Remember this.

Through all the excuses brought forth by Preznit TruthSlayer, his Band of Bunglers and brain dead supporters regarding the spying, sans warrants, on American citizens remember this:

The current FISA law allows the initiation of the wiretap, etc. without a warrant then, within 72 hours or 15 days depending on circumstances, a warrant must be obtained to continue the tap.

So it is not about being able to react quickly, is it? No, it is more likely that this abominable covey of criminals did not want the FISA court to be involved because they knew that they would be thrown out of court. Which begs the question, just who were this latter day KGB spying on? The question needs to be answered because the very existence of our republic depends upon it.

That's it, now have yourselves a Happy Holiday, or Merry Christmas if you prefer, be safe and enjoy the company of family and friends and remember, do something nice for someone you don't know this week.

To be a liberal

“Yes, I’m a liberal and I’m sick of it being a bad word. I don’t know at what time in history liberals have stood on the wrong side of social issues. We thought that blacks should sit at the front of the bus, that women should be allowed to vote, that maybe McCarthy was a jerk, that Vietnam was wrong and strip-bombing Cambodia was probably stupid. We’ve been on the right side of all these issues.” --- George Clooney


And he is right, conservatives basic premise is that change, any change, is bad. In fact, if the republicans had their way, women, blacks, all minorities, for that matter, would cease having the right to vote as well as other rights.

As for the "original intent" argument regarding the constitution, they also believe that only white, male, real property owners deserve the right to vote and that slavery or indentured servitude is proper for it was allowed in the constitution produced at Philadelphia in 1787.

Conservatism, yet another synonym for elitism.

And before the wongnuts go on about the republicans who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, remember this, a good number of southern democrats who opposed the act switched parties and became republicans in good standing as a result of the passage of that law. They followed the example set by Strom Thurmond some 15 years earlier.

The Republican Party, the party of the people? Please don't make me laugh.

Conservativism, the philosophy of the future? Please don't make me laugh.

In the words of FDR, "A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward." From a radio address, Oct. 26, 1939.

Pre-holiday ramblings

Regarding Alito, can there be any doubt that this man is a liar of the first order? When he justified his less than candid answers (read, lies) when he was being considered for the Apellate Court as being akin to a job interview where the interviewee provides answers that he thinks the questioners want to hear, can anyone seriously believe any answers he may give to any questions this time around? While he is more than qualified by education, his judicial philosophy seems more apt for a totalitarian regime rather than the Supreme Court of The United States. Placing this man on the SCOTUS, the watchdog of our liberty, would be like having the proverbial fox guarding the chicken coop. No to Alito.

Does anyone besides yours truly get the feeling that the coming days in Iraq could well bring a Tet style offensive by the insurgency? The admission that the opposition to our presence is less an insurgency and more a resistance is quite telling. Just as the French did not learn from their experience in Indochina when they were faced with resistance in Algeria and it seems that we have not learned from our experience in South Vietnam, repeating the same tired canards that were used then, today in Iraq. It is not the matter of 'staying the course' when staying the course means driving off a cliff. Our volunteer army, to borrow from Rep. Murtha, is damn near broken and a universal draft is a dog that won't hunt. As good as our military is, and it is very good, one of the great strengths was the aura of invincibility that took shape after the mismatches in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait. The most powerful military in the world has been revealed, after the relatively easy (and unjustified) invasion of Iraq, as seemingly very vulnerable to an irregular but determined resistance. That loss of the sense of invulnerability promises to bring us much grief in the future.

Does anyone else get the impression that the republican comments regarding the Fitzgerald investigation are solidly in the 'whistling past the graveyard" category? When all is said and done, the indictments and trials will happen in the months before the elections next year and that can hardly be a comforting thought for republicans. Given the albatross that Preznit YellowStripe represents for republicans, the trials arising from Plamegate as well as those from DeLay and Abramoff cannot be providing them with much solace.

When only a liar will do.

Samuel Alito.

Stay the course.

Because that strategy worked so well for Varian in Germania, Crassus at Carrhae, Edward II at Bannockburn and, lest we forget, Hitler at Stalingrad.

Random thoughts.

When will the SCLM accurately quote democrats? Rep. Murtha called for a six month withdrawal schedule. His plan also called for a quick reaction force of marines to be based nearby, outside of Iraqi borders, to be on call to provide assistence, when needed, to the fledgling Iraqi army. Yet we have Tweety not correcting his guests when they said Murtha favored immediate withdrawal. Tweety was not alone for Der Wolf let Rumsfeld's comment about the immediate withdrawal pass sans correction. Is it that difficult to conduct an accurate interview or is it a case of the host fearing that if they did call into question the deceptions being offered up on their shows, they would have difficulty getting republicans to appear? Republicans would appear and they would not continue their dishonest tactic because what they fear most is giving their opponents free rein to offer their arguments without opposition.

More bad news for the Republican Party, cementing the notion that it is a criminal enterprise organization. Scanlon pleads guilty in the Abramoff mess. Michael Scanlon was a former aide to, are you ready for it? Tom DeLay. Scalon is cooperating with prosecutors. Reports that Bob Ney (R-OH) is also cooperating with prosecutors is bringing a sense of foreboding to republicans. Oh, and lest you forget, Patrick Fitzgerald remains on the hunt for more conspiritors in the Plame Affair. Two investigations which are plainly not anywhere close to conclusion threaten to create an implosion of gigantic proportions for republicans. While it is true that the 2006 elections are still a year away and the Diebold and ES&S election factor has not been addressed, any trials will be conducted in the days prior to the elections and news from them will dominate the media in the runup to Election Day. On Election Day itself, the backlash could generate such a massive opposition to republican officeholders that any magical, surprise results would be immediately seen for what it would be, election fraud.

Beware the dark of winter.

As Bush's fortunes (read poll numbers) continue to tank through the winter, beware another large 'terrorist' attack on the US.

New slogan

popular preznit - politics - FidoNet Echomail Archive

The Republican Party, a criminal enterprise organization (AKA Reprobates-r-Us).

Deceived as a strategy

GratisNet: "Some democrats are speaking out saying that the Bush Regime mislead them into supporting the misbegotten invasion of Iraq. Some pundits are claiming that such and admission, if used as a weapon in the 2006 elections would only serve to backfire on them and ultimately help the republicans.

The pundits no doubt remember George Romney and his 'I was brainwashed' comment regarding Vietnam back in 1968 and what it did to his presidential asperations. May I suggest that the conditions of Iraq 2005 and Vietnam 1968 are totally different? At the time of Romney's comment to a reporter a majority of the country did not yet believe that everything about the war was a lie. Is there even one person, outside of Cheney's office, that believes anything (let alone everything) that was claimed about Saddam's threat to us was true?

The democrats need to hammer long and hard about the deception this maladministration used to get their war on. They need to hammer long and hard about the lack of oversight, that traditional role of the congress as outlined in the constitution meant to rein it an out of control executive branch. They need to hammer long and hard about the lengths to which republicans will go to silence or discredit opponents of their policies.

Admitting to being deceived, or duped, loses much of its derogatory implication when a majority of the people feel the same way. It ceases to become a liability in 2006 as more people come to the same conclusion. This abominable regime of inveterate liars lied and deceived their way into Iraq, period. Democrats need to constantly remind the people of that fact."

Samuel Alito

Samuel Alito is, without question, most certainly qualified for membership on the Supreme Court based on his education and experience. He is also, without question, less than desirable as an Associate Justice based on a glimpse of his personal belief system which, his protestations to the contrary have, can and will color his deliberations.

His comments regarding settled law are fine for an appellate judge but surely he realizes that precedent, while certainly a desirable goal when considering the continuity of the law, has not been sacrosanct in the deliberations of the Supreme Court in the past.

Were that the case, blacks (and other people of color) would still be nonentities without the right to vote or indeed, the right to be free. Women would not have the right to vote and be relegated as little more than chattel of their husbands. Indeed, only caucasion land owners would have the right qualifications.

So please spare me the claims of "original intent" when it is painfully obvious that a large portion of "original intent" discriminated against large portions of the people then residing in the United States. As for devining what the "original intent" of the Founders were, can anyone truly say that they know, beyond question what another is thinking? It is virtually impossible to know with any degree of certainty what your spouse, significant other or best friend is thinking, let alone have any significant insight into the thoughts and beliefs of the Founders based on their anonymous writings and letters of the day.

Suffice it to say that if the Founders had intended the Constitution to be a "finished" effort, not requiring further consideration they would not have enabled a manner through which it could be modified.

As for the republican mantra of Alita deserves a fair up or down vote, I would simply remind that it was they who torpedoed the Miers nomination. Make no mistake about what they mean by "fair up or down vote" quite simply they mean that as long as they are satisfied with the nominee then that is all that matters.

Should Samuel Alito be confirmed as an Associate Justice? His experience and education say yes while his interpretation of the law seem to indicate otherwise. In any event, he deserves not only a hearing where his judicial philosophy can be investigated, but we the people and our elected representatives in the US Senate deserve his answers to be totally forthcoming and candid. Then, when he has answered every question to the satisfaction of the senators, and the people, then and only then should his nomination be sent to the floor of the senate for a fair up or down vote and not one minute before!

What's in a name?

GratisNet: "Of all the blather on the tube about Wilson' wife, seems one item is overlooked. In all the CIA memo documentation, she is identified as Valerie Wilson. In the White House, she is noted as Wislon's wife.

The 64 thousand dollar question is from whence came the Valerie Plame name?

Fitgerald answers that question and a whole lot of republican scum will be measured for red jumpsuits."

The Scooter was protecting Dirty Dick.

GratisNet: "Libby lied to protect Cheney. Libby now says he learned of Valerie Plame from the VP.

Did Libby come to Jesus yesterday? Will he do so today? Curiouser and curiouser it becomes.

Round and round it goes and where it stops only Fitzgerald knows. Karma is, indeed, a bitch."

Deja Vu, all over again?

Will the senior White House staff be decimated by indictments?

Will Cheney resign due to "poor health" in order to avoid emulating Spiro Agnew?

Will Preznit Likesboyz be named as an unindicted conspirator?

These ideas just may not be that far fetched. In any event the next 7-10 days promise to be as interesting and significant as those of the Watergate scandal 31 years ago.

A Nixonian question.

What did Bush know and when did he know it?

Rumors run rampant.

Rumors abound as to the Fitzgerald GJ.

Sealed indictments already. Indictments next week. Meeting with the judge about extending the term of the GJ, etc., etc., etc..

Everyone take a breath, sit back and enjoy the show.

Best rumor I've heard yet, from the old FIDOnet POLITICS area, which can be read at:

http://fidonet.sensationcontent.com/echomail/politics

Get ready. Here it is from the most brain dead, rabid wingnuts you can imagine.

"Joe Wilson AND his wife will get indicted for fraud."

So sayeth the man known, in bygone days, as Centurion.

Too funny for words but then it does beg the question, how is it possible for such feeble brains to generate enough power to run their autonomic nervous systems?

Such are the conservatives of today.

Louis Freeh

Louis Freeh, promoting his book, slams Clinton on 60 minutes.

All one needs to know about Freeh, the most incompetent man ever to head the FBI is that if he hadn't squandered so many agents chasing after Clinton's zipper perhaps 09-11-01 would have played out differently. We will never know because he was too busy doing the bidding of the rabid Clinton haters in the congress and as a result, had no time to do the job he was expected to do, protecting the people.

Compared to him, the fictional Inspector Clouseau was a genius.

Friday Follies

GratisNet: "New York subway threat. Olberman notes that 13 of the last terrorism threats came when the administration was taking severe hits in the media and/or the polls. Coincidence?

Preznit Pretzel Warrior, a split personality? In his speech claimed that 'we gained the peace that freedom brings' but can peace be used to describe what is going on in Iraq? Perhaps Turdblossom is a mite too busy with trying to keep himself out of an orange jumpsuit than helping Bush with his message?

The peace we gained in Iraq? From AP: Six marines killed in bomb blasts, four near Karma and 2 in Qaim. Some peace.

Bush claims ten terror plots foiled. Uh-huh and the moon is made out of cheese. Paraphrasing that old Wendy's commercial from 30 years ago Preznit Lyin' King, show us the particulars.

President Bush said to all of us: 'I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan', “And I did, and then God would tell me, ’George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.’ And I did.' --- Plestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath in a BBC documentary series recounting a June 2003 meeting he attended along with Mahmoud Abbas, now Palestinian president. So Preznit Not-so-dry Drunk is hearing voices. How scary is that?

'Evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously, and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply,' --- Preznit Putz. Funny, that's exactly what sane people here and overseas are saying about you Georgie boy.

Thoughts on what might happen if indictments are handed down by the Fitzgerald Grand Jury. Preznit Pardon will grant presidential pardons, ala Poppy, in an effort to put out the fire. This will force everyone, even his erstwhile supporters to rethink their positions. Same goes if one or two unindicted coconspirators are named.

Another TGIF day. Have a great weekend and do something nice for someone you DON'T know."

Thursday Thoughts

GratisNet: "Torture was not, is not, nor ever should be, an American tactic. We are supposed to be better than that.

The Geneva Convention regarding prisoners was not enacted in order to protect the prisoners we hold, rather, it was designed to protect OUR combatants in the custody of our adversaries.

With the arrest for espionage of the former Marine who worked in Cheney's office, can we finally dispense with the 'adults in charge' canard?

Can everyone take a deep breath and count to however long it takes for Fitzgerald to do what he is going to do before making any comments? Facts are so much better to discuss than rumors, after all, we are not republicans.

Why hasn't the media covered the fact that only 10% of government funding for the reconstruction on the Gulf Coast and in NOLA has been allocated to local companies? The locals could use the work and the local firms could use the business. They will also do a better job than Cheney's pals at Haliburton for they have a stake in the outcome.

It has been 8 years since the H5N1 flu virus made the jump from bird to human. why has it taken until now for the government to become concerned? Why has the media been so far behind the news regarding the possibility of a pandemic? When will the media note that the current flu vaccines are based on the H1N1 virus and as such has limited or no effectiveness on the H5N1 virus currently expanding in Asia? When will the media report that Tamiflu has not been effective against a strain of H5N1 virus currently on the loose in Vietnam? Are we about to see a replay of 1918 and the so-called Spanish Flu? Why hasn't the media pressed the government for the plan of action, other than Preznit Shallow Thinker's idea of placing areas where it has broken out under effective Martial Law?"

The best person he could find.

GratisNet: "Preznit Lamedick says the Miers was the best person he could find for Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the SCOTUS.

Question for conservative wingnuts everywhere: How does it feel to to have those conservative judges, members of the Federalist Society, called less qualified to sit on the SCOTUS than a 60 year old woman who never married, never was a judge, never really had anything close to a notable career as a lawyer?

Are you wingnuts feeling as used as a douce bag in a whorehouse about now?

That's what you get when you give your allegiance to a man who has no sense of loyalty, ethics or morality. Are you happy now?"

Meirs!

GratisNet: "'She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.' --Former Bush speechwriter David Frum this morning on his blog, before he retracted the comments.

60 years old, never been wed or a judge and she says Bush is the most brilliant man she has ever met.

Unless she has been kept in a locked room for most of her adult life, I would submit that her judgement, RE: brilliant, seems to be a tad disfunctional. Never a judge so no track record, closet (gasp) liberal, perhaps? Never been married, closet lesbian (double gasp), perhaps? I suspect Preznit Morebetter has managed to piss off his base on this one. Time will tell.

Reserve judgement, sit back and observe the wheels continuing to fall off the GOP wagon."

Judith Miller, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, et al.

GratisNet: "Judith Miller speaks, Tom DeLay indicted, the SEC investigating Bill Frist, etc. much time, energy and words expended by the conventional and unconventional (read blogosphere) media trying to get a handle on what it all means.

May I suggest we take a collective deep breath and wait for the strings to play out in Austin and Washington? There will be time enough for the 'I told you so' or mea culpas after Fitzgerald makes his move, DeLay gets his day in court and the SEC makes its decision about Frist.

Until such time, enjoy the spectacle of the wheels coming off the republican wagon and remember always that if the lips of a republican are moving, the probability of his lying approaches certainty.

Now go out and play nice together and do something nice for someone you DON'T know. TGIF!"

Wednesday Wandering

GratisNet: "Word out of Austin: The Grand Jury there looking into campaign funding violations has added conspiracy to their list of targets. Tom DeLay could well be indicted within a day or two. While such an outcome would certainly be a most just dessert for DeLay, prudence dictates a wait and see attitude.

Coming out of DC: Senator Frist does a Nixonesque, 'I am not a crook' song and dance. With both the SEC and DOJ looking into his not-so-blind trust and apparent insider trading his days are apparently numbered. Look for him to execute the 'Trent Lott Maneuver' fairly soon. This will result in the senate republican caucus becoming somewhat contentious, to say the least. Again, I would recommend a wait and see attitude.

Out of DC: Mike Brown, testifying before the congress, blames everyone at the local & state level for the disaster that was NOLA in the aftermath of Katrina. He says he was expected to be a 'Superhero' and solve all the problems. I guess that along with being incompetent in managing Arabian Horses, and padding his resume with imaginary positions of authority back in Okieland, he is also delusional to the point of requiring institutional treatment.

BULLETIN: DeLay indicted! He has agreed to step down as House Majority Leader, temporarily of course. It will be most interesting to watch the spin from republicans. I can see it now, 'This indictment is the result of a political witch hunt', 'A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor wanted them to.' Problem whith that is the word out of Austin that it was the grand jury that wanted to add the conspiracy investigation. It was they, citizens who were obviously fed up with the corrupt dealing of Tom DeLay, who wanted to consider the evidence. They considered and they indicted, now hopefully in due time another group of citizens sitting in judgement at trial will convict, if the evidence warrants, and make an example of Tom DeLay, a politician who took corruption to whole new levels.

Out of the Middle East: Karen Hughes discovering that she is in over her head as she continues her 'Democracy 2005' Tour. In Saudi Arabia she was rebuffed by a group of young women who, in effect, advised her to learn something of the culture before trying to play the Pied Piper regarding democracy.

And so it goes. How is YOUR day shaping up?"

Thoughts on Friday

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked a trustee to sell all his stock in his family's hospital corporation, a large-scale sell-off by HCA Inc. insiders was under way.

Seems like the Blind Trust set up in accordance with US Statutes wasn't all that blind when it came to Frist wanting to dump stock before the price took a dive. Can anyone say "Insider trading?" If his name was Martha Stewart the SEC would be all over him by now, but because he is the republican majority leader of the Senate...?

Much to do about rumors of Bush having fallen off the wagon. More bruises, more nonsensical conduct, see his latest press conference when he was calling on "Bianca" and more conjecture as to why he needs so many vacations out of sight at the ranch. Who knows what will turn up with all this, but with his disgraceful conduct regarding Cindy Sheehan followed by his criminal indifference during Katrina, the added stress of Rita could well be one crises to much for him to screw up. Personally I doubt it's the bottle that he has gone back to, if he's reverted to any of his destructive old habits it would be the coke. He would get a momentary high with a drink or two but then depression would really set in. Nope, if he's back to doing anything, it has to be coke, even the way he acted at his last couple of press conferences would seem to point towards coke rather than booze.

Tragedy on a Texas interstate. A bus carrying some 45 elderly people, some on oxygen, bursts into flame, at least 20 feared dead. Common sight on the traffic snarled Texas interstates, cars running out of gas further backing up traffic. Heard a righteous bastard from the state on MSNBC going on about how Texas knows how to evacuate a city unlike the people in Louisiana. Have I forgotten exploding buses and automobiles running out of gas during the exodus out of NOLA or did the media just not report it? Yes sir, Texas sure knows how to manage the evacuation of a city.

Bush cancels photo op in San Antonio, seems he was told such a move would be seen as getting in the way of search, rescue and recovery efforts. He decides to monitor the progress of Hurricane Rita from the bunker in Cheyenne Mountain. What is it with this cowardly bastard, the White House wasn't sufficient for him to keep abreast of the storm as it comes ashore? His cut and run will come as no surprise to anyone considering what will be transpiring in DC this weekend. He STILL doesn't have the stones to face Cindy Sheehan.

Finally, run everything you hear coming from a republican these days through the following filter: If their lips are moving, the likelihood that they are lying approaches certainty.

TGIF, do something nice for someone you DON'T know and have a great weekend.

Diogenese and the republicans.

Given the fact that republicans lack the fundamental honesty, sense of honor, integrity, morals and ethics common to even the least among us, is it any wonder that the Republican Party has come to be regarded as representing a Culture of Corruption? See Sen. Frist's selling off his stock in his family's HMO, for the latest example.

Somewhere Diogenese is breathing a sigh of relief for had the object of his quest been an honest republican, he would be searching still.

The Plan

The mayor of Ocean Springs, MS (across the bay from Biloxi) was being interviewed on MSNBC this morning regarding her and the city council living at City Hall for 12 days while waiting for FEMA support to arrive. She was asked if she contacted the local FEMA office, she did, and was given FEMA's 800 number to call.

FEMA had a plan, call the 800 number whenever telephone service was restored, until then, everyone was expected to fend for themselves. Some Plan.

This is nothing more than an example of "to the victor belong the spoils" patronage tenet of conservative republicans. Placing political hacks with no expertise other than to raise or donate money in positions affecting the safety, health and well being of the people demonstrates their utter contempt for the people.

The Republican Party has brought the Boss Tweed philosophy to Washington DC, although Boss Tweed would be green with envy at how much his Tammany Hall machine has been improved upon.

The Republican Party today stands not for the people or the nation but for passing government jobs and contracts to those who have given money to the cause, regardless of how illequipped they are to perform the job. Republicans prove, yet again, that they place The Party above the nation, The Party above the people, indeed, The Party above everything.

America the selfish.

GratisNet: "Bush says no tax increase to pay for the rebuilding of NOLA and the Mississippi gulf coast communitees hard hit by Katrina. He doesn't even consider repealing the tax cuts for the filthy rich and, according to an online question at CNN, some 75% of those responding agree with him.

I have sympathy for those areas devastated by Katrina, now they are to be devastated again by Bush and his borrow and spend regime. Our children and grandchildren shall have to pay the piper for this tax cut happy Band of Bunglers and that is indeed sad. Sadder still is the apparent fact that the American people are unwilling to sacrifice anything in order to help their fellow citizens recover from a disaster of biblical proportions. No, not the inept response from Bush and his Regime of Reprobates (which was bad enough) but the onslaught of destruction in the wake of Katrina.

Such selfish, self centered people bear no resemblence of the Americans I knew even 30 years ago, let alone those that populated my America as a child. I weep for what the selfish, self-centered and self-righteous neoconservatives have done to our once great society.

Our strength as a nation has always been our willingness to help one another when disaster struck, something Bush and his morally bankrupt followers have never understood, let alone believed in. America suffers and teeters perilously close to the abyss of moral bankruptcy because of it."

Random thoughts.

GratisNet: "Can Bush not button a shirt properly? Was there no one in his entourage of flunkies that had the nerve to tell him that he didn't button his shirt right and consequently looked like a three year old on national television? Once again Bush proves to be unequal to the task at hand.

The big question is, of course, how could the wheels have fallen off the Bush bandwagon so quickly and completely? From the 'May I go to the bathroom' episode at the UN to looking like a toddler after buttoning his shirt for the first time, the Bush White House seems not to be getting anything right. Could it be that Karl Rove is so preoccupied with what Fitzgerald can do to him, as to lose focus in such fundamental ways?

The White House talks about Katrina unfortunately forcing them into deficit spending, showing how little they think of the intelligence of the people. They think the people have missed the fact that they have spent more money on dubious items than can scarcely be imagined. One could compare their money squandering habits to those of drunken sailors on liberty after months at sea but that would be an insult to drunken sailors. Any suggestion regarding repealing certain of the tax cuts is met with the standard, 'That would hurt the economy' as if the tax cuts have ever been shown to to be of benefit to the people in the Bush economy, in the form of jobs, salary growth (other than CEOs, that is) and increasing revenue.

Cutting taxes in times of vital increased spending would be like a person taking a cut in pay while they are trying to buy a new house. Whatever happened to the tried and true republican mantra of old, 'Pay as you go?' It has been conspicuously missing since the days when Ronald Reagan brought his tax and spend modus operendi to Washington and for 25 years republicans have shown less fiscal discipline than a crack addict.

Why do we continue to see people involved in the recovery and clean up effort in NOLA walking around without any protection such as protective gloves, boots, masks, etc.? By all accounts the water flooding the city is a mix of toxic waste including chemicals, oil, gasolene and other petroleum products not to mention decomposing bodies (both human & animal), raw sewage, trash, etc. all known biological hazards both in the water and in the thick coat of sludge where the water has receded, yet we see workers go about their grim tasks unprotected while the EPA remains silent on the dangers to the health and well being of anyone coming in contact with the hazardous residue left in the wake of Katrina.

Yet another example of the moral bankruptcy of the Bush regime?"

Dunce-in-Chief.

GratisNet: "'When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.' --- George W. Bush

Got that?

Has there ever been a greater fool occupying the White House?

One weeps for America and what this reprobate has done. It will take a generation to put right that which Bush and his Band of Bunglers have trashed."

Furiously spinning.

GratisNet: "While flipping through the channels last night, I paused at FOX when I saw Dick 'The Toe' Morris with O'Reilly. I know, I know and I know but I lingered anyway and caught Morris spinning away furiously not unlike the blonde beauty in the Rumpelstiltskin fable from the brothers Grimm. He noted that while democrats are counting on the dead in NOLA to meet or exceed the sad estimates that have been bandied about (I know of no one, democrat, republican, whatever, wishing the death toll from Katrina approach the ghastly estimates heard thus far), he doubted there would be a few hundred, as in 300, total deaths.

I wonder how he feels about the discovery of some 45 bodies in a hospital in NOLA? While I do not expect the toll from Katrina to approach some of the 10,000-20,000 deaths predicted, I would be surprised (and gladly so) if the toll didn't go any higher than a thousand or so.

Leave it to a republican to try and gain advantage from the dead. I can see the headlines now, 'Bush does great job in keeping Katrina deaths to only 2,495' or 'Bush's efforts account for the Katrina death toll being only 2,495 and not the 20,000 as was expected.'

The latest polls seem to indicate that the American people finally, at long last, are getting it about Bush and his Band of Bunglers. They are coming to realize exactly how great a disaster George W. Bush is and the damage he is doing to America. May the fog of the spinners continue to be lifted from the eyes of the American people."

Cover up.

From The Independent of London

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger. In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health. The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

So once again incompetent hacks that the Bungler in Chief appointed to positions of authority are endangering the health and welfare of the people.

So once again the regime of the most inept individual ever to sit in the White House is striving to cover up yet another monumental f*ck up.

I know I'm surprised, are you? Of course not for it has become painfully apparent over the past 4+ years that not only is Bush a bungler of the first order, he is perhaps the most amoral, ethically challenged individual ever to occupy the oval office. Hell, he has demonstrated that he is the most morally corrupt individual to hold ANY office, ever.

Finally, lest you think that Hugh Kaufman is blowing smoke:

Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem. Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste programme. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."

Feeling safer yet?

Cheney Speaks.

NOLA Times-Picayune Newslogs

Vice President Cheney says no new taxes Thursday, 7:50 p.m. By John-John Williams IV Staff writer Vice President Dick Cheney said new taxes are not the answer to finance the Hurricane Katrina disaster effort, as he assessed the now infamous 17th Street Canal levee early Thursday evening. Cheney, who was sent by President Bush, said he was pleased with the work that has been done to repair the levee so far. Cheney arrived by helicopter shortly after 4 p.m. on a makeshift landing strip where 7,000-pound sand bags used to block the leak in the levee are currently being filled. The vice-president met with officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, levee repair workers, members of the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army. The whole visit last about an hour. Cheney said he was impressed by the job of the Corps at the levee site. Cheney was accompanied by his wife, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie and Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. "You've got to recognize the severity of what Mother Nature did to us," Cheney said as he stood several yards away from a West End neighborhood that was submerged in water up to rooftops.

"New taxes are not the answer" he said. What he meant was, let's pass the cost onto our children and grandchildren so that I and others like me can continue to rape the national treasury (and the future of the nation) with our tax cuts.

We must "recognize the severity of what Mother Nature did to us" US? Is he f*cking kidding? He was hiding out in Wyoming for God's sake, did to US? Sorry Dick, WE not only recognized the severity of what Katrina did, we also recognized BEFORE Katrina made landfall that she was going to wreak havoc and destruction as never seen in NOLA and not seen on the rest of the Gulf Coast since Camille brought her destruction here over 30 years ago. The only people who didn't have a clue was PrezNitwit and his clueless cohorts, "Who me?" Chertoff and "Resume Inflator" Brown. Crashcart comes to NOLA for his photo op and acts like the clueless, insensitive and cowardly lout he is. He is only worthy of scorn and contempt.

"We lost everything at once . . . communications, power grid, infrastructure." ... Cheney left shortly after addressing a small group of reporters before getting back on a helicopter and heading back to Baton Rouge. The visit was the first by Cheney to the area since the hurricane struck on Aug. 29.

So he was surprised that everything was lost at once. DUH! Who could have ever thought that a hurricane could knock out the power grid, telephone system, overwhelm civil services like water, sewer, etc.? Certainly not the ignorant, inept f*ckers at DHS and FEMA, partisan hacks who were rewarded by Preznit Horsefluffer for political services and now, NOW, they have the balls to tell everyone to not play the blame game?

At long last have these incompetent bastards no shame? Evidentially not for Preznit HardWork is going to the disaster area for another photo op. Karl Rove is working overtime to make this sorry excuse for a man look like something other than the steaming pile of horse manure he is.

Here's a free clue Karl baby, you best worry about how your own ass is going to look in an orange jumpsuit rather than how to make a pile of garbage look like a man.

Freedom of the press?

GratisNet: "Now comes the Bush gang, prohibiting reporters and photographers from NOLA, especially those areas (which is to say most areas) containing bodies. Seems it isn't in the interest of good order to have these victims photographed or otherwise captured for posterity. Is this America? Has the constitution been put away as per the comments made by General Franks some time ago?

I am truly outraged by these fascist bastards who would do anything to keep the people from knowing the truth about their failure to act as leaders should.

It is heartening to know that a local on the Gulf, upon seeing Crashcart Cheney on his photo op, yelled loud and clear and audibly (on CNN), 'Cheney you go f*ck yourself.'

What the hell is happening here?"

Thoughts on the future of NOLA.

GratisNet: "What is the likelihood that many thousands of the homes and buildings flooded in New Orleans will ever be salvaged? What is the likelihood that those unsalvageable properties will be taken either by lenders, tax liens or condemnation?

If that comes to pass what is the likelihood that the flooded neighborhoods will be used for residential purposes? Think casinos, hotels, etc. and a levee/dike program patterned after that built by the Dutch to keep the North Sea at bay.

Such thoughts would be inconcievable save for the utter corrupt quality of the scourge loose on the land known as the Bush regime."

Roberts, continued

GratisNet: "Roberts replaces Rehnquist, Bush names another right wing whack job to replace O'Connor. Tell me again how that affects the ideological makeup of the SCOTUS.

Rehnquist and O'Connor quite frequently voted with Scalia and Thomas, so where is the huge difference RE: the post Rehnquist and O'connor court? When the time comes to replace a Stevens, Souder, Breyer or Ginsberg then the handwringing can begin in earnest over the danger to individual rights.

Until such time, I would advise all concerned, especially those on the Senate Judiciary Committee when considering Roberts' answers before them to, in the words of Ronald Reagan, 'Trust but verify.' If Roberts is not forthcoming in his answers to the committee then he is not the person for the job."

Roberts to replace Rehnquist.

GratisNet: "I would expect that the nomination hearings will now take on a different tenor and perhaps even be delayed, most certainly extended.

Since his original nomination, his views on Equal Rights, Privacy, etc. have come into focus with the inspection of the papers made public. It now becomes even more important that ALL of Judge Roberts' papers be made available for scrutiny.

Sufficient time should be given to the discovery process but don't count on it."

Word Verification

Had to install the Word Verification feature for comments. Sorry about that but the spammers seem to have found us. I thought it best to do something before it got worse.

If only the sorry bastard, Bush the Bungler would have done something, RE: Katrina, other than sit on his ass, lives could have been saved.

Wish I said that!

GratisNet: "'official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality.' --- Bob Schieffer, Face The Nation."

Bush, Chertoff, etc. liars all.

Any question remaining whether Bush, Chertoff and the rest of the inept bunglers in his maladministration are lying regarding Katrina can be put to rest with this letter from Governor Blanco to Bush officially requesting he declare southern Louisiana "an expedited major disaster... as Hurricane Katrina a Category 5 Huuricane appproaches our coast south of New Orleans; beginning August 28th and continuing." This official request was submitted through the Regional Director of FEMA Region 6 in Denton, TX. on 08-28-05, the day before disaster hit.

Yet they came on with their "Who could have known..." and "We had no idea..." bullshit excuses for their abject incompetence. As I said, the words truly are not there to describe the magnitude of their perfidy.

Many thanks to Jeff Huber for the heads up.

Governor Blanco's letter.

Chicago Tribune | Navy ship nearby underused

"GULF COAST CRISIS: OFF THE GULF COAST Navy ship nearby underused Craft with food, water, doctors needed orders By Stephen J. Hedges Tribune national correspondent Published September 4, 2005 ON THE USS BATAAN -- While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort. The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship. Captain ready, waiting 'Could we do more?' said Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the Bataan. 'Sure. I've got sailors who could be on the beach plucking through garbage or distributing water and food and stuff. But I can't force myself on people. 'We're doing everything we can to contribute right now, and we're ready. If someone says you need to take on people, we're ready. If they say hospitals on the beach can't handle it ... if they need to send the overflow out here, we're ready. We've got lots of room.' Navy helicopters from the Bataan and Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida have joined the growing aerial armada of choppers that are lifting hurricane survivors from flooded surroundings and delivering food and water. More will arrive throughout the weekend when the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and four other Navy ships, including three amphibious assault ships--really mini-aircraft carriers for helicopter use--arrive in the gulf from Norfolk, Va. The USS Comfort, a hospital ship from Baltimore, also is steaming there. The Bataan, though, was already in the gulf when Katrina crossed Florida and picked up new, devastating energy from the warm gulf waters. The ship, sailing near the Texas coastline, had just finished an exercise in Panama and was scheduled to return to its home port in Norfolk on Friday after six weeks at sea. Instead, the ship rode out the hurricane in 12 to 14 foot seas and then fell in behind the storm as it neared the gulf coast. A day after Katrina struck, Navy helicopters arrived from Corpus Christi, Texas, and began survey flights over New Orleans. The initial belief, Tyson said, was that the city had been spared. 'On Monday it was like, `Wow, it missed us, it took a turn east,' and everything eased up,' Tyson aid. 'It was `Let's open up Bourbon Street, have a beer, let's go party, and understandably so. And then all of a sudden, literally and figuratively, the dam broke, and here we are.' When the city's levees broke Tuesday, Tyson's pilots were rescuing stranded residents. Communications became muddled as the rescue and humanitarian supply efforts were bogged down by rising water and sketchy information. Tyson, who would get debriefings from returning pilots, had perhaps one of the best vantage points to see what was unfolding. `Like a bad dream' 'It was like a bad dream that you knew you had to wake up from,' she said. A 135-foot landing craft stored within the Bataan, the LCU-1656, was dispatched to steam up the 90 miles of Mississippi River to New Orleans. It took a crew of 16, including a doctor, and its deck was stacked with food and water. The craft carries enough food and fuel to remain self-sufficient for 10 days. Moving up through the storm's flotsam, the crew couldn't believe the scene. 'We saw a lot of dead animals, dead horses, floating cows, dead alligators,' said Rodney Blackshear, LCU-1656's navigator. 'And a lot of dogs that had been pets. But no people.' Near Boothville, La., the storm surge had lifted a construction crane and put it on top of a house. Near Venice, the crew members considered going ashore to examine the damage, but dogs drove them back." "I didn't want any of my guys in there," said Bill Fish, who commands LCUs and who went on the river trip. "Everything was decimated. It was the storm surge." Then the Bataan was ordered to move to the waters off Biloxi, Miss., and LCU-1656 was ordered to return. The landing craft was 40 miles from New Orleans, but it wouldn't be able to deliver its cargo. "It was a disappointment," Fish said. "I figured we would be a big help in New Orleans. We've got electricity, and the police could have charged up their radios. We've got water, toilets. We've got food." Now sailing within 25 miles of Gulfport, Miss., the Bataan has become a floating warehouse. Supplies from Texas and Florida are ferried out to the ship, and the helicopters distribute them where Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel say they are needed. The Bataan has also taken on a substantial medical staff. Helicopters ferried 84 doctors, nurses and technicians 60 miles out to the ship from the Pensacola Naval Air Station on Friday, and on Saturday afternoon 24 of the medical personnel were flown to the New Orleans Convention Center where they expected to augment the staff of an Air Force medical clinic on the center's bus parking lot. The medical staff had come from Jacksonville, Fla., Naval Hospital, and they covered a wide swath of medical specialties from surgeons and pediatricians to heart specialists, a psychiatrist and even a physical therapist. "It's really a cross section of a major hospital," said Capt. Kevin Gallagher, a Navy nurse who was part of the group. "We haven't been told what to expect, but we're going to find out once we get out there." Moving in, ready to go On Friday evening the Bataan was edging closer to the Mississippi shoreline; until then, it had stayed well out into the gulf to avoid floating debris. Closer to shore, it will be able to deploy the landing craft again, as well as Marine hovercraft that can ride up onto shore to deliver supplies. LCU-1656 cruised 98 miles overnight Thursday with a failed electrical generator and broken starboard propeller to join up again with the Bataan, their mother ship. After repairs, it was to set out for the shoreline near Gulfport, Miss., Saturday with a 15,000 water tank lashed to vessel's deck, as well as pallets of bottled water. The role in the relief effort of the sizable medical staff on board the Bataan was not up to the Navy, but to FEMA officials directing the overall effort. That agency has been criticized sharply for failing to respond quickly enough. Tyson said the hurricane was an unusual event that has left some painful lessons. "Can you do things better? Always," Tyson said. "Unfortunately, some of the lessons we have learned during this catastrophe we are learning the hard way. But I think we're working together well to make things happen."

There are no words to describe my contempt for these worthless bastards.

Bush officials visit devastation left by Katrina.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Top officials from the Bush administration, smarting from criticism their slow response compounded the suffering from Hurricane Katrina, were touring the devastation on Sunday as storm survivors finished evacuating New Orleans.

Of course they are visiting after the survivors have been evacuated. They were afraid that they would have been caught and strung up by those survivors after having wasted so much time before reacting with rescue & relief efforts. Wasted time that cost countless innocents their lives.

On another front, this headline from the Washington Post,"Thousands Await Help While Feds Shift Blame". The worthless bastards, there is no one in this regime of idiots and incompetent fools who has the merest shred of decency, honor and ethical mooring to admit having made a mistake. No one from Bush on down to the lowest political appointee has anything other than CYA uppermost in their pea sized brains.

A pox on all of them.

Willam H. Rehnquist has died.

GratisNet: "Condolences to his family on their loss.

May his soul find the peace, understanding and forgiveness that many of his decisions denied the people."

Where is Dick Cheney?

GratisNet: "Katrina, arguably the greatest calamity to ever befall the United States and the Vice-President is MIA.

Everyone in the Bush maladministration, other than the janitors, have weighed in spinning the lackadaisical response of the regime to the horrendous death and destruction rained down upon the Gulf Coast areas of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the tragedy that is New Orleans. Yet nothing is heard from or about Dick Cheney. Yet nothing at all explaining his absence from the halls of power in the capitol.

Everyone in the congress, save for the pages, has seemingly weighed in on the government effort, or lack of effort, to provide relief to the hard hit coastal areas along the Gulf that were in the path of Katrina. Yet nothing is heard from Dick Cheney.

His absence in the face of the disaster unfolding in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast is reminiscent of the absences among the leaders that occurred regularly in the former USSR, absences that were neither acknowledged or explained.

As with the USSR back then, the continued absence of a key government official brings the question of whether the government is intact and if it isn't, if there is a probelm with the VP, then why haven't we the people been told of it?

The constitution requires it. Wait, I forgot that was before the arrogance of the Bush gang permeated the peoples house and the very halls of government.

While the Bush gang may consider themselves to be above the law, the question still remains, where is Dick Cheney?"

The incompetence of FEMA and BushCo

GratisNet: "Ted Koppel ripped FEMA Director Michael Brown, in full CYA mode, a new asshole on Nightline. Some people think that FEMA and BushCo in general, should be given a temporary pass because the primary job now is to keep people from dying and not injecting politics into the catastrophe, as if we are not capable of doing both simutaneously.

People are dying due to lack of water and medical assistance, as a direct result of the incompetence of this administration and we are being cautioned not to go 'political' on this disaster? Bush says he didn't think anybody anticipated the levees being breached? Would that be like Condi Rice saying after 9/11, 'Who would have ever thought terrorists would use airplanes to crash into buildings?' Truth is this sorry excuse for a president, administration and indeed the Republican Party in general (see Denny Hastert's comments regarding rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas devastated by Katrina), have proven once again, to be glaringly unsuited for the task of leadership.

I for one am glad that the media has finally, FINALLY, begun to take off the gloves when dealing with the utterly clueless and incompetent reponse to the damage, both to people and property, caused by Katrina. Much has been said about the looting that is going on, but think back, how much looting was happening on Tuesday or Wednesday? The fact that rescue efforts were not underway the second day after the storm hit, that could be somewhat understandable but what cannot be fathomed or forgiven is the lack of any effort to drop food and water to those trapped within the city as well as elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. If we can drop supplies of food and water to the people in Afghanistan surely we can do as much for our own citizens in circumstances much more desparate then that faced by the people of Afghanistan.

Let those people who say, 'Shoot looters on sight' try lasting two or three days without food or water, with no relief efforts in sight, without taking water and food from whatever store is nearby. If ever such holier than thou, clueless fools are faced with a choice of dying or stealing food and water to survive, perhaps then they will change their tune and leaven their outrage with a little bit of reality and compassion for those unfortunates who find themselves caught up in a catastrophe of almost Biblical proportions. Perhaps but I doubt it for they will simply say 'It's different' and not give a thought to their hypocrisy.

Ultimately it comes down to a question of how many people must die because of Bush's callous indifference before it becomes acceptable to skewer him and his 'I've got mine, the hell with you' band of republicans? How much suffering must the victims of Katrina endure before it becomes not just acceptable but IMPERATIVE to call him on the monstrous unpreparedness for this calamity? How much suffering must the unfortunate souls in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast endure before THEIR government does as much for them as they say they are doing for Iraqis and the people of Afghanistan?

I am so tired of the apologists who would absolve this worthless bastard of the responsibility of: a) Not being prepared for the consequences of Katrina and b) Showing that he couldn't care less about those caught up in the disaster.

It is time for action. Is gross incompetence and a dearth of compassion in the face of a calamity the magnitude of which has never been seen in America an impeachable offense? If it isn't, it should be!"

He didn't think!

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." -- George W. Bush

What an asshole. What a lying asshole. What a totally incompetent, lying asshole.

He didn't think... well people, that's his damn trouble, he DOESN'T think about anything but his own sorry ass.

Has there ever been a president so out of touch with reality?

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

"Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: 'No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation.' In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness."

Worthless bastards.

Bush to visit the Gulf Coast.

GratisNet: "It has been announced that Bush is planning a Friday visit to the Gulf Coast in order to assess the damage caused by Katrina.

It will take that long to build a large enough pile of rubble and round up a retired fireman for his photo op.

Despicable."

Katrina aftermath.

GratisNet: "After watching Bush, Haley Barbour, Mississippi Governor, and others on the television in the aftermath of Katrina, I have a few thoughts.

It is clear that Bush has no more compassion or concern for the devastation of lives and property in New Orleans and the towns along the gulf coast in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. His demeanor and words serve to, once again, demonstrate that George W. Bush is a man without empathy, a man who cares only for himself and for those who can (and do) something for him. In short, he is a disgrace and totally unsuited emotionally, ethically, morally and intellectually to sit in the office of President of these United States.

Barbour, when reminded by a reporter that the strength of Katrina was hardly a surprise and asked if the government should have done more to get people to safety, bridled and cut off the reporter with a curt, 'Do you want to argue with me or do you want to let me talk?' This in response to some cutting and appropriate questions as to the level of concern displayed by state and federal officials in the days when NOAA was declaring Katrina to have the potential to be among the worst storms to hit the US in the past 100 years. Local officials pretty much did everything they could do to get their people to heed the warnings, but there were many who did not have the money to buy a tank of gas so that they could get themselves and their families out of harms way. The poor section of Biloxi, MS known as The Point comes to mind and it was totally devastated and no one has any idea how many residents got out before Katrina hit. No one knows how many were swept away by the surging waters. No one knows how many are buried in the rubble. In short, no one knows the magnitude of the tragedy in The Point. In truth, likely no one in the Bush Regime cares about The Point, or the many other poor and predominately Black areas of the Gulf Coast communites hardest hit by Katrina because if the people there voted at all, they did not vote for Bush.

I hope that all those people who clamored for tax cuts will now come to an understanding of where the cuts in spending were made so that they could keep more of 'their money.' In New Orleans the tragedy of Katrina is intensified by the failure of the levee system. The Army Corps of Engineers knew of the deficiencies of the levees and had a plan of action to strengthen and improve upon them, but because of Bush and his tax cuts, the Corps had the funding for repairing the levees reduced to 20% of that which they required to do the job. Repairing the levees may not have prevented the breakdowns in the system that have occurred, but then since the repairs were never undertaken in the past 4 years, we will never know, will we? I suspect that the 'I've got mine and the hell with you' crowd will not think about the damage their greed helped to intensify. Listening to comments from some of these people and the business of denial is already well underway. It wasn't our fault, it was an act of God. Yes it was an act of God but it was made worst by the act of GREED that was the foundation of the tax cuts.

The governors of the states hardest hit were limited in getting their National Guard activated becuase a sizeable portion of their Guard, along with the trucks and other heavy equipment that could help in the rescue, recovery and cleanup, are presently in Iraq trying to protect Iraqis while the job of helping with the disaster that has befallen their communities goes on with inadequate resources. Bush couldn't be bothered with the tragedy unfolding in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, he just had to get in a couple of more days in Crawford and then go off to California for what was, essentially, a PR (read political) speech, rather than focus on getting help to the people hard hit by the ongoing disaster caused by Katrina and the unpreparedness of federal and state governments.

While Katrina was among the strongest storms to ever hit America and a disaster of major proportions, it is dwarfed by the disaster that is the little man occupying the White House and his incompetent, ineffectual regime.

Of one thing you can be sure, that since the magnitude of the disaster has grown expotentially, somewhere in the bowels of the West Wing there is a group of people trying to put together a strategy in which the blame for this disaster can be placed on the back of Bill Clinton."

FT.com / Comment & analysis - A new wrinkle in the Plame affair?

Published: August 30 2005 03:00 | Last updated: August 30 2005 03:00 An intriguing new theory has emerged in the case of Valerie Plame, the outed CIA operative. The mainstream media has focused on Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political guru, as the source of the original story identifying Plame. The alleged motive was revenge against former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. Observer now hears a new angle on the story is circulating inside the Justice Department. It involves Judith Miller, the veteran New York Times reporter currently languishing in a Virginia jail for refusing to reveal her source(s) in the Plame affair. Many have assumed that Miller - who never actually wrote a story identifying Plame as an operative - is protecting Rove and/or other administration officials. But the missing link is that Miller is not a political reporter, but rather an investigative journalist who co-wrote a book on America's secret war against biological weapons and later published controversial articles on Iraq's effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Now here's the twist: Plame herself is a CIA operative who also specialised in weapons of mass destruction and bio-terrorism. So did Miller get to know Plame while she was writing her book or even use her as a source for other WMD stories? Despite 56 days' imprisonment and a vociferous campaign to release her - Miller is staying mum."

If this is true then it is Miller who "spilled the beans" regarding Plame. That would mean that everything else is a concerted effort to disperse the fact that Plame was CIA as widely as possible and to hide the objective of that effort, the punishment of Joseph Wilson.

In other words, it is a conspiracy to "out" a covert CIA "operative" and a conspiracy to obstruct justice by failing to testify truthfully (or at all) to the Fitzgerald Grand Jury.

Miller can rot in jail for all I care and evidentially the Appeals Court who reviewed Fitzgerald's brief, the redacted for security portion especially and agreed that placing her in the slammer until she testified was vital to the security of the nation, agrees with me.

Before this is done, Watergate and Nixon will have been replaced as the most despicable act and president in American history.

Legion | Public Relations | News Releases

"Legionnaires Condemn War Protests, Pledge HONOLULU, August 23, 2005 - Delegates to the nation’s largest wartime veterans organization meeting here in national convention today vowed to use whatever means necessary to ensure the united support of the American people for our troops and the global war on terrorism. ... The resolution passed unanimously by 4,000 delegates... “No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies,“ Cadmus said. “It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction."

This is wrong on so many levels it defies explanation. Suffice it to say that Thomas P. Cadmus sounds more like a latter day brown shirt than he does a veteran defender of freedom. Perhaps the legionaires swilled too much booze in Hawaii and were well beyond three sheets to the wind when the vote on this fascist proposal was taken.

I do know that this USAF veteran (1959-66, all active duty) is thankful that he never had the urge to join such a group of misguided fools.

Pat Robertson... again.

GratisNet: "Pat Robinson puts his foot in his mouth with an assassination comment regarding the popularly elected president, Chavez of Venezuela, then the next day begins munching on his knee by denying he said it. This is after pretty much everyone in the world with access to a television saw the video of him running off at the mouth. This is without question.

As anyone above the age of majority can attest, Pat Robertson is no more a Christian than say Atilla the Hun. They also know that Pat Robertson demonstrates a less than passing familiarity with truth and integrity, in fact, on a scale of 1 - 10 (with 10 being low) he comes in at 14.6. My question is, why is this man still broadcasting his garbage and more to the point, why does anyone care?

One could infer that because he hasn't been smoked by the greatest lightning bolt in the history of the world, God doesn't give a shit about what goes on in His name down here in the zoo he created called Earth."

Shrill or sedate?

Excellent piece discussing democrat strategy from a grassroots/netroots perspective from Digby, which ends with:

That, I think, is the real question here. Will our "shrillness" help or hurt the party? I think the netroots believes it's time to try a message that has a little more heat than lukewarm water. The establishment, still smarting from their seminal loss in 1972, is scared to death of anything that resembles real passion. Far more than a serious division in the party over specific policy, that, I think is the real fault line. What kind of politics --- not policies --- do the Democrats think will win?

It should be very obvious to everyone that the Republican Lite, sedate if you will, strategy of the national democrats in the elections of 2000, 2002 & 2004 did not work. It also seems obvious to me that such a strategy will never work. It also seems to me that the republicans jumping in against the so-called shrill strategy, as with the "national, read beltway democrats" doing the same is simply a case of their fear of such sentiments of the grassroots/netroots and what it will do to their objectives.In the case of republicans it is quite simply that they fear that such a basic strategy of confrontation, high on emotion, strong on facts and full of thoughtful, logical, opposing positions regarding the problems that beset America from the economy to Iraq, etc. will strike a chord with the American people and turn them against those who have squandered the good name, reputation and fiscal strength of our nation.

In the case of the national democrats they see the distinct possiblity of the people tiring of their "go along to get along" strategy, which thus far has only resulted in the further deterioration of our standing in the community of nations and the declining fortunes of a declining middle class. In other words, their ultimate fear is that they too will be turned out of power by the tsunami created by the people.

That the grassroots/netroots appeal could well cause a siesmic shift the leadership both the national government as well as the national Democratic Party is what is driving the commentary against being "shrill" in response to the Bush Regime and its policies that are turning America into a larger version of the banana republics to our south.

So in answer to the question put forth by Digby, "What kind of politics --- not policies --- do the Democrats think will win?" The politics of not being republicans is a good place to start, using as much emotion, energy, passion to convet thoughtful alternatives to what republican politics have done to our country.

Don't Prettify Our History - New York Times

by PAUL KRUGMAN The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida. This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the winner. The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been. The probable answer is that Al Gore would have won, by a tiny margin. The third is what would have happened if the intentions of the voters hadn't been frustrated by butterfly ballots, felon purges and more; the answer is that Mr. Gore would have won by a much larger margin. About the evidence regarding a manual recount: in April 2001 a media consortium led by The Miami Herald assessed how various recounts of 'undervotes,' which did not register at all, would have affected the outcome. Two out of three hypothetical statewide counts would have given the election to Mr. Gore. The third involved a standard that would have discarded some ballots on which the intended vote was clear. Since Florida law seemed to require counting such ballots, this standard almost certainly wouldn't have been used in a statewide recount. The Herald group later did an analysis of 'overvotes,' in which more than one choice was recorded, but this wasn't a true recount, because some of it was based on computer records rather than the ballots themselves. In November 2001 a larger consortium, which included The New York Times, produced more definitive results that allowed assessment of nine hypothetical recounts. (You can see the results at www.norc.uchicago.edu/fl - under articles.) The three recounts that had been most widely discussed during the battle of Florida, including the partial recount requested by the Gore campaign and two interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court order, would have given the vote to Mr. Bush. But the six hypothetical manual recounts that would have covered the whole state - including both loose and strict standards - would have given the election to Mr. Gore. And other evidence makes it clear that many intended votes for Mr. Gore were frustrated. So why do so many people believe the Bush win was rock solid? One answer is that many editorials and op-ed articles have claimed that no possible recount would have changed the outcome. Let's be charitable and assume that those who write such things are victims of the echo chamber, and believe that what everyone they talk to says must be true. The other answer is that many though not all reports of the results of the ballot reviews conveyed a false impression about what those reviews said. A few reports got the facts wrong, but for the most part they simply stressed the likelihood - in some cases presented as a certainty - that Mr. Bush would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened. But even if a proper recount wasn't in the cards given the political realities, that says nothing about what such a recount would have found. The tone of these reports may have been influenced by the timing: the second consortium's report came out just two months after 9/11. The country wanted very badly to believe in its leadership. Nobody wanted to write stories suggesting that the wrong man was sitting in the White House. More broadly, the story of the 2000 election remains deeply disturbing - not just the fact that a man the voters tried to reject ended up as president, but the ugliness of the fight itself. There was an understandable urge to put the story behind us. But we aren't doing the country a favor when we present recent history in a way that makes our system look better than it is. Sometimes the public needs to hear unpleasant truths, even if those truths make them feel worse about their country. Not to be coy: election 2000 may be receding into the past, but the Iraq war isn't. As the truth about the origins of that war comes out, there may be a temptation, once again, to prettify the story. The American people deserve better."

Once again Paul Krugman speakes truth to power. I am so old that I remember a time when the only people trying to rewrite history were NAZIs, communists and those who would trample on democracy and freedom. America has come full circle. It started with an arrogant King George, it now has a petulant little man acting like HE was King George and an organization that has become the antithesis of what America stands for, the enablers of our latter day King George, the Republican Party.

To be sure both Little King George and the Republican Party speak of democracy and freedom but make no mistake, their actions speak louder than their words. As proof I offer the the following:

The smearing of John McCain in Election 2000. The smearing of John Kerry in Election 2004. The smearing of anyone attempting to shine the light of truth about the Cadre of Corruption that is the Bush Regime. Finally the sliming of a Gold Star mother, Terry Sheehan. To be sure, republicans are using words to assassinate the character of honorable americans but the only difference between them and the tactics used by despotic regimes since time immemorial is one of degree. As to that degree, mark my words, if these abominable people are not stopped and stopped soon, the character assassinations may well transform into the real thing ala Chile and the thousands of "dissapeared" people who disagreed with Pinochet.

It can happen here.

Culture of Corruption. Culture of Ignorance.

GratisNet: "Ohio governor Bob Taft cops a Nolo plea to charges of running afoul of Ohio law as it relates to reporting favors, money, etc. received under the table as it were. Such is the republican Culture of Corruption.

When I asked a certified member of the wingnut faction of the republican party (in Ohio) what he had to say about that, I thought I would hear a rant about Taft disgracing the party and a demand for his resignation. Alas, such was not the case for I was told that when Taft was informed that he had violated the law, he 'turned himself in' to pay his fine. Such is the Culture of Ignorance.

Let the wingnut faction of the republican party not just continue their choke hold on our government but increase it and I suspect the downfall of America will occur in less than a generation. Every thinking person, regardless of political persuasion needs to get behind the reform in how America votes and more importantly, how those votes are counted before the dream of America becomes just that, a distant dream of how things once were and how much was lost.

Paper ballots. Separate national election day(s). No more complicated ballots, at most, only three choices on the ballot (Pres/VP, Rep & Sen in 1/3 of states). The manual counting will be fast enough. Manual counts, do we really need to know who won before the polls actually close or do we really need honest elections with honest counts?"

Bob Herbert nails it.

New York Times: "August 18, 2005 By BOB HERBERT You have to wonder whether reality ever comes knocking on George W. Bush's door. If it did, would the president with the unsettling demeanor of a boy king even bother to answer? Mr. Bush is the commander in chief who launched a savage war in Iraq and now spends his days happily riding his bicycle in Texas. This is eerie. Scary. Surreal. The war is going badly and lives have been lost by the thousands, but there is no real sense, either at the highest levels of government or in the nation at large, that anything momentous is at stake. The announcement on Sunday that five more American soldiers had been blown to eternity by roadside bombs was treated by the press as a yawner. It got very little attention. ... For all the talk of supporting the troops, they are a low priority for most Americans. If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He'd be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in. Instead, Mr. Bush is bicycling as soldiers and marines are dying. Dozens have been killed since he went off on his vacation. As for the rest of the nation, it's not doing much for the troops, either. There was a time, long ago, when war required sacrifices that were shared by most of the population. That's over. ... 'For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents.' Scandalous incompetence? Appalling indifference? Try both. Who cares? This is a war fought mostly by other people's children. The loudest of the hawks are the least likely to send their sons or daughters off to Iraq. ... If Mr. Bush were willing to do something he has refused to do so far - speak plainly and honestly to the American people about this war - he might be able to explain why U.S. troops should continue with an effort that is, in large part at least, benefiting Iraqi factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women. If by some chance he could make that case, the next appropriate step would be to ask all Americans to do their part for the war effort. College kids in the U.S. are playing video games and looking forward to frat parties while their less fortunate peers are rattling around like moving targets in Baghdad and Mosul, trying to dodge improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades. There is something very, very wrong with this picture. If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home. If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying."

Once again Bob Herbert cuts to the chase and shows the moral bankruptcy of Chicken George's war.

War on Iraq from the git-go.

After the latest documents to surface regarding the planning for the invasion of Iraq as early as October 1, 2001 can there be any doubt as to the perfidy of the Bush Regime?

Links to other State Department documents (PDF files):
Document 1
Document 2
Document 3
Document 4
Document 5

Mourning in America

GratisNet: "'[George Bush] cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.' --- E.L. DOCTOROW"

It was Iraq from day one.

The focus on the Bush gang was on Iraq from day one. Nothing had more importance than getting at the oil there. Memo of 02-01-01 as the memo notes Iraq was to be at the top of the agenda for the Bush gang. Perhaps it was a case of, "they tried to kill my dad" or one of little Georgie trying to prove to his mommy that he was a brave boy or perhaps C+ Augustus was just trying to outdo his father, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that this gang of incompetents shunted everything aside in order to focus soley on getting the UN to go along and allow the Little Prince to get his war with Iraq. In the end they went in without UN support and the SCWOT suffered as a result.

That oil was the reason cannot be disputed for Iraq, after not being allowed to produce at capacity because of 10+ years of sanctions, was the repository of a very large portion of the easy to get at unrecovered oil in the world. Perhaps this is why Cheney was so protective of his energy policy tete-a-tete with much of the oil industry movers and shakers. Perhaps they were engaged in the planning for the carving out of Iraqi oil production once Saddam was out of the way and the Iraqi people were conquered.

Funny thing happened on the way to empire, the neocon chicken hawks neglected to ask the Iraqi people if they wanted to be subjects of a new American empire. In their hubris, or ignorance (the choice is yours), they neglected to consider the "what-if" scenario of an insurgency even though history is rife with examples of people fighting foreign soldiers exercising control over their country. The lessons of our own revolution were lost on these arrogant bastards.

So the next time a conservative trots out the long line of reasons why we invaded Iraq, remind them of the memo of 02-01-01 and the fact that Iraqi oil reserves are at the same time proven and easily attainable and in that respect are the most desirable of assets in these days leading up to $100/bbl oil.

Ashcroft

GratisNet: "Reports surface that there was more to Ashcroft recusing himself than was readily apparent. It seems that Ashcroft, a close friend of Karl Rove, knew for some time that the FBI believed he had lied to them when questioned about the Valerie Plame leak. It was only the fact that Ashcroft could no longer deny his knowledge of the facts of Rove's prevarications, with the resultant reduction of what small measure of credibility he had left regarding the investigation, that made his recusal in favor of a Special Prosecutor a face saving necessity.

Questions still need to be answered, however, as to what steps if any did Ashcroft take to slow down or even stop the investigation. Was he involved in a conscious effort to sabotage the effort of his own department? The people need to know the answers to this and other questions regarding the Attorney General's office of the Bush Cabal. The people need to know that no one is above the law, remember that phrase from the Clinton years?

These questions are ever more relevent in light of the reports that Abramoff's offer to flip on those involved with his illegal lobbying activities has been met with a curt no deals from the US Attorney overseeing the case. How often do prosecutors fail to try to get those under indictments to flip on their cohorts? Virtually never, however when the people likely to be named are powerful, if corrupt, politicians it seems no deals will be authorized.

Is it a case of having a corrupt Department of Justice, under orders of the most corrupt administration in the history of the nation, attempting to obstruct justice? You be the judge."

And the beat goes on.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that weapons recently confiscated in Iraq were "clearly, unambiguously from Iran" and admonished Tehran for allowing the explosives to cross the border. Link to story

One wonders if the weapons from Iran were as clear and unambiguous as the WMD in Iraq, or is this yet another example of lies from a regime of world class prevaricators?

No doubt the wingnut wurlitzer will pick up on Rumsfeld's latest prevarication and treat it as if the sky was falling, but I suspect that growing numbers of Americans will see this for what it is, a bold faced lie.

Americans remember the mushroom clouds in 45 minutes from Saddam's WMD delivered by toy airplanes and those who are not counted among the gullible wingnuts know, we know, that such claims were unmitigated equine excrement.

The sewer rats of this despicable regime and their enablers in the halls of congress are getting desperate for they know that the people, in ever greater numbers, realize that they cannot be trusted to bring anything good to America. Hence a new threat, Iran, must be conjured up because they know that fear is the only tool they have to move the people.

A great and sad departure from the great FDR's "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" but then without fear republicans would have nothing to believe in.

Saddam, Anthrax & Republicans

From The Times Online: Saddam's germ war plot is traced back to one Oxford cow - By Dominic Kennedy A BRITISH cow that died in an Oxfordshire field in 1937 has emerged as the source of Saddam Hussain’s “weapons of mass destruction” programme that led to the Iraq war. An ear from the cow was sent to an English laboratory, where scientists discovered anthrax spores that were later used in secret biological warfare tests by Winston Churchill. The culture was sent to the United States, which exported samples to Iraq during Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980s. Inspectors have found that this batch of anthrax was the dictator’s choice in his attempts to create biological weapons. The discovery has angered some British politicians. Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, has renewed his call, supported by 126 MPs in the last Parliament, for a UN investigation into whether Washington broke a weapons control agreement. “It just makes them look more hypocritical than ever,” he said.

Link to full article

Surprise, surprise, the Reagan bunch gave Saddam the anthrax that was used for his biological weapons labs during the Iraq/Iran War.

Republicans = death. Republicans = war. Republicans = destruction.

Republicans = hypocrites.

Republicans have the unmitigated gall to talk about moral superiority when, given their track record, they would find it difficult to demonstrate moral superiority over a sewer rat.

Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says - New York Times

Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 - Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents."

So it begins. The drumbeat for invading Iran has officially started. Is it any coincidence that this is released at the same time Commander Codpiece's approval ratings go further into the toilet?

"But some Middle East specialists discount any involvement by the Iranian government or Hezbollah, saying it would be counter to their interests to support Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents, who have stepped up their attacks against Iraqi Shiites. These specialists suggest that the arms shipments are more likely the work of criminals, arms traffickers or splinter insurgent groups. 'Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés,' said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analystat the Central Intelligence Agency. 'That makes little sense to me'."

ime for another distraction to get the eyes of the people off the real enemies of America, the Bush regime?