5 1 2007
Broder Tells ‘E&P’ That He Stands by His Blast at Harry Reid
Rich, of The New York Times and New York Times News Service, wrote that Broder “is
leading the charge in ridiculing Harry Reid for saying the obvious — that ‘this war is
lost’ (as it is militarily, unless we stay in perpetuity and draft many more troops).”
And, as E&P reported last Thursday Begala wondered on HuffingtonPost.com why Broder
seemed more upset with Reid than with the way the Bush administration “continues to lie”
about the Iraq War; “neglected our wounded warriors”; “ignored the victims of Katrina”;
“potentially obstructed justice by firing U.S. Attorneys who were pursuing GOP
wrongdoing”; and more.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003578260
Another Historic Step On Impeachment
Sparked by an insurgency among delegates, the California Democratic Party has taken an
historic step forward on the issue of impeachment. In a resolution affirmed by the full
state party convention Sunday, the Democrats called on the U.S. Congress to use its
subpoena power to investigate misdeeds of President Bush and Vice President Cheney – and
to hold the Administration accountable “with appropriate remedies and punishment,
including impeachment.” The delegate insurgency was coordinated by Progressive Democrats
of America and its allies.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/235
Ray McGovern: Sorry They’ve Been So Mean To You, George. Plus a Letter from Six Former
CIA Officers Five Other ex-CIA Officers “calling their former boss ‘the Alberto Gonzales
of the intelligence community,’ and describing his book as an ‘admission of failed
leadership.’” –
Reluctant Scapegoat
George’s concern over being scapegoated is understandable. But could he not have seen it
coming? Not even when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked him in the fall of
2002 whether he had created a system for tracking how good the intelligence was compared
with what would be actually found in Iraq? The folks I know from Queens usually can tell
when they’re being set up. Maybe Tenet was naive enough to believe that his friend the
president (“President Bush and I are much alike,” he writes) would protect him from the
likes of Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney even when – as was inevitable – someone would
have to take the fall. Or did George actually believe Cheney’s insight that U.S. forces
would be greeted in Iraq as liberators, and at that point, the absence of the weapons of
mass destruction would not matter?
Now George is worried about his reputation. He told 60 Minutes:
“At the end of the day, the only thing you have… is your reputation built on trust and
your personal honor, and when you don’t have that anymore, well, there you go.”
I immediately thought back to former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s response when he
was asked if he regretted the lies he told at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003. Powell said he
regretted that speech because it was “a blot on my record.”
So we’ve got ruined reputations and blots on records. Poor boys. What about the 3,344
American soldiers already killed in a war that could not have happened had not these poor
fellows deliberately distorted the evidence and led the cheering for war. What about the
more than 50,000 troops wounded, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
civilians whose deaths can be attributed directly to the invasion and its aftermath.
There are blots, and there are blots. Why is it that Tenet and Powell seem to inhabit a
different planet?
Defending Torture…Again
Hewing to the George W. Bush dictum of “catapulting the propaganda” by endlessly
repeating the same claim (the formula used so successfully by Joseph Goebbels), Tenet
manages to tell 60 Minutes five times in five consecutive sentences: “We don’t torture
people.” Like President Bush, however, he then goes on to show why it has been absolutely
necessary to torture people. Do they take us for fools? And Tenet’s claims of success in
extracting information via torture are no more deserving of credulity than the rest of
what he says.
His own credibility aside, Tenet has succeeded in destroying the asset without which an
intelligence community cannot be effective and informed policymaking is at grave risk -
trustworthiness. That is serious. He seems blissfully oblivious to the damage he has done
- aware only of the damage he accuses others of doing to his “personal honor.”
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/969
How Tobias, Bush Administration Tortured Africa With Abstinence; Did They Get Taught
about Massages from Escorts? 5/1
There’s much good fun to be made with the recent resignation of USAID Director Randall
Tobias, in the latest DC sex scandal:
But, behind the scandal lies the horrifying effects, of the religiously charged ideology
Tobias has helped to inject into US foreign aid programs, on Africa’s poor…
Since the early days of the Bush Administration, Randall Tobias played a significant
role infusing Christian right ideology into US international programs providing sexual
education, HIV/AIDS prevention, and family planning: the body count, in the end, may be
considerable. But don’t worry, the dead won’t be American.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/4/30/152526/666
DC Madam: Stay Tuned to ABC
By Paul Kiel – April 30, 2007, 11:54 AM
Speaking outside after a court hearing this morning, the D.C. Madam, Jeane Palfrey, says
she expects ABC News to track down more clients of her firm, who she says will serve as
“potential witnesses for my defense.”
So who’s up next? ABC News — where Brian Ross and TPM alum Justin Rood are on the case -
- has Palfrey’s phone records for the past four years. This morning, they report that
“also on Palfrey’s list of customers who could be potential witnesses are a Bush
administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several
lobbyists and a handful of military officials.”
Expect some of that to come out this Friday, during Palfrey’s star turn on 20/20.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003119.php
Cheat Sheet to George Tenet’s Memoir:
Dick, Condi and Plenty of Bull*&$!
On Friday, we got a sneak peek at the new memoir by former CIA director George Tenet,
“At the Center of the Storm.”
But it also contains some new revelations about the War on Terror and the behavior of
its main players:
“They sought to create a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks that would have
made WMD, the United Nations, and the international community absolutely irrelevant.”
http://www.muckraked.com/wordpress/2007/04/29/scanning-george-tenets-memoirdick-condi-
and-plenty-of-bull/#more-435
Doubling Up on Bush Administration Screwups — Verse-Case Scenario by Tony Peyser
State Department Official Resigns Over D.C. Madam
Randall Tobias said escorts gave him massages
(Gonzales would claim that’s a dumb thing to say)
In fact, it’s precisely the kind of bald-faced lie
That’s going to rub lots of people the wrong way.
Thinking Outside The Box
The thing that this administration soon really oughta
Do is let the fighting in Iraq be done by Blackwater.
Getting our soldiers home should be a priority that’s urgent;
Let the soldiers of fortune take it to each & every insurgent.
The administration’s evolved into privatizing whores
So let’s publicly insist they go fight their private wars.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/peyser/456
Danny Schechter: Media Priorities Assure that Real Crises Will Not Be Covered
Our media remains fixated on misdemeanors, while ignoring felonies
Who is probing why federal regulators at the SEC and compliant Democrats allowed nearly
two million families to fall into the sub-prime mortgage noose and now face foreclosures?
Who is looking into the real accounting of our ever expanding wars of terror, with the
ongoing squandering of government resources and the transfer of billions from the public
treasury into private hands? We know that war profiteers are greedy, but who is supposed
to be watching the public purse
Is it the old story of foxes guarding the chickens? And you can be sure these foxes are
not being investigated by FOX.
Even when the Feds are paying attention, the agencies they monitor resist efforts at
accountability and transparency. The scammers at Homeland Security are particularly
egregious in this regard. The GAO, the agency charged with overseeing government
spending, complains they get a runaround and resistance when they try to track their
expenditures.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/972
Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers
A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with
rape. A single mother who blogged about “the daily ins and outs of being a mom” was
threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under
surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing
software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that
included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901555.html?hpid=topnews
Stephen Crockett: When Politics Becomes Criminal
It has recently been reported that prominent Republicans in the Bush Administration are
screening potential federal government employees concerning how they intend to vote in
upcoming elections. This development calls for both Congressional investigation and an
independent federal prosecutor. There is a federal law known as the Hatch Act that
clearly makes such blatantly politicization of the federal government hiring program
illegal. These activities may violate other federal laws, as well.
It is time for Republicans at all levels to distance themselves from the ethically
challenged national leadership of the Republican Party and the Bush Administration. Not
only have the Bush Republicans failed to follow the spirit of the law in many different
ways, but it also now seems obvious they are not complying with the letter of the law.
Scandal follows scandal in our daily news. During the 2006 election, Republicans tried
with mixed success to spin the various illegal activities reported concerning Republican
members of Congress, Republican Governors, and various state Republican Party leaders as
isolated “bad apples.” It now looks like most of the barrel may be rotten to the core of
the Republican Party.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/970
Larry Beinhart: The Republican Disease vs. Reality
This virus of fear is a bizarre disease. More widespread than any flu and more
dangerous. Because in the fever of fear, delirium blocks out reality.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/971
PM Carpenter: Reason’s challenge; Who among the Democrats want a ‘global war on terror’?
Reason’s challenge
When asked last week at the misnomered Democratic “debate” if they believed in a
notional “global war on terror,” Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson and Chris
Dodd raised their hands. To their credit, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and
Mike Gravel did not.
Like everything else, the Bush administration has politicized the threat of terrorism
for short-term gain only; like everything else, it has given not a second’s thought to
what might, or should, come next. Immediate firepower is the exclusive answer to every
immediate threat, which procreates more threats, which calls for more firepower, and so
and on it goes. Patiently and thoughtfully getting to the root of any problem is simply
beyond the immediate-gratification mentality of the cutthroat, Rovian political animals
who populate this wretched administration.
According to the London Times, the Labourite secretary further argued that “Britain and
America should do more to use the ’soft power’ of values, ideas and reform to bring about
lasting change in the failed and angry states where terrorist groups prosper.”
With Tony Blair rightfully on his way out, Britain “gets it,” and it’s now freer to say
so. To ease this national transformation in attitude and leadership, even the prime
minister has been downplaying the struggle’s martial elements lately.
But it’s going to be a tougher challenge in the U.S., given the nearly seven-year
brainwashing campaign that Americans have undergone at the hands of the exclusively
bellicose. I salute those pols, such as Mr. Edwards, who, be it from brains or political
necessity, have accepted the challenge.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2007/04/reasons_challen.html
Another Key McCain Aide Departs
ORANGEBURG, S.C. — In the midst of the Sen. John McCain’s presidential announcement
tour comes news that Marlene Elwell — one of the Arizona Senator’s leading social
conservative advocates — has parted ways with the campaign.
Elwell, who was one of McCain’s chief liaisons to the faith community, confirmed her
departure in a brief telephone interview this evening. She did not offer any further
explanation on the decision.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/campaign-
trail/2007/04/another_key_mccain_aide_depart.html?hpid=topnews
Kent State victim: Tape may answer shooting mystery
CLEVELAND – A man shot in the wrist when National Guard troops opened fire during an
anti-war protest 37 years ago said he has found an audio tape while doing research on the
shooting that he claims shows a command to fire was issued by a Guard commander.
Alan Canfora said he requested a copy of the nearly 30-minute tape six months ago after
he learned it was kept at Yale University, where a government copy had been stored in an
archive. Just before a 13-second barrage of gunfire, a voice on the tape yells, “Right
here! Get Set! Point! Fire!” Canfora said.
Four Kent State students were killed and nine wounded in a clash with Guardsmen that
followed several days of anti-war protests. In 1974, eight guardsmen tried on federal
civil rights charges were acquitted by a U.S. judge.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/17154947.htm
War Called Riskier Than Vietnam
Military Experts Fretful Over Long-Term Consequences
Bush recently said that “there’s a lot of differences” between the current war in Iraq
and the Vietnam War.
As fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year, an increasing number of experts in foreign
policy and national strategy are arguing that the biggest difference may be that the Iraq
war will inflict greater damage to U.S. interests than Vietnam did.
“In terms of the consequences of failure, the stakes are much bigger than Vietnam,” said
former defense secretary William S. Cohen. “The geopolitical consequences are . . .
potentially global in scope.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801167.html?nav=rss_politics
Bush Lied, Soldiers Keep Dying.
3,351 U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq
384 U.S. Military Fatalities in Afghanistan
24,912 U.S. Military Maimed in Iraq (source: DoD Update as of April 25, 2007)
68,593 Iraqis Reported Killed (source: Iraq Body Count)
655,000 Iraqis Reported Killed (source: The Lancet)
May 1, 2007
D.C. Madam Madness! BuzzFlash Thinks She’s Got One or Two Big Fishes That She’s Keeping
to Herself. You Know, Like Guys in the White House or DOJ Who Could Cut a Deal With Her
Attorney and Let Her Off on Probation. She’s Leaking the “Little Fish” to Send a Message
to a Couple of Very High Ranking People. By the Way, How Come There Was No Prosecution of
Jeff Gannon for Running a Male Escort Service Right Into the White House? Oh, Those Pesky
Questions.
http://crimeblog.us/?p=395
More Bushevik Katrina Corruption: Jeb Bush, Defective Water Pumps, And a Sweetheart
Contract We, the Taxpayers, Paid for
Corps asked to explain pump contract
In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter (news, bio, voting record), R-La., called
on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane
Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President
Bush’s brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been
major contributors to the Republican Party
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070501/ap_on_re_us/katrina_faulty_pumps;_ylt=AgFGAEznsX8q8wc
hBtwnhYSs0NUE
Bush Fails America: Report says terror attacks up sharply
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070501/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terrorism;_ylt=Aow4pzC_HWFewBt_B
jk0Ueas0NUE
==xx=
=xx=x=x=x
867360 :the number of people who have already voted in the referendum
to Impeach Bush!
Let’s Make It a Million!
http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer
Obama Wins First Democratic Debate
Obama held his own with the others, particularly vis-à-vis his chief rival, Hillary
Clinton. He clearly showed that he belonged on the stage with his longer-serving rivals.
In doing so, he helped vanquish his leading negative: inexperience.
The young senator had shown himself to be just as adept, equally well informed and even
more articulate than his more experienced rival
Hillary’s worst moment in the debate came when she had to “take responsibility” for her
vote in support of the Iraq war in 2002. It was not that she had voted wrong in the
opinion of most Democrats; it was that she was obviously refusing to apologize — a sharp
contrast to the honesty of John Edwards, who asked those who had joined him in backing
the war to “search their consciences.” But Hillary’s best moment was when she criticized
the Supreme Court decision upholding the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion.
The other beneficiary of the debate was Dennis (the Menace) Kucinich, who showed the
sharp differences between his brand of anti-war sentiment and that of the other more
moderate candidates (except for former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska).
Kucinich staked out the far left as his own and even directly challenged the other
candidates for supporting, in effect, a longer war. Kucinich’s critique will echo louder
when the other candidates, predictably, cave in to Bush in voting for a clean war-funding
resolution after the attempt to override his veto fails. And, after Kucinich is defeated,
his banner will likely be carried in the general election by that bête noire of
Democrats: Ralph Nader
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/4/27/173409.shtml
=xx=x=
x=x=x=x
One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when
we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry. President G. Bush Washington,
D.C., Mar. 29, 2006
=
We support the election process, we support democracy, but that doesn’t mean we have to
support governments that get elected as a result of democracy. President G. Bush -
Washington, D.C., Mar. 29, 2006
” To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant” Amos Bronson Alcott:
Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In America’s War On Iraq – At Least 655,000 + +
http://tinyurl.com/usq4x
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’sWar
On Iraq 3,351
http://icasualties.org/oif/
The War in Iraq Costs
$421,637,119,694
See the cost in your community
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
The accursed: Widows of Iraq’s torn-apart society
By Hala Jaber
“I shouted and beat my breast and yanked my hair in the street but no one could do
anything. A few minutes later we heard shots. I knew they [Ali and Ahmad] were dead,” she
said. “
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17626.htm
Something About “Liberation”…
By Layla Anwar
Never, at least not to my knowledge, has a “liberation” produced so much human filth…
Never has a “liberation” managed to generate so many death mercenaries and contractors
being paid up to 5′000 dollars a day with the sole aim of exterminating…and “pacifying”.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17625.htm
Bush Has Destroyed Iraq and America
By Paul Craig Roberts
The violence and killing that Bush brought to Iraq has spread antagonism between Sunni
and Shiite throughout the Middle East with potentially draconian consequences. Bush’s war
has turned Muslim hearts and minds against America and made terrorism an acceptable means
to resist American hegemony. With his mindless war, Bush has created more terrorism than
the world has ever seen.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17621.htm
Iraq: At least 80 killed in another bloody day of U.S. occupation:
A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 32 people when he blew
himself up among mourners at a Shi’ite funeral in the town of Khalis, north of Baghdad.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO054426.htm
U.S. April death toll in Iraq passes 100:
Four U.S. occupation force soldiers were killed in separate attacks in the capital this
weekend, including three in a single roadside bombing, the military said Monday, pushing
the death toll past 100 in the deadliest month so far this year.
http://www.startribune.com/140/story/1152433.html
Ex-CIA analyst: Forged ‘yellowcake’ memo ‘leads right back to’ Cheney:
Appearing on MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson show, Ray McGovern who served in the CIA for twenty-
seven years, said, “the [forged] memo leads right back to the doorstep of the Vice
President of the United States.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ExCIA_analyst_Forged_yellowcake_memo_leads_0430.html
In case you missed it:
War Is A Racket :
A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
George Galloway: “What Happened To Iraq Is About To Happen To Iran:
Video – Galloway speaks on Iraq and Iran
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/1337/1/
Australia, U.S. behave tyrannically, says ex-PM:
Australia’s government and close ally the United States behaved in a tyrannical way and
for “evil purpose” by jailing militants at Guantanamo Bay, former Australian Prime
Minister Malcolm Fraser said on Monday.
http://snipurl.com/1iuec
Thousands protest killing of more than 130 ‘Taliban fighters’:
US-led occupation troops killed more than 130 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan over the
past several days, the coalition said on Monday, the heaviest reported rebel losses this
year amid rising violence in the country.
http://snipurl.com/1iuee
Afghans protest civilian deaths:
Infuriated protesters carrying the bodies of five Afghans killed in a U.S.-led raid -
including the shrouded corpses of a woman and teenage girl – blocked a highway in eastern
Afghanistan with rocks and felled trees, denouncing their government and demanding an
explanation
http://snipurl.com/1iueh
Is Canada’s Defence Minister a War Criminal?:
Political and Military Leadership Has Been Playing Fast and Loose With Torture
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/208200
Lawyers taking Rumsfeld war crimes case to Spain:
German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck says that he will refile a war crimes complaint against
former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Spain with the help of Spanish
counterparts after the German Federal Prosecutor’s office Friday rejected a bid to
prosecute the suit in Germany under that country’s universal jurisdiction law
http://snipurl.com/1iuel
Clinton and Obama Raiding Donors Who Backed Bush:
In the first quarter of this year, more than 150 former Bush donors pitched in for Mrs.
Clinton’s campaign, while a similar number anted up for Mr. Obama, according to an
analysis of Federal Election Commission data
http://www.nysun.com/article/53420
Justin Raimondo : Blueprint for Dictatorship :
America is headed for a military dictatorship – and recent legislation makes this all
but inevitable.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10895
Credit card companies raising rates without notice :
The credit squeeze is on. The credit card companies are raising their rates silently;
rates go as high as 29.99% easily without any notice. The Fed is watching helplessly as
these loan sharks make the economy collapse.
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/16593.asp
Bush is her feed’
In 2004, New York magazine reported on a DC dinner party, at which Condoleezza Rice was
reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb–” and then stopping herself
abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” As the magazine explained it,
those who heard her were quite surprised, though the slip seemed “more psychologically
telling than incriminating.” In other words, no one seriously believes Bush and Rice are
romantically involved.
But the alleged “husband” gaffe nevertheless points to a relationship that’s kind of …
creepy. In fact, with this background in mind, consider Newsweek’s Marcus Mabry’s
analysis on Rice’s loyalty to the president (as excerpted from his new biography of Rice).
Rice’s friends insisted the attraction to Bush was platonic, but Brenda Hamberry-Green,
her Palo Alto hairdresser, who had spent years commiserating with Rice over how hard it
was for successful black women to find a good man, noticed a change when Rice started
working for Bush. “He fills that need,” Hamberry-Green decided. “Bush is her feed.”
Like I said, creepy.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/%e2%80%98bush-is-her-feed%e2%80%99/
Broder Was For It Before He Was Against It: A Study of IOKIYAR
On the April 30 edition of XM Radio’s The Bob Edwards Show, Washington Post columnist
David Broder asserted that it was “really doubtful” President Bush would be able “to
salvage something that would look like a victory in Iraq.” Broder made this statement
four days after he attacked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for what he called
Reid’s “ineptitude,” because of, as he wrote in his April 26 Post column, Reid’s
assertion that the Iraq war “is lost.” As Media Matters for America noted, in that
column, Broder pointed to Reid’s “war is lost” remark to compare him to embattled
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and accuse him of engaging in “inept discussion[s]
of the alternatives in Iraq” and of not being “a man who misses many opportunities to put
his foot in his mouth.”
And lest you need any further persuasion why Broder needs to be soundly ignored instead
of given a national media platform, let me share a little quote of Broder’s from 2003 in
Harper’s:
BRODER: “Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove. In the days when
he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten
quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the
historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present
site on their land.”
Broder didn’t feel obliged to share that little bit of bias when he soundly went off on
the media, saying they “owed Rove an apology” in 2006.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/broder-was-for-it-before-he-was-against-it-a-
study-of-iokiyar/
You knew this was coming
CARY, Illinois (AP) — A high school senior was arrested after writing that “it would be
funny” to dream about opening fire in a building and having sex with the dead victims,
authorities said. Another passage in the essay advised his teacher at Cary-Grove High
School: “don’t be surprised on inspiring the first CG shooting,” according to a criminal
complaint filed this week.
Allen Lee, 18, faces two disorderly conduct charges over the creative-writing
assignment, which he was given on Monday in English class at the northern Illinois
school…read on
I have a feeling there will be a lot of text messages being sent in HS and students will
be writing more of this now…Just a hunch…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/you-knew-this-was-coming/
The Extreme-Right Mega-Millionaire Mercenary
By: Nicole Belle on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 4:05 PM – PDT Liberal Lucy at DailyKos:
For one man, the War of Bush/Cheney/Haliburton Oil was his golden ticket to massive
wealth and an extraordinary level of influence and menacing power. Meet Erik Prince, born
and raised in Holland, Michigan, and one of the country’s most dangerous men.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/the-extreme-right-mega-millionaire-mercenary/
Blackwater: The Extreme-Right Mega-Millionaire Mercenary
by LiberalLucy
Sun Apr 29, 2007 at 07:53:17 AM PDT
Since the U.S.’s invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan, many American lives have changed.
So many lives lost in a fight that is viewed by most of the country and world as unjust.
So many families shattered, so many bright futures tragically cut short.
For one man, the War of Bush/Cheney/Haliburton Oil was his golden ticket to massive
wealth and an extraordinary level of influence and menacing power. Meet Erik Prince, born
and raised in Holland, Michigan, and one of the country’s most dangerous men.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/29/10301/1721
Rahm’s speech at Brookings: GOP placed party above Country
received a bunch of emails asking if I could get a copy of Rahm Emanual’s speech to the
Brookings Institute from last week, so here goes…
Greg Sargent supplies the transcript
…it’s a broad indictment of the Bush administration that argues that all-pervasive
partisanship, not incompetence, is the common thread linking all of the administration’s
manifold failings. Take a look….read on…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/rahms-speech-at-brookings-gop-placed-party-above-country/
Dispatches From Iraq: The Women’s Story
I know you know.
But these images aren’t being seen in this country, and they must be. We must see the
destruction being caused in our name. We need to see how ridiculously inane it is to
think that Iraqis would be grateful for their “liberation” or that they would want
anything but to see us leave.
It’s a 48 minute video, but well worth your time
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/dispatches-from-iraq-the-womens-story/
Bill Kristol Blames Clinton, Calls Tenet “Crybaby”
In response to a question on “FOX News Sunday” yesterday about George Tenet’s accusation
that Bush administration neocons (Cheney, Perle, Feith) were pushing hard for war with
Iraq despite Saddam having no links whatsoever to 9/11, Bill Kristol invoked Bill Clinton
and said Tenet was not only a “mediocre” DCI, but also a “crybaby
Of course, comparing Clinton’s Iraq policy to Bush’s is the height of hilarity. While
it’s certainly true that Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that supported
regime change, he did not unilaterally invade the country based on false pretense in
defiance of world opinion. Nor did he do so in a reckeless manner that exacerbated the
terrorist threat worldwide. Nice try, William the Bloody. Just take responsiblity for
your misguided war and demented worldview already. Yea right…like that will ever happen.
He’ll just continue to use his FNC and TIME platforms to lecture everyone on how stupid
they are, despite his being wrong about, well, everything.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/bill-kristol-blames-clinton-calls-tenet-crybaby/
Reagan’s NSA Chief Tells Bush Not To Veto Iraq Bill
“To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL,
that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge.
Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games…I hope the President seizes this moment for a
basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him. I will respect him
greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.”
- Lieutenant General William E. Odom
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/reagans-nsa-chief-tells-bush-not-to-veto-iraq-bill/
Immigration is all Satan’s fault
To fully appreciate the ideology of large parts of the Republican Party, one needs to
look past Capitol Hill and consider what state GOP officials are up to. Take Utah, for
example
Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party,
had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national
borders and do away with sovereignty.
In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate
American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they
won’t do.”
Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are
trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order —
and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]
Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One
speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the
influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said
illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become
Republicans….”
Wow.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/30/immigration-is-all-satan%e2%80%99s-fault/
