The evidence continues to pile up... the investigations in Congress are showing a clear pattern of corruption from the GOP. This is the kind of stuff I would expect from Organized Crime, not a political party.


Source: http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1362
Monday, June 18, 2007
Administration Oversight, White House Use of Private E-mail Accounts

The Use of RNC E-Mail Accounts by White House Officials

The Oversight Committee has been investigating whether White House officials violated the Presidential Records Act by using e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee and the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign for official White House communications. This interim staff report provides a summary of the evidence the Committee has received to date, along with recommendations for next steps in the investigation.

The information the Committee has received in the investigation reveals:

The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a “handful of officials” had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to “50 over the course of the administration.” In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. The officials with RNC e-mail accounts include Karl Rove, the President’s senior advisor; Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff; Ken Mehlman, the former White House Director of Political Affairs; and many other officials in the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Communications, and the Office of the Vice President.

White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.

There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. Rove’s former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account “frequently, daily.” In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush’s first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006.

There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In her deposition, Ms. Ralston testified that she searched Mr. Rove’s RNC e-mail account in response to an Enron-related investigation in 2001 and the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later in the Administration. According to Ms. Ralston, the White House Counsel’s office knew about these e-mails because “all of the documents we collected were then turned over to the White House Counsel’s office.” There is no evidence, however, that White House Counsel Gonzales initiated any action to ensure the preservation of the e-mail records that were destroyed by the RNC.

The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

The evidence obtained by the Committee indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements. At this point in the investigation, it is not possible to determine precisely how many presidential records may have been destroyed by the RNC. Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.

There are several next steps that should be pursued in the investigation into the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials. First, the records of federal agencies should be examined to assess whether they may contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC. The Committee has already written to 25 federal agencies to inquire about the e-mail records they may have retained from White House officials who used RNC and Bush Cheney ’04 e-mail accounts. Preliminary responses from the agencies indicate that they may have preserved official communications that were destroyed by the RNC.

Second, the Committee should investigate what former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales knew about the use of political e-mail accounts by White House officials. If Susan Ralston’s testimony to the Committee is accurate, there is evidence that Mr. Gonzales or counsels working in his office knew in 2001 that Karl Rove was using his RNC e-mail account to communicate about official business, but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove’s official communications.

Third, the Committee may need to issue compulsory process to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign. The campaign has informed the Committee that it provided e-mail accounts to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the Committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

Breaking News: Judiciary Committee votes to restore Habeus Corpus

This is great news! Putting the Democrats back in control of Congress is paying off! This is specifically because the Democrats now control the agenda. This would never have even been considered if the Republicans remained in power. The Nation has the story:

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.

Habeas corpus was revoked by last year's Military Commissions Act, which has been assailed as unconstitutional and un-American by leaders across the political spectrum.

Today's vote means the habeas bill can now be brought to the Senate floor at any time. One source with knowledge of the legislative plan said Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to bringing the bill to a vote within the month.

The Republicans, who are politically reeling from the backlash to their draconian rule, are desperately trying to spin this to make themselves look better but they are insulting the intelligence of everyone who can remember past November 2006.

Today's habeas bill was backed by the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Chairman, Patrick Leahy, and its Republican Ranking Member, Arlen Specter. "The drive to restore this fundamental right has come from both sides of the aisle," said Sharon Bradford, an attorney at the bipartisan Constitution Project, in response to today's vote. "Restoring America's commitment to the rule of law is not a partisan cause; it is a patriotic one," she added.

The President Implicated!!!

This is some of the most dramatic footage to come out of the investigations into the US Attorney scandal so far. This is former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testifying before Congress about the time Alberto Gonzales tried to illegally pressure a gravely ill John Ashcroft into signing off on the illegal wiretapping program after he had transferred his authority to James Comey.

Conservatives Never Take Responsibility For Themselves

Here is another example of what I have been saying for years, that Conservatives do not believe in responsibility and will do everything they can to avoid taking responsibility for their decisions and actions.

Wolfowitz Blames Media For Resignation

May 28, 2007 06:05 AM EST

LONDON — Departing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz in a radio interview broadcast Monday blamed an overheated atmosphere at the bank and in the media for forcing him to resign.

Wolfowitz, who has announced he will step down June 30, denied suggestions that his decision to leave was influenced by an apparent lack of support from the bank's employees.

"I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."

Wolfowitz said that he was pleased the bank's board accepted that he had acted ethically, and in good faith in his handling of a generous compensation package for his girlfriend and bank employee Shaha Riza in 2005.

"I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about," he said.

By tradition, the United States _ the bank's biggest financial contributor _ names an American to run the institution.

Wolfowitz's departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

Gee Wolfie, you don't think the fact the Bank's employees hate you could have had anything to do with the fact you were showing favoritism to your girlfriend by giving her promotions and $60,000 raises, do you?

No, of course you don't...

John Stewart Distills the Essense of Gonzo-Gate

I like the comments of the guy who posted this video on youtube.

Even though he won't admit it, I think Jon Stewart understands the workings of our government more than most in the media. He has to understand it so much more than the average reporter. He not only needs to know what's going on, but has to comprehend it on a level that allows him to find humor in it.

Stewart Dissects Goodling's Testimony

The Corporate Media is Officially Useless

This makes me SO furious!

Monica Goodling got in front of Congress the other day and stated that Tim Griffin engaged in Caging of black votes in Arkansas during the 2004 Presidential election and that she had informed her superiors about it! That means Gonzo, McNulty and Kyle Sampson all lied when they claimed they didn't know anything about it.

As John Conyers pointed out it is becoming clearer and clearer that the White House was pulling strings in the Justice Department to use them for unethical, partisan political purposes.

If you are unaware, Caging is an illegal voter supression tactic that investigative reporter Greg Palast of BBC News has been reporting on for years. According to his investigations, the Republican party engaged in caging back in 2000 and again in 2004.

Monica just confirmed that in sworn testimony in front of Congress!!!
That is the ultimate smoking gun!

She also stated that she believed she had broken the law ("crossed the line of the law" was the actual phrase) in using partisan tests for positions within the Justice Department.

But what did CBS News decide to report?

They simply copied a report from the Ultra-Rightwing website, National Review, who's Orwellean headline read, "No Smoking Gun from Goodling"

Bush's Latest Attack On the Constitution

This is scary. This went by pretty much ignored by the mainstream media. The President has created a mechanism by which he could take control of the entire federal government.

On May 9th, President Bush issued a Presidential Directive (NSPD 51) that redoes the Continuity of Government in case of an emergency (as if the Constitution did not already address that).

The purpose of the directive:

This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.

There were two alarming things that jumped out at me when I first read this.

First there was this (emphasis mine) :

"Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely effecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;

Notice the use of the word "or". That means there does not have to be "mass casualties" or "damage" and the highlighted part means it doesn't have to happen here in the U.S.

That means that something that happens overseas, like in Iraq for instance, which merely disrupts our economy (such as OPEC raising the price of oil), would be enough for the President to invoke this and take control of the U.S. Government.

Then there is the key to this whole thing and what makes it so dangerous in my mind:

"Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;

This puts the President in charge of the entire federal government and subordinates the other branches beneath him, which is the ultimate enactment of the Republicans' "Unitary Executive" theory, which has until now been considered unlikely because it is blatently unconstitutional.

But since when has Bush ever cared about the Constitution?

I am forcibly reminded of the character Palpatine in Star Wars, who becomes Emperor after tricking the Senate into granting him "emergency powers".

With hurricane season coming up and scientists predicting a busy hurricane season, we might see this enacted sooner than anyone feared.

What happens if we have another Katrina and Bush decides to enact this? What would we do to restore the Constitution?

I spent the better part of this morning on the phone with the offices of my representatives and with the offices of the chairs of certain committes and apparently none of them were even aware the President had issued this directive. Everyone I spoke to and directed to the white house website to read this were just as alarmed as I am.

I urge everyone who reads this and understands why this should be alarming to everyone to contact their representatives in Congress at 866-220-0044.

Bush Picks a Scapegoat...er, War Czar

It appears that Dumbya has finally found someone dumb enough to take the fall for his bad decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The poor schmuck in question is Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute. He has already been overseeing combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but now he gets to take all the responsibility for the decisions made by the Commander in Chief.

Is this Bush trying to outsource his own position as Commander in Chief?

As I said before, it seems he doesn't wanna be a "war president" anymore.

The Mother's Day Proclamation - a reading

This is well worth watching! It is a short history of Mother's Day and a reading of the proclamation.



http://mothersdayforpeace.com/

The Mother's Day Proclamation

In America, Mother's Day came about after the Civil War, mostly because of two women Julia Ward Howe, a Northern Poet who is also known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and Anna Reeve Jarvis, a Southerner who worked through the civil war to improve sanitary conditions and treat wounded from both sides. She also worked to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors after the war. Both women were devout pacifists and anti-war activists. Julia Ward Howe was one of the first to call for a "Mother's Day" in her Mother's Day Proclamation.

The Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,

Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace,

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Tom Tomorrow - Great Moments in Punditry

Tom Tomorrow nails it again with this great exclusive cartoon he posted to Huffingtonpost.
Using nothing more than than the facts, he exposes the rightwing's kneejerk support for the Bush Administration's lies. The fact he is reinforcing is that the Left has been absolutely correct about the invasion of Iraq all along. The right has been dead wrong about every important point along the way.

The 1st Democratic Presidential Debate

Ok, first thing I want to say is, Mike Gravel for President!

I consider myself quite the civics nerd and I had never heard of Mike Gravel before. He is a former Senator from Alaska whom I had no idea was even running for President. He was fantastic! It was like an actual person found their way up there on stage with all the manufactured creations of our media driven political system. It was like their outspoken uncle was up there on stage calling bullshit on all of them. He managed to make Dennis Kucinich look like a moderate! Thank God for that! I fully support Congressman Kucinich's effort to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. I think there is overwhelming evidence to support this action and it is long overdo. It is simply the right thing to do, morally and politcially.

I especially loved it when Mr. Gravel was asked a question about who he felt was the biggest threat to America and he called out the entire Military Industrial Complex for perpetuating a state of fear and all the other cantidates for being complicit in perpatuating it. He even brought up that this was exactly what President Eisenhower warned us about! And he was right!

The Media are going to call him a nut and claim he is on the "fringe" but in my opinion Mike Gravel is absolutely right. I think he represents a large portion of Americans who seem to have no voice and no representation in the new America.

Mike Gravel's contempt for the people he was sharing the stage with was palpable and some are going to suggest it was inappropriate or out of line, but the thing is, I share it. When he contemptuously waved his arm at them as he was speaking, I could empathize more with Mike Gravel and his frustration with the whole system than with anyone else on stage. He was speaking that way because he is the extreme underdog and he knows it. When people like me have never heard of him before, you know that he is a longshot. He knows perfectly well that he has no chance in hell and you can feel the rightous anger and frustration at this system which favors certain concentric inner circles of power among politics, media and wealthy special interests.

Ok, that said, I have a couple other comments about the other cantidates. First, I was impressed by Hillary Clinton. She seemed very sincere. I realized something while watching her. Even though she is not my favorite cantidate by a long shot, I realized that she would still be far superior to George W. Bush.

I thought Joe Biden's one word answer to the question of whether he had the discipline to limit his verbocity... was brilliant.

The Media is making a big deal of Barak Obama's reaction to being confronted by Dennis Kucinich about funding the war. He was strong and very diplomatic. He came off very "Presidential". But personally, I agreed with Dennis Kucinich, they didn't have to fund the war. They could have ended it now by voting no but they all perpetuated it anyway because they were afraid of supposed political repercussions.

All in all it was a very cordial event, with no major attacks against each other to speak of.
The overall impression I got, which was noticably different from usual, was that it was a Democratic Party unified, for now at least, and organized against George W. Bush and his lack of a strategy for Iraq.

What would Barbara Jordan say about Bush?

I was over at AmericanRhetoric this morning, listening to the top 100 speeches of all time and I listened to Barbara Jordan's statement to the House Judiciary Committee's panel to impeach Richard Nixon. That woman was larger than life. She was intelligent, articulate and tough as nails. I wonder if she was any inspiration for the DC Comics character Amanda Waller.

We could really use Barbara Jordan today. If she were still around I imagine her address to Mr. Conyers or Mr. Waxman might sound something like this:

"Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?" "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men." And that's what we're talking about. In other words, [the jurisdiction comes] from the abuse or violation of some public trust.

It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers -- and the judges the same person.

We know the nature of impeachment. We've been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the executive if he engages in excesses. "It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men." The framers confided in the Congress the power if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive.

The nature of impeachment: a narrowly channeled exception to the separation-of-powers maxim. The Federal Convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term "maladministration." "It is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention: "We do not trust our liberty to a particular branch. We need one branch to check the other."

"No one need be afraid" -- the North Carolina ratification convention -- "No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity." "Prosecutions of impeachments will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community," said Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, number 65. "We divide into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused." I do not mean political parties in that sense.

The drawing of political lines goes to the motivation behind impeachment; but impeachment must proceed within the confines of the constitutional term "high crime[s] and misdemeanors." Of the impeachment process, it was Woodrow Wilson who said that "Nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction; but nothing else can."

Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: Appropriations, Tax Reform, Health Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform, Housing, Environmental Protection, Energy Sufficiency, Mass Transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.

At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the actions the President has engaged in. Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention. "If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached."

We have heard time and again that the evidence reflects President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney had known ties to former lobbyist and convicted felon, Jack Abramoff. We know that the White House had over 200 contacts with Mr. Abramoff to discuss matters related to the lobbying activities of Mr. Abramoff. We know that Mr. Cheney met with the heads of the oil companies as part of his Secret Energy Task Force and almost immediately thereafter we invaded and occupied a critical oil producing country and the oil companies began seeing record windfall profits. We know that convicted criminal Scooter Libby was a close confident of Vice President Cheney and it is widely understood that Mr. Libby is protecting Mr. Cheney and in return President Bush is expected to pardon Scooter Libby at any time before the end of his term as President. The words are: "If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached."

Justice Story: "Impeachment" is attended -- "is intended for occasional and extraordinary cases where a superior power acting for the whole people is put into operation to protect their rights and rescue their liberties from violations." We know about the Patriot Act. We know about the secret invasions of our homes. We know about the warrentless wiretapping. We know about the loss of Habeas Corpus. We know about the loss of Posse Comitatus. We know about the Secret Prisons. We know what they did to American citizens like Jose Padilla. We know about the water-boarding, the sensory deprivation, the isolation, the stress positions and the dogs. We know about the Military Commissions Act. We know that George W. Bush has led the greatest attack upon our Constitutional Liberties in the history of our nation.

The Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable "who behave amiss or betray their public trust." Beginning shortly after the attacks on September 11th, 2001 and continuing to the present time, the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to mislead the people and Congress of the United States into invading and occupying the sovereign nation of Iraq. Moreover, the President and Vice President have made public announcements and assertions bearing on alleged connections between the attacks of 9-11 and the nation of Iraq and on alleged attempts by Iraq to purchase “yellowcake” from Niger, which the evidence will show they knew to be false. These assertions, false assertions, impeachable, those who misbehave. Those who "behave amiss or betray the public trust."

James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet this President has unlawfully wiretapped millions of Americans without warrants. This President has willfully disregarded numerous laws, including the Federal Information and Surveillance Act and the Presidential Records Act. This President has imposed partisan, political litmus-tests on the Justice Department, crippling its ability to function with credibility. This President has taken American citizens off the streets and held them in violation of their constitutional rights. This President has allowed the torture of American citizens. This President has declared, through speech and through signing statements, that he has the personal prerogative to ignore the Constitution and the laws of the land when he sees fit. "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."

If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 21st-century paper shredder.

Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That's the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

My Thoughts About the Virginia Tech Shootings

Of course it is a tragic situation and my prayers go out to the families of the victims and the students and faculty at Virginia Tech.

That said, to put this in some context, 33 people were killed and this was the worst civilian shooting in the history of the country.

However the day before in Iraq, 43 people were killed in a bombing in Baghdad. Over 60 people alltogether were killed in Iraq that day.

And that was a normal day in Iraq.

The shock and horror we feel at the situation at VT is a daily occurance in Iraq and yet we Americans seem to be completely desensitized to that. Only when it happens in our own backyards, to our own Children does this kind of violence actually, finally touch us.

Anyone who knows me knows that I consider the Amish in Lancaster, PA to be a great example of how real Christians should react in the face of a tradegy like this.

I am reminded of something Bobby Kennedy said when he spoke to a crowd from the back of a pickup truck on a street corner in Indianappolis, IN the day Martin Luther King was shot. He quoted the poet Aeschylus:

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

Joe Biden Really Know His Stuff On Iraq

This Video of an interview with Joe Biden really highlights the fact that he knows what he is talking about regarding Iraq. He makes some really interesting points. He continues his call to decentralize the Iraqi government.

Biden suggests that there are only four realistic possibilities for Iraq:

1. Let them fight it out until one side kills or defeats the other.
2. Impose a dictator on Iraq. (ultimate irony)
3. Occupy Iraq for at least a generation.
4. Seperate the Parties. Give them some breathing room and autonomy to pacify them. (Most importantly, give them JOBS. Start allowing Iraq to invest in Iraq instead of giving it's oil industry's profits to foriegn multinational corporations.)

I think he is spot on. I believe that in the end, it will be one of those four things that happens.

George Doesn't Wanna Be a War President Anymore

It looks like Dubya doesn't have any confidence in his ability as Commander in Chief either!

He appears to be trying to outsource his position as Commander in Chief to some other poor schmuck.

He says he is looking for a "War Czar".

Wisely, nobody has taken him up on his offer to become the scapegoat for Bush's failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maybe John Murtha should volunteer for the position and then just impliment the plan he has been suggesting for 2 years (and that the Iraq Study group agreed with).

Halliburton Doing Business in Iran???

So I read this story the other day, Halliburton Closes up Shop in Iran.
I know... What the hell?
What was Halliburton doing in Iran in the first place?!? Isn't Iran part of the supervillan group, the "Axis of Evil"? So at the same time that they are supposed to be supporting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Halliburton was also doing business with The Axis of Evil??!?

Talk about playing both sides.

So then the thought hits me... why are they leaving now?

Do they know something?

What are they using Iran to distract us from?

Firstly, could it have anything to do with the five Iranian Diplomats that we "arrested" back in December and are still holding? That's one theory.

Could it be from the fact that the Taliban has regrouped in Afghanistan and is making a resurgence?

The Corporate Media are making a big deal about Iran capturing 15 british sailors, but they are pardoning them and sending them home.

What they are not reporting is that the Taliban in Afghanistan captured 3 British "spies" and hung them.

Why aren't they reporting that story? My guess is that they don't want Americans reminded that the Taliban has made a resurgence in Afghanistan. They don't want Americans realizing that while we have been distracted by Iraq, Afghanistan is also slipping through our fingers.
News about Afghanistan is generally eclipsed by Iraq in the American corporate media. One has to wonder if it is coincidence that all this rhetoric about Iran happens to coincide with the resurgence of the Taliban in Afganistan.

Perhaps we are surging in the wrong place.

Perhaps our attention should return to the real war on terror for a while.

John McCain's "Dukakis in a Tank" Moment

John McCain, in a desperate quest for political power, endangered the lives of 100 U.S. Soldiers so he could put on a shameless spectacle, wandering around an open air market outside the green zone, surrounded by 100 solders, 3 Blackhawks and 2 Apache Gunships, all to convince the Fox News viewers that the escalation in Iraq is making things safer.



CNN's Michael Ware, who has been the correspondent in Baghdad for years, completely refutes John McCain's claims in this video.

John McCain's credibility on Iraq is shot after this disgraceful stunt.

You really want to prove how safe it is John?

Put on your bulletproof vest and go for a walk with only a couple guys instead.

Better yet, do it like the Reporters do every day, with you, a cameraman and maybe one or two Bodyguards. Thats it. No Blackhawks, sorry.

Lets see how safe it really is.