John Aravosis, a Washington political consultant, runs another Web site, www.DearMary.com, which encourages supporters to write Vice President Dick Cheney's openly lesbian daughter, Mary, entreating her to lobby her father against Bush administration policies.Read More......
Aravosis said the White House all but invited the outing tactic by endorsing the constitutional amendment.
"They declared war," he said. "We're not going to respond with a hug."
The Justice Department has asked a judge to throw out the convictions of members of a suspected terror cell in Detroit because of prosecutorial misconduct, reversing course in a case the Bush administration once hailed as a major victory in the war on terrorism, legal sources said Tuesday.
About one of every 13 miles of the Appalachian Trail between Maine and Georgia passes through national forests where a Bush administration plan could allow clear cutting of wooded areas, an environmental group said Tuesday.
The administration announced in July that it would allow logging in areas that former President Clinton had put off-limits to such activity shortly before he left office in 2001.
President Bush said Tuesday 'we will win' the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism over his earlier remark that victory may not be possible.Read More......
In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, 'We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.
That statement differed from Bush's earlier comment, aired Monday in a pre-taped television interview, that 'I don't think you can win' the war on terror. "
That isn't to say that Morton hasn't had some experience with militaries:
Blackwell has also trained rightist political forces in Latin America and Africa(19) through IPF, notably supporters of the Pinochet military dictatorship, Argentinean rightists, and supporters of Inkatha chief Buthelezi in South Africa.
AP is reporting that Bush is NOW saying we CAN win the war on terror, and we're already winning it! This only ONE DAY after he told NBC's Matt Lauer that we CAN'T win the war on terror. Now who is the king of flip flops? Less than ONE DAY and he's totally changing his tune on - what issue? - no less than THE WAR ON TERROR. The president who, say what you will about him, ALWAYS had CONVICTION and always STUCK TO HIS GUNS, has now gone soft. He's now pandering to the polls, pandering to the media, pandering to the electorate. When the going gets tough, George Bush simply sings a different tune.
President Bush will tell the nation's largest veterans' group Tuesday that "we will win" the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism of his remark aired a day earlier that victory in the anti-terror battle may not be possible, his spokesman said.Read More......
In a speech before the national convention of the American Legion, the president will make it "crystal clear" that America will win the war on terrorism, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
"Not only are we winning it, but we will win it," McClellan said in describing Bush's speech.
That message contradicts Bush's statement, aired Monday in a pre-taped television interview, that "I don't think you can win" the war on terror.
But if the standard is votes over a lifetime, Kerry isn't the most liberal senator. By that measure, Kerry is the 11th-most-liberal senator, coming in below such Democrats as Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Barbara Boxer of California, and, yes, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, according to a National Journal analysis published in March.
John Edwards, who was ranked the fourth-most-liberal senator in 2003 (and who also missed many votes that year), is the 27th-most-liberal senator based on votes over his career.
Here's a Bush supporter in Oregon who, like her president, doesn't think much of free speech and the right to protest or question a government that continues to lie to the American people.
"Uh, hi, I weigh 200 pounds, I'm 6'4" (inaudible) blond hair....very muscular, very buffed up, uh, very tanned, uh, I just like to get together a guy from time to time, just to, just to play. I'd like him to be in very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, well hung, cut, uh, just get naked, play, and see what happens, nothing real heavy duty, but just, fun time, go down on him, he can go down on me, and just take it from there... hope to hear from you. Bye." - From the RawStory.com (home page link)Feel free to come up with your own version of the transcript :-) Read More......
In 2000, the Virginian-Pilot said of Schrock that he favored ending the Clinton administration's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. He supported asking enlistees whether they have had homosexual experiences in an effort to try to keep gays from serving.And apparently, you're in the halls of Congress with them.
"You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them," Schrock told the Virginian-Pilot. "You just hope no harm would come by folks who are of that persuasion. It's a discipline thing."
Republican Party Chairman Kate Obenshain Griffin, who presides over a state organization that has been rocked by one scandal after another in the past several years, said she hoped that her party would come together quickly to move on.Wouldn't have been MY word choice :-) Read More......
"It is now important for Virginia Republicans to unite behind our nominee..."
Mr. Bush was asked if the United States could win the war against terrorism, which he has made the focus of his administration and the central thrust of his re-election campaign.
"I don't think you can win it," Mr. Bush replied. "
NEW YORK - A former aide who claims New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey sexually harassed him said Monday he will not sue the governor.
The governor's resignation announcement was sufficient admission of his wrongdoing, Golan Cipel said in a statement written in Hebrew and released Monday by an Israeli public relations agency. Cipel is in seclusion with his family in Israel.
"As Republican former Governors, Senators and public officials,
we urge our party to renew its allegiance to the proven, common sense values which unite America.
Instead of partisan ideology - which increasingly has led moderates to leave the party - what's needed is a speedy return to the pragmatic, problem-solving mainstream."
"- put the health of millions first, and clear the way for embryonic stem cell research;
- appoint mainstream federal judges, and respect the Constitution;"
I believe the decision to go to war was the right decision, particularly after September the 11th.So, even without Sept 11, it would have been valid to go to war. But before Sept. 11, there wasn't a war on terror, so what would the justification have been? Look, I don't like Saddam, I don't think the Iraqis were flying kites before we invaded, but it's BS for the president to start coming up with alternative pre-9/11 reasons to invade, now that the WMD discussion has gone out the window (not to mention, what DID happen to Sarin gas shells they "discovered" a few months ago?) Read More......
When asked "Can we win?" the war on terror, Bush said, "I don't think you can win it."Why does Bush not believe in America? It's time to rebuild our alliances around the world and win this war. Just because Bush is giving in doesn't mean everyone else should.
As Christian conservatives rally around Mel Martinez, their favorite candidate in the U.S. Senate race, a key reason for their support is his strict stance on one of their hot-button issues: homosexuality.I don't know why a local gay group doesn't launch protests calling on these gay staffers to quit. Read More......
The Martinez campaign has made the fight against what it calls ''the radical homosexual lobby'' central to its campaign. It's the subject of an attack ad -- removed Saturday under political pressure -- and a stinging mailer that criticizes rival Bill McCollum, a fellow conservative, for ''pandering to gays'' because he supported so-called hate crimes legislation in Congress.
Yet the Martinez campaign and the candidate's religious allies find themselves having to carefully parse their positions for one reason: Both Martinez and McCollum -- Republican politicians with impeccable conservative credentials -- have highly placed campaign staffers who are gay.
Mr. [Alan] Simpson recalled a tense confrontation on the campaign trail when one of Mr. Bush's Christian conservative backers advised Mr. Cheney to "pray for her" and "to urge her away from her aberration."And this part of the article made me want to spit on Mary Matalin. What kind of homophobic crap is this? She knows better.
"Dick just starred at him," Mr. Simpson recalled. "If you said that to Dick or Lynne Cheney, you will get a look that would sizzle your underwear, I tell you."
"When people are open, which Mary is, they are not trying to make a statement,'' Ms. Matalin said. "There are other reasons to be politically active besides your sexual orientation. That is not her raison d'être."And that, my friends, is why Mary is a big fat traitor. Hell, I'm beginning to think her dad is more pro-gay than she. Read More......
Speaking of the gay equality movement... What about Mary? Mary Cheney, that is. She's the gay daughter of vice president Dick and his wife, Lynne.Yep, ALL the straight Bush-Cheney women are talking, but not Mary. Gosh I hope she's proud of what she's doing. Read More......
Lynne Cheney and one of her two daughters are on the roster of top Republican wives and offspring listed as speakers at Monday's "W Stands for Women Forum." But notably absent from that list is Mary Cheney.
Meanwhile -- how retro -- all the married women are listed as "Mrs.": Mrs. Barbara Bush, Mrs. Liz Cheney Perry (the Cheney's other daughter); Mrs. Doro Bush Koch (President Bush the First's only daughter; sister of the current president). Also listed, the president's twin 22-year-old twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, who everyone wants to meet, or at least eyeball this convention week.
... The attacks initially made me sorry I voted for him. For most of that day, as my wife and children stayed inside our house listening to the roar of fighter jets overhead, and black smoke from the Pentagon hovered above our neighborhood, Bush failed to return to Washington. My family sat unprotected a few miles from the scene of a terrorist attack; Bush hid in a bunker on some faraway military base.As Kos notes:
It infuriated me, as did the subsequent excuses from White House spokesman. There was a risk in coming back, they said. There was a risk in coming back, they said. Of course there was. That's the point: Leaders must take risks, sometimes physical ones. Bush should have elbowed his Secret Service detail out of the way and returned in a display of fearlessness to his nation's capital. I found it distressingly revealing that he didn't.
But as Carlson says, the incident was revealing. Just as Kerry's heroism half a world away is revealing. There's a reason the Swift Boat Liars are going after the story so hard. Kerry turned his boat into the danger he faced.Read More......
Read More......
...the FBI is looking with renewed interest at an unauthorized back-channel between Iranian dissidents and advisers in Feith's office, which more-senior
administration officials first tried in vain to shut down and then later attempted to cover up.
The administration's reluctance to disclose these details seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a "regime change" agenda not approved by the president's foreign policy principals or even the president himself.
The Agency believes Ghorbanifar is a serial "fabricator" and forbids its officers from having anything to do with him. Moreover, why were mid-level Pentagon officials organizing meetings with a foreign intelligence agency behind the back of the CIA -- a clear breach of US government protocol?
Newsday broke the original story about the secret Ghorbanifar channel. Faced with the disclosure, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld acknowledged the December, 2001 meeting but dismissed it as routine and unimportant. Later that day, another senior Defense official acknowledged the second meeting, in Paris, June, 2003, but insisted that it was the result of a "chance encounter" between Ghorbanifar and a Pentagon official.
Lining Up With Hitler or Against HimIronically, Ms. Dow may have a point. The GOP is increasingly embracing the kind of social policy that Hitler loved. Perhaps some enterprising journalist at the convention will ask Mr. Cheney how he feels about the opening invocation being given by a woman who compared his daughter to Hitler. Not to mention, why is Ms. Dow even willing to appear at a convention where Hitler's dad is the VP? Read More......
This escalating situation reminds me of a statement of a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thompson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in Europe during the pre-World War II years when Hitler was building up his armies and starting to take ground. In an address she delivered in Toronto in 1941 she said this: ?Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler?s side. If he does not act, that is an actfor Hitler.?
May I take the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today? ?Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family.?
At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family but maybe not....
Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and a veteran in conservative evangelical politics, will be at the convention.Read More......
"I'm in New York right now," he said in a phone interview with The Chronicle on Thursday afternoon. "I have V.I.P. credentials, and I will be there.'' ....
Falwell said God was especially upset with pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way, a liberal watchdog group.
In his interview Thursday, Falwell said he still stands by that statement, but wishes he had added "the sleeping church" to the list of responsible parties....
[Falwell] insists that he remains close to President Bush.
"We've talked many times,'' Falwell said. "I've had many photo ops with the president.''
"Listen,'' he added, "I've been doing this for 50 years, and I don't know of any president who is more beloved by conservative evangelicals than President Bush.''
The problem is growing, said J. William Leonard, director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which monitors federal practices. Officials classified documents 8 percent more often in 2003 than in 2002.
''This administration believes the less known the better," said Shays, noting that he was speaking of a GOP administration. ''I believe the more known the better."
But in 2003, President Bush ordered officials to use the more restrictive level.
Steven Aftergood, director of a Federation of American Scientists project on secrecy, said some classification clearly aimed to conceal illegality or avoid embarrassment, even though that is forbidden.
Aftergood cited the ''secret" stamp on Army Major General Antonio Taguba's report of ''numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted on Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.
As Bush heads to the Republican National Convention in New York this week, the man who stood astride the political world at that news conference in 2002 is a distinctly more life-size figure. With the election just 65 days away, there is a puzzle: How did a leader who was so formidable become so vulnerable?Among the two biggest blunders:
In small ways, the answer is an accumulation of miscalculations and missed opportunities that have marred the president's political operation this year... In a large way, however, Bush's predicament is less a reversal of his 2002 success than a natural progression of it -- the consequence of two confrontations he sought that autumn.
...his decision to confront Democrats directly and immerse himself in partisan electioneering ensured that he would face reelection with little of the rally-behind-the-leader sentiment that flowed to him after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
TWITTER ACCTS
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
© 2010 - John Aravosis | Design maintenance by Jason Rosenbaum
Send me your tips: americablog AT starpower DOT net
