Republican friends of the Joint Chiefs

These are some of the emails we're getting in reply to the post we did earlier today about the Joint Chiefs writing to the Washington Post, protesting a cartoon that defends our troops. I'd just like the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see the kind of America they're helping to create:

From: Jack Harris
To: AMERICAblog
Subject: America Deserves The Truth
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 20:21:27 -0600

Under no circumstances would I ever believe that your blog comes any where close to telling the truth. It is people like you that are hiding from the truth with your head in the sand ignoring the danger in this world directed toward this country each and every day from the radical fringe groups world wide. You are the same. You are an enemy of this country. Your day will come.

Nothing restores my faith in a just cause like threatening to kill all Democrats when the Joint Chiefs finally get the America they're fighting for.

Then there's Tim, who doesn't seem to understand that the cartoon in question was defending the troops against a military brass that couldn't give a damn about their injuries:

From: TIMinPHOENIX
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:36:26 EST
Subject: Your body armor comment is just so much liberal bullshit....you don't care....
To: AMERICAblog

When I read about the concern some leftist expresses over body armor supply for troops, I can't help but laugh.

Come on, you people get all tingly every time there is a significant amount of US troops killed. You know, that funny feeling like you used to get when you were in a car that drove over a bump in the road really fast.

This Bush administration is your white whale, your entire reason for existence. And anything, including the death of American soldiers is just swell if, as you think, it will convince others of your viewpoint. Come on, you would give up a weekend a month to build IEDs if you could just figure out the postage, wouldn't you?

Keep scanning the skies for those black helicopters, wear your tinfoil hat proudly, and keep telling us of the evil right wing....

Tim Estes
Phoenix, AZ

Oh, and Tim - the black helicopter crowd, those are your people.

(How much ya wanna bet Deborah Howell is feeling downright popular right about now.) Read the rest of this post...

Alito refuses to put man to death

Damn those activist judges. Read the rest of this post...

Upset about the filibuster loss? Here's a chance to do something about it

Jane raises a point we all can agree on. When so-called "moderate Republicans" refuse to to do the right thing when the hard votes come up, they no longer should get our support. My biggest gripe with Lincoln Chafee, the mod currently being targeted, is that any member of Congress who votes for a Republican leader in the Congress, as Chafee did with Bill First, doesn't deserve our support or the support of any of our organizations, period. The Republicans have declared war on our entire way of life and our freedoms, if you support their majority in Congress then you are not our friend, period. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's big SOTU promise to reduce dependence on foreign oil? Never mind.

Even for Bush, this is absolutely unbelievable.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally....

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

Fortunately, the war on chimera is still in play.

(Hat tip to Markos on this one) Read the rest of this post...

VIDEO: Dems cheering at SOTU over fact they killed Bush's plan to privatize Social Security

Look on chimpy's face? Priceless. Read the rest of this post...

Gonzales needs to be sworn in next week during the domestic spying hearings

Now that we know US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales perjured himself before Congress last year when testifying about Bush's illegal domestic spying program, there is no way that any Senator can accept Gonzales testifying next week before Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee, about that very same issue, unless Gonzales is sworn in. Even then there's no guarantee that a proven-perjurer is going to tell the truth, but at least we have the force of law to go after him if and when he lies again.

This issue would seem to be a no-brainer. Gonzales must be sworn in, and if he can't explain away his past perjury, he needs to lose his job as the chief law inforcement officer in America, and go to jail. Read the rest of this post...

The 18 1/2 minute email gap

Apparently Dick Cheney is tan, ready and rested. Read the rest of this post...

Charges against Cindy Sheehan dropped

Well yeah, charges were dropped because the police now admit Sheehan didn't violate any laws or rules. Sounds like a hell of a lawsuit coming.

(I wonder if the Joint Chiefs sent her a letter too?) Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

UPDATE: SBC Global Internet reportedly just told one of our readers the following: "only SBC customers have the right to make a complaint about someone violating the SBC Terms of Service." Wow, so SBC Internet customers are free to use their service to harass, threaten, swindle, spam and do whatever they want, so long as they do it to people who aren't SBC customers. Cool. All you spammers, you heard it here first. Use SBC for your spam services, apparently they don't care. This would be the first ISP in my life that I've seen have a policy where you can break their TOS so long as you don't do it against a fellow customer. What a bunch of pigs. And AMERITECH is reportedly a part of this company. Very sad what corporate America has come to.
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We're having a little problem with a troll who has repeatedly harassed folks here, repeatedly been asked to stop, then repeatedly banned and asked not to return, but he always comes back.

His latest post is the following:

How about a Toles cartoon depicting a gay man lying in a pool of diarrhea and covered with Carposi's sarcoma?

Funny. No?

This is his IP address: 69.209.52.46, and this is the time he made that post: Feb. 1, 2006, 6:31pm Eastern. His Internet provider is SBC Global, and here is their terms of service which clearly bans harassing posts and more. They have been contacted repeatedly about this person harassing folks in this blog and violating SBC's terms of service, to no avail. I'd appreciate your help since SBC doesn't seem to care about their own TOS.

Please contact SBC Global and ask them to finally enforce their Terms of Service. At some point, after you've banned a troll 40 times and they keep coming back, it starts to lessen the quality of the discussion on the blog. Please contact SBC and ask them to enforce their own TOS.

Email: abuse@sbcglobal.net Read the rest of this post...

Dear Michelle,

In "civilized societies," the military doesn't get involved in the content of cartoons. In the Soviet Union, communist China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and the Sudan, they do.

And funny, but that would be pretty much the same coalition Bush joined this past week at the UN to throw out a human rights group.

But then again, your idea of civilized society is throwing Japanese-Americans into internment camps, so there you are.

I await the day that real conservatives take over the Republican party again. You know, the ones who love the flag AND what it stands for, who revere the Constitution AND what it actually says.

Love, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Second letter from Joint Chiefs surfaces...

Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon trying to censor top US political cartoonist

The Joint Chiefs of Staff just sent a menacing letter to the Washington Post over a cartoon. AMERICAblog received a copy of the letter at 10AM this morning, but as its veracity was not yet confirmed, we waited until E&P; was able to confirm that is is for real.

Here's the letter the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote to the Post.

And why not have the Pentagon try to stifle a free media while supposedly promoting freedom in Iraq? The US government just arrested one of President Bush's top political critics for threatening his life with a t-shirt. So why not now threaten a top political cartoonist for drawing a cartoon that the Pentagon doesn't like? Why not use the power of government to try to censor the media, something that's a direct violation of that pesky and quaint 1st Amendment to the US Constitution - you remember, that document the Bush administration doesn't think is relevant.

I have no problem with citizens speaking out about political cartoons they find offensive - hell, we've done it recently with the anti-gay cartoon in the Post. But when the government does it, that's a whole other story that smacks of censorship, especially when that government is the Pentagon threatening you during wartime.

It will be interesting to see if the Post replied to the Pentagon. They sure didn't reply when it was a homophobic cartoon they published.



Hey, here's a thought. Now that the Joint Chiefs have addressed the insidious threat cartoons pose to our troops, perhaps they can move on to less pressing issues like getting them their damn body armor. Read the rest of this post...

Dear Ms. Howell,

You get called a whore.

I get called a fag.

Welcome to my world.

Love, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

How not to influence the blogosphere

Lesson 1. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

What's the news? Read the rest of this post...

Police removed wife of GOP congressman from SOTU for wearing pro-troops t-shirt

Apparently it's illegal to wear any kind of t-shirt now in the United State of America.

The wife of a powerful Republican congressman was also asked to leave.

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom."

She was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.

"They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, "Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.'"

A few points.

1. What they did to the wife of the congressman is disgraceful.

2. You'll note that the congressman's wife was not arrested or manhandled. Cindy Sheehan reportedly was.

But getting back to basics. It isn't okay just because two women had their constitutional rights thrown over the balcony last night at the State of the Union. That just makes it worse. It suggests that what happened to Cindy Sheehan wasn't an accident. We have a government in power that tolerates NO dissent. And making these arrests in the moments before the president's State of the Union address is simply sickening in its symbolism.

Beacon of hope to the world? It's embarrassing what the Bush administration has turned our country into in only 5 years. And the only thing more embarassing is that Republicans, who used to believe in freedom, who pre-Bush would have yelled and screamed about this kind of un-American behavior, continue to sit back silently in order to protect a president who betrays ever principle conservatives claim to endorse.

More from Glenn Greenwald. Read the rest of this post...

One Month Extension for Patriot Act

Bush railed about this last night in his big speech, but still no deal. He got a month -- and it is still being held up by the hard-core right wing GOPers (the AP refers to them as "libertarian-leaning Republicans"):

The Patriot Act is set to be extended for another month while conservative Republicans and the White House work out changes they say would protect people from government intrusion without weakening the war on terror.

A day after President Bush insisted that Congress renew 16 provisions set to expire Friday, the House was set to extend the act until March 10 to give negotiators more time to come up with a deal. The Senate was expected to follow before the deadline.

Those same "libertarian-leaning Republicans" can't be too psyched about the domestic spying operation. That kind of pervasive government intrusion doesn't go over too well with the "libertarian-leaning" constituents. Read the rest of this post...

Can anyone confirm?

That the Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff just sent a menacing letter to the Wash Post over a Tom Toles cartoon? I have a copy of said letter, but want to confirm it's for real before running with the story. Thus, I'm asking you, rather than printing the letter and causing a frenzy. Anybody up on this? Read the rest of this post...

The Real White House Agenda for 2006

The Bush agenda for 2006 really has nothing to do with policy -- it's all politics. Last night's speech was first and foremost designed to rally the GOP. The White House has one top priority for 2006, and it was buried in one paragraph of the Washington Post's analysis:

The political environment has changed, too. Instead of talking about a broad political realignment, White House aides are simply trying to help Republicans keep hold of Congress amid a flurry of scandals that include the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), the former House majority leader, and the plea agreement by former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

We already know the Bush White House is all politics all the time. They will stop at nothing for political gain.

The question is whether the Democrats are prepared to fight back just as hard. Read the rest of this post...

JAPAN & AUSTRALIA: Another one bites the dust, another going

George Bush is such a winner, all his friends keep bailing out on him. From AP:

Japan will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in March and complete the pullout by May, ending its largest military mission since World War II, a news report said Tuesday.

Japan, which extended its noncombat mission to the southern Iraqi city of Samawah for another year in December, will pull its 600 troops out at about the same time British and Australian forces leave the area, Kyodo News agency said.

The extension of the noncombat mission in December gave the government the right to keep troops in Iraq for a year but did not necessarily guarantee that it would.

Officials from Australia, Britain, Japan and the United States reached a basic agreement over the timing of the withdrawals at a secret meeting in London last Monday, Kyodo said. Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force will hand over its camp to local residents after its pullout, according to the report.

Returning Samawah to locals... Anyone here have any confidence that this group has clue one about what they are doing over there? I sure don't. Want to know why? Here goes Australia. Headline from The Australian: Troops 'could be home early':

AUSTRALIAN soldiers serving in southern Iraq could be coming home as early as next month if Japan proceeds with plans to withdraw its force from the region.

New Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said yesterday the Government would look at pulling troops out of Iraq as soon as the Japanese contingent began its withdrawal.

So, who is with us now? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller...

While you were talking last night George, the rest of the world was busy planning how to get out of the mess you dragged them into. And we're going to be left holding the bag. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Well, he spoke. My favorite quip was from my friend, Courtney, "We have people coming home in body bags and he's worried about human-animal cloning..."

When Bush said "we will not sit back and wait to be hit again," he must have been referring to how he sat back on vacation despite being warned on August 6, 2001 that Bin Laden was determined to attack in the U.S.

What's the morning after commentary? Read the rest of this post...

Bank and credit card details for up to 240,000 handed out with newspapers

Are the Democrats interested in personal privacy or not? It's clear that the GOP doesn't give a damn, but what is wrong with the Democrats? After countless leaks of personal data and the recent internal spying, you would think that the Democrats might want to take this seriously since average Americans are concerned about these issues and nobody in DC seems to really care. It's always one missed opportunity after another with the Democrats who just don't seem to be interested or serious about winning back anything in Washington. This latest story from the Boston Globe is surprising but not unusual at all these days.

The confidential information was on the back of paper used in wrapping newspaper bundles for distribution to carriers and retailers. As many as 9,000 bundles of the T&G;, wrapped in paper containing subscribers’ names and their confidential information, were distributed Sunday to 2,000 retailers and 390 carriers in the Worcester area, said Alfred S. Larkin Jr., spokesman for the Globe.

In addition, routing information for personal checks of 1,100 T&G subscribers also may have been inadvertently released.

According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in San Diego, more than 100 incidents of lost or stolen financial information were reported over the past year.

Read the rest of this post...