I See White People

Posted on by TL

Oy.  Republicans.  White, one and all.  Even those who are not so white.

It’s true.

Take a look at the Cook County, IL, Republican Party Executive Board:

What a group.   I’m sure it’s a coincidence that all of their People of Color were not elected to office this year.  Must have had other things to do.

Or, perhaps the family maids and chauffeurs don’t get much of a vote in the GOP.

Today is Hiroshima Day

Posted on by TL

True Majority Action

I received an email from our friends at True Majority Action, our friends who bring us Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Today is Hiroshima Day. In remembrance, True Majority Action is calling our attention to a disturbing fact:

Today is Hiroshima Day, the 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bomb attack in history.

We’ve come up with a 90-second video that shows the truth in a simple way you’ll never forget. (click here to watch it).

Hiroshima Day is a time to remember the dead, but let’s also work toward a saner, safer future. Please send the E-card to as many people as you can. You’ll be commemorating the day while at the same time spreading crucial information needed to stop the craziness.

No more Hiroshimas,

Ben Kroetz
TrueMajorityACTION Field Director

For more information about America’s nuclear arsenal and other unnecessary Pentagon weapons, please click here

I thought we had scaled back our nuclear arsenal significantly from the 70s.  Evidently not that much.

George Bush And The Nine Trillionth Dollar

Posted on by TL

George Bush and the Nine Millionth Dollar

It’s almost here. Can you feel the excitement? People are already starting to line up at the Pentagon, White House, U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Capitol Building, and countless other key locations around Washington, D.C., for the midnight release of the U.S. Government’s George Bush and the Nine Trillionth Dollar by Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury Department.

That’s right, literary fans, the excitement is building around the globe. President Bush, under the guidance of Vice President Dick Cheney (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Questioned) and Director Paulson, has already issued instructions on a strict embargo on the book until midnight on a date in the very near future but yet to be announced. Citizens will be given last minute instructions on where to queue up for copies of the book, which will sell for $45 retail. Advance-order copies are available from Amazon.com and Borders Books for $50. Reached by phone by Larry King, Vice President Cheney justified the extra $5.00 for those who order early by saying, “If you order late, the terrorists win.” Color-coded wrist bands will be available at select locations throughout the D.C. area for $100 each so lines are orderly as the members of the public line up for their midnight copies.

We’re almost there! According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the current debt to the penny is $8,945,504,468,375.99. Less than $35 billion to go!

“We’re very excited,” said Director Paulson, “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event. We never expect to hit $9 Trillion again!” This all but answers the questions billions are wondering, “Will the debt ever come down?” and, “Will there be a sequel to this book?” Paulson could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the most famous series of books the U.S. Treasury Department has ever produced, “We anticipate publishing volume both 10 and 11 in the next few years, as long as we can keep a Republican in the White House. Help us reach our goal!”

Many are hoping for some answers to long-standing questions in the new volume:

  • Who will live?
  • Who will die?
  • As the needs of U.S. citizens grow and debt increases, who will the United States borrow from next?
  • Who will the United States pass the debt to when Japan and China finally call their loans?

“The debt is the money the federal government borrows from other countries and it’s own citizens,” President Bush explained. “It’s money that we borrow.”

Thousands emailed the president after this statement, thanking him for explaining the national debt at last.

The White House and the Treasury Department announced that millions have already placed advance orders for George Bush and the Nine Trillionth Dollar using credit cards, of course.

(Graphic: Turning Left)

Obama Would Fight Pakistan

Posted on by TL

I’ve let this sink in for a few days.  And I don’t get it.  Obama’s foreign policy seems like it’s all over the place.  From the Washington Post:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country’s military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won,” he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, “The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

I don’t understand at all the logic in threatening Pakistan.  Musharraf is not to be taken lightly.  No world leader is.  However, Musharraf is a smart politician, with more experience than Barack Obama.  I am confounded by Barack’s approach.  Invade Pakistan?  When we cannot afford Iraq?

I don’t get it at all.

White House Fears Brits May Leave Iraq

Posted on by TL

New leadership in Great Britain has brought fresh thinking on Iraq, and the White House is worried.

It appears the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may take his country in a different direction than his predecessor.  The London Times reports:

A SENIOR Downing Street aide has sounded out Washington on the possibility of an early British military withdrawal from Iraq.

Simon McDonald, the prime minister’s chief foreign policy adviser, left the impression that he was “doing the groundwork” for Gordon Brown, according to one of those he consulted.

While the British have not made any formal statements, discussion of withdrawal of military forces from Iraq within the UK on a level so close to the Prime Minister has the White House worried:

Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.

McDonald, a senior diplomat who formerly ran the Iraq desk at the Foreign Office, was in Washington this month to prepare for the summit. He asked a select group of US foreign policy experts what they believed the effect would be of a British pull-out from Iraq.

“The general feeling was that he was doing the groundwork for a Brown conversation,” said a source. Most of the experts felt it was a question of when, not if, Britain would leave.

The British feel they cannot fight two wars, and see Afghanistan  more worth a fight.  Could be an interesting week at Camp David.

G.O.P. Afraid of You(Tube)

Posted on by TL

Time Magazine is reporting that key G.O.P. presidential candidates are suddenly finding scheduling conflicts and other excuses to back out of the September 17 YouTube debate on CNN.  From Friday’s story in Time:

The Rudy Giuliani campaign has cited scheduling conflicts in saying it will skip the Republican version of this week’s Democratic debate, while Mitt Romney has mocked the seriousness of the questions and also seems likely to withdraw. John McCain, one of two candidates who had agreed to participate (Ron Paul is the other), has also expressed doubts about the Democratic debate’s level of decorum and aides say he may reconsider his commitment. Undeclared candidate Fred Thompson may still not officially be in the race by the event’s Sept. 17 airdate.

The Republicans’ sudden aversion has political observers wondering whether abandoning an opportunity to participate in the fledging format shows a potentially costly reluctance to engage with voters or is simply an exercise in prudent message management.

Are the Republicans afraid of facing real voters?  Skating through the presidential campaign while only answering carefully scripted, carefully crafted and negotiated questions in debates with  pre-screened audiences?

That seems likely, although the Republicans will try to spin this differently.

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out

Posted on by TL

Shouting matches. Our top people in Iraq are negotiating via shouting matches.

This from the Telegraph in the UK:

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general’s moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa’eda.

Apparently President Bush did intervene on at least one occasion. But, instead of telling Gen. Petraeus to watch himself, he warned Prime Minister Maliki to “calm down”.

One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general’s signature strategy to be scrapped. “He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias,” said the official. “Bush told Maliki to calm down.”

“Calm Down”

Yes, of course, “calm down.” Doesn’t Maliki have his own Crawford? Can’t he run to a ranch somewhere outside of Baghdad when things get rough? Has the President of the United States not yet advised Maliki to spend most of his term in office somewhere else, out of his office? Why didn’t Maliki think of that sooner? What a fool he’s been? “Calm down.” It’s so simple – the answer to a national crisis.

Maliki should follow the President’s advice. He should calm down. Better yet, he should declare war on a nation he doesn’t like. A small nation whose people he can easily dominate. Maybe he should just go after Qatar. Then, the Iraqi people would worry less about their own problems, and rally around the Iraqi flag as their soldiers march into this new country, welcomed as liberators and freedom fighters. Maliki could create a world-wide coalition to defeat this enemy.

And financing’s not a worry. The United States will just send more money so the Iraqi’s do not suffer an inordinate burden. After all, Maliki would not want to get tagged as the first leader since Saddam to actually require that Iraqi’s pay for their own college education! No, the United States will continue to pour in more money, and now that Saudi Arabia is on our side, Maliki would have nothing to worry about.

That’s the solution: Maliki should attack Qatar, take the Iraqi’s minds off their problems, Uncle Sam can finance it, and we can all, finally, “calm down.”

Obama v. Clinton: The Case of “He Said, She Said”

Posted on by TL

Oh, no. It was bound to happen. Here we are just taking ourselves a bit too seriously. Yes, it’s an election, but Hillary and Barack are having at it, tearing each other apart. Barack isn’t yet the seasoned campaigner Hillary Clinton is. He’s tremenous, don’t get me wrong, but he his competition caved in more ways than one on his way to the U.S. Senate.

This week was just all about poor manners, and an over-hyped exchange between the two Democratic powerhouses that left both sides looking weak. From the Washington Post:

A debate moment that might have quickly come and gone has erupted into the sharpest battle of the Democratic nominating contest, with Sen. Barack Obama yesterday comparing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s position on meeting with the leaders of hostile states to the adamant refusal of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

“You’ll have to ask Senator Clinton what differentiates her position from theirs,” Obama challenged reporters on a conference call, stoking a fire ignited four days earlier when both were asked how they would approach countries such as North Korea and Iran if elected president.

Clinton waited a few hours, then shot back. “Whatever happened to the politics of hope?” she said in an interview with CNN, sarcastically referring to the Obama campaign theme.

Yes, Obama pledged to “run a different kind of campaign.” And he did, up to now.

During his run for the Senate against Republican Jack Ryan, the word among campaign insiders is that Barack knew full well of the dirty laundry shared between Jack and former wife Jeri Ryan. To his credit, Barack did not use that information during his campaign. Yes, dirty laundry like this:

The court filings by Jeri Ryan revealed that she claimed that her husband had taken her to sex clubs in New Orleans, New York City, and Paris, where he had begged her to perform sex acts with him in front of other attendees of the clubs. Jeri Ryan described one as “a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling.

Barack stayed away from that, and really did “run a different kind of campaign,” much to his credit. This time, everybody’s getting dirty. We really don’t want to see that happen again. I hope these two grow up and start acting like adults. We have too many spoiled children running around the White House right now. The Democrats need to step away from all that foolishness.

Should I Believe Gonzales, or the FBI?

Posted on by TL

It really looks like Gonzales’ world is collapsing around him, like that of so many, “Heck-Of-A-Job,” members of the “W.” Fan Club before him.  The man has no credibility left, and could not possibly inspire any sense of confidence in the office of the Attorney General.  From today’s Washington Post:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday contradicted the sworn testimony of his boss, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, by telling Congress that a prominent warrantless surveillance program was the subject of a dramatic legal debate within the Bush administration.

Mueller’s testimony appears to mark the first public confirmation from a Bush administration official that the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program was at issue in an unusual nighttime visit by Gonzales to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who was under sedation and recovering from surgery.

Imagine trying to use a doped-up John Ashcroft to get approval for a program.  Does anyone at all in the White House have any sense of ethics?

Where are all of the Republican’s who care so much about right and wrong?  Why be so silent?

I know, everyone and their grandmother wants to win the White House again, because, really, that’s all that matters.  So, line up behind St. Alberto and be silent.  We know your game.

All the while, we’re one step closer to Bush and Cheney.  The movement to impeach them is growing.

Pat Tillman May Have Been Murdered

Posted on by TL

Pat Tillman

What a chilling thought.

From the Associated Press:

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors – whose names were blacked out – said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Time magazine is reports:

Congressional investigators told the White House on Tuesday that they intend to question several former Bush administration officials about their knowledge of Pat Tillman’s death, escalating their inquiry into the high-profile friendly fire case.

What an absolutely horrid, chilling thought.

No, I never served, and I do not understand what it is like to be over there. I want our young people home. All of them. Alive.

I simply cannot wrap my mind around the idea that Pat Tillman may have been murdered.