Slurredspeech

John Kerry, the 2004 presidential nominee, was overheard in an Irish bar on Capitol Hill talking about how satisfying it would be to impeach Bush if Congress went Democrat. He was just having a laugh, his spokeswoman rushed to explain: “Impeachment jokes in Washington are as old as Donald Rumsfeld.”

But then she turned serious: “How are the same Republicans, who tried to impeach a president over whether he misled a nation about an affair, going to pretend it does not matter if the administration intentionally misled the country into war?”

Times Online

In very sad news, American hostage, Tom Fox, was found dead today with apparent torture wounds.

In other sad news, the US continues to hold its own hostages in order to demonstrate to the world what it takes to be strong democracy.

About 490 foreign terrorism suspects are being held at Guantanamo, many for four years and only 10 charged with a crime.

Maybe in an attempt to be more like the US, the new Iraqi government should hire Tom Fox’s captors to teach them how to take hostages, torture people and all in all just be more like the US.

If people want a theocratic state move to fucking Iraq. I’m just sayin… ’cause If you haven’t noticed we are doing a hell of a job setting one up for yah.

Missouri bill proposes Christianity as official religion

While most of this survey is “good news,” there are a couple very troubling statistics about why the troops believe we are fighting in Iraq.

The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”

http://www.zogby.com/news

The bill cites “credible research” that proves children raised in GOP families tend to exhibit “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and an alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”

Andrew Sullivan remarks:

“It’s absurd, of course. But no more absurd than the empirically baseless claims that kids brought up by gay parents are somehow at a disadvantage.”

The president claims to have never met Jack Abramoff…. hmmm… that’s strange… If this isn’t him… it sure does look like him.

(via patrickjfitzgerald.blogspot.com)

Man … parts of this is really moving… use real player to view it.
rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/project/iraq/iraq111705_murtha.rm?mode=compact

Murtha quotes:

“Get that wounded marine a purple heart or I will give him one of mine…”
“80% of Iraqis want us out of there…”
“We are uniting the enemy against us…”
“There is more terrorism (in Iraq) now than there ever was…”
“I like guys that have never been there criticize us who have been there… I like guys who have five deferments criticize us who have been there… this is a flawed policy.”
“This one young commanding officer from Youngstown, three days before he was supposed to go home, he walked up to this IED and it blew up…”
“We have an obligation to speak for them… what do you think the soldiers are going to say… they are proud of their service… we have an obligation to speak for them… “

Last time I checked 50 billion in spending cuts and 60 billion in tax cuts adds 10 billion to the deficit. How exactly is this a winning budget plan as so proclaimed by the Republicans?

After weeks of lobbying and intra-party squabbling, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a five-year, $50bn package of cuts to federal benefits programs, while the Senate backed a $60bn package of tax cuts.

It is a shame the 50 billion in cuts are to programs like Medicaid, food stamps, student loan subsidies, state child-support enforcement programs, and farm support. It is estimated that the House bill would cut $220,000 people off food stamps. I wonder how many of those people live in New Orleans? How quickly we forget the President’s pledge to rebuild New Orleans and put an end to the poverty in that region. Has the OMB even taken into account the President’s Katrina speech? Maybe they are still working on last year’s numbers? Where is the “unprecedented response of an extra 60 billion dollars” asked for by the President going to come from? — (let me guess the poor in New Orleans will have to give up more programs.) Was that all empty rhetoric of a President trying to save face?
My favorite part of this whole House budget proposal is a “concession” to the moderates.

A provision denying Medicaid nursing home benefits to people with home equity of $500,000 or more was modified by raising the equity standard to $750,000 or more.

Are you kidding me. If you have $500,000 in home equity you don’t need Medicaid because you probably are already a doctor with a great health care plan. Seriously… Raised from $500,000 to $750,000 … WTF… How can we give 60 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and nonchalantly cut food stamps for 220,000 of the poorest Americans? You do know what I mean by “tax cuts to the wealthiest,” right? If not… that means lowering the dividend and long term capital gains tax rate from an already amazingly low 20% to 15%. When was the last time YOU paid 15% in income taxes? Could you imagine if they only took 15% out of your paycheck instead of more than 30%. Isn’t it backwards that the people that actually need the money to live are the people that don’t get it? Like I recently read… “Don’t Balance the Budget on the Backs of the Poor.” This “Reverse Robinhood” has to stop.

(Source MSNBC.com)
(Source WashingtonPost.com subscription required)

Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has compiled an extensive database of all terrorist attacks from around the world since 1980. What he found is quite contrary to the current administration’s postulate that suicidal terrorism is driven by religious extremists.

The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign-over 95 percent of all the incidents-has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

(Source The American Conservative)

A three-part documentary on peace in the Middle East airs next week in Britain. In it high-level Palestinian leaders quote Bush as taking his foreign policy direction from God. Nabil Shaath, Palestinian prime minister and now the Palestinian Authority president recalls what Bush said to him in a high-level meeting in June 2003,

I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …’ And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.’ And by God I’m gonna do it.

The White House denies the quote. I wonder if the CIA is getting their intelligence from God too?
(Source San Francisco Chronical – “Bush said God told him to invade Iraq”)
(Source BBC – “White House denies Bush God claim”)

Let’s say are a judge in a case. Four days before you decide the verdict the defendant secretly approaches you with an offer of a promotion to your dream job. Doesn’t this qualify as “impartiality might reasonably be questioned?”

Read on to find out that this is exactly what happened in the Hamdan case involving a suspected terrorist Hamdan and the President. The President questioned Judge Roberts about a Supreme Court nomination four days before the verdict was decided. Under normal circumstances an ethical judge would recuse himself. In this case though, Robert’s did the opposite, he stayed on and sided in favor of the President. Impartiality reasonably questioned? … You be the judge.

The secret history of U.S. mistakes, misjudgments and intelligence failures that let the Iraqi dictator and his allies launch an insurgency now ripping Iraq apart.
By JOE KLEIN