Eric B. I agree with you completely.  What do you say can be done about it?  Are they about to elect a man who follows George like a lap dog?

Cyrena:

“I’ve never heard a more tortured logic response than the below from Maani.”

Idealism is a good, noble, even critical thing.  However, “realism” is never “tortured logic.”

The REALITY is that whoever becomes the next president is almost certainly going to have to spend the next four years just cleaning up the mess Bush left behind, and will have little time or ability to make (much less implement) any bold, new gestures or policies (though I suppose any good policy to undo various aspects of the Bush regime could be seen as “bold").  And since the economic portion of that mess is SO bad (and getting worse), it is likely, as I note, that either OBama or Clinton would “disappoint” in this regard, because, sadly, most people do NOT understand the “realism” of the situation and think that all it will take is a policy here and a policy there, a nip and a tuck, and the economic problems will begin to self-correct.  Poppycock.

Re “Maani, you could fuck up a wet dream,” as I noted to Louise, that is EXACTLY my goal: getting the Obamamaniacs here to wake up from their wet dream of Obama to see the realities.

Peace.

A Bankrupt Superpower
The Collapse of American Power
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

...The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt. David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December 17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements of the US government noted that “the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007.” In everyday language, the US government cannot pass an audit.

Moreover, the GAO report pointed out that the accrued liabilities of the federal government “totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007.” No funds have been set aside against this mind boggling liability.

Just so the reader understands, $53 trillion is $53,000 billion.

Frustrated by speaking to deaf ears, Walker recently resigned as head of the Government Accountability Office....

Full Story:

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03182008.html

The excrement just hasn’t hit the, proverbial, circulating receptacle yet!

With a pocket full of gold coins, these conceited empty souls clearly betray their true desire by the words that fall from their mouths and resonate in our ears.

In the words of John McCain: F--- You!
In the words of Dick Cheney: So What!
In the words of a xenophobic god, crusader GW Bush: If you’re not with us, you’re a terrorist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU

In the words of Hillary Clinton: Experience as Usual (Who loves McCain more than she does her own and to prove it, is willing to destroy the village in order to save it.)

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

Bill Blackolive,

You are correct here. There can be no resolution until we’ve addressed the truth of the mechanism that was utilized to begin the road to fascism.

I will revisit the site, (patriots question) because it’s been a while, and I’m sure that there are updates, as more people gain more courage.

My very huge concern is now and always has been, the fact that most of the concrete evidence needed to access the truth of those events has long since been destroyed. That doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t use what we DO have, in the form of our own witness or testimony to the truth.

Thanks..

Many thanks Fadel for your gracious welcome.  However, that was then and this is now (to borrow a cinematic phrase).  And truth must now be foremost.  While there are Greeks in my heritage and for that I am grateful, I am of Italian descent in the last four generations.  We bloggers often use masques for protection. I enjoy my actual ethnicity immensely.  I hope telling you this does not change your perception of me as I do not think ethnicity makes the person.  I do not think of you primarily as a Middle Easterner but only as a thinking man, and I can appreciate your being Muslim. I do work in education as previously stated elsewhere and I am a scholar of philosophy as described in the Hitchens forum.  Based on your post here, I think you must be open-minded (after all).  Italians love the olive trees as much as any Greek or Middle Easterner and for the same reasons.  I will share with you what you could not know and that is I regard the intellect and philosophical mind of the Islamic cultures as close to that of the Greeks.  The westerners have not really had that much education about the pursuit of wisdom in the Middle East.  I am currently being tutored, in a manner of speaking, by a highly intelligent Muslim and learning, albeit slowly, but with interest about the culture and beliefs of Islam.  I remain an atheist, however, who is wholly concerned about the welfare of the human race, regardless of ethnicity or culture.  Although I have no religious faith, I do believe all people have worth and a right to dignity and a decent life.  I have a great deal of tolerance toward people of faith.  I do have a repugnance for militant and violent religion of any denomination.  Religion, though, is another topic and I think discussion of it is best reserved for other forums. 

In this discussion I am concerned with the view of this worst president in the history of this country’s legacy which is in my view as negative as a legacy can be.  His leadership, if it could even qualify to be called that, has led this country into the worst economic state it has ever been in, even when there was a great depression in the 1930s, and it will take generations to repair.  There is not one thing that could be said as good about this presidency.  The Bush War, which I have called it since the first day of the preemptive strike in Iraq, has been the most evil of acts in which this country has ever engaged.  There is no legacy except one of iniquitous calamity.

What is frightening about the legacy of failure (and death and destruction) of the Bush-Cheney administration, is that they may attack Iran as their final task in office.

The recent “resignation” of Adm. William Fallon seems to be an indication that this is a possibility.

More on this in the articles:

“Will Bush, Cheney Attack Iran? When and Why?”

Truthout.org
02 February 2007

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020207A.shtml

- - -

“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”

Truthout.org
20 September 2006

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6 4/22754

By Shenonymous, March 22 at 6:49 am #

Offering an olive branch to you Fadel, after our enmity of the past, I surprise myself at how much I agree with you these days.  Perhaps we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought?
================================
Welcome back Shenonymous! I am glad that you have been reading my short and sporadic comments on Truthdig and that you have found we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought.

Thank you especially for offering an olive branch; it means a lot to me. Olives, olive oils and olive trees mean a lot to people who were born and lived around the Mediterranean basin. Since you come from Greek ancestry, you know these things. When I was doing my undergraduate work in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1960’s, I had many Greek friends and, in fact, my first love was a Greek girl. The point in stating this is that normal Muslims are as open-minded as they can come. Our disagreements in the past were centered around faith: you were strong advocate of atheism and I was an advocate of faith and its values. In this connection, I want to share with you a piece of information that most likely you do not know. Muslims highly valued Greek philosophy and thought to the point that Aristotle has earned among the Muslim philosophers the honorific title of “The First Teacher.” I consider myself a student of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates as I consider myself a student of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. And there is no contradiction in that.

I hope that your open-mindedness will expand to include more tolerance toward people of faith.

Cheers and all the best!

Shenon

In your conversations with Fadel, you are right on my efforts to put this authoritarian state stuff with the Cheney operation. Indeed, we know that George Bush is evil, but I’ve said many times, that he could never have pulled this off on his own.

An excellent article by WR Pitt, gets us back to where it all began, (with Dick Cheney) and it’s been a long time in the making.

The article, entitled “Why?” is at the link below.“Politics is the art of controlling your environment”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908R.shtml

I should also use another quote from Dick Cheney that dates back to the Florida recount of 2000:

• “. Dick Cheney was up front with Bush campaign minions during the 2000 Florida recount, “Just get control of the Oval Office ... it doesn’t matter how ... just do it.” Machiavelli could not have said it better himself.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030608A.shtml

From there, we can consider some comments from Nabih yesterday, when he was annoyed that the NeoCon operation had been referenced as a ‘movement’ in the article about the Rise and Fall of the Neocons. He was understandably annoyed because he (and most of us) view a “movement” as a mass of people behind a common cause.

However, in the sense of the Neocon movement, we can also compare it to the ‘movements’ of Nazism and Communism. Both were intended as GLOBAL DOMINATION of their fundamental ideologies. Both of these movements, (totalitarian in nature) were undertaken by basically a relatively small group that enabled. (No larger in number than the US Congress, Courts, CIA, Pentagon, etc)

Both of these movements depended on destabilization, and maintaining that chaos. They used terror, propaganda, secrecy, and the duplication of government offices/agencies/the bureaucracy. Both were totally inefficient economically speaking. I mean they wasted tons of money. Above all, chaos was the name of the game. ANY stability, even if it was in a totally new form of stability, such as a new set of laws, or a new order of government, could not be allowed. People will adjust to that. Rather, INSTABILITY had to reign.

I suspect that is as much the point of the neocon operation as it has been in the past, for other totalitarian movements with global aspirations.

The “plan” on Iraq
• “We can only conclude that following the occupation, the US had no intention of rebuilding Iraq and indeed as I’ve pointed out, the US is on record as saying that it’s not in the business of ‘nation-building’, so, what is the ‘Plan’?”

• “Iraq is unlike earlier wars of aggression waged by the West. The intention is not to acquire land or even markets (in the accepted sense of the word), nor is it a strategic acquisition designed to block an enemy state. Even the oil is not in and of itself an objective, for as events have shown, the oil is worth even more underground than it is by having it in circulation. Moreover, denying access to the oil by the US’s major competitors, gains a strategic economic advantage for US capital.

• “..even more importantly, the creation of a ‘failed state’ destabilizes the region which weakens opposition to imperial plans and as we have witnessed, it also creates the pre-conditions for extending the ‘area of instability’ Eastward.”

• “The objective here is to foment dissent and create instability in the country or region and as with Iran, actually strengthen the hand of reactionary forces within the country. We’ve seen it in Cuba for decades, for how can a country which has been blockaded and under constant threat of invasion and subversion develop normally? But then this is the entire point, countries like Cuba and Venezuela have to be shown to the rest of the world to be failures, there can be no successful alternative to capitalism.”

Rumors of War, Destabilization is Name of Game
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m42274&hd;=&size=1&l=e

More when I’m done.

Thanks for the figures Shenon…

I’ve never heard a more tortured logic response than the below from Maani. No doubt he’ll beat his record though.

After all of this research on the money, he’s decided that it doesn’t matter who the next president is, because they are ‘bound to disappoint’.

Maani, you could fuck up a wet dream.

I didn’t claim that there was SIMILARITY between this and Obama’s preacher.  I think this is MUCH, MUCH MORE CATACLYSMIC as it is a cultish, secretive group steeped in fundamentalism. 

I have never found Mother Jones or The Nation to “make up” articles or to embellish.  So your nonchalant perspective of this matter is without merit.  The BOOK is due to be released in May, we’ll see then.

“Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.” The Nation.

I’ve said it before.  Bush was put in place to enrich a certain very thin stratum of the world’s population and he’s done it.  All the things we consider “disastrous” and “tragic” he doesn’t give two shites about.  So sure, he’s grinning.  He can’t wait to get out of this job and start basking in the gratitude of those he’s enriched.  What a great retirement.  Does he care what you or I think?  Not one whit, he’ll be insulated from us and our opinion of him forever.  Gnash your teeth all you want, he’s won the game as far as he’s concerned.  We really should stop talking about what an idiot he is and move on to how we’re going to get back some of what we’ve lost on his watch.

Shenonymous:

“While I have the absolute figures wrong, I have the intent of my comments right.  Each and everyone of us, including our children and babies, will have to pay for George W. Bush’s huge fiasco as president.”

No argument here.  And this is why it almost doesn’t matter whether Hillary or Obama is the next president: WHOEVER it is is going to have to deal with this, and I don’t envy them.  And since it is highly unlikely that EITHER of them will make any significant dent in this problem, WHOEVER is the next president is almost certain to disappoint.

Indeed, if Hillary is president and is unable to deal with the economy to a significant degree, the Hillary-bashers here will say, “See?” And vice versa if Obama becomes president and ends up having the same problem.

And, of course, no matter WHICH one ends up in this position, the GOP will have all the fodder it needs in 2012 to say, “See?  The Democrats have been unable to do anything about the economy.”

BOTH candidates are essentially “damned if they and damned if they don’t.”

Peace.

Maani, thank you once again for correcting me.  I found the figures in my last post on this topic online.  Apparently I do not know how to verify what is found electronically.  But a good explanation of how the budget/surplus/deficit works can be found at:
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDe bt.html

Also at http://budget.house.gov/
is information on the facts of the debt and the budget
I will presume the information from the House might be accurate relatively speaking? 
The current US Debt today March 22 is:  $9,393,587,213,977.10 over $9 trillion. 
Your share of the national debt:  $30,931.98
So for a famiy of 4.3 that is $133,007.51 owed for the national debt.

I am not confusing the debt with the budget.  The budget as per the House website “invests in proven programs to boost economic growth, provides fiscally responsible tax relief and help for struggling families, and provides the resources to make America safer.”

To see the distinction between debt and deficit, please navigate to
http://www.federalbudget.com/
When Congress has to borrow money to pay for the US expenditures (appropriations), then the interest has to be paid.  The total borrowed is more than $9,000,000,000,000 and growing.  Again, the debt is seen at over $9 trillion.  I think that is a negative???? Right????  So if there was a surplus when Clinton left office of $3 trillion, I believe that is a positive????  then the net loss is $12 trillion since the 3 trillion is gone and an added 9 trillion even more gone????  Is my logic off again?  I’m sure if it is you will graciously correct me.  Thank you ahead of time.

While I have the absolute figures wrong, I have the intent of my comments right.  Each and everyone of us, including our children and babies, will have to pay for George W. Bush’s huge fiasco as president.

Shenonymous:

You are confusing two things: the budget and the national debt.

Re the budget, Clinton left office having created the largest budget surplus in history.  The amount is disputed, but runs from $127 billion on the low side to $559 billion on the high side.  The number I have seen most often is ~$250 billion, though a number of economists put it at closer to $400 billion.

By 2004, GWB was running a budget deficit of $319 billion, and by 2005, it was $521 billion.

Re the national debt, Clinton had paid down more of it than any president in history, and was on track to pay down the entire debt by 2012.  When Clinton left office, the national debt was around $4.5 trillion.  However, GWB has doubled it, and the current national debt is now a touch under $10 trillion.

Under Clinton, the national debt decreased each year of his presidency, going from 70% to 60% of GDP. Under GWB, the debt is increasing at the rate of $1.5 billion per DAY.

Peace.

Offering an olive branch to you Fadel, after our enmity of the past, I surprise myself at how much I agree with you these days.  Perhaps we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought?  I hope this is true.  I especially appreciate your renaming this article “Bush’s Legacy of Evil.” The only problem I have with your argument is that I believe it is not simply Bush’s deliberate intention of evil, it is his coterie, his cohorts who have the intentions, and he is merely their instrument to carry them out.  I also think these evils need to be spelled out over and over and over again lest anyone forget when they put their pen to ballot in November.  For instance, the Bush War for oil in Iraq that could not have been waged without the assistance of his cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court.  The only ideas that Tolstoy had, in my estimation, had to do with his model of how colonialism such as Napoleon waged against Russia, and elsewhere by extension, could not have been engaged without those others who supported the military campaign.  That Napoleon solely could not have done what he did, that others were more culpable.  The same here with Bush.  Evil by association, to be sure, but all of the evil factions need to be exposed and exposed often

Of course, any reasonable and informed citizen would agree and relate to all what Robert Scheer talks about in this article. However, to entitle the piece as “Bush’s Legacy of Failure” is a mild way of putting it, which, in fact, humanizes Bush since we are all bound to fail even when we have the best intentions to succeed. However, in the case of Bush, it’s all deliberate evil. Therefore, the piece would have been more appropriately entitled as “Bush’s Legacy of Evil.”

Outraged:

This is straight out of the Obama tit-for-tat playbook.

The Family (and the Fellowship) are bipartisan; there is nothing “nefarious” or “sinister” about a Democrat learning and praying with (ohmigod!) Republicans.  Hillary has not been a member of the Family for 20 years, and has not attended nearly as many of the “services” of the Family as Obama has at Trinity.  She was not married by David Coe.  Her child was not baptized by David Coe.  David Coe is not her “spiritual advisor.” She does not consider David Coe “family” the way Obama does Rev. Wright.

There is ZERO similarity here.  Stop grasping at straws.

Peace.

Thanks!

I’ve seen Hillary’s ‘Young Republicans’ connection, but the ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ club is quite interesting and new to me. I wonder if this will arouse any traction?

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

It’s obvious what happened: Bush was grounded because he refused to take a physical.  There’s only ONE reason a flyer won’t take a physical: Because he knows he’ll never pass it.

Why wouldn’t he pass it and what was worse than taking it an failing and being grounded anyway?  They’d find the cocaine in his blood and then he’d be court-martialed.  Better to be grounded for refusing a physical than land in the stockade with a dishonorable discharge after years locked up.

He should STILL have been kicked out, but you don’t do that to a high cabinet officer’s son, and the grandson of a senator.

Paraguay...that’s his escape destination.

Cheney’s...Dubai.

Whether Bill Clinton is the best president of modern times or not would obviously be an idle debate depending on one’s entrenched political position.  The point is that America did have, factually, a surplus in the nation’s coffers of thee trillion ($3,000,000,000,000.00), that is the number 3 in terms of dollars with 12 zeros after it before a decimal sign.  Now there is a minus 12 trillion dollars, that is a negative $12,000,000,000,000.00.  In effect that is a $15,000,000,000,000.00 or fifteen trillion dollars deficit.  In as much as we have roughly about 600 million people in this country, that is about $50,000.00 for each and every person, man, woman and child that is owed to pay off the debts.  For a average family of 2.3 children (as per Oxford Journals), that is 4.3 x $50,000.00, that is in the neighborhood of $215,000.00 they owe to pay off the debt.  Americans like to put dollar signs on everything, homes, cars, love relationships, politics, religions, literally everything, so putting the legacy of George W. Bush in the dollar perspective, we can see that we have certainly lost just about everything we have, except maybe the air we breathe and even that has lost a lot of quality.

While using the game of chess is a classic analogy, this is no game folks, the picture is even more bleak when we consider the prospects of a John McCain continuing the practices that the Republican party George W. Bush has forced on us.  You cannot believe even for a nanosecond that McCain would not continue those policies.  Even if he mouths a slightly different scenario, you and I know he lies.  He is now the target to be evaporated.  Or you will reap more of the same and you will deserve it, as Expat so often and rightly says.  The game is avoiding fallng into the abysmal abyss, again!

^ the waters fine.  You’ll be complimented, flamed, insulted, ridiculed, find friends and generally find out how you’re perceived.  You get to practice your opinionating and develop your style.

^ actually make a kind of perverse sense.  I’ve long had doubts that it really makes any difference which party is in control.  When we get too pissed off at one of them “they” agree to hand off the “baton” for a term or two.  It resembles an ongoing rape; each taking their turn.  Hm?

BTW, just watch the video enough times. Until it doesn’t give you goosebumps. Watch it until it makes you angry.  The anger subsides quickly with just enough leftover....to make you damn sure that that won’t happen here.  Remember, in Nazi Germany when the masses/people figured out that something very serious was going on, they became afraid. A fatal flaw. I’m not saying we’re invincible, but...if there’s something we can do NOW to stop it, we should. (sometimes there is nothing a person CAN do, but we’re not there yet)

These areas need recognition on a wide scale.  That would be number one. In fact, someone a while back posted that there was one in SE Wyoming. I’ve tried to find it using Google Earth but can’t.  Anyone out there able to direct me..?  See… Iowa and Wyoming are remote, and I sense it best to reveal these sites first.  Are they still empty, we(at least I) really don’t know...but America needs to find out and keep tabs on it.  There’s always the locals to help, America’s a big place… lotsa good people.

I think this “core group” of nutwads didn’t count on the masses of Americans who would kinda rather have the America they know and like.

I also know, by a stroke of circumstance, of another “perfect” place for one of these camps, everything’s already there, and hey...the government was “unloading” it CHEAP, airport and everything.  And damn...if it isn’t a stones throw away from a max. security prison, which...if I remember correctly was a “privately controlled” prison.  Am I speculating...of course...isn’t that what thinking people do.

As heartless as it may sound, and I don’t mean to be, we need to put the pressure on and change the situation WHILE WE CAN.  If we do nothing, they’ll kill us anyway.  Many Germans starved and died in their own homes and villages during Hitler’s reign.  They were the “free” Germans.  It all depended exactly where and who you were, luck of the draw...and all that stuff.  Hang tough.

THANKS Outraged!!

You’re right that it did get by us. ALTHOUGH...I did have a news letter (from Alternet) in my email box that hinted at something like this, at least from the title..."Is Hillary a Fundamentalist?”

So, as soon as I started reading your post, the ‘connectors’ fired up. And, I followed it through to the article, which sourced the Mother Jones piece as well. (So, it repeats some of the same, and adds a few others as well).

Hillary’s Ties to Religious Fundamentalists

By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted March 20, 2008.

“When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, Hillary Clinton is a lot more vulnerable than Barack Obama.”

http://www.alternet.org/election08/80248/

For me at least, most of this information was new. I WAS aware that she’d been a Goldwater Girl early on. (I think before she hooked up with Bill). But then she switched over to the Democrat side. This is what I mean by ‘affiliations’ not always meaning so much, especially political ones. I mean, what does it really mean, (at least these days) to call oneself ANY particular ‘political party’? In all fairness, the current regime in republican clothing has given the original group a bad name. They aren’t just ‘Republicans’, they’re RADICAL repuglicans. Now I’m certainly not suggesting that Hillary is, but I have always suggested that she was a standard repug ‘lite’ despite the banner of the Democrat party.

Meantime, my eye caught yet another article that hit on my own most sensitive ‘nerve’, even more than this revelation of her fundamentalist history. 

I’m getting really, really, sick of all of the distortions. This piece shares my disgust with it all.

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign IEDs (Insinuations, Exaggerations and Distortions)
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted March 17, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/79869/

Whatever neutrally-based respect I may have ever had for her has totally reversed itself as I’ve watched her campaign (and she’s done it as well) stoop to the swamp-level cheating.

One might think Karl Rove was running her show.

Speaking of which...thanks for the link to the Cheney stuff. I followed it through to the Think Progress site, which I hadn’t visited in quite a long time.

New news about Clinton, or maybe not.  I don’t know how either of these stories got by one of us but here’s excerpts and links. You may have heard some of this before, but I haven’t heard it quite like this.

Mother Jones 2007
“She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as “to the right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley’s Young Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era’s radicalism, Clinton wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn’t believe that one could be “a mind conservative and a heart liberal.”

“Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.”

Also from MJ: “The Fellowship’s long-term goal is “a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit.” According to the Fellowship’s archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship’s God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators.”

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillar ys-prayer-2.html

The Nation, 3-08
“The Family’s most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes--knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolf Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs.”

cont. The Nation:
“Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton.”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

This might explain why Clinton’s supporters are so often “right-wingers” and possibly why Maani calls himself a pastor. You might want to take the time to read through these articles.  Things are beginning to fall into place… I told you see was a Republican! And not the nice kind either.... (Geez..I love to say I told you so. LOL) Could this be why “those” Republicans are voting for her....?

How does it seem like a ‘nice enough site’ if nobody is here?

The Largest Minority has the video of Cheney. 

Here’s the link:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/

Impeachment is too good for him.  We should pack him on a rendition flight to Europe and let the Europeans up him on trial for war crimes.  If we sent them a package like that maybe they would forgive us for electing The Idiot in the first place.

“This seems” was my comment title, I get it now.

like a nice enough site, but nobody is here, what a shame.

Ok, I ditto the response from Shenonymous, having just watched the video, and read the article from global research.

The thing (video) gave me the equivalent of severe shock. (goosebumps magnified 3 billion times)

We’ve been hearing of these camps, and of course the skeptics want to blow it all off as ‘conspiracy theories’.

No doubt the same thing was occurring in 1930’s Germany. Or were people simply ignoring it, as in keeping their heads down, as folks were carted away?

Conspiracy theories? I think not.

Outraged, thanks for the research…

Outraged (or anybody)..

I missed wherever Cheney said ‘SO’ when asked about the American disapproval of the war. Liza mentioned the same thing in an earlier post, and if someone has the link to it, (so I can cite it) I’d be most grateful.

Thanks…

I agree about impeachment hearings.  Every day goes by without Bush and Cheney being cross-examined under oath is one day closer to the collapse of the rule of law in this country.  Why are we so loath to see justice done?

This was a really interesting insight into possible explanations for Bush’s bizarre behaviors.  Thank you.

Joe, register and your posts will appear instantaneously… simple as. (I had the same problem, as others have had, before registering.)

Jeezus!

Maybe this is why Bush is smiling and Cheney said, “So” when asked about the American peoples condemnation of the war.

“On May 9, 2007 President George Bush reasserted the role of the Federal government during a declared emergency by issuing Executive Order NSPD 51/ HSPD-20. The Order states that in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ all ‘national essential functions’ may be taken over by the Executive branch of government and the Department of Homeland Security (including FEMA).”

“In January of 2007 the American Civil Liberties Union released a report based on documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act suit showing that the Pentagon had monitored at least “186 anti-military protests in the United States and collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an anti-terrorist threat database.”

“For some time FEMA has been renovating and constructing new detention camps throughout the country. In January 2006 Haliburton subsidiary KBR announced that it had been awarded an “indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity contract to construct detention facilities for the Department of Homeland Security worth a maximum of $385 million over 5 years.”

“A current estimate of the number of detainment camps is over 800 located in all regions of the United States with varying maximum capacities. [27] If one includes government buildings currently used for other purposes the number is far greater.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va& aid=7763

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4

^ but your English is tortured.

I heard Cheney’s arrogant comment on Olbermann. The careless expression on his face, said it all. Following Cheney’s selfish remark, Olbermann framed it by stating that Cheney had just finished a grueling day in Oman on a yacht fishing along with the Shaw.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

I have to take exception to this as I believe there is and/or was enough evidence to prove that the republican party is guilty of voter fraud in 2004 in Ohio and the 5 supreme court justices that stopped the recount in Florida in 2000 were illegally using their position to give the election to w, especially when they stopped the vote recount when it was apparent that Gore was going to end up with winning the state of Florida. And jimmy baker III or what ever wasn’t about to let that happen.

An earlier posting mentioned this but I think it is worth mentioning again. Cheney’s comment today sums up the attitude of this administration, when he said SO,in response to Diane Sawyer’s question about 75% of the American public being against the Wars. 

It was not only that he said it, but that he said so glibly and casually.  The arrogance and total disregard for what the public thinks in that one word was SO apparent it was appalling.  It was almost surreal. 

I share many of the sentiments expressed by so many including Mr.Scheer, but it is so maddening when you think of all the people who have protested(even today)and written letters and articles etc…

and yet we still have a congress, while some times expressing frustration and threating to take action has still not yet done anything meaningful to stop this.  what the hell are we supposed to do?  That is why there is no draft, because they know.  However is sad because looking at history, that seems the only thing that has been learned…

Just like Ronny, W has no idea what is really going on. He’s pleased to hear what ever Dick and ASSociates tell him.
ronny should signs of Alzheimers Long before it was finallly revealed- He was still in office, in his first term! And Dick was there hiding behind HW (’The New World Order’ slip).
W. is a Patsy, a ‘Mark’ easily manipulated and gullible. Not that he should have any legal recourse for his stupidity-It’s due to lazines and self indulgence- still eligible to stand Trial.
Let’s focus on the ‘Brain’ to this “Pinky"- Dick...When asked what he thought that 2/3 of the Citizens of this country want US out of Iraq, He answers “SO”????? I beleive that man just stated he Does NOT Work for US!!! I consider that a Confession- a One word Confession, He does Not think he must answer to US, because what This Is No Longer A Democracy??? He is No Longer a Public Servant?
How much Media Coverage, Cycles will that High Treason Get- only Olbermann? ‘So’ two little letters= One Huge Indictment.."SO"

I recently retired after an over 30-year career working with the mentally ill. That smug, disinvolved look on his face and tone in his voice is ‘inappropriate affect’. The unseen enemies are ‘paranoia’. The jumbling of words are ‘neologisms’ and sometimes, ‘word salad’. The repetition of the same expression regardless of its’ appropriateness to the real world situation is ‘preseveration’. The voice of God he hears is an ‘auditory hallucination’. The disorder is often seen in people with a history of abuse of drugs and alcohol, even in the remote past, especially cocaine and amphetamines. The lack of the ability to determine right from wrong, the tendency to proceed regardless of the consequences are symptoms of ‘anti-social personality traits’ as is his compulsive telling of lies regardless of the fact that the listener knows that he is misrepresenting the facts. His conducting himself as if everything is fine and he is well is a combination of ‘illogical association of ideas’ and ‘poor insight into the nature of his condition’. The suspiciousness, the fear of enemies that require secret wire taps and spying is consistent with some symptoms of what in lay terms is called a ‘Schizo-Affective Personality Disorder.’ He is not going to improve the way someone with a simple thought disorder (like Schizophrenia) might, because his patterns of behavior are deeply seated in his personality. This disorder is like an eating disorder one of the most difficult to treat, even with medication and therapy, often because they are subtle and difficult to diagnose. The problem with him is that he will continue to fall further into the spiral of this illness even after his term ends. He will withdraw from the public eye, and even his closest friends will become enemies. He will become in many ways like Richard M Nixon, whose similar disorder was not as severe but was complicated by chronic alcoholism.

you’re right

HE IS A PETTY OIL THIEF WHO INVADED A SOVEREIGN STATE TO PRIVATIZE IRAQ’S OIL AND MAKE TRILLIONS FOR HIS BUDS. THEY PLANNED IT AT THE SECRET ENERGY TASK FORCE HEARINGS AND NOW IRAQI’S HAVE SAID THEY WILL NEVER SIGN 70 PERCENT OF THEIR OIL REVENUE AND CONTROL OF ALL OIL CONTRACTS TO BIG OIL AND OUR ACCOMPLICE BP. SO NOW WHAT. AS A VIETNAM WAR VETERAN I SUGGEST TO YOU WE CANNOT SURRENDER A COUNTRY AND ITS OIL BACK TO THOSE WHO OWN IT AND WE CANNOT CHEMICALLY BOMB A DEFENSELES OIL RESERVE FOR THEIR BETTERMENT BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF OUR SKIN, NATIONALITY OR INNATE GREED. PEACE!!

That’s all he is. If you have noticed the wear and tear on the idiot bu$h’s face. he’s back to boozing it up. I hardly listen to what he has to say. I noticed the other day, he was slurring his words. he’s an ex-drunk, back on the drink. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer a..hole.

A good indication of how incompetent this idiot bu$h was the pitiful piece of paper he tried to pass off as his military “record of service”.  I was in the Army over 7 years and generated more paperwork just to cover my ration cards in SE Asia for 6 years.

AS time went on, we got a better picture of just how incompetent this conservanazi idiot was. An Australian friend of mine commented during Hurricane Katrina that America is a sick place because “your president has abandoned the people of New Orleans”. Now, if people overseas can see it, why can’t we?

The US has lost all credibility in the world because of bu$h/cheney.

Pelosi and Ried should have had public hearings on the impeachment of bu$h/cheney. Those hearings would
have enlightened the people of the US just how sorry bu$h/cheney are. IT would remind people that the conservanazis are a fascist bunch, bent on achieving power and screwing everyone who doesn’t agree with them.

So, look at the US today. We are not a nation that goes by the rule of law. Law only applies to poor people. AS an American, we can be picked up off the street, imprisoned and never see the light of day. We can be carted off to some illegal prison in a foreign country, whose name we can’t pronounce. We can be spied upon by the bu$hnazis just because we are outspoken against thier lies and acts of treason.

Yep, bu$h has a legacy. A sorry one at that. If the US doesn’t wake up from this nightmare soon, it will only get worse.

Don’t