Andy Rooney on Iraq

It's a good thing.

I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into.

We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today.

Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what?

Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China.

Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

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GOP House trying to gut endangered speciest act

Gee, what a surprise. Now that they have no more credibility, no more mandate, no more nothing, the Republicans are going through their last desperate attempts to gut every piece of legislation on the books. Perhaps my favorite paragraph:

"We should protect endangered species, but not at the expense of our property owners," said Rep. Henry Brown Jr., R-S.C.

Yeah, so what if an entire species goes extinct for all eternity. Some guy in South Carolina might not be able to build an office, and damn it, and isn't that what God would have wanted? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Well, I was just cleaning the apartment and found 70 euros behind a piece of furniture. Is someone trying to tell me something....?

(See question in post below.) Read the rest of this post...

Question: Have you considered leaving America for good, now or in the future?

I have a number of friends and acquaintances who, for the first time, have recently considered leaving the US for good. I'm not saying they've decided to do so, but they've considered it, and are keeping that consideration in the back of their mind for a rainy day, should the political/cultural situation worsen in this country and/or should they lose more respect for what this country is becoming and/or has become.

So my question to you, seriously, is have you in the past few years given thought to the possibility of leaving the US for good? And if so, is this a new feeling, or have you always felt this way? And finally, if so, why? Read the rest of this post...

Iraq civil war proceeding ahead of schedule

I guess this is what Bush meant by things are going really well over there. They're even ahead of schedule.

Iraq's Kurdish president called on the country's Shiite prime minister to step down, the spokesman for the president's party said Sunday, escalating a political split between the two factions that make up the government.

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Another open thread

It's a beautiful day, get off your computer. Read the rest of this post...

The prisoner and the guard: Two lives destroyed by Abu Ghraib

I'm all for Lynndie England being convicted, BUT she wasn't acting in a vacuum. Similar techniques just happened to pop up in Afghanistan and Gitmo (Cuba), but we're to believe this was just her own isolated crazy idea. Yeah, right. To some degree, what do you expect when the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of Defense tell the troops that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to them, and that torture isn't really illegal?

In the end, I don't think that condones torture, or violations of the Geneva Conventions, but Lynndie's bosses, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, need to answer a few questions about why they shouldn't be on the hot seat (or dog leash) as well.

From Der Spiegel:

With Lynndie England's conviction earlier this week, nine US soldiers have now been sentenced for their role in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. But is it enough? DER SPIEGEL looks at two lives destroyed by Abu Ghraib. One, an Iraqi community leader -- the other, his American guard.

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Sunday afternoon open thread

Tell me something good... Read the rest of this post...

Stephanopoulous: Bush involved in Plamegate

Oh man.

Quoth the Stepanopoulos:

"...a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions."

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Now that Karl is back in the news

Don't forget our wonderful line of Karl Rove accessories!





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Fitzgerald looking at WH conspiracy charges

Okay, the Plame/Rove/Libby investigation appears to really be heating up. The MSM is covering it again. First, according to the Washington Post, the Bush team is getting a little freaked about what might happen:

What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges. The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.

There have been other reports that White House staffers are very nervous about what might happen to Karl. And it looks like Fitzgerald still has a few prosecutorial tricks up his sleeve:

[A] new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

Criminal conspiracy works. The White House puts a lot of time and energy and planning in to their smear campaigns. In the Plame situation, all their conspiring was illegal. Read the rest of this post...

Post Editorial slams Bush on pork - plenty of GOP blame to go around though

The right wing editorial board of the Washington Post is jumping on the pork bandwagon and pushing the bulk of the blame to Bush, even referring to his lack of vetoes as "cowardly." I agree that Bush loves to spend even more than any Democrat ever dreamed of spending, but the Post seems content to pass the buck on this one. We've been hearing for years from the entire GOP about how responsible they were or they could be if given the chance. Well, they've had their chance running Congress and since 200 even the White House and it's pretty clear that the whole lot of them are a out-of-control spenders.

It's the 1950s all over again, when the GOP talked the talk about cutting spending but they just can't and won't walk the walk. Sure Bush is a coward, but I'm not very interested in listening to the whining and complaining from the rest of the GOP because they've been active participants in creating this feeding frenzy. They have not shown an ounce of restraint when all of this was playing out so let's not hear about any outrage now because it's too late. The entire GOP has been the creators of this mess, not just Bush so it's time to quite their whining and quit running from the bloated pig that they created. The GOP as a group made the mess and now the GOP as a group owns it. Read the rest of this post...

Bali details starting to come out

The debate is still open about how many bombers went off yesterday but earlier death tolls of 36 have been downgraded to 25 by the Indonesian government, with wounded standing at 107. From the sound of the reports of heavy crowds on a holiday weekend (for Australians, who frequent Bali) it sounds as though it could have been even worse, which says a lot considering how bloody this was. Authorities are once again investigating Jemaah Islamiyah who masterminded the 2002 killings in Bali. Ramadan is probably going to be another brutal period around the world, but we will no doubt hear from Bush and Rummy about how well things are going, defying logic and our own eyes once again. Read the rest of this post...