts: Iraq Worse Than Media Shows
Roberts revealed that despite some charges to the contrary, military personnel did not have a problem with the coverage and, in fact, the situation on the ground is an "absolute mess," worse than the media has shown. "The amount of death that's on the streets of Baghdad for U.S. forces and for the Iraqi people is at an astronomical level," he said. "So, to some degree, what we're seeing is sanitized."

In both 1994 and 2006, voters voted against the party in power, not for the opposite party. Republicans misread the election and so have many liberals. The country will follow liberals because we want change - we want to move forward. Conservatism has always been about moving backwards. There's no reason for republicans to ever control the presidency or either House of Congress for the rest of my life. They lost wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam and under Reagan and Bush 43 they created over half of our $8.5 trillion of debt. Put simply, they've done enough damage for one lifetime.

November 26, 2006
The Left Won Big and IS taking Back the US and the Planet, Even Though the Mainstream Media Say Otherwise
As the right wing extremist world is shrinking, imploding, melting, collapsing-- you get the message-- it's media surrogates and spinmeisters are desperately doing all they can to recast their loss and the left's gain, dishonestly claiming conservatism won and progressives lost. Bullsh**. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Meanwhile, enjoy listening to and watching Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and the rest of the right wing talk radio echo chamber mouthpieces go into meltdown mode, functioning so idiotically, they will routinely help the left.

There will be centrist invertebrates- spineless DLC types, like James Carville, who will encourage avoidance of the use of the words left, liberal, progressive. F*** them. The right tried that game, accusing hundreds of candidates of being liberal, of being supported by moveon. And people voted for those very candidates.

November 2, 2006
Impeachable Offenses
They lied their way into Iraq. Now they are trying to lie their way out
Simultaneously, the Iraqis are no longer able to live under occupation as they have been doing. According to a UN report released last week, 3,709 Iraqi civilians died in October - the highest number since the invasion began. And the cycle of religious and ethnic violence has escalated over the past week.

More insidious is the manner in which the Democrats, who are about to take over the US Congress, have framed their arguments for withdrawal. Last Saturday the newly elected House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, suggested that the Americans would pull out because the Iraqis were too disorganised and self-obsessed. "In the days ahead, the Iraqis must make the tough decisions and accept responsibility for their future," he said. "And the Iraqis must know: our commitment, while great, is not unending."

It is absurd to suggest that the Iraqis - who have been invaded, whose country is currently occupied, who have had their police and army disbanded and their entire civil service fired - could possibly be in a position to take responsibility for their future and are simply not doing so.

For a start, it implies that the occupation is a potential solution when it is in fact the problem. This seems to be one of the few things on which Sunni and Shia leaders agree. "The roots of our problems lie in the mistakes the Americans committed right from the beginning of their occupation," Sheik Ali Merza, a Shia cleric in Najaf and a leader of the Islamic Dawa party, told the Los Angeles Times last week.

"Since the beginning, the US occupation drove Iraq from bad to worse," said Harith al-Dhari, the nation's most prominent Sunni cleric, after he fled to Egypt this month facing charges of supporting terrorism.

November 22, 2006
Impeachable Offenses
Rumsfeld's Abuses Must be Investigated: Karpinski's Got The Goods
Among other things...
* General Geoffrey Miller developed torture tactics in Guantanamo.
* Rumsfeld knew of it.
* Miller was told to bring those same tactics to Abu Ghraib.
* He was told by Rumsfeld.
* Miller brought in outside military contractors, ignored by the Justice Department, who answered to no one and were not held exempt for any crimes they might commit in Iraq ? including murder.
* Outside military contractors oversaw and suggested much of the tactics the low level servicemen were charged and found guilty of.
* Chief of Staff of the Army, General Cody, the man who actually stopped requests for armored vehicles and protective vests to be prioritized for our soldiers in Iraq.
* Rumsfeld knew it. He wanted it just that way.
* For that, General Cody picked up an additional star.
* Every investigation into the military and Rumsfeld's Defense Department's responsibility for malfeasance was run by people who could have lost their job with Rumsfeld's say so.

Pelosi says there will be no impeachment. By saying those words she's given Bush a free pass to do whatever he wants. The facts show he's broken our laws many times (the signing statements alone are enough to impeach). Anyone who says Bush can't or shouldn't be impeached isn't worthy of high office.

November 25, 2006
Americans Can't Handle Another Impeachment" Is Republican Propaganda. Don't Be Deceived.
The truth is Americans CAN handle another impeachment. They CAN handle the truth. In fact, if Americans don't bring Bush and Cheney to justice after the atrocities they've committed, this nation will never reclaim its moral authority. And the people of this nation will be despised for unleashing these dangerous men on the world.

November 22, 2006
Impeachable Offenses
The Long Slog of Rebuilding American Democracy
Newly leaked audiotapes of military tribunals held at Guantánamo Bay concentration camp shared the eerie quality of the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Once again the men are accused of membership in a shadowy terrorist conspiracy. The evidence against them consists of hearsay--the testimony of other misérables giving them up in order to save themselves. They have been beaten, abused and probably tortured.

Murat Kurnaz, 24, a German cititzen held for four years without being charged with so much as a traffic violation, described life at Gitmo to CNN after being sent back to Germany. Among the "many types of torture" he endured were "electric shocks to having one's head submerged in water, (subjection to) hunger and thirst, or being shackled and suspended [hung from the ceiling]."

A president must "faithfully execute the law" of our land. Bush put in place people who knowingly broke our laws.

November 27, 2006
Impeachable Offenses
Maybe Bush's People Will Follow the Law Now
No appointment was so unreasonable that the Republican- controlled Congress wouldn't rubber-stamp it. Often, President George W. Bush chose a nominee whose views were at war with the agency he was being assigned to head.

I'm thinking of the Exxon Mobil Corp. lobbyist chosen as chief of staff on the Council on Environmental Quality who blacked out of official documents the scientific findings on global warming that he didn't like. Or the mining industry executive chosen to oversee the safety of those who descend into ever-more-perilous mines each day. The Bush administration filled the Energy Department with oil producers and the Agriculture Department with corporate farmers and meat processors.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in matters having to do with family planning. Most of the money the Bush administration controls for reproductive health, HIV testing, sexually transmitted diseases and the like has gone to abstinence-only programs whose efficacy and scientific foundation are under question by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.