Rove, Bush aware that they LIED to get US to attack Iraq.... (need we say it, Democrats COWER...)

reminder: EVERY DAY that Don Rumsfeld and Karl Rove are on the job, is testament to the abject, cowering apathy of the Democratic "leadership"....

...their PREFERENCE for COMPLICITY with LIES, over STANDING UP AND CONFRONTING the crimes of Karl Rove, Don Rumsfeld, Enron, Halliburton, Diebold, etc, ad naseum...

(Well, in the "black comedy" department, it is almost amusing to reflect that entire swaths of the American public and 'intelligentsia' - (yes, that includes the incestous inside-the-beltway overpaid multi-millionaire souless talking heads) - were convinced that Iraq was AN IMMEDIATE and DIRE THREAT... based on aluminum tubes and Niger Yellowcake?)



<< The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.

But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.

For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.

For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.

And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war. >>

_______________________________________________


PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm


Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

As the 2004 election loomed, the White House was determined to keep the wraps on a potentially damaging memo about Iraq.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

The previously undisclosed review by Hadley was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true. The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most likely a hoax.

The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.

But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.

For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.

For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.

And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war.

Dems force Rep. McDermott to take on the Repub intimidation campaign single-handed...

Once again the TRUE mantra of the inside-the-beltway, belly-of-the-beast, Establishment Democrats come through:

"We will tolerate any atrocity, look the other way to any smear campaign, leave ANYONE out to twist in the wind,** AS LONG AS WE GET our multi-million dollar campaign donations."

** (from President Clinton through the "Whitewater" investigation farce, to the Clinton-Gore staffers wrongly accused in the 'White House Trashing [not] Scandal;' to Veterans DENIED the Murray Amendment's $2,7 billion in rehab funds shot down by the Republicans without a murmur of protest by the DLC Dems, etc. etc. etc ad naseum)


Here we have a clear and present case of CENSORSHIP, INTIMIDATION, and SUPPRESSION, and the Democratic "leadership"... SITS ON THE SIDELINES, forcing Jim McDermott to handle what SHOULD be a NATIONAL issue; just as the COWERING Democrats ALLOW Karl Rove to camp out in the West Wing, despite his relentless record or smears, distortions, and connections to the Libby-Rove scandal of "outing" an undercover CIA operation.



Congressman Jim McDermott on the Ropes
by Dal Lamagna
03.29.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dal-lamagna

I met Congressman Jim McDermott in 1996 when I was running for U.S. Congress in the third district of New York. I had been getting the cold shoulder from the administration but not from the Congressman. He took me under his wing and during that time, I found nothing that we disagreed about.

I've watched his career with both pride and dismay. I was proud to know him when he was involved in events that led to the resignation of Newt Gingrich. I was proud to know him when he stood up against our invasion of Iraq right from the beginning and while in Iraq with former Congressman David Bonior, told George Stephanopoulos and the world a truth we are only now coming to believe: "I think the president would mislead the American people." 1 (See the full attack story in the Weekly Standard.)

However, I've been dismayed and horrified by the suffering he has endured over the years for simply -- but valiantly -- doing his job. Cross the GOP and watch out. They turn the right-wing message machine against you. They harass you with complaints and legal suits. Anyone can file a legal suit and then you have to defend yourself.

Wasn't Congressman McDermott doing his job as co-chair of the Congressional Ethics Committee when he passed along to the New York Times an audiotape of a phone call between Newt Gingrich, then-Congressman John Boehner, and others where Gingrich clearly violated the terms of an agreement he'd made with a special investigative team of the Ethics Committee?

Apparently not, according to now-Majority Leader Boehner. Boehner, a participant in the call, said the tape was made illegally by a couple in Florida (it was). He also claimed that McDermott, who received the tape from the couple, knew it was obtained illegally and therefore had no right to disseminate its contents -- and by doing so, McDermott violated his rights and he deserves damages.

So, for the first time in the history of Congress one Congressman, Boehner, sued another, McDermott, in civil court.

Nine years and $440,000 later, Jim McDermott is still fighting this battle.

During round three, the Supreme Court, which had just ruled in favor of the defendant in a similar case called Vopper v Bartnicki, sent back McDermott's case to the original district court, annulling the district court's original decision.

It seems clear that the Supreme Court's intention in doing so was to allow the district judges to review the Bartnicki case, which in essence said that no one could be punished for disclosing the contents of an illegally intercepted conversation as long as the information in it was an issue of "public importance," and that the person disclosing the information did not "participate" in or "encourage" the interception of the phone call.

The judges didn't do that though. District Judge Hogan ruled against McDermott the second time and assessed fines and damages for Boehner and also required McDermott to pay Boehner's legal fees! McDermott appealed this decision making it round 5 of the legal fight.

Round five ended yesterday with a victory for Boehner in the Court of Appeals. The same three judges that ruled for Boehner the first time ruled the same again. This time Judge Ginsburg, the chief judge who wrote the opinion, employed what I think to be a "stolen property, found diamond" argument (more of this later). Ginsberg, with Judge Randolph, confirmed Judge Hogan ruling in the lower district court. McDermott must pay a $10,000 fine, $50,000 in punitive damages, and the legal fees of Boehner (claimed by Boehner to be $530,000)!

As horrible as this is for Congressman Jim McDermott, it is worse for our First Amendment rights. Seventeen media companies stood on the side of Jim McDermott's rights of speech in the amicus brief presented to Ginsberg and the Court of Appeals. If this case is not challenged a new precedent is set. Reporters will not be allowed to accept or report on any material passed onto them if they "knew or had 'reason to know' that it was so acquired" illegally.

Think Deep Throat or the Pentagon Papers when you consider the consequences of this precedent.

Read the whole history of this story and decide what free speech really means.

I expect and hope McDermott plans to take this back to the Supreme Court for the final round six. But meanwhile, I'm urging everyone to support McDermott by circulating this blog and by contributing to his re-election campaign. Both he and Boehner are allowed to fund this battle from campaign funds. Visit McDermott's Web site at http://www.McDermottforCongress.com and hit the donor button. If you are like me and want to contribute the most possible, $5000, make your contribution to his Legal Defense Fund directly at http://www.McDermottLegalTrust.com.

-- 1. Hayes, Stephen F. "The Baghdad Democrats." The Weekly Standard, October 14, 2002. Volume 008, Issue 05. Online at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/737zcgnk.asp.

Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks.

Well said! Soldiers, servicemen & women in Iraq as LAMBS at the alter of Bush's ego...

Well said! No need to add commentary to Frank Harris (III)'s op-ed, except to note that the Cowering Democrats are COMPLICIT as they COWSER from the Right-Wing attack machine, complicit in serving up the troops as sacrificial lambs to Bush's ego and Karl Rove's shocking awful SMEAR and SLIME propaganda machine.




<< I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN. >>




 
Shock And Awful
Frank Harris III
March 27, 2006
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-harris0327.artmar27,0,1578897.column?coll=hc-headlines-oped


From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the photo and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night, pushed by the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and burning buildings.
While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the most enduring impression.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
Something about the words on the cover of that March 31, 2003, issue of Newsweek struck me then and strikes me now as promiscuously cavalier, as shamelessly promotional - like the advertisement for a video game, like the promo for one of those slam-down wrestling federation matches, like the nickname for some young, hot-shot prizefighter.
``Announcing, in this corner, George W. `Shock and Awe' Bush!"
``SHOCK AND AWE."
These are the words the administration approved to serve as the introduction to this war. These are the words that made the cover of Newsweek three years ago.
I saved this issue, as I do select other issues of magazines and newspapers that cover major events in the life of the nation, the world, the city or the people I know and care about.
It's a way to look back and gauge how things got to where they are, how things turned out or what the heck folks were thinking.
I saved that old magazine for the message it sends, for the moment in time it captures and reflects.
Last week, I came across it again. This time I viewed it in the context of three years of war and thousands of dead soldiers - ours and theirs - and thousands of dead civilians - mostly theirs.
Now, too, it is in the context of our distinguished president's drum-roll proclamations about the war's success as he states his intent to leave America's troops in Iraq for some future president to pull out.
Instead of the ``Hell no, we won't go!" said by another generation against another war, it's ``Hell no, they won't come home - not as long as in the White House I roam."
That's George W. ``Shock and Awe" Bush's three more years. That's the duration of his term.
It will be up to some other administration to clean up this one's mess.
I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN.
And take the vice president and the rest of his men and women with him.
Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern Connecticut State University in

New Haven. His column appears every Monday. He can be reached at harrisf1@southernct.edu.

E-mail: harrisf1@southernct.edu

Cowering Democrats- CAN'T raise heck about Incompetent Don Rumsfeld, his TORTURE, and his KANGAROO COURTS..???

As the op-eds start pilling up here at CowardlyDemocrats, we realize that we still haven't gotten to several blockbuster issues which the Cowering Dems FAIL to make an issue about.

In the case of these two issues, the COWERING of the Democrat "leaders" LEAVES OUR TROOPS VULNERABLE, twisting in the winds as hostages to political fortune.... US servicemen and women left TWISTING IN THE WIND to rot, because the Democratic "leadership" would rather COWER under bush-rove-cheney-rumsfeld's propaganda BS, than STAND UP and FIGHT BACK against the bush-rove propaganda machine.

The most glaring case is Don "Dr. Strangelove" Rumsfeld. The Washington Press Whores Corpse think Mr. Rumsfeld is cute and entertaining when he starts babbling like the Mad Hatter, "There are things we know, there are things we don't know, and there are things we know that what don't know" (or however he said it, that constituted "news" in the DC press corpse's pathetic "news cycle.")

But the fact is that Mr. Rumsfeld is grossly incompetent at EVER SINGLE ASPECT of managing the Department of Defense. On 9-11 he was shuffling papers in his Pentagon office, as FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies, AND OUR SECRETARY OF WAR WAS CLUELESS, IGNORANT, AND UNINFORMED.

The "shuffling papers at his desk" image is not a metaphor - Secretary Rumsfeld was literally at his desk, shuffling papers, as the FOURTH and final hijacked airliner slammed into the very building that Mr. Rumsfeld had his office in, the Pentagon. And that fourth hijacked airliner slammed into the Pentagon ALMOST AN HOUR after the first hijacked flying bomb slammed into the first World Trade Center tower. Where was the US Air Force, where were the fighters which were supposed to be ON ALERT, as not one, not two, not three but FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies??

Answer: We don't know, because Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and the Cowering Democrats WHITEWASHED the 9-11 Commission. But we do know that on the eve of the 9-11 attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld's PREOCCUPATION was-the multibillion dollar missile defense system dubbed "Star Wars" by critics. Another example of Mr. Rumsfeld's cluselessness (besides AWOL alert fighters, and hijackers roaming America's skies unmolested) is that the "threat" that Mr. Rumsfeld was so concerned about in his "pre-9-11 mindset" was the growing military power of Communist China. Now that the US military is preoccupied with Iraq and the Middle East, the business side of the Bush administration is devoted to transferring as much wealth, jobs, and business to that same Communist China as possible, as the "Made in China" merchandise filling Walmart shelves demonstrates.

Which brings us to IRAQ.

Could ANYONE screw up the US occupation of Iraq more dramatically than the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush crew?

Anyone with AN OUNCE of awareness of that region knows that Afghanistan was mired in a brutal, ferocious civil war for an entire DECADE after the Russians (Red Army) left the nation they had invaded. That makes almost TWO decades of war and civil war, minefields, poisoned wells, hostages, torture, revenge killings, and massacres. Before Mr. Rumsfeld arrived at the DoD, the Republicans were at the forefront of claiming the Mujahadeen resistance to the Red Army which drove the Russians out of Afghanistan was a glorious victory that proved that Ronald Reagan "Won the Cold War" against the "evil empire." Yet once the Cold War was over, Rumsfeld and Cheney were at the forefront of the "slash defense spending as part of the 'Peace Dividend' - with NO "soft letdown" for town and regions that had been entirely dependent on DEFENSE SPENDING for entire decades- regions like the California aerospace-defense industry, the northeast high-tech defense region, and of course airbases, Army posts, and Navy ports that were shut down "cold turkey." Those spending cutbacks, along with the trillion-dollar taxpayer bailouts of the looted Savings and Loans industry, led to the Bush recession of 1991, and the virulent right-wing "Hate Government" rhetoric that Republicans effectively used in 1994 to win the majority in the US House of Representatives. Right-Wing talk radio played relentlessly to disaffected, resentful listeners, with the blessing of the "it's government's fault!" Republican Party, and right-wing terrorist Timmy McVeigh took those "hate government" screeds to heart, when he planned and executed his murderous bombings of the Murrah government building in Oklahoma City.

But we digress, with this little discussion of cold-hearted defense slashings, base closures, the looted S&L bailouts, and Bush1 recession, and the OKC terrorist bombing, from Rumsfeld's current incompetence running the Iraq war.

In Afghanistan the Civil War had been ongoing for years, with massacres, rapes, revenge killings, collateral damage, reprisals, and more massacres the order of the war. The Pushtun clan, the majority clan of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, was supplied by the Saudis and Pakistan ISI secret intel-police, and led by the most ferocious, militarized militia, the Taliban. The Taliban, in turn, was supported by the Arab fighters acting as enforcers and, when need be, shock troops, the Al Qiada fighters under Ossama bin Laden.

Given that mix of terror, torture, reprisal, and massacre, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney thought that turning the US military into TORTURE-BOYS in Iraq... was going to terrify any potential insurgents????

The OBVIOUS result of the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush TORTURE gulag is that it would UNITE ALL the warring Muslim factions- Pushtun and Tajik, Uzbek and Afghan, Shiite and Sunni - is hatred and spite for Americans. And how do you even factor in the HUMILIATION and DEGRADATION photos, naked Iraqi prisoners piled in mounds, forced to act out sexual acts on each other, smeared in feces, etc?

Hell, it is DISGUSTING just to write about Herr Rumsfeld's TORTURE and SADISM gulag, but all these two or three years after the Abu Ghraib torture and sadism scandal first broke, the COWERING DEMOCRATS STILL can't find their voice to criticize and DEMAND the resignation of the INCOMPETENT, ABUSIVE, and ghoulish SOB who is in charge of the US war machine?

Well, the above discussion of Mr. Rumfeld's follies, and the Democrat's cowering re demanding his resignation, is as much as we can stomach this morning. And we haven't even discussed Mr. Rumsfeld's KANGAROO COURTS for female privates, following orders, caught up in his grotesque debasement of the US flag and uniform.

We will leave it to this Buzzflash editorial to enumerate Mr. Rumsfeld's other policy FAILURES, bordering on tragedy, bordering on grotesque FARCE. American servicemen and women are not only being held HOSTAGE to Mr. Rumsfeld's FOLLY, they are also held hostage to the CLUELESS, COWERING, "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" Democrats.

Next time- how the Democrats LEAVE THE VETERANS TWISTING IN THE WIND, by REFUSING to make the MURRAY AMENDMENT (to fund $2.7 billion dollars for Veteran's care and rehab, shot down on a party-line vote by the lying Repuglicans) into a sound-bite, prime-time newscast issue. The Cowering Democrats seem to think that merely voting in the Senate for an issue, only to be steamrolled by the bush-rove-cheney Republican corruption machine, constitutes the full measure of "leadership."



___________________________________________

Don Rumsfeld, America's Biggest Flop Ever

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Mike Whitney
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/03/con06112.html


Donald Rumsfeld will feature prominently in the chronicle of military history. His name can be affixed to every major strategic catastrophe since the inception of the Iraq war 3 years ago. Rumsfeld now ranks among the greatest bunglers of all time. His litany of failures reads like a journeyman’s manual for military defeat, rather than a blueprint for peaceful occupation. His performance as Sec-Def makes George Armstrong Custer look like Erwin Rommel.

Under Rumsfeld’s leadership the “cakewalk” war has morphed into an “unwinnable” quagmire; sucking men and resources into its vortex at an unimaginable rate. The occupation of Iraq “should have been simple” says political analyst Noam Chomsky, but under Rumsfeld’s stewardship, it has become more difficult than the Nazi occupation of France.

Only in Bush-world would such manifest incompetence be lauded as achievement.

“You’re doin’ a heck-of-a job, Rummy.”

The decision to invade Iraq with a paltry force of 150,000 men was all Rumsfeld’s. His narrow views of a smaller, more agile military blinded him to the requirements of a massive occupation. When challenged on the topic by military professionals, like General Shinseki, Rumsfeld brusquely dispatched the decorated veteran to an early retirement.

Rumsfeld’s shortsightedness had a dramatic affect on the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground. As the looting of museums and government buildings persisted for weeks, destroying any hope to quickly establish order, Rumsfeld breezily brushed off criticism of the lawlessness saying, “Stuff happens.”

Those first weeks exposed the callous disregard for the safety and security of the Iraqi people and become the rallying cry for the nascent resistance that would later sweep through the Sunni heartland.

The lack of troop-strength made it impossible for the military to safeguard the mammoth armories and ammunition-dumps left behind by Saddam. Members of the fledgling resistance were free to remove truckloads of weaponry and bomb-making material that would later be used to kill American soldiers. The number of American casualties would be considerably lower had Rumsfeld paid attention to his generals and increased the size of the occupation army.

We know from Paul Bremer’s recent comments that Rumsfeld never anticipated the massive resistance to the American presence. He ignored the State Dept’s plans for occupation assuming that American troops would be greeted as liberators. Even when clear signs appeared of a full-throated rebellion, Rumsfeld dismissed the violence as the work of “Saddam loyalists and dead-enders.”

There was no strategy for keeping civil society running. In fact, Iraq became a laboratory for applying a neoliberal-model that was completely foreign to the native people. The results were catastrophic. Unemployment soared, subsidies were stripped away, prices skyrocketed, unions were banned, and Iraqi society went into a state of shock.

More disastrous, was Rumsfeld’s plan for de-Ba’athification. Normally, imperial powers leave as much of the existing government as possible to allow for the smooth transition from one ruling party to the next. Rather than finding common ground with members of the former regime, Rumsfeld chose to destroy every trace of Ba’ath rule forcing a restructuring of the entire political establishment from the ground up. This was an unbelievably stupid move that upset the continuity between governments.

It was equally foolish to disband the Iraqi military; sending home 450,000 fully-armed soldiers without pay or job prospects. It should have been easy to anticipate that many of these disgruntled recruits would wind up fighting against the occupation.

And, why didn’t Rumsfeld bring in military police to deal with the protests, civil disputes, routine patrols and peacekeeping duties? Instead, those tasks were assigned to trigger-happy army regulars who over-reacted in tense situations oftentimes killing innocent civilians and alienating the public. Soldiers are clearly not trained to handle these duties.

It was Rumsfeld who ordered the leveling of Falluja; a gratuitous act of homicidal vengeance which galvanized the resistance and generated a firestorm of reprisals across the Sunni triangle. For Iraqis, Falluja represents the turning point in the American occupation. Even cautious Iraqis must have seen that their predicament no longer provided any viable political options.

The details of Rumsfeld’s charnel house at Abu Ghraib provided even more fuel for the resistance. The Defense Secretary chose to jettison America’s threadbare moral authority simply to extort information from farmers and city people. Imagine the boost in recruitment for the resistance after photos of the perverted treatment of detainees appeared in the media?

Rumsfeld lashed out at the media for displaying the pictures of abused Iraqis to the public and discounted claims that the torture was authorized at the highest levels of the defense establishment. It’s clear now that the paper trail for the abuse leads straight to Rumsfeld’s office at the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld dismissed the charges as the work, “of a few bad apples.”

Abu Ghraib eliminated any prospect for mutual trust between the warring parties. Now, there’s no hope that the conflict will be resolved through political negotiation.

The current wave of sectarian violence is also Rumsfeld’s doing. It is a re-creation of the terror-campaign that swept through El Salvador during the 1980s. The Interior Ministry has adopted the “Salvador Option” -- a reference to the death squads that plagued that country throughout the Reagan era.

The up-tick in violence suggests that the military no longer sees peace and security as achievable so, instead, is pursuing a policy of widespread anarchy disguised as sectarian violence. The end-game is the balkanization of the country into small, manageable statelets that are easier to exploit for their resources.

The present situation in Iraq can only be described as nightmarish; and endless cycle of bombings, brutality and butchery all concealed behind a screen of media-generated disinformation.

Rumsfeld accepts no responsibility for Iraq’s downward-spiral or the incalculable suffering he has engendered. Instead, he points the finger at the least likely candidate for blame; the media.

“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but our country has not,” Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations. “The violent extremists have established ‘media relations committees’—and have proven to be highly successful at manipulating opinion-elites. They plan to design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communications to intimidate and break the collective will of free people.”

The bungled occupation of Iraq has nothing to do “violent extremists” who’ve “successfully manipulated opinion-elites.” In fact, it has nothing to do with media at all. For the most part, the fault lies with one man, Donald Rumsfeld, a buck-passing narcissist who sees the world through the jaundiced lens of his own blinkered vanity.

Major General Paul Eaton summarized Rumsfeld’s performance better than anyone else:

“Rumsfeld has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.”

Rumsfeld is a self-deluded megalomaniac who has heaped disgrace on himself and his country. It will take more than his customary glib repartee or slick excuse-making to distance himself from his ultimate legacy as America’s biggest flop.

Cowardly Democrats: All must be going well, if we don't have to make waves.

We, the humble editors here at CowardlyDemocrats, must confess that we are a bit at wit's end, a bit tired. Despite torrents, tidal waves, tsunamis, avalanches, and earth-quaking stories of major corruption, lies, incompetence, and even crimes coming from the Bush White House, here in the last week of March, 2006, the Democrats in the Senate are merrily conducting "business as usual.. nothing to watch here."

So Scooter Libby - and Karl Rove - "outed" an undercover CIA agent, an entire undercover CIA counter-proliferation business... our Democratic "leaders" in the Senate say "NOT our problem.. maybe Independent Prosecutor Fitzgerald can make a case, maybe he won't. It's not like WE are going to work up a sweat, over that evil, back-stabbing, underhanded slime-ball Karl Rove getting caught in actual criminal conduct. Heck No! We Democrats feel karl is ENTITLED to work his evil magic IN YET ANOTHER ELECTION, the laws of America be damned!"

This (above), of course, is only ONE case where the COWERING Democrats would PREFER to play "business as usual", while the Bush-Rove-Cheney-Rumsfeld team is out committing lies and crimes and (can you believe it?) giving crony Halliburton Co. another NO_BID_CONTRACT to build.. massive detention facilities?

WHEN THE HELL ARE THE GOD-DAMNED COWARDLY DEMOCRATS GONG TO MAKE AN ISSUE out of "NO BID CONTRACTS"?!!

The god-damned Democrats are SO CORRUPT, COMPLACENT, and STUPID, it is hard to keep today's post going beyond these two basic BushCo criminal atrocities: Karl Rove-Lewis Libby "OUTING" undercover CIA operations as political slime-ball; and dick cheney and george w. bush funneling BILLIONS in taxpayer money to their cronies over at Halliburton.


GOD DAMNED COWARDLY DEMOCRATS, can't make an issue out of EITHER ??????

Cheney implies Dems would be Incompetent, cowardly re leading the USA. ....Pot-Calling-Kettle-Black moment there, Mr. Vice-President?

Did our vice-president, Dick Cheney, just give us a "TEXTBOOK" example of 'projection,' the psychological habit of "projecting" one's own sins, flaws, failures, and shortcomings (possibly self-loathing) upon others? (hmm.. generically, when we "despise" others, does that mean we FEAR the impact those 'despicable' people could have on our lives?) The "common wisdom" terms for "projection" would be "there he goes again, the POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK."

In this case, we have a Vice-President who did NOTHING when the nation's Counter-Terror 'Czar', Richard Clarke, BEGGED the vice president to hold a "PRINCIPLES MEETING" with the president, vice president, defense department, national security advisor, cia, fbi, and other agencies at the heart of America's "national defense establishment." Both Cheney and (then) National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice PERSONALLY heard Mr. Clarke's plea for a principle's meeting to discuss the THREAT of Al Qaida... after all, Al Qaida had SUCCESSFULLY attacked the US warship USS Cole in a Yemen harbor in October of 2000 (while Bush, Cheney, and Rice were all out on the campaign trail for the Republican presidential campaign), and before that Al Qiada had SUCCESSFULLY BOMBED TWO US embassies in Africa.

Then we have the vice president's involvement as OSSAMA bin LADEN narrowly ESCAPED the American military forces noose at Tora Bora. Where was the vice president as Ossama ESCAPED? We have since that time heard and read that the United States had already started shipping military units OUT of Afghanistan, to prepare for the Iraq war that Mr. Bush now claims was not inevitable - Downing St. memos, and reports that Mr. Bush interrupted a meeting of senior Republican senators at the White House to pump his fist and shout "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out!" notwithstanding.

Then there is the question of, "WHERE WAS THE VICE PRESIDENT as a Category FIVE Hurricane swirled in the Gulf of Mexico, giving the region a FIVE DAY WARNING before it picked up speed and made a bee-line towards New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. When Mr. Cheney finally did arrive in the devastated area, several days after the storm (and his entourage closed off roads, making locals who had limited gas drive in large circles), a local homeowner was shaken down by M-16 toting military personel, after that homeowner threw Mr. Cheney's infamous words ("Go fuck yourself", said to Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor) back at him on Cheney's "inspection tour" of destroyed homes and neighborhoods.

Then there is the question of "Where was Vice President Cheney" as non-commissioned officers and privates were subjected to KANGAROO COURTS (by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld) for "Abuse", when Mr. Cheney and President Bush declare that they have a RIGHT to TORTURE captured prisoners. IF guards, privates and NCOs, were FOLLOWING ORDERS to "ABUSE" captured Iraqi prisoners, in order to 'soften them up' for Military Intel torture sessions, WHY didn't the Vice President use his considerable influence to STAND UP for those privates and non-coms?

I hope the names "Sabrina Samson" and "Lyndiee England", both privates who VOLUNTEERED for the US Army, will follow Mr. Cheney everywhere, as it was HIS policies (along with his compatriot, Donald Rumsfeld, over at the Department of Defense) which put those women in the situation where they got JAIL TERMS, and felony convictions, and international scorn and loss of good name, FOR FOLLOWING ORDERS that Mr. Cheney pretends not to know about.... while simultaneously defending!

Mr. Cheney, we heard that shortly after the "capture" of Baghdad by US forces, that looting broke out all over Iraq, and that US troops made NO EFFORT to stamp out the looting. We have even been informed that the huge Al Qaaqa ammunition complex of the Iraq army was looted over a period of two or three weeks- tons and tons and tons of explosives and munitions carted off, while US servicemen did KP duty less than 10 miles away. Indeed, the International Weapons inspection community (IAEC) was practically BEGGING the Defense Department to secure the bunkers, some of which were under seal for containing the high-grade explosives used in nuclear weapons production and research. NUCLEAR WEAPONS PRODUCTION was the ALLEGED reason that the United States attacked and invaded Iraq in the first place! But even with international inspection agencies BEGGING the Department of Defense to SECURE those bunkers, they were left unguarded, and were looted.

Mr. Cheney, for the Democrats to do a WORSE job of protecting America than you and President Bush, they would have to LEAVE THE PORTS UNGUARDED, OUTSOURCE inspections and security measures, and hand over our latest nuclear technology to potential rivals!

Oh wait... You've got ALL THREE OF THOSE ANGLES already accomplished! ??

Mr. Vice President, are you sure you are not a "Manchurian Candidate" mole, programmed by our "enemies" to MAKE AMERICA WEAK AND VULNERABLE????

__________________________________________
********************************************


#1. Of all the hundreds of articles available on the Cheney-Bush SELL OUR MAJOR PORT operations to Dubai Ports World, a whoolly owned subsidiary of the Dubai-UAE Arab Gulf oil sheiks, we choose this one from hard-core Righty Republican Cal Thomas because, well, Cal Thomas is a hard-core radical-right Repuglican.

<< Any port in terrorist storm

Cal Thomas | Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Posted February 21, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-thomas21_106feb21,0,2383510.story


On Sunday, the Australian government issued the following alert to its citizens: "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in the United Arab Emirates because of the high threat of terrorist attack. We continue to receive reports that terrorists are planning attacks against Western interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Commercial and public areas frequented by foreigners are possible terrorist targets."
The United States has approved a business deal that would turn over the operation of six major American ports to a company that is owned by the UAE, the very country Australians are to be wary of visiting. The obvious question is: If it is dangerous for an Australian to travel to the UAE because of terrorism, isn't it even more dangerous for a company owned by UAE to own the rights to American ports where terror might be directly, or indirectly, imported? >>

#1 1/2. Oh heck, we couldn't resist including this citation, "OPEN PORT, LOOSE NUKES" from the Boston Globe, Boston.com News. OK, we realize: by posting this alarming and threatenning headline, we are sounding... well, alarmist and threatenning. We plead, "in Defense of the Nation's Security." BUT.. isn't that Mr. Cheney's CLAIM TO FAME, er, leadership???

Open ports, loose nukes
February 28, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/02/28/open_ports_loose_nukes/
THE REAL threat to the security of US ports comes not from Arab ownership of the terminals' managing company but from the failure of the United States to better monitor what comes through our harbors, big and small. Each day, about 25,000 cargo containers enter the country. The Coast Guard has estimated it would cost about $7 billion to equip US ports with the scanners and other equipment needed to meet high standards of surveillance. But since 9/11, the United States has spent about $1.6 billion.....

_______________________

#2. Which brings us to this delightful little story, the Cheney-Bush administration wants to OUTSTOURCE what few port and cargo inspections there are to a.. CHINA owned Hong-Kong conglomerate?
WHOA NELLY! Does Vice President Dick KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIS BOSS's decision (that would be George W. Bush, right?) to give a NO BID CONTRACT to a CHINA FIRM to provide NUCLEAR RADIATION SCREENING for US BOUND CARGO?? Mr. Cheney... are you (or your boss, Mr. Bush) SAYING THAT CHINA can provide US security BETTER THAN WE AMERICANS can???




Ports Security Issue Revived by Decision To Outsource Container Searches to Chinese Firm

By TED BRIDIS - Associated Press
March 24, 2006
http://www.nysun.com/article/29769

WASHINGTON - In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to America and elsewhere.

The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated American radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present....
(cont'd at http://www.nysun.com/article/29769 )

*****************************
second citation: FUBAR! "fubar" is the military acronym for "f****d up beyond all recognition."

FUBAR

Bush gives no-bid contract for port security to Hong Kong company
By TED BRIDIS and JOHN SOLOMON
Mar 24, 2006, 07:20
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8333.shtml

One of Americans' favorite beach destinations, the Bahamas, is getting a new U.S. arrival -- sophisticated equipment to detect radioactive materials in shipping cargo. But U.S. customs agents won't be on site to supervise the machine's use as a nuclear safeguard for the American shoreline that is just 65 miles away from Freeport. Under an unusual arrangement, a Hong Kong company will help operate the detector.

The Bush administration says it is finalizing a no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. It acknowledged the deal is the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present.

The administration is negotiating a second no-bid contract for a Philippine company to install radiation detectors in its home country, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. At dozens of other overseas ports, foreign governments are primarily responsible for scanning cargo.

While President Bush recently reassured Congress that foreigners would not manage security at U.S. ports, the Hutchison deal in the Bahamas illustrates how the administration is relying on foreign companies at overseas ports to safeguard cargo headed to the United States.

Hutchison Whampoa is the world's largest ports operator and among the industry's most-respected companies. It was an early adopter of U.S. anti-terror measures. But its billionaire chairman, Li Ka-Shing, also has substantial business ties to China's government that have raised U.S. concerns over the years.

"Li Ka-Shing is pretty close to a lot of senior leaders of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party," said Larry M. Wortzel, head of a U.S. government commission that studies China security and economic issues. But Wortzel said Hutchison operates independently from Beijing, and he described Li as "a very legitimate international businessman."

"One can conceive legitimate security concerns and would hope either the Homeland Security Department or the intelligence services of the United States work very hard to satisfy those concerns," Wortzel said.

Three years ago, the Bush administration effectively blocked a Hutchison subsidiary from buying part of a bankrupt U.S. telecommunications company, Global Crossing Ltd., on national security grounds.

________________________

Which brings us to #3. Mr. Bush signing an agreement with nuclear-warheads power India, GIVING India the latest US nuclear processing technology (including the ability to process weapons grade plutonium) for a $5 billion contract with GE (General Electric) corp.; while allowing India to contine to NOT sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, AND allowing India to run 8 of its "military reactors" in secret... i.e., to process as much bomb-making material as 8 facilities can crank out!

Oh, and the "whipped cream" on top of the ice-cream-sundae of this particular deal, is that Mr. Cheney and his boss, Mr. Bush, will also allow India to purchase some $8 billion in our latest warbirds from Lockheed-Martin and Boeing corp. In the case of a latest generation jet fighter-bomber armed with a nuclear weapon stationed "on alert" in an aircraft hanger, India could truly have sub-30 minute delivery potential, or about the equivalent time it would take to arm and launch a rocket.




With Bush's help, GE courts Indian PM, nuke sector
In-Depth Coverage

By Adam Entous
Reuters July 23, 2005
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050723-ge-india-nuke.htm


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just over an hour after the White House's surprise pledge to help India develop its civilian nuclear power sector, the head of General Electric, the American company that could benefit most from the policy change, sat down for a celebratory dinner.

The host was President George W. Bush; a few feet away was India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his top aides. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, a contributor to Bush's presidential campaigns, had a coveted seat at the president's table.

Bush's announcement on nuclear trade with India -- followed by a formal dinner in the State dining room -- was not just a victory for Singh. For GE, the only U.S.-owned company still in the nuclear business, it marked a possible turning point in a years-long push to re-enter the Indian nuclear power market, which it was forced to leave in 1974 when India conducted its first nuclear test.

"In the short term, it's really business as usual. ... But if things unfold the way it looks they may, then clearly it is a significant opportunity for us," said Peter Wells, general manager of marketing for GE Energy's nuclear business.

While the policy change may benefit GE and other companies in the long term, critics contend Bush's move closer to accepting the world's largest democracy as a nuclear weapons state could weaken decades-old prohibitions against atomic arms.

"This administration's rogue, shoot-from-the-hip move to launch nuclear cooperation with India puts the interests of industry ahead of our national security," said Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, an arms control advocate.

GE was not mentioned in the joint statement issued by Bush and Singh, but Bush specifically pledged "expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded nuclear reactors at Tarapur."
(cont'd at http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050723-ge-india-nu )


_____________________________________
****************************************

Cheney: If Democrats can lead, then I can sing
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1765601
Reuters

ORLANDO, Florida - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday rejected charges by Democrats that the Bush administration was mishandling Iraq and said: "If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol."

During a campaign stop in Orlando, Cheney predicted that national security would dominate congressional elections in November and sought to rally Republicans amid dwindling popular support for President George W. Bush.

In Washington, Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda called the criticism of his party an attempt to divert attention from the situation in Iraq, which is torn by violence three years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Referring to a notoriously acerbic judge on the American Idol television talent contest, Miranda said, "Simon Cowell is more loved than this administration and its failed Iraq policy. Cheney wouldn't last long on American Idol."

Speaking to a Republican crowd at a fund-raiser for U.S. Rep. Ric Keller of Orlando, Cheney dismissed accusations that the administration was "dangerously incompetent" and defended the war in Iraq and Bush's anti-terrorism tactics.

He spoke in favor of Bush's controversial executive order allowing the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps within the United States without warrants.

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy and the terrorist surveillance program is grounds for censuring the president," Cheney said, adding, "The American people have already made their decision. They agree with the president."

A hunting accident in February, in which Cheney shot and injured a fellow quail hunter and Republican donor in Texas, also provided some stand-up comedy at the Orlando event.

While introducing the vice president, Keller said Cheney had responded to Keller's recent votes against the administration on three issues by telling him: "Don't be too hasty. Let's go hunting. We'll talk about it."

Cheney himself said that when he returned to the White House from the hunting trip, Bush told him, "Dick, I'm 38 percent in the polls and you shot the only trial lawyer who supports me."

Cheney said the man he shot, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, is in good condition.

Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The corporate press/media is out to DISINFORM. Senate Dems play along....

As Stephen Crockett points out over at OpEdNews.com today, the corrupt "mainstream media" - the corporate press/media with their corporate tax breaks, consolidations, cheap labor, deregulation, and war-profiteering agenda - do NOT want to inform their readers or viewers of what is really happening in America and the world.

The penultimate example would be GE, General Electric corporation, one of the 10 largest corporations in the world. Besides selling industrial electrical equipment and household appliances, GE also sells jet engines for warship and planes, nuclear power plants.... and nuclear warheads, under contract to the Department of Energy. Since GE corporation owns the NBC TV network (and MSNBC and CNBC cable networks), there is not a chance in hell that GE's executives and CEOs will allow their NBC "news" subsidiary to inform viewers of ANY news that is negative to General Electric.

HOW has America come to the pass where a company that makes, literally, billions and billions of dollars selling nuclear power plants, war equipment, and nuclear warheads, owns one of the only 5 or 6 "news" organizations that inform millions of American citizens on how to vote and what to think?

Why, just a week or two, GE CEO Jeff Immelt, a major Bush administration contributor, sat down to a state dinner in India with President Bush and India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As a result of the deal signed between Bush and India GE would resume its business in the India nuclear power market, suspended since India's 1974 nuclear test. GE stands to make $5 billion from the deal, but you have to search long and hard to find the real "news" about this deal: India gets to maintain its 'military' nuclear reactors, will probably add to its substantial nuclear arsenal, and still does not have to abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which it has never signed. And, oh, by the way... Bush has also "cleared the way" for Lockheed Martin corp. and Boeing corp. to compete for $9 billion selling combat planes - jet fighter aircraft - to India as well. As in "fighter-bomber" aircraft, or, potentially, nuclear-armed bombers.

That is, 3 major American corporations stand to make over $10 billion dollars selling nuclear technology and nuclear-weapons delivery systems to India, and at least one of America's "news" corporations will never say anything more revealing about his 'news' than: "Today, GE announced that its peaceful nuclear power deal with India could add $5 billion in new business." And the other American "news" networks are similarly reticent to delve deeply into the 'news,' or the consequences of President Bush all but encouraging a proliferating nuclear arsenal in a nuclear power.

The Senate Democrats are not unawares of this news- their House colleague, Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, has called President Bush's deal with India the "administration's rogue, shoot-from-the-hip move" to put (corporate) profits ahead of national security.

But GE * owns * NBC 'news', the other 'news' networks are also owned by corporate interests, and with over $10 billion in sales and potential profits at stake, the corporate media will do everything in its powers to encourage and support India's NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION.

- nuclear proliferation
- "privatized" voting, as with Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S Voting systems
- pollution and pollution controls
- slashings labor costs by underfunding pensions, health care, and pay

At every step of the way, the corporate media has an agenda, an agenda the senior Democratic "leadership" is willing to ignore, if not sign on to. In the case of potential VOTING FRAUD in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and other states, the Democratic "leadership" even ignores stories that could measurably add to their own vote totals, PREFERRING SILENCE if not complicity, to INFORMING AMERICANS that all votes may not be counted accurately.


<< "This administration's rogue, shoot-from-the-hip move to launch nuclear cooperation with India puts the interests of industry ahead of our national security," said Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, an arms control advocate. >> [citation at bottom this post]

_______________________


A Few Political Tidbits Not Covered by Corporate Press

by Stephen Crockett
http://www.opednews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__060324_a_few_political_tidb.htm


Recently, there were many interesting stories that largely went uncovered by the mainstream Corporate Media. Here are a few examples that demonstrate the inadequate nature of relying on the Corporate Media as your main news source. We urge everyone to visit the many news sources on the Internet daily.

The Washington Post revealed a Right Wing bias much like their rival, The Washington Times. They did this by launching a blatantly Right Wing website called Red America while not balancing this Right Wing site with any “Blue” counterpart. Nothing could be more blatantly partisan. You can read the full story at Media Matters http://mediamatters.org/items/200603210017 .


Scoop News in New Zealand published a story from the Atlanta Progressive News organization that informed readers that 30 members of Congress now support impeachment hearing for Bush. You can read the full story at Scoop http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/hl0603/s00158.htm . The Corporate Media extensively covered the failure of Senate democrats to endorse the Feingold measure censoring Bush but completely ignored this equally big story. A truly balanced news coverage would have given each story equal time.


The growing scandal over electronic voting machine failures exploded in state after state. Voting machine failures created news from Texas to Maryland to Utah to Florida. The best place to start reading the many breaking stories is at Brad Blog. This column is simply not long enough to even begin to list the many daily breaking stories concerning the growing election voting scandal.

Maryland politicians from both major Parties are looking to scuttle the Diebold machines. A Texas primary recount was halted by court order when the voting machines were not counting properly for the recounts. Errors were reported up to 20 percent. Voting machine tests should serious errors and security weaknesses in tests in Utah and Florida. The Bush Administration and allies in Congress are pushing to make these failed voting machines the standard by the Fall elections. Growing numbers of voting rights activists are seeking emergency action to guarantee verified paper trails to prevent election fraud and other snafus this year. The Corporate Media has not given the issue significant coverage. Many citizens are unaware their votes may not get counted this election. Information on the subject is readily available on the Internet.


Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.democratictalkradio.com ). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

__________________________________________________

With Bush's help, GE courts Indian PM, nuke sector
Reuters July 23, 2005
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050723-ge-india-nuke.htm


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just over an hour after the White House's surprise pledge to help India develop its civilian nuclear power sector, the head of General Electric, the American company that could benefit most from the policy change, sat down for a celebratory dinner.

The host was President George W. Bush; a few feet away was India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his top aides. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, a contributor to Bush's presidential campaigns, had a coveted seat at the president's table.

Bush's announcement on nuclear trade with India -- followed by a formal dinner in the State dining room -- was not just a victory for Singh. For GE, the only U.S.-owned company still in the nuclear business, it marked a possible turning point in a years-long push to re-enter the Indian nuclear power market, which it was forced to leave in 1974 when India conducted its first nuclear test.

"In the short term, it's really business as usual. ... But if things unfold the way it looks they may, then clearly it is a significant opportunity for us," said Peter Wells, general manager of marketing for GE Energy's nuclear business.

While the policy change may benefit GE and other companies in the long term, critics contend Bush's move closer to accepting the world's largest democracy as a nuclear weapons state could weaken decades-old prohibitions against atomic arms.

"This administration's rogue, shoot-from-the-hip move to launch nuclear cooperation with India puts the interests of industry ahead of our national security," said Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, an arms control advocate.
[cont'd at http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050723-ge-india-nuke.htm]

(sigh) Democrats cower/cover-up/complicit in INCOMPETENCE

(sigh) Now we get to the nuts-and-bolts of why CowardlyDemocrats.blogspot.com is so necessary. It is not just that Mr. Bush, Karl Rove, and their minions are greedy, selfish, corrupt, bullying, lying, and incompetent. Well, it is the later. You see, Mr. Bush and his Republican government were INCOMPETENT at preventing 9-11. That is, if you don't subscribe to the "conspiracy theory" that Bush and his government were complicit in the 9-11 attacks.

But we don't need the more extreme "conspiracy theory" to note that Mr. Bush is a danger, a threat, to America's security. On the face of it, the reason Pres. Bush did not heed CIA and FBI warnings that "Al Qaida was determined to attack in America" was either that, #1.) he was unawares of these warnings, having IGNORED his own "Counter-terror Czar" Richard Clarke's almost manic requests for a "principles meeting" to discuss the threat (or having placed incompetent supervisors in place who did not forward the lower-level "system is blinking red" warnings and alerts); or #2.) Mr. Bush WAS aware of the terror threat in the summer of 2001 (he stayed aboard a US warship, the carrier Enterprise, at the Genoa G-8 Economic summit, a graphic message for a peaceful summit, in which the White House explained "terror threats" as the reason for Mr. Bush staying aboard the warship), but CHOOSE NOT DO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, taking a gamble that the alerts were over-active, and that AMERICAN BUSINESSES WOULD BE HARMED if measures - namely increased security - were taken to thwart a potential terror attack or hijacking.

If the later were the case - (#2. above) that Mr. Bush took a gamble that NO terror attack would take place - then his bet failed miserably.

If the former were the case - that Mr. Bush DID KNOW of the terror alerts, warnings, and threats, as conveyed by his Counter-Terror Czar (who, if he didn't talk to Mr. Bush directly, did talk to Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and other Bush advisors), CIA, and August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in America" - but Mr. Bush STILL FAILED to do ANYTHING about those threats - then he was clearly PART OF THE PROBLEM, PART of the THREAT TO AMERICA, like a cop asleep at his post, or a fire-engine that took a wrong turn and arrived at a fire 20 minutes late.

This, of course, is all PAST HISTORY. What is so troubling in all of this, is that Mr. Bush HASN'T LEARNED HIS LESSON.

He stacks FEMA and HOMELAND SECURITY with his cronies and campaign staffers, such as Joe Albaugh, Michael Chertoff, and "Brownie" Michael Brown. He continues to allow Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to stay on at the DoD, despite Rumsfeld's glaring policy failures bordering on abject incompetence. (How else do you define "letting Iraqi looters loot tons and tons and tons of ammunition from unsecured military ammunition complexes, as American troops did KP duty less than 10 miles away"?) And, of course, Mr. Bush refuses to "connect the dots" re TORTURE and abusive treatment at hands of American servicemen/women STIMULATING THE INSURGENCY (among dozens of other policies/omissions that stimulate the insurgency.)





FAA Reportedly Dismissed Moussaoui Concern
By Jerry Markon and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; 1:21 PM

In emotional testimony in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui
today, the former manager of an Arizona flight school that trained one
of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers told a federal jury that she had
expressed alarm about her student to the Federal Aviation Administration
and cried when she learned he had flown an airliner into the Pentagon.

Margaret Chevrette said she helped train hijacker Hani Hanjour at Pan Am
International Flight Academy in Mesa, Ariz., near Phoenix, from late
December 2000 until March 2001. She said Hanjour, a Saudi who is
believed to have piloted the American Airlines plane that crashed into
the Pentagon, was a poor pilot who spoke limited English.

She said she had been "worried that he was going to hurt himself or hurt
someone else because he didn't have the skills" to fly an airliner and
risked causing an accident.

Chevrette said she reported her concerns to the FAA during Hanjour's
training at the flight school but that the agency did little in
response. She said an FAA official who oversaw her school suggested she
obtain an English interpreter for Hanjour, which was against the
agency's own regulations.

"I reminded him it is required to be able to speak and write English on
your own" to be permitted to fly a plane in the United States, Chevrette
testified.

When she heard about the Sept. 11 hijackings, "I already knew in my
heart that Hani was a part of it," Chevrette said. She recalled driving
to work when she learned that a plane had hit the Pentagon after two
planes had already struck the World Trade Center in New York.

"I think that's the thing that just snapped," she said, recalling her
realization that it was a terrorist attack. "I remember crying all the
way to work, knowing that our company helped do this." The academy
closed in December 2001.

As Chevrette spoke, her voice hoarse and breaking at times, two family
members of the Sept. 11 victims cried softly in the third row of the
U.S. District Courtroom in Alexandria.

The day after the attacks, she testified, her FAA contact called her and
said, "Your worst nightmare has been realized."

Although Moussaoui's name did not come up during Chevrette's testimony,
it appeared that prosecutors had called her as part of their continuing
effort to show that Moussaoui's actions before the Sept. 11 attacks had
paralleled those of the hijackers who carried out the al-Qaeda plot,
killing nearly 3,000 people.

Moussaoui, 37, pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with al-Qaeda in
the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The jury in the
trial will determine whether he lives or dies.

Moussaoui also took flying lessons and was a poor student, and he paid
for his training with large amounts of cash, as Chevrette testified
today that Hanjour did. The diminutive Saudi had paid for his course
with more than $7,000 in cash, which was unusual, Chevrette testified.

continued for two more pages at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032200275.html

____________________________________

Fly Into a Building? Who Could Imagine?
by Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

March 22, 2006


WASHINGTON
Three little words:
Still employed there.
Of all the through-the-looking-glass moments in the last few days, the strangest is this: The F.B.I officer who arrested and questioned Zacarias Moussaoui told a jury that he had alerted his superiors about 70 times that Mr. Moussaoui was a radical Islamic fundamentalist who hated America and might be plotting to hijack an airplane.
Seventy? That makes one time for every virgin waiting for Mr. Moussaoui in heaven. Judging by how disastrously the prosecution is doing, the virgins will have to wait.
We could have cracked the 9/11 plot if the F.B.I. wasn't run by dunces. Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers got a break because according to the testimony of the officer, Harry Samit, a better-run bureau could have broken the case even without the terrorist's confession -- maybe F.B.I. officers should have shot him with some paintballs.
On Sept. 10, 2001, Mr. Samit confided to a colleague that he was "desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer." He never heard back from the F.B.I.'s bin Laden unit before 9/11 -- what did the unit have to do that was more pressing than catching bin Laden? And he was obstructed by officials in F.B.I. headquarters here, whom he labeled "criminally negligent."
He named two of the officials who did not want to endanger their careers with any excess aggression toward radical fundamentalists: David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, then working on the Radical Fundamentalist Unit.
Even though Condi Rice told the 9/11 commission that "no one could have imagined" terrorists' slamming a plane into the World Trade Center, an F.B.I. officer did. Officer Samit testified that a colleague, Greg Jones, tried to light a fire under Mr. Maltbie by urging him to "prevent Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center."
Later, Mr. Jones told Mr. Samit that it had just been "a lucky guess."
Kenneth Williams, a Phoenix agent, also sent a warning memo to the phlegmatic Mr. Frasca in July 2001, after sniffing out a scheme by Osama to dispatch Middle East extremists to America to get flight training.
Neil Lewis wrote in The Times yesterday that "William Carter, an F.B.I. spokesman, said that neither the bureau nor Mr. Maltbie nor Mr. Frasca, who are still employed there, would have any comment."
Still employed there? How can Mr. Maltbie and Mr. Frasca still be employed at the F.B.I.? How can Michael Chertoff still be employed at Homeland Security? How can Donald Rumsfeld still be employed at the Pentagon?
Missing 9/11, missing Katrina, mangling Iraq, racking up a $9 trillion debt -- those things don't cause officials to lose their jobs. Only saying something honest -- as prescient Gen. Eric Shinseki did -- can get you a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
Rummy told reporters last week that the military was preparing for a civil war in Iraq, but he did not consider it a civil war yet -- even though he acknowledged it was hard to tell exactly when chaos tipped into civil war.
"I don't think it'll look like the United States' Civil War," he added sanguinely. Yeah. At Fort Sumter, Lincoln let the enemy fire first. So the defense secretary believes if the body count stays below the Civil War era's 600,000, Iraq will achieve a healthy blue-state, red-state democracy?
One administration official says that Rummy does not hold the same sway in meetings anymore, that he's treated as an eccentric old uncle who pops off and is ignored. But why can't W. just quit him? Instead, the president praised him for doing "a fine job" on two wars and transforming the military, when Rummy actually bullied the military to go along with his foolish schemes in Iraq and has sapped the once-feared fighting machine.
At his impromptu press conference yesterday, the president presented himself as a nice guy doing a difficult job, relentlessly joshing with reporters. He chided the press for playing into terrorists' goals by showing bad news from Iraq -- "they're capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show" -- even as reports surfaced about insurgents outside Baghdad storming a jail, slaughtering 18 police officers and letting the prisoners out, following fast upon an insurgent raid on Iraqi Army headquarters in Kirkuk. Does the president think TV will instead report on an increase in melon sales at the market?
When the Bushies harp on training Iraqi security forces so America can hand the country over to them, it has a hollow ring. Back in 2003, the U.S. de-Baathified Iraq and put its faith in its friends, the Shiites. Now, given the suspected Shiite death squads and militias, the U.S. wants to bring the Sunnis back into the system. So whom do we trust? And for how long?
Asked if he could envision a day when there would be no more U.S. forces in Iraq, the president said, "That, of course, is an objective." But he added that it would be decided by future Iraqi governments and future American presidents.
Once W. is not still employed there.
Posted: March 23, 2006
_________________________________

Will Durst: Adjectives to describe Bush & his minons, that Democrat "leaders" PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE...

Impeachment? Hell, no. Impalement.
3.15.2006
http://www.willdurst.com/WeeksWorth.html

I don't know about you guys, but I am so sick and tired of these lying,
thieving, holier-than-thou, right-wing, cruel, crude, rude, gauche,
coarse, crass, cocky, corrupt, dishonest, debauched, degenerate,
dissolute, swaggering, lawyer shooting, bullhorn shouting,
infrastructure destroying, hysterical, history defying, finger-
pointing, puppy stomping, roommate appointing, pretzel choking,
collateral damaging, aspersion casting, wedding party bombing, clear
cutting, torturing, jobs outsourcing, torture outsourcing, "so-called"
compassionate-conservative, women's rights eradicating, Medicare
cutting, uncouth, spiteful, boorish, vengeful, noxious, homophobic,
xenophobic, xylophonic, racist, sexist, ageist, fascist, cashist,
audaciously stupid, brazenly selfish, lethally ignorant, journalist
purchasing, genocide ignoring, corporation kissing, poverty inducing,
crooked, coercive, autocratic, primitive, uppity, high-handed,
domineering, arrogant, inhuman, inhumane, insolent, know-it-all, snotty,
pompous, contemptuous, supercilious, gutless, spineless, shameless,
avaricious, poisonous, imperious, merciless, graceless, tactless,
brutish, brutal, Karl Roving, backward thinking, persistent vegetative
state grandstanding, nuclear option threatening, evolution denying,
irony deprived, depraved, insincere, conceited, perverted, pre-emptory
invading of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11,
35-day-vacation taking, bribe soliciting, incapable, inbred, hellish,
proud for no apparent reason, smarty pants, loudmouth, bullying,
swell-headed, ethnic cleansing, ethics-eluding, domestic spying, medical
marijuana-busting, kick-backing, Halliburtoning, New Deal
disintegrating, narcissistic, undiplomatic, blustering, malevolent,
demonizing, baby seal-clubbing, Duke Cunninghamming, hectoring, verbally
flatulent, pro-bad- anti-good, Moslem-baiting, photo-op arranging,
hurricane disregarding, oil company hugging, judge packing, science
disputing, faith based mathematics advocating, armament selling,
nonsense spewing, education ravaging, whiny, unscrupulous, greedy
exponential factor fifteen, fraudulent, CIA outing, redistricting,
anybody who disagrees with them slandering, fact twisting, ally
alienating, betraying, god and flag waving, scare mongering, Cindy
Sheehan libeling, phony question asking, just won't get off the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge drilling, two- faced, inept, callous, menacing,
your hand under a rock- the maggoty remains of a marsupial, oppressive,
vulgar, antagonistic, brush clearing suck- up, showboating, tyrannizing,
peace hating, water and air and ground and media polluting which is
pretty much all the polluting you can get, deadly, illegal, pernicious,
lethal, haughty, venomous, virulent, ineffectual, mephitic, egotistic,
bloodthirsty, incompetent, hypocritical, did I say evil, I'm not sure if
I said evil, because I want to make sure I say evil…
EVIL, cretinous, fool, toad, buttwipe, lizardstick, cowardly, lackey
imperialistic tool slime buckets in the Bush Administration that I could
just spit.
Impeachment? Hell no. Impalement. Upon the sharp and righteous sword of
the people's justice

Will Durst
--

Jane Smiley to Democrats: Waiting for reason, moderation, or bipartisan cooperation is a DEAD END STREET!

Note: We couldn't pull up the URL for this below editorial, the first we recall seeing Jane Smiley, which was sent via e-mail from friends. But over at Slate.com they posted this editorial from Jane, which seems to be of the same tone and timbre of "Notes for Conservative Converts," thus leading us to believe it is legitimately her op-ed! At any rate, there is not so much as A WORD in Jane's editorial (both of them) which isn't rock-ribbed truth,

This sentence is a gem, and once again reminds why "CowardlyDemocrats" is necessary: the Democrats JUST REFUSE to STAND UP TO the Bush-GOP bullies, on behalf of the weak and vulnerable:

<< Your [radical-right 'conservatives'] ideas and your policies have promoted selfishness, greed, short-term solutions, bullying, and pain for others. You have looked in the faces of children and denied the existence of a "common good". You have disdained and denied the idea of "altruism". At one time, our bureaucracy was full of people who had gone into government service or scientific research for altruistic reasons--I knew, because I knew some of them. You have driven them out and replaced them with vindictive ignoramuses. >>

___________________________

Why Americans Hate Democrats—A Dialogue
The unteachable ignorance of the red states.
By Jane Smiley
Updated Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004, at 6:24 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2109218/

Slate asked a number of wise liberals to take up the question of why Americans won't vote for the Democrats. Click here to read previous entries.

**********************

I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. My predecessors in this conversation are thoughtful men, and I honor their ideas, but let's try something else. I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush,* so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) [continued]

____________________________


Jane Smiley: 'Notes for Conservative converts'

March 22
Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.


1. Bush doesn't know you disagree with him. Nothing about you makes you of interest to George W. Bush once you no longer agree with and support him. No degree of relationship (father, mother, etc.), no longstanding friendly intercourse (Jack Abramoff), no degree of expertise (Brent Scowcroft), no essential importance (Tony Blair, American voters) makes any difference. There is nothing you have to offer that makes Bush want to know you once you have come to disagree with him. Your opinions and feelings now exist in a world entirely external to the mind of George W. Bush. You are now just one of those "polls" that he pays no attention to. When you were on his side, you thought that showed "integrity" on his part. It doesn't. It shows an absolute inability to learn from experience.


2. Bush doesn't care whether you disagree with him. As a man who has dispensed with the reality-based world, and is entirely protected by his handlers from feeling the effects of that world, he is indifferent to what you now think is real.

Is the Iraq war a failure and a quagmire? Bush doesn't care. Is global warming beginning to affect us right now? So what. Have all of his policies with regard to Iran been misguided and counter-productive? He never thinks about it. You know that Katrina tape in which Bush never asked a question? It doesn't matter how much you know or how passionately you feel or, most importantly, what degree of disintegration you see around you, he's not going to ask you a question. You and your ideas are dead to him. You cannot change his mind. Nine percent of polled Americans would agree with attacking Iran right now. To George Bush, that will be a mandate, if and when he feels like doing it, because...


3. Bush does what he feels like doing and he deeply resents being told, even politely, that he ought to do anything else. This is called a "sense of entitlement". Bush is a man who has never been anywhere and never done anything, and yet he has been flattered and cajoled into being president of the United States through his connections, all of whom thought they could use him for their own purposes. He has a surface charm that appeals to a certain type of American man, and he has used that charm to claim all sorts of perks, and then to fail at everything he has ever done. He did not complete his flight training, he failed at oil investing, he was a front man and a glad-hander as a baseball owner. As the Governor of Texas, he originated one educational program that turned out to be a debacle; as the President of the US, his policies have constituted one screw-up after another. You have stuck with him through all of this, made excuses for him, bailed him out. From his point of view, he is perfectly entitled by his own experience to a sense of entitlement. Why would he ever feel the need to reciprocate? He's never had to before this.

4. President Bush is your creation. When the US Supreme Court humiliated itself in 2000 by handing the presidency to Bush even though two of the justices (Scalia and Thomas) had open conflicts of interest, you did not object. When the Bush administration adopted an "Anything but Clinton" policy that resulted in ignoring and dismissing all warnings of possible terrorist attacks on US soil, you went along with and made excuses for Bush. When the Bush administration allowed the corrupt Enron corporation to swindle California ratepayers and taxpayers in a last ditch effort to balance their books in 2001, you laughed at the Californians and ignored the links between Enron and the administration. When it was evident that the evidence for the war in Iraq was cooked and that State Department experts on the Middle East were not behind the war and so it was going to be run as an exercise in incompetence, you continued to attack those who were against the war in vicious terms and to defend policies that simply could not work. On intelligent design, global warming, doctoring of scientific results to reflect ideology, corporate tax giveaways, the K Street project, the illegal redistricting of Texas, torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the Terry Schiavo fiasco, and the cronyism that led to the destruction of New Orleans you have failed to speak out with integrity or honesty, preferring power to truth at every turn. Bush does what he wants because you have let him.

5. Tyranny is your creation. What we have today is the natural and inevitable outcome of ideas and policies you have promoted for the last generation. I once knew a guy who was still a Marxist in 1980. Whenever I asked him why Communism had failed in Russia and China, he said "Mistakes were made". He could not believe that Marxism itself was at fault, just as you cannot believe that the ideology of the unregulated free market has created the world we live in today. You are tempted to say: "Mistakes have been made", but in fact, psychologically and sociologically, no mistakes have been made. The unregulated free market has operated to produce a government in its own image. In an unregulated free market, for example, cheating is merely another sort of advantage that, supposedly, market forces might eventually "shake out" of the system. Of course, anyone with common sense understands that cheaters do damage that sometimes cannot be repaired before they are "shaken out", but according to the principles of the unregulated free market, the victims of that sort of damage are just out of luck and the damage that happens to them is just a sort of "culling". It is no accident that our government is full of cheaters--they learned how to profit from cheating when they were working in corporations that were using bribes, perks, and secret connections to cheat their customers of good products, their neighbors of healthy environmental conditions, their workers of workplace safety and decent paychecks. It was only when the corporations began cheating their shareholders that any of you squealed, but you should know from your own experience that the unregulated free market as a "level playing field" was the biggest laugh of the 20th century. No successful company in the history of capitalism has ever favored open competition. When you folks pretended, in the eighties, that you weren't using the ideology of the free market to cover your own manipulations of the playing field to your own advantage, you may have suckered yourselves, and even lots of American workers, but observers of capitalism since Adam Smith could have told you it wasn't going to work.

And then there was the way you use racism and religious intolerance to gain and hold onto power. Nixon was cynical about it--taking the party of Lincoln and reaching out to disaffected southern racists, drumming up a backlash against the Civil Rights movement for the sake of votes, but none of you has been any less vicious. Racism might have died an unlamented death in this country, but you kept it alive with phrases like "welfare queen" and your resistance to affirmative action and taxation for programs to help people in our country with nothing, or very little. You opted not to take the moral high ground and recognize that the whole nation would be better off without racism, but rather to increase class divisions and racial divisions for the sake of your own comfort, pleasure, and profit. You have used religion in exactly the same way. Instead of strongly defending the constitutional separation of church and state, you have encouraged radical fundamentalist sects to believe that they can take power in the US and mold our secular government to their own image, and get rich doing it. The US could have become a moderating force in what seems now to be an inevitable battle among the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions, but you have made that impossible by flattering and empowering our own violent and intolerant Christian right.

You have created an imperium, heedless of the most basic wisdom of the Founding Fathers--that at the very least, no man is competent enough or far-seeing enough to rule imperially. Checks and balances were instituted by Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest of them not because of some abstract distrust of power, but because they had witnessed the screw-ups and idiocies of unchecked power. You yourselves have demonstrated the failures of unchecked power--in an effort to achieve it, you have repeatedly contravened the expressed wishes of most Americans, who favor a moderate foreign policy, reasonable domestic programs, a goverrnment that works, environmental preservation, women's rights to contraception, abortion, and a level playing field. Somehow you thought you could mold the imperium to reflect your wishes, but guess what--that's what an imperium is--one man rule. If you fear the madness of King George, you have no recourse if you've given up the checks and balances that you inherited and that were meant to protect you.

Your ideas and your policies have promoted selfishness, greed, short-term solutions, bullying, and pain for others. You have looked in the faces of children and denied the existence of a "common good". You have disdained and denied the idea of "altruism". At one time, our bureaucracy was full of people who had gone into government service or scientific research for altruistic reasons--I knew, because I knew some of them. You have driven them out and replaced them with vindictive ignoramuses. You have lied over and over about your motives, for example, making laws that hurt people and calling it "originalist interpretations of the Constitution" (conveniently ignoring the Ninth Amendment). You have increased the powers of corporations at the expense of every other sector in the nation and actively defied any sort of regulation that would require these corporations to treat our world with care and respect. You have made economic growth your deity, and in doing so, you have accelerated the power of the corporations to destroy the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice caps, the rainforests, and the climate. You have produced CEOs in charge of lots of resources and lots of people who have no more sense of reciprocity or connection or responsibility than George W. Bush.


Now you are fleeing him, but it's only because he's got the earmarks of a loser. Your problem is that you don't know why he's losing. You think he's made mistakes. But no. He's losing because the ideas that you taught him and demonstrated for him are bad ideas, self-destructive ideas, and even suicidal ideas. And they are immoral ideas. You should be ashamed of yourselves because not only have your ideas not worked to make the world a better place, they were inhumane and cruel to begin with, and they have served to cultivate and excuse the inhumane and cruel character traits of those who profess them.


6. As Bad as Bush is, Cheney is Worse.

Vermont defies Right-Wing hate for years... And prospers!!

Can't our Democratic "leaders" TAKE A LESSON from little ol' Vermont??

'Cause Vermont just keeps on DOING WHAT IS "the right thing to do" (even if that means "lefty" policies), and beating the rest of the nation to TRUE "moral values"... not the fake Fox 'news'-GOP spin-Bush White House talking points in which hate, fear, and resentment POSE as "moral values."

<<
The crazier the rest of America gets, the more I am thankful to be living in Vermont. It's the next best thing to moving to Canada.
From being the first government in the world to outlaw slavery to being the first state to allow gays to marry, Vermont has always been a place that isn't afraid to be contrary in the name of liberty and freedom. >>


March 22, 2006
RIGHT-WINGERS HATE VERMONT, AND WE DON'T CARE


by Randolph T. Holhut
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_randolph_060322_right_wingers_hate_v.htm
http://www.opednews.com

DUMMERSTON, Vt. — It's weird how one little state can be the target of so much right-wing hatred.
People wanted to boycott Vermont in 2000 because we were the first state to approve civil unions for gay couples.
Instead, the wedding industry in Vermont got a brand-new clientele.
People wanted to boycott Vermont in 2001 because Sen. James Jeffords left the Republican Party and tipped the balance of power in the Senate into the Democrats' favor for a few months.
Instead, bumper stickers that read “Thanks Jim” sprouted up all over the country.
Almost three years ago, Jonah Goldberg wrote a sputtering diatribe in National Review that slammed Vermont as a "whatever-floats-your-boat Epcot Center exhibit of Green Socialism" and a place "with open-toed shoes and closed minds" that's a "madrassa for eco-jihadists," an "alpine kibbutz" with a "Sweden-like economy" whose biggest export is "awful politics."
Instead, Goldberg's intended target, former Gov. Howard Dean, now leads the Democratic Party and has reinvigorated its base.
Fox News Channel and right-wing talk radio screamer Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of all things Vermont back in January when this state's legal system met with his disapproval — and then quickly backed down when he discovered that one of his main radio sponsors was the Vermont Teddy Bear Co.
And now there is talk of more boycotts of Vermont because five towns voted at their annual town meetings this month to support efforts to impeach President Bush.
As with all the other attempts by the right-wing nuts to punish Vermont for its political independence and intelligence, this too will fail. The great majority of Americans who don't base their tourism decisions on politics apparently like our cheese, maple syrup and foliage too much to give them up.
The crazier the rest of America gets, the more I am thankful to be living in Vermont. It's the next best thing to moving to Canada.
From being the first government in the world to outlaw slavery to being the first state to allow gays to marry, Vermont has always been a place that isn't afraid to be contrary in the name of liberty and freedom.
So let South Dakota outlaw abortion. Women can come to Vermont. There are no restrictions on abortion and contraception here and we still believe that individuals, not the state, should have control over people's reproductive organs.
So let Texas lead the world in executions. Vermont will still outlaw capital punishment and let people in prison vote in elections.
If Florida wants to pave over every square inch of its state and turn it into an endless sea of strip malls and subdivisions, go ahead. Vermont will continue to ban billboards and put limits on development.
If Midwestern agribusinesses want to plant genetically modified seeds, fine. We're in the process of banning their use in Vermont.
If I sound smug, you'll have to forgive me for being that way. Living in Vermont will do that to you. Once you get used to being in a place where life is still lived on a human-sized scale, you begin to think the rest of the nation is nuts. That's why a campaign to get Vermont to secede from the United States is gaining more and more support.
I'll have to admit that if secession succeeds, I'll miss the United States. It used to be a great nation. Maybe it will be again. But until the other 49 states come to their senses, secession might not be a bad idea.
Until that fine day comes, let the right-wing nuts find some other place to spend their money. Let them eat Velveeta and use Mrs. Butterworth's syrup on their pancakes. There are plenty of other Americans who support what we do here and keep Vermont afloat.

 

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 25 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

Bush support Crumbles, even in "Red states"... Dem cower aimlessly...

Even as Bush support COLLAPSES in national polls (Bush's remaining positive "approval" polls are only in rural states totaling 16.5 million people, or 6% of population), a ranking Republican Senator (Judiciary Chair Arlen Specter) says "THEY [Bush and his White House]... DO JUST AS THEY PLEASE, FOR AS LONG AS THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT."

Can you say, "Cowering Democrats CAN'T even sign on to Senator Feingold's SYMBOLIC Censure resolution"?

__________________________________

Specter Takes Senate Lead on Eavesdropping
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press
23 March 2006

WASHINGTON - A vocal Republican critic of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program will preside over Senate efforts to write the program into law, but he was pessimistic Wednesday that the White House wanted to listen.

"They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it," Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong."

Specter was one of the first Republicans to publicly question the National Security Agency's authority to monitor international calls — when one party is inside the United States — without first getting court approval. Under the program first disclosed last year, the NSA has been conducting the surveillance when calls and e-mails are thought to involve al-Qaida.
[continued at ]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_go_co/specter_eavesdropping;_ylt=Ahj6zDDU5KK43DECgWmLmYayFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
___________________________

State after State Repudiates Bush

By Sam Parry
March 23, 2006
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/032206a.html

George W. Bush’s admission that he expects to leave the Iraq War mess behind for his successor to clean up underscores why he is facing a historic collapse in polls across the country, with tracking surveys now showing him with net negatives exceeding 20 percentage points in more than half the states.

According to SurveyUSA.com, which tracks Bush’s approval ratings in all 50 states, Bush’s support in the March readings plunged to double-digit net negative numbers even in some staunchly Republican states: -12% in South Carolina, -17% in Indiana, -18% in Virginia, and -19% in Tennessee. In Bush’s home state of Texas, public disapproval topped approval by 14 percentage points.

All told, Bush – dragged down by the Iraq War, his inept Katrina response and the exploding federal debt – has higher disapproval than approval numbers in 43 states. Bush is at -10% or worse in 37 states; -20% or worse in 26 states; -30% or worse in 13 states; and a staggering -40% or worse in six states.

The March readings show Bush with positive numbers in only seven states (and then by mostly narrow margins): Nebraska +1%, Mississippi +2%, Oklahoma +2%, Idaho +3%, Alabama +5%, Wyoming +7%, and Utah +13%.

While SurveyUSA.com’s averaging of the numbers for the 50 states fits with recent national surveys showing Bush with about 35% approval and 60% disapproval – a net negative of 25 points – the state-by-state numbers highlight the pervasiveness of Bush’s political troubles.

Electoral Fears

The dismal numbers also help explain why some Republicans, facing elections this November, are shying away from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who suffers even lower ratings than Bush.

Plus, over the past half year, Bush has shown little ability to rebound. His national numbers have been low since last summer’s Katrina debacle reinforced doubts about his administration’s competence, which already had taken a beating over the Iraq War. Those concerns now have mixed with growing suspicions about his honesty.

Still, despite last year’s post-Katrina slump, Bush retained favorable numbers in many “red states” that he carried in 2004. In most months, he was even or in positive numbers in at least 10 states, though in November 2005 the number of plus or break-even states slid to six.

Even then, however, Bush enjoyed robust numbers in the reddest “red states” – with a +21% bulge in Utah and +20% in Idaho. There were also fewer extremely negative numbers in November, with Bush at -10% or worse in only 15 states, compared to 37 such states now.

By March 2006, Bush’s public support had crumbled across the country. Even among his seven favorable states, his edge was within the polling “margin of error” in four of them, meaning that Bush might be down to as few as three states still favoring him. In Election 2004, Bush carried those same seven states by margins ranging from +20% to +46%.

The seven remaining pro-Bush states also are lightly populated, accounting for only 16.5 million people or less than 6% of the U.S. population in the 2000 census. They have just 39 electoral votes.

Bush’s plunge in the polls has been perhaps most dramatic in the swing states of Florida and Ohio, where Bush claimed his controversial victories in Election 2000 and Election 2004, respectively. Bush now gets a net approval rating in Ohio of -30% and in Florida -22%.

In other swing states of Election 2004, Bush’s net ratings are -23% in Nevada and New Mexico; -24% in Missouri; -25% in Colorado; -27% in Iowa; and  -28% in Arkansas.

Narrowed Options

Given the depth and breadth of this political collapse, it’s hard to envision how Bush can rebuild his standing between now and November, short of some major external event, such as the death or capture of Osama bin-Laden, or a breakthrough in the Iraq War, or the nation rallying around him because of some new military or terrorist crisis.

Across the Internet, there has been open speculation by Bush critics that he might cynically launch a new war against Iran to bolster his numbers – or that Republicans will resort to widespread electoral fraud to keep control of Congress.

But the realistic options for Bush turning his predicament around seem to be narrowing as he loses support even in his strongest political strongholds. Plus, the likely course of events in the Middle East and domestically do not seem to favor Bush.

At his press conference on March 21, Bush acknowledged that the continuing bloodshed in Iraq had drained his political capital. He then blurted out that the issue of whether to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq would be decided by “future presidents and future governments of Iraq.”

This comment marked one of the few times Bush has given a clue about how long he expects the war to continue.

But the suggestion that his successors will have to make the hard decisions on extricating U.S. troops reinforces Bush’s image as a feckless son of privilege who rushes into projects, flounders and then gets bailed out by others. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bush Family ‘Oiligarchy’” or Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

Bush’s critics also are sure to accuse him of dragging out the war – and getting thousands of more Americans and Iraqis killed – in part to avoid having to take responsibility for his own mistakes. By extending the war until 2009, Bush’s supporters also may be hoping to blame whoever succeeds Bush for “losing Iraq.”

While this strategy of palming off the Iraq disaster on a future President might make some sense for the political legacies of Bush and his neoconservative allies, it’s unlikely to help Republicans in this November’s elections.

GOP candidates will face a choice of either distancing themselves from the President (and risking alienating Bush’s hard-core backers) or tying themselves to Bush (and having voters opt for a more independent candidate).

Still, even with Bush’s low poll numbers, the chances for a Democratic sweep of the House and Senate don’t appear high, given the limited number of “competitive” seats. But political analysts can’t rule out an electoral tidal wave, like the one in 1994 that overwhelmed the Democrats and carried the Republicans to majorities in both chambers.

Whatever the outcome in November, however, Bush’s personal reversal of fortune over the past several months has been extraordinary.

For a “wartime” President who celebrated his Second Inaugural with high-blown rhetoric only 14 months ago – and who once enjoyed 90% approval ratings – to be clinging to positive ratings in only seven states represents a political flameout not seen in Washington since the Watergate scandal drove Richard Nixon from office more than three decades ago.

Plus, Bush’s supporters can’t just point to their man’s unpopularity among “liberal elites” in Hollywood or Manhattan.

With another new poll showing more and more Americans judging him an “incompetent” and a “liar,” Bush also is losing the backing of millions of Middle Americans in states like Texas, Ohio and South Dakota.