"Seriously, folks! How much longer will our country allow its elected (by hook and/or crook) officials, prominent religious and/or social issues leaders, and our national media to lie, inveigle, and obfuscate with impunity? "
--Delilah Boyd
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on edit: God i luv her writing style.
on second edit: YOU REALLY MUST READ HER IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN FOR THE SHEER TRUTH OF IT.
I am an independent voter, but a voter all the same, becoming incensed at the appalling lack of enforcement concerning improper kickbacks received by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. People are acting as if this is some kind of partisan witch-hunt, but we are talking about two leisure trips valued at $127,000.
How can anyone spend that kind of money on a golf outing without even asking who was footing the bill? Isn't that equal to the better part of a congressman's yearly salary? How could you grab that much candy without having to make some deal with the devil selling the votes of your constituents to benefit one lobbyist's personal interests?
If that kind of handout is common, then we need the U.S. Department of Justice doing the ethics investigations, not members of Congress.
Delay seems to think the questions are personal, but being an elected official, he should answer to all Americans regardless of political belief. That should be the standard for all elected officials.
The esteemed former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon should be a model. He was known for refusing lobbyist perks so in no way could it be misconstrued that he possibly "sold" his vote to anyone.
-William Arndt,
Remsen.
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A multimillion-dollar ad campaign blames Democrats for the fact that "courtrooms sit empty." In fact, there are now half as many judicial vacancies as when Bush took office. And of the 46 federal judgeships that remain vacant, Bush has named only 16 replacements.
The ad also says cases are being delayed in federal courts for "thousands of Americans." Actually, official statistics show cases typically being decided more quickly now than they were in 1999, when it was Republicans opposing Clinton's judicial nominees.
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First, many educated people seem to be getting their news from Comedy Central. Say what? As any author will tell you, the best TV book shows to be on have long been Don Imus, Charlie Rose, C-Span, Tim Russert on CNBC, "Today," Oprah and selected programs on CNN, Fox and MSNBC. They are all still huge. But what was new for me on this tour was the number of people who also mentioned getting their news from Jon Stewart's truly funny news satire, "The Daily Show." And I am not just talking about college kids. I am talking about grandmas. Just how many people are now getting their only TV news from Comedy Central is not clear to me - but it is a lot, lot more than you think.
One "senior intelligence official" told the Times the satellite images of North Korea show evidence of "everything you need to test. We've never seen this level of activity." Pyongyang has never tested a bomb before, and the possibility exists that North Korea is just playing to the cameras. Meanwhile, the Times cites three U.S. officials who vouched for the existence of the intel. But the paper adds, interestingly, that officials at one U.S. intel "said they were unaware of the new activity."
B-2 bombers, F-15E fighters in Guam, Aegis ships in JapanThe U.S. military is beefing up its military capabilities in the Pacific by deploying high-tech aircraft and Navy vessels amid worsening assessments of the prospects of an early solution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and F-15E fighter jets were deployed in Guam recently on a rotation basis. Experts noted the bombers and fighters have the range to strike North Korea's nuclear facilities and high-profile stocks of missiles in the event of any conflict.The U.S. military plans to introduce two newer Aegis combat system vessels in Japan this summer, replacing one Aegis-equipped vessel and another old destroyer, making the total number of Aegis-equipped warships seven.
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There’s a backstory that lurks behind Bush’s decision to stand by DeLay. It involves Greenberg Traurig, the firm that employed the powerful lobbyist who paid for palatial DeLay junkets, and Abramoff staffers, who were footsoldiers in the Florida recount. Greenberg Traurig has yet to receive more than $314,000 in legal fees charged to a Bush committee during the 2000 Florida recount, RAW STORY can confirm.
As a corporation, Greenberg’s unpaid tab represents a massive in-kind campaign contribution, far larger than anything that went unreported by DeLay. But it appears to be legal: corporations are allowed to donate any amount to the nebulous type of committee employed during the recount. It would, however, violate the committee's self-imposed $5,000 contribution limit from individual donors.
rawstory
Conservative lawmakers in Kuwait's Parliament on Tuesday created a constitutional roadblock that effectively killed a measure that would have allowed women to participate in city council elections for the first time. Hours later, the elections were called for June 2.The action eliminates any chance that women will be able to take part in elections for another four years, when city council seats are again up for grabs.
The legislation initially was passed by Kuwait's 64-member National Assembly on April 19, but in accordance with Kuwaiti law faced a second vote for ratification on Monday. But Parliament ended in deadlock on Monday when 29 members abstained and only 29 voted for it, leaving the legislation just shy of the 33 votes needed.
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The first Army investigator who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in an act of "gross negligence," but Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service.
A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the service.
General Motors blamed its first-quarter losses on health-care costs. In addition to corporate-health woes, more than 40 million Americans are without health care, drug costs are at an all-time high and there are imminent Medicaid cuts.
Health-care costs are the real crisis in the United States. Instead, our president is manufacturing a "crisis" trying to reform a Social Security system that needs only minor tweaking. Funds are available for an unnecessary war and tax cuts for the rich, but not to give basic health care, affordable medication and guarantee a minimal retirement income for working Americans.
Our president's policies are leading to an increasingly economically tiered society. All his policy decisions favor the wealthy over the poor. This is not in harmony with the so-called moral-values platform that got him elected.
-Rick Burns,
Pella.
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A Gallup poll late last year showed that only 28 percent of Americans accept the theory of evolution, while 48 percent adhere to creationism - the belief that an intelligent being is responsible for the creation of the earth and its inhabitants.
The Post's off-lead reminds that the government is a bit behind the eight ball on preparing for the possibility of a terrorist nuke attack. Apparently, public education in particular is lacking. Still, the Homeland Security's Ready.gov does have some handy tips in the event of a detonation in your city. For instance: Find yourself about a block away from the blast? "Consider if you can get out of the area."
from today's papers on slate, we get a lesson on how the administration escapes all responsibility for its actions.
Most of the papers go inside with Pvt. Lynndie England (of the leash fame) pleading guilty to abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib. Under her plea deal, she's expected to be sentenced to just a couple of years. But the interesting thing isn't the deal, it's that it almost didn't go off: As the Post flags, the judge nearly didn't accept England's plea after England said she had been ordered to pose with the prisoner and didn't know what she had done wrong. The court adjourned for a bit, England's lawyer gave her a talking to, and England returned to say her actions were "not only morally wrong but legally wrong. I had a choice, but I chose what my friends wanted me to do."
here's how the times lets the administration off the hook whenever the chimp is caught in a lie:
The general's report appears to provide a slightly different assessment than President Bush offered at a news conference last week when he said the number of American troops in Iraq would not limit Washington military options elsewhere.
Mr. Bush said he had asked General Myers, "Do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq?"
"And the answer is no, he didn't feel a bit limited," Mr. Bush said. "It feels like we got plenty of capacity."
Late Monday, a Pentagon official dismissed any serious contradiction between the president and the general. "The two comments are consistent in that no one in the military feels at all limited in the ability to respond to any contingency," the official said. "What the risk assessment discusses is the nature of the response."
Another Pentagon official emphasized that the risk assessment should be understood as a rating of the military's ability to successfully perform its mission based on a set of standards set by the Joint Staff, which is different from the broad statement of military capability given by the president at his news conference.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A photographer for a Baghdad newspaper says Iraqi police beat and detained him for snapping pictures of long lines at gas stations. A reporter for another local paper received an invitation from Iraqi police to cover their graduation ceremony and ended up receiving death threats from the recruits. A local TV reporter says she's lost count of how many times Iraqi authorities have confiscated her cameras and smashed her tapes.
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A second man overcome by manure pit gases during an incident in Clinton County last month has died, his family said.
Justin P. Faur, 23, of Teeds Grove, died Saturday at University Hospitals in Iowa City.
Faur was overcome by the gases when he tried to save Clinton County cattle farmer Dwight Johnson, 52, of Andover on April 16.
Police said Faur called 911 and then jumped into an underground pit to rescue Johnson, who later died on April 20.
"I think everybody in the area thinks Justin is a hero, and I think in our minds he was," Faur's stepfather, Dean Papke, said Monday.Officials said Faur and Johnson were in the process of draining the pit's liquefied manure when the accident happened. Neighbors said they believed Johnson went in to the pit to retrieve a chain before it got wrapped up in a pump.
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to eliminate federal estate taxes beginning in 2010. Republicans have been demonizing the so-called death tax for years.
George W. Bush said soon after taking office in 2001, "To keep farms in the family we are going to get rid of the death tax." After the election, the Bush administration searched for several weeks, not finding one family farm lost to the estate tax.
The real issue is what kind of society we want. Do we want a meritocracy, where wealth is earned, or an aristocracy, where it is inherited? U.S. wealth disparities are closer to Third World countries than other industrialized countries. Without a mechanism to break apart large fortunes, we are rapidly approaching the old European model of aristocracy.
Some very wealthy people understand the negative consequences and are against repealing the estate tax. Warren Buffet, Ted Turner and Bill Gates are among the more prominent members of this group. They argue that concentrated wealth undermines democracy by allowing a relatively small group of people power beyond their numbers. Concentrated wealth also places control of much of our nation's resources in the hands of people based on their heredity, not their merit.
These same billionaires also realize their fortunes were made possible by the system and the country into which they were born. The federal government created our banking, commerce and securities systems, along with most of the infrastructure of this country using tax dollars. Tax dollars fund medical and agricultural research, work that benefits all people.
Our society suffers when creative, intelligent, industrious people are denied the opportunity to fulfill their potential while others with much less intrinsic ability (think of Paris Hilton) are given tremendous fortunes by an accident of birth. These policies are both anti-Christian, anti-family and anti-patriotic.
-Ted Peterson,
Ames.
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THREE Scottish soldiers are facing a court martial for drug abuse at an Army base in Cyprus.
Soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers took cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy weeks after the regiment returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
An internal inquiry has been ordered after random tests turned up three positive results.
But well--placed sources in Cyprus have accused the Army of a cover-up, claiming as many as 15 soldiers gave positive samples. Insiders also claim bullying is rife in the regiment - and punishment beatings are dished out to any who dare to complain.
Documents obtained by the Record revealed that 62 Scots soldiers have gone AWOL from Cyprus in just over a year.
Sources at Episkopi Barracks, where the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusliers are based,said the drug busts had rocked a unit where morale was already low.
One insider said: 'These guys have been caught with everything from cannabis and speed to ecstasy and cocaine. How can this be safe?
Sen. Rick Santorum's visibility on the issue of judicial nominations and his passionate arguments that every nomination that comes to the Senate floor deserves an up-or-down vote has led Democrats to point out that he blocked several judicial nominations during the Clinton years. At that time, an individual senator on the Judiciary Committee could place a confidential hold on individual nominations.
In his recent speeches, Santorum has carefully stated that it is wrong of Democrats to block judicial nominees "who would otherwise have majority support" and has said that all nominees deserve a vote "when they arrive on the Senate floor."
In an impassioned speech this past week, Santorum pointed to several of President Clinton's judicial appointees that he had supported. He argued that he had deferred to Clinton because Clinton had won the presidential election and had a right to "nominate who he wants as long as they are in the mainstream."
Santorum, R-Pa., acknowledged this past week that he held up confirmation of several of Clinton's district court nominees, but he said that was a very different scenario than blocking appellate court judges, as Democrats did with 10 Bush nominees last session.
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Tony Blair had resolved to send British troops into action alongside US forces eight months before the Iraq War began, despite a clear warning from the Foreign Office that the conflict could be illegal.
A damning minute leaked to a Sunday newspaper reveals that in July 2002, a few weeks after meeting George Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Mr Blair summoned his closest aides for what amounted to a council of war. The minute reveals the head of British intelligence reported that President Bush had firmly made up his mind to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, adding that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".
from the independent
Marshalltown was where I landed up once I was released from the Iowa Boys Training School, in Eldora, IA. Marshalltown was where I learned arabic and farsi. I met Hashem Ghoulem Abdullah. He was my roommate when I went to legally change my name. I never did, but I always acted like I did. Even went to the lawyer's office, but never went to court. For all intents and purposes, I became Nehemiah Mahabuballah Mahana. Nick for short.
Marshalltown was also where I met Tree. Tree was Eddie Collier out of Des Moines. He ran a massage parlor in town, and a lady who was really in to me (more on her in a bit) put me in touch with tree after learning that tree needed a driver. i can't take capitalizing shit. let the system do it.
Pittsburgh, PA
first time - cottage 3Cherokee IA
second time - cooper hospital
Wes Etheridge
Maya Blau
Ken Walcott
I (laura bush) saw my in-laws down at the ranch over Easter. We like it down there. George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse.
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This morning Gianluca Neri, an Italian blogger from Milano, had a look at the document which was published on the net and ridiculized the whole American secret services. With a simple cut and paste from the Acrobat document into a word processor, he was able to disclose all details to the public: names, places, the name of the soldier who fired, everything...
It is actually pretty simple to recover that information. Open this PDF, select all text, copy to clipboard and paste into a regular text editor. if your version of Arcobot does not let you select the text, find the Microsoft Word document here.
i cant stop laughing at the sheer ignorance of the bushites.
State Senators Stewart Iverson, Jeff Lamberti and Larry McKibben accused Senate Democrats of lacking "the fortitude to take those tough votes."
Let's talk about fortitude. Fortitude resists the urge to respond to the heat-of-battle public reactions by running around willy-nilly and drafting micro-legislation to right every wrong, never stepping back to take a look at the entire picture and the large-scale implications of your actions.
Fortitude is admitting that you are not omnipotent, that child molestation is an inherently irrational act and that you won't make the molesters go away by threatening to kill them.
Fortitude leads instead of following.
-Kenneth Schumacher,
Iowa City.
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It seems the "trickle down" economics of Ronald Reagan, which raised the inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of earners in 1979-2000 by 184 percent and that of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 6 percent (CNN), has become the "plop down" economics of George W. Bush, with "plop" standing for Please Let's Own People.
-Irv Shrago,
Oskaloosa.
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Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." No reporter challenged Bush on the contradiction during the press conference, and only George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, noted it in the post-conference analysis.
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this will never get picked up by MSM. they're too fuckn stupid to even inquire, much less be able to report professionally about it.
AUTHORITIES at Guantanamo Bay staged interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being gathered, says a former US Army translator at the camp.
Sergeant Erik Saar told CBS television's 60 Minutes that he believed "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them."Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Sgt Saar told the program, to air on Sunday.
"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information," he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.
Sgt Saar worked at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003.
Under the hard-fought agreement, the federal deficit, which reached a record $412 billion in 2004, would fall to $383 billion in 2006 and $211 billion by 2010. Congress would be expected to shave $35 billion off the growth of entitlement programs through 2010, the first such savings since the 1997 balanced budget agreement.
Nearly a third of that total would come from Medicaid, the primary federal and state health program for the poor. At the same time, the budget makes room for $106 billion of tax cuts over five years, $70 billion of which would be protected from a Senate filibuster.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations.
It was 3-1/2 years ago that someone inadvertently dropped a checkbook onto the floor of the men's room at City Hall in Spirit Lake, sparking a criminal investigation, a state audit and two federal lawsuits.
Today, former Police Chief Dan Thomsen faces theft and misconduct charges tied to three secret bank accounts he allegedly used that contained public funds. Thomsen resigned as chief in 2002 as part of what state officials have called a potentially illegal deal with Mayor Eric Nielsen. An arraignment on the criminal charges is scheduled for Monday.
A big thistle to the Register for its April 25 poll on the death penalty ("Majority of Iowans Back Death Penalty"). By using a very leading question, the poll pushed death-penalty support higher than it really is.
Why not ask, "Given that Iowa already has life without parole, and that nonpartisan estimates put the price of executions at $2 million each, do you support the return of the death penalty to Iowa"?
State Senate Republican leader Jeff Lamberti also deserves a thistle for his insistence that the Iowa Legislature debate the death penalty this year. The media - and legislators - should focus on real issues to improve our lives rather than costly, ineffective symbols.
-Jon Krieg,
Des Moines.
The chairman of the Colorado Young Republicans was one of the people involved in a March 21 incident in which three Denver residents were forcibly removed from a speech given by President Bush because of a bumper sticker.
Jay Bob Klinkerman, leader of the state group for Republicans ages 18 to 40, admitted in an interview that he was at the gate of the Wings over the Rockies Museum when the three people were stopped.
Two of the three who were removed, Bauer and Leslie Weise, said that Klinkerman is the event volunteer who was wearing a magenta shirt and smiley-face tie that night, and told them, "Secret Service is coming down to talk to your group."
Then a man who looked and acted like a Secret Service agent arrived and threatened them with arrest. He allowed them to enter but then found them 20 to 30 minutes later and forced them to leave.
But Klinkerman, 31, of Thornton, told the Rocky Mountain News that he never said anything to Bauer and Weise about the Secret Service.
He declined to identify the man who threatened the trio with arrest.
The real Secret Service says the man who ousted Bauer, Weise and Alex Young from the president's speech was actually a Republican Party staffer. The Secret Service has told the three that the man admitted to an agent that he ousted them because they arrived in a car with a "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker.
The service is investigating that man on possible criminal charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent. He was wearing a dark suit, earpiece and lapel pin.
The Secret Service and the White House know the man's name but have refused to reveal it. The White House has said he was a volunteer "concerned that these people were coming to the event to disrupt the event."
rockymountainnews.com
an interesting tidbit from TP today
A front-page piece in USAT points out that four of the five Republicans on the ethics committee at one point or another banked checks from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's PAC. The fifth Republican on the panel has donated to DeLay's defense fund. "Recusal is pretty much an individual choice, if there's any possibility of a conflict of interest," said one Senate historian.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said on Tuesday.The number of "significant" international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed on the numbers by State Department and intelligence officials on Monday.The aides were told the surge partly reflected an increased tally of violence in India and Pakistan related to the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both countries claim, and the devotion of more manpower to the U.S. monitoring effort, which resulted in more attacks being counted overall.
Roger Ailes -- Fox News Puppet Master
Conrad Black -- Big Media Kleptomaniac
George W. Bush -- Propagandist-in-Chief
Bill Clinton -- Friend to the 1996 Telecom Act
Ann Coulter -- Ms. Wrong
Tom DeLay -- Ethics Exterminator
Michael Eisner -- Money-Grubbing Mouseketeer
Jeff Gannon/James Guckert -- White House Errand Boy
Sean Hannity -- Republican Noise Machine
Mark Hyman -- Sinclair Mouthpiece
Rush Limbaugh -- The Mound of Unsound
Michael Jackson Media Horde -- Kings of Pap
Judith Miller -- Chalabi's Secret Weapon
Bob Novak -- Prince of Darkness
Bill O'Reilly -- Lying Liar
Dan Rather -- Memogate's Front Man
Sumner Redstone -- Political Pinball Wizard
Karl Rove -- The Man Behind the Curtain
Tim Russert -- Softball Pitcher to the Powerful
Ted Turner -- Media Magnate
read the nominations yourself at freepress
