New Year's Resolutions for Bush [Archive] - HungAngels

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chefmike

12-27-2005, 07:18 AM

New Year's Resolutions for our beloved chimp-in-chief

I think we can have some fun with this...

Save face and resign before you are impeached

Apologize for the senseless deaths that you have caused in Iraq

Apologize for appointing an unqualified crony as head of FEMA

Resolve to tell the truth at least once in a while

Fire Rumsfield

Attend a funeral for a soldier that you have sent to their death

Tell daddy that you realize that you're in over your head, and ask him to buy you another baseball team, or another oil field instead

Have Condaleeza Rice blow you in the oval office

Have your wife blow Condaleeza Rice in the oval office

Make a decision without asking Karl Rove first

Stop drinking (again)

chefmike

12-27-2005, 07:56 AM

and...

Find something other than the Fourth Amendment to wipe your ass with

Restore the budget surplus that you so recklessly squandered. Maybe you can get a personal loan from your Saudi or Halliburton masters.

blckhaze

12-27-2005, 09:19 AM

got one

spend one week a New Orleans

chefmike

12-27-2005, 07:44 PM

bunzy

12-27-2005, 07:51 PM

Realize that God doesn't speak to you, perhaps it's the ghost of impeached, disgraced Richard ("tricky dick") Nixon having a little fun

Thank the bible-bangers for voting for you because of the gay marriage hysteria, despite the fact that Dickhead Cheney has a gay daughter
Eventually you said something that makes sense cooker;great post,I like the first one too.

chefmike

12-27-2005, 08:17 PM

chefmike

12-27-2005, 09:11 PM

Find the Wizard of Oz and ask him for a brain, because you're going to need one of your own when Karl Rove goes to jail

chefmike

12-27-2005, 09:18 PM

Learn the difference between democracy and theocracy

Kramer

12-27-2005, 09:25 PM

How about:

Ignore crybaby liberals, that cant come to the realization that their ways are dead! 8)

chefmike

12-27-2005, 11:21 PM

How about:

Ignore crybaby liberals, that cant come to the realization that their ways are dead! 8)

Brilliant, Von Kramer! Don't forget to remind monkey boy to continue to tell the nation that "they" hate us for our freedom...

seaman

12-27-2005, 11:50 PM

Force the Democrats to articulate a policy...any policy...on any topic.

brickcitybrother

12-28-2005, 12:12 AM

Force the Democrats to articulate a policy...any policy...on any topic.

LOL ...

How about force the Democrats to actually atriculate a meaningful response to Republican lead initiatives?

yourdaddy

12-28-2005, 01:30 AM

Hardly anyone wants to come out and play with mikey. I think he needs to get laid REAL bad.

chefmike

12-28-2005, 01:32 AM

2005 Media Follies!

By Geov Parrish, AlterNet. Posted December 27, 2005.

The 10th annual list of the year's most overhyped and underreported stories.

As one would expect in a year when one of the underreported stories was our government's covert propaganda campaigns, there's plenty to unravel: stories that should never have been stories, stories whose reporting largely missed the point, and stories barely told at all in mainstream US media.

The good news is that, more than ever, mainstream media is no longer the last word in journalism. Foreign media, now universally available in English on the Internet, often tells a completely different (and usually more accurate) story than what we see, read, and hear here. So-called alternative media--which has been way ahead of the mainstream media on any number of issues--has repeatedly shown its relevance, to the point where the Internet is rapidly becoming the preferred news source for many Americans.

But it's the mainstream that still has the largest audiences, and so it is the stories that do and don't appear there that require our attention. Here's our list, which is surely incomplete.

The Year's Most Overhyped Stories:

The fate of Terri Schiavo. Somehow, the fate of a woman who hadn't done much more than twitch in nearly two decades, and who had clearly stated that she never wanted to be kept alive in such conditions, became a crude political football for pandering Presidents and members of Congress. They should be ashamed--as should the media outlets that milked this non-story for weeks.

Intelligent Design [sic].

The "War on Christmas." What do all three of these items have in common? They were all introduced and hammered into self-serving "controversies" by the right-wing echo chamber at times when they really wanted to make sure the public wasn't paying attention to congressional or White House scandals, a disastrous war, or the death of a major American city.

Everything's Going Splendidly in Iraq. From the myth early in the year that Bush's vision for democracy was spreading like wildfire throughout the Middle East, to the notion that Iraqi troops were trained en masse and ready to fight, to entirely mythical "progress" in Iraq's economy and reconstruction, to the prediction, dutifully trotted out during three separate elections, that each such election marked a major turning point and a crippling blow for the insurgency, to an insurgency in its "death throes," it was hard to take seriously anything the White House said about Iraq. Yet, remarkably, large segments of US media did just that.

Michael Jackson's Trial.

Martha Stewart's Comeback.

Julia Roberts' Baby. OK, OK, any of the beautiful people.

Howard Dean. Now the Democratic National Committee head, Howard still shoots off his mouth (often accurately), and Republicans still get themselves all in a knot whenever he does. Get over it. He's a glorified party fundraiser now, not a public official. What he says about public policy does not matter.

Pat Robertson. He wants Hugo Chavez dead. He threatens Dover, Pennsylvania on behalf of a God who apparently can't speak for Himself. He thinks New Orleans' suffering is punishment for not meeting his warped idea of morality. WHO. CARES. The publicity just encourages him.

The Minutemen. A few hundred yahoos on the Mexican border, and a few dozen on the Canadian border, proves only that there are still unemployed racist idiots living in Orange County and its spiritual equivalents.

Plus sports, 14-Day-Accu--Pinpoint-Doppler-Radar-Insta-Weather, the usual.

The Underreported Stories:

George Bush is already a lame-duck president. There's usually a year or two grace period after the president is elected for the second time, when he can point to his second election victory as vindication for his policies and use it to get some important legislation passed. Bush has squandered his election victory. All the major initiatives he wanted to pass in Congress this year, from the privatization of Social Security to the permanent renewal of the USA Patriot Act provisions, have gone down in flames, even with a solid Republican majority in both houses. The most basic budget bills have failed to pass because Bush couldn't get a consensus within his own party. Meanwhile, members of his administration are leaking stories of Bush administration misdeeds every week. Three more years of this and the Republican Party may never recover.

The United States is becoming a torture regime. It is no longer a secret that the US tortures prisoners. But numerous aspects of this abomination remain undercovered. The year was full of shocking revelations about how far the Bush administration has taken us into totalitarian atrocities: the NSA listening to and reading US citizens' foreign telephone calls and email without warrants; the Pentagon spying on peace groups; the rendition of prisoners to secret CIA detention centers in Eastern Europe; the testimony of former prisoners at Guantanamo and victims of rendition that they were brutally abused while in prison; more evidence that the US maintains secret detention centers around the world; the Guantanamo Bay hunger strikers; dozens of deaths of "war on terror" prisoners in US custody; the Graham Amendment, which voids habeas corpus for suspects in the "war on terror"and renders moot a Supreme Court challenge to Bush's military tribunal system; the Army's newly expanded list of permissible interrogation techniques; the evidence that the decision to employ torture began at the highest levels of the White House--the list goes on and on.

Iraq is spinning out of control. Ethnic and sectarian hostilities have turned into open street battles between Shiite religious factions, battles between factions of the Sunni insurgency, mass killings of Sunnis by Shiite death squads, secret arrests, government-sanctioned torture of prisoners, and mass migrations of people between neighborhoods, cities, and provinces--an outright Balkanization of Iraq. Iraq's oil fields are rapidly deteriorating from a combination of sabotage and neglect. Oil exports are down drastically, leaving the Iraqi government without the money to pay salaries to teachers, doctors, police, and other civil servants. Meanwhile, corruption is rampant at high levels in the Iraqi government, while smaller, local governments run on extortion and bribery (a matter of basic survival when they're not getting paid a regular salary). And security analysts note that the insurgency is as healthy as ever and becoming more efficient, and more deadly, in its attacks.

Say, where is Osama bin Laden, anyway?

The Downing Street Memos. Ignored for weeks by US media until the blogosphere buzz became simply too loud, these early revelations of "fixing the intelligence around the policy" have now gone down the memory hole again. But their content has been completely corroborated by subsequent revelations.

Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera headquarters in Qatar. This British report was squelched by the Official Secrets Act, but not before it caused a sensation around the world due to its detailed plausibility--except in the US, where corporate media dismissed the allegation out of hand.

The economy is balanced on a knife-edge. The Bush administration would like you to forget that the US has a record trade deficit, a record budget deficit, and that the housing market--the one thing that's kept the US economy afloat for the past three years--is beginning to cool a little too quickly for comfort. Republican attempts to balance the budget on the backs of poor people while trying to make Bush's tax cuts permanent have garnered little attention from the press. And so has the fact that China and Japan own most of our public debt. While Bush's approval ratings rise and fall with the price of oil, a very cold winter is hitting Americans in the pocketbooks, and the press can only talk about the economy "steaming full-speed ahead." Uh huh.

The Bush administration's continued attacks on the environment. From criminal attempts to stop the implementation of the Kyoto global warming treaty and a possible successor to the privatization of public lands to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the US press hasn't cared much about Bush's shocking attempts to pillage the environment the same way his administration has pillaged the public treasury.

Republican corruption scandals. Some four dozen Congressmen, mostly Republican, have been confirmed as taking money from Jack Abramoff or his clients at about the same time they took legislative action favorable to Abramoff or his clients. Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff are just the tip of the iceberg, but our compliant press has trouble seeing even that much. Now the Supreme Court is reviewing the Texas redistricting scheme that helped the Republicans win a bigger majority in the House--a scheme that was undertaken by the Republicans after their own Justice Department had ruled it unconstitutional. This should be a much bigger scandal than it currently is.

Failures of Homeland Security: Hurricane Katrina, racism, and the gutting of FEMA. This was a huge story that, while briefly covered extensively by the US press, disappeared from the mix far too quickly and without enough analysis. And both the corruption of rebuilding contacts and the complete subsequent abandonment of New Orleans by the feds have received virtually no attention.

Likewise, the devastating earthquake in Kashmir received very little coverage. Kashmiris, of course, are used to the West not caring much about them. But we shouldn't prove them right.

Our government's global covert propaganda campaign. Armstrong Williams and the Lincoln Group in Iraq were just the start. All over the world, among countries friend and foe, the Pentagon is running an unprecedented, massive propaganda and disinformation campaign, including the planting of stories designed to find their way back into US media. The planted stories are never identified as being written by the US government. Rumsfeld said after 9/11 that he would continue to lie, and he was telling the truth.

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and its fallout on Israeli and Palestinian politics is more important to Middle Eastern peace than anything happening in the War on Terror, yet the US press has difficulty covering Israeli and Palestinian politics beyond the latest suicide bombing. Likewise, the Palestinian elections, with the split in the Fatah Party and electoral gains by Hamas, have received almost no coverage here, nor has Ariel Sharon's split from Likud (the party he co-founded). Major shifts are happening in a very important part of the world, and Americans are oblivious. And the passive White House enabling of whatever Sharon wants to do has also received no attention.

The right-wing radicalism of Samuel Alito is no secret; it's just been deeply ignored by a too cautious press. Likewise, John Roberts' portrayal as a moderate was simply mind-boggling.

The biggest labor news in decades, the AFL-CIO split and the formation of the new Change To Win Coalition, passed with hardly a whimper in the US press. It's time to start unionizing a few more media outlets.

A sweet victory for small communities--POCLAD passing legislation in Pennsylvania to stop the construction of megachain stores in local communities--was so far off the radar that you almost had to know someone working on the campaign to have heard about it. That's shocking. Fortunately, with the Internet, it's easier than ever to find out what inspired activists across the country, and the world, are doing.

Geov Parrish is a Seattle-based columnist and reporter for Seattle Weekly, In These Times and Eat the State! He writes the Straight Shot column for WorkingForChange.

yourdaddy

12-28-2005, 01:45 AM

chefmike

12-28-2005, 02:01 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AP: Frist AIDS Charity Paid Consultants By JONATHAN M. KATZ and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers
Sun Dec 18, 7:24 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.

The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.

Frist's lawyer, Alex Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law does not require their public disclosure. Frist's office provided a list of 96 donors who were supportive of the charity, but did not say how much each contributed.

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans — Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.

The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel's wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist's Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich.

Kolarich's name recently surfaced in an e-mail involving Frist's controversial sale of stock in his family founded health care company. That transaction is now under federal investigation.

Jill Holtzman Vogel, who is raising money for a run for the state Senate in Virginia in 2007, has received thousands in contributions this year from Catignani & Bond and from her husband, among numerous other sources, according to data released by the Virginia Public Access Project.

Alex Vogel said Frist picked people to work on his charity whom he trusted and knew, such as Vogel's wife, and was proud that overhead costs amounted to less than $1 of every $5 raised. "It's leaner than the average charity," Vogel said.

Frist is listed as the charity's president and his wife was listed as secretary. Neither was compensated.

Political experts said both the size of charity's big donations and its consulting fees raise questions about whether the tax-exempt group benefited Frist's political ambitions.

"One of the things people who are running for president try to do is keep their fundraising staff and political people close at hand. And one of the ways you can do that is by putting them in some sort of organization you run," said Larry Noble, the government's former chief election lawyer who now runs the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that studies fundraising.

Kent Cooper, the Federal Election Commission's former public disclosure chief, said the big donors' motives are also suspect.

"These tax deductible gifts were earmarked through Senator Frist," Cooper said. "They were raised in the political arena at the 2004 Republican Convention and the natural question is were they given to the Senate majority leader to gain favor or were they given for true charitable purposes?"

Cooper said the consulting fees were "excessively high" and the fact that they were "paid to primarily political consultants also raises questions about the long-range strategic benefits for the 2008 presidential race."

A charity could lose its tax-exempt status if it is found to be involved with political activity, said Marcus S. Owens, a former director of the Internal Revenue Service's Exempt Organizations Division.

"If the IRS were to conduct an examination, what they would look for would be the relationship between the organization and any incumbent politician or candidate," Owens said. "They'd be particularly interested in transactions of money or assistance of any kind being provided."

Frist formed the charity in 2003. It drew attention in August 2004 when it held a benefit concert in New York during the Republican National Convention at which President Bush was nominated for re-election.

The group's 2004 tax return was due April 15, 2005, but it filed for two extensions and only reported its activity to the IRS last month.

The tax forms show at least 11 of the charity's 18 biggest donors gave $97,950 each, that one gave $100,000 and that the rest gave more than $245,000 each.

Vogel said Catignani was paid the fees because he helped arrange the New York concert that featured country stars Brooks & Dunn, handling both the event arrangements and fundraising.

The tax forms show Catignani's fundraising firm, Catignani & Bond, was paid a total of $276,125 and his event-planning arm, Consulting Services Group, was paid $180,000.

The amount Catignani was paid by Frist's charity in 2004 is roughly the same as what his firms received over the past three years for work for Frist's political action committee, Volunteer PAC. The firm collected $523,666 in fees from the PAC since 2003, FEC records show.

World of Hope's beneficiaries include evangelical Christian groups with Republican connections.

Cortes, Esperanza USA's president, is an influential evangelical leader who hosted Bush at this year's National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast.

Frist has worked and traveled extensively with Samaritan's Purse in Africa as well as during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Franklin Graham is the son of the Rev. Billy Graham.

Weeks before Frist's convention fundraiser, the senate leader traveled to Chad, Sudan and Kenya on a trip underwritten by Samaritan's Purse, Senate records show.

Samaritan's Purse spokesman Jeremy Blume said the $490,000 that World of Hope donated to Samaritan's Purse in 2004 was spent on AIDS programs in sub-Saharan Africa.

The recipients of the charity's money were Africare, Samaritan's Purse, Esperanza USA, Nashville's Meharry Medical College, Taso-Uganda and Save the Children.

Realgirls4me

12-28-2005, 02:04 AM

yourdaddy

12-28-2005, 02:09 AM

Not really sure what a black and white existence is. Why don't you red staters come off your wallets. I gave over 1,000.00$ this year to charity. How 'bout you, real girl?

chefmike

12-28-2005, 02:17 AM

Little mikey must be weawwy, weawwy, wonesome. 8 out of 14 posts are his. Poor baby. Where are all you lib friends? Perhaps they read about another mass grave in Baghdad, that brings to 300,000 people that his hero Sadaam killed. Perhaps they read how the red states are in inverse proportion when it comes to donating and giving. Mass. and Con. are 49th and 50th in donations compared to their wealth. Give it up. You libs don't practice what you preach.

Here's one for you, shit-for-brains: How many of those unearth in Iraq were buried while Reagan and Bush41 were sponsoring Hussein and overlooking his tyranny ? Tell us how many were gassed while a U.S. Senate delegation -- loaded with Republicans mind you -- visited Hussein to deflect world criticism of such a horrific event ? We were either complicit in those deaths or we weren't. Which one was it, "braintrust" ?! With that in mind, tell us how you Republicans practice what you preach ? That is, that your policies are and have been consistent with regard to its treatment of tyrants.

By the way, during the holidays almost all websites and blogs drop in activity. It also can be that most agree with what Mike has to say, therefore not needing to embellish what most consider or have found to be the truth.

Go back to your pathetic black and white existence, will you ?!

Happy Progressive New Year , Realgirls4me!

More repug ideas on "charity"...

In one of his first acts as President of the United States, George W. Bush has dedicated this entire week to the creation and promotion of programs designed to donate public money to private religious organizations (or as he prefers to call them "faith-based initiatives"). With the creation of an official federal office of "faith-based action", Bush intends to replace the public social safety net in place since the days of the Depression with governmental funding of churches and other religious organizations that link charity to their missionary work.

As Bush promised during his campaign, "In every instance when my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith based institutions." What's so wrong with Bush's plans to fund religious charities instead of governmental social services?

Churches and other religious organizations are already eligible to receive governmental funding for their charitable activities, so long as they do not use those funds to support their religious activities. A church is perfectly able to run a charity with government funding, provided that the government's money is kept in a separate account and is used only for the purposes of charity. This present restriction also means government-funded charities are not allowed to use those charities to promote their religious ideas. The upshot is that the changes supported by Bush and his Republican party do nothing but remove these restrictions. With the status quo, there is no discrimination against religious charities, just a system of regulations designed to ensure that government-funded charities cannot use public funds to promote their religious beliefs. In effect, Bush's "faith-based action" makes it more difficult for the needy to get help by allowing religious charities to force the people they serve to listen to sermons or in other ways participate in their particular religious rituals. The White House openly admits that religious coercion of the poor is part of their plan. Recently, Stephen Goldsmith, White House adviser to President Bush and spokesman for the President on the issue of faith-based charities stated, "If, however, you have a choice of a faith-based organization and you, the individual, choose to go there and you have to pray before your lunch meal, you should be required to pray." Under the Republican plans, a Hindu charity could require Christians to pray to the goddess Kali in order to get assistance, and get governmental funding to do it!

Bush's plans to deregulate governmental funding of religious charities would also allow charities to engage in religiously discriminatory practices Ý all with the help of your tax money! If Jews applied for a job in a Catholic charity, those Jews could be denied jobs simply because they are Jewish and not Catholic! Republican legislation already introduced in Congress but defeated under the Clinton administration would allow such federally-supported violation of civil rights, and even support it. What's really ironic is that President Bush has also moved to deny government funding to international relief agencies that discuss abortion as an option as a part of their family planning programs. So, it seems that Bush's administration intends to fund only certain kinds of religious charities: those with a conservative, anti-abortion stance.

Bush's plans show the hypocrisy of his party's antipathy to governmental social services. In the mid-1990s, Bush and his GOP buddies were busy demanding that the government dismantle welfare programs for the poor. They argued that government charity was demeaning and socially destructive, responsible for everything from premarital sex to violent crime and even poverty itself (talk about circular reasoning!) Now, the Republicans argue that government-funded charity is necessary and beneficial. The only difference is that they want churches instead of a governmental agency to be in charge of the welfare money. What's the difference? Bush and his Republicans say that "government bureaucracy" is the problem, but are church bureaucracies any better? Has he forgotten about the infamous church bureaucracy of Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker, which used church funds to buy extravagances such as golden dog houses and private sex-vacations with the church secretary? What about the Catholic church bureaucracy which has struggled to protect priests who sexually abuse young boys? It seems that every week another church leader is indicted for embezzlement or for fraud of one sort or another. Dropping public money into the hands of such charlatans is not the solution to our country's problems. At least government bureaucracy is under the control of democratically elected officials. Church charities are operated by theocrats who are completely unaccountable to the electorate.

If the federal government starts financially supporting religious evangelism of church charities, taxpayers will be forced to give their money to religions that they disagree with. Muslims will be forced to help fund Orthodox Jewish groups. Christians will be forced to fork over their tax money to be given to Wiccan charities. African-Americans will be forced to fund the Southern Baptist Convention, an organization so racist that it only admitted that slavery was wrong in the 1990s. Southern Baptists in turn will have no choice but to see their hard-earned tax money go to churches that perform homosexual weddings. Atheists will be forced to support a wide range of religious groups that denounce atheism on a weekly basis. No one's freedoms will be respected when Bush's agenda rips the separation of Church and State to shreds.

President Bush's "faith-based agenda" is in open and knowing defiance of the American Constitution's First Amendment, which provides the foundation for almost all of the freedoms that Americans enjoy. Though this flagrant disregard for the rights of citizens he has sworn to protect, he engages in an attack on the integrity of our democracy much more serious than the offense for which his predecessor was impeached: getting a blow job and not telling the whole country about it.

Realgirls4me

12-28-2005, 02:24 AM

Not really sure what a black and white existence is. Why don't you red staters come off your wallets. I gave over 1,000.00$ this year to charity. How 'bout you, real girl?

Red stater ? Oh, sure you know about a black and white existence, shit-for-brains (from now on known simply as SFB). It's the world you live in devoid of the real gray tapestry one most rational, critical, educated thinking adults exist in. It's the world that talks about mass graves one moment, but then conveniently shuts down once it's revealed that his almighty red, white, and blue looked the other way while atrocities happened. That world. Ring a bell ?

Is that your saving grace ? What you gave to charity ? I give to charity, and sometimes when I don't have it. What does that prove ? What would work even better would be for dubya and his cronies to stop the tax breaks going primarily to the wealthy and provide those breaks for people who can really use the money. How come your party isn't very good about charity to the poor as you are trying to prove you are ?

chefmike

12-28-2005, 02:29 AM

Celebrations for Children Inc.
From SourceWatch
Celebrations for Children Inc. (CfC) is "an incorporated entity which has applied for or been granted charitable status under section 501c3 of the Internal Revenue Code." [1] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

"CfC is managed by Danielle DeLay Ferro, Rep. Tom DeLay's daughter, by Craig Richardson, a fundraiser for Rep. DeLay's campaign committee, and by Rob Jennings, a Republican political operative." [2] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to the December 4, 2003, complaint (http://sitepilot.firmseek.com/client/clc/www/attachment.html/DeLay+Compliant.pdf?id=966) filed against Celebrations for Children Inc. with the Internal Revenue Service by Common Cause, the organization is "a newly incorporated entity recently formed under the auspices, and by associates, of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the majority leader of the House of Representatives, who is closely associated with the organization. CfC is purportedly organized for the purpose of raising funds to make donations to other charitable groups that provide services on behalf of disadvantaged children." [3] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

The complaint continues to say that "Published reports indicate, however, that CfC is instead being used as a vehicle to fund Rep. DeLay's political operations and to provide donor maintenance services for activities inextricably linked to the Republican National Convention to be held this summer in New York City. ... In 2000, Rep. DeLay used a soft money political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, or ARMPAC, to fund similar activities at the Republican Convention held that year in Philadelphia." [4] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

"This time," according to the complaint, "CfC is being used by Rep. DeLay as the vehicle to once again provide convention-related perks and amenities to donors and Members of Congress for the 2004 Republican Convention. CfC is providing elaborate convention-related benefits to its donors, and is offering "package" deals, with the benefits scaled to the size of the contributions, just as ARMPAC did for the 2000 convention. A fundraising brochure issued by CfC details the packages. The brochure is entitled 'Donor Packages for the 2004 Republican National Convention,' leaving no question about the tie between CfC and its convention-related activities. Indeed, the brochure states that CfC's 'Marquee event for 2004' will be 'events at the Republican National Convention in New York City.' The 'net' proceeds, according to the brochure, 'will be disbursed to charities dedicated to abused and neglected children,' but press reports have stated that the donations made to CfC will be used to defray the costs of the convention-related events: '[A]ides to Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader from Texas, acknowledged that part of the money [donated to CfC] would go to pay for late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush's speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises.' The 'donor packages' range from a contribution of $10,000 (the so-called 'Greenwich Village' package) to $500,000 (the 'Upper East Side'). The benefits include a 'luxury suite for Members, Senators, Executive Branch and CfC Sponsors' to watch President Bush's speech to the convention, 'private dinners' with Rep. DeLay, a 'Members reception' during the President's speech, tickets to a golf tournament, tickets to Broadway shows and 'a private yacht cruise with TD [Tom DeLay].'" [5] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

Note: Copy of CfC fundraising brochure (http://sitepilot.firmseek.com/client/clc/www/attachment.html/Celebrations+for+Children+Inc.pdf?id=967) is also available for viewing at Democracy 21 web site (http://www.democracy21.org/).
Common Cause's position is that "it is clear that [CfC]]'s application for charitable status under section 501(c)(3) should be denied, or if already granted, revoked." [6] (http://www.commoncause.org/publications/120503_irs.pdf)

[edit]Work Product?
November 15, 2003: "Mr. DeLay's charity, Celebrations for Children Inc., was set up in September and has no track record of work. Mr. DeLay is not a formal official of the charity, but its managers are Mr. DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro; Craig Richardson, a longtime adviser; and Rob Jennings, a Republican fund-raiser. Mr. Richardson said the managers would be paid by the new charity. [7] (http://www.sugarconspiracy.com/2003_11_09_archive.html)

"Mr. Richardson said the goal was to give 75 percent of the money it raised to children's charities, including some in the New York area. He said the charity also planned to hold other events at the Super Bowl. [8] (http://www.sugarconspiracy.com/2003_11_09_archive.html)

"But because the money collected will go into a nonprofit organization, donors get a tax break. And Mr. DeLay will never have to account publicly for who contributed, which campaign finance experts say shields those who may be trying to win favor with one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington." [9] (http://www.sugarconspiracy.com/2003_11_09_archive.html)

[edit]SourceWatch Resources
Bush-Cheney '04 Inc.
Bush administration scandals

yourdaddy

12-28-2005, 02:33 AM

Does he think anyone actually reads this shit?

Felicia Katt

12-28-2005, 02:49 AM

Does he think anyone actually reads this shit?

I do. Everyone should. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The present administration is being exposed as one of the most courrupt in history, leading the country to war on false fears, running up astounding deficits, turning a blind eye to corporate banditry, and running roughshod and illegally over constitutional rights.

Since you got your tax cut, maybe you don't care. But I do. and everyone should.

FK

BeardedOne

12-28-2005, 02:59 AM

I never read this shit. :wink:

Kramer

12-28-2005, 04:32 AM

The American Nightmare

12-28-2005, 04:50 AM

The present administration is being exposed as one of the most courrupt in history,

Oh c'mon, who told you that, Michael Moore, Teddy K., John Kerry? Or was it Hillary herself? :shock:

At least Bush didnt commit murder, see:Vince Foster!! :shock:
Are you arguing that this administration is not that corrupt, or are you just going to make references to people who have nothing to do with the point?

Kramer

12-28-2005, 05:31 AM

It probably no more corrupt than Billary Clintons administration. :lol:

Felicia Katt

12-28-2005, 06:06 AM

Oh c'mon, who told you that, Michael Moore, Teddy K., John Kerry? Or was it Hillary herself? :shock:
no, what told me that was the mainstream media. Maybe you have seen a paper, or watched the news? or read Newsweek?

At least Bush didnt commit murder, see:Vince Foster!! :shock:
Who told you about Foster? Right wing conspiracy nuts all funded by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Even Ann Coulter dismissed this conspiracy theory!!

Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, a Republican lawyer who investigated the Clintons on several other issues, including Whitewater, concluded after a three-year investigation that Foster had shot himself
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/vince-foster/foster-report/

the fact that you would try to bring that up as fact when it has been so thoroughly discredited means you can't address the allegations against this administration.

In the glass houses department:
Bush's war has killed over 30,000 Iraqis and over 2000 American servicemen. Bush himself signed the death warrants for over 130 men while Governor of Texas.

The only recent occupant of the Whitehouse who killed anyone directly is Laura Bush. She ran a stop sign and killed a classmate when she was 17.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp

FK

Kramer

12-28-2005, 06:27 AM

Felicia, "the mainstream media"??? You left out the words "liberal bias" media.

Dont believe everything you read, hun. 8)

The American Nightmare

12-28-2005, 06:35 AM

You talk and talk, yet say so little.

Kramer

12-28-2005, 06:37 AM

Just the facts, just the facts.

Felicia Katt

12-28-2005, 06:41 AM

Felicia, "the mainstream media"??? You left out the words "liberal bias" media.

Dont believe everything you read, hun. 8)

no, you are saying don't believe ANYTHING I read LOL sorry, you can't get way with shooting the messenger here.

FK

The American Nightmare

12-28-2005, 06:41 AM

You haven't stated any facts.

Kramer

12-28-2005, 07:06 AM

Son Goku

12-28-2005, 08:54 AM

More Bush resolutions:

Finally finish reading My Pet Goat.
Stop pissing self when near horses.
Quit mountain biking while drunk.

The American Nightmare

12-28-2005, 03:20 PM

OK nightmare, you want a fact ?

Liberalism isnt mainstream America. Thats why Hillary is moving to the center, to see how many voters she can fool into voting for her when she runs. That buck toothed bitch! :x
And what does that have to do with anything?

This is something we see a lot. Mike posted some criticisms of Bush (and rambled quite a bit, too), and you respond by posting criticisms of people that are completely unrelated. You are not arguing against him. The posts you are making are completely irrelevant.

This type of bullshit might fly with other people, but not with me.

Kramer

12-28-2005, 04:16 PM

Well if its not "flying with you" that too fuckin bad now isnt it.

Go argue with someone else! :x

chefmike

12-29-2005, 01:33 AM

Continue to restore "honor and integrity" to the oval office, you're doing a great job so far...

The American Nightmare

12-29-2005, 01:50 AM

Well if its not "flying with you" that too fuckin bad now isnt it.

Go argue with someone else! :x
If you can't take the heat...

chefmike

12-29-2005, 03:55 AM

I resolve to adopt Lincoln's statement: "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

chefmike

12-29-2005, 04:14 AM

Reconsider replacing the Bill Of Rights with the Ten Commandments

seaman

12-29-2005, 05:18 PM

Force the Democrats to articulate a policy...any policy...on any topic.

Blah Blah Blah....Lots of whining again and no practical policy suggestions other than "Bush is a liar" and "Republicans hate poor and black people."

chefmike

12-29-2005, 06:14 PM

Democratic Legislative Accomplishments in a Republican-Controlled Senate

December 23, 2005

Despite Republican control of the Senate, Democrats have continued to make a difference in the lives of American families. On certain issues, Democrats and Republicans have worked together to pass important, common-sense legislation. On other significant issues, however, Democrats have had to overcome Republican opposition to secure passage of legislation that is in the best interests of the American people.

Hurricane Katrina Relief

Gasoline Price Gouging

On September 13, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1703 to the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2862). The amendment, introduced by Senators Pryor, Mikulski, Salazar, Bill Nelson, Harkin, Corzine, Stabenow, and Obama, requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct an immediate investigation into whether there was nationwide gas price gouging and any affects on the economy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On June 16, 2005, H.R. 2862 passed the House by a vote of 418-7. The bill passed the Senate on September 15, 2005 by a vote of 91-4. The conference report passed the House on November 9, 2005 by a vote of 397-19 and passed the Senate on November 16, 2005 by a vote of 94-5. H.R. 2862 was signed by the President on November 22, 2005 and became law.

Defense

Tax Credit to Employers of Active National Guard and Reserve

On March 17, 2005, the Senate unanimously passed (100-0) S. Amdt. 219 to the Budget Resolution of 2006 (S. Con. Res. 18). The amendment, introduced by Senator Landrieu on March 16, 2005, establishes a reserve fund to provide a 50 percent tax credit to employers that continue to pay the salaries of National Guard and Reserve employees who have been called to active duty. S. Con. Res. 18 passed in the Senate on March 17, 2005 by a vote of 51-49. On April 4, 2005, the Senate incorporated S. Con. Res. 18 into S. Con. Res. 95 and passed the continuing resolution by unanimous consent. The conference report was agreed to in the House on April 28, 2005 by a vote of 214-211 and passed the Senate on the same day by a vote of 52-47.

Up-Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles

On April 21, 2005, 17 Republicans joined Senate Democrats in passing S. Amdt. 520 to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations of 2005 (H.R.1268), by a vote of 61-39. The amendment, introduced by Senator Bayh and co-sponsored by Senators Kennedy, Cantwell, and Bill Nelson, provides an additional $213 million for Up-Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles for the Armed Forces. H.R. 1268 passed in the House on March 16, 2005 by a vote of 388-43. The bill passed the Senate on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 99-0. The conference report, which provides for $150 million, was agreed to in the House on May 5, 2005 by a vote of 368-58 and unanimously passed in the Senate on May 10, 2005. The bill was signed into law by the President on May 11, 2005.

Non-Proliferation Operations

Democrats strongly supported the passage of S. Amdt. 1380 to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2863), by a vote of 78-19 on July 21, 2005. The amendment, introduced by Senators Lugar and Levin, improves non-proliferation operations of the United States by repealing restrictive provisions in the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993, and the DOD Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 in order to improve non-proliferation operations of the United States. H.R. 2863 passed in the House on June 20, 2005 by a vote of 398-19. The bill passed in the Senate on October 7, 2005 by a vote of 97-0. The conference report was agreed to in the House on December 19, 2005 by a vote of 308-106 and agreed to in the Senate on December 21, 2005 by a vote of 93-7.

Education

Vocational Education

Even though President Bush proposed eliminating funding for vocational education, the Senate, with strong Democratic support, passed S. 250, which would reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act. The bill was approved 99-0 on March 10, 2005.� The House version, H.R. 366, passed on May 4, 2005 by a vote of 416-9.

Environment

Pesticides Testing Ban

On June 29, 2005, 16 Republican Senators joined a unanimous Democratic Caucus to pass S. Amdt. 1023 of the Interior Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2361), on a bipartisan vote of 60-37. The amendment, introduced by Senator Boxer, bans for one year the use of funds by the EPA to accept, consider, conduct or rely on third-party studies that include testing pesticides on humans. S. Amdt. 1023 was included in the conference report of the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2361), which passed the House on July 28, 2005 by a vote of 410-10 and passed the Senate on July 29, 2005 by a vote of 99-1. The Act was signed into law by the President on August 2, 2005.

Energy

Renewable Fuels Standard

On June 16, 2005, Democrats strongly supported the 70-26 passage of the bipartisan S. Amdt. 779 to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6). The amendment sets a renewable fuels standard to increase the use of ethanol, biodiesel, and other renewable fuels to 8 billion gallons by 2012. This amendment was included in this year�s Senate energy bill (H.R. 6). H.R. 6 passed in the House on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 249-183. The bill passed in the Senate on June 28, 2005. The House agreed to the conference report on July 28, 2005 by a vote of 275-156. The conference report was agreed to in the Senate on July 29, 2005 by a vote of 74-26. H.R. 6 was signed into law by the President on August 8, 2005.

Diesel Emissions

On June 21, 2005, Democrats strongly supported the passage of S. Amdt. 799 to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6), on a bipartisan vote of 92-1. �The amendment, introduced by Senators Carper and Voinovich, establishes competitive grants to be awarded to state and local governments to achieve significant diesel emissions and pollution reductions. H.R. 6 passed in the House on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 249-183. The bill passed in the Senate on June 28, 2005. The House agreed to the conference report on July 28, 2005 by a vote of 275-156. The conference report was agreed to in the Senate on July 29, 2005 by a vote of 74-26. H.R. 6 was signed into law by the President on August 8, 2005.

Foreign Affairs

Democracy in Zimbabwe

On July 19, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1254 to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 3057). The amendment, introduced by Senator Feingold, allocates at least $4 million to support democracy and governance activities in Zimbabwe consistent with the provisions of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. H.R. 3057 passed in the House on June 28, 2005 by a vote of 393-32. The bill passed in the Senate on July 20, 2005 by a vote of 98-1. The conference report passed the House on November 4, 2005 by a vote of 358-39 and passed the Senate on November 1, 2005 by a vote of 91-0. On November 14, 2005, H.R. 3057 was signed by the President and became law.

Democracy in Iraq

On July 19, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1299 to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2006. The amendment, introduced by Senator Kennedy, appropriates $28 million to the International Republican Institute and $28 million to the National Democratic Institute for Fiscal Year 2006 to support democracy building programs in Iraq. The funding is drawn from allocations made for Economic Support Fund assistance. H.R. 3057 passed in the House on June 28, 2005 by a vote of 393-32. The bill passed in the Senate on July 20, 2005 by a vote of 98-1. The conference report passed the House on November 4, 2005 by a vote of 358-39 and passed the Senate on November 1, 2005 by a vote of 91-0. On November 14, 2005, H.R. 3057 was signed by the President and became law.

Government Oversight

Fake News

On April 14, 2005, Democrats overwhelmingly supported the passage (98-0) of S. Amdt. 430 to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations of 2005 (H.R. 1268). The amendment, introduced by Senator Byrd and co-sponsored by Senators Clinton, Launtenberg, Kerry, Wyden, Dorgan, Harkin, and Kennedy, prohibits the use of funds by a federal agency for prepackaged news without clearly disclosing such information to the viewers. H.R. 1268 passed in the House on March 16, 2005 by a vote of 388-43. The bill passed the Senate on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 99-0. The conference report was agreed to in the House on May 5, 2005 by a vote of 368-58 and unanimously passed in the Senate on May 10, 2005. The bill was signed into law by the President on May 11, 2005.

Health Care

Cord Blood Therapy and Research

On December 16, 2005, the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act (S. 1317) passed the Senate by unanimous consent. S. 1317, which was co-sponsored by 17 Democratic Senators, directs the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to create and maintain a national inventory of umbilical cord blood units and authorizes the establishment of a program to increase the number of transplants that are suitably matched from cord blood and bone marrow donors. The House version, H.R. 2520, passed the House by a vote of 431-1 on May 24, 2005. On December 17, 2005, the House passed H.R. 2520, as amended by the Senate. The bill has been sent to the President for his signature.

Enhancing Adoption of Health Information Technology

On November 18, 2005, the Senate passed by unanimous consent S. 1418, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. The bill, sponsored by Senators Enzi, Kennedy, Frist and Clinton, would improve the use of life-saving and efficiency-promoting health information technology in hospitals and doctors offices. The bill would require the development of interoperability standards for health information technology, assure privacy of patient data, and provide financial assistance to health care providers to enhance their use of IT systems. The House has not yet taken up this legislation.

Pandemic Flu Preparedness

On October 26, 2005, the Senate agreed by voice vote to S. Amdt. 2283 to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 3010). The amendment, introduced by Senator Harkin and co-sponsored by 14 Senate Democrats, would make an unprecedented federal investment of nearly $8 billion to prepare the nation for a potential outbreak of the avian flu by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, improving global surveillance, and strengthening state and local public health. H.R. 3010 was agreed to in the House on June 24, 2005 by a vote of 250-151 and passed in the Senate on October 27, 2005 by a vote of 94-3. The conference report, which was passed by the House on December 14, 2005 by a vote of 215-213, did not include the additional pandemic flu funding proposed by Senator Harkin.

Approximately $3.8 billion in pandemic flu funding is attached to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2863). �H.R. 2863 passed in the House on June 20, 2005 by a vote of 398-19. The bill passed in the Senate on October 7, 2005 by a vote of 97-0. The conference report was agreed to in the House on December 19, 2005 by a vote of 308-106 and agreed to in the Senate on December 21, 2005 by a vote of 93-7. But the bill also contains overly broad immunity for the drug industry and fails to assure compensation for health professionals, first responders, and others injured by a dangerous drug or vaccine.

Military Task Force on Mental Health

On November 8, 2005, the Senate agreed by voice vote to S. Amdt.1519 to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (H.R. 1815). The amendment, introduced by Senator Boxer, would establish a long-term plan for the Department of Defense to prevent, identify and treat mental health conditions among the Armed Forces. H.R. 1815 passed in the House on May 25, 2005 by a vote of 390-39. The bill passed in the Senate on November 15, 2005 by unanimous consent. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (H.R. 1815) conference report was agreed to in the House on December 19, 2005 by a vote of 374-41 and agreed to in the Senate on December 21, 2005 by voice vote.

Promoting Patient Safety

On July 21, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. 544, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (H.R. 3205). The bill, introduced by Senator Jeffords, will enhance patient safety by allowing health care providers to confidentiality report medical errors. On July 27, 2005, the House passed H.R. 3205 by a vote of 428-3. The President signed the bill into law on July 29, 2005.

Grants to Reduce Barriers to Health Care

On June 22, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. 898, the Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005 (H.R. 1812). The bill amends the Public Health Service Act to authorize a demonstration grant program to provide patient navigator services to help patients receive preventative care and high quality health care services for cancer and other chronic diseases. The House version, H.R. 1812, passed by voice vote on June 13, 2005. The bill was signed into law by the President on June 29, 2005.

Protections Against Discrimination Based on Genetic Information

On February 17, 2005, the Senate unanimously passed S. 306, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2005. The bipartisan bill, which the Senate also approved in 2003, was introduced by Senator Snowe and co-sponsored by 25 Senators including Senators Kennedy, Jeffords, Dodd, Harkin, Bingaman, Mikulski, Murray, Clinton, Salazar, Lautenberg, Biden, Cantwell, Corzine, Dayton, and Kerry. S. 306 would establish strong protections against discrimination based on genetic information both in health insurance and employment. The non-discrimination provisions are needed to fulfill the promise of the human genome project by giving patients the protections they need to take advantage of genetic screening, testing, and the new therapies that will come from advances in the field of genetics.

Homeland Security

Boarder Security

On April 20, 2005, 21 Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic Caucus to pass S. Amdt. 516 to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2005 (H.R. 1268) by a vote of 65-34. The amendment, introduced by Senator Byrd and Senator Bingaman, provides $389.6 million for border security. H.R. 1268 passed in the House on March 16, 2005 by a vote of 388-43. The bill passed the Senate on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 99-0. The conference report was agreed to in the House on May 5, 2005 by a vote of 368-58 and unanimously passed in the Senate on May 10, 2005. The bill was signed into law by the President on May 11, 2005.

Quadrennial Homeland Defense Review

On July 13, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1209 to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2360). The amendment, introduced by Senators Salazar, Corzine, and Lieberman, requires the Department of Homeland Security to issue a Quadrennial Homeland Defense Review. This Review would map out strategic plans every four years to provide a comprehensive examination of the national homeland defense strategy, inter-agency cooperation, preparedness of federal response assets, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the homeland defense program and policies of the United States to better determine the homeland defense strategy and to establish a homeland defense program for the next 20 years. H.R. 2360 passed in the House on May 17, 2005 by a vote of 424-1. The bill passed the Senate on July 14, 2005 by a vote of 96-1. The conference report was agreed to in the House on October 6, 2005 by a vote of 347-70 and passed unanimously in the Senate on October 7, 2005. H.R. 2360 was signed by the President on October 18, 2005 and became law.

National Security Threat Level

On July 14, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1160 to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2360). The amendment, introduced by Senator Reid, calls for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine the current process by which the Homeland Security Council raises the National Security threat level to Orange and for the GAO to make recommendations on how to improve the current system. The amendment was not included in the final conference report, after Senators Gregg and Byrd agreed to send a letter to the GAO requesting a study on the threat advisory system.

United States Fire Administration

On July 14, 2005, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to S. Amdt. 1206, to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2006. The amendment, introduced by Senator Sarbanes, makes $52.6 million available for the United States Fire Administration. H.R. 2360 passed in the House on May 17, 2005 by a vote of 424-1. The bill passed the Senate on July 14, 2005 by a vote of 96-1. The conference report, which provides for $44.948 million, was agreed to in the House on October 6, 2005 by a vote of 347-70 and passed unanimously in the Senate on October 7, 2005. H.R. 2360 was signed by the President on October 18, 2005 and became law.

Immigration

Visa Fraud Prevention

Senate Democrats strongly supported passage of S. Amdt. 387 to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2005 (H.R. 1268) in a 94-6 vote on April 19, 2005. The amendment, introduced by Senator Mikulski, exempts seasonal workers who have been a recipient of an H-2B visa in one of the past three years from the cap on H-2B visas; instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security to impose a fraud prevention and detection fee for employers filing a petition for nonimmigrant workers; and provides sanctions if the Secretary of Homeland Security finds a substantial failure to meet any of the conditions of the petition to admit the H-2B temporary worker or for the willful misrepresentation of information. H.R. 1268 passed in the House on March 16, 2005 by a vote of 388-43. The bill passed the Senate on April 21, 2005 by a vote of 99-0. The conference report was agreed to in the House on May 5, 2005 by a vote of 368-58 and unanimously passed in the Senate on May 10, 2005. The bill was signed into law by the President on May 11, 2005.

Social Security

Fiscal Responsibility

On March 17, 2005, Democrats strongly supported passage of S. Amdt. 243 to S. Con. Res. 18. Forty-nine Republican Senators joined a unanimous Democratic caucus to pass the amendment with a 94-6 vote. The amendment, introduced by Senator Conrad, expresses the sense of the Senate that the tax cuts assumed in the budget resolution should include a repeal of the 1993 increase in the income tax on Social Security benefits. S. Con. Res. 18 passed in the Senate on March 17, 2005 by a vote of 51-49. On April 4, 2005, the Senate incorporated S. Con. Res. 18 into S. Con. Res. 95 and passed the continuing resolution by unanimous consent. The conference report was agreed to in the House on April 28, 2005 by a vote of 214-211 and passed the Senate on the same day by a vote of 52-47.

Veterans

Veterans Affairs Medical Services

On June 27, 2005, Senator Murray introduced S. Amdt. 1052 to the Interior Appropriations Act of 2006 (H.R. 2361), along with 24 Democratic co-sponsors, which provides the necessary funding for medical services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. This amendment passed in the Senate by a vote of 96-0 on June 29, 2005. However, the version of the amendment in the House was modified by a Republican second degree amendment. Democratic Senators chose to support the amendment (S. Amdt. 1071) regardless, as it would provide a much needed $1.5 billion for medical services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. S. Amdt. 1071 passed the Senate with a 96-0 vote on June 29, 2005. H.R. 2361 passed the House on July 28, 2005 by a vote of 410-10 and passed the Senate on July 29, 2005 by a vote of 99-1. H.R. 2361 was signed by the President on August 2, 2005 and became law.

Benefits to Disabled Military Retirees

On November 8, 2005, Senator Reid introduced S. Amdt. 2441 to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year of 2006 (H.R. 1815), which would provide that military retirees with service-related disabilities and who are unemployable will be eligible for both retired pay and veterans disability compensation. The amendment passed the Senate by voice vote on the same day. H.R. 1815 passed in the House on May 25, 2005 by a vote of 390-39. On November 15, the Senate substituted the language, as amended, in H.R. 1815 and passed the bill by unanimous consent. The conference report was agreed to in the House on December 19, 2005 by a vote of 374-41.

General124

12-29-2005, 08:36 PM

got one

spend one week a New Orleans

Take it from this New Orleanian, he doesn't want to come here. We'll definitely show him what he's been missing.

/hecanliveinoneoftheFEMAtrailerswithnopower

General124

12-29-2005, 08:47 PM

Reconsider replacing the Bill Of Rights with the Ten Commandments

From the way Dubya's been acting, you'd think he already replaced the BoR with the Patriot Act.

chefmike

12-29-2005, 10:42 PM

got one

spend one week a New Orleans

Take it from this New Orleanian, he doesn't want to come here. We'll definitely show him what he's been missing.

/hecanliveinoneoftheFEMAtrailerswithnopower

While we're on Katrina, let's see how the bible-bangin bush butt-babies manage to blame this deliberate disregard on former Prez Clinton...remember him repugs? He's the one who left the nation with a budget surplus, and some goodwill from the rest of the planet, as opposed to now....thanks to shrubya we are now despised by a good portion of the planet, and the invasion of Iraq has inspired terrorists the world over.

repugs and Katrina-

Hurricane Survivors Still Waiting for Bush Administration Help As Critical Needs Go Unmet

December 15, 2005

“The work that has begun in the Gulf Coast region will be one of the

largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen…Our goal is to

get the work done quickly.”

-- President Bush, 9/15/05

“We are at a point where our recovery and renewal efforts are stalled

because of inaction in Washington, D.C., and the delay has created

uncertainty that is having very negative effects on our recovery and

rebuilding.”

-- Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, 12/7/05

“After three months, it’s still unreal…In Louisiana and elsewhere on the

Gulf Coast, huge numbers of Americans struggle with the basics. Upward

of 100,000 of them are living in hotels. Many more are without homes

because of wind damage and the widespread flooding in New Orleans and

its neighboring parishes. One of America’s great cities remains crippled,

large parts of it shrouded in darkness. Few of the street lights work; little

stop signs remind one in every block that things aren’t anywhere near back

to normal. There’s even a curfew in the French Quarter, something few

people probably ever expected to see…Yet much of what we hear from our

leaders is that ‘Katrina fatigue’ is a reality in Washington and across the

nation. We have a lot of Katrina fatigue down here, too. But it’s not a

distant issue for us. It’s a bitter reality…We hope that Americans are not
tired of hearing about Katrina and her aftermath, because we still desperately

need help from our government in Washington to get Louisiana on the road

to recovery.”

-- Editorial, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), 11/29/05

Bush Administration Fails to Live Up to Its Promises

President Bush promises one of the largest rebuilding efforts in history. When President Bush addressed the nation nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, he promised an unparalleled recovery effort. Specifically, he stated:

That the recovery would “be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen;”
That the federal government “will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives;”
That the recovery effort must leave the communities in the region “even better and stronger than before the storm;”
That the federal government would use the opportunity to “confront this poverty [in the region] with bold action;” and
That the recovery effort would be carried out “honestly and wisely,” with “a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.” (Address to the Nation, 9/15/05)

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has failed to uphold these commitments, responding with a recovery effort that has been slow, incomplete, mismanaged, and ineffective.

The Administration’s response has been disastrously slow. The Los Angeles Times has reported that, despite the President’s promises of leading a historic recovery effort, “the only real actors in the rebuilding drama at the moment are the city’s homeowners and business owners…Individual New Orleanians are struggling to come back largely under their own power, using mostly their own resources.” (12/4/05) In the first two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Congress appropriated more than $62 billion in emergency supplemental funding for relief and recovery efforts, with roughly $60 billion designated for FEMA. Three months later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that the federal government has only spent $7.6 billion of that money on relief activities for three major hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. In fact, over $36 billion of the appropriated funds has not been allocated to any government program; it is simply sitting untouched in the federal coffers. (FEMA weekly report, 11/30/05)

Despite Senator Frist’s claims, Congress has failed to act to meet urgent needs. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Senator Frist told the Senate, “we passed 21 separate pieces of legislation that have responded to many of the immediate needs…I want my colleagues and the American people to understand we are acting and we are moving.” (Congressional Record, 11/18/05) Unfortunately, the Republican Leader’s comments demonstrate a serious disconnect with reality. Congress has failed to act on numerous key provisions that would enable hurricane survivors to meet immediate needs and begin to rebuild their lives. As the New York Times reports, “less than three months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, relief legislation remains dormant in Washington and despair is growing among officials here who fear that Congress and the Bush administration are losing interest in their plight. As evidence, the state and local officials cite an array of stalled bills and policy changes they say are crucial to rebuilding the city and persuading some of its hundreds of thousands of evacuated residents to return, including measures to finance long-term hurricane protection, revive small businesses and compensate the uninsured.” (11/22/05)

Despite lack of urgency in the Bush Administration and the Senate Republican leadership, Senate Democrats have pressed for swift action. Within days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Senators Reid and Landrieu, along with more than 20 other Senate Democrats, introduced major legislation to address the most urgent needs of hurricane survivors. Their bill, the Katrina Emergency Relief Act (S.1637), proposed a wide variety of measures to provide victims with health care, housing, education, and financial relief. The bill was intended for immediate action, and Senate Democrats have since tried repeatedly to get the Senate to act on its provisions. Yet the Republican leadership has refused to take up the bill or related legislation to address most of these needs. Senate Democrats have also introduced specific legislative proposals intended to address nearly every facet of the recovery challenges, including bills to address housing, health care, education, unemployment, long-term rebuilding, hurricane protection, and economic needs. Senate Democrats will continue to work for progress on these important initiatives.

Bush Administration Has Not Been Held Accountable for Its Mismanagement

Bush Administration’s initial response was disastrous. The Administration’s initial response to Hurricane Katrina was full of mistakes. Among its more egregious errors, the Administration:

failed to act with appropriate urgency to pre-position Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government personnel and assets in the region prior to the hurricane’s landfall and to mobilize a rapid and robust federal response after the extent of the hurricane’s impact became clear;
waited eight days after the hurricane’s landfall to deploy the active military to assist civilian authorities in response activities, and waited three days to begin coordinating the response of National Guard units from outside the affected states;
waited four days after landfall in Louisiana to evacuate the Superdome;
waited three days after declaring a state of emergency, and one full day after levees were breached in New Orleans, to declare Hurricane Katrina an “incident of national significance” and thereby trigger a full federal response under the National Response Plan;
failed to anticipate the extent of the damage from Hurricane Katrina and failed to mobilize an appropriately robust response, despite several warnings about the expected impact of the hurricane;
failed to prepare for a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, both by preparing first responders and local officials to respond and by ensuring adequate resources for maintaining and strengthening hurricane defenses in the region; and
failed to act with urgency to develop and implement a long-term recovery plan that addresses all the challenges survivors in the region now face.

In an open letter to the President, the New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial board stated, “We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government's shame.” (9/4/05) More importantly, the American people have decried the Administration’s response. In a CBS News poll in the immediate wake of the hurricane, 77 percent of Americans believed the federal government’s response was inadequate. (9/8/05)

Both the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have resisted an investigation needed to prevent failures in the future. Investigating the mistakes made in the initial response to Hurricane Katrina is critical, not just so that survivors will have answers about what went wrong, but also in order to prevent similar failings from occurring in responses to future natural disasters. Over three-quarters of Americans believe that an independent, non-partisan commission, like the 9-11 Commission, should be charged with investigating what went wrong during the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. (Washington Post-ABC News Poll, 9/2/05) However, both the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress have opposed such an investigation, increasing the risk that the federal government will fail to learn from its mistakes. In the Senate, Republicans have repeatedly blocked passage of legislation offered by Senator Clinton to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate the response.

HOUSING: Most Serious Crisis Since the Great Depression

The Gulf Coast region is confronted with a tremendous housing crisis:

· Thousands of hurricane survivors still lack housing. Approximately 42,000 families, or 125,000 people, that fled Hurricane Katrina are currently being housed in hotels around the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that it will stop providing these hotel rooms on January 7, 2006, and only the intervention of a district court pushed that date back to February 7. In the court’s opinion, the judge wrote, “…unfortunately it seems as if inaction has been the leit motif of the response to the most severe natural disaster in the nation’s history.” (Washington Post, 12/13/05) Moreover, nearly 1,000 survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita remain in shelters, and nearly 7,000 remain sheltered aboard ships. (FEMA weekly report, 11/30/05) Many of these survivors lack access to manufactured housing units promised by the Bush Administration or affordable rental units for temporary lodging.

· Insufficient housing for returning survivors. Another significant problem is that, in New Orleans, “there is not enough housing for people who wish to return.” (Houston Chronicle editorial, 11/29/05) Thus, many residents who plan to eventually return to New Orleans are forced to remain in temporary housing arrangements until housing in New Orleans can be rebuilt and rehabilitated.

· Foreclosures and evictions are imminent. The Boston Globe reports that “housing woes in the aftermath of the devastating Atlantic hurricane season are causing a fresh wave of trauma on the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coastlines,” citing “a sharp increase in evictions,” “an expected deluge of mortgage foreclosures now that many foreclosure moratoriums have ended,” and many cases in which “lenders continue to demand mortgage payments on houses that have been destroyed.” The newspaper reports that “countless more people face confusing legal issues that are pitting tenants against landlords. Some property owners are evicting renters to make room for their own families or to allow contractors to begin repairs. Others are ousting long-time tenants to make way for higher-paying occupants, including government workers and construction crews armed with generous housing subsidies.” (12/10/05)

Bush Administration’s response is slow and ineffective. The Administration’s efforts to provide housing assistance to survivors have been lethargic at best. The Administration has allocated nearly $4 billion for production of manufactured housing for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and another $147 million for Hurricane Rita survivors, but only $566 million – roughly 1/8 of the funding – has been spent. In Louisiana, just over 12,000 manufactured housing units are now occupied by survivors. Progress is slightly better in Mississippi, where over 22,000 units are now occupied. But even Republican Senator Lott has expressed frustration that many Mississippians are still homeless, stating, “Winter is coming to Mississippi, and too many people are still living in tents or carports.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 12/4/05)

In addition to the manufactured housing units, the Administration has spent about $4 billion on housing assistance for displaced survivors; much of this money, however, has been spent on the approximately 50,000 hotel rooms still in use. The estimated $3 million per day being spent on hotel rooms represents grossly inefficient management of taxpayer funds: “FEMA is paying about $60 a day for each of those rooms. For evacuees who move into two-bedroom apartments, by contrast, FEMA is paying an average of $786 a month, which saves the government more than $1,000 a month” per family. (Washington Post, 11/23/05) However, FEMA’s plan for moving evacuees from hotels into rental units is also faltering. According to the Washington Post, housing benefits are currently “guaranteed for only three months, and not all landlords are willing to rent to evacuees of uncertain status. More important, the criteria for obtaining extensions remain disturbingly vague. FEMA says families must ‘demonstrate a continued need for cash assistance’ and must show they have a ‘plan for moving forward’ – distinctly subjective tests.” (editorial, 12/5/05)

Finally, while temporary housing is important in the short-term, the Administration has failed to develop any plan for rebuilding housing in the long-term. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “the Administration’s most highly touted proposal concerning housing for low-income evacuees who seek to return – an ‘Urban Homesteading’ plan that would allow low-income hurricane victims to build houses on surplus federal land – is unlikely to aid more than a small fraction of the needy families displaced by the storm.” (11/2/05)

Congress has failed to take action on key proposals. On September 14, Senator Sarbanes introduced an amendment to H.R. 2862 to provide hurricane survivors with immediate assistance to find housing, including emergency housing vouchers. The Senate unanimously agreed to the amendment, and passed H.R. 2862 a day later. Republican legislators removed the provision during the House-Senate conference on the bill. Another amendment to the bill, offered by Senator Lieberman, would have provided foreclosure relief and assistance to renters, but was defeated by Senate Republicans 56 to 42. Congress has done virtually nothing else beyond making some minor tax changes to address the region’s emergency housing needs. In fact, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee has not only not approved any legislation to address emergency housing needs, it has not even held a single hearing on the issue.

ECONOMY: Businesses, Jobs, and Savings Destroyed

Much of the Gulf Coast’s economic infrastructure and labor force has been severely impacted by the hurricanes:

· Thousands of survivors have lost their jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mississippi’s unemployment rate for October 2005 was 9.6 percent, up from 6.9 percent a year ago. Louisiana’s unemployment rate was even more troubling at 11.3 percent in October 2005, compared with 5.8 percent a year ago. That rate makes Louisiana’s unemployment problem easily the worst in the nation. However, the unemployment rates may underestimate the full effect on the Gulf Coast economy. The Department of Labor now reports that 599,700 Americans have lost their jobs because of the hurricanes. (Associated Press, 12/8/05) The toll is particularly severe in Louisiana, where “nearly 350,000 Louisiana citizens – or 21 percent of the workers in the state – have filed unemployment claims in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.” (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 11/30/05) The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 24.5 percent of those evacuated the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina, and 42 percent of minority evacuees, are now unemployed. (11/9/05) A Labor Department survey of 900,000 evacuees found that only 44 percent report being employed. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://stats.bls.gov/katrina/cpscesquestions.htm)

· Thousands of businesses have been destroyed. Many of these jobs were lost when entire businesses were destroyed. In October, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco reported that “Katrina and Rita have shuttered or displaced almost 81,000 firms – that is 41 percent of Louisiana businesses. Most of them are small businesses.” (Office of the Governor, 10/6/05) Mississippi has been devastated as well, with 70,000 businesses damaged or totally destroyed. (Entrepreneur, 9/22/05)

· Financial relief. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities explains that hurricane victims “typically are eligible for either standard unemployment benefits or disaster unemployment assistance (DUA) benefits. But the unemployment insurance benefits that Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama provide are exceptionally low, equaling only about half of the poverty line for a family of four. Minimum DUA benefits in these states are just one-quarter of the poverty line for a family of four. Further, the job searches of many Hurricane victims will be long, either because these people are returning to their hard-hit communities where their old jobs may no longer exist or because they are residing in new communities where they have few contacts and know less about the job market.” (11/21/05)

· Gulf Coast farm economy suffers tremendous damage. State economists estimate that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused as much as $1.6 billion in damage to the Louisiana farm economy. The damage is expected to range “from strawberry fields that were washed away to entire forests that had 10 to 15 years’ worth of timber destroyed. And, because of the salt-water flooding, agriculture experts say the damage could stretch on for years.” (Christian Science Monitor, 11/30/05)

The Bush Administration has blocked progress on economic recovery. The President proposed two initiatives to jump start the economic recovery: the creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone (GOZone) with tax incentives for businesses; and the establishment of Worker Recovery Accounts with $5,000 in job education and training funding available for each eligible individual. (President Bush, Address, 9/15/05) Experts have raised concerns about the usefulness of these proposals (Los Angeles Times, 10/25/05), and the President has failed to persuade members of his own party in Congress to take action to implement them.

In addition, the Bush Administration is obstructing efforts to help businesses get back on their feet. The President is blocking a “bipartisan Senate bill that would authorize $450 million in bridge loans and grants to businesses damaged by the Hurricanes, allow these businesses to defer payments on federal loans, and increase the size of disaster loans. (New York Times, 11/22/05) The Administration is also failing to support the recovery of small businesses in the region. In its latest disaster update issued on December 7, the Small Business Administration reported over 202,712 loan applications are waiting to be processed. (Disaster Update for Presidential Disaster Declarations, 12/7/05) Out of 28,540 loan applications from the Gulf Coast region, only 10 percent have been processed and only three percent have been approved. (Washington Post editorial, 12/9/05) According to USA Today, “the federal Small Business Administration is processing disaster loans for Gulf Coast hurricane victims at less than half last year’s rate, despite an increase in the number of employees working on them.” (11/24/05) The slow rate of processing has created at least a four-month backlog.

Congress has failed to act on key proposals. To help hurricane survivors get back on their feet, Senator Lieberman introduced an amendment to H.R. 2862, the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill, to, among other things, help ensure adequate unemployment benefits for survivors; establish a moratorium on any payment or financial obligation for a federal loan; provide greater assistance for temporary housing, rent, and other expenses; help survivors who face foreclosure or eviction from their homes; provide penalty-free withdrawals from retirement plans; increase the availability of food assistance; and provide temporary relief from stricter bankruptcy rules for hurricane survivors. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans defeated this amendment by a vote of 56 to 42. The Senate did pass an amendment, offered by Senators Kerry and Snowe, to the same legislation, which would have provided support for small businesses recovering from the hurricanes, but the provision was removed by Republicans in conference. Other “efforts to raise benefit levels for the unemployed, or increase their duration, are languishing in Congress.” (Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 11/21/05)

PUBLIC HEALTH: Crisis Emerges Amid a Toxic Environment

Gulf Coast residents are beset by health problems caused by a toxic and moldy environment, but too many survivors lack health coverage and too many hospitals lack the capacity to treat them:

· A “major health crisis” is emerging. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “three months after Hurricane Katrina raked the Gulf Coast, a major health crisis is emerging as residents struggle with the fouled air, moldy houses, and the numbing stress the killer storm has left behind. Across Mississippi and Louisiana, people are afflicted with coughs, infections, and rashes. They are jittery, depressed and prone to bizarre outbursts.” (12/05/05) The damage caused by Hurricane Katrina has filled the air with carcinogens, dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde, and other irritants that place residents at risk of developing short- and long-term illnesses. The most prominent afflictions currently reported are respiratory conditions and skin problems.

· Hospitals have insufficient resources to meet health needs. To make matters worse, many hospitals in the region “are short-staffed and struggling to care for” residents in the region.” (USA Today, 12/5/05) The Washington Post reports that “Katrina damaged more than a dozen hospitals and uprooted thousands of private physicians. Now, nearly three months later, health care remains scarce.” (11/25/05) In addition to creating new demand for care, the hurricanes striking the Gulf Coast have exacerbated preexisting health care inadequacies, magnified chronic funding shortages, and interrupted treatment for thousands of chronically ill patients, creating a host of additional challenges for the strained health care system.

· Mental health issues are particularly acute. Newsweek reports, “in a survey released by LSU last week, 39 percent of Louisiana residents reported feeling angry and 53 percent said they were depressed. Already, mental-health systems are stressed. In Louisiana, for example, only 28 percent of adults and 3.5 percent of children identified as having a mental illness receive care—and that was before the storm. Experts worry that the underserved will continue to struggle as otherwise healthy Gulf Coast residents succumb to the storm’s psychological aftereffects, now festering like sediment in the floodwaters.” (12/12/05) Mental health experts have predicted a dramatic mental health toll from the storm, with up to a third of survivors experiencing some sort of mental health challenge. (Forbes, 9/6/05) Government officials estimate that as many as 500,000 Gulf Coast survivors may require some form of mental health care in the wake of the hurricanes. (Newsweek, 12/12/05) And mental health issues, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), suffered in the immediate wake of the storm are likely only to be compounded by the struggles hundreds of thousands of hurricane survivors have experienced while being relocated in temporary housing arrangements, facing financial strain, being separated from friends and family, and undergoing other types of stress.

· Toxic environment endangers long-term public health. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have created serious environmental risks throughout the Gulf Coast: “when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore along the Gulf Coast 100 days ago, it stirred up tons of toxic substances, much of which had been stored safely or buried benignly beneath the earth. But when floodwaters subsided or were pumped out of low-lying areas, they left behind sediment and sludge that oozed and then dried into layers of muck and dust that in some places remain hazardous…Scientists who tested soil and sediment in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana – on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club – found what they say are dangerous levels of arsenic, heavy metals, dioxin, and E. coli bacteria.” (Christian Science Monitor, 12/8/05) Another significant problem is that debris and refuse continue to cover the region. The Army Corps of Engineers reports that Hurricane Katrina alone left about 55 million cubic yards of debris in Southeast Louisiana, equivalent to 34 average years worth of trash, and “smelly piles of debris still tower beside curbs, and thousands of abandoned houses sit filled with moldy ruins.” (Austin American-Statesman, 12/8/05)

· Health care for veterans is “in peril.” While the hurricanes destroyed and damaged health care throughout the Gulf Coast region, “veterans may have been hit worst of all.” The veterans’ health care network in the region faces several challenges. First, several clinics and hospitals, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi and one of the VA hospitals in New Orleans, were destroyed or badly damaged. An even greater challenge may be “the hurricane’s massive displacement of VA doctors and other medical workers.” Many VA employees lost their homes and have been forced to relocate. (Gannett News Service, 11/11/05)

The Bush Administration has no plan to address the crisis. Despite a public health crisis that will require resources and treatment far beyond the capacities of federal and state programs at their current funding levels, the Bush Administration has not proposed any significant measure to:

· Address funding shortages and bureaucratic obstacles preventing state Medicaid programs from responding to the spike in patients;

· Help hospitals and clinics rebuild and restore services;

· Provide mental health treatment and crisis counseling to hundreds of thousands of at-risk survivors (FEMA reports that not a single dollar has been spent on crisis counseling so far [Weekly Report, 11/30/05]); or

· Aggressively identify and remove environmental hazards that threaten public health.

Congress has failed to act on key proposals. On September 15, Senators Baucus and Grassley introduced a bipartisan bill, S. 1716, to provide emergency health coverage to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The legislation would temporarily relax eligibility requirements for Medicaid to allow survivors to get the health coverage they need on an emergency basis. The legislation has 13 additional co-sponsors, and enjoys support from a majority of the Senate. Unfortunately, a small minority of Republicans, led by Senators Sununu and Ensign, have blocked passage of the bill. (Los Angeles Times, 9/29/05) Senator Frist has refused to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. In a recent statement, Senator Grassley complained that, “unfortunately, the White House is working against me behind the scenes.” (Reuters, 10/6/05)

After working for several weeks to bring S. 1716 to the floor for a vote, Senator Baucus was able to include a scaled-back health care relief package in S. 1932. Senator Lincoln offered a more robust health care relief proposal as an amendment to this legislation, but Republicans defeated the amendment in a partisan vote, 48-51.

REBUILDING AND RECOVERY: The Needs Are Tremendous

While urgent action is vital to address immediate relief needs, the Gulf Coast will require a significant investment by the federal government for long-term rebuilding and recovery. As the Washington Post has noted, the “costliest part of Gulf rebuilding is yet to come” as the region works to “recreate a public infrastructure network – including roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, sewers, power lines, ports and levees – that was all but destroyed when Katrina swept in.” (11/21/05) Among the critical priorities:

· Thousands of houses have been severely damaged or destroyed by flooding. According to the National Association of Home Builders, more than 350,000 homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, more than 12 times the number destroyed by any previous natural disaster. In addition, “roughly half a million homes…sustained major damage but can be repaired, suffered minor damage and are still habitable or had largely cosmetic damage.” (Nation’s Building News, 10/10/05) So far, New Orleans has inspected 114,000 homes, about 50 percent of the city’s total homes, and has found only 28 percent to be habitable. (London Guardian, 12/11/05)

· Gulf Coast residents still lack access to essential services and infrastructure. Many essential services throughout the Gulf Coast remain inoperable or in disrepair, particularly in New Orleans. Over a third of New Orleans residents have restored electrical service, and only half have gas service. Only 12 percent of New Orleans buses and 37 percent of public transportation routes are currently operational. (Brookings Institution Hurricane Katrina Index, 12/6/05) In five New Orleans zip codes – 70126, 70127, 70128, 70129, and 70117 – water is still not potable and sewer systems are inoperative. (City of New Orleans Situation Report, 12/8/05)

· No Bush Administration commitment to ensure Category Five protection. Hurricane Katrina destroyed over 30 miles of the levees built to protect New Orleans from flooding, causing breaches in 50 separate places. (WAFB News, 10/28/05; Reuters, 11/22/05) Army Corps of Engineers officials report that they are on pace to rebuild the levees to their pre-Katrina strengths by June 2006, the beginning of the next hurricane season. But such levees would again fail in the face of a hurricane like Katrina, leaving New Orleans vulnerable to a repeat of the disaster. The need for a strong federal commitment to effectively rebuilding hurricane defenses is underscored by recent reports that poorly built levees and other defenses contributed to the damaged suffered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As the New Orleans Times-Picayne reported, “floodwall breaches linked to design flaws inundated parts of the city that otherwise would have stayed dry, turning neighborhoods into death traps and causing massive damage. In other areas, poorly engineered gaps and erosion of weak construction materials accelerated and deepened flooding already under way, hampering rescue efforts in the wake of the storm.” (12/8/05)

· Wetlands have also been decimated. Wetlands along the southeastern coast of Louisiana have been cited as key defenses against hurricanes, slowing them down as they turn inland. The wetlands have been steadily eroding over the last several decades, but the hurricanes this year accelerated that erosion. The U.S. Geological Survey recently reported that “Katrina and Rita transformed about 100 square miles of marsh into open water — an area more than 1½ times the size of Washington, D.C. ‘Indications are that much of the loss may be permanent,’ the agency said in a statement on Nov. 1.” (USA Today, 11/21/05)

· Family members remain separated. In the wake of the storm, many Gulf Coast families were separated during chaotic evacuations. Unfortunately, three months later, many of these families remain apart. USA Today has reported that 6,644 Gulf Coast residents – nearly 4 times the official death toll for the storm – remain missing three months after Hurricane Katrina struck. (11/21/05) Vulnerable populations have been hit particularly hard. The whereabouts of at least 1,300 children remain unknown. Moreover, “the problem is likely to worsen when the federal government stops paying for hotel rooms for evacuees, who will be forced to move yet again.” (Newsday, 12/4/05) Many elderly survivors also remained separated from family. The Houston Chronicle reports that “at least 10,000 nursing home residents once lived in the hardest-hit coastal counties in Louisiana and Texas. In the aftermath, thousands remain isolated from families who have lost everything and many have no home to return to.” Furthermore, the Chronicle reports that there is currently no record of the whereabouts of nearly 100 nursing home residents. (11/28/05)

In spite of these needs, the Bush Administration has:

· Failed to develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding the Gulf Coast. The Bush Administration has offered no plan for long-term rebuilding in the Gulf Coast, including how to rebuild hurricane defenses, how to rebuild the tens of thousands of homes damaged by the storm, how to ensure safety and opportunity for residents wishing to return to the region, how to rebuild key infrastructure, and how to rebuild the economy.

· Wavered in its commitment to rebuild hurricane defenses. The success of recovery efforts and the future of New Orleans depends, in large part, on the level of confidence individuals and businesses have that they will be protected against major hurricanes in the future. Yet, despite the President’s pledge to rebuild communities in the region “better and stronger than before the storm,” the Bush Administration has refused to commit to rebuilding levees strong enough to withstand Category 4 and 5 hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina. (Associated Press, 11/29/05) In addition, the Administration has “objected to a bipartisan proposal that would give the state up to 40 percent of the more than $5 billion in annual federal revenues generated by Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industries” to create a “stream of money for restoring coastal wetlands and constructing levees capable of withstanding Category 5 hurricanes.” (New York Times, 11/22/05)

· Mismanaged the National Flood Insurance Program. Because most homeowner insurance plans do not cover flood damage, the National Flood Insurance Program was created to provide support for homeowners who see their homes damaged or destroyed by catastrophic floods: “in theory, the FEMA-run program should make decisions about whether to rebuild easier…by promising to cover up to $250,000 in flood damages.” However, “flood insurance has turned into a morass in the wake of Katrina, with many homeowners and business owners finding it nearly impossible to collect for the just-passed storm.” (Los Angeles Times, 12/4/05) FEMA reports that it has paid 75,183 flood insurance claims; however, it also reports that 218,919 claims have been made, and that 856,043 individuals in the region have reported not having any form of flood insurance. (Weekly Report, 11/30/05) On November 16, USA Today reported that the National Flood Insurance Program “has run out of funds to cover flood insurance claims and, in an unprecedented move, has stopped payments to policyholders.”

· Shut local businesses out of rebuilding contracts. Government contracts for rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast region provide an important opportunity for local businesses to get back on track. However, the Bush Administration has largely shut local businesses out of these contracts. According to FEMA’s latest report, 4.85 percent of rebuilding contracts have been awarded to businesses in Louisiana, and only 3.6 percent of contracts have gone to Mississippi businesses. In contrast, Indiana businesses have received over 15 percent of the contracts. Small disadvantaged businesses, including minority-owned businesses, account for only 2.3 percent of contracts. (FEMA report on Hurricane Katrina-related contracts, 12/5/05)

Congress has failed to act on key proposals. Congress has failed to take up key legislative initiatives that would accelerate rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast and ensure that local businesses are supported in their attempts to recover from the storms. S. 1925, the Rebuild with Respect Act introduced by Senator Kennedy, would require contractors to hire local workers and would ensure that such workers receive fair wages. It continues to lie dormant in committee. S. 1777 would ease funding restrictions on federal aid, allowing greater federal assistance for rebuilding projects, and would bolster unemployment assistance. This bill has been reported out of committee, but Majority Leader Frist has refused to bring it to the floor for a vote. Several bills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans to provide federal assistance for rebuilding levees, restoring wetlands, and bolstering other hurricane defenses – including S. 1702, S. 1709, and S. 1836 – have not been reported out of committee.

CITIES AND STATES: Governments Are Going Bankrupt, Services Suffer

State and local governments and government agencies, which are responsible for providing many essential services such as public schools, health care, transportation infrastructure, public safety, and sanitation services, have been crippled by the hurricanes:

· Government agencies have been forced to slash their budgets. The mass exodus of residents and the tremendous destruction of property in the Gulf Coast has decimated state and local government revenue streams from sales, property, and income taxes. Without these revenues, state and local governments have been forced to trim their budgets by cutting back on important services. The Louisiana state government has lost $959 million – roughly five percent of its budget – in income tax revenue, and has been forced to cut $600 million from its budget, including funding for education and health care services. (Associated Press, 11/23/05) New Orleans’ Downtown Development District has had to trim its budget by 34 percent, causing it to cancel several police and sanitation department services. (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/8/05) The City of New Orleans government was forced to lay off 3,000 employees. (City of New Orleans Situation Report, 12/8/05)

· Gulf Coast school systems have been hit particularly hard. Schools across the Gulf Coast are battling storm damage, decimated rosters, and displaced employees. The problems are particularly acute in New Orleans, where the first public school opened only two weeks ago, on November 28. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that, “as public schools begin to reopen their doors in New Orleans, it is increasingly clear that everything is going to be different. Many schools will return as charter schools. The Legislature voted to let the state take over nearly 90 percent of the district's schools. Many school buildings are destroyed or seriously damaged. And some students might never come back.” (11/29/05) Moreover, approximately 7,500 New Orleans public school employees still haven’t returned to work after being evacuated from the city during Hurricane Katrina. (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/1/05)

· Displaced students are straining their adopted school districts. Thousands of students displaced by the hurricanes have streamed into other school districts throughout the Southeast, bringing with them added strain on districts that often have insufficient resources to cope with the new enrollees. The Houston Chronicle reports, “as many as 20,000 Louisiana students have settled in Houston-area schools since the hurricane, further taxing resources that teachers say are already stretched too thin.” (11/30/05) In Dallas, where over 2,000 students displaced by the hurricanes have enrolled, school administrators attribute a significant rise in behavioral problems to the additional strain caused by new enrollees. (Dallas Morning News, 11/30/05)

· Louisiana universities are facing severe financial strain. Discouraged by the uncertainties still facing their home states, students evacuated from area colleges and universities are choosing to stay in their adopted schools. The lost revenue has threatened the schools’ financial solvency. Another strain on school budgets is damage from the storm itself: “schools are grappling with major losses, with Tulane having more than $100 million in damage. A spokesman said the university has laid off 243 full-time staff members and 2,381 part-time employees, including part-time faculty, part-time staff, and student workers.” (Boston Globe, 12/6/05) Other schools are making cutbacks too: “New Orleans’ Dillard and Xavier universities, for example, have each laid off more than half of their staffs. Louisiana State University’s cuts may exceed 5,000, officials say.” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 11/25/05)

The Bush Administration has hurt recovery with poor management and no real plan for addressing the challenges. The Bush Administration has failed to develop a real plan for helping state and local government agencies, including school systems, cope with the resource crunch and other challenges facing them in the wake of the hurricanes. The Administration’s plan to address the strain on public school systems caused by the hurricanes has been particularly ineffective. The National Education Association (NEA) states that “the Administration’s plan falls significantly short of what the states have requested. It does not do nearly enough to respond to the needs of those children whose lives have been ravaged by the hurricane, nor does it adequately address the needs of the schools that are receiving the thousands of displaced children.” (NEA Statement, 9/21/05)

In addition, the Administration has failed to provide adequate resources to help agencies stay afloat. FEMA established a cap for its loan program, leaving many local agencies in difficult financial straits. On November 16, FEMA abruptly announced “in a one-sentence e-mail that Louisiana loans would be capped at $700 million, with the remaining $300 million going to Mississippi.” Consequently, the state of Louisiana was forced to trim many of its loans to local government agencies by up to 30 percent. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that “officials from the seven government bodies affected so far – five in Jefferson and one each in Orleans and St. Tammany parishes – recoiled at the news that their loan applications had been decreased, saying they may have to secure commercial loans, possibly at higher interest rates, to make up the difference, or cut public jobs and services.” (12/6/05) Finally, adding to the fiscal woes of these state and local governments, “the White House has also insisted that disaster loans to local governments, many of which no longer have a tax base, be made with the cruel and unusual provision that these loans cannot be forgiven.” (New York Times, 10/10/05)

Congress has failed to take action on key proposals. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, Senate Democrats introduced comprehensive legislation, S. 1637, to facilitate a swift and effective federal response. Among other things, this legislation would award grants to school districts that receive displaced students and would offer assistance to early childhood education programs and agencies receiving displaced children. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have refused to take action on the bill. In addition, Senators Kennedy and Bingaman worked with Republican Senator Enzi to introduce S. 1715, a bipartisan effort to provide relief for students and schools affected by Hurricane Katrina, including ensuring that funds are directed to assist school districts to reestablish themselves and continue providing education, additional support for supplemental educational services and after-school programs, enhanced access to child care and Head Start, assistance to individuals with disabilities, and financial aid assistance for institutions of higher education and students. Despite bipartisan support, the bill has been pending on the Senate Calendar without a vote for nearly three months. Senators Kennedy and Enzi developed a modified version of the legislation and offered it as an amendment to S. 1932. Though the amendment passed by voice vote, the legislation remains stuck in a House-Senate conference that has not yet held a single meeting.

yourdaddy

12-30-2005, 02:47 AM

What a total waste of good broad-band. If people wanted to read Moveon.org, they would subscribe to it.

Felicia Katt

12-30-2005, 03:23 AM

since this thread now has 5 pages, I think people like to stay engaged on these issues. Someone said the Democrats haven't done anything, and that merited a response. I find the whole idea of shucking criticism by claiming others are equally incompetent is invalid. If my boss tells me I am doing a bad job, I can't defend myself by saying the person who had the job before me also sucked.

FK

General124

12-30-2005, 05:46 AM

What a total waste of good broad-band. If people wanted to read Moveon.org, they would subscribe to it.

Hell. I don't need to subscribe to moveon.org. I'm living it everyday. The bureaucracy, the red tape, the unanswered calls. It's all a bunch of bullshit that epitomizes the Bush administration from Day One of his administration. You know it's bad when even his own party has turned on him in many aspects.

You know. I'm sick of all this talk about "Katrina fatigue" and how Washington and the nation are tired of hearing of it. Well hell, I invite you to come live it. I bet you fell differently about Dubya then. If he had half the balls of GB41, he'd be approaching half-decent.

chefmike

12-31-2005, 07:59 PM

Some conservative opinions on the monkey who would be king...

Steve Chapman
Beyond the imperial presidency

Published December 25, 2005

President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.

He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.

His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."

But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.

Even people who should be on Bush's side are getting queasy. David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to enlarge executive authority, Bush "has gone too far."

He's not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb." For three years, the administration said he posed such a grave threat that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy combatant. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.

But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court, the administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court for permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the once-cooperative court flatly refused.

In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the administration suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common purse snatcher--a reversal that, they said, comes "at substantial cost to the government's credibility." The court's meaning was plain: Either you were lying to us then, or you are lying to us now.

If that's not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written by conservative darling J. Michael Luttig--who just a couple of months ago was on Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question Bush's use of executive power is like Bill O'Reilly announcing that there's too much Christ in Christmas.

This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn't need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, the administration also detained him as an enemy combatant rather than entrust him to the criminal justice system.

But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he could present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.

The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people overseas again raises the question: Why?

The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.

He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?

What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it.

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E-mail: schapman@tribune.com.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

BOATER

12-31-2005, 08:19 PM

chefmike

12-31-2005, 08:28 PM

Five New Years' Resolutions for the United States: Lead By Example, Not By Words
Mr. LeVine is professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and Islamic studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the forthcoming books: Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil; and Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880-1948. He is also a contributor, with Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez, to Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation. Click here to access his homepage.

1. Own up to our past--and our present.

President Bush initiated a potential sea change in our foreign policy when he admitted two years ago that "sixty years of western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe." But despite the Bush Administration's increasingly prominent rhetoric supporting democracy and freedom in the region, the reality is that the United States still has not owned up to its crucial role (and before it, Europe's) in establishing--and today perpetuating--the authoritarian and corrupt systems the President says he wants to transform.

But it's not just the President; the American people need to take the next year to become much better informed about the history and present realities of American foreign policy in the Middle East, which are only hinted at by the problems surrounding the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As it stands, Muslims know this history much better than we do; this is a major source of the disconnect between how we and they view America's role in the world.

2. Walk the Talk.

Last year while traveling in Iraq an elderly lawyer sat me down and, after quoting Jefferson and Franklin, asked me, "If these are your heroes, What in God's name are you doing to us in Iraq?" A similar question is asked of me often in my travels across the Middle East and Muslim world: "America has such great ideals; why don't you walk the talk?" In 2006 America needs to decide: Are we going to continue to have a set of policies in which lofty rhetoric is rarely matched by actual US support for real democratic change? Or is the US finally going to live up to its highest ideals?

The stakes couldn't be higher. Every year that we continue to occupy Iraq and support corrupt and autocratic regimes across Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia the power of militant Islam will grow, as will the capability of terrorists to hit us with increasingly powerful weapons. To really shake up the situation in the Middle East, the US should begin a process of cutting off all military and non-humanitarian economic aid to any country in the region that is not making persuasive progress towards democratization and ending abuses of the people under its control. Doing so will radically change the position of the US in the eyes of the Muslim world and help change many people we presently view as our enemies into allies, and perhaps even friends.

3. Tell Iraq we have no plans to have long term bases in their country.

One of the most destabilizing dynamics of our presence in Iraq, and the most important fuel for the insurgency, is that Iraqis believe that we have no intention of leaving the country. They see the huge bases we've built, and hear American military leaders and politicians refusing to say that the US will leave, even a dozen years from now. If America wants to change the dynamic in Iraq towards a peaceful resolution of the insurgency, we need to utter the magic words: "The United States does not desire any long term bases in Iraq and will withdraw all troops at the earliest possible moment."

4. Withdraw the majority of US troops from the country before the end of 2006.

Nothing will better convince Iraqis that we really don't want their bases and oil than withdrawing the majority of US troops in the coming year. As Rep. John Murtha and so many others convincingly argue, the large US presence is a major reason for the chaos and insurgency, not a check against it. And besides, if the situation becomes appreciably worse, we could certainly send in reinforcements if asked to by a legitimately elected government. But ultimately this is Iraq's fight to win; if the Iraqi people can't come together to end this insurgency on their own in 2006, then we won't be able to do it for them, now or in 2016.

5. Embrace the world, and our children's future.

President Bush captured the raw emotions felt by most Americans in the wake of 9/11 when he exclaimed to the world that "You're either with us or against us." But while it might have made us feel better, such language, and the go it alone policies it reflected, have hurt America far more than Osama bin Laden ever could. Indeed, whether justifying indefinite detention and mistreatment of prisoners (many, and perhaps most of whom have had nothing to do with terrorism), supporting autocratic and corrupt regimes, selling tens of billions of dollars of weapons across the Muslim and larger developing world, committing a pitiful amount of money to fighting poverty and disease, or refusing to own up to the reality of global warming and our role in causing it, American policies have led people across the globe to view the US as a threat to world order, peace and prosperity, rather than its guarantor, as we imagine ourselves to be.

However unjustified Americans might feel these sentiments to be, they are rooted in the experiences of American power by hundreds of millions of people during the "American century." Karen Hughes or even Condi Rice cannot change them, even with the help of a squadron of marketers, propagandists and their military handlers. Rather, the negative attitudes towards the United States will only change if we acknowledge and substantively transformation our policies in the immediate future. We need real changes--not just towards the war on terror and Iraq, but towards the two greatest scourges of our age: widespread poverty and inequality (and the world wide health crises they nurture), and global warming and the environmental devastation it is undeniably causing.

The war against terror is not yet lost, but we're clearly losing. The world becomes more crowded, unhealthier, poorer and more chaotic every year. Even the power of a "fortress America" with "full spectrum dominance" in world affairs cannot prevent terror, poverty, climate change and disease from wreaking havoc on our country in the near future. If the President wants to ensure a lasting and positive legacy, he needs to show new vision in 2006. The world will stand for nothing less, and neither should Americans.

yourdaddy

12-31-2005, 08:50 PM

You poor, pessamistic, losers. Mark my words, Iraq will be settled down by election time 2006, and finally , pelosi, durban, chuckie, et.al., will finally shut the fuck up.

chefmike

12-31-2005, 09:39 PM

You poor, pessamistic, losers. Mark my words, Iraq will be settled down by election time 2006, and finally , pelosi, durban, chuckie, et.al., will finally shut the fuck up.

Instead of feeding the troll, let's state some more facts...

The guerrilla war is being waged only in four provinces. .... This canard is trotted out by everyone from think tank flacks to US generals, and it is shameful. Iraq has 18 provinces, but some of them are lightly populated. The most populous province is Baghdad, which has some 6 million residents, or nearly one-fourth of the entire population of the country. It also contains the capital. It is one of the four being mentioned!. Another of the four, Ninevah province, has a population of some 1.8 million and contains Mosul, a city of over a million and the country's third largest! It is not clear what other two provinces are being referred to, but they are probably Salahuddin and Anbar provinces, other big centers of guerrilla activity, bringing the total for the "only four provinces" to something like 10 million of Iraq's 26 million people.

But the "four provinces" allegation is misleading on another level. It is simply false. Guerrilla attacks occur routinely beyond the confines of Anbar, Salahuddin, Ninevah and Baghdad. Diyala province is a big center of the guerrilla movement and has witnessed thousands of deaths in the ongoing unconventional war. Babil province just south of Baghdad is a major center of back alley warfare between Sunnis and Shiites and attacks on Coalition troops. Attacks, assassinations and bombings are routine in Kirkuk province in the north, a volatile mixture of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs engaged in a subterranean battle for dominance of the area's oil fields. So that is 7 provinces, and certainly half the population of the country lives in these 7, which are daily affected by the ongoing violence. It is true that violence is rare in the 3 northern provinces of the Kurdistan confederacy. And the Shiite south is much less violent than the 7 provinces of the center-north, on a good day. But some of this calm in the south is an illusion deriving from poor on the ground reporting. It appears to be the case that British troops are engaged in an ongoing struggle with guerrilla forces of the Marsh Arabs in Maysan Province. Even calm is not always a good sign. The southern port city of Basra appears to come by its via a reign of terror by Shiite religious militias.

Iraqi Sunnis voting in the December 15 election is a sign that they are being drawn into the political process and might give up the armed insurgency.... So far Iraqi Sunni parties are rejecting the outcome of the election and threatening to boycott parliament. Some 20,000 of them demonstrated all over the center-north last Friday against what they saw as fraudulent elections. So, they haven't been drawn into the political process in any meaningful sense. And even if they were, it would not prevent them from pursuing a two-track policy of both political representation and guerrilla war. The two-track approach is common among insurgencies, from Northern Ireland's IRA to Palestine's Hamas.

Iraqis are grateful for the US presence and want US forces there to help them build their country.... Opinion polls show that between 66% and 80% of Iraqis want the US out of Iraq on a short timetable. Already in the last parliament, some 120 parliamentarians out of 275 supported a resolution demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, and that sentiment will be much stronger in the newly elected parliament.

There is a silent majority of middle class, secular-minded Iraqis who reject religious fundamentalism.... Two major elections have been held. For all their flaws (lack of security, anonymity of most candidates, constraints on campaigning), they certainly are weather vanes of the political mood of most of the country. While the Kurdistan Alliance is largely secular, the Arab Iraqis have turned decisively toward religious fundamentalist parties. The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite fundamentalists) and the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalists) are the big winners of the most recent election. Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya list got only 14.5 percent of the seats on Jan. 30, and will shrink to half that, most likely, in this most recent election. A clear majority of Iraqis, and the vast majority of the Arab Iraqis, are constructing new, fluid political identities that depend heavily on religious and ethnic sub-nationalisms.
The new Iraqi constitution is a victory for Western, liberal values in the Middle East.... The constitution made Islam the religion of state. It stipulates that the civil parliament may pass no legislation that contradicts the established laws of Islam. It looks forward to clerics serving on court benches. It allows individuals to opt out of secular, civil personal status laws (for marriage, divorce, alimony, inheritance) and to choose relgious canon law instead. Islamic law gives girls, e.g., only half the amount of inheritance received by their brothers. Instead of a federal government, the constitution establishes a loose supervisory role for Baghdad and devolves most powers, including claims on future oil finds, on provinces and provincial confederacies, such that it is difficult to see how the country will be able to hold together.

The US can buy off the Iraqis now supporting guerrilla action against US troops... US military and civilian officials in Iraq have on numerous occasions alleged in the press or privately to me that a vast infusion of billions of dollars from the US would dampen down the guerrilla insurgency. In fact, it seems clear that far more Sunni Arabs support the guerrilla movement today than supported it in September of 2004, and more supported it in September of 2004 than had in September of 2003. AP reports that the US has spent $100 million on reconstruction projects in Diyala Province. These community development and infrastructural improvements, often carried out by US troops in conditions of danger, are most praiseworthy. But Diyala is a mess politically and a major center of guerrilla activity (see below), which simply could not be pursued on this scale without substantial local popular support. The Sunni Arab parties, which demand US withdrawal and reject the results of the Dec. 15 elections, carried the province, winning 6 seats.

The guerrillas are to some important extent driven by local nationalism and rejection of foreign occupation, as well as resentment at the marginalization of the Sunni Arab community in the new Iraq. They have a keen sense of national honor, and there is no evidence that they can be bribed into laying down their arms, or that the general populace can be bribed on any significant scale into turning the guerrillas in to the US. Attributing motives of honor to one's own side and crass economic interests to one's opponent is a common ploy of political propaganda, but we should be careful about believing our own spin.

Even a simple economic calculation would favor the guerrillas fighting on, however. If they could get back in control of Iraq through a coup, they'd have $50 billion a year in oil revenues to play with. The total US reconstruction aid promised to Iraq is only $18 billion, and much of that will be spent on security-- i.e. it won't benefit most Iraqis.

The Bush administration wanted free elections in Iraq....

The Bush administration opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils, the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the electorate to this small, elite group.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa denouncing this plan and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security Council resolution. Bush was reportedly "extremely offended" at these two demands and opposed Sistani. Bremer got his appointed Interim Governing Council to go along in fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought thousands of protesters into the streets in January of 2004, demanding free elections. Soon thereafter, Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything he demanded. Except that he was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated elections in Iraq might become a factor in the US presidential campaign, so he got the elections postponed to January 2005. This enormous delay allowed the country to fall into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still bitter that the Americans didn't hold the elections last May. The US objected that they couldn't use UN food ration cards for registration, as Sistani suggested. But in the end that is exactly what they did. '

Juan Cole
Professor of History at The University of Michigan

yourdaddy

12-31-2005, 11:06 PM

El_hefe

12-31-2005, 11:16 PM

Jeezus Chef, what's with the looong feverishly written diatribes with your view of overarching theories of reality? Someone at the hospital been messing with your dosage level?

Bring us back the old Chef whose political thoughts could be expressed with cartoon figures.

Realgirls4me

12-31-2005, 11:39 PM

Running scared, aren't you mike? So afraid that things might actually improve in Iraq. When they do, I believe the ny times or the la times could use a great editorial copier like you. With their failing circulation, they will want all the cheap sycophants they can find.

This is exactly the point I alluded to in an earlier post about SFB (Shit-For-Brains, for those who have forgotten his new anonym) distorted black and white view on reality. The falling circulation of news print is a favorite harping point of the O'Reillys, Hannitys, and Limbaughs of the Conservative media world. Never would it enter the mind of a piss poor fuck like Yourdaddy to challenge what they say and actually do research on his own to come to his own conclusions. If he had in this case for example, he would find that the print media has been falling steadily for the last few years, and -- AND -- that falling circulation has not excluded Conservative rags from the drop either. In his irrational little peabrain world it's, give me anything to attack a Liberal or Democrat, even if it is only partially true.

Jeezus Chef, what's with the looong feverishly written diatribes with your view of overarching theories of reality? Someone at the hospital been messing with your dosage level?

Bring us back the old Chef whose political thoughts could be expressed with cartoon figures.

Mike can't win with you, can he ? He takes hits for expressing himself via images, but when he comes aboard and cites actual text that one can read, he gets attacked for that. Which expression hurts these freepers the most I have to wonder ? El Hefe is another dumbfuck who comes on here cherrypicking facts that suit his ideology, while dismissing other points of facts or views. He claims to be independent with an open mind, but perusing his posts one can easily see that he isn't. Just another freeper who can't handle the truth.

Happy New Year, Losers!

General124

01-01-2006, 12:12 AM

You poor, pessamistic, losers. Mark my words, Iraq will be settled down by election time 2006, and finally , pelosi, durban, chuckie, et.al., will finally shut the fuck up.

Is that you Dubya?

Felicia Katt

01-01-2006, 01:07 AM

You poor, pessamistic, losers. Mark my words, Iraq will be settled down by election time 2006, and finally , pelosi, durban, chuckie, et.al., will finally shut the fuck up.

Is that you Dubya?

I think it might be Cheney from his undisclosed location LOL

in July, Cheney said:
“The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”

The American military death toll for the year is at 842 - four short of 2004's record total despite political progress and dogged U.S. and Iraqi efforts to quash the insurgency. A total of 846 U.S. military personnel died in 2004 and 485 in 20. Almost 2,000 of those deaths have occurred since President George W. Bush declared 'Mission Accomplished' on May 1, 2003. The number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq passed 16,000, of whom more than 7,000 were injured so seriously that they could not be returned to active duty.

The number of insurgents is increasing. Iraq's insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathizers, the country's national intelligence chief said

Crime is rampant. over 250 Westerners and over 5000 Iraqis have been kidnapped. Doctors and other professionals are abandoning the country for its neighbors to avoid that fate. Iraqi oil production and electricity generation are less than they were at under Saddam before the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

Things are no better now than they were a year ago, and in many respects they are worse. Optimisim is great, if you want to think the glass is half full rather than half empty, but not when the glass is shattered.

FK

yourdaddy

01-01-2006, 02:07 AM

Loser, losers, losers. The glass is ALWAYS half full. If you don't see this, you will always be relegated to loser status. I am so glad that there are people like you, that want to see a doomsday scenario for everything. That makes it so much easier for the majority of Americans, and keep us winning the Presidency, and both sides of Congress. I can't believe you don't at least cozy up with hillary, so you can say"If only we had won".

Felicia Katt

01-01-2006, 03:38 AM

General John Abizaid: “In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago….In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I’d say it’s about the same as it was.”

John McCain, when asked if the insurgency is in its final throes: “No.”

Republican Senator Chuck Hegel Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality... It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is, we're losing in Iraq."

Donald Rumsfeld: “We’re not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.”

If everyone who thinks things aren't rosy in Iraq cozies up with Hillary, she had better get a bigger bed! LOL

FK

InHouston

01-01-2006, 07:46 PM

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/vince-foster/foster-report/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp

Hey Felicia, good to see that you stopped doing your political research on Wikipedia, and have since graduated your intellect to sites like Rottom.com and Snopes.com. One of these days you'll realize that a web site is just a personal computer sitting on a desk that’s plugged into the Internet, and not the Holy Grail of sacred truth you seem to think it is. Go rent the Wizard of Oz and learn from that metaphor.

You know, this really stands out about you with me. Your conspicuous attempt to discredit Laura Bush by writing about the car accident she was in by saying ‘she killed someone’, is despicable, and reveals how low you would stoop. Yes it's true, and it happened when she was 17. The accurate context and honest crux of the story is that she was a young and inexperienced driver who unintentionally ran a stop sign and killed another teenager. It happens. She was also emotionally distraught for some time after that ordeal. However, in all your liberal compassion of all people you don't really care to mention, or even allude to, the fact that she's a fallible human being like all of us. You would rather say that she killed someone, rather than introduce the issue as her having been in a car accident, because that fact is too boring for you isn’t it, and doesn’t serve your political self-interests. And yes, that is selfish of you. It also proves imperially you blindly take a side due to your innate inability to think for yourself, and be honest with yourself, and sometimes I wonder if you have a vagina, because you whine and complain and fault-find like a damn girl.

The glass is half empty, and half full, and it is both all at once. Wise people can see matters on all three of those dimensions, unlike you one-dimensional linear thinkers in here. I’m conservative on some matters and liberal on others, and my position can and will vary from day to day depending on the cause and effect I see that manifests from those issues. Joseph Campbell once said, “The virtues of yesterday become the vices of tomorrow, and the vices of today become the virtues of tomorrow.” TG’s are an example of this. Vices that are slowly evolving into mainstream virtues of today and tomorrow. Humans are good at figuring out problems, and have been for millions of years. Things always tend to get better over time regardless of the all too predictable naysayers who try to undermine progress under the guise of corruption and conspiracy, when in reality you are merely too simplistic and unsophisticated in your reasoning skills to welcome and accept change and evolution where humanity is concerned. So how about taking a little stock in this great bastion of freedom you live in and quit shittin on it so much?

All I see from your posts Felicia, and ChefMike, and many others for that matter, are poorly assorted constructs of loosely knitted narrative dots of hindsight and plagiarized one-sided bias that never approaches a sliver of compelling truth, reasoning, or even genuine thinking for that matter. Obsessive cutting and pasting excerpts from websites, and regurgitating the same old Moveon.org and Michael Moore talking points is old, boring, and moves your audience further and further to the other side from you. Just because it comes from a ‘website’, doesn’t constitute it as fact or reality. You don’t like Bush. Okay, get over it. We didn’t like Kerry, we acted, and the more realistic minds of this nation won, and we’ve since moved on. If I ever see a democrat that offers more than his or her republican counterpart, then the democrat has my vote. Yeah … like I really see that happening after muddling through the obsessive puke in this thread.

Just like the saying 'You are what you eat' ... 'You are what you read'. So much for the time-honored adage 'Readers make leaders'. And so convinces me even more of a quote I once read long ago, “Study without thought is perilous.” That’s you Felicia, and hence why our democracy voted the likes of you out of office, not once but twice.

:smh

BlackAdder

01-01-2006, 09:13 PM

Jamie Michelle

01-01-2006, 10:20 PM

President George Bush, Jr. is a closet-case who is queerer than a three-dollar bill. Take the case of Victor "Victoria" Ashe, George Bush, Jr.'s long-time homosexual lover and fellow member in the Brotherhood of Death (a.k.a. the Order of Skull & Bones)--the former Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, and now the current Ambassador to Poland, appointed by Bush, Jr.

Below is the Globe and Mail's own tactful way of subtly "outing" Bush, Jr.:

"Bush prefers our pretty boy to his pretty boy," Jane Taber, Globe and Mail, January 16, 2004, Page A1:

http://www.rense.com/general47/bushsmitten.htm

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040116/REID16

See also:

Bush's Secret Life in 84:

http://bushssecretlifein84.tripod.com

Also revealing, on the Nixon tapes from May 13, 1971, Nixon says of Bohemian Grove:

""
"But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time--it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco."
""

(From "All The Philosopher King's Men--President Richard Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman," James Warren, Harper's Magazine, February 2000 http://www.prisonplanet.com/032604nixontape.html .)

Yet the Bushes just can't get enough of Bohemian Grove.

Also interesting, as Mayor, Ashe spent $200,000 for a 7.9-foot black granite Egyptian obelisk (i.e., the Phallus of Osiris) on which is the laser-etched names of the people that died in the 9/11 PsyOps attacks, and which is in front of the City-County Building:

http://www.greatestcities.com/3854pic/266/CP5266.jpg/MVC-016F.JPG

---

And then there's the case of Bush, Jr.'s gay male escort Jeff Gannon (a.k.a. James Dale Guckert), who sidelined as a scripted softball White House reporter.

"Secret Service records raise new questions about discredited conservative reporter," John Byrne, Raw Story, April 24, 2005:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/secret_service_gannon_424.htm

"Homeland Security: 'We're still looking for Gannon credentialing,'" Raw Story, April 4, 2005:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/homeland_security_responds_jeff_gannon_404.htm

"The smoking scalp?," Jeff Wells, February 15, 2005:

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/02/smoking-scalp.html

---

For more on New Haven, Connecticut Yankee carpetbagger Bush's phoniness:

"Phony to the Core: The 'Ole Family Ranch' in Crawford is a Set Completed the Same Day the Election was Stolen," Cheryl Seal, Unknown News, April 18, 2002:

http://www.unknownnews.net/cdd041802.html

"Austin's Infowars.com Is Sick of Carpetbagger Bush's Phony Texan Act," Violet Jones, Infowars.com, August 5, 2005:

http://www.infowars.com/articles/Bush/phony_Texan.htm

http://www.infowars.com/images2/cartoons/cowboy_bush_sm.jpg

http://www.infowars.com/images2/Bush/cheerleader.jpg
Yankee from Connecticut Bush was a Cheerleader during his high school years spent at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts

########################################

The above doesn't even touch upon former President George Bush, Sr.'s sexual fondness for young boys:

"Homosexual prostitution inquiry ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush: 'Call boys' took midnight tour of White House," Paul M. Rodriguez and George Archibald, Washington Times, June 29, 1989:

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/wtpage1smaller.gif

http://www.thelawparty.com/FranklinCoverup/WTpage1.gif

http://www.thelawparty.com/FranklinCoverup/WTpage2.gif

The below documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," was produced by Yorkshire Television (U.K.) under contract by the Discovery Channel. The documentary was scheduled to air nation-wide in the U.S. on the Discovery Channel on May 3, 1994. It was listed in the April 30th-May 6th edition of TV Guide and in newspapers for that day.

This documentary exposed a network of business leaders, Washington politicians and other high officials involved in a child sex-slave ring that flew children to Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in the U.S. for sex orgies. This documentary film turned out to be very presciently named, because close to the time before airing, various congressmen threatened the cable TV industry with restrictive legislation if this documentary was aired. Almost immediately, the rights to the documentary were purchased for some half-million dollars by unnamed persons who ordered all copies destroyed. A copy of the rough-edited version of the film was furnished anonymously to attorney and former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp, among others.

Former CIA Director William E. Colby is also interviewed on the documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," wherein William E. Colby backs up the legitimacy of these charges and also talks about the real risks of assassination that John DeCamp faces for taking up this case (other investigators into the Franklin, Nebraska child sex-slave scandal were assassinated).

Below is an RM file (33.3 MB) of "Conspiracy of Silence":

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/conspiracyofsilence56k.rm

You can download this same video in the below higher resolution format. Windows media (39.6 MB):

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/conspiracyofsilence2.wmv

"Conspiracy of Silence" doesn't attempt to go into the Satanic and human-sacrifice angle of the Franklin incident, although that is very much part of this case, as this case is directly connected to Bohemian Grove and other child sex-slave rings. For more on this aspect, see the below book by former State Senator John DeCamp:

The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska by John W. DeCamp (AWT; 2nd edition: December 1, 1996), ISBN: 0963215809:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0963215809/

One of the best introductions to the background and subsequent cover-up of the above film, "Conspiracy of Silence," is from the below excerpts from the book The Franklin Cover-Up by former State Senator John DeCamp, wherein he also talks about his relationship to former CIA Director William E. Colby (who himself was assassinated). Do a search for "Yorkshire" to go directly to the section concerning this film:

http://www.davidicke.net/tellthetruth/coverups/decamp.html

or:

http://mysite.users2.50megs.com/coverups/decamp.html

One of the victims, Paul Bonacci, testified in court to being forced into deprived sexual acts with men and other boys, including snuff films made at Bohemian Grove, with U.S. Senior District Judge Warren K. Urbom presiding. Bonacci won the court case and was awarded one million dollars by Judge Urbom.

Below is the text of the ruling by Judge Warren K. Urbom mentioned above:

Paul A. Bonacci, Plaintiff vs Lawrence E. King, Defendant, 4:CV91-3037, Memorandum of Decision Filed February 22, 1999:

http://www.raven1.net/ra1.htm

Below you can read more on the above case. Scroll down to the section entitled "Snuff kiddie porn at Bohemian Grove":

Bohemian Grove Dirt:

http://www.geocities.com/bohemian_grove_dirt/

Janus

01-02-2006, 12:22 AM

Ah, I love paranoia. Time to put on those tinfoil hats...

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~raza/foiled.jpg

December

01-02-2006, 12:39 AM

Yeah id be down with all that, ummm...except the part where you say you voted the dems out of office instead of having the partisan supreme court elect the president, instead of congress and the american people....

5 to 4 man...thats all im going to say.

So...it's true, you really are obsessed over 2000, where the recounts kept putting Gore further and further behind, esp. when conducted the way his people wanted them.

When, oh when, are the Democrats going to get a Platform that doesn't include "George Bush"???? The guy's out of office in three years, and in 04, "Anyone but Bush" Did Not Work.

In fact, y'all managed to screw up an easier one than that-you didn't get Congress, either.

Quick now:

Who makes the Laws?

Who can Impeach (remove) a sitting President?

Who can Impeach (Remove) a Sitting Federal Judge?

Who controls the Budget, without which, a President can't spend the country into a hole?

Who Prioritizes Federal Spending?

Whose "Advice and Consent" is required for ANY Presidential Appointment?

Congress does this. The President can Veto, but Congress has the power to override. 2002, 2004, the Democrats have been focused on the man they hate in the white house, and they've let Congress remain out of their grasp.

Y'all have been suckered, you've let the real reins of power slip and focused on a single man-a kind of personality-cult clouds your party's vision (and the vision of the so-called "Progressives" around the nation), because your party leaders would rather leave unconstitutional powers operating in hopes of seizing them, than securing the proper source of power and using it responsibly.

American Voters tend to prefer divided government- the fact that the Republicans control both houses of Congress, and hold the white house simultaneously, says a lot more about the Democrats, their "Progressive" leaders, (and followers) and not so much about the GOP other than they've managed to avoid doing a Tom Foley.

Here's a heads-up: The Democratic Party and its Progressive Alliances has managed to alienate around 35% of what's left of Union Workers-this was demonstrated by the Teamster's acrimonious departure from the AFL/CIO. They've managed to alienate a huge proportion of socially-liberal but non-socialist people in the population.

Their rhetoric has alienated vets, and the families of vets in pretty scary amounts-there are millions of us out here. It's not 1960, you don't have a majority of people living in fear of the draft from the most spoiled-brat generation in human history.

But the real biggie, is that you don't have a clue how you are going to fix all these problems you keep pointing out. This was readily apparent during the '04 elections, Kerry couldn't, and wouldn't present an alternative to what GW was doing, except claiming he could "Do it better".

Right.

It's not a message that appeals to moderates, it doesn't draw in the un-claimed and shrinking middle-ground voters necessary to win the oval orifice, it doesn't offer an alternative or demonstrate that the Party is paying attention to the real world.

The joke behind the "Contract with America" pushed by Gingrich, and the brilliance of the strategy, was that it demonstrated the ability to listen to what people are bitching about privately. Only one or two points of that were actually accomplished, but the power was that it was a unified and rational message-you may not have liked it, but it was clear, it was a platform that could be read off a 3x5 card and it addressed what most of your "Swing" voters were interested in hearing from a congressional candidate.

The joke comes from the fact that the "Party of the Common man" failed to do it first, failed to learn from it, and has been desperately navel gazing ever since.

We live in an advertising saturated culture, the methods of propoganda are so commonly in use at every level that they lose a lot of effectiveness. "Hype" is uninteresting, and Jerry Springer, while entertaining, isn't seen as anything more than entertainment. To get your message out, you first have to have a message besides "Wi hat u konsurvutev azzholz!!!111ONEONEONE111!!!"

Until you can get past that, you're not going to win anything.

yourdaddy

01-02-2006, 01:59 AM

MoveOn.org is once again correct. President George Bush was actually caught by a ny times reporter getting head in the West Wing by his male lover. After removing the cigars from the ass of the Presidents lover, the reporter promised not to reveal what happened until a really opportune time. He was given the cigar, and was last seen chewing on it as he left the White house.. Sound familiar????

yourdaddy

01-02-2006, 02:04 AM

By the way Jamie, you are the "Bimbo of the year". John Kerry was also a member of Skull and Crossbones. Or, lile the 2000 election, you choose to deny this.

chefmike

01-02-2006, 06:31 AM

http://photobucket.com/albums/a78/chefmike_/th_brokedown.jpg

Felicia Katt

01-02-2006, 07:28 AM

Inhouston, did you forget the context of my post, or just chose to ignore it? I'm not the one who pulled the old, fully discredited right wing screed about Vince Foster out of left field. I guess its ok to slander Clinton, as a murderer but wrong to respond with a fact about Laura Bush.

Would you like a little cheese with your whine? I'm not the one whining here or engaing in ad hominen attacks. I have been posting facts, not opinions, and from a variety of sources. I don't beleive I have ever referenced Michael Moore. Not that he wouldn't be a credible source, since he generally has factual support for his allegations, unlike people like Hannity or O'reilly or Drudge. One of the sources I quoted most extensively was your state's Republican platform. Did you still want to stick to your guns and support their undisguised, undiluted hatred of gays and transgenders?

I don't like Bush. According to current polls, neither does something like 65 per cent of the country. I think the war was promoted on false pretenses, that its being very poorly waged, and there was no real plan beyond ousting Saddam Guess what, a majority of American's agree with me on these points too.

I love this country and its freedom. Thats why I am so offended by the Patriot Act, domestic spying by the NSA, Guantamo Bay, torture and rendition, and CIA black op prisons. I'm outraged by faith based initiatives, giving a stem cell more rights than a quadriplegic, intelligent design, Terry Schivo and all of the other areas where people who swore to support the constitution, forget the part about keeping State and Religion separate. I'm deeply troubled where our political system which is the lifeblood of our freedoms is made anemic by Diebold, and Abramahoffs, and the courrupt decision in Gore v Florida, and Republicans with hard-ons for soft money. All of those things threaten our freedom directly. My refusal to ignore all those things is a time honored part of our freedom as found in the first Amendment. They haven't repealed that just yet.

as far as your patronizing quotation, you got it wrong. its from Confucius
and is actually two separate quotes: Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. and If one learns but does not think, one will be bewildered. If one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be imperiled I'd agree with that ideal and suggest it applies to you more than me.

FK

jt money

01-02-2006, 03:04 PM

Ah, I love paranoia. Time to put on those tinfoil hats...

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~raza/foiled.jpg

No shit!! :roll:

chefmike

01-02-2006, 10:07 PM

Here are some delightfully optimistic 2006 predictions from Alec Baldwin, a "favorite" of mindless rush, hannity, et al zombies everywhere...

Megadittoes to Alec!!

My prediction for 2006 is a multiple, all connected politically. I predict that another barrage of fierce storms and hurricanes will so disturb the American people, that the Democrats will take the Senate in the '06 election and whittle away at the House in those races as well. Whether those storms can be attributed to global warming conditions or more normal meterological cycles will not matter.

Americans typically arrive, albeit slowly at times, at the sensible conclusion and wiill vote accordingly. This government, ferociously and blindly partisan, has been for sale since the 2000 election. Hastert and Frist are moral cowards who wanted to hide behind fealty to their President as a means of passing the buck and all of their responsibilities onto the administration. (The results have been disastrous. Only in this universe can a fool like Ted Stevens say that defeat of ANWAR drilling is the saddest day of his life. This tired old Oil Whore has been selling the American people and his colleagues a line of this nonsense for too long. Conservation and alternatives are the answer. Not letting corrupt pols like Stevens line the pockets of their contributors.)

Secondly. the resultant Senate turnover will give Democrats greater power to launch independent investigations. The current Frist-Hastert regime wouldn't dream of doing anything to embarass the White House. No matter that honest, decent Republicans like Tom Kean have exhorted this administration regarding the 9/11 Commission's findings. No matter that Republicans on that commission have stated that America is not safer since the formation of a Homeland Security Department. Not safer since the passing of the Patriot Act. The Commission's recommendations have been ignored and America may suffer for it. But a looming Democratic Senate may cure that. And cure the Valerie Plame leak issue and the Iraqi pull-out issue and other issues, as well.

Thirdly, a Democratic Senate, and its influence on what may also be a diminished Republican majority in the House, will lead to Cheney's impeachment. Many Democratic partisans and common Bush-haters dream of ending his second term prematurely. That will never happen, nor should it. Bush is the puppet of wealthy corporate interests and red-faced Christian conservatives who know the real power lies elsewhere. Besides, keeping Bush in office through the'08 election can only benefit Democrats. Every day Bush is in office pays dividends to his opponents. Bush's incompetence is the gift that keeps on giving. Cheney, however, is truly the dark side of the Force. Nearly every controversy that this administration has created has Cheney's fingerprints on it. Secret energy policy meetings that may have unduly influenced the California governor's race? Cheney. Valerie Plame. a woman and mother who served her country and was maliciously outted in the press by way of that Hack/Weasal Robert Novak? Cheney. Lies about WMD and Iraqi-Al Qaeda links? Cheney. Nearly everywhere you look, you see Cheney directly or, more often, his shadow, ruining peoples lives, stealing their freedoms and liberties and/or destroying whole countries to serve his warped goals of an American foreign policy that seemed dated 25 years ago.

The seeds of Cheney's impeachment will be sown in 2006. He will be impeached by 2008. And with him and this administration may go the destructive image of America not as global policeman, but as a corrupt policeman. A lawman not interested in the law but in pure power. Not interested in giving aid but in taking just about anything that's not nailed down. Cheney represents a view of American political power that is old. Dead. Finished. And that, once buried, will lead to America beginning to assert its role within a new, cooperative global alignment. Not afraid to use its power, but not obsessed with flaunting it with everyone at every turn. Not a kinder, gentler US. Only a smarter one.

yourdaddy

01-02-2006, 10:20 PM

Have you been checked for paranoid tendencies. Evidently, when you're nor working(if you do), you spend all your spare time worrying about GWB and Dick Cheney. That's a pretty sick, sad existence. I lost my oldest friend the day after the elections last year. He was living in Venice, (LaLa) Ca. He was the most liberal person I ever knew, Vietnam Vets for kerry, etc.. One hour after kerry resigned, he was standing in a check-out line holding his 8 year old daughters hand, when his heart skipped a beat and never picked it up again. He was as big a progressive zealot as you are, yet he couldn't tell me what Wahabbism was. He was politically the most naive person I knew. He believed everything the la times said. governor dean was actually his first choice as President, but boy did he get behind kerry. I was a democrat most of my life, so I know when I tell you, liberals (not all dems) are the lyingest, cheatingest, most close-minded people on the face of the earth.

chefmike

01-02-2006, 10:23 PM

From Seth Greenland, also at www.huffingtonpost.com

The following was obtained by perfectly legal surveillance of President Bush's personal e-mail account.

Dear Vice,

Thought you'd get a kick outta this. My New Year Year's Resolutions for 2006. Why don't I just declare 'em law! (Al Gonzales said I could!). Please note – these R just 4 U.

10. Suspend habeas corpus and claim it is yet one more way I am just like Abraham Lincoln.

9. Stop mincing words. Call Democrats traitors (they are!).

8. Get someone at CIA to come up with cute Can-you-hear-me-now?-style slogan so people won't be in such a lather about wire taps.

7. Ask Bono to talk to Chinese about canceling our debt.

6. Encourage John McCain to take up shark wrestling (Meeting with him? That was torture!).

5. Get Halliburton to rebuild New Orleans – in Baghdad. Riverboats on the Euphrates! Indian Casinos on the Tigris! Mayor Ray Nagin in a combat zone! What's not to like?

4. Find someone to execute (Boy, I miss Texas! Can I be governor again when I'm done up here? The Democrats there liked me, although they're probably traitors, too).

3. Pardon Karl Rove (I'm just anticipatin' here, heh-heh).

2. Get Dad to tell Mom to shut the fuck up.

1. Pray extra hard for the Rapture so I don't have to worry about #s 10-2.

Let me know what yours are, ok? Maybe I can have 'em declared law, too.

Your buddy, George W.

P.S. This doesn't have anything to do with New Years but have you noticed that if you turn off the sound on Saddam's trial and play "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd, it's kinda cool? When he talks, it's sorta like he's dancin', only slow, and funny-like.

Felicia Katt

01-02-2006, 10:38 PM

chefmike

01-02-2006, 10:43 PM

Felicia Katt

01-02-2006, 10:53 PM

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. and
If one learns but does not think, one will be bewildered. If one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be imperiled
which reminded me of the following facts:

Bush admits he does not read the newspapers.
"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

and Bush chose to ignore world wide anti-war protests with an estimated 6 million participants.
''You know, size of protest, it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group"

I have read Confusius. My guess is that Bush, and his very objective staff have not.

FK

Jamie Michelle

01-02-2006, 11:59 PM

By the way Jamie, you are the "Bimbo of the year". John Kerry was also a member of Skull and Crossbones. Or, lile the 2000 election, you choose to deny this.

It's called the Order of Skull & Bones (a.k.a. the Brotherhood of Death), not "Crossbones." Nor *was* John Kerry a member of the Brotherhood of Death, he still *is*, just as Bushes Sr. and Jr. still are, and just as Bush, Jr.'s long-time homosexual lover Victor "Victoria" Ashe still is.

As I said elsewhere earlier:

Whatever candidates the Democrats and Republicans run for President will be totally controlled puppets of the globalist elite. The rhetoric might be slightly different, but the end-agenda will be the same (that agenda being a one-world totalitarian government with a one-world enforced religion, which the globalist elite call the New World Order).

Reuters publicly acknowledges that the Bilderberg group of European royalty and international central bankers groomed Bill Clinton and Tony Blair for the U.S. Presidency and British Prime Ministry, respectively:

"Secretive Bilderberg group to meet in Sweden," Peter Starck, Reuters, May 23, 2001:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/reuters_bilderberg.html

Although the Clintons and the Bushes are long-time close family friends going back even before their drug-running operation in Mena, Arkansas. And John Kerry and Bushes Sr. and Jr. are all Bonesmen in the occult sociey of the Brotherhood of Death (a.k.a. the Order of Skull & Bones at Yale), of which occult society was instrumental in the funding of Hitler and the Nazis. Bonesman Prescott Bush (Bush, Sr.'s father) had one of his banks and a number of his companies seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act for his financing of the Nazis even during wartime. It's also interesting to note that the skull and bones symbol used by the Brotherhood of Death is the same symbol worn on the Nazi SS uniform.

For more information on the Bilderberg group, see the below newsarchive:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archive_bilderberg.html

See also:

"Elite power brokers' secret talks," Emma Jane Kirby, BBC News, May 15, 2003:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3031717.stm

"World government in action," Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com, May 16, 2003:

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32606

"The masters of the universe," Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, May 22, 2003:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EE22Ak03.html

And as the below BBC Radio report reveals, the European Union and the euro European Union single-currency were both secretly planned since the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archive_bilderberg.html

BBC Bilderberg Report: European Union, Single Currency Planned Since 50's

BBC uncovered incredible archived Bilderberg documents which confirmed that both the EU and the Euro were the brainchild of Bilderberg. ...

"Club Class," Simon Cox, BBC Radio, July 3, 2003:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/bbc_radio_4_bilderberg.mp3

----------

And with the black-box electronic voting, the ruling elite can simply punch in any numbers that they want, as they did in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election (of which the actual winner, Bonesman Kerry, was more than happy to roll over for his good buddies, the Bushes):

"Science proves that vote fraud is real!," Joseph Cannon, April 2, 2005:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2005/04/science-proves-that-vote-fraud-is-real.html

"Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit Poll Discrepancies," Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D., Kathy Dopp, MS mathematics, Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., Prof. Brian Joiner, Prof. Frank Stenger, Prof. Richard G. Sheehan, Paul F. Velleman, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D. Lecturer, Campbell B. Read, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Jonathan Simon, Ron Baiman, Bruce O'Dell, US Count Votes' National Election Data Archive Project, March 31, 2005:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf

"The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, November 11, 2004:

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf

In "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Steven F. Freeman says:

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."

The odds of those exit poll statistical anomalies occurring by chance are, according to Dr. Freeman, "250,000,000 to one."

El_hefe

01-03-2006, 12:51 AM

Wow, so thats what Pepe Escobar thinks...Well that really clinches it I guess....Wait, what do the Space Brothers tell you?

yourdaddy

01-03-2006, 01:07 AM

Bimbo of the year award goes to Jamie. I would have bet good money that felicia would have won it. Oh well, she will keep trying.

chefmike

01-03-2006, 01:13 AM

I lost my oldest friend the day after the elections last year. He was the most liberal person I ever knew, Vietnam Vets for kerry, etc.. .... so I know when I tell you, liberals (not all dems) are the lyingest, cheatingest, most close-minded people on the face of the earth.

Thats how you feel about your oldest friend?? I'd hate to hear what you think about your enemies! LOL

FK

Actually, judging by his previous posts, that would depend on what day, and what dosage...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're right Mike, tornadoes and red-neck girls, both end up in trailer parks. You really are a good guy. Nobody else will give me shit like you do. I really hope next year is a solid success for your business. May you have a 5 star restaurant someday. Just have some fried okra for me. yourdaddy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the rudest, most non-communicative, least personable people I have ever come across in my life, are hasidic jews. I have to think that they were raised by people with no skills at communication, and no desire to have contact with any other people than themselves. I deal quite often with Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanian, Pakistani, and Indian people, but Hasidic Jews are the most egotistical assholes, other than chefmike, I have ever seen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The only people that subsribe to the ny times are those hassidic jews, so it's a short paper route. I wonder if they'll tip me this year.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Allanah, the cops are under such a microscope.......as they probably should be, to some degree. Trogdor had to dig up some 5 year old case, lie about the facts, and didn't acknowledge that there was a fair trial, that included his neighbors testifying against the rake-wielder.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike, how long can you hold your breath? Your nose stays so far up Allanah's ass, that you're gonna need CPR soon

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I take my hat off to your cooking skills. I was the first white waiter at my families restaurant. I can rock a bus-tray with the best of them. We had a limited menu, but the best things were the pancakes in the morning, and the homemade pecan pie. Our chef made the pie with both dark and light Caro syrup, plus some secret ingredients. It would melt in your mouth. Try the chicken fat in pancakes sometime. It keeps them from getting "grainy". Wish I could tell you what ratio she used.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, that does it. I just thought you were a negative, hedonistic, asshole, chefmike. Now I know what you are....a flaming asshole faggot. If meanness under the guise of intellectualism was a crime, you'd get life.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, i guess you're right Allanah. The Spanish speaking immigrants pouring in down here, like yourself, with no education, are pulling us down. U peekie panish?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm deeply sorry about the passing of your son- my condolenses

Thank you Allanah, I know you mean it.

--------------------------------------------------------

Murtha makes two people in the world really happy when he says that. Al Zarqawi, and chefmike. How's your Arabic Mike? They could use another suicide bomber or two.

yourdaddy wrote:
Seanchai is just a jitterbug. He banned me from one of his websites for disagreeing with his politics. That shows you what a total dumbass he is. His politics should not have been part of his website. Only a fool would do that.

I never banned you for disagreeing with my politics, I stopped you posting on the forum for being an all round arsehole. Something you're happily continuing onto this site.
A fool might do that but I'm a richer, happier and more balanced fool than either you or St.Richter could ever dream of being.

[/b]

Felicia Katt

01-03-2006, 01:15 AM

bimbo
noun {C} plural bimboes or bimbos SLANG DISAPPROVING

a young woman considered to be attractive but not intelligent:

well, thank you for the partial compliment. LOL

FK

yourdaddy

01-03-2006, 01:18 AM

You're at the bottom of your barrel chef. Paranoia is not a pretty sight. If you're really a veteran, maybe you can receive some help at your nearest VA hospital.

Jamie Michelle

01-03-2006, 01:38 AM

Wow, so thats what Pepe Escobar thinks...Well that really clinches it I guess....Wait, what do the Space Brothers tell you?

So what does Pepe Escobar think? Perhaps you would care to share with the class.

For reference, below is the entirety of my post which you are apparently referring to:

----------

By the way Jamie, you are the "Bimbo of the year". John Kerry was also a member of Skull and Crossbones. Or, lile the 2000 election, you choose to deny this.

It's called the Order of Skull & Bones (a.k.a. the Brotherhood of Death), not "Crossbones." Nor *was* John Kerry a member of the Brotherhood of Death, he still *is*, just as Bushes Sr. and Jr. still are, and just as Bush, Jr.'s long-time homosexual lover Victor "Victoria" Ashe still is.

As I said elsewhere earlier:

Whatever candidates the Democrats and Republicans run for President will be totally controlled puppets of the globalist elite. The rhetoric might be slightly different, but the end-agenda will be the same (that agenda being a one-world totalitarian government with a one-world enforced religion, which the globalist elite call the New World Order).

Reuters publicly acknowledges that the Bilderberg group of European royalty and international central bankers groomed Bill Clinton and Tony Blair for the U.S. Presidency and British Prime Ministry, respectively:

"Secretive Bilderberg group to meet in Sweden," Peter Starck, Reuters, May 23, 2001:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/reuters_bilderberg.html

Although the Clintons and the Bushes are long-time close family friends going back even before their drug-running operation in Mena, Arkansas. And John Kerry and Bushes Sr. and Jr. are all Bonesmen in the occult sociey of the Brotherhood of Death (a.k.a. the Order of Skull & Bones at Yale), of which occult society was instrumental in the funding of Hitler and the Nazis. Bonesman Prescott Bush (Bush, Sr.'s father) had one of his banks and a number of his companies seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act for his financing of the Nazis even during wartime. It's also interesting to note that the skull and bones symbol used by the Brotherhood of Death is the same symbol worn on the Nazi SS uniform.

For more information on the Bilderberg group, see the below newsarchive:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archive_bilderberg.html

See also:

"Elite power brokers' secret talks," Emma Jane Kirby, BBC News, May 15, 2003:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3031717.stm

"World government in action," Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.com, May 16, 2003:

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32606

"The masters of the universe," Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, May 22, 2003:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EE22Ak03.html

And as the below BBC Radio report reveals, the European Union and the euro European Union single-currency were both secretly planned since the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archive_bilderberg.html

BBC Bilderberg Report: European Union, Single Currency Planned Since 50's

BBC uncovered incredible archived Bilderberg documents which confirmed that both the EU and the Euro were the brainchild of Bilderberg. ...

"Club Class," Simon Cox, BBC Radio, July 3, 2003:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/bbc_radio_4_bilderberg.mp3

----------

And with the black-box electronic voting, the ruling elite can simply punch in any numbers that they want, as they did in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election (of which the actual winner, Bonesman Kerry, was more than happy to roll over for his good buddies, the Bushes):

"Science proves that vote fraud is real!," Joseph Cannon, April 2, 2005:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2005/04/science-proves-that-vote-fraud-is-real.html

"Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit Poll Discrepancies," Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D., Kathy Dopp, MS mathematics, Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., Prof. Brian Joiner, Prof. Frank Stenger, Prof. Richard G. Sheehan, Paul F. Velleman, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D. Lecturer, Campbell B. Read, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Jonathan Simon, Ron Baiman, Bruce O'Dell, US Count Votes' National Election Data Archive Project, March 31, 2005:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf

"The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, November 11, 2004:

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf

In "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Steven F. Freeman says:

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."

The odds of those exit poll statistical anomalies occurring by chance are, according to Dr. Freeman, "250,000,000 to one."

Jamie Michelle

01-03-2006, 01:40 AM

Bimbo of the year award goes to Jamie. I would have bet good money that felicia would have won it. Oh well, she will keep trying.

No doubt you would be greately interested in reading my below article, first published at Anti-State.com on December 19, 2001 (published under my legal name, James Redford):

"Jesus Is an Anarchist (A free-market, libertarian anarchist, that is--otherwise what is called an anarcho-capitalist)," James Redford, revised and expanded edition, November 9, 2005:

http://www.geocities.com/vonchloride/anarchist-jesus.pdf

anarchist-jesus.pdf (357,176 bytes) MD5 checksum: 3ff640a3e8851d1abe572aa42f17c06f

yourdaddy

01-03-2006, 03:13 AM

Felicia Katt

01-03-2006, 03:30 AM

Yourdaddy, more bitter personal attacks. You don't engage in ideas, you just hurl invective. The only stooping that could occur here would be if I were to respond in kind to your insults, which I won't do. if you want to discuss and debate the issues, this is a great forum, but namecalling and contempt and abuse don't add to the discussion or aid your cause.

FK

chefmike

01-03-2006, 03:40 AM

chefmike

01-03-2006, 06:36 PM

Wahhabism and Bushism, or

Oil In The Family

Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers in the attacks on 9-11-2001 were Saudis. They were in fact well educated (or indoctrinated), financially well off, came from respected families, and simply do not fit the profile of the devastated and poor militant who in acute frustration assumes it is far better to die in a blaze of glory intended for martyrdom -- and to perhaps greatly benefit their surviving families -- than to continue living in a world of misery and poverty.

Osama bin Laden was a Saudi as well, and from a very wealthy family. He was raised and educated in the best of Saudi traditions, and has since then been particularly well funded by Saudi friends, relatives, and avid -- if not fanatical -- religious supporters. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, was a clear enemy of bin Laden -- and for that matter the Saudi royal family.

It is indeed curious, therefore, as to why the Bush Administration would respond to the 9-11-2001 attack on the United States by a group of predominantly Saudi nationals by attacking Afghanistan and then Iraq. Why not attack Saudi Arabia? Why not go to the obvious source? Even more to the point:

Why did "the Bush Administration, led by a President cozier than most to Riyadh [the Capital of Saudi Arabia], black out 28 pages dealing with Saudi Arabia from Congress's official report on Sept. 11, producing the smell of a cover-up of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in U. S. history"?

Why did "George W. Bush's Administration permit an estimated 140 members of the Saudi royal family, their associates, and relatives of Osama bin Laden to flee the U.S. days after the 9/11 attacks, sparking criticism that Bush might have damaged the investigation"?

Why did the November immediately following 9/11/2001, Vice-President "Dick Cheney's old firm, Halliburton, win a $140 million contract to develop a Saudi oil field"?

Why did the 600 families that lost loved ones in 9/11 file a lawsuit holding the House of Saud accountable in a $1 trillion lawsuit?

And why, in July 2003, did a Congressional bill to add Saudi Arabia to the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism garner 191 votes in the House before going down?

There is considerable evidence that "al-Qaeda had an explicit deal with the Saudi royals to desist from violence in the kingdom in exchange for Saudi financing." [It's called "protection money".] A key l-Qaeda operative supposedly in U.S. custody, Abu Zubaydah, "is said to have claimed that bin Laden told him he had made the deal in 1991 with Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the longtime Saudi intelligence chief." More currently -- even after the May 12, 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia itself -- there is the reality of the Saudi government preventing U. S. officials from having access to suspects in Saudi custody who allegedly have information on "extensive plans to inject poison gas in the New York City subway system."

The problem, as it turns out, is a combination of Wahhabism and Bushism.

On the one hand, Wahhabism is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. Stephen Schwartz, in his book on Islam in Saudi Arabia, "suggests that where Wahhabism is the official creed, there must be a terrorist state." The Wahhabism creed has "no place for free will or human rights, let alone separation of church and state." Even "Muslims guilty of [unorthodoxy] could and should be killed." The royal family of Saud now rules Saudi Arabia by having slaughtered thousands of [Islamic] Shi'ites and Sufis (and Sunnis) in their quest to turn the region into a Wahhabi theocracy.

[Stephen Schwartz goes into additional detail in his article, "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection." Note the date on the article (10/7/2001). Is anyone listening?]

A fundamental key to the Saudi theocracy is, however, that not only does the Saudi royal family brainwash or otherwise educate their citizens in Wahhabism, these royals are also exporting Wahhabism's puritanical, radically intolerant, and no-holds-barred-kill-the-infidels' message to the rest of the Muslim world. Parts of this indoctrination include: 1) the idea that a Muslim is automatically a better human being -- an ironic reference to certain aspects of Judaism -- 2) bombing bars and beating women who go out without being fully covered -- the basic Taliban technique -- and 3) asking Allah to destroy all infidels -- i.e., anyone who is not an orthodox Wahhabi.

In all respects, the evidence strongly suggests Saudi Arabia is exporting terrorism to the world via financial and other support, and by indoctrination -- "poisoning the youth" -- of everyone under their influence. The message is a simple one: "Death to the Infidel."

Which brings us to Bushism. What is the Bush Administration doing about this? Basically nothing. One conservative foreign-policy analyst at the U.S. State Department has said, "You put [the Saudi's] on notice that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. You can break off diplomatic relations, you can impose economic sanctions, and you have, ultimately, the option of seizing the oil fields militarily if you have to." Vice-President Cheney, however, seems less inclined toward such drastic action. He may recall the embargo of oil sales to the U.S. in 1973. Or he may simply be protecting Halliburton's financial interests in Saudi Arabia.

The nature of Oil Wars, however, is such that as a form of diplomacy these wars do not provide unconditional guarantees. The United States, Britain and other Western nations have not been loath to impose new governments on former friends (e.g. 1950s Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, et al) – especially those so-called friends who are not exactly toeing the line with respect to variations in political reality. With Iraq’s potential to provide oil (with Afghanistan as a back up), any threat of an embargo by Saudi Arabia is likely to become an empty, futile, and very dangerous gesture.

The presence of an American/British army on Saudi Arabia’s doorstep – and the demonstrated ability of this same army to very quickly acquire and assume operational control over another nation’s oil fields – would suggest that an incursion into Saudi Arabia (while the U.S. just happens to be in the neighborhood) is a likely possibility. It might even be thought of as a media event worthy of an election year – perhaps even more than the symbolic one alluded to in Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows. It's not like Halliburton and Vice-President Cheney can't make money refurbishing the Saudi oil fields (paid for by the American government -- eventually perhaps by the Saudis).

It is probably also noteworthy that in the immediate aftermath of 9-11-2001, when there was worldwide sympathy for America, President George Bush ignored the opportunity to unite the world against a common enemy by not addressing the issue of Saudi complicity in the attacks. With 15 of 19 hijackers Saudi nationals, there was an obvious link -- as opposed to the total lack of evidence for a link between the attacks and Saddam Hussein and/or Iraq.

In effect, the Bush Administration is loath to challenge the Saudis because of the many and varied personal -- and extremely lucrative -- connections between the Saudis and the Bushites.

A complementary idea is that Bush's neo-conservative friends have a certain empathy for attempting to impose one's radical -- theological or otherwise -- on the rest of the world.

Either way the Bush/Saudi links to 9-11-2001 are intolerable.

chefmike

01-03-2006, 07:37 PM

This news is a year old, but I suspect that you weren't informed of it on the :roll: EIB network.

More holes in Bush's foreign policy
Meanwhile, it's not just the political left that's criticizing the Bush administration's war strategy for Iraq and the broader Middle East. Following reports on Monday that the suicide bomber who blew himself up inside a U.S. military mess hall in Mosul was a Saudi national, author Stephen Schwartz, long a fierce critic of the Saudi government and its tolerance of virulent Wahhabism, spanked the Bush administration for continued complacency on the issue.

"Arab-language media, including Saudi newspapers and Web sites, have disclosed that Saudi subjects make up the overwhelming majority of the 'foreign fighters' involved in suicide terrorism in Iraq, from Fallujah to Baghdad, and from Mosul to Basra.

"But Ali al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute, and other Saudi dissidents, complain that U.S. authorities have failed to compel the Saudis to shut off the flow of jihadists northward. Instead, 26 prominent Saudi clerics, most of them paid by the regime, signed a fatwa on Nov. 5 calling for continued jihad against the United States and the new military and police structures in Iraq.

"None of the signatories -- all of them adherents of Wahhabism, the official Islamic sect in Saudi Arabia -- has been questioned or suspended from religious duties since the fatwa was issued. In addition, the terrorist responsible for a Christmas Eve fuel-truck bombing in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, which killed nine people, has been identified as a Saudi subject, 23-year-old Ahmad Abdallah Abd al-Rahman al-Shayea, of Riyadh.

"And so the deception continues.

"The bottom line remains the same as it was on Sept. 11: President Bush has to call the Saudis to account for their financing of the Wahhabis and their terrorism."

- - - - - - - - - - -
salon.com

Jamie Michelle

01-03-2006, 07:47 PM

How come none of you pseudo-intellectuals ever has a negative word agains Wahhabism? It's because you are an effete, chickenshit bunch of pussies. Your paranoid, masochistic tendencies, are only fueled by positive, optimistic remarks. You are really a waste of time. When you and kattcunt, and the chef?, come up with some ORIGINAL, ideas, I'll stoop to your losing level.

You mean Wahhabis like al-CIAda and the CIArabs? I've had many negative words about such U.S. government-funded and protected PsyOp groups. Below is just one post that I've previously written about them:

----------

The U.S. government has a well-documented history (i.e., modus operandi) of staging such Hegelian dialectical PsyOps attacks as the Pearl Harbor attack, Operation Northwoods (which although didn't go forward due to John F. Kennedy, all the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on it), the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and etc., etc., etc.

Those who control the U.S. government didn't just know in advance and intentionally let the 9/11 attacks happen as a Hegelian dialectical PsyOp in order to obtain more power and control--they funded, shepherded, trained and protected the terrorists every step of the way. They didn't just intentionally let it happen: they made it happen.

The below post by me contains the November 10, 2003 article "September 11--Islamic Jihad or Another Northwoods?" by Tim Howells, Ph.D., which is a very good, short introduction to just some of the more damning mainstream major media articles and U.S. government primary documentation which proves up one side and down the other that the 9/11 attacks and the following anthrax attacks were a Hegelian dialectical PsyOp staged by the U.S. government as a pretext in order to obtain more power and control. I append my own additional endnotes at the conclusion of Dr. Howells' article, in order to add further mainstream documentation.

From: James Redford <jrredford@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.education,alt.education.alternativ e,alt.education.research,misc.education
Subject: The U.S. Government Staged the 9/11 Attacks
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:49:56 GMT

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.college/msg/cdb2f90b15ea3233?dmode=source

http://www.geocities.com/psyop911/tim-howells-september-11-islamic-jihad-or-another-northwoods.html

And see also the below two books concerning the U.S. government staging the 9/11 attacks:

The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th, 2001 by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, foreword and afterword by John Leonard (Tree of Life Publications; June 2002), ISBN: 0-930852-40-0 (0930852400), 400 pages:

http://www.williambowles.info/911/warfre-book.pdf

http://www.geocities.com/psyop911/nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed-the-war-on-freedom-warfre-book.pdf

The best analysis and documentation on the global elite's bankrolling and creation of modern Islamic fundamentalism of the Afghanistan variety that I found is in the beginning chapters of the above book.

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by Prof. David Ray Griffin, foreword by Prof. Richard Falk (Olive Branch Press [an imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.]; March 2004), ISBN: 1-56656-552-9 (1566565529), 256 pages:

http://www.geocities.com/psyop911/david-ray-griffin-the-new-pearl-harbor.html

Or, to find it elswhere online, see the below Google link:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22followed+by+electrifying+revelations%2 2&num=100&filter=0

See also:

"50 years on, Lavon Affair still sparks public debate in Israel," Dan Baron, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), July 20, 2004:

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=%26%238216%3BLavon% 20Affair%26%238217%3B%20still%20riles%20Israel

http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2004/08/17/news/israel/zalavon0720.txt

PrisonPlanet.com News Archive: Israeli Roots of Hamas:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives_hamas.html

"Puppet On A String: Hamas Dances To Israel's Tune" by Paul Joseph Watson:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/puppet_on_a_string.html

"9/11 and Anthrax: FRAMING ARABS," WhatReallyHappened.com:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/framingarabs.html

"Tracking the 19 Hijackers--What are they up to now?--At least 9 of them survived 9/11," WelfareState.com:

http://www.welfarestate.com/911/

http://web.archive.org/web/20021208013054/http://www.welfarestate.com/911/

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:qMk1q6w9J4oJ:www.welfarestate.com/911/

"The Phony (Mossad) Al Qaeda Cell in Palestine," WhatReallyHappened.com:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fakealqaeda.html

"Mossad Exposed in Phony 'Palestinian Al-Qaeda' Caper," Michele Steinberg and Hussein Askary, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), Volume 29, Number 49, December 20, 2002:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2949idf_qaeda.html

"Nidal planned to oust Saddam," NewsInsight.net, August 28, 2002:

"The Palestinian terrorist, Abu Nidal, was working for the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, for the last four years and was plotting a coup against Iraqi president Saddam Hussain at the behest of Western powers, top diplomats said.":

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_hamas3.html

http://www.newsinsight.net/nati2.asp?recno=1293&ctg=World

http://web.archive.org/web/20021120032707/http://www.intellnet.org/news/2002/08/29/11285-1.html

"Hamas history tied to Israel," Richard Sale, UPI Terrorism Correspondent From the International Desk, United Press International (UPI), June 18, 2002:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020901031628/http://www.eto.home.att.net/hamas1.html

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18062002-051845-8272r

"The Hamas-Likud Pairing," Editorial, Jerusalem Post, August 25, 1995:

http://www.io.com/~jewishwb/iris/archives/608.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_hamas4.html

"Israeli Roots of Hamas are being exposed," Dean Andromidas, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), Volume 29, Number 2, January 18, 2002:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/AND204A.html

"Sharon War Plan Exposed: Hamas Gang Is His Tool," Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), Volume 28, Number 27, July 20, 2001:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE204A.html

"Israel's Hamas," George Szamuely, The New York Press, Volume 15, Issue 17, April 2002:

http://www.nypress.com/15/17/taki/2.cfm

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SZA204A.html

Israel's Sacred Terrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett's Personal Diary and Other Documents by Livia Rokach, foreword by Noam Chomsky (AAUG Press; Third Edition: 1986), ISBN: 0-937694-70-3 (0937694703):

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/rokach.html

---

And let us not forget that the largest terrorist act in Palestine was and remains the bombing of the King David Hotel on July 26, 1946 by Jews dressed as Arabs. 91 people were killed and around 45 people were injured. The attack was ordered by David Ben Gurion and directed by Menachem Begin, both of whom would later become Israeli Prime Ministers. For more on that, see:

"King David Hotel bombing," Wikipedia:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030228081251/http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel

"The Bombing Of The King David Hotel":

http://web.archive.org/web/20011019014555/http://www.iap.org/kingdavidhotel.htm

See also:

WhatReallyHappened.com News Articles Archive:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/May03articles.html

"5/18/03 Nine killed in double Jerusalem suicide bombing
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/May%202003%20News/18%20n/Nine%20killed%20in%20double%20Jerusalem%20suicide% 20bombing.htm Police Chief Shlomo Aharonishki said the first bomber was disguised as an Orthodox Jew and that a skullcap and prayer shawl were found on him. (Interesting that nobody ever suspects that bombers who look like Arabs might be in disguise, especially since the King David Hotel was blown up by Israelis dressed as Arabs, not to mention the infamous Lavon Affair. In any event, the timing makes it obvious that the bombings were intended to derail the peace process. Now, who wanted that to happen? That's your ultimate mastermind.)"

########################################

First the rhetoric about invading Iraq was because Iraq was supposed to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks, but absolutely no evidence of that could be produced so that line was dropped. Then it was because Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons have been found, so that line has been dropped. Now it's about "liberating" the Iraqi people--how absolutely selfless and thoughtful Bush & Co. are to spend billions of U.S. tax-payers' money and sacrifice hundreds of U.S. soldiers' lives in the effort to free the Iraqi people by taking their personal firearms away. I suppose the next thing Bush & Co. are going to do is sell all their worldly possessions, donate the proceeds to charity and join a monastary.

But anyone parrotting the "liberation" line is either a truly ignorant person or a lying sycophant--the same goes with the other lines, as well. This war has not the slightest thing in the world to do with "liberating" the Iraqi people--other than liberating them from their oil reserves and strategic military real-estate. We have this Presidential administration's own official statements regarding their intent to invade Iraq made almost exactly one year before the 9/11 attacks, saying in their official policy report that they would still invade Iraq even if Saddam and his regime no longer existed. So this invasion has not the slightest thing in the world to do with Saddam or whatever political system was in operation in that country--the U.S. was going to invade Iraq no matter what.

Below are particularly relevant excerpts from the document "Rebuilding America's Defenses--Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century: A Report of The Project for the New American Century," September 2000 ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf ):

Page 14 (or 26 in the PDF browser):

"While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Page 17 (or 29 in the PDF browser):

"From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene."

Also:

Page 51 (or 63 in the PDF browser):

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."

And they got their "new Pearl Harbor" twelve months later. How very fortunate for them and their globe-dominating "Project."

Below are the June 3, 1997 signers of the Project for the New American Century's Statement of Principles ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm ):

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

See also:

"U.S. Harbored Terrorists to Bolster Its Case," Matt Bivens, Moscow Times, March 15, 2004, Page 8 http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/03/15/007.html

"Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal: Yes, It Is About Oil," David Lindorff, CounterPunch, April 9, 2003 http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04092003.html

"Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus On Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein," Jim Vallette, Steve Kretzmann and Daphne Wysham, Sustainable Energy and Economy Network/Institute for Policy Studies, 2nd edition: August 13, 2002 http://www.ips-dc.org/crudevision , http://www.seen.org/pages/reports/crude.shtml

########################################

It was the FBI that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993:

None of this would be known today if it were not for the FBI's undercover agent Emad A. Salem taping his conversations with his FBI handlers (unbeknownst to them). Salem thought that the FBI might try to pin it on him so he took measures to protect himself. Indeed, without the FBI the '93 WTC bombing would never have happened, as it was agent Salem who built the bomb for the would-be Muslim "terrorists." Salem wanted to use fake ingredients for the "bomb" but the FBI ordered him to make a real one. When the making of the bomb was complete Salem told the FBI that they could now arrest the would-be terrorists, but the FBI told Salem that the bombing is to go forward. After agent Salem went public with his tapes in a news conference the FBI found it necessary to pay him over a million dollars just to shut him up.

For more on the above, see the below New York Times article:

"Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast," Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, October 28, 1993:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b3c830e34de.htm

And see also:

"Who Bombed The World Trade Center? FBI Bomb Builders Exposed," Paul DeRienzo, Frank Morales and Chris Flash, The Shadow, October 1994/January 1995 Issue:

http://pdr.autono.net/WhoBombedWTC.html

On the above webpage you can find the below two audio clips from one of Emad A. Salem's recorded conversations with one of his FBI handlers, FBI Special Agent John Anticev:

http://nwo.media.xs2.net/tape/emad%20salem.mp3

The above clip is an excerpt from the below longer clip:

http://nwo.media.xs2.net/tape/SalemWBAI.mp3

The above clips were recorded from a broadcast on WBAI Radio in the city of New York which aired this taped conversation between Emad A. Salem and FBI Special Agent John Anticev.

The below transcript is from 2:57 to 4:31 min:sec from the longer clip (SalemWBAI.mp3):

FBI Special Agent John Anticev: But, uh, basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary, that it's--you know. But you got paid regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I told you this. [Nancy Floyd is another FBI Special Agent who worked with Emad A. Salem in his informant capacity.]

Emad A. Salem: Well, I have to tell her of course.

Anticev: Well then, if you have to, you have to.

Salem: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being honest and everything was submitted with a receipt and now it's questionable.

Anticev: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the ordinary.

Salem: Okay. Alright. I don't think it was. If that's what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the D.A. and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful, great case!

Anticev: Well.

Salem: And then he put his head in the sand and said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a bitch." [Deep breath.] Okay. It's built with a different way in another place and that's it.

Anticev: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest with you as I can.

Salem: Of course, I appreciate that.

Anticev: And as far as the payments go, and everything like that, they're there. I guarantee you that they are there.

########################################

Concerning the Oklahoma City bombing, see the below links:

"The Oklahoma City Bombing--PROOF there were additional explosive charges," WhatReallyHappened.com:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/bombs/bombs.html

WhatReallyHappened.com Oklahoma City Bombing page:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/ok.html

"Bomb Damage Analysis Of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building" by Brigadier General Benton K. Partin, retired Commander of the U.S. Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory, July 30, 1995:

http://jeffhead.com/liberty/okcbomb.htm

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/PARTIN/okm.htm

"Was FBI early arrival in Oklahoma City?--Hotel receipt shows top terror man showed up 9 hours before blast," Jon Dougherty, WorldNetDaily.com, January 19, 2002:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26115

Iraqis were definitely involved in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. There is quite a lot of evidence demonstrating this. We even know the names of some of those Iraqis, like Al-Hussaini Hussain, who was also working as a baggage-handler at Boston's Logan International Airport during the 9/11 attacks, which is where American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 originated from.

Al-Hussaini Hussain is the person that witnesses identify as John Doe No. 2 who was with Timothy McVeigh in dropping off the Ryder truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building. He was arrested by the FBI trying to leave the U.S. and his release was ordered by Bill Clinton through the Justice Department. Found in his custody during that arrest was the blue jogging suit that witnesses described.

Al-Hussaini Hussain is former Iraqi Republican Guard, and four other former Iraqi Republican Guard members were arrested soon after the bombing of the Murrah Federal building, but their release was ordered by Bill Clinton. These former Iraqi Republican Guard members are part of the 3,500+ Iraqi military members and their family brought into the U.S. after the Gulf War by George Bush, Sr. and further continued by Bill Clinton. For more on this transfer of Iraqi military into the U.S., see the below major media news articles:

"Iraq POWs Paid to Resettle in U.S.; Lawmakers Protest," Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1993:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_082493_iraq.html

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/iraqlatimes1.gif

"Resettling Iraqi POWs in U.S. Criticized; Lawmakers Urge Clinton to End 'Potentially Dangerous' Policy," William Claiborne, Washington Post, August 25, 1993:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_082593_iraq.html

Many of the confiscated tapes of the twelve video survailance cameras that were in front of the Murrah Federal building record exactly what witnesses described: Al-Hussaini Hussain dropping off the Ryder truck with Timothy McVeigh--Al-Hussaini Hussain as the passenger and Timothy McVeigh as the driver. And this according to high-level FBI sources who have seen the tapes, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times and Oklahoma City KFOR-TV news. These video survailance tapes were confiscated by the U.S. government under the National Security Act.

For more on this evidence which I have been relating to you, I urge you to watch at least the first part (which deals with the Oklahoma City bombing) of the video documentary "911: The Road to Tyranny" by political talk radio host Alex Jones, of which can be viewed below in its entirety for free:

http://conspiracycentral.net:6969/?search=tyranny

http://911.mazesoftware.com

http://100777.com/doc/30

http://www.c0balt.com/resources/911/download.shtml

http://infowars.com/video_clips.html (There is only the first part of the video on the Infowars website.)

And see:

"Search For The Missing Iraqis: Ask Daddy Bush And Clinton" by Wade Inganamort:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_inganamort_012803_iraqis.html

See also:

"The real story of Iraqis at OKC bombing. Not the one you think!":

http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/11/1542199.php

As well, see the below book which is online in its entirety and for free:

The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror by David Hoffman, foreward by Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key (Feral House; 1998), ISBN: 0-922915-49-0 (0922915490):

http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt.htm

The above book by David Hoffman is very thoroughly referenced, and is introduced by Oklahoma State Rep. Charles Key. For more on this book and its author, see the below webpage:

http://www.beachnet.com/~hoffman/BookAd.html

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Concerning the Pearl Harbor attack:

As just another among many, many examples of the U.S. government's use of staged Hegelian dialectical PsyOps attacks, President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew in advance and intentionally allowed (and provoked) the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. See, for example:

"The McCollum Memo: The Smoking Gun of Pearl Harbor":

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/McCollum

And that's just one among many, many smoking guns proving that the Pearl Harbor attack was an intentionally staged Hegelian dialectic by the U.S. government. For many more such smoking-gun, Freedom of Information Act-released U.S. government documents proving that the U.S. government knew exactly when Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor, as well as their efforts to provoke exactly this response, see the book Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert B. Stinnett. For more on just some of that, see:

"Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?--An Interview with Robert B. Stinnett" by Douglas Cirignano, The Independent Institute, March 11, 2002:

http://www.independent.org/tii/news/020311Cirignano.html

And for a list of dozens of hardcore smoking guns proving the Pearl Harbor attack was an intentionally staged Hegelian dialectic by the U.S. government, see:

"Pearl Harbor: Mother of All Conspiracies" by Mark Emerson Willey:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

http://whatreallyhappened.com/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

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Terrorism is the health of the state, which is why so many governments throughout history have manufactured terrorism in which to serve as a pretext in order to usurp ever more power and control.

Below is documentation on Vladimir "Mr. Hexogen" Putin* and the 9/99 Russian apartment building bombings:

The September 1999 Russian apartment building terror-bombing campain used Hexogen (i.e., Cyclonite; RDX) as the explosive and was blamed on Chechen terrorists despite there being not the slightest shred of evidence that Chechens were behind it, and it later turned out that the bombings were done by the Russian government itself (i.e., under former KGB spy and FSB head, and then Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin) in order to get the Russian people behind another war against Chechnya (oh, how familiar it all sounds!)--indeed, the Russian government (i.e., the FSB, the present-day KGB) was actually caught red-handed by local police and citizens in the city of Ryazan planting live explosives (i.e., Hexogen) with live detonators in an apartment building!

The below article by David Satter, published by The Hudson Institute, is probably the best overall article concerning much of the evidence that the 9/99 Russian terrorist bombings were done by the Russian government. The National Review article is simply based upon The Hudson Institute article, but without the very important and informative endnotes (and so I recommend that you read The Hudson Institute article).

"The Shadow of Ryazan: Who Was Behind the Strange Russian Apartment Bombings in September 1999?" by David Satter, The Hudson Institute, April 19, 2002:

http://www.sais-jhu.edu/programs/res/papers/Satter%20edited%20final.pdf

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.politics.democrats/msg/f4d66f832836cbcb?dmode=source

"The Shadow of Ryazan--Is Putin's government legitimate?" by David Satter, National Review, April 30, 2002:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-satter043002.asp

The below website, Terror-99, deals with the Russian government's involvement in the 9/99 Russian terrorist bombings, and has a huge amount of mainstream major-media news-articles demonstrating that the Russian government was behind the bombings:

http://eng.terror99.ru

For an additional amount of vital evidence not covered in the David Satter article, see the below two articles:

"Bali Halloween" by Israel Shamir:

http://web.archive.org/web/20021201085508/http://www.israelshamir.net/english/bali.shtml

"Fear of Doing the Boss a Disservice," Moscow Times, April 11, 2002, pg. 8:

http://eng.terror99.ru/publications/041.htm

David Satter has also written more on this matter in the below book by him:

Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale University Press; May 2003), ISBN: 0-300-09892-8 (0300098928):

http://yalepress.yale.edu/YupBooks/viewbook.asp?isbn=0300098928

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300098928

---

Note:

* "'Gospodin Geksogen' ('Mr. Hexogen')" by Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda, July 19, 2002
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/7/18/213136.shtml

and:

"'Mr. Hexogen' (Continued)" by Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda, July 23, 2002
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/7/22/160751.shtml

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""
PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years.

"I want justice," he said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "

He then seemed to temper his remarks by adding: "All I want and America wants is to see them brought to justice. That's what we want."

("Bin Laden is wanted: dead or alive, says Bush," Toby Harnden, [London] Telegraph, September 18, 2001 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/18/wbush18.xml .)
""

""
Q: But then you believe the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

Bush: Well, as I say, we hadn't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don't know where he is. . . . I repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him. . . .

("'It's Not Helpful What the Israelis Have Recently Done,'" Federal News Service, March 14, 2002; Page A20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24243-2002Mar13.html .)
""

""
A plot to carry out a large-scale terror attack against the United States in the near future is being directed by Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda members, senior intelligence officials said Thursday.

("Officials: Bin Laden guiding plots against U.S.--Ridge: Terrorists' aim is to influence presidential vote," Mike Ahlers, CNN, July 8, 2004 http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/08/ridge.alqaeda/ .)
""

"Osama bin Laden: A Weapon of Mass Convenience":

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamabinladen_wmc.html

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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."--H.L. Mencken, "Women as Outlaws," A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 29 (1949). This essay was first published in The Smart Set, December 1921.

"Government seems important to a people to the degree that it takes away their production in taxes. Correlary: The more the government takes the larger proportion of a people work for the government. Correlary: Without war or threat of imminent danger the government can't take a very large proportion of a people's production in taxes. Correlary: Without war or threat of imminent danger, government is not important. Correlary: Without war or the threat of imminent danger, the government will create them."--Steve Solomon, http://www.soilandhealth.org

"In some ways [Julia] was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened.' This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him."--George Orwell in his book 1984

Jamie Michelle

01-03-2006, 08:09 PM

In addition to my above post, see also the below articles:

"Why Indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse?," Prof. Steven E. Jones, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, to be contained in "The Hidden History of 9-11-2001," Research in Political Economy, Vol. 23, Paul Zarembka, editor (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier, Spring 2006):

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

"Thinking About 'Conspiracy Theories': 9/11 and JFK," Prof. James H. Fetzer, University of Minnesota, to be contained in 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, editors (Northampton, Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press [an imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.], 2006):

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/fetzerexpandedx.doc

"The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True," Prof. David Ray Griffin, based on a lecture given in New York, New York on October 15 and 16, 2005:

http://www.911review.com/articles/griffin/nyc1.html

chefmike

01-06-2006, 11:13 PM

Stop wasting lives to support the BIG BUSH LIE...

Bloody Thursday for US Military In Iraq

By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thursday was one of the bloodiest days for U.S. forces in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, with 11 soldiers dying in a fresh spasm of violence that also killed 130 Iraqis, the U.S. military said on Friday.

Roadside bombs, favored by the insurgents but feared by U.S. soldiers for their devastating effectiveness, accounted for seven of the American deaths.

U.S. commanders have expressed concern in recent months at the growing use of more powerful and sophisticated bombs.

George W. Bush and his Republican party face pressure at home over the rising American death toll, but the U.S. president said on Wednesday a cut in troops would be based on the situation on the ground and decisions by military commanders, not a timetable imposed from Washington.

The United States hopes the formation of a coalition government encompassing leaders of Iraqi's Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni groups after last month's election will help undermine the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and pave the way for a troop withdrawal.

Thursday's deaths take the number of U.S. fatalities since the start of the war to oust Saddam Hussein to 2,193, according to Reuters figures.

It was the highest daily U.S. death toll since December 1, when 11 U.S. soldiers were also killed, and was also the deadliest day in Iraq overall for four months.

In the worst incident on Thursday for the Americans, five soldiers died in Baghdad when a roadside bomb hit their patrol. Two more were killed in a similar incident elsewhere in Baghdad.

In Falluja, a Sunni Arab stronghold, two Marines were killed by small-arms fire in separate attacks, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

Two U.S. soldiers and scores of Iraqi police recruits were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the western city of Ramadi as 1,000 men queued to be security-screened at a glass and ceramics works used as a temporary recruiting center.

Hospital sources said 70 people died and 65 wounded.

Bush said on Wednesday a reduction of U.S. troops planned after the December election was under way and would result in a net decrease of several thousand troops below the pre-election level of 138,000.

He has refused to set a schedule, saying that would only embolden the enemy, and that a pullout would be dictated by the progress of Iraqi forces in taking over security.

Thursday's suicide bombers killed 123 people and wounded more than 200 in all in attacks near a Shi'ite holy shrine and the Ramadi recruiting station.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

chefmike

01-10-2006, 01:29 AM

This Article from

www.huffingtonpost.com

Bush Resolution for 2006 : More Class Warfare

by Bob Burnett

A classic blues lyric is, "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself."
Whenever Democrats argue that Bush Administration policies favor the rich at the expense of the poor, Republicans accuse Dems of waging class warfare . It's a classic defensive ploy -- accuse when you're the guilty party.

President Bush attributes the growth of the U.S. economy to his economic policies.

As a consequence, he's asking for a new round of tax cuts for the rich. The Republican-controlled Congress is ready to pass these, and reduce benefits for the poor, when the House and Senate reconvene. It's GOP class warfare.

An enduring image of 2005 was that of the stranded residents of New Orleans, mostly poor and black, who were desperately asking for help -- left behind in the evacuation of their city. This past year, millions of Americans were also left behind due to the policies of the Bush Administration.

While the economy is growing, Economist Paul Krugman observed, in his December 5th New York Times Column, that real median household income fell for the fifth year in a row . Journalist Joshua Holland reports , "there are 5 million more Americans living in poverty today than there were four years ago."

Average Americans understand that while Bush claims the economy is improving, it's not affecting them. A recent Gallup Poll found that 61 percent of respondents felt that the economy was "fair" or "poor;" 56 percent felt that it was getting worse. According to polls, the economy is typically citizens' biggest concern. Nonetheless, when Democrats, such as John Edwards, try to talk about the growing economic divide -- Two Americas -- Republicans accuse them of waging class warfare.

The problem, of course, is that it's Republicans, not Democrats, who are waging class warfare. By not going on the offensive, not talking about the growing divide between the rich and everyone else, Dems are taking an important issue off the table. They are denying the reality that their constituents deal with every day. By doing this, they are robbing the progressive movement of the energy that comes from defending a basic liberal value -- fairness. Equal opportunity for all citizens.

There are three reasons why it is vital for Democrats to talk about the class warfare being waged by Republicans. The first is that it is profoundly undemocratic. At the heart of the American ethos is the notion that all citizens deserve a basic standard of living that will enable them to rise above the vicissitudes of daily existence and participate in the democratic process. This is the origin of our ideal of fairness -- the idea that by guaranteeing basic human rights we will also ensure government "by the people, of the people, and for the people." The U.S. can't be an effective democracy if a huge number of citizens are forced to spend most of their time struggling to keep their heads above water.

The second problem with the Bush class-warfare policies is that they hurt our economy. The perverse reality is that the Bush Administration is bad for business. Their policies are breeding monopoly capitalism, fostering the creation of cartels, sole-source contracts, and other anti-competitive devices. They are destroying small businesses along with the idea of the "level-playing field," which is a key element of the American myth of meritocracy -- an important spur to innovation. And, the Bush Administration is starving the American infrastructure; failing to provide for health-care, education, transportation and the other services that a vital economy needs.

The third problem with the Bush attack on the middle and lower classes is that it is immoral. It flies in the face of Christian ethics. This is a crucial point because George Bush is a self-defined "Christian" President in a country where 85 percent of the electorate identifies as Christians. Nonetheless, Bush Administration policies disregard Jesus' teachings that we are to care for one another -- "I am my brother's keeper and my sister's keeper." They break the "golden rule."

For all these reasons, in 2006 Democrats must go on the offensive and play the class warfare card. They should characterize the Republicans as demeaning the very traditional values they claim to defend. As advocating programs and policies that are un-democratic, that separates Americans rather than bringing us together. That leaves more and more citizens behind.

In this new initiative, Dems should do two things. First, they must not be afraid to use class warfare. They must seize this phrase from the Rove propaganda machine and throw it in the face of the GOP. Every Democratic Congressman and Senator should charge that the Administration's elitist programs are destroying the foundations of democracy.

Second, the Democrats should designate John Edwards as the spokesperson for their offensive against the Bush policies. The 2004 Vice-Presidential candidate understands the class-warfare issue and his "two Americas" theme resonated with voters.

A hallmark of the Orwellian mind control practiced by the Bush Administration is to repeat a lie over and over until the public accepts it as the truth. The Bush propaganda machine has usurped the phrase "class warfare." Democrats must take it back and begin telling the truth about the treachery of this Presidency.

yourdaddy

01-10-2006, 02:53 AM

Hey pussyboy mike. You really ought to pay Allanah for some of the bandwidth you are wasting.

chefmike

01-10-2006, 03:23 AM

Hey pussyboy mike. You really ought to pay Allanah for some of the bandwidth you are wasting.

Allanah, my apologies if you feel that this quote by you doesn't still apply to yourdaddyForrestGump...

Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1510
Location: Manhattan

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:41 am Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the info.

I am now at piece thinking that I did my part while yourdaddy is waving the Confederate Flad and whistling Dixie somewhere in central Florida.