112 die in Iraq today

Worst. President. Ever. Read the rest of this post...

Kerry says botched war joke won't hurt his presidential chances

It's hard to hurt a zero chance. The man needs to go away. He lost. He lost to an idiot. And now he wants another chance to show the country that this time he'll fight back. Just like he fought back one week before the election and almost destroyed our chances at taking back the Congress because, like an idiot, he decided that NOW was the time he was finally going to fight back. But any idiot who actually understands politics will tell you that you don't always fight back. Sometimes you do, other times you ignore the attacks, and even other times you say I'm sorry, and shut up for a while (kind of like relationships). It depends. Only an idiot thinks that you always fight every time the other guy attacks. It depends. Kerry never understood how and when to fight back, and he still doesn't. He's not going to be president. He had his chance and blew it. He needs to go away. Read the rest of this post...

Kissinger, who advised Bush on Iraq, say it's a civil war and we can't win

We learned in Woodward's book "State of Denial" that Henry Kissinger had become an influential adviser to Bush on Iraq. Now, as if he played no role in the mess, Kissinger is telling the Brits that not only is Iraq in a civil war, but we can't have a military victory there. One wonders if he's shared that insight with Bush:

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," [Kissinger] told the British Broadcasting Corp.

But, he's got no solution besides leaving U.S. troops in Iraq to die:

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.

"A dramatic collapse of Iraq - whatever we think about how the situation was created - would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region," he said.

Note to Dr. K.: we've already destabilized the region, thank you very much. There are already going to be disastrous consequences. Right now, those consequences involve death and injury to U.S. soldiers.

Kissinger's student, George Bush, never had a plan for Iraq. Clearly, whatever advice Kissinger gave to Bush has exacerbated the situation. He's got no plan either, except to leave U.S. troops in the middle of a civil war. Kissinger makes grand pronouncements like he has no blood on his hands. But he does, just like Bush and everyone else who got us in to this quagmire. Read the rest of this post...

UCLA orders independent probe of taser incident

The university has launched an independent probe to be conducted by a well-known police watchdog. Good. They can add these abominable comments from the UCLA police to their list of things to investigate:

But UCLA police are allowed to use Tasers on passive resisters as "a pain compliance technique," Assistant Chief Jeff Young said in an interview Friday.

Under UCLA policy, Young said, officers can use the weapons after considering the potential injury to police and to the individual as well as the level of resistance and the need for prompt resolution.

Young described Tabatabainejad as a "passive resister" who refused to cooperate with officers. He acknowledged that the student didn't actively resist the officers.

"He was 200 pounds and went limp and was very hard to manage. They were trying to get him on his feet," Young said.

The officers used the device in stun mode — which affects only the part of the body being touched — rather than the dart mode, in which tiny electrodes are fired into a person and pass a current through them, disabling the person entirely.

Oh, well, he was 200 pounds, went limp, and was very hard to manage. Well then, shock the hell out of him - repeatedly. Also, this "stun mode" excuse is cute, but if it only affects the limb touched, then why did the guys legs, plural, go flying out from under him when they zapped him the 3rd or 4th or whatever time? The physical reaction was violent and bodywide, it was not just localized to a limb. The cops are trying to make it sound like this is the equivalent of a "rub your feet on the carpet and shock someone" zap. This is disgusting what they did, and it's even more disgusting that they continue to minimize it. One of the recommendations this commission needs to consider is whether they need a permanent watchdog over this UCLA police department.

More from the UCLA student paper. Read the rest of this post...

Secret CIA Report: No evidence that Iran is trying to build nukes

It's Iraq all over again. Bush and Cheney just lied to us, again, about yet another country's irrefutable quest for weapons of mass destruction.

A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said....

But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.

And as an added bonus, Cheney now says he's willing to break the law in order to declare war on Iran.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.

Republicans don't obey the law. They don't obey the will of the people. They do what they want to, to hell with what's right, to hell with the law, to hell with what the people want. Read the rest of this post...

The Real McCain Keeps on Coming Through

John McCain is the farthest thing from a straight talker the minute you ask him any kind of hard question. Case in point - George Stephanopoulos this morning. As The Huffington Post points out, McCain is either clueless about gays in the military, or he's just flat out lying to not seem as intolerant as his new BFF Jerry Falwell. Read the rest of this post...

Richard Dreyfuss on Real Time Season Finale

Richard Dreyfuss on the Friday night season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher clearly advocating for the teaching of civics and how each citizen is "personally responsible" for sustaining democracy.



Dreyfuss is currently studying civics and democracy at the University Of Oxford in England. Read the rest of this post...

Not so curious George does another drive by road trip

When a leader is so uninterested in the world around him, should it come as any surprise that his foreign policy has been so bad? Anyone who has ever had to travel for business knows that it's not fun, often boring and very tiring but when you are working, you are working. Bush completely misses the point that when he does these trips, he is working for the American public. After six years of trashing our good name around the world and days after a blistering campaign that was very much about Bush and his policies, any normal person might see this trip to Asia as an opportunity to rebuild alliances and reaching out to the world but no, not with George. Not so curious George would rather stay the course and interact as little as possible with the world around him and instead get back to the comfy confines of his hotel room.

What this tells me, again, is that Bush will never change and will just continue to stay the course regardless of the impact on our great country. Full steam ahead with the not so curious president and his failed policies. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Big day for the new guys in the Senate. Webb and Tester are on with with Russert. Kerry re-emerges and McCain is doing his usual whoring:

ABC's "This Week" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; House Majority Leader-elect Steny Hoyer, D-Md.; NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" - Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens.-elect Jim Webb, D-Va., and Jon Tester, D-Mont.

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CNN's "Late Edition" - Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. Samir Sumaidaie; Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; House Majority Whip-elect James Clyburn, D-S.C.; House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

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"Fox News Sunday" - Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

Read the rest of this post...

Game of the Century over - good guys win

It was a late night last night, watching my Buckeyes win over arch-rival Michigan. It is always a big game but this year it was the first time the two teams were ranked #1 and #2. The game lived up to the hype, which rarely ever seems to happen and my beloved Buckeyes came away with the big win over a very good team from Michigan. It took me a few hours before I could even get close to falling asleep and it's been a very slow morning so far. Last night was a game for the ages so count me in as being completely against any attempt to repeat it in January. Read the rest of this post...

Just went to see Casino Royale

The new James Bond flick. Amazing. A-ma-zing. Run and see it. The lead actor is amazing. The story is quite good, the writing is great. They've totally injected new blood into the series - I'm dying to see the next one. So who did the main song, and why is his voice familiar? Read the rest of this post...