"If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is, then. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
George W. Bush, September 30, 2003
Now we will see if George W. Bush keeps his word or lies through his teeth again.
Army Faces Worst Recruiting Slump in Years
Sixty-million people voted for Bush just 11 months ago and we can't find another 7,000 out of that 60 million to serve their country?
Serve or shut up!
The 'staged' toppling of the Saddam statue
Jessica's big 'rescue'
The Pat Tillman lies
So much for that 'intelligent design' theory. Just think, another 6,000 years and these gorillas will be voting Republican. Another 50,000 years and they'll evolve to Democrats.
Scientists Photograph Wild Apes 'Using Tools'
September 29, 2005 10:08 p.m. EST
Matthew Borghese - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Scientists are reporting a remarkable find, as two female gorillas have been photographed "using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas."
The photos are the first time wild apes have been seen using tools.
Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, calls the find, "A truly astounding discovery."
The team goes on to say that, "Although there are reports of tool use by captive gorillas, including object throwing and use of tools in feeding, there has been to our knowledge no reported case of tool use in by wild gorillas, despite decades of field research."
Their work will be published in the Public Library of Science Biology, an online journal.
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the President his daily briefing. He
concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits in stunned silence--shocked at this uncharacteristic
display of emotion--nervously watching as the President sits slumped in his
chair with his head in his hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks...
"How many is a brazillion?"
Germany - May 10, 1933. Nazis stage the burning of 'subversive' books
We should not be banning books in this country
10 most challenged books in 2004
"The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence
"Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, offensive language and violence
"Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy and political viewpoint
"Captain Underpants" series by Dav Pilkey, for offensive language and modeling bad behavior
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, for homosexuality, sexual content and offensive language
"What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones, for sexual content and offensive language
"In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak, for nudity and offensive language
"King & King" by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, for homosexuality
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, for racism, homosexuality, sexual content, offensive language and unsuited to age group
"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, for racism, offensive language and violence
Source: American Library Association
and The Book Standard
Elian Gonzalez, now a seventh grader in Cuba
Do you remember when 1/2 the country tried to kidnap this child from his father? That 1/2 was the same 1/2 that are the hypocrites who rant about 'family values'!
By the way, did they cut off the top of the picture to hide the horns that Elian obviously would have had to have grown growing up in such a terrible place?
On September 21, the 1,900th American was killed in Iraq. As of this morning, September 29, 1,928 have been killed. Twenty-eight young American lives in 8 days.
Did you forget?
"[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down"
You have to give Bill Bennett credit. He came right out and said what every Republican thinks...
Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down"
Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
Bill 'Virtues' Bennett
From top to bottom
Bill Frist, Tom Delay, Karl Rove, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, David Safavian, Scooter Libby, Rick Santorum, John Colyandro (indicted with Delay), Warren Robold (indicted with Delay)
“the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people"
Nancy Pelosi on the 'hammer' getting hammered.
"CULTURE OF CORRUPTION" How right she is.
Hospital Skipped Its Own Patients
St. Vincent bypassed nine of its own patients to transplant organ into a Saudi national. The state medical board begins a probe of two doctors.
Surgeons at St. Vincent Medical Center bypassed nine of the hospital's own patients on a regional liver transplant waiting list before they inappropriately gave the organ to a Saudi national who ranked 52nd, hospital officials said Tuesday.
But hospital officials said they were at a loss to explain why St. Vincent staff allegedly violated basic rules governing organ transplants in the September 2003 procedure and then falsified documentation to cover up their actions.
"They have not provided us with a motivation," hospital President and Chief Executive Gus Valdespino said at a news conference, referring to the two physicians who ran the liver transplant program. The Los Angeles hospital has terminated the program's relationship with the doctors, he said, and has indefinitely suspended liver transplants.
What is clear is that the Saudi national received a liver that should have gone to a patient at UCLA Medical Center who was much higher on the transplant list. Moreover, the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia paid St. Vincent $339,000 for the Saudi patient's transplant and hospital care, plus undisclosed fees to the doctors, according to the hospital. That amount is about 25% to 30% higher than the hospital would have been paid by insurance companies and government programs.
LA Times
Tom Delay, the epitome of the corruption in the Republican Party has been indicted and will be forced to step down as House Majority Leader. Keep in mind, just late last year Republicans tried to change Congress' rule on not being able to serve in a leadership role if indicted and it was the Democrats who forced them to withdraw the change. It doesn't bother republicans to be led by criminals. After all, they're used to it.
Frist is next-then Bush and Cheney after that. Come on 2006!
"A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that likely will force him to step down as House majority leader.
DeLay, 58, also is the center of an ethics swirl in Washington. The 11-term congressman was admonished last year by the House ethics committee on three separate issues and is the center of a political storm this year over lobbyists paying his and other lawmakers' tabs for expensive travel abroad.
Wednesday's indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.
Criminals running the country
Ol'Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee sure got his fat snout into that $200 billion trough awfully quick, didn't he?
And I wonder if Bush's old buddy and former campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, will be making any money off this deal...
"The first results are in on who is set to profit from the Katrina cleanup, and - surprise - many of the firms winning major contracts have big political connections. Congressional investigators are already looking into AshBritt, a Pompano Beach, Fla., company with ties to Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour - the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. AshBritt has nabbed $568 million in contracts for trash removal. Questions have also been raised about the political connections of two other major contractors: the Shaw Group, and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Both companies have been represented by Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - although Mr. Allbaugh says he does not help any of his clients obtain federal contracts.
And there's more. An article in yesterday's Times by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon reports that more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by FEMA for Katrina work were awarded without bidding or with limited competition. The Times article even finds a federal employee - Richard Skinner, the inspector general for the Homeland Security Department - willing to go on the record with his concern, saying, "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
So are we. The government is spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars every day on rescue, relief and reconstruction along the Gulf Coast. Anyone who pays taxes in America should be concerned about how the money is being spent and who is profiting. We think that when Congress appropriates money for disaster relief, the advantage should be maximized for the victims, not for the same cast of characters that have been profiting from no-bid contracts in Iraq. Kellogg, Brown & Root, Americans may recall, is the company that came up with those $100-per-bag laundry bills for work in Iraq".
"All of this comes back to cronyism".
Is Texas led by 'incompetent' Democrats, too? I thought all the problems with hurricane relief was due to local Democrat politicians? Maybe New Orleans' mayor Nagin and Louisiana governor Blanco are screwing up Texas' relief efforts, too. Or maybe Bush's cronies are just as incompetent as he is...
PORT ARTHUR, Texas
"Nearly four days after Hurricane Rita hit, many of the storm's sweltering victims along the Texas Gulf Coast were still waiting for electricity, gasoline, water and other relief Tuesday, prompting one top emergency official to complain that people are "living like cavemen."
In the hard-hit refinery towns of Port Arthur and Beaumont, crews struggled to cross debris-clogged streets to deliver generators and water to people stranded by Rita. They predicted it could be a month before power is restored, and said water and sewer systems could not function until more generators arrived.
Red tape was also blamed for the delays.
Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz, whose own home was destroyed by fire after the hurricane, said "we've had 101 promises" for aid, "but it's all bureaucracy." He and other officials gathered at a hotel-turned- command center, where a dirty American flag found among hurricane debris was hung on the wall.
John Owens, emergency management coordinator and deputy police chief in the town of 57,000, said pleas for state and federal relief were met with requests for paperwork.
"We have been living like cavemen, sleeping in cars, doing bodily functions outside," he said".
The Republican base
Reckoning with the God Squad
Fundamentalist bullies cannot be appeased. They must be confronted.
By Bill Moyers
09/25/05 "In These Times" -- -- At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do.
My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others. “Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils,” thundered the dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience. Baptists there were a “pitiful negligible minority” but they were agitators for freedom and therefore denounced as “incendiaries of the commonwealth” for holding to their belief in that great democracy of faith-the priesthood of all believers.
Such revolutionary ideas made the new nation with its Constitution and Bill of Rights “a haven for the cause of conscience.” No longer would “the loathsome combination of church and state”-as Thomas Jefferson described it-be the settled order. The First Amendment neither inculcates religion nor inoculates against it. Americans could be loyal to the Constitution without being hostile to God, or they could pay no heed to God without fear of being mugged by an official God Squad. It has been a remarkable arrangement that guaranteed “soul freedom.”
It is at risk now, and the fourth observance of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is an appropriate time to think about it.
Four years ago, the poet’s prophetic metaphor became real again and “the great dark birds of history” plunged into our lives.
They came in the name of God. They came bent on murder and martyrdom.
Yes, the Koran speaks of mercy and compassion and calls for ethical living. But such passages are no match for the ferocity of instruction found there for waging war for God’s sake: “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of Evil.”(4:76)
So the holy warriors came-an airborne death cult, their sights on God’s enemies: regular folks, starting the day’s routine one minute and in the next, engulfed by a horrendous cataclysm.
But it is never only the number of dead by which terrorists measure their work. It is also the number of the living-the survivors-taken hostage to fear. The writer Terry Tempest Williams has said “the human heart is the first home of democracy.” Fill that heart with fear and people will give up the risks of democracy for the assurances of security; fill that heart with fear and you can shake the house to its foundations.
Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us; allow our leaders to use the fear of terrorism to make us afraid of the truth; cease to think and reason together, allowing others to tell what’s in God’s mind. Yes, we are vulnerable to terrorists, but only a shaken faith in ourselves can do us in.
Muslims have no monopoly on holy violence. As Jack Nelson-Pallmayer points out, God’s violence in the sacred texts of both faiths reflects a deep and troubling pathology “so pervasive, vindictive, and destructive” that it contradicts and subverts the collective weight of other passages that exhort ethical behavior or testify to a loving God.
We know we can go through the Bible and construct a God more pleasing to the better angels of our nature. We also know that the “violence-of-God” tradition remains embedded deep in the DNA of monotheistic faith. Inside that logic you cannot read part of the Bible allegorically and the rest of it literally; if you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection, and the depiction of the Great Judgment at the end times you must also believe that God is sadistic, brutal, vengeful, callow, cruel and savage-that God slaughters.
Let’s go back to 9/11 four years ago. The ruins were still smoldering when the reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell went on television to proclaim that the terrorist attacks were God’s punishment of a corrupted America. They said the government had adopted the agenda “of the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians” not to mention the ACLU and People for the American Way (The God of the Bible apparently holds liberals in the same low esteem as Hittites and Gergushites and Jebusites and all the other pagans of holy writ.) Critics said such comments were deranged. But millions of Christian fundamentalists and conservatives didn’t think so. They thought Robertson and Falwell were being perfectly consistent with the logic of the Bible as they read it: God withdraws favor from sinful nations-the terrorists were meant to be God’s wake-up call: better get right with God. Not many people at the time seemed to notice that Osama bin Laden had also been reading his sacred book closely and literally, and had called on Muslims to resist what he described as a “fierce Judeo-Christian campaign” against Islam, praying to Allah for guidance “to exalt the people who obey Him and humiliate those who disobey Him.”
Suddenly we were immersed in the pathology of a “holy war” as defined by fundamentalists on both sides. You could see this pathology play out in General William Boykin. As a member of the U.S. military, Boykin had taken up with a small group called the Faith Force Multiplier whose members apply military principles to evangelism with a manifesto summoning warriors “to the spiritual warfare for souls.” In uniform, Boykin attended evangelical revivals preaching that America was in a holy war as “a Christian nation” battling Satan and that America’s Muslim adversaries will be defeated “only if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” For such an hour, America surely needed a godly leader. So General Boykin explained how it was that the candidate who had lost the election in 2000 nonetheless wound up in the White House. President Bush, he said, “was not elected by a majority of the voters-he was appointed by God.” Not surprising, instead of being reprimanded for evangelizing while in uniform, General Boykin is now the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. (Just as it isn’t surprising that despite his public call for the assassination of a foreign head of state, Pat Robertson’s Operation Blessing was one of the first groups to receive taxpayer funds from the President’s Faith-Based Initiative for “relief work” on the Gulf Coast.)
We can’t wiggle out of this. We’re talking about a powerful religious constituency that claims the right to tell us what’s on God’s mind and to decide the laws of the land according to their interpretation of biblical revelation and to enforce those laws on the nation as a whole. For the Bible is not just the foundational text of their faith; it has become the foundational text for a political movement.
The radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America’s great political parties-the country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is-and they are driving American politics, using God as a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on.
They have brought intensity, organization, and anger to the public square. They use the language of faith to demonize political opponents, mislead and misinform voters, censor writers and artists, ostracize dissenters, and marginalize the poor. These are the foot soldiers in a political holy war financed by wealthy economic interests and guided by savvy partisan operatives who know that couching political ambition in religious rhetoric can ignite the passion of followers.
In recent weeks a movement called the Ohio Restoration Project has been launched to identify and train thousands of “Patriot Pastors” to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement-the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus -casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between “the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell.” The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won’t teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class or allow children to pray. He rails against the “secular jihadists” who have “hijacked” America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was “an avid evolutionist.” He blasts the “pagan left” for trying to redefine marriage. He declares that “homosexual rights” will bring “a flood of demonic oppression.” On his church Web site you read, “Reclaiming the teaching of our Christian heritage among America’s youth is paramount to a sense of national destiny that God has invested into this nation.”
The corporate, political and religious right have converged, led by a president who, in his own disdain for science, reason and knowledge, is the most powerful fundamentalist in American history. And radicals on the Christian right are now the dominant force in America’s governing party. They control much of the U.S. government and are on the verge of having it all. Without them the government would not be in the hands of people who don’t believe in government. They are culpable in upholding a system of class and race in which, as we saw last week, the rich escape and the poor are left behind. And they are on a crusade against government “of, by, and for the people” in favor of one based on Biblical authority. So the Grand Old Party-the GOP-has become God’s Own Party, its ranks made up of God’s Own People “marching as to war.”
It has to be said that their success has come in no small part because of our acquiescence and timidity. Our democratic values are imperiled because too many people of reason are willing to appease irrational people just because they are pious. Republican moderates tried appeasement and survive today only in gulags set aside for them by the Karl Roves, Bill Frists and Tom DeLays. Democrats are divided and paralyzed, afraid that if they take on the organized radical right they will lose what little power they have.
As I look back on the conflicts and clamor of our boisterous past, one lesson about democracy stands above all others: Bullies-political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies-cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own. This is never easy; these guys don’t fight fair; “Robert’s Rules of Order” is not one of their holy texts. But freedom on any front-and especially freedom of conscience-never comes to those who rock and wait, hoping someone else will do the heavy lifting.
Christian realism requires us to see the world as it is, without illusions, and then take it on. Christian realism also requires love. But not a sentimental, dreamy love. Reinhold Niebuhr, who taught at Union Theological Seminary and wrestled constantly with applying Christian ethics to political life, put it this way: “When we talk about love we have to become mature or we will become sentimental. Basically love means … being responsible, responsibility to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of humankind.”
Christian realists aren’t afraid to love. But just as the Irishman who came upon a brawl in the street and asked, “Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?” we have to take that love where the action is. Or the world will remain a theatre of war between fundamentalists". Bill Moyers
"In recent weeks, several prominent journalists have publicly acknowledged that the U.S. media accorded President Bush too much deference following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams both noted that it was only in observing government failures in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort that journalists began seriously to challenge the administration. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell conceded that reporters have been "less challenging" since the attacks".
The 'liberal media' have been soft on Bush? No shit!
Media Matters
Bush Eyes Bigger Military Role
You don't always need a panzer tank to get your way. You can actually chip away at the Constitution with all the sheep in this country (aka Republicans) being so ignorant that they don't have a clue of what's really happening.
"The Department of Defense would assume the responsibility for the situation, and come in with an overwhelming amount of resources and assets, to help stabilize the situation,"
It's called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, numbnuts! It's an act put into place in anticipation of Republicans like George Bush.
CNN article
We've been there...We don't need to go back!
"Intelligent Design"? Come on, teach that crap in Sunday school or maybe in philosophy class, but science class?
Excellent article about 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania who are fighting for what's right against a bunch of liars on the school board and what I suspect would be, a community with a few religious zealots who think the 1st Amendment is a line somewhere in their hymn book.
"Intelligent design is not science, has no support from any major American scientific organization and does not belong in a public school science classroom, a prominent biologist testified on the opening day of the nation's first legal battle over whether it is permissible to teach the fledgling "design" theory as an alternative to evolution.
"To my knowledge, every single scientific society that has taken a position on this issue has taken a position against intelligent design and in favor of evolution," said the biologist, Kenneth R. Miller, a professor at Brown University and the co-author of the widely used high school textbook "Biology."
Eleven parents in the small town of Dover, just south of here, are suing their school board for introducing intelligent design in the ninth-grade biology curriculum. The parents accuse the board of injecting religious creationism into science classes in the guise of intelligent design."
Senate committee approves $50 billion more for wars
$350 Billion Wasted in Iraq
"The Senate would give President Bush $50 billion more for war in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a $440 billion defense spending measure a panel approved Monday.
Overall, Congress already has given the president about $350 billion for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and fighting terrorism worldwide since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers. That total includes $82 billion that lawmakers approved in May".
--Notice how it's always said "wars", or 'for war in Iraq and Afghanistan', like the two are related. That's been proven false countless times and of the additional $50 billion the Senate will give Bush, which added to the $350 billion already spent, 90% goes to our needless and unwarranted war in Iraq. Ninety percent? We have 140,000 troops in Iraq and only 15,000 in Afghanistan-do the math.
We wasted hundreds of billions in Iraq where we shouldn't be and we spend not enough in Afghanistan where we should be with far more troops. That's Republican leadership.
USA Today
I know, Condi...and to think 62 million people voted for his dumbass...what a bunch of sheep, huh?
When visiting, always bring a gift for your hosts. Whether it's a small bouquet of flowers, a bottle of wine-or $10 million, (as long as it's someone else's money!) but never go empty handed.
"Under Secretary of State Karen P. Hughes arrived in Egypt on Sunday in her overseas debut as President Bush's "public diplomacy" envoy.
She denounced Islamic militancy, defended administration policies in Iraq and said the slow response to Hurricane Katrina was regrettable but not racist.
Ms. Hughes also used her visit as a showcase for a $10 million United States aid program that has restored an ancient medieval gate and artifacts and artworks in old Cairo".
Oh, that's nice. Give the fucking Egyptians $10 million to restore some of their artifacts! Oh, I know, it's to protect the 'art'. Fuck the art! We're broke!
As long as the Bush administration continues to over-exaggerate the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, the longer they can convince the sheep that it's a legitimate 'war on terror'.
Report by US think tank says only '4 to 10' percent of insurgents are foreigners.
"The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). According to a piece in The Guardian, this means the US and Iraq "feed the myth" that foreign fighters are the backbone of the insurgency. While the foreign fighters may stoke the insurgency flames, they make up only about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents".
"The CSIS study also disputes media reports that Saudis are the largest group of foreign fighters. CSIS says "Algerians are the largest group (20 percent), followed by Syrians (18 percent), Yemenis (17 percent), Sudanese (15 percent), Egyptians (13 percent), Saudis (12 percent) and those from other states (5 percent)." CSIS gathered the information for its study from intelligence sources in the Gulf region.
"400 PEOPLE"? Either all those chickenhawks found out the military recruiters were going to be at their rally or there was a NASCAR race on TV!
Supporters of Iraq war gather in D.C.
"Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after a massive protest against the war in Iraq..."
...About 400 people gathered near a stage on an eastern segment of the mall.."
USAToday
US Forced to Import Bullets from Israel as Troops Use 250,000 for Every Rebel Killed
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.
A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.
John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, said that, based on the GAO's figures, US forces had expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005. "How many evil-doers have we sent to their maker using bullets rather than bombs? I don't know," he said.
"If they don't do body counts, how can I? But using these figures it works out at around 300,000 bullets per insurgent. Let's round that down to 250,000 so that we are underestimating."
Supporters of Iraq War Plan to Counter Anti-War Rally With Demonstrations of Their Own
I hope the Army and the Marines are going to have a lot of recruitment booths set up at today's "Counter Anti-War Rally"! What better place to find volunteers for a war than at 'pro-war' rally?
...Boy, I'll tell you, if you want see a whole bunch of guys start limping around and talking about old football injuries, have a military recruiter show up at a rally of Republicans!
"Military families and other defenders of the war in Iraq were claiming their turn to demonstrate, responding to a huge war protest with a rally of their own on the National Mall.
Organizers hoped to draw several thousand people to their noontime event near the National Air and Space Museum. They acknowledged the rally would be much smaller than Saturday's anti-war protest in Washington but said their message would not be overshadowed.
"People have been fired up over the past month, especially military family members, and they want to be heard," said Kristinn Taylor, a leader of FreeRepublic.com, one of the sponsors of Sunday's event.
The pro-military rally was billed by organizers as a time to honor the troops fighting "the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world."
"Shortly after that sale, the stock price dipped because of a warning that earnings would not meet Wall Street expectations"... Frist sold the HCA stock at a time when insiders in the company also were selling off shares worth $112 million from January through June of this year".
They put Martha Stewart's ass in jail for a hell of a lot less!
"Blind trusts are designed to keep an arm's-length distance between federal officials and their investments, to avoid conflicts of interest. But documents show that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew quite a bit about his accounts from nearly two dozen letters from the trust administrators.
Frist, R-Tenn., received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock sale of a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after the sale this summer, the stock price dived.
A possible presidential contender in 2008, Frist now faces dual investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission into his stock sales.
There's no question...Bill Frist needs to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008! Tom Delay hopefully will be his VP.
"Who are these guys?" you may ask?. Many considered Wiley Post to be the second greatest American flyer next to Charles A. Lindbergh.
Will Rogers was born on November 4, 1879, in Indiana Territory, an area of land that later would become known as Oklahoma. As film star making over 70 movies, Rogers became famous through his syndicated column, which reached millions of his readers.
As a young man, Will became an expert rider and "rope twirler," later starring in wild west shows, and Vaudeville around the World. He went to Hollywood in 1918, and started in many features, and short films in silent cinema. In 1934, he was voted the most popular actor in Hollywood. Will Rogers was known for the phrase, " I never met a man I didn't like".
Wiley Post was born in 1899, near Grand Plains, Texas. He grew up in Oklahoma. Post and an Australian, Harold Gatty went around the world in 1931. Post wore a distinctive patch over his left eye after he lost his eye in an oilrig accident. Two years later, Post made a solo fight around the world, becoming the first man to circumnavigate the earth twice in an aircraft. Post completed his first solo world flight in seven days, 18 hours and 49.5 minutes. Post retired the Winnie Mae, the plane Post used in his around-the-world flight, and purchased a new hybrid aircraft assembled from parts of two previously damaged ships.
In 1935, Post and Rogers came to Renton Airport for installation of a set of Fairchild Edo 5300 pontoons, much like those used by Alaskan bush pilots. The special pontoons did not arrive on time and a pair of pontoons from a Fairchild 71 were installed-much heavier than what was required by Post's plane. Post and Rogers were anxious for the trip and kept the heavier pontoons. This was their first stop on their world pleasure trip..."
They flew north past Seward Park, and toward Seattle, climbing all the while. As Post did some shallow banks, the climb, leveled off, and tried a shallow dive, feeling out the controls and the handling of the Orion with those big twin floats attached. After more testing, they were near the north end of the Lake Washington. By then, Post executed a 180 degree turn and headed back south along the east shore of the lake toward Renton. They were soon over land again, throttle back, and in a 180 degree turn, positioned the aircraft for a landing just off the beach from which they had started some 45 minutes before. The landing was smooth and the deceleration rapid as Post turned toward the Bryn Mawr seaplane ramp (now Renton Airport) where the crew was waiting to tie them up..."
Two days after the first test on the floats, Post got ready to depart from Renton. Will Rogers had arrived and was ready for a leisurely sightseeing tour across the Pacific and through Asia. The beautiful red Lockheed departed Seattle for Juneau, Alaska on August 7th, just two days after that first flight. On August 9th they left for Aklavik, Northwest Territory (Canada) where a combination of sightseeing and weather conditions kept them until the 12th, then on to Fairbanks for one day. On the 15th of August, the famous duo departed Fairbanks for Pt. Barrow and the continuation of their world trip.
Eskimo seal hunters saw the red Lockheed fly low over their village of Walakpi and land in a Tidal River flowing into the Arctic Ocean. Once on land, Post asked the direction to Pt. Barrow. One of the hunters pointed north across the featureless tundra. Post tinkered with the engine for a few minutes and Rogers chatted with the Eskimos. Then they started the engine, taxied across the river and took off in a steep, climbing turn.
Only fifty feet up the engine seemed to stop cold, the plane faltered, dragged a wing in the water and crashed on its back. One of America's most famous aviators, and his best loved humorist, had lost their lives in the shallow water beside the Arctic Ocean on August 15, 1935".
The last photo taken on August 15, 1935
Wiley Post
Will Rogers
Wylie Post
Kerry was right-Bush did outsource that job
‘The man who led the CIA undercover team assigned to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the dying days of the Afghan war was Gary Berntsen.
Now he is on a new mission: to convince the US public -- and the White House -- that the al-Qa'ida chief was genuinely within his grasp during the operation, codenamed Jawbreaker, in the Tora Bora mountains.
In his book Jawbreaker, due for publication in October, Berntsen claims the CIA team had pinpointed bin Laden's location and "knew for certain" he was there.
Berntsen's manuscript is being vetted by the CIA, but he is suing his former employers for taking too long to assess his material and for demanding excessive cuts for supposed security reasons.
A spokesman for the White House last week repeated a claim made during last year's presidential election by General Tommy Franks: "We don't know to this day whether bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001."
"We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Bin Laden was never within our grasp." General Tommy Franks
“Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was." Ex-CIA field commander and author of, ‘Jawbreaker’, Gary Berntsen .
John Kerry during the third 2004 presidential debate;“ I would not take my eye off of the goal: Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, he escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora. We had him surrounded. But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too. That's wrong”
