Bush Is Such an Asshole…
“In the session at the White House, when President Bush reported on progress of the war, governors pressed him to provide more money so they could guarantee health insurance for children. In response, administration officials said states should make better use of the money they already had. . . .
“In his budget this month, Mr. Bush said he wanted to return the program to its ‘original objective’ of covering children with family incomes less than twice the poverty level. . . .
“Having successfully expanded the health insurance programs in their states, some governors now suggest that the Bush administration is pulling the safety net out from under many children.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, a Republican, said afterward, “Health care for children ought to be a priority, irrespective of anyone’s views on the war.”
Georgia will exhaust its allotment of federal money for the Children’s Health Insurance Program within three months, Mr. Perdue said. Thirteen other states expect to run out by September, according to data released here at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
Of course he’s gotta spend an awful lot of money to kill children in Iraq, so ya gots to cut somewhere…
Yo! Nancy…Harry…
Results of the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll
* 67 disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq.
* 67 percent oppose sending additional troops to Iraq.
* 66 percent support reducing U.S. military and financial support for the Iraqi government if the Iraqis fail to make progress toward national unity and restoring civil order.
* 64 don’t think the war with Iraq was worth fighting.
* 63 percent feel they cannot trust the Bush administration to honestly and accurately report intelligence about possible threats from other countries.
* 58 percent want Congress to limit the number of troops available for duty.
* 56 percent feel the U.S. should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there.
Firmly grasp your right earlobe with the thumb and forefinger of your right hand. Now, firmly grasp your left earlobe with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. Now Pull Your Head Out of Your Ass!!
Do Not Pass Go…
William Heaton, former chief of staff to then-Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, according to court documents filed yesterday.
Heaton’s plea agreement comes just days before the former lawmaker will report to federal prison in West Virginia for corruption charges. Ney is scheduled to enter prison March 1.
According to the plea agreement, Heaton could receive up to five years in jail and a fine of $250,000.
Heaton has become the second member of Ney’s staff to be ensnared in the scandal involving imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who bribed Ney and his staff with lavish trips and gifts in return for official favors. Heaton’s predecessor, Neil Volz, was sentenced last year for conspiracy charges.
Heaton accepted numerous favors from Abramoff and other members of his lobbying firm, including a now-infamous all-expense-paid golf trip to Scotland. Heaton was also was one of several recipients of a number of other trips abroad, concert and sporting-event tickets, meals and gambling chips, all taken with full knowledge the gifts were in exchange for official favors from Ney.
During one of those trips, Heaton and another staffer helped Ney conceal $5,000 brought into the country through customs and stored the money in a safe inside Ney’s congressional office. Court documents said Heaton “open[ed] the safe as requested so that Ney could make repeated withdrawals.”
The wheels of justice grind slow but exceedingly small…
I suppose…sigh…
02.24.07
Alberto “Toad” Gonzales Strikes Again…
An eighth U.S. attorney announced her resignation yesterday, the latest in a wave of forced departures of federal prosecutors who have clashed with the Justice Department over the death penalty and other issues.
Margaret Chiara, the 63-year-old U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., told her staff that she was leaving her post after more than five years, officials said. Sources familiar with the case confirmed that she was among a larger group of prosecutors who were first asked to resign Dec. 7.
Chiara declined to comment on her departure, which is effective March 16. She will be replaced on an interim basis by Russell C. Stoddard, who recently joined the Grand Rapids office, officials said.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, the chief judge in Michigan’s Western District, said in an interview yesterday that Chiara has an excellent reputation in Grand Rapids.
“This is a very classy, distinguished, highly regarded public servant,” said Bell, who was appointed to the bench during the Reagan administration. “She’s one of the best United States attorneys we’ve had in this district, and all of my colleagues agree. . . . To have her suddenly disappear without warning catches us all flat-footed.”
Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told senators earlier this month that all but one of the prosecutors were fired for “performance-related” reasons.
After John Ashcroft I figured anyone would be an improvement. My sincerest apologies to Mr. Ashcroft…
~SSquirrel
Blog Like An Egyptian…
An Alexandria court has convicted an Egyptian blogger for insulting both Islam and the Egyptian president, sentencing him to four years in jail over his writings on the internet.
Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for his internet writings, was sentenced to four years in jail.
During the trial, an Egyptian imam allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents in Italy and taken to Egypt, showed up to speak to the media, breaking his release conditions.
Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student, has been in custody since November over eight articles he had written under the name “Kareem Amer” on his blog since 2004.
Rights groups and opposition bloggers have watched Suleiman’s case closely, and worried the conviction could set a legal precedent limiting internet freedom in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country.
A blogger attending the trial who goes by the name “Sandmonkey” said: “It’s a dangerous precedent because it will impact the only free space available now, which is the internet. The charges were undefined and vague.”
Human Rights Watch condemned the trial, saying that the charges Suleiman was convicted for “contradict guarantees of free expression under international law”.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Egyptian government should abide by its commitments to uphold free expression and release Suleiman without delay.”
One of his articles said that al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni Muslim learning, was promoting extreme ideas. Another article, headlined “The Naked Truth of Islam as I Saw it”, accused Muslims of savagery during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria in 2005.
Suleiman has also denounced Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president, likening him to the dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt.
Once again the people on our side, Egypt, a “democracy” that likes to torture people (more than Bush does), turn out to be just as bad as the countries Bush feels he must invade. what ‘up wid dat?
02.21.07
What He Said…
“Hating George W. Bush sometimes feels like a full-time job. I get up in the morning, open the paper, and it’s Bush World. His ruinous handiwork is all over the place, whether it’s Putin threatening to start a new Cold War, another Neanderthal anti-Enlightenment skirmish in the U.S. or some fresh hell in Baghdad. I turn on the TV and there he is, uttering reality-averse platitudes while mangling the English language in his best frat-boy twang. And then there’s the Internet, where my bookmarked band of rhetorical assassins stir facts and commentary about his wretched tenure into a damning cocktail that I happily imbibe.
…”Those of us who will be celebrating will be giving thanks for the end of a president who launched a totally unnecessary and disastrous war, declared a radical new doctrine of limitless presidential power, threw gasoline on what was once a small jihadi fire, severely weakened the economy, approved of torture and domestic spying, let bin Laden get away, accelerated the destruction of the environment, bashed science, engaged in vicious illegal vendattas against his opponents, winked at gay-bashing, handed out tax breaks to billionaires, lied constantly, made the U.S. hated around the world, and did it all while talking loudly in public on his personal hotline to Jesus. And that’s just the short list. ”
Bush=Asshole, ’nuff said… 
Fundamentally Corrupt…
I think what we’re talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth – a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself — is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.
The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up Watergate, with the Nixon administration’s illegal activities. Here, in this presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies. …
This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth. We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom.
That is an astonishing fact. That’s what this story is about: the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth. It happened with [Sen.] John McCain in South Carolina. It happened with [Sen.] John Kerry. It’s happened with [Sen.] Max Cleland in Georgia. It’s happened with many other people. That’s the real story, and that’s the story that [the press] should have been writing. …
It’s very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, “This is a presidency of great dishonesty,” that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president’s statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what [counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know — it’s demonstrable.
~CARL BERNSTEIN
Honor and integrity to the Oval Office, hilarious!
02.13.07
More Bill Donahue Hate Speech…
William A. Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has made 23 guest appearances on TV news programs in 2004. Donohue uses his appearances primarily to attack gays and progressives. He has referred to the “gay death style,” remarked, “God forbid we’d run out of little gay kids,” claimed that Senator John Kerry “never found an abortion he couldn’t justify,” and claimed that “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular … Hollywood likes anal sex.”
Now they’re saying it’s fascistic queer-bashing. That kind of language would ordinarily get somebody taken away in a straitjacket and — put you in the asylum. I don’t know what about — the queer-bashing is all about. I’m pretty good about picking out who queers are and I didn’t see any in the movie. I’m usually pretty good at that. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 3/12/04]
This same guy [Dean Hamer] came up with this idea of the gay gene. I remember when that conversation was going on. Gays were all of a sudden worrying if people would start aborting kids when they found out the DNA suggested the kid might be gay or God forbid, we’d run out of little gay kids, so all of a sudden, they became pro-life. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/14/04]
“As for the alleged abuse, it’s time to ask some tough questions. First, there is a huge difference between being groped and being raped, so which was it Mr. Foley? Second, why didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?”
Donahue declared, “I think that there’s something in the Democratic Party. There’s an absolute animus, a hostility to people who hold religion seriously. Either that or they were delirious, in which case, you have got to get the straitjackets. Put them in the asylum.”
Donahue doesn’t represent Catholics, he represents the vilest creatures of the Republican party, he panders to hatred and bigotry, and anyone who has him as a guest on their show endorses that hatred and encourages behavior that no true Christian would ever tolerate in their home.
Most Corrupt Administration Ever…
Federal prosecutors in San Diego are expected today to announce indictments in a case that involves the former No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, officials tell ABC News.
Foggo, who served as the CIA’s executive director, was accused last year by fellow CIA employees of steering contracts for the CIA station in Iraq to longtime friend Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor whose activities also led to the indictment of former Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham.
Officials said today’s expected indictments will also include Wilkes.
Foggo was promoted from a field logistics position to the powerful No. 3 position by Porter Goss when Goss took over the CIA. Goss resigned shortly after ABC News reported that Foggo was under criminal investigation, although officials say none of the allegations involve Goss.
At the time, officials close to Goss dismissed the investigation of Foggo “as existing only in the blogosphere” and tried to discourage ABC News from reporting the story.
As usual so-called journalists are protecting people involved in the cover-up of a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels of our government…what else isn’t new…”we must protect our sources mealtickets…
Honesty? From the Pentagon? Holy S**T!
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that he has no information indicating Iran’s government is directing the supply of lethal weapons to Shiite insurgent groups in Iraq.
“We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran,” Pace told Voice of America during a visit to Australia. “What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se, knows about this.”
“It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved,” he continued, “but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”
This will not be tolerated! What about the children? It must be a trick!
President? Cowards Like Edwards Need Not Apply…
Amanda Marcotte, whose writings were assailed as anti-Catholic, wrote yesterday on her blog that the Edwards camp had accepted her resignation. She blamed her most vocal critic, Bill Donohoe, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, writing that he “and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics,” which Marcotte described as being “anti-theocracy.”
Marcotte charged that Donohoe had been running a “scorched earth campaign” against her and that he “made no bones about the fact that his intent is to ’silence’ me. . . . It was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. . . . Bill Donohue doesn’t speak for Catholics, he speaks for the right wing noise machine.”
If Edwards can’t stand up and attack people like Bill Donohue and Michelle Malkin, two of the most repulsive human being in the service of the right wing hate machine, he is doomed anyway. If he hasn’t learned this lesson, he just isn’t smart enough, or brave enough to stand up to the campaign advisors who want to pick their battles and end up losing the war (and Edward’s ethics).
This was a perfect chance to attack the shallowness and stupidity of Cable News political coverage. He should make them defend even having people like Donohue on TV. It would be easy to put together a ten minute tape to show how truly disgusting these people really are and contrast it with a selection of the wonderful things Amanda has written and causes she has fought for.
The ” Media” won’t educate themselves, there’s no money in it, they must confronted, on air, and held up to ridicule for their ignorance and hypocrisy. This takes research, preparation and a little eloquence, something Edwards seems to sorely lack.
Time to cross Edwards off, we’ve already got a coward in the Oval Office, the last thing we need is another one…
02.10.07
How Stupid Do We Look???
Iraqi commanders are urging the Americans to go after Sunni targets as the first focus of the military push to secure Baghdad, displaying a sectarian tilt that is delaying full implementation of the plan to drive gunmen from the streets, U.S. officers say.
American officers, interviewed at the sprawling Camp Victory base at the western edge of the capital, also acknowledge they are finding little in their initial searches of Baghdad neighborhoods _ suggesting either they received faulty intelligence or that the massive publicity that preceded the operation gave militants time to slip away.
Some U.S. officials suspect the Shiites are more interested in solidifying their grip on Baghdad after Shiite militias forced many Sunnis from the city.
This week, a joint U.S.-Iraqi force swept through Shaab, a largely Shiite neighborhood in northeast Baghdad where militiamen clashed with American soldiers last year.
The search was the largest so far since the new operation began. Most Iraqis welcomed soldiers into their homes with offers of tea.
But the troops managed to capture only 16 suspects and seize three Kalashnikov rifles in a neighborhood that intelligence said was a hotbed of bomb-makers.
“I don’t know if it’s bad information, bad intelligence, of if they knew we were coming and left,” said Capt. Isaac Torres of the Army’s 3rd Brigade Stryker Combat Team. “They were all dry holes.”
Really, really, really stupid…
Surge Forest, Surge!!!
