While Iraq burns...

Senate Republicans want to bring up a vote on flag burning to embarrass Kerry and Edwards. Putting aside the horror of the GOP playing games with the Constitution for political gain, I sure hope that amendment helps when a terrorist finally tries to blow up an Amtrak train and the Senate STILL hasn't passed legislation giving our transportation infrastructure the money it needs to beef up security. Senator Frist can be the first man to call the family members of the dead to let them know that at least their flags are safe. Read the rest of this post...

Message: I don't care

"Aides said no immediately upcoming presidential event is focused on the economy..." - Wash Post, 9/13/04

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TIME: White House flip-flopped on why Bush didn't take physical

I actually didn't realize this.

The biggest blot on Bush's record may be his failure to take his required annual physical in 1972. As a result, he was suspended from flying — an embarrassment for serious pilots. In years past, the Bush campaign claimed he missed the physical because his personal physician was in Houston. Now the White House says Bush did not need to take the physical, since he did not intend to fly during his stint in Alabama.

Another interesting point made in this article from Time:

Only one member of Bush's unit has come forward to say he saw Bush reporting for duty in Alabama, but his recollection places Bush in the state before Bush was officially assigned there....

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The Kerry ads we'd LOVE to see

If anyone likes any of these, steal them and go for it.

WHAT CHENEY SAID:

"Cheney also talked up the economy. He said national employment statistics miss many people who are making money, such as those selling items on eBay. 'That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago,' he said. 'Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.' " - AP

SOME ADS I'D LIKE TO SEE IN RESPONSE

AD 1I'm thinking something with Harry & Louise in it. You remember them. Harry comes home, tells Louise his job was outsourced and he got fired. Louise, tears streaming down her face, asks, "How oh how will we provide for our two kids in college, let alone put food on our own table?" Harry turns to the camera and says with confidence, "eBay!"

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AD 2

Harry and Louise are sitting down having their morning coffee. Louise opens up the mail and cries, "Oh my, our Medicare rates just went up 17%! How are we and millions of seniors going to afford this?" Harry puts his paper down and smiles to the camera, "eBay!"

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AD 3

Mrs. Gonzalez, the wife of a servicemember fighting in Iraq, answers the door. A man in a military uniform hands her a telegram and says he's very sorry. Stunned, tears streaming down her face, she looks at the man and begs, 'how will I provide for my newborn child?' The soldier turns to the camera and shouts, "eBay!"

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No turkee for this AP reporter

AP rips Bush on being a flip-flopper. The media telling the truth about Bush? What alternate universe did I wake up in today?:

If he is a flip-flopper, Kerry has company.

_In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He's done both in Iraq.

_He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it.

_He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him.

_Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months.

_Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would.

_A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." But he told reporters six months later, "I truly am not that concerned about him." He did not mention bin Laden in his hour-long convention acceptance speech.

"I'm a war president," Bush told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Feb. 8. But in a July 20 speech in Iowa, he said: "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president."

Bush keeps revising his Iraq war rationale: The need to seize Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction until none were found; liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator; fighting terrorists in Iraq not at home; spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it's a safer America and a safer world.

"No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said last week in Missouri.

Bush has changed his positions on new Clean Air Act restrictions, protecting the Social Security surplus, tobacco subsidies, the level of assistance to help combat AIDs in Africa, campaign finance overhaul and whether to negotiate with North Korean officials....

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Polling update - this is a VERY close race

Just a quick update on polls. Note that ZOGBY has generally been the most accurate of the polling groups.

Zogby - 9/9
Bush - 47%
Kerry - 45%

Time- 9/9
Bush - 54%
Kerry - 42%

Democracy Corps (Democratic org.) - 9/9
Bush - 50%
Kerry - 47%

FOX Opinion Dynamics - 9/8
Bush - 47%
Kerry - 45%

It's a VERY close race, and you can pretty easily ignore the outlier polls. In two of these polls, including the FOX poll, Bush is under 50% - all very strong signs that whatever "bounce" Bush got is pretty much evaporated. KEEP WORKING. Read the rest of this post...

Why does Poppy hate his son?

"News Item (1988): Presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush charges that Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen used his influence to get his son into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war" - Chicago Sun-Times

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Iraq is a MESS - a total Bush failure

You MUST read this story from the LA Times. It details the failure to plan for the post-war planning that cost us BILLIONS of dollars. It then talks about how BILLIONS more were lost to private contractors. All of these BILLIONS could have been spent on balancing our budget, building new school, putting more cops on the street. This administration is a true failure:

On the electrical systems in Iraq:

The trouble restoring Iraq's electrical system exemplifies the failures of a larger reconstruction process still marked by tainted water supplies, limited sewage treatment and curtailed construction of public buildings. An effort that was supposed to provide jobs, stability and democracy has instead produced a deep reservoir of confusion and anger that feeds the country's deadly insurgency.

Although electricity was the foundation of the rebuilding campaign, State and Defense department planners vastly underestimated the time, money and effort needed to restore the country's power grid, which had deteriorated far beyond their expectations under 12 years of U.N. sanctions.

A review of the restoration effort shows that it was beset by poor planning, inconsistent leadership, sabotage and deteriorating security.

On private contractors:

A Pentagon decision to rely on private contractors to do much of the rebuilding also slowed work. Rather than depend on Iraqis to make quick fixes, the Pentagon decided to spend money on complex, big-ticket infrastructure ? a strategy that would meet long-term goals rather than the nation's immediate needs, critics said.

On poor management:

At the same time, work in Iraq was roiled by constantly changing leadership, vision and emphasis. Since rebuilding began in April 2003, seven people have overseen the electricity project - the equivalent of a new CEO every 2 1/2 months for one of the most complicated and expensive tasks in Iraq.

On unrealistic assumptions - "you break it you own it":

Many State Department and Pentagon officials involved in the initial planning for war assumed that the electricity sector would generally need only repairs and rehabilitation because the military had avoided infrastructure targets.

But as government officials and contractors slowly fanned out after major combat ended, they found that 12 years of sanctions had created a far worse situation than they had realized.

On how poor security and insurgency caused more failures (this is why Generals told Bush it would take 200,000-300,000 troops to secure the country - TO DO IT RIGHT):

While assessing the damage, the electrical team, headed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, was blindsided by a far more serious challenge: looting, sabotage and violence.

Insurgents tumbled transmission towers like dominos. When U.S. assessment teams arrived in Iraq shortly after the invasion, about 30 towers had been knocked down. By September, that had grown to 600 towers, substantially cutting into Iraq's ability to send power across its grid.

Theft was rampant, and Baiji was hit hard. Bandits in search of copper stole more than 50 miles of high-tension wire between the plant and Baghdad, cutting off the complex from the country's largest population center.

"We buy [electrical parts], the next day they're gone," Jim Guy, a USAID engineering specialist, said during a conference in Washington. "We have to guard everything that's loose, or else it will be gone in the morning."

This administration is running on Iraq as a symbol of its policies. Tell people the truth, show them the truth, and this administration won't be up 2-4%, they'll be down 7-10%. Now be good little activists and get out there and KEEP WORKING. Read the rest of this post...

My suggestion to the Kerry folks

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "The reason for the attack is that John Kerry took his eighth distinct position on the war in Iraq this week and their position has receded into complete incoherence." (One of Bush's spokesman said this recently.)

YOU SAY: "That's funny, coming from a man whose position on Iraq is that 'we can't win it."

or

"I'd be happy to lend one of those eight positions to the president as he doesn't seem have ANY clear position on why we went to Iraq, or how he plans to win the peace." Read the rest of this post...

Former Harvard prof says Bush admitted dad got him out of war

NY Daily News:

President Bush' former Harvard Business School prof says his ex-student supported the Vietnam War but wanted somebody else to fight it.

Yoshi Tsurumi said yesterday that Bush told him his father's connections got him into the Texas Air National Guard. "But what really disturbed me is that he said he was for the Vietnam War," said Tsurumi, who has also taught at Baruch College and the City University of New York. "I said, 'George, that's hypocrisy. You won't fight a war that you support but you expect other people to fight it for you.' He just smirked."

Tsurumi, who crossed paths with Bush in the early 1970s when the future President was studying for his MBA, previously has criticized Bush's economic policies and described him as a mediocre student who "believed people were poor because they were lazy."

But Tsurumi's new volley comes as Bush has been battling allegations he got preferential treatment at the height of the divisive Vietnam War. Bush, according to Tsurumi, "had no sense of guilt" about getting into the Guard while others wound up fighting in Vietnam.

"He was very casual about it," the professor said. "I said, 'Lucky you, how did you manage it?' He said, 'My dad had a good friend who put me at the head of the waiting list.'"

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Hold on to your hats, kids. Bush... yes, I know you'll be surprised... LIED about his National Guard service in a campaign ad

From Atrios. And MORE from Atrios. Read the rest of this post...

GEORGE WILL: Bush did not prepare our troops for Iraq war

From ABC News' "This Week" this morning (no link, I'm transcribing):

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "...Secretary Powell comes on the program and says 'no, this violence was anticipated, George Will, and we have to tough it out.' "

GEORGE WILL: "Well, it clearly wasn't anticipated. We didn't prepare the country, our country, for this kind of fighting, and we didn't prepare our deployment over there for this kind of fighting."

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Kill-and-Spend Republicans

"The United States and other nations are prepared to help move an expanded African peacekeeping force into position in Sudan's Darfur region to halt the bloodshed, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday." - Reuters

Is there anywhere in the world the Bush administration WON'T send in American troops and spend billions of American dollars? Jesus, they talk about tax-and-spend Democrats, how about kill-and-spend Republicans. Yes, I feel the Sudan's pain. But we simply cannot go and intervene into every part of the world and not think that at some point we've overextended ourselves. This is why we DON'T go and invade places like Iraq based on a lie, simply because it's "nice" to have Saddam gone (I'm still not sure how "nice" it is for the families of the 1,000 war dead.) The idea is to have troops and money available when REAL emergencies like the Sudan arrive.

But hey, I'm sure we'll be told that THIS TOO is part of the war on terror, so shut up and accept it. Read the rest of this post...

Nasty (good) cartoon

Via BartCop.com Read the rest of this post...

Guess he failed

"Televangelist Paul Crouch, founder of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, has waged a fierce legal battle to prevent a former employee from publicizing allegations that he and Crouch had a sexual encounter eight years ago." - LA Times

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Bring on the Guns

Wash Post editorial: "PRESIDENT BUSH doesn't care, and neither do the Republican House and Senate leaders. They're content to open up the streets to the pointless and exceptionally deadly gunfire of assault-style weapons. Their cold political calculation: Let the assault weapons ban expire Monday night, and let the police in particular and everybody in general fend for their lives. After all, that's the way people like it -- or so claims Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) who, unlike other doctors who have treated shooting victims, thinks this is what the people want. 'I think the will of the American people is consistent with letting it expire, so it will expire,' Mr. Frist told reporters last week... "

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Whatever happened to "I don't think we can win it"?

While I try to be positive about John Kerry and the Democratic party, why the fuck haven't there been ANY TV ads with Bush's most damaging quote to date: I don't think we can win it. Why doesn't Kerry mention this any more? Why doesn't the DNC? The man handed us a gem and we're not using it. Just imagine if John Kerry had said "I don't think we can it." That would be the end of the campaign.

Who the fuck is running this campaign? Read the rest of this post...

"Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib"

To be released on Monday. When in doubt, deny everything. Who are you going to believe?

Senior military and national security officials in the Bush administration were repeatedly warned by subordinates in 2002 and 2003 that prisoners in military custody were being abused, according to a new book by a prominent journalist.

In a statement posted on its Web site, the Pentagon said: "Based on media inquiries, it appears that Mr. Seymour Hersh's upcoming book apparently contains many of the numerous unsubstantiated allegations and inaccuracies which he has made in the past based upon unnamed sources."

The statement added that several investigations so far "have determined that no responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have authorized or condoned the abuses seen at Abu Ghraib."

That is essentially the same reaction issued by the Pentagon when Mr. Hersh first reported, in May, that Mr. Rumsfeld, with White House approval, established a secret program under which commandos would capture and interrogate suspected terrorists with few if any constraints, and that eventually that program's reach extended into the Abu Ghraib prison.

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Feeling safer yet? North Korea rocked by large explosion

Was it a nuclear explosion or not? Was it a mushroom cloud or just your average run of the mill 2 1/2 mile high cloud that certainly means nothing to see here, keep moving? Because the reports are so varied, one has to start thinking of the worst considering how often we've been lied to by this administration. If a report doesn't fit into the ideological program, they just change the facts.

The NY Times is saying that the Bushies had been tipped off that a nuclear test might be coming but that would not really fit in with the "making American safer" dog and pony show called Bush-Cheney2004. Is Bush once again getting caught reading My Pet Goat while the world changes in front of our eyes?

We can all feel safe that the US is completely prepared and able to deal with this potential threat since we are definitely not bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq that is not taking military lives, resources and money.
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