do you know anybody else who could say to you

i am holding a year's worth of cum in my testicles.

boy THAT was fast!

talk about corrupt sons of bitches.... asscroft gets to wear the crown today. from the WaPo:

WASHINGTON -- Less than a month after Oracle Corp. hired former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's lobbying firm, the Justice Department notified Oracle that an antitrust inquiry into its proposed $5.8 billion acquisition of a rival database software firm had been dropped

as someone along the way mentioned:

While he's on his knees pretending to pray to Je$u$.

how stupid can they get?

pretty friggin stupid, if the GOP really thinks they can sink murtha with their whining. if they want to play that game, they are in no position to be pointing fingers. and like all things repuke, it'll backfire.

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee.

--rollcall

Quote Of The Day

"The Republicans are taking food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to America's wealthiest. This is not a statement of America's values,"

--Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after seeing the GOP deliver themselves a $3,100 pay raise.

attribution

down with diebold

the diebold is fighting transparency speaks volumes about their desire to have fair elections.

In a last-minute filing, e-voting equipment maker Diebold asked a North Carolina court to exempt it from tough new election requirements designed to ensure transparency in the state’s elections. Diebold obtained an extraordinarily broad order, allowing it to avoid placing its source code in escrow with the state and identifying programmers who contributed to the code.

--source

Letter Of The Day

Chuck Grassley has belatedly threatened to close the barn door after $2.9 million of his promised 50 million tax dollars for the rain forest have been spent. On what? Do we as taxpayers get an accounting?

There are four requirements for a genuine rain forest. A year-round, near-vertical sun. Pure rain water. Poor laterite soil. Bugs — billions of them. Iowa can't supply the first three and wouldn't attract many visitors with the fourth.

—Ian Binnie, Des Moines.

attribution

Quote of the Day

"We're asking very traditional questions: Was information withheld? Was there deceit about the information? Those are the familiar Watergate/Iran-contra questions. But they overlook the Ideology of Information that the administration created. By this I mean the whole practice of evaluating all information going into the war not for its truth value, but for whether it promoted or hindered the administration's goal of being free to go to war. The President could have been given every bit of intelligence information available, and he and/or Cheney would have reached the same decision because they would have discarded, discounted, or disregarded most of it. Information that was Useful to that goal was put in one box, Not Useful put in another. Entire categories of information were assigned to the Not Useful box because their source was deemed an opponent of U.S. military action, or assumed to have some other motive."
--Mark Schmitt

didnt halloween pass already?

then what's going on with this kid?
http://www.pantheones.com/images/avatars/large/167.jpg

murtha on cheney

i'm linking this to josh marshall's site, but i had read it in one of the papers earlier.

Murtha on Cheney: "I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

if i'm not careful, i'm likely to reproduce the whole column here

another TP gem. this time it's about the pat act. and the favor business gets when their feathers get ruffled. remember all the excuses the repukes used when liberals were pissed off about how the act infringed on our rights? well, now that business is whining, congressional leaders are all ears now.

Everybody mentions that the tentative deal to extend the Patriot Act hit a snag as some Democrats threatened to filibuster. Also, a bipartisan group of six senators said they'll vote against renewing the about-to-expire law unless the civil-liberties protections are strengthened.

The WSJ notices that among those lobbying against the renewed Patriot Act are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies. Apparently they don't like the idea of the government snooping on company records.

also from today's papers

they seem to be full of shockers today.

but then, when you're reporting on criminals and thieves in our government, what else would you expect?

The Post and NYT both front the arrest of two U.S. men for allegedly rigging rebuilding contracts in Iraq. But only the NYT picks up on the real shocker: One of the men was a U.S. government comptroller and financial officer in Iraq "despite having served prison time for felony fraud in the 1990's." He oversaw $82 million in contracts.

what else would you expect from pathological liars?

caught over on today's papers:

Also, the papers play up the U.S. embassy saying, "We have made clear to the Iraqi government there must not be militia or sectarian control or direction of Iraqi Security Forces, facilities or ministries." Which is very nice and very misleading. The reality seems to be that the U.S. long ago acceded to such control.

and he's not even a democrat

"We face a demographic tsunami" that "will never recede," David Walker tells a group of reporters. He runs through a long list of fiscal challenges, led by the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, whose promised Medicare and Social Security benefits will swamp the federal budget in coming decades.

The breakfast conversation remains somber for most of an hour. Then one reporter smiles and asks, "Aren't you depressed in the morning?"

Sadly, it's no laughing matter. To hear Walker, the nation's top auditor, tell it, the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the empire. Its financial condition is "worse than advertised," he says. It has a "broken business model." It faces deficits in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings — and its leadership.

Walker's not the only one saying it. As Congress and the White House struggle to trim up to $50 billion from the federal budget over five years — just 3% of the $1.6 trillion in deficits projected for that period — budget experts say the nation soon could face its worst fiscal crisis since at least 1983, when Social Security bordered on bankruptcy.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-14-fiscal-hurricane-cover_x.htm#

woo hoo

i just ordered my mac. my first mac. and probably my last.

Item #00683806
Manufacturer Part No. M9592LL/A
PM G5 2.5GHZ DUAL CORE QUAD 512/250/660
Quantity: 1
Price: $3,294.00
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Item #00699911
Manufacturer Part No.
*HTC* 2GB RAM KIT/INSTALL PM QUAD
Quantity: 1
Price: $278.99
Extended Price: $278.99

Item #00570667
Manufacturer Part No.
WIRELESS KEYBOARD/MOUSE/HUB SPECIAL
Quantity: 1
Price: $75.99
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Item #00609175
Manufacturer Part No. C11C627001
STYLUS CX4200 AIO PRINTER
Quantity: 1
Price: $99.00
Extended Price: $99.00


Order Totals:
Subtotal: $3,747.98
Tax: $0.00
Shipping, handling and processing: $59.99

Grand Total: $3,807.97

from CLUBMAC

things you probably never knew

another letter writer in today's register opened my eyes to bush's nominee sam alito.

Is President Bush out of his cotton-picking mind? Samuel Alito supported a strip-search of a 10-year-old girl. He opposed the family medical leave act. He supported requiring a husband be informed before a women may get an abortion. He allowed discrimination based on race and disabilities. This man cannot possibly be the best possible candidate for the Supreme Court.

(written by Alice Haugen, Iowa City.)

Letter Of The Day

The Rev. Pat Robertson warned the residents of Dover, Pa., that they have angered God by voting intelligent-design proponents off the local school board. Since intelligent design does not claim God as the designer, why would God be angered? Robertson has confirmed what many suspected. Intelligent design is simply creationism in disguise.

-Laurie Howland, West Des Moines.
attribution

they're confirming white phosphorus in fallujah

US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.

"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US had earlier said the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - had been used only for illumination.

--source

and as someone on DU mention, and put it so adeptly:

The R's will now say DUers don't support our troops and applaud when Blackwater contractors are Bar-B-Que'd . Then the Rush Limballs of the world will chime in saying same.

The atrocities of the Blackwater guys and the use of WP in Fallujah go hand in hand with guerilla war just as in Vietnam. Occupation spawns this.

With "Hama Rules", which means no rules at all as Thomas Friedman has shown us in From Beirut to Jerusalem, playing to the Arab world media, which showed the Blackwater atrocity, is now forcing them to show the Fallujah pictures. This is what happens when the US military 'takes the gloves off'.

Bush's role in creating this war in Iraq with phoney pretexts and no end in sight, the current Republican hijacking of the Democratic Levin amendment today as proof of that -- it still leaves no exit strategy or timetable-- means that the R's will claim to be supporting the troops while keeping them in place for more losses in a war whose purpose is STILL ill-defined.

Are they there to secure the oilfields ? There to 'promote democracy', whatever that means in a region content to vote in Islamic theocracies ? There on a military holiday so to speak in order to test new weapons and strategies ? WTF are they there for ? Bush's annual press conferences never seem to get this answered.

yup. back when the italians were pissed off about it, good ol' rummy was washing it as white as possible. no pun intended. but this thing needs to be exposed and stopped.

liars beget liars

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

surprise surprise

why MSM has lost their collective credibility

gets summed up rather nicely in today's papers:

There are "allegedly" bad headlines in the torture stories. For example, the Post: "TORTURE ALLEGED AFTER U.S.-LED RAID UNCOVERS IRAQI-RUN PRISON." As NYT notes, "An Interior Ministry statement said flatly that torture had occurred." So, what's it take to move something from an allegation to an apparent fact?

One final point on the torture coverage: The papers mention that there have long been "rumors" about torture by the new Iraqi government. What there has also been is scant coverage of the torture that's been documented. Human Rights Watch released a report early this year titled "Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody." Judging from a quickie Nexis search, of the majors only the WP gave it more than wire copy. And then there was the time six months before that when GIs witnessed and photographed Iraqi police torturing prisoners. The Oregonian reported the story, and the national papers let it fly by. The guy the Oregonian suggested was behind the abuse: the then-head of the Interior Ministry.

Letter Of The Day

Sen. Chuck Grassley voted last week against a proposal to boost the fiscal 2006 budget for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program from $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion. Iowa currently has 180,426 households with unpaid energy bills, an average of 1,822 households per county.

MidAmerican Energy currently charges almost double the rate for natural gas from a year ago.

Grassley's attempt to balance the federal budget on the backs of the poor, disabled and geriatric is pathetic. He supports pouring $2 billion a week into the rat hole called Iraq, while low-income Iowans freeze in their homes. Grassley probably keeps his sows warmer than some of these people will be this winter.

-David Brewbaker, Indianola.

attribution

Letter Of The Day

David Yepsen ("Gingrich Preaches Radical Reconstruction of GOP," Nov. 3) stated Newt Gingrich was the architect of the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994.

Yepsen failed to mention that Gingrich used family values and how the Republicans were morally superior to the Democrats.

Gingrich is a hypocrite. Gingrich served his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital with ovarian cancer.

His second wife of 19 years was informed over the telephone that Newt wanted a divorce. Newt then married a young staffer 23 years his junior.

I ask, are these family values, compassionate conservatism or just plain hypocrisy?

-Steve Stanley, Earlham.

attribution

FARPOINT.FACTOID

"It is virtually certain that on Jan. 1, 2006, some dual eligibles will not be receiving prescription drug coverage under [Medicare]," the lawsuit said. "There is no way to know with certainty how many will fall through the cracks this way. However, even if the [current] enrollment process captures 97% of all dual eligibles, more than 180,000 will not be enrolled."
--source

what else would you expect from pathological liars?

remember this?

“We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs,” Tenet said in an agency report to Congress Feb. 7, 2001. “Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating… Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the U.S. to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.”

so much for that lie. what's your next lie gonna be georgie? that white is black again?

Quote of the Day

"The country can't get past what has happened or move forward until we can get the truth on the table, deal with it and move on."
--Josh Marshall, attribution

mehlman's sad sorry excuse for existence

is that he lies like a rug. and yesterday, on MTP, he was in shining mode, telling so many lies, in so little time, it was impossible to catalog them all without tape.

the best writeup i've seen yet of this advernture throught the looking glass, is josh marshall:

One was that the Senate intel report exonerated the administration of any effort to mislead the American people over Iraq. Wrong. They specifically did not look at that question.

He also said the Silbermann/Robb Commission concluded the same thing. Wrong. They too were specifically not authorized to examine that question.

He said the British Butler Report said the same thing. First of all, who cares what a Report written to cover Tony Blair said? Second of all, it said no such thing.

He said the Duelfer Report said Saddam "was trying to reconstitute his weapons programs." That is at best a highly, highly misleading description of the report.

He said that Saddam "had supported terrrorists, had terrorists operating out of his country." There are so many different lies and canards potentially underlying this claim it's hard to know where to start. But again, wrong. None of the purported evidence for this claim has ever stood up.

Letter Of The Day

Bully for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid ("Democrats Force Senate Into Rare Closed Session," Nov. 2). It is high time the minority party exercised some intestinal fortitude with regard to our adventure in Iraq. Forcing the Senate into closed session was an excellent first salvo.

Now the focus ought to be on what convinced the Bush administration to go to war that the previous administration and our allies did not see when looking at the same flawed intelligence. Inquiring minds still want to know, and Senator Reid has artfully posed the question.

-Jeff Clothier, Colfax.

attribution

and finally....

"This Drug Benefit Brought to You By…": Before TP went to www.medicare.gov he accidentally typed in www.medicare.org. This took him to a site purporting to be "A Resource for Medicare Information," with an official-looking seal—featuring a bald eagle—at the top. He clicked on the "Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit" link and was taken to … www.gop.com. Needless to say, TP found no information about the drug benefit. Instead, he was invited to sign a petition in favor of Judge Alito and to read about the strong and valuable leadership of Sen. Rick Santorum.

my my my, those republicons never tire do they.

FARPOINT.FACTOID

Even before the (French) riots, an average of 3,500 cars a month were burned across the nation.

attribution

wanna read a scary story?

The LAT's investigation, the first of four parts, shows how conservatorship is virtually unregulated in California. Most conservators are friends or family members of the elderly charge, but the 15 percent who are professionals typically take control with startling swiftness. About half the time, an elderly person loses control of his life and assets in emergency court hearings lasting just a few hours. In 90 percent of these hearings, the court never bothers to interview the elderly person. The professionals who become conservators have the power of attorneys and accountants, yet never have to pass licensing exams. Anyone with a college degree and $385 for a state registration fee can get in the business. When the elderly charge fights his conservator in court, he must pay both his own legal fees and those of his conservator.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-conserve13nov13,0,4940740,full.story

beware of republicons who charge democrats with rewriting history

because, that's exactly what they're up to.