and its showing hunter going up into some fleabag hotel.
shivers went through my body watching it. reminded me so much of the whore hotel, formerlly the Amsterdam. on lexington & 26th, kitty corner from the armory.
that period deserves not only its own chapter, but probably a couple of books.
Cambria County -- In the most current issue of The New Yorker magazine, one article alleges that many of our military's most senior generals are deeply frustrated by the happenings in Iraq, but won't go public for fear they may jeopardize their career. Congressman John Murtha says he knows about these fearssource
The WSJ's Washington Wire (following the Post) notes that the Office of Government Ethics, an executive branch office charged with "preventing conflicts of interest on the part of Government employees," has a position open: Its directorship. Must be a really tough gig though. They haven't found a taker for two years.
Cal Thomas ("Bush and Rove Finally Start Playing Hardball," Nov. 16) mistakenly attributes the administration's declining poll numbers to a lack of "offense." Thomas suggests that the Bush administration "play hardball with the left" to shape public opinion. I do not find the Bush administration lacking in offense, although I suspect I am using the word differently than Thomas.attribution
I am deeply offended that the administration misled the country into going to war against a nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I am offended that oil company executives met with the vice president's staff to influence the nation's energy policy. I am offended that the Medicare prescription drug benefit law was written by the nation's pharmaceutical companies.
I am offended that tax cuts for the wealthy are more important to this administration than providing basic services to citizens and communities. It is the offensive actions of this administration that has led to declining poll numbers. It is unfortunate but not surprising that Thomas recommends a hardball strategy rather than dealing with the issues.
-Neal Westergaard, Des Moines.
Cal Thomas says, "Republicans too often compromise their ideals, hoping the Left will like them" (Nov. 20). Exactly which ideals is he talking about? Astronomical spending, ill-conceived military action, rampant cronyism, mixing church and state, lining the pockets of war profiteers, cutting food stamps for kids and elderly, or ineptitude during disaster?
-Norene Kelly, Johnston.
Regarding your call to convene a national summit on energy policy ("Convene National Summit to Chart Energy Future," Nov. 26):source
The editorial failed to mention the National Energy Policy Initiative, a non-governmental, non-partisan, foundation-funded project, and its plan for implementation. For $180 billion (less than one year in Iraq) it returns $140 billion a year to the U.S. economy, revitalizes the auto industry and eliminates oil use by 2016.
This study offers solid solutions. Every citizen should study it for themselves, and any politician who opposes implementation is fighting against American interests and should be removed from office.
-Jere Busenbarrick, Des Moines.
"Republicans took control of Congress a decade ago with promises of bringing higher ethical standards to Washington. We're still waiting."
President Bush was delivering what was called "a major speech on Iraq" on Wednesday when he mentioned a very familiar name and spoke a few somewhat familiar words.hey john, it's called cherry picking. something the bushisistas have mastered. they do it all the time to mislead you into thinking one thing, while the truth is something else.
The president was discussing the training of Iraqi security forces and, to demonstrate the success of the effort, quoted Lt. Col. Todd Wood, an Indianola native who commands the Army's 2-7 Infantry Battalion based in Tikrit.
...
Bush's speech plucked Wood's quotes from four different places in the article and made it appear to be one statement.
The quotes accurately represent Wood's view of the Iraqi soldiers that his battalion has spent the better part of a year training. It's just that Bush's speechwriters carefully avoided the chief frustration faced by the American soldiers — at least the ones in Tikrit.
BAGHDAD — A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions.--source
Once more it has been suggested that support for our troops is the same as support for the war. I served from 1968-1972. Part of my time was spent in Vietnam and part in California.attribution
The entire time was spent in opposition to the war. I was a member of an organization of active-duty officers and enlisted persons, all of whom opposed the war. We participated in marches and demonstrations opposing the war. We were very active and vocal in our opposition to the war. Yet, we were the troops.
-Arthur Behn, Des Moines.
"The people of Fallujah love Cindy Sheehan."attribution
--Farouk Abd-Muhammed, a candidate for National Assembly (Iraq)
Things have not been going well for Sens. Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin.attribution
First, Grassley received a lot of flak regarding his part in obtaining $50 million in pork for the proposed rain forest. People have discovered that a tent full of man-made trees in zero-degree weather is a poor investment.
Then Harkin was denied naming rights to a new $200 million federal building. Well, you can't really blame him, he voted for it.
But not to worry, folks. Members of the Senate voted themselves a $3,000-plus raise to soothe their sorrows. With a national debt of $27,000 for each person in the United States, they obviously thought we could afford it.
But the question remains, how and when are we going to retire this debt? You can bet the family farm that that question will not be answered before their next $3,000 raise.
-Wendell Koch, Waterloo.
"The ability to live somewhere is a right. The ability to travel is a right. Freedom from being punished twice for the same crime is a right. Freedom from being punished for a crime that is created after the fact is a right. Those rights are protected by the U.S. and Iowa constitutions — for everyone."
--Des Moines Register Editorial Board
The Post says Karl's Rove's lawyer asked Novak (no relation to that Robert) to testify because he thinks it could somehow help Rove. We're not going to have to wait long for the details: "Viveca Novak is expected to write a firsthand account after she is deposed."see what's key here? "somehow help rove" is code-speak for coverup.
BAGHDAD — Shiite Muslim militia members have infiltrated Iraq's police force and are carrying out sectarian killings under the color of law, according to documents and scores of interviews.--source
The abortion rate went down under Bill Clinton and up under George W. Bush. Clinton understood that the way to decrease abortions was to provide hope. When a poor woman gets pregnant, it is one more brick on a load she has no hope of ever carrying, one more mouth she can't feed, one more child she has no health care for.attribution
If we truly want to reduce the number of abortions, we have to provide our poor women and their children with health care and day care. (Five million more have slipped into poverty under Bush.) And we need to cover mental health as well, including treatment for drug and alcohol abuse so the baby has a chance to be healthy and the mother isn't living in despair.
-Jeff Clingan, Van Meter.
According to the police commander in the city, the 10 men allegedly involved in the assassination plot were caught with a document containing orders to carry out the killing from Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's former vice president and a man considered by many to be the leader of the insurgency. Investigators also found three car bombs, as well as other documents linking the men to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, and to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy to Osama Bin Laden.--source
Vivid images show civilians, including women and children, who had been burned alive in their homes, even in their beds. This use of chemical weapons – at the order of the Bushist brass – and the killing of civilians are confirmed by former American soldiers interviewed on camera. "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorous on Fallujah," said one soldier, quoted in the Independent. "In military jargon, it's known as Willy Pete. Phosphorous burns bodies; in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone. I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 meters is done for."read more, much more @ http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/
Powerful new evidence emerged recently that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns. Phosphorus melts the flesh down to the bone.attribution
Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud, and anyone within 150 meters is dead. As evidence, dozens of high-quality color close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelized or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.
The use of phosphorus is a betrayal of core American values, is barbarism of the first order and displays the darkness of spirit that animates this ruthless administration.
—Frank P. Belcastro, Dubuque.
I agree with Rekha Basu's column on torture ("Torture Policies Abuse Credibility," Nov. 13). We all know about the black hole at Guantanamo, and we know about the ugliness at Abu Ghraib, and reports are starting to leak out about a secret CIA gulag of interrogation cells all over the world.attribution
So, what do Republican leaders in Congress want to do? Well, they want to investigate the leak rather than the reports. Meanwhile, our President is telling us, "We do not torture," but it's sounding more like, "We do not call it torture."
—Roy Applegate, Spencer.
I've had my bellyful of articles in the Register reporting how pheasant hunters are whining and crying because they are increasingly not allowed to hunt the private farmland in Iowa. I have little sympathy for these "sportsmen" from my experiences on our farm.attribution
More than 30 years ago, I used to go hunting with my dad. He'd shoot a couple of squirrels or rabbits, just enough so Mom could pan fry them for a couple of weeks' worth of meals. He'd ask the farmer who owned the land for permission to hunt, and seldom was he denied.
The farmer knew there would be no full-scale ravaging of the wildlife since it was just the two of us — Dad shot only what we could eat. The farmer also knew there would be no vandalizing since we lived nearby and neighbors didn't — and still don't — destroy each other's property.
This relationship between farmer and hunter is long gone, and many examples prove it on our farm. We allowed pheasant hunters from the southern United States out on our land one year. They came in with a convoy of trucks and just as many dogs to run the fields for this thing they called a sport.
They didn't come just one day, but several, and "harvested" so many birds that we didn't see any pheasants for several years on our place. Since then, hunters, who haven't asked permission to hunt, have cut our fence wires, shot our "no trespassing or hunting" signs and killed our pets.
We've had trappers tie snare traps to our fence lines, only to find that the trapped animal tried to eat its leg off to get loose since the trapper didn't check snares as required by law. One morning, a kid who lost his head when a pheasant flew up shot across our highway and peppered the front right panel of my pickup. If he had shot a couple inches away from his mark, I would have been hit.
The Register's articles don't depict these particular types of experiences we have endured out here in the country, and the Department of Natural Resources really is only interested in selling the hunting licenses to shore up the budget. All the suburbanites who can afford their quarter-million-dollar homes, and those who come from out of state and have the financial means to bring in a half-dozen extended-cab pickups with purebred dogs to hunt, should surely be able to afford to lease or buy a 40-acre parcel where they don't need to care if they shoot the hell out of everything.
—Robin Crabtree, Madrid.
Sometimes I think the entire Republican party either is or has been on long term Prozac therapy, and those who are now starting to finally wake up have either stopped taking the drug or have developed a tolerance. They "had trouble pinning their current discontent on any one thing?!" Come on! Fraudulent elections didn't bother them? The Constitution stripped of its original intent, and they don't find that disturbing? Hey, Bushies! Ever hear of separation of church and state? The blurring of that boundary doesn't bother you? How about this illegal, preemptive war? Any problems with that one? And you didn't think disaster preparedness should presuppose having qualified managers in important posts in the event of an emergency? It doesn't concern you that this administration has allowed wealthy industrialists to determine the course of environmental policy? It's okay that the government commits treason, during wartime no less, by exposing the identity of one of its own covert operatives? You don't note a certain inconsistency in our engaging in a "war on terror" while condoning torture ourselves? And last but certainly not least, the administration that pledged to bring respectability back into the White House is so scandal-ridden that it makes Bill and Monica look like just another episode of "All My Children," and this seems normal to you?this was in a thread about the nytimes article where some bushies were showing signs of discontent for their fuhrer.
--source
In Germany, prosecutors are investigating both the alleged kidnapping by the CIA of one of its citizens and a number of suspicious flights into German air bases. Sweden and Norway launched investigations after similar incidents. The Dutch accused Washington of hiding its alleged use of secret prisons in Europe, and the 46-member Council of Europe told Romania to investigate reports that it was the site of such illegal detentions.source
Investigations into alleged CIA landings or flyovers are underway in Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
and they're just beautiful! from the online journal
A majority of U.S. adults believe the Bush administration generally misleads the public on current issues, while fewer than a third of Americans believe the information provided by the administration is generally accurate, the latest Harris Interactive poll finds.
While the telephone survey of 1,011 U.S. adults indicates about 64% of Americans believe the Bush administration "generally misleads the American public on current issues to achieve its own ends," opinion on the topic is clearly divided along party lines. A large majority (68% to 28%) of Republicans say the Bush administration generally provides accurate information. However, even larger majorities of Democrats (91% to 7%) and Independents (73% to 25%) think the information is generally misleading.
When asked about former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who has been indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements, more than half of U.S. adults say the situation indicates "a larger problem in the Bush administration," while 35% say it was an "isolated incident." About 82% of Democrats say it indicates a larger problem, while 70% of Republicans feel the Libby case is an isolated incident.
The latest poll also finds U.S. adults are divided on the direction they feel Mr. Bush is trying to move the Supreme Court. About 42% of those surveyed think Mr. Bush is trying to make the high court too conservative, while 44% think he is trying to make it neither too conservative nor too liberal. Only 9% believe Mr. Bush is trying to make the Supreme Court too liberal, according to the poll.
Up to $US194 billion ($263 billion) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group said.
--source
Congressmen are debating whether they can really give tax breaks to the wealthy while cutting money from programs for the poor.attribution
One legislator actually said Congress had to cut funds for the poor because that's where all the money is.
The other reasoning offered to justify cuts was that the programs were not as effective as they should be. I was just wondering how giving a struggling program even less money solves the very real problem that this person brings to society's attention?
It is not as if the money taken away is assisting the poor in another, more effective way. It's used to balance the tax breaks in the budget.
— Erin O'Hern, Johnston
for bush to continue to say that congress saw everything he saw, is astounding in the fact that amongst the other lies he has made, this one screams for impeachment.
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
and there's more
DHS Today will highlight FY05 Accomplishments in this column over the next several weeks. This week's focus is on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The top FY05 FEMA accomplishments included:--source
Hurricane Katrina: The response to Hurricane Katrina was FEMA's largest response in its history
This is the game the wingnuts play. Make a controversy where none exists or find a red herring in one that does and create such distortion and confusion that the main issue is long lost in the noise created by the uproar.NO SHIT!
US President George W. Bush planned to bomb pan-Arab television broadcaster al-Jazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror said today, citing a Downing Street memo marked "Top Secret".
--source
Thanks for printing Rick Johnson's Nov. 12 letter, "Take Out Your Dictionary." Of all the letters to the editor I've read in recent years, this sure did say a lot — especially to all those Americans that are so obsessed with attaching the words liberal or conservative to every political issue that comes up, as if there is no room for negotiation or compromise. All that does is create animosity and foil democratic discourse.
-Don Hill, Windsor Heights.
attribution
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asserted that he did not press for the US-led invasion of Iraq, as public disaffection for the US military operation there reaches new highs.--source
British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened by Britain after the war.
Militia-dominated police, who were recruited by Britain, are believed to have tortured at least two men to death in the station. Their bodies were later found with drill holes to their arms, legs and skulls.
The victims were suspected of collaborating with coalition forces, according to intelligence reports. Despite being pressed "very hard" by Britain, however, the Iraqi authorities in Basra are failing to even investigate incidents of torture and murder by police, ministers admit.
The disclosure drags Britain firmly into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings, torture and disappearances in Iraq. More than 170 starving and tortured prisoners were discovered last week in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad.
American troops who uncovered the secret torture chamber are also said to have discovered mutilated corpses, several bearing drill marks
--source
jeee, i guess all that's missing are poland's contributions.
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 $5.8 billion acquisition of a rival database software firm had been droppedas someone along the way mentioned:
While he's on his knees pretending to pray to Je$u$.
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
"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.
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
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?attribution
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.
"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
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."
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.
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.
