Excellent editorial on the Draft

From the Roanoke Times:

The military draft and a credibility gap:
Talk of a draft won't be silenced by promises from an administration that can't shoot straight.

House Republicans forced a vote on the military draft Tuesday so they could slam the idea down. President George W. Bush says he's not considering reinstating the draft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says it won't be necessary.

Yet, fear of the draft continues to be the talk of college campuses and Internet blogs. It's as if America's draft-age youth don't believe the nation's leaders. Why would that be?

Let's see, the Bush administration made war on Iraq to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, but the weapons did not exist. Evidence of them, Americans learn, was never as strong as they were led to believe.

President Bush said major combat was over in Iraq in May 2003, but many more troops have died in fighting since he declared "Mission Accomplished" than before.

The president insists the U.S. occupation of Iraq is leading inevitably to freedom and democracy even as widespread insurgency thwarts reconstruction and threatens to make a mockery of any election.

And now Bush assures skeptical young adults that, even after our November election, Uncle Sam won't need them badly enough to draft them.

That's what Americans hear from this president. What they see are National Guard members and reservists going to Iraq - more than once - to fill gaps. And they hear from others, including military officers, that the force on the ground is not big enough to pacify Iraq.

And if a crisis arises in Iran or North Korea, the other points on Bush's "axis of evil"?

"A Pentagon-appointed panel," The New York Times reported Wednesday, "recently concluded that the military would lack the forces to handle its current combat and stabilization operation if new crises emerged."

Republicans won't quell fears of a new draft with political stagecraft.

Young people can see that current U.S. forces aren't large enough in this world that the Bush Doctrine has wrought.

They're not assured by Bush's "war president" demeanor. Why would they be?

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Bush's suit shows him wearing device in 2d debate too

I have to admit, Bob Fertik is correct (below). The original AP photo clearly shows some thing under Bush's jacket.

From BobFertik.com:



Either the White House is lying about Bush being wired or they're lying about him wearing a bullet proof vest. Either way, they're lying. If it's a security thing, then simply answer "we don't answer questions about what protection the president does or doesn't wear." The White House didn't say that, however. They outright said he was NOT wearing a bullet proof vest. Either way, they're liars. Read the rest of this post...

Hold a Michael Moore F-9/11 viewing party on campus, with your friends, etc.

All you have to do is get the DVD - Michael Moore has given everyone advance permission to show the film so long as you don't make any profit off of the showing. He's also right about contacting your local public, school and university libraries, see if they have copies of the movie on DVD and VHS, and if they don't, ask if they'd let you buy them one or a few?

More from his Web site:

Here is what you can do:

1. Hold Your Own Neighborhood Premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Do it this week. Get the DVD, break out the biggest TV screen you have, pop the corn and invite over your friends, family, classmates, coworkers and neighbors for a couple of hours of laughter and tears. When it's over, take a few minutes to decide what everyone is going to do between now and November 2nd.

2. Become Your Own Fahrenheit Video Store. Buy a copy of the film and then just start lending it for free to everyone you know for a night at a time. Become known as "The Fahrenheit Connection" to those with whom you work or go to school.

3. Sponsor Large Community or School Screenings. You have my permission. Don't charge money (unless everyone has to chip in for the union hall or church basement). Invite everyone; pack the place. Have something for people to do afterwards, like volunteering for a "get out the vote" drive between now and November 2nd.

4. Give It Away. The politics and economics of the video business mean that those in poorer communities often have to resort to bootlegging. While I'm happy for people to see my movie by any means necessary, I would love for them to see it the way I made it and under the best possible conditions. If you have the wherewithal, donate copies of the DVD and VHS to your local library or to your school library. Get multiple copies and pass them out, especially to groups and people who can't afford to buy it. In a free society, which only survives if it has an enlightened electorate, information should be shared, not privately owned.

There you go. Let's flood the country with this movie. It's the Republicans' worst nightmare, should this happen. You know what to do; I don't need to say any more.

Thanks for your help in this. I think we can make a huge difference.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

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You can be drafted with only two weeks notice

From the Dallas Morning News:

Draft boards ready

Until recently, the law requiring young men to register with the Selective Service System seemed like an insurance policy – one that is wise to have but that you hope you never have to use. With the military stretched thin and facing recruiting and retention challenges, the possibility of having to use the draft seems more likely.

The same law that requires youths to register also established procedures for drafting people. But the rules are different than they were during the Vietnam era. This time the rules that allowed Vice President Dick Cheney to get student deferments don't exist. College seniors would finish the current school year; others would be deferred only until the end of the current semester.

If Congress activates the draft, then 20-year-old men would be called first. A lottery, by birth date as during the Vietnam draft, would be used to determine the sequence within each year. If there are not enough 20-year-olds in a year, then 21-year-olds would be called next, followed by those aged 22, 23, 24, 25, 19 and finally 18. Individual deferment requests could be heard by local boards.

Twenty-year-old men could start receiving orders to report for an armed forces examination within about two weeks of a draft being instituted.

Bernard Mayoff, member,Local board 031,
Selective Service System,
Richardson

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The endorsements pile up for Kerry

Don't know if you saw today's Philadelphia Inquirer -- my wife did. (She's sharp.) They're endorsing John Kerry, and they're writing editorials for each of the next 21 days on a particular issue and why Kerry's the better choice.

Because they're actual, fair & balanced journalists, they've invited a prominent furious george supporter to write an opinion piece to counter their own editorial. But this is a big deal. The Inquirer is definitely not part of the Feaux News/Moonie Times/NY Post axis, but they ain't the Boston Globe, either.


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Earth to Reuters: Fact check, much?

UPDATE: I just spoke to a Reuter's editor who said my analysis is correct, and they should have included a sentence saying that while Rumsfeld is saying 100,000 troops are already trained, another Pentagon official told Reuters only two weeks ago that only 53,000 were trained. Hopefully next time they'll get it right.

Sloppy sloppy sloppy journalism. Who at Reuters HASN'T heard of the controversy over the Bush administration repeatedly lying about the number of Iraqi security forces they have trained, and the number they will get trained by the end of the year? Obviously, Reuters hasn't.

Today's article AGAIN repeats the already-debunked lies by DOD that they have 100,000 Iraqi security forces already trained (funny, because last week they told ABC News that the number was 50,000), and in fact, other news stories have shown that the number of fully trained troops is FAR less than that.

But hey, leave it to Reuters to repeat the lie that 100,000 are trained and that 40,000 more are coming soon, when that too was debunked a few weeks ago.

Would it take that much for these news organizations to have even half a brain cell about news that even we bloggers are more up on than them?

Oh, and just to make this story even more delicious - the INITIAL story catching DOD lying about the 100,000 already trained? It's a Reuters story from a few weeks ago. So Reuters is now contradicting itself. Read the rest of this post...

Duelfer report: Risk of WMD attack has INCREASED since Iraq invasion

A little-read footnote in the Duelfer report says that the threat of terrorists using WMDs has actually increased since Bush invaded Iraq, and that the invasion has actually helped put the necessary scientific info into the hands of the terrorists. Atta boy, George.

From the LA Times:

An exhaustive report released last week by Charles Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator in Iraq, concluded that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein destroyed his stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s and never tried to rebuild them. But a little-noticed section of the 960-page report warns that the danger of a "devastating" attack with unconventional weapons has grown since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq last year.

The Bush administration, which went to war primarily to disarm the Baghdad regime of suspected illicit stockpiles, has not previously disclosed that the insurgent groups that have emerged and steadily expanded since Saddam's ouster now are seeking to develop their own crude supplies of such deadly agents as mustard gas, ricin and the nerve gas tabun.

Neither of the two chemists who worked for Al Abud had any ties to Saddam's long-defunct weapons programs....

It added that other insurgent groups are "planning or attempting to produce or acquire" chemical and biological agents throughout Iraq, and warned that the availability of chemicals and munitions, as well as sympathetic former Iraqi weapons scientists, "increases the future threat."

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Federally-funded prayer vs. federally funded home heating

Funny, I don't hear Rick Santorum complaining about this research. $2.3 million in government funds to see if prayer heals the sick.

I don't know if you believe in prayer, or positive energy, or anything. But read this article and then tell me if you think we could have better used the cash on, say, the Low Income Home Enery Assistance Program, which furious george promised to fully fund as a candidate in the 2000 Debate in Boston, but has cut funding for that program several times since. LIHEAP would come in very handy this winter in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Iowa or Ohio. For those of you in say, Florida or New Mexico, LIHEAP also helps you pay for cooling your home in the summer. John Kerry has consistently supported full funding of LIHEAP. He's signed on to several letters to furious george saying as much.

Full funding of LIHEAP is $3.4 billion. But furious george the flip-flopper requested a real cut from $1.7 billion to $1.4 billion as soon as he got in office. Now he says he wants $2 billion this year -- but since it's more than the $1.4 billion he requested a couple of years ago, he'll say it's an increase.

When that home heating bill comes in -- and I know many of you in the UP or in Minnesota have already had a couple come in -- and you're wondering why it costs so much more this year, and how you'll make ends meet, thank furious george.

Maybe prayer does work. But I don't know how you prove it, or how you measure it. I do know LIHEAP saves lives. You're more likely to get sick if your house is freezing or if you're forced to choose between things like food, medicine, or heat.
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Bush says Rumsfeld sends wrong message to our troops

Well, he kind of did.

Bush has been hitting Kerry for saying that if things go well, a Kerry presidency could begin withdrawing *some* troops next summer. Bush says that this sends the wrong message to the terrah-ists. How dare anyone suggest a timeline for our withdrawal?!

Well, Rummy just said the same thing Kerry's been saying. According to AP:

The United States may be able to reduce its troop levels in Iraq after the January elections if security improves and Iraqi government forces continue to expand and improve, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.

Why does Donald Rumsfeld hate America? Read the rest of this post...

Busted

Stephanopoulos on THIS WEEK just busted Ken Mehlman over the health are issue. Mehlman was going off about how Kerry would nationalize health care, blah blah blah, so Stephanopoulos said, funny, but that Web site VP Cheney likes, FactCheck.org, says the total opposite. This from FactCheck.org:

A Bush ad claims Kerry’s healthcare proposals would put "big government in charge" of medical decisions. In fact, Kerry's plan would leave 97% with the insurance they have now -- while up to 27 million who aren't insured would gain coverage.

Bush's claim turns out to be based on opinions from two conservative advocates whose predictions aren't supported by neutral experts.

Mehlamn of course totally didn't answer.

Two points for Stephanopoulos. Read the rest of this post...

Bush on the Couch

I have not yet read the book yet but looking at how Kerry has exposed Furious George for the hostile, angry man that he is I think that it's worth a look. From what I saw in the debates, the Kerry team knew how to push the right buttons on poor little George and he fell for it hook, line and sinker. Has anyone out there read the book? If so, do you have any observations that you can share with us?

I know one person who visited the White House because he was on the team that reached the summit of Everest in 2001 with the first blind climber. After pumping up his own ego to the visitors and telling them how important the office was and he was, he monologued for the entire visit, not once asking about the Everest climb. Sitting across from Furious George was the first blind person to climb Everest and there was no congratulations, no acknowledgement, nothing. Only ego and stories about himself. Does that sound like a normal person or someone who can not stand the fact that someone with a disability was able to achieve something impressive without mommy and daddy and family friends? Clear the couch, this guy needs help.
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Kuwait to the US: Go Cheney yourself

It's a good thing that the US waged war to save the oil fields of Kuwait in the Gulf War. For those on the right that bitch and moan about France (and also forget about the French contribution to the actual creation of the US), this one is a bit more relevant to today. Those lovely guys are now only interested in pumping out more oil if the prices stay high. That's some thanks from a bunch of cowards who fled to posh locations around the world while their country was under attack and only came back after others fought to protect their their country. I don't even recall hearing anything about a resistance movement there either. The only resisting they did was resisting that third bottle of Chateau Y'quem with their meals in Monaco. Considering the negative impact the oil prices are having on the world economy and the US in particular, this is one hell of a thanks from our "friends" in Kuwait. And I thought that our "friends" in Saudi Arabia were bad.

NOTE FROM JOHN IN DC: That's a really poorly-worded article. It either means that if oil prices remain high Kuwait will increase production to help lower them, or if oil prices remain high Kuwait will increase production to take advantage of it. Very poorly edited article. I have no idea which one they mean. Read the rest of this post...

Bush and Dred Scott: it's about abortion

I was scratching my head the other night trying to figure out what the hell Furious George was talking about with Dred Scott. Someone at Daily Kos says it's about abortion and Furious wanting to ban all legal abortions in a second term. A second Bush term will be a disastor for us in the courts and this coded message to his extremist followers should be a wake up call for everyone. It was actually clever of him to talk about it in that way because most people just wondered what the hell he was on about this time but his hardcore supporters lapped it up. That also raises the issue of why does he need to round up support with his core supporters in October. Shouldn't he be seeking the middle at this point? People need to expose this story so everyone can fully understand what he wants to do but again, more desperation from a sagging campaign.
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In the GOP, democracy is only for their own

I've been reading about the various voting problems out there lately such as the story of the Ohio Secretary of State previously attemtping to remove voter registration documents that were not on a certain type of paper. This article tells of other scandals around the country including Iowa, where the GOP is upset with the Democratic Secretary of State for sending out a voter guide and including an absentee ballot request. The GOP is also up in arms over actions in New Mexico by chief election official Rebecca Vigil-Giron because she "successfully fought off a GOP-led lawsuit that sought to require thousands of newly registered voters to show identification at the polls."

Time and time again what is clear is that the GOP is doing everything it can to stop people from voting. Apparently voting is only for people like them. Rich white people can vote and everyone else needs to be controlled. To think that they call the Democrats the nanny state. What the hell would you call their tactics? For a group that talks about promoting democracy in Iraq and the world, they sure as hell need to figure out how to open it up to everyone at home. This also tells me that they are terrified that the war for democracy at home is going poorly for them and that the Dem's are winning the war in the trenches.
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US Marines in Iraq rip the war effort

This is VERY bad for Bush. US Marines are talking on the record to Washington Post reporters about what a disaster Iraq is, what a hopeless mess their engagement there is, and how the battle in Iraq has NOTHING to do with the war on terror. These are US Marines, folks. The cream of the crop. The tough guys. And they're saying the war is fucked and we shouldn't be there. This is a big ass article. It needs to be passed around the Internets :-)

Scrawled on the helmet of Lance Cpl. Carlos Perez are the letters FDNY. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York, the Pentagon and western Pennsylvania, Perez quit school, left his job as a firefighter in Long Island, N.Y., and joined the U.S. Marine Corps. "Sometimes I see no reason why we're here," Perez said. "First of all, you cannot engage as many times as we want to. Second of all, we're looking for an enemy that's not there. The only way to do it is go house to house until we get out of here."

Perez is hardly alone. In a dozen interviews, Marines from a platoon known as the "81s" expressed in blunt terms their frustrations with the way the war is being conducted and, in some cases, doubts about why it is being waged....

"I feel we're going to be here for years and years and years," said Lance Cpl. Edward Elston, 22, of Hackettstown, N.J. "I don't think anything is going to get better; I think it's going to get a lot worse. It's going to be like a Palestinian-type deal. We're going to stop being a policing presence and then start being an occupying presence. . . . We're always going to be here. We're never going to leave."....

Several members of the platoon said they were struck by the difference between the way the war was being portrayed in the United States and the reality of their daily lives.

"Every day you read the articles in the States where it's like, 'Oh, it's getting better and better,' " said Lance Cpl. Jonathan Snyder, 22, of Gettysburg, Pa. "But when you're here, you know it's worse every day."

Pfc. Kyle Maio, 19, of Bucks County, Pa., said he thought government officials were reticent to speak candidly because of the upcoming U.S. elections. "Stuff's going on here but they won't flat-out say it," he said. "They can't get into it."....

"The reality right now is that the most dangerous opinion in the world is the opinion of a U.S. serviceman," said Lance Cpl. Devin Kelly, 20, of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Lance Cpl. Alexander Jones, 20, of Ball Ground, Ga., agreed: "We're basically proving out that the government is wrong," he said. "We're catching them in a lie."....

"First of all, this is a whole different thing. We're supposed to be looking for al Qaeda. They're the ones who are supposedly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. This has no connection at all to Sept. 11 because this war started just by telling us about all the nuclear warheads over here."

Snyder, who was listening, added: "Pretty much I think they just diverted the war on terrorism. I agree with the Afghanistan war and all the Sept. 11 stuff, but it feels like they left the bigger war over there to come here. And now, while we're on the ground over here, it seems like we're not even close to catching frigging bin Laden."....

Perez added that he now believes the primary reason for the U.S. presence is to help the Iraqis. "But they don't seem like they want to be helped," he said. "I've only been here two months, but every time you go out, people give you bad looks and it just seems like everybody wants to shoot you."....

Asked if he was concerned that the Marines would be punished for speaking out, Autin responded: "We don't give a crap. What are they going to do, send us to Iraq?"

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