gotta make you wonder who else is on the payroll.

USATODAY.com - Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law: "Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation."

the guy gets the nation's highest honor, for being a miserable failure. this isn't America. this is Bushisitastan.

The New York Times > National > C.I.A. Report Finds Its Officials Failed in Pre-9/11 Efforts: "ASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that officials who served at the highest levels of the agency should be held accountable for failing to allocate adequate resources to combating terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to current and former intelligence officials.
The conclusion is spelled out in a near-final version of a report by John Helgerson, the agency's inspector general, who reports to Congress as well as to the C.I.A. Among those most sharply criticized in the report, the officials said, are George J. Tenet, the former intelligence chief, and James L. Pavitt, the former deputy director of operations. Both Mr. Tenet and Mr. Pavitt stepped down from their posts last summer.
The findings, which are still classified, pose a quandary for the C.I.A. and the administration, particularly since President Bush awarded a Medal of Freedom to Mr. Tenet last month. It is not clear whether either the agency or the White House has the appetite to reprimand Mr. Tenet, Mr. Pavitt or others. "

R.I.P. Carroll Dean Schmidt, my step-father.

once again, we have enronomics in full play, where the administration again is playin funny with the munny.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 02, 2005 - January 08, 2005 Archives: "Boy, is Atrios right about this. Contrary to what this AP report (and many other articles) says, the emerging Bush proposal doesn't allow younger worker to 'invest up to 4 percent of their payroll taxes in private accounts.' It allows them, as Atrios says, to divert 4 percentage points of their contribution to their own private account.
Even this, though, while accurate, leaves a misleading impression.
The Social Security portion of the payroll tax amounts to 12.4% of your salary up to about $87,000 annually. The employee kicks in 6.2% and the employer contributes 6.2% as well.
What the president is proposing is that individuals can divert roughly 4 of those 6.2 percentage points into their private investment account.
What percentage would that be of the annual contribution to the Social Security for the given worker? About 30%.

Saying that individual workers are merely taking 2% or now 4% out of their contribution makes it sound like a nominal amount. Just enough to give a trial run to private accounts. The more accurate description -- 30% of their contribution to Social Security -- makes it sound like a much bigger deal.

It's understandable that the White House would prefer the misleading description. But why does the AP and most of the rest of the national press?
Late Update: Here's a follow-up question I wish one of the elect would ask the designated White House leakers. I assume that the employer is still obligated to contribute their 6.2% however much the employee might choose to divert. But is that the case?"

and speaking of iraq..... insurgents now outnumber u.s. forces, and i'm sure the allied camps included. and who do we need to tell us? a paper in a foreign country.

Times Online - World: "IRAQ?S rapidly swelling insurgency numbers 200,000 fighters and active supporters and outnumbers the United States-led coalition forces, the head of the country?s intelligence service said yesterday.
The number is far higher than the US military has so far admitted and paints a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities and their British and American backers as elections loom in four weeks.


?I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people,? General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, director of Iraq?s new intelligence services, said.
Bomb attacks killed another 18 people yesterday, almost all of them members of the security services, and the head of the Baghdad division of the Iraqi National Guard admitted that his paramilitary police force had been infiltrated by people who are leaking information to the guerrillas.
General Shahwani said that there were at least 40,000 hardcore fighters attacking US and Iraqi troops, with the bulk made up of part-time guerrillas and volunteers providing logistical support, information, shelter and money.
?People are fed up after two years without improvement,? he said. ?People are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel they have to do something. The army (dissolved by the American occupation authority) was hundreds of thousands. You?d expect some veterans would join with their relatives, each one has sons and brothers.?
With elections less than a month away, the guerrillas have launched a massive campaign of attacks against anyone linked with the coalition or the Iraqi authorities.
Yesterday, at least ten National Guardsmen were killed in the northern Sunni towns of Tikrit and Balad, and another six policemen and a civilian died"

so it's 'our catastrophe' now? what changed?

Baghdad Governor Slain by Insurgents (washingtonpost.com): "'The war's worse, the insurgency's worse,' said a senior U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly. 'This is not going to be a short fight. Nobody should think it is.'

---snip---

More than three months ago, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi asserted during a visit to Washington that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces were stable and largely peaceful. Now, in interviews, he routinely refers to the situation as "our catastrophe.""

give that guy a cigar... or is it a woman?

DesMoinesRegister.com: "This would really impress me - and the world: President Bush gives the allotted $40 million for his inauguration to the Asian countries suffering the tsunamis, and has a televised inauguration in the Oval Office with family and dignitaries.
-Jan Fleming,
West Des Moines."

The Washington Post: has a follow up on the new bush push for detention policies.

A leading Republican senator yesterday condemned as "a bad idea" a reported U.S. plan to keep some suspected terrorists imprisoned for a lifetime even if the government lacks evidence to charge them.

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for those it is unwilling to set free or turn over to U.S. or foreign courts, The Washington Post said in a report yesterday that cited intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.

Some detentions could potentially last a lifetime, the report said.

Influential senators denounced the idea as probably unconstitutional.

"It's a bad idea. So we ought to get over it and we ought to have a very careful, constitutional look at this," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, cited earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions. "There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process . . . if you're going to detain people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years," Levin said, also on Fox.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The State Department declined to comment, and a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke of the Air Force, had no information on the reported plan.

As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, defense officials told The Post.

imagine that. lack of evidence, so what in God's name are they using to hold them in the first place? and anybody who tries to muster up the gall to pass off the excuse that 'back during world war twooooo, they did it to the japanese? remind them of Rep. Matsui. God rest his soul.

The New York Times > Obituaries > Representative Robert T. Matsui, 63, Dies: "A third-generation Japanese-American, Mr. Matsui was less than a year old when he and his family were taken from Sacramento and interned. He stayed in camps until he was almost 4. In one camp, his pregnant mother contracted German measles and, as a result, gave birth to a blind daughter, Barbara. Mr. Matsui's wife, Doris, was also born in an internment camp.
When he got to Congress, Mr. Matsui helped lead the fight for compensation for the 120,000 people sent to the camps. In August 1988, President Ronald Reagan, saying he was moving to 'right a grave wrong,' signed an act that apologized for the forced relocation and established a $1.25 billion trust fund to pay reparations to those who were placed in camps and to their families."

this just makes me sick. coronation? mandate? one would think they're talking about Jesus.

Holding the Keys to Power, Tuxes if Needed (washingtonpost.com): "Second inaugurations tend to be relatively low-key affairs compared with the first go-round, but the most experienced concierge in Washington feels certain this one will be a blowout to rival its predecessor.
'We're not calling it an inauguration,' said Jack Nargil, head concierge at the Hay-Adams Hotel, as he gazed across the street at the White House last week. 'Because the president's supporters believe he has a mandate, there's going to be, in effect, a coronation.' "

enronomics strikes again!!

The New York Times > Washington > In Plan to Reduce Deficit, White House Turns to Old Projections: "WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security.
Advertisement


To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.
By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.
But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window.
The five-year plan, due in February, is likely to reaffirm previous predictions of a $217 billion surge in tax revenues in 2005, the biggest one-year jump on record, and almost $800 billion a year by 2009.
'We still believe we will see new economic growth, with revenues increasing as a share of G.D.P.,' said Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, referring to the gross domestic product. 'I think our numbers are very realistic because they are consistent with the best estimates of Wall Street and of the Congressional Budget Office.'
As in past years, the budget will exclude costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could reach $100 billion in 2005 a"

if this isn't a sign of the end, i don't know what else could be. the very fact that we have kept people, and then let them go years later, provides enough evidence that without due process, we haved turned into the very ones we fight.

Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects (washingtonpost.com): "Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations. "

for future reference. amazing how things that aren't true, become true by virtue of popularity.

DesMoinesRegister.com: "Flag facts
I read William Petroski's Dec. 12 article, 'Inmates at the Mitchellville Women's Prison Assemble Flags That Wave Over the Land of the Free,' with interest, because my book on the history of the American flag will be published June 1 by Thomas Dunne Books at St. Martin's Press.

May I offer a correction? The article says: 'More than 200 years ago, Betsy Ross helped to sew the first American flag for the Revolutionary Army.'

First, there is no credible evidence that Betsy Ross either helped to sew or that she sewed the first American flag. The Betsy Ross story is a myth, first promulgated in 1870 by a grandson and is based solely on family stories - although she was a seamstress in Philadelphia and did make flags.

Second, the Stars and Stripes was not flown by the Revolutionary Army. Aside from regimental flags, the American Army during the Revolutionary War occasionally flew the Continental Colors, also known as the Grand Union flag, a flag with 13 stripes and the British Union Jack in the canton. All of the paintings that show the Army flying the Stars and Stripes, including 'Washington Crossing the Delaware,' are incorrect. The U.S. Army did not adopt the Stars and Stripes until the Mexican War.
-Marc Leepson,

Middleburg, Va."

when will we start referring to the declaration of independence with the word "corporation" substituted for "people"?

Lowering the Bar for Government Ethics? (washingtonpost.com): "On Dec. 15, former House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman W.J. 'Billy' Tauzin (R-La.) took a job as top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Tauzin and another prominent House member had negotiated jobs for themselves while heading panels responsible for legislation that affected the lawmakers' prospective employers.
The previous week, the White House vigorously defended Bernard B. Kerik, its choice for secretary of homeland security, against conflict-of-interest allegations -- including earning $6.2 million in two years consulting for a company that did business with the Department of Homeland Security. Kerik withdrew only after more personal revelations emerged.
In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services granted a waiver to a top administration official so he could negotiate a job for himself even while working on legislation that could benefit prospective employers. Meanwhile, a Pentagon civilian official arranged a favorable contract for Boeing Co. before taking a job with the aerospace manufacturer.
Ethics and government accountability groups say these events are a sign of weakening ethical restrictions. 'We're seeing an easing of ethical standards and disclosure standards,' said Charles Lewis, who runs the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity. 'They can dress it up any way they want, but they're trying to increase the employment opportunities for their officials.'
For example, the Office of Government Ethics has proposed, and Bush supports, legislation to ease financial disclosure requirements for government officials, reducing the amount of conflict-of-interest information that candidates and their families must report. The House recently passed a version of the legislation.
In addition, the ethics o"

corrupt to the core. hypocrisy at its finest. democracy has lost another heartbeat.

House to Consider Relaxing Its Rules (washingtonpost.com): "House Republican leaders are urging members to alter one of the chamber's fundamental ethics rules, which would make it harder for lawmakers to discipline a colleague.

The proposed change would essentially negate a general rule of conduct that the ethics committee has often cited in admonishing lawmakers -- including Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- for bringing discredit on the House even if their behavior was not covered by a specific regulation. Backers of the rule, adopted three decades ago, say it is important because the House's conduct code cannot anticipate every instance of questionable behavior that might reflect poorly on the chamber.

Republicans, returning to the Capitol on Tuesday after increasing their House majority by three seats in the Nov. 2 election, also want to relax a restriction on relatives of lawmakers accepting foreign and domestic trips from groups interested in legislation before the House.
A third proposed rule change would allow either party to stop the House ethics committee from investigating a complaint against a member.
Currently, if the panel, which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, is deadlocked on a complaint, the matter automatically goes to an investigative subcommittee after 45 days. The proposed change would drop any complaint that is not backed by a majority vote to move it forward.
Government watchdog groups called the proposals startling and unjustified. If the proposed rules are adopted next week as GOP leaders suggest, they would amount to 'the biggest backtracking on House ethics rules that we have seen,' said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. "

of course bush refuses to hold him accountable. dictators never do such nasty things to each other.

Another Pass for Pakistan (washingtonpost.com): "TODAY PAKISTANI President Pervez Musharraf will break yet another of the promises he has made to his country and the world since seizing power in a 1999 military coup against an elected government. A year ago, in exchange for parliamentary support for a package of laws increasing his powers as president, extending his rule through 2007 and curtailing elected government through the creation of a military-dominated national security council, Mr. Musharraf pledged to resign from his post as Army chief of staff by Dec. 31. It was to be a modest step toward returning Pakistan to civilian rule, if not democracy. Yet now Mr. Musharraf is reneging, claiming that his continuance in uniform is essential to the country's 'unity.' He is wrong, of course -- but sadly, his chief ally, President Bush, is unwilling to hold him accountable. "

the beginning of the end of democracy. protecting criminals is not what we elected these people to do.

The New York Times > Washington > G.O.P. to Make Ethics Inquiries Harder to Begin: "WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 - In the wake of back-to-back ethics slaps at the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations and could remove the Republican chairman who presided over the admonishments of Mr. DeLay last fall."

how DARE we hold anybody republican accountable!

when you have leaders who not only turn their backs, but rather encourage such discontempt for human suffering.... this is what happens.
CNN.com - American diver underwater during catastrophe - Dec 28, 2004: "'She said she saw a lot of trash in the water. The dive master said it was really rude for people to throw trash. Then they saw large bits of debris and thought there might have been a boat crash,' Helen Wachs said.
She said her daughter didn't know what had happened until the dive master got a text message from his wife telling him about the catastrophe.
Soon they saw bodies floating past them, Wachs' mother said in an interview from Oakland, California, where she lives.
Once they returned to shore, the couple did what they could to help, Helen Wachs said.
'I can't describe carrying a moaning person who just saw his girlfriend killed down a hill in the middle of the night,' the e-mail said. 'I saw more bodies than I care to report. The hotel where we were staying is mostly gone. We lost everything, but our lives.'
Faye Wachs said she was impressed by the efforts of the Thai government and the International Committee for the Red Cross, but 'she was appalled at the treatment they got' from the U.S. government, her mother said.
At the airport in Bangkok, other governments had set up booths to greet nationals who had been affected and to help repatriate them, she said.
That was not the case with the U.S. government, Wachs told her mother. It took the couple three hours, she said, to find the officials from the American consulate, who were in the VIP lounge.
Because they had lost all their possessions, including their documentation, they had to have new passports issued.
But the U.S. officials demanded payment to take the passport pictures, Helen Wachs said.
The couple had managed to hold on to their ATM card, so they paid for the photos and helped other Americans who did not have any money get their pictures taken "

how in God's name does christmas remind our soldiers of why they are there? spreading christianity one bomb at a time? i think this provides even more proof to allegations that this war is a religious crusade.


Yahoo! News - Birth of Christ reminds US soldiers of their mission in Iraq: "BAGHDAD (AFP) - US soldiers in Iraq (news - web sites) celebrated the birth of Jesus while eating Christmas dinner in full body armour, with many explaining how the nativity story continues to motivate their mission in the war-torn country.
...
Elsewhere on the base, a few dozen soldiers filed into the austere chapel on Camp Cuervo, a base on the northeastern side of Baghdad, where three long rows of bleached pews face a big wooden cross. "

camp cuervo??? is that down the road from tequilaville?

and speaking of rewriting history.... the purge is on.

CIA removing documents from National Archives :: UnderReported.com :: Surprising stories from the media and primary sources: "[David] Geyer commented that the practice of submitting an entire FRUS [Foreign Relations] manuscript to the CIA had resulted in the reclassification of documents located at the National Archives. NARA, however, merely added these documents to the list of withdrawn items without indicating that the documents had been declassified previously. Don McIlwain noted that the Department of Energy cited the Kyl-Lott amendment as justification for reclassifying previously declassified documents. CIA reviewers, however, claimed the right to remove documents from the open files that, in their view, had never been 'properly declassified.'"

and while i'm on that page..... a perfect example of how the Dumbification Of America started. a question was asked about iraq, and rummy answers as if it was about terrorists.

DoD News: Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Parade Magazine: "Q: What it sounds like you're saying too in this process then is that we're going to need to address Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, particularly in the light of even the evidence that with inspectors Saddam continued to build his arsenal through the 1990s and now we don't know what exactly has happened. Is that going to be a top priority as well?
Rumsfeld: Those are decisions for the president, but he has been very clear that he is deeply concerned about the problem of terrorism. He is going to find terrorists and keep them out and root them out, and he's going to create an environment that suggests to countries that are harboring them that they ought to stop. "

again, rummy slips.... and hardly anybody notices (except those fine folx on DU)

DoD News: Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Parade Magazine: "Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them. "

had to snap this one before someone decided to rewrite history and remove it.
CNN.com - Transcripts: "DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And to change that way of living, would strike at the very essence of our country.

And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

And that is exactly what we cannot allow to happen. "

a couple of good letters today, actually more than 2....

Letters To The Editor:
David Yepsen's Dec. 19 column, "Welcome Pro-life Democrats," praises some in the Democratic Party for wanting to embrace pro-life candidates. Meanwhile, the blatantly anti-life American foreign policy - a policy developed and maintained by men and women from BOTH parties - remains free of any criticism.

It seems pretty hypocritical to me, but I bet there are plenty of so-called pro-lifers out there who are also - thanks to convenient rationalizations to clear their consciences - vehemently pro-war.

Perhaps this is the type of sanctimoniousness Voltaire had in mind when he quipped: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
-Steve Hosch,
Gilbert.


"This lifelong Democrat will welcome pro-lifers into our party when the Republicans welcome pro-choicers into theirs.
-Ira Lacher,
Des Moines."

like i said, the beginning of the end.

Us To Deploy New Missiles In S.Korea To Destroy WMD In N.Korea: "WASHINGTON, Dec 20 Asia Pulse - The United States will deploy missiles to South Korea in 2005 with the aim of destroying underground facilities for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in North Korea, a U.S. think tank said."

what more proof does anybody need that democracy was only an excuse that could sell the crime.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: U.S. to Take Bigger Bite of Iraq's Economic Pie: "WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (IPS) - The United States is helping the interim Iraqi government continue to make major economic changes, including cuts to social subsidies, full access for U.S. companies to the nation's oil reserves and reconsideration of oil deals that the previous regime signed with France and Russia.

During a visit here this week, officials of the U.S.-backed administration detailed some of the economic moves planned for Iraq, many of them appearing to give U.S. corporations greater reach into the occupied nation's economy.

For example, the current leadership is looking at privatising the Iraqi National Oil Company, said Finance Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi.

The government, which is supposed to be replaced after elections scheduled for January, will also pass a new law that will further open Iraq's huge oil reserves to foreign companies. U.S. firms are expected to gain the lion's share of access in a process estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

'So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprises, certainly to oil companies,' Abdel Mahdi said at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Tuesday.
{snip}
One major move the country is inching towards under U.S. guardianship, which was discussed this week, is a rollback of Iraq's huge subsidies system, which may have kept millions of Iraqis from starvation under U.S. and UK-backed sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the 1991 Gulf War.

The sanctions lasted for 12 years. A study by the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Iraq's Ministry of Health found that 500,000 more Iraqi children died under sanctions, from 1991 to 1998, than would have otherwise perished, but they stressed that not all the deaths could be directly blamed on the provisions.

It is believed that many more Iraqis would have died if not for a strong subsidies system that gave food rations to Iraqi families."

the beginning of the end.

International news from swissinfo, the Swiss news platform: "MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has successfully test-fired a mobile version of the intercontinental Topol-M ballistic missile in the last of
four test-firings before its deployment next year, Interfax news agency has reported.

Known as Russia's most sophisticated nuclear missile, it can be fitted with a single or multiple warheads and hit targets more than
10,000 km (6,200 miles) away.

The firing was part of President Vladimir Putin's plan to turn Russia, whose Soviet-era missile arsenal needs serious renewal and
financing, into a major global military and nuclear power."

thought i'd pass it along....

TOP TEN MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENTS OF 2004 ... [Media Matters for America]: "Here are the Top Ten most outrageous statements we have heard this year from members of the media. From anti-Semitic comments and attacks on women, gays, and lesbians to reprehensible acceptance of the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture, these statements are acutely representative of the conservative hate speech we found in the news media:
Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Ghraib photos: 'I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?'
Ann Coulter: '[Senator John] Kerry will improve the economy in the emergency services and body bag industry.'
Tony Blankley called philanthropist George Soros 'a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust.'
Michael Savage: 'When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. ... [T]hink only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son.'
Oliver North: 'Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States.'
Pat Robertson on gays and lesbians: '[S]elf-absorbed hedonists ... that want to impose their particular sexuality on the rest of America.'
Pat Buchanan: '[H]omosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism.'
Bill O'Reilly to Jewish caller: '[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel.'
Bill Cunningham (Clear Channel radio host who appeared as a guest on The Sean Hannity Show): The election is over because 'Elizabeth Edwards has now sung.'
Jerry Falwell: 'And we're going to invite PETA [to 'wild game night'] as our special guest, P-E-T-A -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we're going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my spe"

ABOUT FRIGGIN TIME

War Crimes (washingtonpost.com): "THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false. "

government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation....

A key wildlife protection that has governed federal forest management for more than two decades will be dropped under new regulations announced Wednesday by the Bush administration, and requirements for public involvement in planning for the country's 192 million acres of national forest will be dramatically altered.

....

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, is a former lobbyist for the timber industry, which threw its political support overwhelmingly toward Republicans in the last election cycle, donating more than $1.7 million to GOP candidates and party committees and just $380,000 to Democrats, according to data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a Virginia firm that tracks campaign contributions.

Contributors identifying themselves as working for the timber industry gave $268,552 to the Republican National Committee and another $163,321 to President Bush, records show.

Three of Bush's elite fundraisers were also top timber executives: W. Henson Moore, chief of the American Forest and Paper Assn., the industry's trade group; Otis B. Ingram III, president of a Georgia lumber company; and Peter Secchia, chairman of Universal Forest Products.

Among the first donors to Bush's 2005 inaugural committee was International Paper Co., which donated $100,000 to help pay for the festivities

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-forest23dec23,0,6614483.story?coll=la-home-headlines

DesMoinesRegister.com: "The Dec. 13 Charles Krauthammer column talked about President Bush spreading democracy in Afghanistan ('Miracle in Afghanistan'). This is a 'paper' democracy at best. Hamid Karzai is a puppet president. Warlords still rule in the regions outside Kabul. The Taliban are regaining influence and undermining reconstruction efforts. Opium production is at an all-time high. The warlord's private militias rule the country, not democracy. And, the warlords are gaining more power and influence through the sale of opium. Is this the foundation of good democracy?
-Gerald Pecinovsky,"

government for the people, by the people has turned into a government for the corporation, by the corporation.

The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer?: "What doctors were not told for years is this: While making recommendations in the name of the NIH, Brewer was working for the companies that sell the drugs. Government and company records show that from 2001 to 2003, he accepted about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing cholesterol medications, including $31,000 from the maker of Crestor.

Brewer was far from alone in taking industry's money: At least 530 government scientists at the NIH, the nation's preeminent agency for medical research, have taken fees, stock or stock options from biomedical companies in the last five years, records show."

another lie. tell the people what they want to hear, and make them think you meant what you said. when did actions start to not speak louder than words?

Mourning in Mosul By Eric?Umansky: "Meanwhile, while everybody notes that the White House promised that there will be an investigation. But TP doesn't see the papers mention a related point: There has been no independent or overarching investigation of the abuses, and the administration has opposed the creation of one. (The Post reported that back in May...on pg. A14.)"

what would one expect from a bunch of ex-enronites running our government?

GAO Again Finds Fault With the Federal Books (washingtonpost.com): "The U.S. government's financial record-keeping is so inadequate that congressional auditors said last week that they could not determine whether the federal books meet generally accepted accounting principles.
It was the eighth fiscal year in a row that the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, was unable to provide a definitive opinion on the quality of the federal government's consolidated financial statements. "

we got soldiers getting punished for following a presidial order.... what else is needed to make America wake the fuck up and smell the stench?

American Civil Liberties Union : FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques: "NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as 'torture' and a June 2004 'Urgent Report' to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. "

we got soldiers getting punished for following a presidial order.... what else is needed to make America wake the fuck up and smell the stench?

American Civil Liberties Union : FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques: "NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as 'torture' and a June 2004 'Urgent Report' to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. "

Newsday.com - AP News: "NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- The Social Security Administration is rejecting marriage documents issued for heterosexual couples in four communities that performed weddings for gay couples earlier this year.

The agency "

so TIME magazine named bush as man of the year. to see what distinction that brings, one should read this

the feel-good story of the year.

wanna bet that the Hamanns aren't republican?

DesMoinesRegister.com: "It's the talk of the town: Richard and Donna Hamann will pay the December electric bill for every person, school and business within the city limits of Anthon.

The city clerk is busily calculating the final amount, but it's likely to be just under $30,000.

'My little philosophy is everything I have is a gift from God and what I do with it is my gift to God,' said Richard Hamann, a retired cattle farmer born and raised in the northwest Iowa community.
Hamann, 75, wanted to build a $1 million wind turbine on his land and donate it to Anthon. The turbine would have covered a third of the town's electrical needs, but the city's contract with its power provider, Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative, wouldn't allow it without a hefty penalty.

So Hamann figured the least he could do was pick up a month's tab for the town of 650."

DesMoinesRegister.com: "Democrats have the moral answers, Republicans only offer moral rhetoric.
-Bill Gluba,
Davenport."

we have not only leaders who are incompetent, but also journalists who are key to making sure we do.

Slate's Today's Papers: On Monday, USAT's lead say Army National Guardsman in Iraq were a third more likely to be killed than their active-duty brethren. Yesterday, USAT said—again on Page One—that the military gave the paper the wrong numbers, and couldn't provide new ones. This morning's USAT does have the revised numbers, which show that Army National Guardsmen are less likely to be killed than active duty GIs. That walk-back is stuffed on page two.

the perfect thing to see in the morning over coffee.

DesMoinesRegister.com: "To future generations: When you wonder how your elders could have allowed the federal deficit to skyrocket in just three years, question the integrity of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, don't understand why individual freedoms slowly eroded and can't afford to travel to Europe because of a weak dollar, remember one phrase: good moral values.
-Jane E. Brown,
Granger."

nauseating to say the least.

Medal of Freedom: "President Bush is awarding the nation's highest civilian honor today to three men who were central to his Iraq policy. At a White House ceremony, Bush will present the Medal of Freedom to former CIA chief George Tenet, former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer and retired General Tommy Franks. Tenet left the CIA in July after seven years as director. He's been criticized for intelligence lapses leading to Nine-Eleven, but provided the president with evidence to back his case for ousting Saddam Hussein. Bremer oversaw creation of the interim Iraqi government -- and disbanding of the Iraqi army. Just yesterday Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer called the army move a mistake. Franks was the four-star Army general who commanded the US invasion force. After retiring, he endorsed Bush for re-election and campaigned on the president's behalf. "

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: December 12, 2004 - December 18, 2004 Archives:

They seem to be stipulating to their knowing about and being untroubled by a) Kerik's long-standing ties to an allegedly mobbed-up Jersey construction company (see yesterday's piece in the Daily News and tomorrow's in the Times), sub-a) that Kerik received numerous unreported cash gifts from Lawrence Ray, an executive at said Jersey construction company (Ray was later indicted along with Edward Garafola, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's brother-in-law, and Daniel Persico, nephew of Colombo Family Godfather Carmine "The Snake" Persico and others on unrelated federal charges tied to what the Daily News called a "$40 million, mob-run, pump-and-dump stock swindle." b) that Riker's Island prison became a hotbed of political corruption and cronyism on his watch, c) that he is accused by nine employees of the hospital he worked at providing security in Saudi Arabia of using his policing powers to pursue the personal agenda of his immediate boss, d) that a warrant for his arrest (albeit in a civil case) was issued in New Jersey as recently as six years ago, e) that as recently as last week he was forced to testify in a civil suit in a case covering the period in which he was New York City correction commissioner, in which the plaintiff, "former deputy warden Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman [Kerik was allegedly having an affair with], Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero," or f) his rapid and unexplained departure from Baghdad.

as i am unwilling to land on the journal's site, i'll just take TP's word for it (they're rarely ever wrong). because everything about this administration is straight up bushit.

Diss-information By Eric?UmanskyThe Journal notices inside that six months after the White House disavowed a Justice Department memo that essentially justified torture, the administration has not gotten around to giving intel agencies and the military a new set of legal guidelines for interrogations. Apparently, some in the administration don't think it's worth the potential trouble. "The question is," said one official, "Why do people have to write opinions about how far you can go?"

the people are beginning to see why us 'leftists' were screaming.

DesMoinesRegister.com: "Regarding the Dec. 9 article, 'Rumsfeld Encounters Some 'Friendly Fire' ': As a father of an Army soldier who put his life on the line for W's father in the Persian Gulf War and is still on active duty, it appalls me to hear this representative of our government tell our troops to more or less suck it up and go out and get killed because this administration has squandered the money that was supposed to be used to protect you.
The show of such low regard for their lives sure doesn't sound like they are supporting our troops. I hope Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doesn't have one of those 'Support Your Troops' stickers on his armored vehicle.

-Staff Sgt. Billy Dunbar,
Patterson.
***
When Donald Rumsfeld says, 'You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time,' he seems to have forgotten that the United States was not forced into action. We selected the time. We selected the place. We selected the equipment. Mistakes were made, and key figures in this administration continue to ignore or deny that fact. Rumsfeld often responds to questions from reporters with patronizing half-truths. That is annoying. When he does the same to questions addressed to him from soldiers in the field it is inexcusable.

-David Ketcher,
Des Moines.
***
The image of U.S. soldiers scavenging in trash dumps for makeshift armor is appalling. Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the administration chose to go to war pre-emptively with the Army they had. The United States had not been attacked. The administration could have chosen to wait until it did have the Army it wanted.

-Ruth Anne Petrak,
Des Moines.
***
If you think back, 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' ended with a cute "

wanna bet that the insurgency would disappear if only bush would announce an immediate withdrawal?

they're alllllll liars, cheats & thieves.

White House Puts Blame on Kerik (washingtonpost.com): "Giuliani, who recommended Kerik for the post, also called the White House yesterday and apologized. "

and then from the nytimes:

"I never had a conversation in which I vouched for him or was asked about this issue or any other issue," Mr. Giuliani said.

and there's more juice at the daily news where they delve into just how much of a crook this guy really is.

for future reference. the TP database

proof that those in control of our government will do whatever the hell they please, until someone finds out.

Citing Personnel Reasons By Sam?Schechner: "Everyone leads their final editions with what appears to be a classic late-Friday news dump: Bernard Kerik pulled the plug on his nomination to head Homeland Security last night, citing 'personal reasons' that he later clarified were of an illegal nanny variety. 'I personally apologize to you for not having focused on this earlier,' Kerik wrote President Bush in a letter the White House released. Later, Kerik released a statement in which he says he'd just discovered two days ago that a nanny under his employ may have been an illegal immigrant and that her payroll taxes had, uh, somehow gone unpaid.
The papers more or less swallow this two-day timeline, although the New York Times ominously notes that the nanny was sent packing to her unspecified home country two weeks ago, and the Washington Post says White House officials found it suspicious that Kerik was not aware of any potential problem. No word on whether they might have been aware.
In fact, the papers are shy about speculating that the nanny might be a smokescreen (as suggested by Slate's Mickey Kaus), but everyone winkingly recaps the growing list of news accounts that have been dogging Kerik in recent days?from his questionable relationship to a company that produces Taser guns to his less-than-stellar stint supervising police training in Iraq. The Los Angeles Times cites recent a Newsweek profile that mentions how he bought the NYPD four $50,000 security doors that were too heavy to be installed and later became an advisor to the company that sold them. Last night, Newsweek also reported that it had unearthed an old arrest warrant for Kerik and faxed it to the White House just a couple hours before the withdrawal announcement."

this should really be filed in the Quote of the Day series... but i'll keep it here since it basically sums it all up rather nicely:

Democratic Underground Forums - This is great. We can't take back our country until we take back our: "'Look, if a liberal is someone who wants clean air instead of subsidies for polluters, if a liberal is someone who thinks every child in America regardless of race, religion, or wealth deserves a free quality education, deserves free first rate health care, deserves economic opportunities, and safe neighborhoods, if a liberal believes that our government should stop rewarding corporations for polluting and tax evasion and fraud and outsourcing jobs and stealing from electric ratepayers in California and stealing worker's pensions, then YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I'M A LIBERAL.'"