Sunday, March 26, 2006

IS THIS THE MONSTER BUSH HAS CREATED?

I really didn't think our troops could, or would, do something like this. Bush's little war has fucked with and fucked-up our military.
This is a long read, but damn-it, it needs to be read.
Here's part of the article, follow the link for the rest.

From UK Times Online:

Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’
Hala Jaber and Tony Allen-Mills, New York
The Pentagon is finding claims of abuse by US forces tougher to dismiss, as campaigners demand harsher punishment for violent soldiers.

THE villagers of Abu Sifa near the Iraqi town of Balad had become used to the sound of explosions at night as American forces searched the area for suspected insurgents. But one night two weeks ago Issa Harat Khalaf heard a different sound that chilled him to the bone.

Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went.

Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.

“Then there was a lot of machinegun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house.

Once the troops were gone, Khalaf and his fellow villagers began a frantic search through the ruins of his brother’s home. Abu Sifa was about to join a lengthening list of Iraqi communities claiming to have suffered from American atrocities.

According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years. An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people.”

The Abu Sifa deaths on March 15 were first reported last weekend on the day that Time magazine published the results of a 10-week investigation into an incident last November when US marines killed 15 civilians in their homes in the western Iraqi town of Haditha.

...........

In Abu Sifa last week, Khalaf’s account was corroborated by a neighbour, Hassan Kurdi Mahassen, who was also woken by the sound of helicopters and saw soldiers entering Fayez’s home after spraying it with such heavy fire that walls crumbled.

Mahassen said that once the soldiers had left — after apparently dropping several grenades that caused part of the house to collapse — villagers searched under the rubble “and found them all buried in one room”.

“Women and even the children were blindfolded and their hands bound. Some of their faces were totally disfigured. A lot of blood was on the floors and the walls.”

Khalaf said he had found the body of his mother Turkiya with her face unrecognisable. “She had been shot with a dumdum bullet,” he claimed.


This shit really pisses me off! I am so fucking tired of Bush and his bullshit moronic crap! His policies are destroying this country and now these same policies, and selfish whims, are turning our troops into butchers! Fuckin' bastard!

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

REPUBLICANS TRY TO TAKE THE HEAT OFF BUSH

Poor King George. His poll numbers suck, he's been caught lying....and denies it, he's broken the law, and about half the country wants him impeached. So, to protect their dear leader, the Republicans and neocons have gone on the offensive.......which they do quite well because they are so offensive.

From Reuters:

Republicans try to change subject from Bush

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans, beset by an array of political troubles, are cranking up the attacks on Democrats and trying to change the subject from President George W. Bush ahead of November's congressional elections.

With Bush slumping in the polls and Republicans on the defensive over the Iraq war and a series of ethics scandals, the party wants to shift the spotlight away from the White House by convincing voters that Democratic rule would be a dangerous choice.

Republicans hope the strategy will limit the national momentum that Democrats might ride into November and fire up the party's conservative base to ensure they turn up at the polls.

A Time magazine poll released on Friday showed Democrats favored for House seats by a 9-point margin over Republicans. Among the 1,003 respondents, fewer than two in five approved of the job either party was doing in Congress.

Vice President Dick Cheney fired the latest salvos against Democrats on Friday, saying their "sorry record" on security issues proved they were not capable of leading the war on terrorism.

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided that the president is the enemy," Cheney said at a fund-raiser in Orlando, Florida, referring to objections raised against Bush's domestic surveillance program.

Republican Party chief Ken Mehlman has led attacks on Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold's push for a censure resolution against Bush and Democratic calls for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

POLITICAL WOES

Republicans say the strategy is designed to get them off the defensive about their recent political problems, including scandals involving high-profile party leaders and uproars over a now-dead Arab port deal and a secret eavesdropping program.

Those difficulties have eaten away at public support for Bush and the Republican-led Congress in recent polls. But Republicans also believe Democrats, who have yet to develop a unified approach on Iraq or a uniform domestic agenda for the fall, remain vulnerable.




Like a mad dog that's been cornered, the Republicans are showing their teeth.
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ANTI-BUSH FEVER?

The word impeachment seems to be brought up more and more in conversations and the "better" press. Could we be seeing the start of a fever brewing here? Why not....even wildfires start out small.

From the Washington Post:

Impeachment Whispers Getting Louder

Calls for the investigation and possible impeachment of Bush are bubbling up in many corners of the nation and on the Internet.



Near Paul Revere Country, Anti-Bush Cries Get Louder

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006; A01

HOLYOKE, Mass. -- To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England's impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush.

Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.....

...."Why not? The man's been lying from Jump Street on the war in Iraq," Clemons said. "Bush says there were weapons of mass destruction, but there wasn't. Says we had enough soldiers, but we didn't. Says it's not a civil war -- but it is." He added: "I was really upset about 9/11 -- so don't lie to me."

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted last month to urge Congress to impeach Bush, as have state Democratic parties, including those of New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. A Zogby International poll showed that 51 percent of respondents agreed that Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, a far greater percentage than believed President Bill Clinton should be impeached during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

And Harper's Magazine this month ran a cover piece titled "The Case for Impeachment: Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush."


There's more that goes with this at the link.


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ANOTHER REASON FOR IMPEACHMENT

Bush is doing it again. He doesn't think he has to obey the laws passed by Congress.

From the Boston Globe:

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.


....and this from Salon:

Signing away the Patriot Act

If you've been following the way in which George W. Bush uses signing statements as a sort of uncheckable mini-veto of bills he doesn't like, this news shouldn't come as much of a surprise: When the president signed legislation renewing the Patriot Act earlier this month, he included a signing statement in which he said that he doesn't feel obliged to comply with the bill's requirement that he keep Congress informed about how his administration is using some of the powers it provides.

The Boston Globe has the story, and it's all depressingly familiar. Bush signs the bill with all the usual fanfare -- check out the desk decorated with the "Protecting the Homeland" banner -- and then quietly issues a signing statement in which he says he doesn't think that the legislation he has signed really means what it says. In the earlier case of John McCain's torture ban, Bush added language saying that he was free to "construe" the ban however he liked, "consistent with the constitutional authority of the president ... as commander in chief." The president put similar language in his Patriot Act signing statement, this time making it clear that he didn't consider himself bound by the congressional oversight provisions in the act.

"The executive branch shall construe the provisions of H.R. 3199 that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch ... in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties," the signing statement says.

As the Globe notes, those congressional oversight provisions were the subject of "intense negotiations in Congress." Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy calls Bush's effort to eliminate them with a few strokes of the pen ''nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law."


A big hat-tip to Tina at Fuzzy And Blue for the info in her post Bush:I'll Add onto the Patriot Act if I want. And the same to John at Americablog.

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Friday, March 24, 2006

THE WEEK FROM HELL

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for over a week. There is a reason...or several reasons...for that, some of which I will share with you.

It all started a week ago Thursday when, while on the way home from work, the alternator in the truck decided to take a shit on me. Just a wonderful thing when you have eletronic fuel injection...which most everything (except "old" vehicles) has. Kinda hard to keep the fuel flowing without a juiced battery. This is just one thing in a long line of things that have caused us problems with all the vehicles since November. Four flat tires, each on a different vehicle, and all on the side facing the neighbor's house....with whom we have had repeated problems. We have no proof that she, or one of her kids, is doing anything but her track record makes both of us very, very suspicious. We don't have much "extra" money, so it gets very expensive to keep replacing tires.

Most of that is the past...onto the here and now.

Like I said, the alternator started the ol' ball rolling. It was all downhill after that.

We have a shed attached to the back of our garage. It was broken into and things were pulled out. We have no idea who may have done it, if it was a prank, or if someone was trying to get under our skin. I know what you're thinking, and so did we....the neighbor. But instead of making wild accusations, we decided to wait and see if anything happened again. I know, that was foolish...but with the "politics" in this little one-horse town, aka Bum Fuck Egypt, you have to mind your "P's and Q's".

Two days later someone broke into the same shed, again. This time things were removed and left in the neighbor's yard....yeh, same neighbor. The free-standing shed in the yard was also broken into at the same time, possibly by the same person or persons, and there are things missing.

After this second incident the police were called. When the officer arrived we informed him what had happened without accusing anyone of the break-ins. The officer said he would make a report and would also inform the other officers of what happened. He also said that he, as well as the others, would start flashing the squad car search light at the area whenever they go past at night. I felt comfortable with this....not any safer, just comfortable.

The next day a different officer stopped by with an envelope. Inside the envelope was a letter from the building inspector saying that we have 30 days to remove the garage because of it's condition. We went through this last year shortly after Mary started going thru chemo. At that time, because of our money stituation and the treatments Mary was getting, the building inspector worked with us and postponed the tear-down. He said he would make contact with us this year to see if things, financially, had improved.

We both feel that the neighbor turned us in for the garage thinking that we reported her to the police for something, which we didn't. The reason we think this is because we have had problems with her in the past....repeated telephone harrasment, road rage to name just two....and whenever we have reported her she has tried to cause us problems one way or another.

There are other things that have had a hand in this, all of which I am not at liberty to mention here at this time.

All of this has done nothing but cause us more stress....along with Mary not being employed yet and orders where I work being slow and working only 3 to 4 days a week. We are both getting very stressed out.

I really, really want to get back to blogging on a regular basis. I will take a stab at it again today....blogging that is, not the neighbor....and if not today, I promise Saturday.

Sorry I've been MIA, folks. But, you all know how it is...sometimes SHIT HAPPENS that we can't control.

I thank all of you for your patience.
Peace my brothers and sisters.
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Thursday, March 16, 2006

CHANGING THE RULES

The Republicans are doing it again. They want to change the rules and make the past and present illegalities legal.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News:

GOP Senators Introduce Eavesdropping Bill

Four Republican senators introduced a bill Thursday that they hope will end the furor over President Bush's surveillance program by writing it into law.

One of the bill's chief sponsors, Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, said the bill requires the president to go to court as soon as possible to get approval for wiretapping and other forms of monitoring.

The proposal came under immediate criticism from advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU said in a statement that the bill would allow "Americans' phone calls and e-mails to be monitored for 45 days without any court oversight and makes court review after that period optional" — in violation of the Fourth Amendment's guarantees against unreasonable searches.

"Congress cannot approve an illegal program when so many questions remain unanswered," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office. "When the rule of law has been broken by anyone, especially a president, the proper response is a full and independent investigation."

The bill would give the government up to 45 days to monitor calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists when one party is in the U.S. and the other is overseas. Like Bush's existing program, the government would not have to get court approval.

After 45 days, federal officials would have to stop the eavesdropping, get a court warrant or explain to House and Senate intelligence subcommittees why the monitoring must continue.

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A POEM FOR THE REPUBLICANS

Found at Buzz Flash:

Frist Says Feingold's Censure Suggestion Would Weaken The U.S. During Wartime

by Tony Peyser

OK, but then how does it look
When the GOP digs in its heels
And defies the president's plan
To give Dubai some big port deals?


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LEADERSHIP

I sure all of you regulars know by now just how much I admire Russ Feingold. I'm just as sure that you all know that I think he would make a great President.

Here's what someone else has to say about this.

From Working For Change, via Buzz Flash:


Geov Parrish: Feingold's resolution; One 2008 presidential hopeful stands up and shows he can lead 3/16

The progressive blogosphere is abuzz with support for Sen. Russ Feingold's introduction in the Senate Monday of a resolution to censure the President over his admitted role in illegally ordering the warrantless NSA monitoring of the phones.....

Feingold's action is explicitly directed not just at Senate Republicans, who voted last week in committee not only to refuse to investigate the scandal but instead to try to legitimize it, but also at Senate Democrats, who on this as on so many other issues regarding Bush have failed to stand up and be counted. This measure forces that, which is why -- after cavings in on NSA, Alito, corruption reform, and the PATRIOT Act reauthorization in the last three months alone.....

.....he is not only attracting publicity and gaining free media and name recognition, but he is doing something that John Kerry and Al Gore (to pick two random names) did not bother to do before their presidential runs: showing that he can lead, that he will take risky and potentially unpopular actions in service of something he believes is right.

For three months, every legal expert outside the Bush orbit has been repeating the same phrase: "The President broke the law." Finally, someone in the Senate is acting like the phrase means something. The American people, by and large, are with him. Pity that, so far, the rest of his so-called "opposition" party isn't. Perhaps they can be convinced.


Go read! It's good!
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STARTING TO COME AROUND

One Senate Democrat has announced his backing of Sen. Russ Feingold's Resolution for Censure. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa has stepped forward and said he supports Russ in seaking censure of Bush for his order to the NSA to illegally wiretap citizens of the United States.

From Buzz Flash:

Sen. Harkin: "We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises – and broken faith – with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law."

In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. And, despite getting caught red-handed, he refuses to stop.

Let's be clear: No American – and that must include the President – is above the law. And if we fail to hold Bush to account, then he will be confirmed in his conviction that he can pick and choose among the laws he wants to obey. This is profoundly dangerous to our democracy.

So it is time for Congress to stand up and say enough! That's why, this week, Senator Russ Feingold proposed a resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the FISA law. And that's why I fully support this resolution of censure.

Nothing is more important to me than the security of our country. Of course, we need to be listening to the terrorists' conversations. And sometimes there is not time to get a warrant. That's why the FISA law allows the President, when necessary, to wiretap first, and obtain a warrant afterward. But that's not acceptable to this above-the-law President. He rejects the idea that he should have to obtain a warrant before or after wiretapping.

We have an out-of-control President whose arrogant and, now, illegal behavior is running our country into the ditch. It's time to rein him in. And a fine place to start is by passing this resolution of censure. I hope that Senator Feingold's measure will be brought to the floor. And when it is, I will proudly vote yes.



Maybe this will get the ball rolling and get more of the dems off their asses and stand up with Russ. I'm gonna send Sen. Harkin a thank-you email.
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COWERING DEMOCRATS

I'm pissed....I think Russ is, too.

From Yahoo News:

Feingold Accuses Democrats of 'Cowering'

Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold accused fellow Democrats on Tuesday of cowering rather than joining him on trying to censure President Bush over domestic spying.

"Democrats run and hide" when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters.

Feingold introduced censure legislation Monday in the Senate but not a single Democrat has embraced it. Several have said they want to see the results of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation before supporting any punitive legislation.

Republicans dismissed the proposal Tuesday as being more about Feingold's 2008 presidential aspirations than Bush's actions. On and off the Senate floor, they have dared Democrats to vote for the resolution.

"I'm amazed at Democrats ... cowering with this president's numbers so low," Feingold said.

The latest AP-Ipsos poll on Bush, conducted last week, found just 37 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed approving his overall performance, the lowest of his presidency.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried to hold a vote Monday on Feingold's resolution but was blocked by Democrats. He said Tuesday that Feingold should withdraw the resolution because it has no support.

"If the Democrats continue to say no to voting on their own censure resolution, then they ought to drop it and focus on our foreign policy in a positive way," Frist said in a statement.

Feingold's resolution condemns Bush's "unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required" by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The only president ever censured by the Senate was Andrew Jackson, in 1834, for removing the nation's money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig-controlled Senate.


Fucking chicken-shits have no backbone.


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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

HEY DEMS...NO GUTS, NO GLORY, NO '06 EITHER

I'm gonna start out right now by thanking Fixer at Alternate Brain for the heads-up on this one....before I start to rant, 'cause I'm so pissed I know I'll forget.

THANKS, FIXER.

From Yahoo News:

Feingold Draws Little Support for Censure

That's the headline. Fuckin' bastards can't even stand up and give one of their own the backing and support he needs.

"Several Democrats said that before any censure, they want the Senate Intelligence Committee to finish an investigation of the warrantless wiretapping program. In that program, the National Security Agency is allowed to eavesdrop on international calls and e-mails of U.S. residents when terrorism is suspected."

"Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Tuesday that Feingold's censure effort was "born out of intense frustration" with the administration's lack of candor on the eavesdropping program — and not out of any effort to further his 2008 presidential ambitions."

" "We have no idea what this program is," said Biden, himself a potential 2008 presidential contender, on NBC's "Today" show. He said Feingold was expressing his "absolute frustration with the failure of this administration and this Congress to insist it come forward and tell us what it's doing." "

"Asked at a news conference whether he would vote for the censure resolution, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined Monday to endorse it and said he hadn't read it."


" "Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he had not read it either and wasn't inclined simply to scold the president."

" "I'd prefer to see us solve the problem," Lieberman told reporters."

"Across the Capitol, reaction was similar. Feingold's censure resolution drew empathy but no outright support from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif."


What's with Biden's "born out of intense frustration" comment? Of course there's frustration you asshole. Mainly because idiots like you don't do anything to help.

"I'd prefer to see us solve the problem." Lieberman, you're part of the fucking problem.

They all know that Bush broke the law. We all know he broke the law. Hell he's been doing that for five years now! And when someone comes along and tries to do something about it all the Dems can do is wring their hands and whine "Well I don't know......"


Fucking bastards, the whole lot of them.

FUCK YOU, TED KENNEDY
FUCK YOU, JOE BIDEN
FUCK,YOU, JOHN KERRY
FUCK YOU, JOE LIEBERMAN
FUCK YOU, NANCY PELOSI
FUCK YOU, HARRY REID

All you low-life, scum-sucking, ass kissing , pieces of shit can all go fuck yourselves!

I'm sick and tired of the assholes in this party!

I WANT A NEW PARTY, AND I WANT IT NOW!!!
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Monday, March 13, 2006

BAD MESSAGES

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