Paranoia Runs Deep, Into Your Mind It Will Creep...

I found this really amusing paranoid rambling on DemocratUnderground.com. Yes I admit, I go there for a laugh every now and then. I have never seen a more wretched hive of hatred, paranoia, and ignorance anywhere on the internet except maybe at whatreallyhappened.com, a true "tin-hat" community. This was posted by one of the denizens of that hive named "bvar22"

Anyway I took it upon myself to respond to each item in the list. The farther I got into this excercise the more absurd I felt responding to it, but I persevered, and here is the result:

The Republicans have been In Charge of America for 5 years. Are we beginning to look like a Fascist State?

*Demanding Party Loyalty above National Security (Plame Outing and Coverup)

National Security has never been put at risk in the “Plame outing” and there has been no “coverup.

*Military “PURGED” of commanders loyal to the Country and not the Party

There have been no “purges” of commanders in the military

*Using the Military to “POLICE” inside own borders

There have been calls for “policing” by the National Guard, but those have been primarily made by those on the Left. We have been repeatedly told by the Left that the National Guard are not the “military"

*Whitewashes and Cover Ups masquerading as Governmental Investigations

What, because the facts don’t match the paranoid delusions of people like you?

*Secret Prisons where people are "disappeared"

Your missing the key factor, our “secret prisons” intern foreign prisoners not our citizens which is the most important implication about “secret prisons”

*Dismantling of Individual Protections from Government

Finally something with which I agree, to an extent

*Torture as a National Policy

?? Oh well, I'll bite. “Torture” is not and has never been stated as a “National Policy” and that which has been being described as “torture” is not torture

*Police State Powers Increasing

Police state? What Kool-aid have you been drinking

*One Party Government (No Effective Opposition Party)

Just because you have offered no ideals or candidates worthy of the American voters trust and for that reason can not win an election, it is not a sign of “fascism” it is a sign of ineptitude

*Absurd (OBSCENE) and expanding Military Budgets

By whose standards? As a percentage of GNP it is not even close to a traditional wartime budget. You Liberals really need to learn to check the facts before making inane statements

*Dismantling of Humanitarian Programs to pay for Military

More money as a percentage of GNP is being spent on “humanitarian” programs than in the Clinton administration

*Restricting access to information about government

What, no leaks to a press in pursuit of an anti-American agenda?

*Restricting access to information contradicting Republican Party ideals (birth control).

There is no restriction of access to information about birth control, simply a refusal to use tax-payer money to fund such propaganda

*Rewriting (forging) scientific data to support Republican Party ideals

Your right, but then Kyoto was a stupid idea anyway

*State Owned Media

You mean like the extremely Left-wing NPR and CPB/PBS

*Persecution of Dissent

Where? When? Examples please.

*HyperNationalism masquerading as Patriotism

Patriotism IS Hypernationalism, and there is nothing wrong with it.

*Emerging SMALL Class of POWERFUL ELITES

You mean unlike the “good old days” of Kennedy's "Camelot?"

*Bogus and unverifiable elections

Truly laughable, but I do agree in the need for a printed backup

*Private Police and Security Forces not accountable to the Public.

Where? When? Examples please.

*Republican Party Secret Police to screen at Bush* appearances

????????

*NO Civilian Control and Oversight of Military

They are scrutinized at every turn

*Highest percentage imprisoned in Western World

Large number of criminals

*Potemkin Villages for the Press and Red Cross (Iraq and Guantanamo)

Potemkin Villeges? In what way? The two cited are real and mis-represent nothing

*Rampant Historical Revisionism

You mean of the sort that you are engaging in right now?

*Privileges and Access for Republican Party Members Only

This is getting ridiculous now...Where? When? Examples please. To what, the Lincoln bedroom?

*Ruling by Executive Order

Examples please.

*Judiciary controlled by Executive Branch

Can you say "Midnight Judges?" Only in your deluded mind

*Legislative Organs controlled by Executive Branch

Organs, so now the Government has organs? Show me how this differs from any previous time in history.

*Power Consolidated and Concentrated in One Person

Only in your deluded mind

*Government Officials WARNING to be careful what we say

What? You mean like “loose lips sink ships?”

*Controlled and Scripted PUBLIC appearances of Republican Party Officials

Only in your deluded mind (need to add PARANOID)

*Government encouraging citizens to spy on each other

You really are quite stupid if you don’t know the difference between maintaining awareness of your surroundings and suspicious behavior, and encouraging citizens to spy on each other, only Extreme Left-wing governments do that, you know socialists?

*Secret files on law-abiding citizens

Once again, signs of the Patriot act not acceptable but neither was Hillary's filegate

*Manufactured phony State Heroes (Tillman, Lynch)

Not to mention John Kerry and Al Gore

*State Medals awarded by Cronyism and Republican Party Loyalty, not merit

Huh???

*Governmental business cloaked I secrecy.

You mean it never has been before?

*Government “contracts” awarded in secret to Party Members and Cronies

Bad, but business as usual in America, nothing new here

*Odor of Arrogance and Contempt from Republican Party Officials

Your opinion here, nothing factual

Quite an extensive list isn't it. Not very significant, just long. I would welcome debate with this individual, but the vast majority of these "examples" are so vague that they are basically meaningless. They are intended to sound ominous, but in truth contain little of substance. In fact, as is common when dealing with these kind of light weight paranoic ramblings, I kind of got bored with it all. However, If you feel up to it and want to engage in a debate about some of these, feel free, I never duck a fight. If you know bvar22, give him some Prozac and lithium and let him know I'm praying for his recovery.

His original post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5478044&mesg_id=5478397

Language warning for the DemocratUnderground web page

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Still More Bad News for the Liberal Democrat Naysayers

Spending is the real cause of the budget deficit

By Lawrence Hunter
The Hill

Contrary to popular belief, the federal budget deficit is not out of control — yet. And to the extent it is projected to spiral out of control in the coming decades, it is totally because of a projected explosion in federal spending, not any deficiency of federal revenue.

Right now, the federal government is awash in money. Just last week, the Treasury Department reported that total revenue in fiscal year 2005 was up $275 billion, a 14.6 percent increase over 2004.

Let that sink in for a minute. During a period when inflation has averaged just over 3 percent, federal revenue went up 14.6 percent. Wouldn’t you have appreciated having a 14.6 percent raise last year?

Even more important, of that $275 billion in new federal revenue a full $207 billion came from higher income-tax revenue.

Why is that important? Because for the past several years the Bush administration has cut income-tax rates in various ways — through eliminating the estate tax, through cutting taxes on dividend income, through reducing the marriage penalty. And, despite those tax cuts, federal income-tax revenue rose — substantially.

The reason the Bush administration (and supply-siders in general) argues in favor of cutting taxes on work, saving and investment is the belief that low taxes generate faster economic growth, which in turn will raise revenues.

The statistics cited above, as well as the entire economic experience in the United States of the past 25 years, proves that the supply-side assumption is true.

But the converse is true as well, although most liberal politicians simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious: Raising tax rates will fail to translate into higher revenues and in fact would result in lower revenues over the long run.

Even the patron saint of liberal economists and politicians, John Maynard Keynes, argued that as a general rule tax rates should not exceed 25 percent. By Keynes’s standard, there is still a lot of cutting to do, since the current top marginal tax rate on income is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-50 percent when the full panoply of state, local and federal taxes is taken into account.

But even supply-siders realize that, while the tax cuts have done their job and further lowering of tax rates is necessary, tax cuts alone will be insufficient to keep the deficit from exploding. Even a faster growing economy and the resultant increase in revenues will not solve the long-run deficit problem if Congress does not immediately put in place the mechanisms to slow the growth of federal spending to something approaching the annual growth rate of the economy.

There is a coming deficit crisis if Congress doesn’t take action to avert it. But the crisis is one of big government — spending out of control — not a deficiency in federal revenue. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that, by midcentury, federal spending will explode from its current level of about 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 34 percent.

But liberal politicians don’t want the Bush tax cuts to be made permanent, and they certainly don’t want even further tax cuts. Despite the clear evidence of the wisdom of tax cuts, liberals are arguing for increased and even new taxes to deal with the deficit.

But even using the government’s own flawed revenue-estimating model, the CBO projects that repealing the Bush tax cuts will only raise revenues to about 25 percent of GDP, a full 14 points short of what would be required to eliminate projected deficits. In other words, no matter how fast the federal money machine pumps out new revenue, it won’t be enough to cover the tremendous projected increases in federal spending.

The only solution to the coming federal deficit disaster is to control spending, and that means not only reforming a federal budget process that allows Congress to spend as much money as it wants without any restrictions but also reforming the biggest drivers of the deficit disaster scenario: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Now I am no fan of the Congressional Republican's and the President's spending habits, but here once again for you Liberal Democrats, is proof positive that tax-cuts always generate increased revenues. We do not have a deficit because we don't tax the American wage-earner enought, we have a deficit because our government is spending too much money. Pure and simple.

Original Post: Budget Deficit Binge

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Lieberman: One Democrat Head and Shoulders Above the Rest

Lieberman: Failure in Iraq would be 'catastrophic'

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 Posted: 1804 GMT (0204 HKT)

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Speaking from Baghdad on his fourth trip to Iraq since July, Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Wednesday said failure in Iraq would be "catastrophic" for the United States and the entire Middle East, and that U.S. forces should not pull out before Iraqi forces are fully trained.

"The two extremes that are often described by different people here ... is that everything is going fantastic here in Iraq or that the country is about to collapse. In my opinion, neither one is true," he told CNN. "We are somewhere in between."

Lieberman, a senior Democrat from Connecticut, said Iraqis are striving to "put the nightmare of Saddam Hussein behind them," but still need U.S. help.

"They are making progress, but they are not where they need to be yet and that's what we have to help them to do before we can leave," he said.

"The cost of successfully completing our mission here will be large in terms of American lives lost and money spent, but the cost of failure here would be catastrophic for us in the U.S. and for the Iraqis, of course -- and I believe for the entire Middle East.

"And that's why we are going to continue to be here until we get to the point where the Iraqis can take it forward on their own, and I think we are making progress in that direction."

Lieberman's comments come amid rising calls from prominent Democrats for the United States to set a timetable for bringing U.S. troops home -- proposals the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have dismissed as a "cut-and-run" strategy that would embolden Iraqi insurgents.

This story is hard to find in the MSM. Seems they prefer Murtha to Lieberman. Objective Press? I don't think so. They demonstrate their bias everyday with every story. Lieberman is a man in the midst of a zoo. He's surrounded by "'rats," weasels, snakes, and all sorts of vermin infecting his party. I am proud of him for daring to speak the truth rather than hewing to the party line. Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy (the Killer), Durbin and the rest must be choking on their food pellets.

Full Story: Lieberman, Only Truthful Democrat in Congress?

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Is President Finally Taking a Stand on Border Issue?

Bush Vows to 'Enforce Our Border'
In Texas, President Promotes Plan to Curb Illegal Immigration

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A04

DENVER, Nov. 29 -- President Bush on Tuesday wrapped up a two-day visit to the Southwest to promote his policy for stemming the tide of illegal immigration, vowing that his administration will "enforce our border."

Bush started his day in El Paso, where his motorcade drove along a dusty road just inside the border with Mexico. Afterward, Bush repeated his observation that it will take a multi-pronged plan to get a handle on illegal immigration.

"We've got a comprehensive strategy that says we're going to enforce this border," Bush said. "We're going to prevent people from coming here in the first place. . . . And then I told you we've got to have better interior enforcement, plus a rational worker plan that is not amnesty."

The visit to the border highlighted the second day of Bush's effort to win support for his plan to step up border security and immigration enforcement while instituting a guest-worker program that would grant foreign workers temporary legal status to take jobs that go unfilled by Americans. On Monday, he gave a speech in Tucson urging lawmakers to support his plan for revising the nation's immigration laws.

Officials including Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) joined Bush in his tour.

El Paso, like most areas along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, has experienced an increase in the number of illegal immigrants in recent years despite intensified enforcement efforts that include high-tech sensors, more Border Patrol agents and cameras aimed at catching illegal entrants.

Government agents have captured 4.5 million people trying to cross the southern border since 2001. Nonetheless, the number of illegal immigrants in the country has more than doubled to an estimated 11 million over the past nine years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

I hope that Bush is finally taking this seriously. I'll reserve judgment, but so far the President has shown little inclination to retake control of our border. I blame the President for this problem because he has been trying to work both sides of the street, pandering to the companies which use undocumented workers in direct violation of the law and to those in the Hispanic community who favor illegal immigration, and those of us in his base who find this wholesale invasion reprehensible. I hope he has finally developed a backbone on this issue, but I will wait for more proof before I relax.

Full Story: Controlling our Borders

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Milbank Forgetting Usual Liberal "Modus Operendi"

Rumsfeld's War On 'Insurgents'

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A18

Last weekend, while other Americans were watching football and eating leftover turkey, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ended the Iraqi insurgency.

It was easy, really: He declared that the insurgents would, henceforth, no longer be called insurgents.

"Over the weekend, I thought to myself, 'You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,' " Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, said of his ban on the I-word. "It was an epiphany," he added, throwing his hands in the air.

Encouraging reporters to consult their dictionaries, the defense secretary said: "These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder, and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world. This is a group of people who don't merit the word 'insurgency,' I think."

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, standing at Rumsfeld's side, evidently didn't get the memo about the wording change. Describing combat in Iraq, he paused and said, "I have to use the word 'insurgent' because I can't think of a better word right now."

" 'Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government' -- how's that?" Rumsfeld proposed.

"What the secretary said," Pace continued, to laughter. But Rumsfeld's new description -- ELIG, if you prefer an acronym -- didn't stick with the general. Smiling, he uttered the forbidden word again while discussing explosive devices.

The secretary recoiled in mock horror. "Sorry, sir," Pace explained. "I'm not trainable today."

It was not the first time the defense secretary sought to reorder the world according to his tastes. Also not for the first time, the world wasn't following his plan. This summer Rumsfeld tried to change the "war on terror" to the "global struggle against violent extremism," or GSAVE. President Bush ended that plan.

This time, it's the Joint Chiefs chairman, still new to the job, who isn't marching to Rumsfeld's orders.

When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval.

I understand Milbank's objection, with his rather limited intellect, Dana apparently has difficulty with his long term memory. Allow me to assist him. Dana, Liberals such as yourself, love to point out to Conservatives how important the impact of words is. We just had an example of that kind of "new-speak" when those in the Milbank world objected to the use of the word "refugees" in reference to the "refugees" from the two hurricanes back during the summer. Or perhaps we should discuss the evolving "mot de jour," for describing the various minority groups, e.g. "negro," "colored," "Afro-American," "black," African-American." I'm surprised that it took so long for Rumsfeld to attempt to make this change, and equally surprised (not really) to hear such a dedicated Liberal like Milbank whine about it.

Full Story: Idiot Calling the Kettle Black

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America Needs to Decide Whether or Not They Wish to Live Under Capitalism or Socialism

Drugmakers Win Exemption in House Budget-Cutting Bill

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A08

As part of a House budget bill that reduces spending on Medicaid prescription drugs, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. and other businesses secured a provision ensuring that their mental health drugs continue to fetch top price at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the states.

The provision -- inserted by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), whose district flanks Lilly's Indianapolis headquarters -- would largely exempt antipsychotic and antidepressant medications from a larger measure designed to steer Medicaid patients to the least expensive treatment options. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved Buyer's amendment this month over the strenuous objections of Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.) and the National Governors Association. It survived unchallenged in the $50 billion budget-cutting bill that narrowly passed the House just before Congress left for Thanksgiving recess.

Mental health advocates defend Buyer's provision, saying it is necessary to ensure that vulnerable mental health patients receive proper treatment.

Andrew Sperling, the director of legislative advocacy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said his organization has been fighting efforts to restrict access to mental health drugs for years and strongly backed Buyer's amendment. "We believe these [restrictive] policies are destructive and contrary to good clinical policies," he said. "We don't like them."

To opponents, however, Buyer's measure underscores the excessive power that corporate interests wield on Capitol Hill. Critics say the measure also violates the purpose of the budget-cutting bill, which was drafted to give state governments the flexibility to cut program costs in ways that minimize the harm done to beneficiaries.

"This is obviously an attempt to prevent state Medicaid offices from getting cheaper, just-as-beneficial drugs to patients, and it's really going to stick it to the taxpayers," said Steve Ellis, a vice president and Medicaid analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the provision will raise federal drug spending by $125 million over five years, while state officials say they are likely to face far higher costs.

In a letter to the California congressional delegation, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) estimated the provision would raise the state's prescription drug costs by $50 million a year.

"This would definitely limit states' flexibility," Barton protested earlier this month, before nine committee Republicans joined 22 Democrats to override the chairman's wishes. "And again the underlying basis of the bill is to give states more flexibility, not less flexibility."

Under the budget-cutting bill's Medicaid provisions, states would be allowed to create lists of preferred medications. Then, for the first time, they could charge higher co-payments -- even to poor children and pregnant women -- for medicines not on those lists. The bipartisan National Governors Association, which promoted the changes, maintains that states will save billions of dollars by guiding patients away from newer drugs that may be far more expensive -- but no more effective -- than older alternatives.

There is no doubt that we could restrict the return on investment that the drug corporations get and put their research sectors out of business. The question remains do we want to do so? Just so you drug company bashers understand, without profits, the drug companies will go out of business, and the drugs will not be available at any price. The cost to the state will be even higher without private enterprise bearing the burden of research and development.

Full Story: Stop Whining and Take Your Medicine

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TSA Attempting to Allow Sanity to Return: Prioritizing Measures

TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airliners
Screeners to Focus More on Bombs

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A01

A new plan by the Transportation Security Administration would allow airline passengers to bring scissors and other sharp objects in their carry-on bags because the items no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans.

In a series of briefings this week, TSA Director Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley told aviation industry leaders that he plans to announce changes at airport security checkpoints that would allow scissors less than four inches long and tools, such as screwdrivers, less than seven inches long, according to people familiar with the TSA's plans. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the TSA intends to make the plans public Friday.

"We'll be announcing a number of new initiatives that will have both a positive security and customer service impact," said TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark, who declined to comment on the details of the announcement. The plans must be approved by the Homeland Security Department and the Office of Management and Budget.

Faced with a tighter budget and morale problems among its workforce, the TSA says its new policy changes are aimed at making the best use of limited resources. Homeland Security Department officials are increasingly concerned about airports' vulnerability to suicide bomb attacks. TSA officials now want airport screeners to spend more of their time looking for improvised explosive devices rather than sharp objects.

The TSA's internal studies show that carry-on-item screeners spend half of their screening time searching for cigarette lighters, a recently banned item, and that they open 1 out of every 4 bags to remove a pair of scissors, according to sources briefed by the agency. Officials believe that other security measures now in place, such as hardened cockpit doors, would prevent a terrorist from commandeering an aircraft with box cutters or scissors.

However, many flight attendants do not believe sharp objects should be allowed on board. They argue that even though such items would not enable another Sept. 11, 2001-style hijacking, the items could be used as weapons against passengers or flight-crew members. "TSA needs to take a moment to reflect on why they were created in the first place -- after the world had seen how ordinary household items could create such devastation," said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which has more than 46,000 members. "When weapons are allowed back on board an aircraft, the pilots will be able to land the plane safety but the aisles will be running with blood."

That last statement is typical of the knee-jerk liberal fear mongering which leads ultimately to oppression. If a plane load of 200 people can't overpower a few hijackers, and if we surrender all of our freedoms to prevent a few people from being injured out of fear, then we might as well just turn the controll of our nation over to the terrorists right now. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator.

Full Story: Sanity Returning to TSA

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More Bad News for Democrats: Signs of Progress in Ramadi

U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A01

RAMADI, Iraq, Nov. 29 -- Outside Ramadi's city auditorium, the mortar rounds fell, two, then three, each rattling the concrete walls slightly. Inside, locked in an intense debate about what it would take for American troops in Iraq to withdraw, none of the camouflaged Marines or robed Sunni Arab tribal leaders even flinched.

"We all want the withdrawal," Nasir Abdul Karim, leader of Anbar province's Albu Rahad tribe, told scores of the armed Marines and Sunni sheiks, clerical leaders and other elders at the gathering Monday in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad. "We all believe it is an illegitimate occupation, and it is a legitimate resistance."

"We're committed to withdrawing," responded Brig. Gen. James L. Williams of the 2nd Marine Division, "as soon as we have strong units" in the Iraqi army to replace U.S.-led forces. "I understand the resistance," Williams added, commenting later that he was referring to the peaceful opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq. "But you must understand we're military people. People who are shot at will shoot back."

The spirited exchange in Ramadi came at the largest meeting yet between those suspected of supporting the Iraqi insurgency and the U.S. forces battling them. The comments by the tribal leaders, and similar remarks to reporters Tuesday in Fallujah, 30 miles away, offered fresh evidence of how the debate in the United States about pulling out troops is also echoing through Iraq. President Bush is expected to address growing public sentiment for withdrawal in a speech Wednesday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Nowhere is support for a U.S. military exit stronger than in Anbar province in western Iraq, heart of the Sunni insurgency, where fighters control whole communities along the Euphrates River, and where money and materiel flow in from neighboring Syria. Elsewhere in Iraq, many people who resent the U.S. presence say they fear factional struggles and upheaval if the U.S. troops leave too quickly. But in Anbar cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah, the calls for a pullout are enthusiastically applauded.

"The people of Fallujah love Cindy Sheehan," declared Farouk Abd-Muhammed, a candidate for National Assembly in Dec. 15 elections, referring to the mother of a slain Marine who became a U.S. antiwar activist. He spoke Tuesday at a pre-election meeting of local leaders in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of the largest U.S. offensive of the war in November 2004.

Abd-Muhammed described watching recent television reports with his family showing Americans waving banners that read "Stop the war in Iraq."

"I salute the American people because we know after watching them on satellite that they are ready to leave," Abd-Muhammed said.

"We know that there are now voices, even in the Congress, that want America to leave Iraq as soon as possible," said Fawzi Muhammed, an engineer who is the deputy chairman of Fallujah's reconstruction committee. "It makes us feel very happy and comfortable because it is the only solution to the problems in Iraq."

Unlike Fallujah -- seen now by some U.S. commanders as a model of cooperation between Sunni leaders and the military -- people in Ramadi appear to know comparatively little of the debate in the United States over the war. Fighting here, including insurgent bomb attacks, knocked out most of the provincial capital's communications to the outside world, and U.S. forces were able to restore a vital fiber-optics cable only this month.

But the distrust -- and the disconnect -- between the U.S. forces and the Iraqis here runs strong. Sunday, the day before the meeting, was the first "zero casualty" day the city had experienced in some time, Williams said.

Heavy fighting, and a heavy U.S. presence to try to curb it, have left the city a bombed-out, weed-overgrown, deserted wasteland. As observers arrived for the meeting, Marines prodded them to run from the government building to the nearby meeting hall, fearing that bullets or mortar rounds would make it over the blast walls.

U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks
Williams said he had discussed the planned gathering since July with Mamoun Sami Rashid Alwani, the third governor of Anbar to take office so far this year. One of Rashid Alwani's predecessors was killed in a U.S. firefight with insurgents; the other quit after his sons were kidnapped.

Rashid Alwani, a target of insurgents because he has worked with the new Iraqi government and the Americans, survived "seven or eight" assassination attempts before the meeting came about, Williams said.

For U.S. officers, the fact that the gathering took place was heartening. "If there's a debate today, the whole city is seeing democracy," Capt. Philip Nash, a Marine commander in Ramadi, said before it began. "It's a town-hall meeting in Ramadi."

"Today's awesome," Nash added as scores of U.S. Marines took up positions for the meeting, and Iraqi forces checked the Sunni leaders filing in for weapons. "They're coming, and I haven't seen that before."

Here we have some of the most determined of the hard-liner Sunnis coming to the table to debate about troop withdrawal. This is some of the progress that the MSM have been reluctant to show/talk about. For the most vehement of the anti-American Iraqis to be willing to come to the discussion table is something that we never seem to hear Ted "the Killer" Kennedy or Jack Murtha mention. This doesn't sound like failure to me. Yes they want us out, yes they are impatient to regain total control of their nation, I would be too, but...they are talking rather than just lobbing bullets. Certainly, as described by the authors, they are still having to dodge the mortar rounds even at the conference, but they are talking! We are really being blessed in getting to witness the birth of a new democratic/republican government. I wish the killing wasn't there, but over all it is fascinating.

Full Story: Iraq, Birth of a Nation

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Even The French Have a Greater Understanding of Iraq War than Murtha

France warns against hasty U.S. pullout from Iraq

29 Nov 2005 18:38:45 GMT
Source: Reuters

PARIS, Nov 29 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, one of the sharpest critics of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, warned Washington on Tuesday against pulling out troops without regard to regional security.

Villepin, interviewed in Paris by CNN, said a badly planned withdrawal could cause chaos in Iraq, "which of course would be disastrous for the whole region."

U.S. officials said last week the Pentagon planned to reduce its troop presence in Iraq from 155,000 to 138,000 after Dec. 15 parliamentary elections there, and could cut numbers back to 100,000 by next summer if conditions allowed.

Asked whether Washington should set a timetable for bringing home troops, Villepin said any withdrawal "should be coordinated with the local situation in Iraq and the regional situation."

"I think that the timetable should be a global timetable," he said. "The real timetable is the Iraqi situation."

Villepin identified two main risks in Iraq: "the division of Iraq, which is of course a nightmare for the region, and ... a growing role of terrorism."

The international community should support an Arab League effort to hold a national reconciliation conference in Iraq, a regrouping of political forces in the country and further cooperation among all countries in the region, he said.

Villepin, who as foreign minister gave a dramatic speech at the United Nations in early 2003 opposing U.S. plans for war in Iraq, said: "We knew since the beginning that it was very easy to go to war but very difficult to get out of Iraq."

But he said France wanted to work with its allies in Iraq. "We have to face the situation as it is, and it is the responsibility of all the international community to help the process, to make sure that we go forward all together."

Did someone say they were serving ice-cream in Hell? What has come over the Froggies to make them begin sounding reasonable? Well I can suggest a couple of things. One, they have just had a rude awakening (one might say "baptism of fire," if he had a twisted sense of humor) courtesy of their muslim "guests," and two, they only sound that way because our Extreme Left Wing Democrat Congressmen sound so irrational and traitorous. When you have people like Ramsey "I Hate America" Clark going over to Iraq to help a mass murderer's defense team, it's not hard for people to rise to a higher level of morality.

Original Story: Villepin, Villian No More?

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Under the "Who Really Cares" and "Does It Really Matter" Heading

Canadians Vote to Throw Out Government

By ROB GILLIES
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; 8:21 AM

TORONTO -- Canadian politicians will hit the campaign trail this holiday season after opposition parties seized upon a corruption scandal to bring down the minority government of Prime Minister Paul Martin in a vote of no confidence.

Monday's loss means an election for all 308 seats in the lower House of Commons, likely on Jan. 23. Martin and his Cabinet will continue to govern until then.

The Conservative Party teamed up with the New Democratic and Bloc Quebecois parties to bring down the government, claiming the ruling Liberal Party had lost its moral authority. Recent polls have given the Liberals a slight lead over the Conservatives, with the New Democrats in third place.

The same surveys suggest the Bloc Quebecois would sweep the French-speaking province of Quebec, making a majority government unlikely no matter which party wins the most seats.

Martin is expected to dissolve the House of Commons on Tuesday and set a firm date for the elections. Canadian law sharply restricts the duration of the campaign.

"The vote in the House of Commons did not go our way," Martin said. "But the decision of the future of our government will be made by Canadians. They will judge us."

Martin has had frosty relations with the White House, standing by the Liberal Party decision not to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He also declined to join in Washington's continental ballistic missile shield, infuriating the Bush administration, has been called weak on terrorism, and was vocal in his opposition of high U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber.

His push to legalize gay marriage throughout Canada also raised the hackles of Republicans south of the 49th parallel, but Martin is widely respected worldwide for Canada's neutrality and open arms toward immigrants and minorities.

Canada's Conservatives, by contrast, are seen as much more receptive to improving relations with Washington, though a majority of Canadians opposed the war in Iraq and the policies of President Bush.

Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper favors tax cuts and opposed Martin's successful bill to legalize same-sex marriage throughout Canada. He would become prime minister if the Conservatives receive the most seats in Parliament.

"This is not just the end of a tired, directionless, scandal-plagued government," Harper said after Monday's vote. "It's the start of a bright new future for this country."

Truthfully, what happens in Canadian Politics is just about as important to America as what happens in Sri Lanka. Perhaps a change in government will bring a change in attitude towards America, but I doubt it. A lot of nice folks live in Canada and I wish them well, but they have been so hateful towards America and President Bush that I have little sympathy for them. Canada is best used as an example of what America should not do. Confiscatory gun policy, socialized medicine, Balkanized populace (Parlez vous Anglais?), U.N. oriented foreign policy. I see nothing to recommend them...Pretty country though.

Full Story: Canada's France-lite Province Loses Control of Government

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Come On Fitzgerald, Get a Life!

Time Reporter Called a Key to Rove's Defense In Leak Probe

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; Page A01

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It's not clear why Luskin believes Novak's deposition could help Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging" Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case.

Luskin presented evidence, including details of his own conversations with Novak, to Fitzgerald at a secret meeting at a downtown law office shortly before Libby was indicted on Oct. 28, according to a source familiar with the case.

It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.

Novak is not related to Robert D. Novak, the columnist who first disclosed Plame's identity in July 2003. Viveca Novak is expected to write a firsthand account after she is deposed.

The disclosure of Novak's impending testimony is the latest indication that Fitzgerald is still considering charges against Rove and that the investigation of Bush's top aide continues, even as the prosecutor prepares for Libby's trial. It also shows that Rove, who, like Libby, was dragged into the case for talking to reporters, is now hoping that a reporter will help pull him out.

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward told Fitzgerald earlier this month that he had discussed Plame with a senior administration official -- and that the official was someone other than Libby -- before Libby's first conversation with another reporter about Plame. The Libby legal team cheered Woodward's testimony, calling it "a bombshell" and contending that it undercut Fitzgerald's case that Libby was the first official known to have talked about Plame and her CIA status with a reporter.

Libby's legal team plans to rely on testimony from Woodward and other reporters to show that the former Cheney aide is not guilty of lying, providing misleading statements and obstructing justice in the course of the investigation, a person familiar with the legal strategy said.

Luskin, Viveca Novak and Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment. The two sources, both of whom are familiar with the Luskin-Novak conversations, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the prosecutor has warned everyone involved in the case not to discuss it publicly.

Fitzgerald has spent the past two years investigating whether any Bush administration officials disclosed Plame's name and employment at the CIA as part of an effort to discredit allegations by her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, that President Bush had twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war. Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the crime he originally set out to prove: the illegal disclosure of a covert CIA operative's identity. Instead, he has focused on alleged wrongdoing in the course of the investigation.

Talk about beating a dead horse...HEY PATRICK! THERE WAS NO ORIGINAL CRIME. Time to fold up your tents and go home. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This time you lost, no crime was committed until you began to stir up the political pot. Stop looking for a justification for your investigation, stop disrupting people's lives and go home. Go find a bug to pull the legs off of. This death of a thousand cuts routine is getting old. You are not doing anything positive for the country, you are just contributing to the negative atmosphere that hangs over Washington, DC. GO HOME! PLEASE!

Full Story: Tend to the Log in Your Own Eye...

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Birnbaum: Looking for More Story Than He Found, Some Perspective Please

A Growing Wariness About Money in Politics

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; Page A01

For several years now, corporations and other wealthy interests have made ever-larger campaign contributions, gifts and sponsored trips part of the culture of Capitol Hill. But now, with fresh guilty pleas by a lawmaker and a public relations executive, federal prosecutors -- and perhaps average voters -- may be concluding that the commingling of money and politics has gone too far.

After years in which big-dollar dealings have come to dominate the interaction between lobbyists and lawmakers, both sides are now facing what could be a wave of prosecutions in the courts and an uprising at the ballot box. Extreme examples of the new business-as-usual are no longer tolerated.

Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, are most vulnerable to this wave. But pollsters say that voters think less of both political parties the more prominent the issue of corruption in Washington becomes, and that incumbents generally could feel the heat of citizen outrage if the two latest guilty pleas multiply in coming months.

No fewer than seven lawmakers, including a Democrat, have been indicted, have pleaded guilty or are under investigation for improper conduct such as conspiracy, securities fraud and improper campaign donations. Congress's approval ratings have fallen off the table, in some measure because of headlines about these scandals.

"The indictments and the investigations have strengthened the feeling that people have that in fact there's too much money in Washington and that the money is being used to influence official decisions," said William McInturff, a Republican pollster with Public Opinion Strategies. "Polls show that neither party is held in high regard."

The latest court case came yesterday in San Diego when Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) wept openly after pleading guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy. His plea bargain came less than a week after public relations executive Michael Scanlon coolly admitted his role in a conspiracy to try to bribe a congressman.

Members of Congress, lawyers and pollsters recognize that both events taken together could signal the start of a cyclical ritual in the nation's capital: the moment when lawmakers and outsiders are widely seen as getting too cozy with each other and face a public backlash -- and legal repercussions -- as a result.

"I've been in town for 30 years, and it seems that every 10 years or so there is an episode of this type," said Jan W. Baran, a Republican ethics lawyer at Wiley Rein & Fielding. "We clearly are at that period now."

"It's gotten to a level that it can't be ignored anymore," agreed Stanley M. Brand, a criminal defense lawyer at Brand & Frulla who used to work for Democrats in Congress.

The worst of the blowback, both legal and electoral, could be blunted if ongoing probes turn up little or nothing. Indeed, some of the investigations are in the early stages and may take months or years to resolve. In addition, experts say that the most prominent cases are aberrational or else there would be even more investigations and indictments than there are.

Yet the activities under scrutiny can also be viewed as logical extensions of actions that once were rare but over time have become commonplace: massive political fundraising, freewheeling private travel given to lawmakers by groups interested in legislation, and the bestowing of other gifts and benefits on government officials by lobbyists.

As the Scanlon case demonstrates, the extent of this favor-buying has gone so far that the Justice Department is no longer deterred from bringing charges even if the gifts fall within Congress's gift-giving limits or are below campaign finance maximums. "It doesn't matter," Brand said. Charges could come, he said, if "anything of value is given to a public official that can be linked to an official act."

Amazing...politics attracts money, who'd have guessed? We once again see an example of the brevity of the press' memories and that of the voters. This is nothing new, bribery is as old as is politics. Some individuals in any political party lack the character to resist the temptations of proffered money. Sometimes the amount of money can be staggering...on the low end, I mean. It is astounding how little money it takes to persuade some public officials to betray their constituents and their own morals. On the other hand, some corruption involves large sums of money...some prostitutes cost more than others, we're just talking price here, not morality. This kind of thing happened with the Clinton Administration (remember pardon-gate? or how about the Clinton Slush...oops, strike that, "Legal Defense Fund." As is stated in the article, this kind of thing is pretty common place, and when it is pursued by prosecutors (usually when it becomes too userous or obvious) then it comes to the forefront of the news. With money comes temptation. That is one reason I am surprised that more people aren't investigating the activities of George Soros. But then he is supporting Democrats, so I guess I'm not surprised. Jeff, Grow up! Find something more news worthy.

Full Story: History Repeats Itself...Yawn

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More Pseudo-Science From the Doom and Gloomers

World Leaders to Discuss Strategies for Climate Control
Bush Administration Shuns Conference On Strategies to Build on Kyoto Pact

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page A03

The nations of the world will meet in Montreal this week to start discussing the next step in combating the global warming problem, hoping to devise a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that was scorned by the Bush administration in 2001. But the United States is saying it doesn't want to talk.

Despite the Bush administration's resistance, an assortment of U.S. elected officials, industry representatives and environmentalists are pushing to chart a new climate change strategy that will bring the United States back into international discussions while forcing developing countries to make meaningful cuts in their own carbon dioxide emissions. This push for a more flexible approach than Kyoto provided will be on full display in Montreal and could frame how the world confronts climate change in the years to come.

"Most people are ready to take the dialogue forward. The only place where that is not the case is the administration," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Many advocates, analysts and policymakers are willing to move beyond the "one size fits all" approach of Kyoto, she added.

Climate experts such as Claussen are grappling with how best to proceed after 2012, when Kyoto -- which set a goal of cutting heat-trapping gases by 7 percent below 1990 levels by then -- expires. Scientists such as Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer believe the world is in the middle of "the critical decade" in terms of curbing greenhouse gas emissions and needs to lock in carbon dioxide cuts soon before the warming trend has irreversible consequences.

"We do have a little time, but not much. . . . If we don't get a serious program in place for the long term in this second post-Kyoto phase, we will simply not make it and we will be crossing limits which will basically produce impacts that are unacceptable," Oppenheimer told reporters in a telephone conference call this month.

Starting tomorrow and continuing until Dec. 9, two overlapping groups will be meeting in Montreal: the 156 countries that signed Kyoto, which include every industrialized nation except the United States and Australia; and the 189 signatories to the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, a pact without binding emissions limits that the United States and Australia have both endorsed.

Negotiators are hoping to have talks about a post-Kyoto climate strategy under the auspices of the U.N. Framework Convention, the broader coalition. But Paula J. Dobriansky, the undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, said the United States would prefer that each country to pursue its own way of curbing harmful emissions.

"We don't see the commencement of a negotiation process as contributing to progress now . . . given the differing positions held by parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change," she said. "One of the best ways forward is to allow for the development of different approaches."

There continues to be no proof that man's activities have any effect, adverse or beneficial on the climate change which is occurring. There is a tremendous amount of demagoguery on this subject, but no real evidence. Opinions abound and people are prone to believe the faux science because they see some variations in climate. This is especially true when you have idiots like Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Al Gore running around touting this bad science. This is what happens when emotion rather than logic is allowed to run your life and lead you in your decisions. At that point, facts become irrelevent. Bobby Jr. is the poster boy for this kind of thinking.

Full Story: Oh No! Mr. Bill, Another Kyoto Fol de rol

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Lining Up the Liars

Advocacy Groups Targeting Vulnerable Senators on Alito Vote

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 28, 2005; Page A02

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Fifteen foot soldiers newly recruited to the campaign to derail the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. introduced themselves at a recent meeting not only by name but also by offering their reasons for joining the cause.

Their concerns sounded a lot like an anthology of liberal talking points, bringing faint smiles to the faces of the organizers from Rhode Islanders for a Fair Judiciary, which is working to marshal opposition to Alito across the state. Abortion, gay rights, worker rights -- all are imperiled if Alito receives a lifetime appointment to the nation's high court, the volunteers said.

To prevent that from happening, these activists have joined a growing grass-roots campaign aimed at persuading the state's U.S. senators to oppose Alito. And one of those two senators is foremost in their minds: Republican Lincoln D. Chafee, who is up for reelection next year.

Coming from the small liberal wing of his party, Chafee is a supporter of abortion rights whose future is imperiled from both directions. He is facing a conservative challenge in the primary, and if he survives that he faces a general election battle in a distinctly Democratic-leaning state. Few are weighing Alito's nomination more gingerly -- and these activists know it.

This is the mirror opposite of the vulnerability that Alito's supporters are hoping to exploit in states such as Nebraska and North Dakota, which President Bush won easily last year but where Democrats hold Senate seats.

This gives activists on both sides incentives to plunge into the political trenches -- distributing postcards to be mailed to senators, writing letters to the editor, passing out literature extolling Alito's virtues or warning of the dangers he would present if elevated to the high court.

In Providence, one volunteer even offered to prowl downtown streets with a mobile phone and a script, offering passers-by a chance to call Chafee's office on the spot to register opposition to Alito.

"I know some of you might be wondering: Is this going to make a difference? It's only postcards," said Marti Rosenberg, the lead organizer here, who opposed the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork. "In the Bork fight, we got nearly 1,000 cards to Senator [John H.] Chafee, the dad. And we did beat Bork."

Backed by the money and know-how of Washington-based advocacy organizations, activists on both sides are duplicating those efforts in about 25 states. In many cases, the grass-roots campaign is being supplemented with television advertising focused on swaying swing-vote senators.

Opponents of the nomination, who are concentrating on states with moderate Republican senators or conservative Democrats, are trying to drive home the argument that Alito is a threat to long-established rights. His confirmation, they say, will put the judiciary in the hands of conservative extremists, threatening the right to abortion, crippling the power of Congress to pass anti-discrimination or gun-control laws, and resulting in more police power over individuals.

It will be no surprise if this "blacksmith" acts like a powderpuff. John Chafee was a complete embarassment to the Republican party and a sad excuse for a man, and his son, Lincoln, fails to measure up to the father. I guess it's true that the acorn doesn't fall far from the balsawood tree. To call Chafee a moderate is to insult moderates. He hasn't the backbone of a moderate. Chafee is the least Republican Republican in Congress. At least Liberal Republicans like Lowell Weicker had a backbone. Alito is the perfect nominee, he will be the epitome of a constitutionalist. He will be certain to avoid legislating from the bench, and that is precisely what the Liberals don't want. The Liberal agenda is dead without an activist judiciary.

Full Story: Democrat Distortion Machine

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Demagoguery Runs Deep in Pelosi Camp

Medicaid Cutbacks Divide Democrats
House Condemns Provisions Crafted By Governors

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 28, 2005; Page A01

Controversial House legislation designed to gain control of Medicaid growth has split Democrats, with lawmakers in Washington united in their opposition while Democratic governors are quietly supporting the provisions and questioning the party's reflexive denunciations.

The Medicaid provisions have become a flashpoint for the opposition of Democrats -- and some moderate Republicans -- to the $50 billion budget-cutting bill that narrowly passed the House last week. The provisions would reduce Medicaid spending by $12 billion through 2010 and $48 billion over the next decade, in part by making it difficult for more affluent seniors to transfer their assets to relatives, then plead poverty to get Medicaid to pay for them to stay in nursing homes.

But the measures would also save $2.4 billion over five years by allowing state governments to impose higher health insurance deductibles, co-payments and premiums on poor Medicaid recipients, including, for the first time, impoverished children and pregnant women. An additional $3.9 billion would be saved by relaxing mandated preventive health care and screening of children and pregnant women.

The changes would trim just 1.7 percent from a program expected to spend nearly $2.8 trillion though 2015, but the proposals have prompted bitter condemnation from congressional Democrats.

"As the number of people without health insurance has increased for four years in a row, Republicans are charging ahead with $45 billion in cuts to Medicaid -- the health insurance program that provides medical care to America's poorest children and many of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) thundered Nov. 18, just before the pre-dawn passage of the bill. "Republicans give new meaning to the words 'suffer little children.' "

What she did not say is that those changes were proposed over the summer by a bipartisan task force of governors, led by Virginia's Mark R. Warner, whose popularity in a Republican state has made him a rising star in the Democratic Party.

In fact, the most controversial provisions in the House bill were adapted almost word for word from a document drafted by Govs. Warner, Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa), Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.), Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.), Jennifer M. Granholm (D-Mich.), Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho), Jim Doyle (D-Wis.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and Edward G. Rendell (D-Pa.), said Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association.

More proof of the amorality of Pelosi and her supporters. In spite of the fact that the proposal was the result of "a bi-partisan task force of governors, led by Virginia's Mark R. Warner," a Democrat. The egregiously hateful and deceptive Nancy Pelosi sees nothing wrong with blaming Republicans. Really Nancy, you can't even support a 1.7% cut on a $2.8 Trillion program? Where are you going to get this money? Do you want to destroy our economy? Do you really care so little about the American people that you will saddle them with a Jimmy Carter Economy? Nancy, you must really hate the American people to be so cold blooded and political. I have changed my mind, you are not stupid, you are evil and a malevolent influence on our nation.

Full Story: Pelosi's Hatred for America and Capitalism

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On the Hilarious Side of the Life Politic

Mother Sheehan’s Book Signing"

Sometimes several pictures are worth several thousand words:

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan waits for people to show up at her book signing near President Bush’s ranch on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 in Crawford, Texas. The Washington Post chose this photo to use in their story.

Mother Sheehan Sings Sinatra:
"It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place except you and me
So, set 'em up, Joe, I got a little story you oughta know
We're drinkin', my friend, to the end of a brief episode
Make it one for my baby and one more for the road"

Frankly I’m amazed the DNC/AP (one in the same) allowed these photos to see the light of day.

My caption: Ever have one of those days when you think "Where did I go wrong?"

Usually their photogs do their (unlevel) best to angle their cameras and crop their pictures to make Mother Sheehan always appear to be at the center of a worshipful swarm.

CNN Reports: Cindy Sheehan today had a turn away crowd at her book signing held in Crawford Texas. Supporters were lined up around the ditch to get a signed copy of her new book "Not One More Mother's Child."

I’m afraid someone is going to be in hot water for letting us glimpse the truth.
Update! As if to drive home my point, this is the photo from this series that Reuters decided to run with:

Again, note the bizarre angle and the severe cropping. In Hollywood this is called "protecting your star."

Photos and Blue font comments courtesy of Sweetness & Light.com To you guys I am very greatful for making these photos available so that Americans can get the truth.

Full Story: What If You Gave a Book Signing...

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When State Department Goals Interfere With Military Needs

Shiite Urges U.S. to Give Iraqis Leeway In Rebel Fight
Americans Have Blocked Tougher Tactics, Cleric Says

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The leader of Iraq's most powerful political party has called on the United States to let Iraqi fighters take a more aggressive role against insurgents, saying his country will only be able to defeat the insurgency when the United States lets Iraqis get tough.

"The more freedom given to Iraqis, the more chance for further progress there would be, particularly in fighting terror," said Abdul Aziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite Muslim religious party that leads the transitional government and whose armed wing is the most feared of Iraq's many factional forces.

Instead, Hakim asserted in a rare interview late last week, the United States is tying Iraq's hands in the fight against insurgents. One of Iraq's "biggest problems is the mistaken or wrong policies practiced by the Americans," he said.

In more than an hour of conversation at his Baghdad home and office, Hakim denied accusations that the Shiite-led government's security forces -- with alleged involvement by his party's armed wing -- have operated torture centers and death squads targeting Sunni Arabs. He also renewed his call to merge half of Iraq's 18 provinces into a federal region in the oil-rich, heavily Shiite south, and he played down Iran's interests in Iraq, saying that the Shiite theocracy to the east wants only what the United States claims to want: a stable Iraq.

During much of the interview, Hakim was critical of U.S. policies toward Iraq, though he acknowledged that U.S. forces must remain in the country as a "guest" of the Iraqi government while it builds its security forces. The Americans are guilty of "major interference, and preventing the forces of the Interior or Defense ministries from carrying out tasks they are capable of doing, and also in the way they are dealing with the terrorists," Hakim charged.

Hakim gave few details of what getting tough would entail, other than making clear it would require more weapons, with more firepower, than the United States is currently supplying. He also urged the United States to take a tougher stand against countries harboring insurgents and their supporters, and called for faster trials of insurgent suspects.

His repeated assertion that the United States was being too weak against Iraq's insurgency, allowing attacks to mushroom, appeared to suggest that any future Iraqi government that included him would share his view. With Iraqis scheduled to vote Dec. 15 for the country's first full-term government since the U.S. invasion in 2003, some analysts predict that Hakim will come from behind the scenes into direct political contention.

Until now, Hakim has opted not to hold office; the highest-ranking member of the Supreme Council in the current government is Adel Abdel-Mehdi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents. But as head of the Supreme Council, which was founded by exiles in Iran as an armed Shiite opposition group to Saddam Hussein, Hakim commands the largest bloc of seats in Iraq's transitional parliament.

In addition, Hakim oversees the party's armed wing, formerly known as the Badr Brigade. Its fighters are widely feared for what even many Iraqi Shiites say are habits of torture and other ruthless tactics learned from Iranian intelligence and security forces. Now officially converted into a private security detail and political group, the renamed Badr Organization is widely alleged to control many command-level and the rank-and-file officers in the Interior Ministry -- police, commandos, intelligence agencies and other branches.

The United States, at times openly distrustful of the Supreme Council's Iranian links and of its armed wing, took the allegations of Badr involvement in a secret Interior Ministry prison that was discovered last week seriously enough to publicly warn the government against allowing factional militias to control Iraq's security forces or ministries.

In the interview, Hakim, the son of an ayatollah, wore the black turban signifying descent from the prophet Muhammad and the long, close robes of a scholar of Islam. He spoke in a spare, formal marble-floored audience room in his Baghdad home, which until the U.S.-led invasion had been the Baghdad residence of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Sitting straight and intently in a high-backed chair, Hakim repeatedly invoked the assassination of his brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was killed by a car bomb in Najaf in August 2003. He evinced distrust of the Iraqi government's principal ally, the United States, even more often.

Here we have situation similar with those we witnessed in the Vietnam War. You cannot fight a war when constrained by the niceties desired by the United States Department of State. Ultimately, this War has to be resolved using an Iraqi solution, not an American solution. In 1776 America was not constrained by any outside influences in conducting our war for freedom. We were constrained by our consciences. The War for Independence was fought in the manner in which we chose, not our allies, the French, and certainly not that of our enemies, the British. In the end, this is what must happen in Iraq. They too must be allowed to resolves much of the conflict in their own way, with support of our military and our logistics, but in a manner consisten with their own cultural standards. Some of their techniques may be of questionable moral rectitude by Western standards, but they may be seen as more acceptable by standards in the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia theives are dealt with in a brutal, to us, but efficient manner consistent with their culture. It is not for us to say their way is wrong. Just so, we cannot impose our mores on the People of Iraq. They must be their own consciences. It is arrogance in the extreme for us to assume that our moral standards are better for the Iraqis than theirs. What is culturally acceptable over there may not be acceptable over here, but that is their affair, not ours. We must allow them to take the lead in combatting their own internal enemies. We presume too much to assume that we know better than they what will work in their culture. Liberal Westerners in both the political arena and in the MSM speak often of "diversity" but they rarely believe in it or mean it. Diversity means accepting the cultural differences of another nation, while not necessarily endorsing them. This is the attitude we need to adopt in Iraq. Short of wholesale slaughter, I believe that Hakim and his people are correct, let them deal with the terrorists who are killing their people.

Full Story: Let the Iraqis Dictate How to Conduct Their War

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Another Reason for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Intruder fatally shot by gun-wielding homeowner

KTRK/HOUSTON
11/22/05

A homeowner shot and killed an intruder who broke into a home near Memorial Park.

The suspect jumped a fence and broke through the side door of a town home on Lacy at Dettering just north of Memorial Drive. He had a baseball bat.
A man was home with his wife and child. He warned the intruder that he had a gun. That didn't stop him.

HPD's Mike Walker said, "(As he) began to make his way through the residence the homeowner secured his wife and child. As he tried to go upstairs he shot him."

The intruder died at the scene. Police say classify the case as a justifiable homicide.

Police are also checking out reports that the suspect may have had an accomplice. Witnesses heard a car speed off after the homeowner fired shots.

The anti-gun people are fond of telling lies such as "a gun in the home is 22 times as likely to kill or injure someone in the family as to be used for defense. I guess this family was a mistake. Actually the mistake is in having a "researcher" with an agenda (the disarming of Americans) doing research about that agenda. Kind of like having someone from the Sierra Club researching Global Warming. The results are likely to be as objective as is the researcher. Thanks God our ForeFathers had the forsight to cite gun ownership as one of our natural rights.

Full Story: Another Happy Gun Owner Story

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Yes Virginia, There Is A Strong Economy

ZOOMING IN ON BARGAINS
Stores 'swamped' with early birds
Retailers worked to renew spark of traditional shopping day — and Houstonians bought it

By DAVID KAPLAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Black Friday, that peculiar shopping day when people wake up in the middle of the night for a chance at a really good deal, has lost some of its effectiveness in recent years.

But retailers were out to reverse the trend this year.

"They're trying to bring back more excitement with extended hours and more door-buster specials, to make Black Friday one of the biggest days of the year again," said Jay McIntosh, director of retail and consumer products at Ernst & Young.

Houstonians responded.

At 1 a.m. Friday, dozens of shoppers were outside the Clear Lake-area Circuit City waiting for the 5 a.m. opening.

At other big box stores across town, it was a similar scene.

"Black Friday has almost become a religion with people," said Conn's district sales manager Tom Miller. "I've done this for 16 years, and this is probably the strongest I've seen. People are thrilled with the early bird deals and they come in willing to spend money."

At Conn's, sales of plasma and LCD TVs, computers and laptops were especially strong, he said.

At the Almeda Mall J.C. Penney, customers were waiting outside the store at 3 a.m., lured by door-buster specials on women's leather jackets, DVD players and other items. The store opened at 5 a.m.

"We're swamped," said store manager Woody McPike later in the morning. "I'm a little surprised by how good business has been, with energy prices and the natural disasters."

Houston Penney stores were performing "well above" projections for Black Friday, McPike said.

Retailers won't release their Black Friday sales figures until after the weekend. The day after Thanksgiving got the name Black Friday because it traditionally marks the day retailers "get back in the black," or show a profit, for the year.

Last year, the Thanksgiving weekend took in 9.2 percent of all holiday sales, less than the 9.5 percent posted in 2003.

In recent years, the Saturday before Christmas has been the biggest shopping day.

Among the nation's retailers this Black Friday, "it seems like the promotions are aggressive and widespread, particularly in apparel," McIntosh said.

Retailers generally like the cold weather at this time of year because it gets consumers in the mood to buy warm apparel. This year, however, cold is a two-edged sword: The frigid weather also reminds shoppers of the higher heating bills they'll be paying this season, McIntosh said.

It must be so depressing to be a Liberal these days, what with a strong economy, strong belief in the chances for success in the Iraq war, low unemployment, such bad news all the way around. Woe is Liberals. Of course they haven't realized the extent of their problems because they still believe that the election results from this November were some watershed event rather than a confirmation of the status quo. True things are not so swell for the President, but then (shh! don't tell Democrats this) President Bush isn't running for office anymore. Ah me. Inflation is low, GDP growth is strong, taxes are okay, but should be lower, unemployment is low, I mean, What's a Liberal to do?

Full Story: Positive Outlook for Retail Sales

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Chronicle's Cragg (pronounced "Craig") Continues Leftist Lies

So let's talk turkey about just where we are on Iraq

By CRAGG HINES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

If the question already is or ever becomes, "Who lost Iraq?" the answer is not Jack Murtha.

Nor Howard Dean. Nor John McCain. Nor Eric Shinseki. Nor even that pair of Euro-calculators, Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder.

George W. Bush will have had to manage that, with a little help from Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice and a cast of go-along supporters.

And if Iraq happens to be "won" (just try defining that in relation to our current Babylonian bamboozlement), then as Brent Scowcroft has asked, "At what cost?"

So is it no-win? Sort of looks like it. This is not a reflection on anyone's military sacrifice or on anyone's (including my own) gullibility regarding weapons of mass destruction.

This is an assessment of the best-case scenario of what we can see about a year down the road, even if Dec. 15 elections in Iraq are modestly successful and a government creaks along under a problematic constitution and holds things together short of an all-out civil war.

The worst-case scenario is a civil war that draws in Iran, Syria and Turkey. Then we'd find that U.S. efforts, by removing Saddam Hussein (as satisfying as that may have been), have only accentuated the geopolitical power vacuum that was a principal reason that George H.W. Bush (and Scowcroft) opted not to hound retreating Iraqis up the Highway of Death in 1991.

And who would most recently have set the stage for Iraq to be a nasty little terrorist breeding ground? Well, let's just say he'll be spending his Thanksgiving holiday in McLennan County.

The question of medium-range scenarios is at the heart of the debate ignited last week by a speech by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa. If you have not read it in its entirety, do so. It's on Murtha's House Web site at http://www.house.gov/murtha. In tone and preparation, the speech is, if anything, restrained.

What's interesting — and little done in the wake of various mischaracterizations of Murtha's speech — is to compare his proposal to what the White House plans. At least as manifested by the apparent intent of Central Command, Bush seems to have in mind the beginning of a significant drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq by spring.

This is the signal the White House is sending to calm political allies looking ahead to the 2006 midterm elections. "We're going to be on our way out of Iraq," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said Tuesday when asked how the war will figure in 2006 voting.

Once the pullout begins, the only difference between Murtha and Bush is pace, positioning and the old troop-level argument.

On that point, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among others, continues to contend that there have never been enough boots on the ground. That's the sort of observation that got Gen. John Shenseki fired, so no wonder the remaining brass doesn't clamor publicly for more personnel.

Cragg is so very typical of the MSM Left-wing bias. There is little of the truth in his assertions. "Best case?" The "best case" scenario is a continuation of what we are witnessing currently. The gradual progression of a state that has never before experienced self-government and liberty toward that same. Unfettered free elections, constitutional government, slow growth toward self-reliance (both political and military), gradual reconciling of political and religious differences, a gradual realization that disagreements need not mean irreconcilable differences nor result in open hostility, the gradual growth in national confidence as the realize they can do "democracy" as well as people in the west. Add to this the tremendous increase in stability this will bring to the Middle East. What cost is this worth? You tell me. Ask the soldiers if they believe it is worth the cost. Ask the Iraqi people if they believe it is worth the cost. Ask them why they keep lining up to serve as police and military when so many are targeted and killed by the terrorists. By the way Cragg Shenseki was not fired, he retired as he was scheduled to do. You Liberals just don't handle the truth too well do you? I guess that's because it is such an alien concept to you.

Full Editorial: Some Leftist Can Spell Their Names, Some Can't

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Sheehan Still Seeking the Spotlight, Missing the Point

Dueling war rallies return to Crawford
Sheehan is still focus of attention at rival campsites near Bush ranch

By JULIE MASON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

CRAWFORD - It was deja vu in this sleepy, Central Texas town Friday as demonstrators staked out their patches of dusty roadside to argue for and against the war in Iraq.

"When I got here yesterday, I felt relief. I felt like I was home among friends," anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan told more than 70 supporters gathered at the Crawford Peace House.

As the anti-war group sang peace songs and dedicated a new sculpture in their peace garden, a driver in a pickup sped by shouting, "Go home, you freaking losers!"

Sheehan's return to Crawford coincides with President Bush's Thanksgiving vacation here and the return of dozens of journalists to cover him.

But with the president sequestered at his ranch, the only action in Crawford, so far, has been the return of Sheehan and her group along with a smaller retinue of pro-Bush demonstrators who set up camp at the corner of the town's only stoplight.

In many ways, the picture was the same as it was last summer, when Sheehan spent 26 days on the roadside near Bush's 1,600-acre ranch, demanding a meeting with the president. Sheehan's son, Casey, died in the Iraq war while serving in the Army.

Having spent so much time here, Sheehan said she understands Bush's love of the area, which she called "beautiful." Despite differences of opinion with the many Crawford residents, Sheehan said she has made a lot of friends and feels at home.

That doesn't sit well with the pro-Bush demonstrators who gather whenever Sheehan is in town. The group, which has varied in size from a handful to hundreds, is solidly behind the war and opposes Sheehan's call to bring the troops home now.

"We're just about to win this war, but there is a lot of disinformation out there," said Songman Callahan, a former resident of The Woodlands now living outside Meridian. "The fact is that the war is going on, and we might as well get behind the troops. We're not leaving, and we'd be stupid to even think of it at this point."

Cindy is a useful idiot for the Extreme Leftist Democrat Party. To hear her speak is to be instructed in ignorance and insipience. She has the charisma of a pan of meatloaf. And her rhetoric could inpire the liveliest of spirits to lie down and die. Her only source of bona fides is the dead son she dishonors with her every action. She is not a sympathetic figure, she is a pitiful figure. Were it not so easy, lampooning her would be a joyful endeavor. As it is, she is just painful to watch, as she makes an ass of herself and denigrates the service of her heroic son. One has to wonder how anyone could so hate her son that she would do him such a disservice. The only explanation I can come up with is that she is a Democrat.

Full Story: Not Sheehan Again...

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Energy Expertise Comes From the Energy Corporations

Big Oil 'Participation' at Issue
Definitions Cited in Dispute Over Roles in Energy Task Force

By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005

It all depends how you define the word "participate."

While that may seem as silly as bickering over the definition of the word "is," the implications for some oil company executives who testified at a Senate hearing could be significant. Based on how the word is parsed, some executives either told the truth or did not when they were asked about their "participation" in the 2001 energy task force headed by Vice President Cheney.

The dispute stems from a question raised by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). At a hearing two weeks ago, he asked five oil executives whether they or representatives of their companies participated in meetings with Cheney's energy task force.

The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Chevron Corp. answered no. The president of Shell Oil Co. said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

The Bush administration has refused to identify who participated in the task force meetings. But The Washington Post reported last week that a White House document shows that in 2001, officials from Exxon Mobil, Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil and BP America met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

Yesterday, Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for the GOP staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of the two panels that convened the hearing, said its lawyers had reached a preliminary conclusion: Based on a court decision in which two groups unsuccessfully challenged the secrecy of the Cheney task force, Funk said the executives appeared to be telling the truth.

"What we simply determined was that the definition of 'participation' was something litigated, and what the court concluded was that attending meetings, and even making presentations, did not rise to the level of fully participating," Funk said.

Lautenberg sees it differently, and disputes the GOP interpretation of the court decision. He also said Republicans are incorrectly interpreting his question.

"I think we're getting down to almost a silly discussion," Lautenberg said.

Lautenberg said that when he asked the question, he was thinking of the word "participation" in broad terms. Here's his definition: "If you're doing anything more than breathing in the room when you're there. Even if you're a silent observer."

The senator has asked the Justice Department to look into the matter.

Funk said that the GOP staff's findings have given "considerable comfort" to Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the chairman of the energy panel. Funk said Domenici is reserving final judgment until after he has reviewed the written clarification that he and the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), have asked the oil companies to submit.

This has always been the biggest non-story in the Extreme Liberal Democrat Party's arsenal. Oil exectutives were consulted, in one way or another, about America's energy policy (proper hyperventilating encouraged). So what. Who else are you going to consult? Anti-capitalist college professors? Environmentalists who wish us to go back to the horse and buggy days? Democrats are such blow-hards! If I want help in building a decent education system, I am going to consult teachers, not administrators, union leaders, and bureaucrats who know nothing of what teachers need to succeed in their jobs. If I need to fight a war, I'm going to use Generals to call the military shots, not bureaucrats or so-called experts from academia. If is want to insult and degrade an individual, I'm going to call a Democrat to help, Oops! That last just sort of slipped out. The point is, this is and always has been the least surprising or important story out there. I suppose Lautenburg wants us to use members of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club to set our energy policy.

Full Story: Liberal Energy Expertise

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On a Trivial Issue, a Profound Statement of Character

Richardson Backs Off Baseball Claim

Associated Press
Friday, November 25, 2005

ALBUQUERQUE, Nov. 24 -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is coming clean on his draft record -- the baseball draft, that is -- acknowledging that his claim to have been a pick of the Kansas City Athletics in 1966 is untrue.

For nearly four decades, Richardson, often mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has maintained he was drafted by the team.

The claim was included in a brief biography released when Richardson was elected to Congress in 1982. A White House news release in 1997 mentioned it when he was about to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And several news organizations, including the Associated Press, have reported it as fact over the years.

But an investigation by the Albuquerque Journal found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A's, who have since moved to Oakland, Calif., or any other team.

He acknowledged the error in an article in Thursday's editions.

"After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter . . . I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's," he said.

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos declined to comment.

Bill, Bill, Bill...Most of us know when we lie. Uh, at least most Republicans do. The fact that you can't bespeaks volumes of your bona fides as a Liberal. You see Liberals lie so much and so often that the line between truth and fiction often becomes blurred for them. Bill told this lie so often (and lets be frank here, it is a small and irrelevent lie) that it became the truth to him, so much so that he had to do "research" to determine that it was not true. This inablility to tell the truth about so insignificant a thing, is not a good omen for his Presidential aspirations.

Full Story: Little Lies, Big Implications

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Post Continues to Incorrectly Portray Murtha as "Hawk"

The About-Face of a Hawkish Democrat
Murtha, With Many Military Connections, Moves From Voting for War to Urging Troop Withdrawal

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 25, 2005; Page A02

Of all the Democrats calling for an end to the Iraq war, Rep. John P. Murtha is an anomaly. Unlike Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.), he doesn't want to be president. He's no liberal, like his House colleagues Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) and Maxine Waters (Calif.). He's certainly the only one to call Vice President Cheney a friend.

A man of gruff familiarity -- most colleagues find it more natural to call him "Murtha" than "Jack" -- has been representing his Pennsylvania district for 16 terms, rising to become the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations panel's defense subcommittee. For that perch, he became known for his opposition to defense cuts and his willingness to send troops into battle -- and even to draft them, if necessary. He was the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress, and has fashioned a reputation as the Democrats' soldier-legislator -- a John McCain type without swagger or upward ambition. He generally prefers the shadows of Capitol Hill to the spotlight -- though that changed dramatically in recent days.

Last week, as Congress was preparing to leave town for a two-week Thanksgiving break, Murtha told a gathering of colleagues and, later, reporters that -- although he had voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion -- he now wants American troops withdrawn immediately. "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily," Murtha said. "It is time to bring them home."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted that Murtha's statement would become a "watershed event for our caucus, for our Congress and for our country." The burly 73-year-old lawmaker ignited a news blitz, and Republicans scrambled to respond. House GOP leaders hastily drew up a watered-down version of Murtha's withdrawal resolution, and made Republican lawmakers remain in town for a bitter and emotional Friday night session to vote it down.

It's hard to imagine any other Democrat causing such a stir. Republicans privately acknowledge that Murtha is a worrisome opponent because he can hardly be portrayed as a liberal of the Michael Moore stripe.

What sets Murtha apart from most fellow Democrats is his close connection to different layers of the armed services. The congressman regularly visits with wounded troops, but he also talks to battle commanders. "Jack Murtha is one of a kind," said Rep. Curt Weldon (Pa.), one of the few Republicans who rose in Murtha's defense during the Friday night House debate. "He is an example for all us in this body, and none of us should ever think of questioning his motives, his desires or support for our American troops."

Other Republicans depicted Murtha's call for withdrawal as irresponsible and even dangerous. On Nov. 18, White House spokesman Scott McClellan described Murtha as "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party" and suggested he was advocating a "surrender to the terrorists."

In the House debate Friday night, several Republicans suggested that Murtha is a coward who was proposing to "cut and run." But then the rhetoric started to cool. On Sunday, while traveling in Asia, President Bush called Murtha "a fine man, a good man who served our country with honor and distinction," who came to his Iraq position "in a careful and thoughtful way."

Democrats suspect that Republicans dialed back their criticisms after taking into account Murtha's hawkish track record. Judging from his history and close relationships at the Pentagon, Murtha probably was echoing a belief that runs deep within the ranks of senior officers. "He's someone who's a strong supporter of the military," said Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a West Point graduate and one of his party's leading Senate spokesmen on the military. "People will recognize that he's got their best interests at heart."

Murtha joined the Marines in 1952, and served in active duty or in the reserves until he retired in 1990. He volunteered for active Vietnam service and received the Bronze Star with Combat "V," two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He was elected to the House in a 1974 special election, after a five-year stint as a Pennsylvania state legislator.

His hawk credentials were burnished early on. "He was one of our strongest supporters when I worked for Reagan," said Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense from 1981 to 1985, and now a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Murtha shared President Ronald Reagan's anti-communist views, supporting the military buildup against the then-Soviet Union along with covert aid to the Nicaraguan contras. "I supported Reagan all through the Central American thing," Murtha reminded reporters during his Nov. 17 news conference.

This is the same "hawk" who told Bill Clinton to pull out of Somalia, an act which lead Osama bin Laden to believe that America was a "paper tiger" and that we would not have the stamina to pursue a war against those like himself. This was the "green-light" he needed to attack America. The press repeatedly refers to him as a "37 year veteran." Excuse me, he first entered service in 1953, but he is in his 16th term as Congressman? Uh, let's see 16 X 2 = 32 so he first entered Congress in...1973. That would mean he was on active duty for 20 years. So in actuallity, he did what many of those in the military do, he did his twenty and left active service for a more lucrative opportunity, that of Congressman. Don't get me wrong, doing your "twenty" is truly "honorable service." It's far more than most Americans have done, including me. I honor and salute him for his service to our country. My beef is not with him personally, except for his opinion with which I vehemently disagree. It is with the way he is being presented to us as some unique and unassailable figure whose sage opinion must not be criticized. In actuality, he is just another veteran-more distinguished than some-less than others, no more, no less. The remaining 17 years of his much touted service was as a reservists, and the bulk of his time was spent as a Congressman. Military veteran one-upsmanship is a very dangerous game that the Left seems to love to play, usually to their detriment. The only way they can get away with it at all, is because the press will echo their claims while ignoring the "superior credentials" (if you could call them that)of their Republican counterparts like Congressman Sam Johnson.

Full Story: One Man's Hawk...

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Yet Another Blow to Those Who Say "I Support the Troops by Being Anti-War"

From Wounds, Inner Strength
Some Veterans Feel Lives Enlarged by Wartime Suffering

By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 26, 2005

As Hilbert Caesar told his harrowing war story one night recently in the living room of his apartment, he patted the artificial limb sticking from a leg of his business suit. "This, right here," he said, "this is a minor setback."

Eighteen months after Caesar's right leg was mangled by a roadside bomb near Baghdad, and after weeks of coming to terms with what he thought was the end of his life, the former Army staff sergeant believes he has emerged a richer person -- wiser, more compassionate and more appreciative of life.

Asked whether he would endure it all again, he replied: "The guys I served with were awesome guys. . . . I would go through it again -- for the guys that I served with. Yes. Absolutely. I wouldn't change it for the world."

Although the shattering psychological impact of war is well known, experts have become increasingly interested in those who emerge from combat feeling enhanced. Some psychiatrists and psychologists believe that those soldiers have experienced a phenomenon known as "post-traumatic growth," or "adversarial" growth .

Although war left him with a leg of plastic and steel, Caesar, 28, of Silver Spring, appears to be among those who return home with psyche intact and a sense that they are in some mysterious way improved.

"I'm the same person," he said, "but I'm a different person now."

Combat's potential to inflict psychic wounds has been recognized as far back as the ancient Greeks, but so has its ability to exhilarate, intoxicate and instruct those who experience it, experts say.

"If you think about all of the heroes and heroines in cultures across the world . . . all of them, in one sense or another, faced some sort of a dragon," said Matthew J. Friedman, director of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School. "The transformation from that encounter has been celebrated from antiquity."

University of North Carolina psychologists Lawrence G. Calhoun and Richard G. Tedeschi, who have studied post-traumatic growth for 20 years, said they are careful in describing what occurs.

"We're talking about a positive change that comes about as a result of the struggle with something very difficult," Calhoun said. "It's not just some automatic outcome of a bad thing."

Calhoun said their studies suggest that for growth to occur the trauma must be severe. "We tend to use the metaphor of an earthquake."

He said the person first ponders the details of what happened. "And then there's a much more abstract process of finding some higher meaning . . . in what has transpired," he said.

This surprising phenomenon is no surprise to some of us. For those who are highly motivated, as most of our all volunteer military are, adversity leads to growth. This growth occurs both mentally, making you stronger and more determined to succeed, and spiritually, increasing your faith in God and hope in the future. For psychiatrists to be surprised only shows the negative bias in their own work in attempting to portray every veteran of war as a victim. Again we see the Liberal mindset at work. "I am so sure that this war is wrong, that I expect everyone coming back from it to be damaged from it. This is opinion posing as fact, an everyday phenomenon in certain areas of scientific research today. Post traumatic shock sydrome is one, global warming is another. Losing your objectivity costs you your validity. The net result proves the power of suggestion. Psychologysts and psychiatrists asserted PTSS in returning troops after Vietnam, that they created that illness in most victims. They came home expecting to be negatively affected, so they were.

Full Story: The Real Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome

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More Claims from Liberal Press that Murtha is a "Hawk"

DFL pols respond to Murtha’s call for U.S. troops’ withdrawal
Wednesday 23 November @ 19:25:10

by Phil Willkie

U.S. Congressman John Murtha, a hawkish Democrat from Pennsylvania, has called for immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Murtha, a decorated Marine veteran and widely acknowledged expert on military issues, believes a withdrawal could be accomplished within six months.

Pulse spoke to all three DFL U.S. Senate candidates: Ford Bell, Patty Wetterling and Amy Klobuchar, to get their reaction to Murtha's stand. None of them are ready to endorse Murtha's proposal. On Oct. 1, Wetterling called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by Thanksgiving 2006.

Bell, a prominent activist in nonprofit organizations, said he was thrilled to hear Murtha's position because of his credibility on military issues. Bell thinks we need to take the advice of military commanders on implementing an exit strategy.

Hennepin County Attorney Klobuchar seemed the most restrained in setting a U.S. withdrawal deadline. When asked if they could be withdrawn before the next Congress convenes in 2007, she was uncommitted, saying she doesn’t think we could withdraw the reservists within the next year.

None of these DFL candidates seem ready to embrace the mantle of former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. In 1968, McCarthy opposed the Democratic Party leadership to call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. While Bush led us into this war, a majority of Senate Democrats voted for the war resolution. Former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton are opposed to setting an exit strategy. While Democratic senators have defended Murtha’s patriotism, none of them have endorsed his proposal.

Murtha believes that the very presence of U.S. troop is inciting the insurgency. He said insurgent incidents have increased from about 150 a week to more than 700 a week in the past year.

Retired Army Lt. General William Odom said recently on the PBS News Hour that we are caught in a civil war that the Shiites are going to win. Odom says it’s impossible to quickly train Iraqi security forces. “They are more loyal to militias than any regime,” he said.

You guys in the MSM just crack me up. We've had what, 4-5 days to get the fact straight on this story now and you still insist on calling Murtha a hawk. What did they teach you in journalism school? How to write fantasy fiction as truth? Murtha is not nor has he been a "hawkish" Democrat from Pennsylvania. In 1993, he was one of the most vocal individuals calling for the pullout from Moga Dishu, Somalia. Now that is what I would call a "chickenhawk." One just like the one in the old Lefhorn Foghorn cartoons. Everytime our military encounters any really adverse conditions, he reacts with "Run away! Run away!" Sort of reminds me of the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail..."Run away!"

Full Story: Looney Lefties

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More Distorted "Reporting" from Media Matters

Fox's Gibson and Hannity, NY Post falsely claimed that House voted on Murtha's resolution

On November 21, Fox News host John Gibson falsely claimed that the House of Representatives voted down a measure offered by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) calling for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq; the New York Post made the same claim in a November 22 editorial. In fact, the House voted on a counter-resolution sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) in response to Murtha's that bore little resemblance to the original. Murtha's resolution asked that U.S. forces be redeployed "at the earliest practicable date," while Hunter's resolution asked that "the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately." Fox News host Sean Hannity also repeated the claim during the November 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, the third time he has done so.

Hannity made the claim twice on November 18 -- once during his radio show and once on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes. He was joined by Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto, who made the same claim in his November 21 "Best of the Web" column, as Media Matters for America previously noted.

On the November 21 broadcast of The Big Story with John Gibson, Gibson interviewed New York Post columnist and retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, author of New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy (Sentinel, August 2005), and asked, "Why, then, do you think Murtha's suggestion last week, voted down by the House, is causing so much trouble?" Peters responded that by "calling for an immediate withdrawal," Murtha was encouraging terrorists "to think their strategy is working."

But the House never voted on Murtha's suggestion (House Joint Resolution 73), which he announced in a press conference on November 17. Instead, the House voted on a substitute (House Resolution 571) that was introduced the following day by Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The vote occurred after a contentious floor debate, during which Murtha described the resolution as "not what I envisioned, not what I introduced."

Murtha's resolution, which cited polling data, the cost of the war, and the rising American death toll, called for the redeployment of U.S. forces "at the earliest practicable date," the maintaining of strategic military presence in the region, and continued diplomatic efforts in Iraq. Hunter's resolution contained a single line: "Resolved, [t]hat it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

In a November 22 editorial, the New York Post editorial board wrote, "Murtha's service doesn't automatically make him right on military strategy. House Republicans made that plain Friday, forcing a vote to show just how little on-the-record support exists, even among Dems, for his idea." On the November 21 broadcast of his radio show, Hannity said that Murtha "didn't vote for his own pullout plan."

But as the Los Angeles Times reported, Republicans forced a vote not on Murtha's idea but, rather, on a different proposal "intended to fail and aimed at embarrassing war critics." The Washington Post also reported that "[r]ecognizing a political trap, most Democrats -- including Murtha -- said from the start they would vote no."

Media Matters will never tell you the truth, they can't and promote their Extreme Left-wing agenda. Murtha proffered a 6 month withdrawal time frame. As there are 160,000 (approximately) troops in Iraq, a 6 month withdrawal would require an immediate implimentation, unless he had something in mind similar to the scenes we saw coming out of Vietnam when the last troops pulled out of there. Which means that the Republican call exactly reflected what that old fool proposed. Actually that might not be so far from what all of the Extremist Liberals want, so that they can use the images as propaganda for their next failed election bid.

Full Story: Misinformation from Media Matters

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For You Liberal Liars Who Continue to Claim "Patriotism" in Your Decent...

Murtha: American Hero

By Sam Hamod

Al-Jazeerah, November 23, 2005

Representative Paul Murtha, a decorated veteran, has spoken out about the need to pull our troops out of Iraq, NOW! The response from VP Cheney was to attack Murtha via media rather than answering him or his criticism.

Bush, Cheney, and Wolfowitz have led America into a disastrous war against Iraq that has also inflamed the entire Muslim world against America. But, now for these 3 draft dodgers to call a war hero, Murtha, a coward and anti-American, and “aiding the enemy” is reason that we should all call for their resignation.

Bush, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. None of the three are fit to make decisions about war, nor is their alter-ego, Don Rumsfeld, they should also take Biden and Kerry with them.

Time for America to wake up, time for John McCain either to return to being a man again, or for him to also resign because he’s become (a Bush man) of late, which is very disappointing for a man who had shown such courage all of his life, and was a real war hero and withstood great pain and torture as a POW. So John, please return to your own self, your own dignity, or if not, then you too should shut up and resign and go home to the dry, and arid deserts of Arizona.

These draft-dodging who run this country have set about to have the whole world against us by their imperialistic and lying strategies—they make up lies and do illegal things every day, by using illegal weapons in Iraq, to lying to get us into this “war” (where we are massacring people every day), to attacking Muslims all over the world with false accusations, and destroying the American economy so that Bush and his friends can “privatize” America for more profits. It’s time to call a halt to this nonsense, these lies and this calumny.

Murtha is right, Cheney and Bush are wrong, and those who side with Cheney and Bush are unpatriotic—they are destroying our democracy.

It’s time to throw them out of office.

Sam Hamod, editor, www.todaysalternativenews.com

Okay all of you "patriotic" critics of the war. There you have it straight from the propaganda rag for the terrorists and "insurgents" in Iraq. Your "patriotic" words on Al Jazeerah's pages, you are guilty of providing a lift for the morale of the enemies of America and or undermining the morale of our troops in Iraq. Tell me again how you support the troops but are against the war. Treason's just another word for Liberal Democrat agenda. Cindy "Look at Me" Sheehan and John "the Hack" Murtha are just a couple of traitors, that's all.

Original Post: Left-Wing Treason

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Press-Democrats Continue to Press for Immediate Withdrawa

Bush set to pull out 60,000 troops

Growing political and public aversion to the war in Iraq is forcing the President’s hand

By Tim Reid
Times On-Line

PRESIDENT BUSH is planning a major pullout of US troops from Iraq amid rising opposition to the war on Capitol Hill and across America.

After a fortnight in which the political debate has rapidly moved from how to fight the war to how best to get out of Iraq, the White House is looking at reducing troop levels by at least 60,000 next year.

Confirming the worst fears of the war’s conservative supporters, who argue that more troops are needed to defeat the insurgency, senior military officials made clear yesterday that the Bush Administration’s goal is to cut troop levels from 160,000 to below 100,000 by the end of 2006.

Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, far from denying the withdrawal plan first reported in The Washington Post, said that a gradual pullout of troops could begin “fairly soon”, and that the number of coalition troops is “clearly going to come down”.

Dr Rice told Fox News that the US will not need to maintain its present troop levels in Iraq for “very much longer”, because Iraqi security forces are “stepping up”. She added: “I think that’s how the President will want to look at this.”

The talk of withdrawal comes after a profound and swift change in attitude about Iraq in Congress. The issue, festering just below the surface for months, has exploded in Washington and is resonating loudly throughout America. In the past fortnight the war has eclipsed every other subject and is accelerating Mr Bush’s slide in the polls.

For the first time senior Republicans are demanding an exit strategy, and with nearly two thirds of Americans now believing that the invasion was a mistake, the political debate is focused on how to end US involvement.

The mood swing began after the US death toll in Iraq passed 2,000 last month, days before the indictment of Lewis Libby, Vice-President Cheney’s former chief-of-staff, for his role in the CIA-leak scandal.

Democrats exploited Mr Libby’s indictment to broaden the debate about how the White House made the case for war, accusing the Administration of manipulating prewar intelligence. Those claims triggered fierce rebuttals from Mr Bush and Mr Cheney. They alleged that Democrats, many of whom voted for the war, saw the same intelligence as the White House. Mr Cheney called the accusations “revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety”.

But polls suggest the Democrat claims had some success. For the first time, a majority of Americans believe that Mr Bush is dishonest. Only 29 per cent believe that Mr Cheney is honest. The President’s approval rating is 36 per cent.

Funny how different Reid's take on this is from the President's:

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (AP) - His war policies under siege at home, President Bush said Saturday there would be no early troop withdrawal because "sober judgment" must prevail over emotional calls to end the military mission before Iraq is stabilized.

Bush Says "We will fight the terrorists in Iraq. We will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory that our brave troops have fought for," Bush told thousands of American troops spilling out of a cold hangar at this U.S. military installation 40 miles south of Seoul. "The defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice."

The speech added the president's voice, from thousands of miles away, to a nasty debate in Congress over his Iraq policies and the timing of any U.S. withdrawal. It also continued a rapid-fire White House counterattack against the president's newly aggressive war critics.

Sounds like the President's take on this war is diametrically opposed to that taken by the MSM and Reid's "senior Military officials." The President sounds like he is still saying the same thing he started out saying. The press like the Democrat Party, has a vested interest in America's failure in Iraq. If we succeed in Iraq, their reputations will suffer. Having already given up the moral superiority of Americans, having already decided that we are evil and the Iraqi's are suffering more by our presence than they were under Saddam, they cannot afford for us to win in Iraq.

Full Story: Tim Reid's Ruminations

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Schmidt Forced to Retract her Statement

Ohio Republican Backs Off Murtha Criticism

The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; 8:46 AM

CINCINNATI -- Ohio Republican Jean Schmidt said Tuesday she should have rephrased her sharp critique of a fellow congressman's call to immediately pull troops from Iraq.

When Schmidt made the comment, Democrats rose in protest at the suggestion that Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, was a coward.

Schmidt said the comment was prompted by a conversation she had with state Rep. Danny Bubp, though he denies discussing Murtha with Schmidt.

Schmidt, who sent Murtha a note of apology on Friday moments after her speech, said in a statement Tuesday that she never intended to attack Murtha personally.

"While I strongly disagree with his policy, neither Representative Bubp nor I ever wished to attack Congressman Murtha," she said. "I only take exception to his policy position."

It is unfortunate that the Cowards of the Republican Party were able to browbeat Jean into issuing an apology even though what she said was the truth. Ask the Marines overseas, it they believe that the fight is worthwhile, and whether or not troops want to cut and run.

Full Story: Republican Bullies, Forced pullout

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Bolton Lowers the Boom

Bolton Admonishes U.N.
U.S. Could Bypass World Body if Reform Fails, He Says

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A07

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 22 -- John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned Tuesday that the United States might bypass the United Nations to solve some of the world's pressing problems if the organization is unable to make management changes that will make it more effective and prevent a recurrence of corruption.

Bolton's remarks come as the Bush administration is encountering stiff resistance from poor countries to United States-backed initiatives aimed at streamlining the United Nations' management practices. The influential Group of 77 developing nations recently issued a letter sharply criticizing plans by Secretary General Kofi Annan to establish an ethics office and to review General Assembly-created programs that are more than five years old to determine whether they should be shut down.

The dispute has underscored the Bush administration's inability thus far to parlay the findings of a U.N. investigation headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker into a catalyst for institutional change. Volcker's 18-month investigation into the United Nations' management of the $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq uncovered evidence of corruption by U.N. diplomats, foreign dignitaries and companies from more than 60 countries.

Bolton said the General Assembly has "essentially not made progress" since President Bush and other world leaders convened a U.N. summit in September to endorse a platform of changes, including proposals to increase scrutiny of spending practices and to create a human rights council that would exclude rights abusers. He said that continued resistance to change in the organization would drive the American public away from the United Nations.

"Americans are a very practical people, and they don't view the U.N. through theological lenses," Bolton told reporters outside the General Assembly hall. "They look at it as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving, and if it's successful at solving problems, they'll be inclined to use it. If it's not successful at solving problems, they'll say, 'Are there other institutions?' . . . that's why making the U.N. stronger and more effective is a reform priority for us: Because if it's a more agile, effective organization, it is more likely to be a successful competitor as a global problem-solver."

World leaders had called on Annan to present a series of specific reform proposals to the 191-nation General Assembly in early 2006. But Bolton has voiced concern that key initiatives -- including the new ethics office, a human rights council and a peace-building commission -- would not get funded until the next budget negotiation cycle, in late 2007.

In an effort to prod states into action, Bolton proposed delaying the passage of the United Nations' $3.6 billion 2006-07 budget until the United States-backed reforms have been adopted. He suggested the General Assembly could pass a temporary budget to finance the organization's operations through the first three to four months of 2006.

This is validation for Bush's action in recess appointing Ambassador Bolton. Have you thought about the difference in the way that Liberals have treated John Bolton and the way they treat Joe Wilson? The Democrats didn't like John Bolton as a nominee, so they immediately set about attempting to destroy him both professionally and personally. He was "mean" to a subordinate. He hasn't got a "diplomatic" temperament. He would be a disaster in the U.N. He doesn't even believe there is a U.N. (that last from the genius Barbara Boxer). I didn't see any of them expressing concern over their attempt to destroy Bolton, yet the howls have never ceased about the White House attempt to destroy Wilson by "outing" his wife to hurt him.

Full Story: Bolton calls for action in U.N.

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Liberals Have Such a Difficult Time With Humor

Paper Says Bush Talked of Bombing Arab TV Network

By Kevin Sullivan and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A14

LONDON, Nov. 22 -- President Bush expressed interest in bombing the headquarters of the Arabic television network al-Jazeera during a White House conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004, a British newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Daily Mirror report was attributed to two anonymous sources describing a classified document they said contained a transcript of the two leaders' talk. One source is quoted as saying Bush's alleged remark concerning the network's headquarters in Qatar was "humorous, not serious," while the other said, "Bush was deadly serious."

In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days."

"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

Al-Jazeera has frequently aired recorded statements from al Qaeda figures. Bush administration officials have contended that through that type of broadcasting the network often serves as a conduit for terrorist propaganda.

In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. missile hit the network's office in Baghdad, killing a correspondent. U.S. officials called the incident an accident. In 2001, American bombs exploded in its bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan. Washington said the targeting officers did not know that the site was an office of the television service, believing instead that it was used by al Qaeda.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official said that it was clear the White House saw al-Jazeera as a problem, but that although the CIA's clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. "Bombing in Qatar was never contemplated," the former official said.

I generally take what American newspapers say with a grain of salt or two, what do you think I believe about British newspapers. This report doesn't even pass the smell test. I wish it was the truth, Al Jazeera is an active enemy in this Iraq war and the war on terrorism. Now I do believe the possibility that the suggestion was possible put forward as a joke. Does anyone remember the overheard Reagan joke as he was preparing to give a radio address, that the Left jumped on claiming it showed how dangerous Reagan was.

The infamous quotation "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes", spoken as a sound check prior to a radio address. Spoken during a time of great tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, it left many (particularly outside the United States) questioning Reagan's understanding of some of the realities of his foreign policy and of international affairs in general.

It was a classic example of how pitiful Democrats are. They have no sense of humor and they were convinced that Reagan would kill us all in a nuclear war. Liberals are idiots pure and simple.

Full Story: Daily Mirror Paranoia

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Too Many Overpaid Administrators, Time to Cull the Heard

Court rules state school finance system unconstitutional

By JANET ELLIOTT and CLAY ROBISON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court today struck down a key part of the state's public school funding system and gave the Legislature until June 1 to correct the problem.

The ruling, which partly upholds and partly reverses a state district court decision issued last year, means Gov. Rick Perry will have to call still another special session of the Legislature to tackle the problem.

Most likely, the session will be held after the March party primaries, when he and many lawmakers will be on the ballot in contested elections.

Lawmakers failed to agree on a new funding plan during this year's regular session and two special sessions.

The high court held 7-1 that the $1.50 per $100 valuation cap on local school maintenance taxes amounts to an unconstitutional statewide property tax because many school districts are at or near the limit.

In the majority opinion, Justice Nathan Hecht noted that the Supreme Court, in a previous school finance case, ruled that an "ad valorem (property) tax is a state tax ...when the state so completely controls the levy, assessment and disbursement of revenue, either directly or indirectly, that the authority employed (by local districts) is without meaningful discretion."

The court noted findings by state District Judge John Dietz, after a trial in Austin last year, that districts statewide are spending more than 97 percent of the revenue that would be available if every district taxed at maximum rates, up from 83 percent in 1993-94.

It also noted that only about one-third of the districts with about a fifth of the student population exceed minimum accreditation standards, a marked declined from 2001, when more than 60 percent of districts exceeded the minimum standards.

Justice Scott Brister dissented, while the newest member of the court, Justice Don Willett, who joined the court while the litigation was pending, abstained.

The high court's ruling was less far-reaching that Dietz's decision. Dietz also had held the school funding system inadequate and cited a widening inequality between wealthy and poor districts.

The all-Republican Supreme Court instead said the school funding system does not yet violate the constitutional requirement that it provide for a "general diffusion of knowledge."

Dietz, a Democrat declared the school funding system unconstitutional in September 2004. He set an Oct. 1, 2005 deadline for the Legislature to change the law, but that deadline was stayed by the Supreme Court's consideration of the state's appeal.

Dietz ruled that the system is inadequate to meet the high standards that lawmakers have set for students. He cited evidence of a widening gap in educational achievement between "the haves and the have nots" and said Texas faces a bleak future if it fails to spend more on public education.

"Are we prepared for a future in Texas that is dismally poor, needy and ignorant?" asked Dietz in September 2004 when he announced his ruling. "The answer, 'I think not.'"

The Legislature failed during its regular session and two special sessions this year to agree on how to change the school finance system. The House and Senate disagreed over how much to raise sales and business taxes to reduce the burden on local property taxes, which fund 60 percent of public school costs.

Gov. Rick Perry has named former Comptroller John Sharp to head a 24-member commission to study the business tax structure.

While Dietz did not criticize the aspect of the system that requires some property-wealthy districts to share a portion of their revenue with the state, he did say that the constitutional cap of $1.50 per $100 assessed valuate for school maintenance and operations "has become both a floor and a ceiling, denying school districts 'meaningful discretion' in setting their tax rates."

About half of school districts are at the cap.

Dietz also rapped the Legislature for failing to sufficiently fund a program to help low-wealth districts build and renovate schools. As a result, he said those districts do not have substantially equal access to facilities funding.

The case is known as West Orange-Cove after a property-rich consolidated school district in East Texas. Rich and poor districts joined in the lawsuit to criticize the state for allowing its share of education funding to drop to a historic low of 38 percent as rising local property values and higher school tax rates made up the difference.

The districts argued they can't fund new programs needed to help students with the tougher academic tests implemented three years ago.

I'll tell you what all of you districts short on funding, cut your administrative staffs by 50%. Yep, that's right, cut 'em by half. Simple, efficient and on top of that it will probably improve the quality of education. We need the teachers, we need the textbooks, we need the facilities, we need the extra-curricular activities, we need the equipment, what we don't need is a bloated beauracracy full of people who never set foot in a classroom. Why is it that American schools provide an inferior education when we spend more than any other nation on our education system. I'll tell you, bloated beauracracy. Time to cut, time to bleed. No more tax increases!

Full Story: Bloated Budgets

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Contemptable Kurtz: Cherry-Picking Murtha Story

Maligning Murtha

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 22, 2005; 8:21 AM

It is an age-old device in politics, making a personal slam sound more high-minded by attributing it to someone else.

Typical formulation: "There are those who say that Congressman X is a gutless wonder." Not that I'm saying it, I'm just faithfully repeating what some other critic said. Or: "I was talking to someone just the other day who questioned whether Congressman X is a gutless wonder." Or: "Now I don't agree with those who say Congressman X is a gutless wonder, but he does owe us some answers. . . ."

These are all ways of getting the gutless wonder thing out there, and politicians who use these tactics know exactly what they're doing.

Which brings me to Jean Schmidt and John Murtha.

Schmidt, the recently elected Republican congresswoman from Ohio, has every right to take on Murtha over his let's-get-the-troops-out stance on Iraq. She has every right to attack the Pennsylvania Democrat if she so chooses. But when she attacks him by attributing the denunciation to some colonel, let's be clear: she's still attacking him. The device of attributing it to someone else is just that, a device used by professional politicians.

By the way, after both Cheney and McClellan ripped Murtha, Bush used a version of the same technique: "I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought." Somebody? So-and-so? Who could he be referring to? The administration has apparently made the calculation that attacking a decorated Vietnam veteran who spent 37 years in the Marines was not the wisest political strategy.

Anyway, Schmidt's defenders say she didn't realize Murtha had been a Marine. But her Ohio nickname will probably stick, thanks to this NYT profile:

"She grew up in the rough-and-tumble of a family auto racing business, went through concealed-weapons training, and bears a local nickname seldom applied to shrinking violets: 'Mean Jean.'"

And who was the Murtha-basher she was quoting? HuffPost contributor Max Blumenthal has done some digging:

"On Friday, freshman Republican Rep. 'Mean Jean' Schmidt mounted one of the fiercest, most personal assaults Congress has witnessed since Preston Brooks caned Charles Sumner to a bloody pulp in 1856. The target of Schmidt's attack was Rep. John Murtha, a Vietnam vet who had just introduced a resolution calling for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq within 6 months (which included several measures designed to ensure regional stability upon pullout).

"'A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course,' Schmidt declared from her lectern. 'He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.'

"By employing Bubp, a Marine reservist, as her surrogate attack dog, Schmidt sought to give the impression that the military rank-and-file overwhelmingly deplored Murtha's resolution. Murtha may have been a Marine a long, long time ago, but he doesn't understand the harsh realities of the post-9/11 world. But that tough-talking paragon of the modern warrior, Colonel Danny Bubp, whoever he is, sure as hell does. Or so Schmidt would have us believe.

"A quick glance at Bubp's background reveals him to be a low-level right-wing operative who has spent more time in the past ten years engaged in symbolic Christian right crusades than he has battling terrorist evil-doers. And throughout his career, Bubp's destiny has been inextricably linked with Schmidt's. Bubp may be a Marine, but his view of Murtha as a 'coward' is colored by naked political ambition. He is nothing more than cheap camouflage cover for the GOP's latest Swift-Boat campaign.

"March 1999 marked the beginning of a brilliant career. It was then that Bubp became pro-bono legal counsel for Adams County for the Ten Commandments, an ad-hoc Ohio group formed to keep 10 Commandments monuments displayed in local public schools after the ACLU filed a lawsuit demanding their removal. Bubp was assisted by a Who's Who of Christian right leaders, including James Dobson, Don Wildmon, Judge Roy Moore and Jay Sekulow."

I think we've established that he's not exactly neutral. Where was the MSM on this?

Okay Howard, let's accept Max Blumenthal's criticism of Bubp, why don't we discuss Congressman Sam Johnson, another of Murtha's critics. If it is simply a matter of credentials, Murtha doesn't rate. Let's talk about this "hero" and his judgement in cases of military adversity. Let's talk about his advice to President Clinton to cut and run from Somalia. His comments then were very similar to what he said about Iraq. Let's talk about what happened as the result of this sage advice. Congressman Murtha's advice was indirectly responsible for the deaths of those killed on 9/11. It was that withdrawal which led Osama Bin Laden to believe that America would bail out the first time we encountered adversity. Incidently, what Jean Schmidt said was dead accurate. All Marines know and believe what Mr. Bubp said is the truth. Does the motto not tell you anything? Semper Fidelis is not Latin for "whining to Castro" (that would be simper Fidel) it is Latin for "Always Faithful." Marines never cut and run, it is against their beliefs. Cowards cut and run, Marines never do.

Full Story: The Murtha Myth

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No Way Out for Robinson and WaPo.

No Way Out for Bush and Co.

By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
Tuesday, November 22, 2005; Page A29

As visual metaphors go, it was a lavishly gilded lily of an image, a hanging curveball across the plate, a George Tenet-style slam-dunk: A weary President Bush, trying to escape a news conference in Beijing on Sunday, strides away from the microphone to a pair of locked doors, which he pulls and tugs in vain. No exit , the image screamed. No way out. Of course, George Bush will inevitably get out of the mess he has made -- he leaves office in three years and two months, not that anyone's counting. But the rest of us will be left with his handiwork: crushing national debt, rising economic inequality, a poisoned political atmosphere and, oh, yes, the war in Iraq. We're the ones trapped in the dark with no exit sign in sight.

As the debate over the war grows in passion and bitterness, the administration can't seem to settle on the right way to answer its critics. Last week the party line was that attacking the war was somehow beyond the pale. The president quickly endorsed Vice President Cheney's snarling sound bite -- that it was "dishonest and reprehensible" to suggest that anyone cooked the prewar intelligence on Iraq. And when Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the White House response was to link the 73-year-old decorated Vietnam veteran with filmmaker Michael Moore and the "extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

House Republicans dutifully followed the script and went on the attack, but before the weekend was over the White House had changed tack. Now the line is that criticism is to be expected in a democracy, even criticism of the war. The president is all but sprinkling Murtha with rose petals.

Even Cheney, the hawks' hawk, managed to turn conciliatory. Sort of. In a speech yesterday, he swallowed his castor oil: "I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof," he said, going on to describe Murtha as "a good man, a Marine, a patriot." He then repeated his "dishonest and reprehensible" line to describe those who would impugn the administration's honesty, and went on to give the same muddled rationale for U.S. Iraq policy that we've heard in the past. The fact is that the White House is losing the public debate over Iraq -- and it's not hard to understand why.

Cheney's umbrage aside, there are legitimate questions about whether the nation was snowed into a costly war. Even if you give the administration the benefit of the doubt and assume that the prewar intelligence failures stemmed from incompetence, not dishonesty, there's still no defense for the mistakes that were made in the conduct of the war. And the abuses that have been committed in the name of the United States -- arbitrary and indefinite detention, wholesale flouting of the Geneva Conventions, a string of secret prisons, interrogation by torture, Abu Ghraib -- should result in more people being sent to jail than a couple of ill-trained enlisted reservists.

Sorry Eugene, you are wrong on virtually every count, except maybe for the Presidents attempt to exit through locked doors. Let's just talk about this "great hero" John Murtha. He was intrumental in Clinton's ill-fated decision to pull out of Somalia in '93 (can you say "cut and run?"). Why? In a speech eerily similar to his speech this past week, he said of our Rangers:

"They're subdued compared to normal morale of elite forces," Murtha said. "Obviously, it was a very difficult battle. A lot of Somalis were killed, but it was a brutal battle..."There's no military solution. Some of them [troops] will tell you to get Aidid is the solution. I don't agree with that."

The net results from this sage advice by the Democrat Military Veteran? Ask Osama Bin Laden:

"Our people realize more than before that the American soldier is a paper tiger that run[s] in defeat after a few blows...America forgot all about the hoopla and media propaganda and left dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."

Why is it that you and your Democrat allies seem so obsessed with causing America to lose this war? Why are you so interested in seeing the Iraqi people suffer a collapse of their nation into a bloody civil war a la Somalia? Why is your political agenda more important than the lives of our troops or Iraqi citizens?

Full Editorial: Robinson's Delusion

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Murtha: King of Cut and Run-Somalia '93

Rep. John Murtha Urged Somalia Pullout in '93

Carl Limbacher
NewsMax
Monday, Nov. 21, 2005 9:57 a.m. EST

After terrorists attacked U.S. troops in Mogadishu, Somalia 12 years ago, anti-Iraq war Democrat, Rep. John Murtha urged then-President Clinton to begin a complete pullout of U.S. troops from the region.

Clinton took the advice and ordered the withdrawal - a decision that Osama bin Laden would later credit with emboldening his terrorist fighters and encouraging him to mount further attacks against the U.S.

"Our welcome has been worn out," Rep Murtha told NBC's "Today" show in Sept. 1993, a month after 4 U.S. Military Police had been killed in Somalia by a remote-detonated land mine.

The Pennsylvania Democrat announced that President Clinton had been "listening to our suggestions. And I think you'll see him move those troops out very quickly."

Two weeks later, after 18 U.S. Rangers were killed in the battle of Mogadishu, Murtha visited U.S. forces in Somalia.
Upon his return he proclaimed to the world that the Mogadishu defeat had a devastating impact on the Rangers' morale.

"They're subdued compared to normal morale of elite forces," Murtha said. "Obviously, it was a very difficult battle. A lot of Somalis were killed, but it was a brutal battle."

Murtha said the U.S. had to no choice but to pull out now, explaining, "There's no military solution. Some of them will tell you [that] to get [warlord Mohamed Farrah] Aidid is the solution. I don't agree with that."

The comments were eerily similar to Murtha's assessment of U.S involvement in Iraq last week, when he declared, "the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further militarily. It is time to bring [the troops] home."

This is devastating news for the MSM and the Democrats, their latest sacrificial lamb has a cowards heart. There is no strategic situation in which he doesn't support abandoning the field of battle once adversity is encountered. As we saw in Somalia, this is a suicidal concept. Okay Nancy, Rahm, Harry bring on your next loser of a straw man.

Full Story: Murtha's Retreat

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Republicans Need Stronger Spines

Iraq War Debate Eclipses All Other Issues
GOP Flounders as Bush's Popularity Falls; Democrats Struggle for a Voice

By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 20, 2005

After largely avoiding the subject since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lawmakers are suddenly confronting the issue of President Bush's handling of the war. The start hasn't been pretty.

Political stunts by both parties have created an air of acrimony that is infecting the parties' entire agendas. The bitterness reached a new high -- or low -- on Friday when House Republicans forced a late-night vote on a resolution for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The resolution failed, 403 to 3, but only after members nearly came to blows when a GOP newcomer suggested a veteran Democratic military hawk was a coward.

"Iraq is now a cloud over everything," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst specializing in Congress. "It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

"I feel like every morning, I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day," said first-term Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who came to the Senate with an ambitious agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code. "We can't even address the issues."

After simmering on Congress's back burner for months, the Iraq war debate has eclipsed every other issue in the capital, slowing progress on some matters while stopping it on others. The GOP-led House and Senate are struggling to pass major tax legislation, an extension of the USA Patriot Act and a broad budget-cutting bill. Bush's top 2005 domestic agenda item -- revamping Social Security -- has sunk from sight, and more recently his bipartisan panel on tax reform barely made a ripple when it issued recommendations.

GOP leaders view items such as the Patriot Act and the budget as too vital to fail in the end, but every endeavor is now made more difficult by the fracturing over Iraq -- and just when the 2006 congressional elections begin to loom. Republicans have lost their anchor of the past five years -- Bush's popularity -- while Democrats are struggling to find their voice on the war. Both sides cannot dally for long, said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster.

"Iraq is now the dominant issue that is affecting voters, and it's affecting Bush's ratings," Hart said. "The public has reached a firm, fixed position on Iraq, and it's not going to change: This is not going to come to a successful conclusion, so how do we figure out how to get out of Iraq?"

Until recently, only Democrats seemed to struggle to find their voice on Iraq, while Republicans were virtually united in backing Bush's policies. But when the 2,000th U.S. military death there coincided with troubling revelations about prewar intelligence and Bush's plunging approval ratings, Republican cohesion began to fray.

Political developments in Iraq, such as the adoption of a new constitution, cannot overcome the impression left by the daily reports of suicide bombers and the milestone of 2,000 deaths among U.S. servicemen, pollsters and political analysts say.

Public opinion has, in turn, emboldened Democrats to sharpen their attacks, and it has freed some Republicans -- especially Northeastern moderates -- to chart a new political course that separates them from the White House but wreaks havoc with the GOP's legislative agenda.

"The central new development is the decomposition of the president's support in Congress," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University congressional expert. "I think there is a very acute realization on the part of Republicans that they no longer can hitch their careers to his popularity. That, combined with the new aggressiveness by the Democrats, means you're seeing basically a Bush agenda that is largely being derailed."

First let's correct Weisman and Babington in their intentional mistatement: the "GOP newcomer" did not call a "Democratic military hawk" a coward, she read the statement of another highly decorated Marine Colonel who told her "Cowards cut and run, Marines never do." So now having established once more that Washington Post reporters are not interested in the truth, we can move on to the wimpy Republican Congressmen like DeMint who says "I feel like every morning, I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day." Jim, grow up! That's what you get paid the big bucks for. I know you held firm on the last Senate vote, now is not the time to start worrying. Conservative ideals win election, always.

Full Story: Murtha's Fifteen Minutes

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Murtha's Wrong Response to Troop Casualties: Cut and Run

Rumsfeld, Murtha Continue War of Words Over Iraq

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 20, 2005; 1:30 PM

The newly energized debate over the war in Iraq continued unabated today, as Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) repeated his call for a withdrawal of troops while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that words "have effects" on both U.S. troops and the enemy.

President Bush, meanwhile, declined to repeat disparaging comments about Murtha made last week by his press secretary, who ridiculed the decorated veteran by comparing him to controversial filmmaker Michael Moore.

Speaking in China, Bush said he understood "that the decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way. I disagree with his position."

"Congressman Murtha is a fine man," Bush said, "a good man who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a U.S. congressman."

Bush largely left the administration's rebuttal to Rumsfeld, who appeared in successive interviews on the network's Sunday talk shows.

"We live in a free country and it's proper for people to raise questions and to have views," Rumsfeld said on the Fox News Sunday program. "And he [Murtha] does, and that's fair enough." But, he said, "his views were not broadly supported in the House or the Senate either by Democrats or Republicans."

And, he added, "we also have to understand that our words have effects. And put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we're going to pull out precipitously or immediately, as some people have proposed.

"Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they're doing makes sense if that's the idea, if that's the debate," Rumsfeld said. "Put yourselves in the shoes of the Iraqi people who've put a great deal at risk to run for office, and support the elections, and support the constitution, and subject themselves to risk of assassination.

"Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States."

Rumsfeld made no committments for a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq next year, sticking to the Pentagon's long-held assertion that field commanders will determine when to begin a military drawdown.

Citing the Dec. 15 elections in Iraq, Rumsfeld said troop levels would remain near 160,000. Depending upon conditions, troops then would return to pre-election levels of 138,000 as planned, he said.

Murtha, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, declined to repeat his comments chiding Bush and Vice President Cheney for not serving in combat and said he wanted to depersonalize the debate.

I guess Congressman Murtha realized he over stepped the bounds of propriety in his snide and irrelevent comments about deferments, an obvious allusion to Vice President Cheney. Cheap shots add nothing to the debate, and detract from the Congressman's claims. He is entitled to his opinion, but he has no more expertise in how to conduct a war than anyone else involved in the Pentagon. We all (including President Bush and Vice-President Cheney) care deeply about the troops who have been killed and wounded, Mr. Murtha has no monopoly on compassion, but it is poor practice to implement policy based on casualty figures.

Full Story: Rummsfeld v. Murtha

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The Return to Civility Is Good but Don't Dilute the Message

Bush Tries to Tone Down High-Pitched Debate on Iraq
President Praises Rep. Murtha and Says 'People Should Feel Comfortable' Expressing Opinions on the War

By Peter Baker and David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 21, 2005; Page A04

BEIJING, Nov. 20 -- After more than a week of increasingly harsh rhetoric, President Bush sought Sunday to tone down the raging debate on Iraq and offered an olive branch to the pro-military Democratic lawmaker condemned by the White House last week for turning against the war.

Summoning reporters between meetings with Chinese leaders here, Bush said he welcomed the political battle over the war as a "worthy debate" and rejected attempts to question the patriotism of those who oppose it. He also said he did not want the bitter conflict to degenerate into a partisan showdown.

"People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," the president said. "I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought. This is not an issue of who's [a] patriot and who's not patriotic. It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."

Without being asked, Bush praised Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran and hawkish legislator who last week declared that the Iraq situation had become so bad that the United States needs to immediately withdraw troops.

"Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States congressman," Bush said. "He is a strong supporter of the United States military. And I know the decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way. I disagree with his position."

Meanwhile, the debate continued on Sunday morning television, where Murtha described his views in detail, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared on four talk shows to rebut them.

In an interview with Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press," the congressman was conciliatory in tone, but, if anything, even more emphatic about what he views as the futility of U.S. military operations in Iraq.

"I hoped we'd open the door for him [Bush] to start a dialogue about how we change the course. . . . I'm very hopeful that my proposal is something they'll take seriously, that he'll get a few of us to the White House and talk to us about this very difficult problem," Murtha said.

But he then went on to say: "I'm absolutely convinced that we're making no progress at all. . . . Until we turn it over to the Iraqis, we're going to continue to do the fighting. . . . They'll have to work this out themselves. . . . We have become the enemy; 80 percent of the people in Iraq want us out of there; 45 percent say it's justified to attack Americans. It's time to change direction."

The tenor of Bush's remarks contrasted sharply with the White House message since the president left for Asia a week ago. Bush, Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and various other senior officials have waged what a top aide called a "sustained" campaign intended to counterattack Democrats who have been criticizing the president's conduct of the war.

The Bush team accused congressional Democrats of hypocrisy for accusing him of skewing prewar intelligence because the same Democrats also had thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the invasion in March 2003. In questioning the justification for the war, Bush and his lieutenants said, the Democrats were undermining troop morale and sending a message of weakness to the enemy.

Perhaps the most striking moment came after Murtha's proposal. The White House assailed Murtha, likening him to liberal maverick filmmaker Michael Moore, characterizing him as a newfound ally of the "extreme liberal wing" of his party and accusing him of wanting to "surrender to the terrorists."

Murtha's attack was callow and politically motivated. As a decorated veteran he has earned the right to express his opinion, but the cheap shots he fired at Cheney deserves the kind of response it has received. Murtha resembled a puppet put forward by the Democrat Leadership as the Stalking Horse for these criticisms of the administration. Although he didn't state it directly, the implication was clear that he believed we should pull out immediately.

Full Story: Bush Softens Rhetoric

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Funny This Was Never Reported Before: Only Makes Sense

Under U.S. Design, Iraq's New Army Looks a Good Deal Like the Old One

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 21, 2005; Page A01

TAJI, Iraq, Nov. 20 -- Clad in the olive-green uniform of old, his heart rising to the sound of the lilting march to which he once went to war for President Saddam Hussein, Sgt. Bashar Fathi, a veteran of Iraq's once-elite Republican Guard, watched Iraqi tanks trundle across a parade ground recently -- just as they once swept across the sands of Kuwait.

"This ceremony -- this same music -- it makes us remember the old army," marveled Fathi, standing on the top tier of a reviewing stand south of Baghdad. Next to him was Capt. Khudhair Alwan, whose contact with U.S. forces began by trying to kill them as they invaded the southern city of Basra in 2003.

But this is 2005, not 2003, and this is the new army, not the old one. Fathi and Alwan, switching allegiances if not uniforms, are enlisted man and officer in the new Iraqi army, at the same rank they held in the old one.

The two are at the core of the remaking of Iraq's security forces. The first U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, disbanded Hussein's army. But since then, Iraq and the United States have drawn upon Hussein-era soldiers, many of them from the ruling Baath Party, to rebuild Iraq's military. The process was well underway when the Iraqi Defense Ministry called last month for recruits from among junior officers in Hussein's military.

"The vast majority of officers were in the previous army," said Lt. Col. Frederick Wellman, spokesman for the U.S. command overseeing the reformation of Iraq's security forces. "People asked us why we didn't call back the old army," he added. "And the answer is, well, we have."

The Bush administration says that, by the time Bremer's post-invasion administration ended in June 2004, the reconstituted Iraqi army could count more than 80 percent of its officers and the majority of its enlisted men as former members of Hussein's army. The Iraqi Defense Ministry continued open recruiting, including appeals for whole units to reenlist. An August notice in Iraq's state-controlled al-Sabah daily newspaper, for instance, urged members of Hussein's former transport logistics units to sign up for the new army.

The logic of recruiting the old soldiers is this: To withdraw the main might of U.S. troops here, American officials say they must leave behind an Iraqi army capable of fighting the insurgency. The military must be able to defend the country and government against what Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top U.S. commander in charge of rebuilding Iraq's army, said would almost certainly be attempts at coups and other civil unrest.

The Hussein-era officers "have the officer training, combat experience and staff and leadership skills to enable them to begin contributing fairly rapidly," Petraeus said by e-mail before leaving Iraq in September.

Bremer's order on May 23, 2003, to disband Hussein's nearly 400,000-strong army is seen by many critics today as one of the gravest miscalculations by the United States in Iraq. Removing all vestige of Iraq's army when there were not enough U.S. troops to fully secure the country left borders open, allowed the insurgency to flourish and encouraged the growth of private militias, the critics say. Jobless and embittered, some troops turned to the insurgency.

U.S. officials insist that Hussein's army effectively disbanded itself -- melting away after Americans invaded -- and that reinstalling the old, Sunni Muslim-dominated military would have been impossible, and unacceptable.

In fact, Iraq's American overseers at first never planned to reassemble much of an Iraqi army. The plan was to field a 40,000-man army, one-tenth the size of the old one, only by 2006. Iraqi troops would concentrate on tasks such as disarming land mines while U.S. troops handled the fledgling insurgency, then-senior U.S. military adviser Walter Slocombe said in June 2003.

At Kirkush, an Iraqi military training base near the Iranian border, Maj. Muhammed Ghalib, a veteran of the old army, paused and searched for the right words when asked by a reporter to describe the first stage of remaking the army. "Chaos," Ghalib, 20, finally said. "It was chaos at the beginning."

For years now we have heard how dumb it was for Bremer to have disbanded the Iraqi Army of Saddam rather than using them as the base for the new Iraqi Army, yet now we find out that is exactly what is being done, and has been since the earliest days. So I guess training the new army is difficult in spite of having the old army officers and non-coms enlisted. This is another example of the Liberal lies/myths which have been propagated by the MSM in its attempt to destroy President Bush.

Full Story: Veteran Iraqis Enlist

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More Liberal Myth Bursting: The Typical Soldier

Dedication is visible among new soldiers
As the nation honors veterans, the next generation looks more diverse and professional.

By Mark Sappenfield
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - On a day when the warriors of America's past will talk of great sacrifices long remembered and old friends not forgotten, a new generation of soldiers deployed to the far corners of the Middle East is beginning to pencil in the first lines of its own story.

It is already obvious that this is a force unlike any America has sent to war - older, more diverse, and all volunteers. But gradually, the ways in which these wars spawned by Sept. 11 are shaping these troops are also becoming apparent.

In the midst of a war with no clear endpoint, the ultimate judgment of this generation of fighters must wait for Veterans Days to come. But if World War II veterans were perceived to be the greatest generation and Vietnam's conscripts a lost generation, then those who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today could be called the dedicated generation - convinced of America's cause and determined to shepherd it through days of dust and destruction.

It is perhaps most apparent in reenlistment rates, which continue to exceed the Pentagon's goals more than four years into the war on terror. Yet more deeply, military sociologists suggest that this war is having a profound and unique effect on many men and women, putting them face to face with the struggle for freedom and giving them a greater sense of purpose.

That war should be a life-changing experience is hardly a surprising thought. But in his interviews with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Morten Ender of the United States Military Academy notes that three-quarters of them describe their deployment as a "turning point" - a number that strikes him as high.

"In World War II, soldiers knew what they had to do, and they wanted to do it and come home to get on with life," he says. "In Vietnam, [the war] became a turning point, because there was a sense [among the conscripted soldiers] that they had no control."

Since the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are all volunteers, the war was very much part of a conscious career choice, and the intensity of the experience is focusing their lives. For some, it is a desire to get out and move on to anything else. Yet the reenlistment rates also suggest that many are finding a deeper love for service and a connection to something greater than themselves.

"It really did open my eyes," says Spc. Ryan Snyder, a military policeman, of his year in Iraq. "I realized how lucky we are as American citizens."

He is one of that class of recruits who signed up after Sept. 11, and he has already reenlisted. In fact, his division - the 1st Cavalry - made 125 percent of its reenlistment goals after returning from the Middle East.

In many ways, a portrait of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is a portrait of how the all- volunteer force has changed the military. Demographically, this force has opened the military to more women and, more recently, it has seen a drop in the overrepresentation of blacks. But significantly, it has also created a professional force capable of greater sophistication - partly because everyone wants to be there.

"None of us entered this machine without knowing in our heart of hearts that we may have to go to war," writes Capt. Christopher Connors in an e-mail from Afghanistan. "That is why it is the Army, not the Boy Scouts."

The result is a military that - despite incidents like Abu Ghraib - is more disciplined than those of the past, say analysts. Since the beginning of the war on terror, there have been only two cases of "fragging" - killing an officer - compared with hundreds during Vietnam, says Dr. Ender.

Moreover, soldiers have been able to reprogram their skills to the task required, whether it's fighting insurgents or collecting trash.

"The American soldier of today is more adaptable than the American soldier of the past, in part because America is requiring them to be so," says David Segal, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.

It's so hard to be a Liberal today, look at all the facts you have to ignore. While overall enlistment is not quite meeting targets, those targets have been raised substantially this year to staff the new divisions that are being created to replace the ones that Clinton eliminated. This shortfall has been compensated for by the unexpectedly large reenlistment numbers, especially of those who have served in Iraq. Oh well, another Liberal lie/myth gone, tch, tch, tch.

Full Story: Troop Dedication

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Bursting Democrat Lies/Myths: Recruitment Demographics

WHO BEARS THE BURDEN?
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF U.S.
MILITARY RECRUITS BEFORE AND AFTER 9/11

TIM KANE, PH.D.

A few Members of Congress, motivated by American combat in the Middle East, have called for the reinstatement of a compulsory military draft. The case for coercing young citizens to join the military is supposedly based on social justice—that all should serve—and seems to be buttressed by reports of shortfalls in voluntary enlistment. In a New York Times op-ed on December 31, 2002, Representative Charles Rangel (D–NY) claimed, “A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military, while most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent.”1 This claim is frequently repeated by critics of the war in Iraq.2 Aside from the logical fallacy that a draft is less offensive to justice than a voluntary policy, Rangel’s assertions about the demographic makeup of the enlisted military are not grounded in fact.

Although all branches of the armed services have been able to meet recruiting goals in recent years, the Army’s difficulty in meeting its goal of 80,000 new soldiers in 2005 has been widely reported, and some view it as a symbol of the need to reinstate the draft. However, this shortfall should be placed in the proper context. The Army is projected to fall just 7,000 (about 9 percent) short of its 2005 recruitment goal, which is less than 1 percent of the overall military of over 1 million personnel. Furthermore, there is the unexpected rise in reenlistment rates. In other words, the total force strength is about what it should be.

Gee, kinda bumbs you Liberals out doesn't it, to have one of your pet lies shown to be so? Makes you wonder how many other patently wrong Liberals assumptions there are in general circulation being presented as facts. I especially like this part:

"We found that recruits tend to come from middle-class areas, with disproportionately fewer from low-income areas. Overall, the income distribution of military enlistees is more similar to than different from the income distribution of the general population."

Yep this is the "smoking gun" proving that this is a victimization of the poor who are trapped into going into the Army to fight the "rich mans war." Whoops, that's not what it proves at all is it? It proves that there is no victimization. Darn Liberals guess you were wrong...again!

Full Report: WHO BEARS THE BURDEN

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The Pullout Now Vote: Those Not Voting "Nay."

The vote was

Democrats:
Yea = 3
present = 6
Nay = 157

Republicans:
Yea = 0
Nay = 215

The Breakdown

---- AYES ---
McKinney, Cynthia - D, Ga.
Serrano, Jose - D, Ny.
Wexler, Robert - D, Fl.

---- PRESENT ---

Capuano, Michael - D, Ma.
Clay, William - D, Mo.
Hinchey, Maurice - D, Ny.
McDermott, Jim - D, Wa.
Nadler, Jerrold - D, Ny.
Owens, Major - D, Ny.

---- NOT VOTING ---

Beauprez, Bob - R, Co.
Berman, Howard - D, Ca.
Boswell, Leonard - D, Ia.
Boyd, Allen - D, Fl.
Camp, Dave - R, Mi.
Cunningham, Randy "Duke" - R, Ca.
Davis, Artur - D, Al.
Flake, Jeff - R, Az.
Fossella, Vito - R, Ny.
Gallegly, Elton - R, Ca.
Hall, Ralph - R, Tx.
Jindal, Bobby - R, La.
Kind, Ron - D, Wi.
LaHood, Ray - R, Il.
Miller, Gary - R, Ca.
Moran, Jerry - R, Ks.
Northrup, Ann M. - R, Ky.
Paul, Ron - R, Tx.
Peterson, John E. - R, Pa.
Shadegg, John - R, Az.
Towns, Debi - R, N.Y.
Young, Don - R, Ak.

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An Interesting Read From a Marine in Iraq

Subject: Interesting Stuff from a Marine in Iraq

Don't think there is any political content here, only a young man's observations from being there. This Marine spent 7 months at "Camp Blue Diamond" in Ramadi. Aka: Fort Apache. He saw and did a lot and the following is what he said about weapons, equipment, tactics and other miscellaneous info which may be of interest to you. Nothing is by any means classified. No politics here, just a Marine with a bird's eye view's opinions:

1. The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because it's lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits cant be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.
2. The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).
3. The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.
4. Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect.
5. The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun, developed to replace the old M-60 (what a beautiful weapon that was!!). Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts 'em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.
6. The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. "Ma deuce" is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater. (YOU GOT TO LOVE THIS WEAPON)
7. The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put 'em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it. The old government model .45's are being re-issued en masse. (IMAGINE THAT!!)
8. The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round. (WELL IT'S ABOUT TIME)
9. The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.
10. The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up. Mostly in .308 but some in 300 win mag. Heavily modified Remington 700's. Great performance. Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcock's record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.
11. The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as shit to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the stuff about the "old" body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IED's was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.
12. Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by hunter-killer teams.
13. Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefire's, and the troops love 'em. Invaluable for night urban operations.

Bad guy weapons:

1. Mostly AK47's The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably. PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective. Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots poorly. Undisciplined "spray and pray" type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision weapons, especially sniper rifles. (Iran, again) Fun fact: Captured enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let's just say they know better now.
2. The RPG: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dogshit. The enemy responded to our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.
3. The IED: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found in Jordan's area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3 155mm artillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous thing our guys do over there. Lately, they are much more sophisticated "shape charges" (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IED's are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics. That's why the attacks have been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the latest being shape charges in Styrofoam containers spray painted to look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are unsung heroes of this war.
4. Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent. The soviet era 122mm rockets (with an 18km range) are becoming more prevalent. One of the marine's NCO's lost a leg to one. These weapons cause a lot of damage "inside the wire". Marine's base was hit almost daily his entire time there by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns and cause fatigue (It did). More of a psychological weapon than anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles, fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.
5. Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is by cell and satellite phones, and also by email on laptops. They use handheld GPS units for navigation and "Google earth" for overhead views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE. Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment and the captured GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel when captured.

Who are the bad guys?:

1. Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe). Most enter Iraq through Syria (with, of course, the knowledge and complicity of the Syrian govt.) , and then travel down the "rat line" which is the trail of towns along the Euphrates River that we've been hitting hard for the last few months.
2. Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end up as suicide bombers or in "sacrifice squads". Most, however, are hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas etc.) These are the guys running around murdering civilians en masse and cutting heads off.
3. The Chechens (many of whom are Caucasian), are supposedly the most ruthless and the best fighters. (they have been fighting the Russians for years).
4. In the Baghdad area and south, most of the insurgents are Iranian inspired (and led) Iraqi Shiites. The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at infiltrating the Iraqi local govt.'s, the police forces and the Army. The have had a massive spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80's.
5. Most of the Saddam loyalists were killed, captured or gave up long ago.

Bad Guy Tactics:

1. When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses kicked every time. Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them screaming and firing Ak's and RPG's directly at our bases just to probe the defenses. They get mowed down like grass every time. ( see the M2 and M240 above). Jordan's base was hit like this often.
2. When engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call in air and that's the end of that more often than not. These hole-ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeo's (Allah's Waiting Room). We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science.
3. The fast mover's, mostly Marine F-18's, are taking an ever increasing toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter gunships and AC-130 Spectre gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon and rocket fire, especially at night. Interestingly, artillery is hardly used at all.

Fun fact: The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand. That is why we're seeing less and less infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber stuff.

The new strategy is simple: attrition.

The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-combatants as cover. They know we do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and (especially) Mosques are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons and ammo and flee to when engaged. They have absolutely no regard whatsoever for civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the Americans or the new Iraqi govt. Kidnapping of family members (especially children) is common to influence people they are trying to influence but cant reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics, tribal leaders, etc.).

The first thing our guys are told is "don't get captured". They know that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet.

Zarqawi openly offers bounties for anyone who brings him a live American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who otherwise don't give a hoot about the war. A lot of the beheading victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to Zarqawi. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death. Surrender is not an option.

The Iraqi's are a mixed bag. Some fight well, others aren't worth a shit. Most do okay with American support. Finding leaders is hard, but they are getting better. It is widely viewed that Zarqawi's use of suicide bombers, en masse, against the civilian population was a serious tactical mistake. Many Iraqi's were galvanized and the caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went up, along with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in good intel because the Iraqi's are sick of the insurgent attacks against civilians.

The Kurds are solidly pro-American and fearless fighters.

According to this Marine, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted.

They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see things like "Are we losing in Iraq" on TV and the print media. For the most part, we are satisfied with equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria. The Iranians and the Syrians just cant stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).

A very interesting report from the front lines

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Republicans Apply Heat to Democrat Cowards

WAR IN IRAQ

GOP attempts to corner Dems on Iraq resolution
The debate gets personal before House measure on troop withdrawal fails as expected

By BENNETT ROTH
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The increasingly bitter debate over the war in Iraq roiled the House of Representatives Friday as Republicans forced a vote on a resolution to withdraw U.S. troops from that embattled country.

The nonbinding resolution, which failed by a vote of 403-3, was a symbolic effort by the GOP to rebuff Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Marine expert who called this week for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.

Defending his position, Murtha said that U.S. policy in Iraq was not working and that troops were increasingly becoming the target of terrorists.

He read letters from parents and spouses of dead and wounded servicemen who served in Iraq who applauded his call for withdrawal.

And he told his colleagues, "It is easy for us sitting in our air-conditioned offices to say 'send them into battle.' "

Republicans charged that Murtha's plan would undermine the morale of the troops and hurt the war on terrorism.

"Calling for a withdrawal or phased withdrawal is a recipe for disaster," said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. "These young troops, we cannot cut their feet out from beneath them."

Democrats, decrying the move as a political stunt, called for the rejection of the measure, in part because Republicans had altered Murtha's resolution that called for withdrawal of troops "at the earliest practicable date."

Instead the GOP-crafted measure put before the House stated that "the deployment of United States forces be terminated immediately."

The House chamber was nearly full as lawmakers put off departure for their two-week Thanksgiving break to take part in the debate.

In a series of nasty exchanges, Democrats accused the Republicans of smearing Murtha, who served in Korea and Vietnam.

"This amounts to another Swift boat attack on an American hero," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., referring to a group of Vietnam veterans who during the 2004 campaign attacked the military service of former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, said "this debate is not about the Iraq war. It is about silencing the opinion of a respected Marine and a Vietnam veteran."

Green said that while he may not agree with everything that Murtha has advocated about the U.S. mission in Iraq, "we know with each casualty in Iraq that something is wrong."

"This is not a stunt," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. " This is a legitimate question."

Rep. J. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., suggested that the conditions in Iraq had been exaggerated by the media. "Don't believe all the crap you see on the TV. Don't believe all the crap in the news," he said.


Comment draws boos
The debate became personal when freshman GOP Rep. Jeanne Schmidt of Ohio related a message from a Marine colonel to Murtha that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Schmidt's comments sparked boos from Democrats who demanded that she rescind her remarks.

"You guys are pathetic. Pathetic," charged Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, called the Republican move "the rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame."

But House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said the message behind the resolution was, "We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat."

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill, said of Murtha, "I give him an A-plus as a great American" — prompting an outburst of applause in the chamber. Then Hyde went on to say, "but among his many fine qualities, infallibility is not one of them."

To Steny Hoyer I only say that the "rankest of politics" is to play politics with the lives of our troops. The "rankest of politics" is to lie about the war effort and to play politics in an attempt to gain power. Democrats have no problem with calling the President a "liar" and accusing him of taking us to war on false information, but they suddenly get outraged when a member reads a quotation from a citizen simply declaring a fact, that "cowards cut and run, marines never do." If Mr. Murtha understands that to be a personal attack, maybe he should look at himself and his motivations. Guilty conscience John?

Full Story: Democrats Feel Heat

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At Last, Responsible Government in Houston

Call-takers fired for missing work during hurricane
Emergency center's activity doubled with Rita

By ZEKE MINAYA
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

A dozen emergency call-takers at the Houston Emergency Center have been fired for failing to show up for work during Hurricane Rita, agency officials said Friday.

The 12 are among 18 who no longer work at the center because of what center officials have called a dereliction of duty.

"In an emergency crisis, we need people we can depend on because safety is our No. 1 priority," said Joe Laud, a HEC spokesman.

Millions of Texas coast residents fled as Rita at one point zeroed in on the Galveston-Matagorda Bay area. The storm eventually diverted east of the Houston area, but between 2.5 million and 2.7 million evacuees took to the roads in search of safety.

Laud said HEC officials understand the concern some of the missing call-takers may have had for their families during the crisis but that does not excuse their absence.

He said employees were told in advance that they would have to make preparations for their families and that they would have to bring personal supplies and "be prepared to ride the storm out."

"They were essential personnel," Laud said of the missing call-takers. "Any kind of family issues are important, but we had time to prepare for those."

On a typical day, the HEC receives anywhere from 8,000 to 9,000 calls, Laud said. By a conservative estimate, calls to the center at least doubled during the storm, and the HEC sorely missed the absent call-takers, he said.

Officials launched an investigation Sept. 26, and held formal hearings in late October. The majority of the dismissed call-takers were informed of the terminations earlier this week. Four call-takers resigned before the completion of the investigation, and another two who were still in their probationary period of employment were not kept.

I am glad to see the city hold people responsible for their actions. It is time that Houston tax-payers be shown that their money is being handled responsibly. I continue to be amazed by Mayor White and his administration. Here, at least, is a responsible Democrat. So far, I am sad that he will be term limited after 8 years. He is the best mayor I have seen since I moved here in 1976.

Full Story: Responsible Government in Action

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Fitzgerald's Latest Fishing Expedition

Another Grand Jury for Leak Case
Move Follows Woodward Talks

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 19, 2005; Page A01

The prosecutor in the CIA leak case said yesterday that he plans to present evidence to another federal grand jury, signaling a new and potentially significant turn in the investigation into the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Three weeks after indicting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and declaring the investigation nearly complete, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced a new phase in the investigation after the disclosure this week that a senior administration official revealed Plame's CIA connection to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003.

Legal experts said Fitzgerald's decision to call upon a new grand jury is all but certainly because he is considering additional criminal charges in the case.

Two sources close to Karl Rove, the top Bush aide still under investigation in the case, said they have reason to believe Fitzgerald does not anticipate presenting additional evidence against the White House deputy chief of staff. Instead, lawyers involved in the case expect the prosecutor to focus on Woodward's admission that an official other than Libby told him about Plame one month before her identity was publicly disclosed in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak.

Woodward, who was questioned by Fitzgerald on Monday, has refused to reveal the source's name publicly, but a person familiar with the investigation said the source had testified earlier in the case. The source came forward to the prosecutor again after Woodward started asking questions for an article on the CIA leak late last month and reminded the person of their 2003 conversation, Woodward said yesterday. That raises the possibility that the source faces legal problems if he or she provided false or incomplete information during previous testimony, according to legal experts.

Fitzgerald's decision to present information to a new grand jury, contained in a court filing and announced publicly at a court hearing on the Libby case yesterday, is the latest twist in an investigation that has rattled the White House and threatens top administration officials. "The investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury" from the one that indicted Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, Fitzgerald said. "The investigation is continuing."

The most innocuous explanation for the new grand jury is that Fitzgerald simply wants to complete his probe and to put information on the record, perhaps about Woodward's source or Rove, according to several legal experts, including some involved in the case.

But most lawyers interviewed for this article said Fitzgerald would not go through the trouble of calling upon a new grand jury -- after gathering so much testimony from and about Rove -- unless he is exploring new territory uncovered since the Oct. 28 Libby indictment.

"Whoever's Woodward's source probably feels terribly uncomfortable right now," said E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., a Washington defense lawyer and former prosecutor.

Randall D. Eliason, a law professor who formerly ran the public corruption section of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said Fitzgerald is clearly "looking at new defendants or new charges." That is not good news for anybody concerned about their role in Plame's identity being leaked, Eliason added.

Fitzgerald seems to be determined to spend tax-payer money to find the source of a leak that violated no law and exposed no one's covert identity. Plame was no longer covert by any definition of the word. Fitzgerald was wrong to have expanded the scope of this investigation once it became clear that no initial crime was committed. The charges against Libby should be dropped and Fitzgerald needs to recede back into relative anonymity from whence he came.

Full Story: Fitzgerald Still Searching for Raison d'Etre

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Forcing the Democrats to Take a Stand

House Rejects Iraq Pullout After GOP Forces a Vote
Democrats Enraged By Personal Attack

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 19, 2005; Page A01

Differences over policy on the Iraq war ignited an explosion of angry words and personal insults on the House floor yesterday when the chamber's newest member suggested that a decorated war veteran was a coward for calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

As Democrats physically restrained one colleague, who appeared as if he might lose control of himself as he rushed across the aisle to confront Republicans with a jabbing finger, they accused Republicans of playing political games with the war.

GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one.

The idea was to force Democrats to go on the record on a proposal that the administration says would be equivalent to surrender. Recognizing a political trap, most Democrats -- including Murtha -- said from the start they would vote no.

But the maneuvering exposed the chamber's raw partisan divisions and prompted a tumultuous scene, which Capitol Hill veterans called among the wildest and most emotional they had ever witnessed.

Though even many Democrats think Murtha's immediate withdrawal plan is impractical, it struck a chord in a party where frustration with the war and the Bush administration's open-ended commitment is mounting fast. Murtha galvanized the debate as few others could have. He is a 33-year House veteran and former Marine colonel who received medals for his wounds and valor in Vietnam, and he has traditionally been a leading Democratic hawk and advocate of military spending.

Murtha's resolution included language the Republicans wanted to avoid, such as "the American people have not been shown clear, measurable progress" toward stability in Iraq. It also said troops should be withdrawn "at the earliest practicable date," although Murtha said in statements and interviews Thursday that the drawdown should begin now.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) drafted a simpler resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops, saying it was a fair interpretation of Murtha's intent. Members were heatedly debating a procedural rule concerning the Hunter resolution when Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was recognized at 5:20 p.m. Schmidt won a special election in August, defeating Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, and is so new to Congress that some colleagues do not know her name.

She told colleagues that "a few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp," an Ohio legislator and Marine Corps Reserve officer. "He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Dozens of Democrats erupted at once, pointing angrily at Schmidt and shouting repeatedly, "Take her words down" -- the House term for retracting a statement. For a moment Schmidt tried to keep speaking, but the uproar continued and several GOP colleagues surrounded her as she sat down, looking slightly dazed. Presiding officer Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) gaveled in vain for order as Democrats continued shouting for Schmidt to take back her words. Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) yelled "You guys are pathetic!" from the far end of the Democratic section to the GOP side.

Just as matters seemed to calm a bit, Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) suddenly charged across the aisle to the GOP seats, jabbing his finger furiously at a small group of GOP members and shouting, "Say Murtha's name!" Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), who had led the chants for striking Schmidt's comments, gently guided Ford by the arm back to the minority party's side.

Democrats hate when they are confronted with their own words or confronted head on by their own intent. Democrat politicians are cowards. Their tactics are to never be forthright so when they are confronted directly, particularly when trapped as they were last night, they react angrily with a ludicrous display of self-rightious indignation. Last night was a master-stroke by the Republicans.

Full Story: Panic, Anger, and Exposure

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Big News! Anti-War Democrat Comes Out Against War

Hawkish Democrat Joins Call For Pullout
GOP Assails Murtha's Demand to Leave Iraq

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 18, 2005

The top House Democrat on military spending matters stunned colleagues yesterday by calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, while many congressional Democrats reacted defiantly to President Bush's latest attack on his critics.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said many of those troops are demoralized and poorly equipped and, after more than two years of war, are impeding Iraq's progress toward stability and self-governance.

"Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency," Murtha said in a Capitol news conference that left him in tears. Islamic insurgents "are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence," he said. ". . . It's time to bring them home."

Murtha's action, coupled with stinging rhetoric from the White House, was the catalyst for a remarkable outpouring of rage on Capitol Hill about Iraqi war policy, an issue that for months was relatively dormant but now is dominating congressional debate.

In sometimes vitriolic terms, Republican leaders accused Democrats of siding with terrorists, and Democrats countered that Bush deceived the nation in starting a war that he has no strategy for ending. The bitter exchanges came as polls show Americans are increasingly eager to have Iraqis assume control so U.S. troops can come home.

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) declared: "Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut and run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans. To add insult to injury, this is done while the president is on foreign soil."

A few dozen other House Democrats have called for withdrawing from Iraq as soon as possible. But most are liberals who voted against going to war, and they have drawn modest attention. Murtha is a hawkish ex-Marine who voted for the war and has close ties to the military.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues at a closed meeting yesterday morning that she, too, would advocate an immediate troop withdrawal, according to several who attended. But by day's end, Pelosi -- a liberal who has sharply criticized Bush's handling of the war -- chose merely to praise Murtha and say he deserved to have "his day."

The Senate voted on Tuesday to press the administration for concrete steps toward troop withdrawals, designating 2006 as "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty." But the Senate rejected a Democratic proposal to require the administration to project dates for a phased withdrawal of troops if conditions permitted.

Bush, traveling in South Korea, told reporters he agrees with Vice President Cheney's view that politicians who criticize the administration's handling of prewar intelligence are engaging in "dishonest and reprehensible" behavior. South Korea's Defense Ministry said today that it plans to bring home about one-third of its 3,200 troops from Iraq next year.

"I expect there to be criticism," Bush said. "But when Democrats say that I deliberately misled the Congress and the people, that's irresponsible. They looked at the same intelligence I did, and they voted -- many of them voted -- to support the decision I made. . . . So I agree with the vice president."

Murtha, asked about the comments, replied sarcastically: "I like guys who got five deferments and [have] never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done." Cheney did not serve in the military, and Bush was an Air National Guardsman who did not leave the United States during the Vietnam War.

This is no surprise, nor is it new. John Murtha has been questioning the war for over a year. Murtha is Cindy Sheehan redux. The Democrat Leadership, spineless creatures like Pelosi, Emanuel, Reid, and Kerry have sent John Murtha out to broach the attack which they are planning to launch later in this election year. Watching Mr. Murtha last night was somewhat painful. He appears to be suffering from the early stages of dementia and was reading a script provided to him. Most notable is the manner in which Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid the other cowards have distanced themselves from him. They have set him up to be the stalking horse. He is to launch the attack and suffer the wounds while laying the groundwork for the campaign of lies to come. Look at what Emanuel Head of the House Democrats' campaign effort said, "Jack Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha. At the right time, we will have a position." Rahm, you don't have a position on Iraq now? Fascinating!

Full Story: Murtha's Statement Non-News

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Murtha's Media Splash: Dove at Heart, not Hawk

An Unlikely Lonesome Dove

By Dana Milbank
Friday, November 18, 2005; Page A06

In his 37 years in the military, John Murtha won two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with a Combat "V," and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. As a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania for the past 31 years, he has been a fierce hawk, championing conflicts in Central America and the Persian Gulf.

Yesterday, he was called a coward.

After Murtha stunned the Capitol with a morning news conference calling for a pullout from Iraq because our "troops have done all they can," the denunciations came quickly.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) accused Murtha of delivering "the highest insult" to the troops. "We must not cower," Hastert lectured the old soldier.

Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) informed Murtha that his views "only embolden our enemies" and lamented that "Democrats undermine our troops in Iraq from the security of their Washington, D.C., offices."

At a rival news conference called four hours after Murtha's appearance, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), who like Hastert and Blunt does not have military service on his rsum, alerted the 73-year-old Murtha that "the American people are made of sterner stuff." And Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) said the likes of Murtha want to take "the cowardly way out and say, 'We're going to surrender.' "

Murtha, whose brand of hawkishness has never been qualified by the word "chicken," was expecting the attacks. "I like guys who've never been there to criticize us who've been there. I like that," the burly old Marine said, hands in pocket. Referring to Vice President Cheney, he continued: "I like guys who got five deferments and never been there, and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

It was a lonely day for once-mighty Murtha, who has long served as Democrats' conscience on military matters because of his moral authority on the subject. But Democrats were cutting and running yesterday -- not from Iraq, but from Murtha.

"I don't support immediate withdrawal," came the statement from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Aides to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hinted that she would back Murtha, but when she finally spoke, it came out as "Mr. Murtha speaks for himself."

Murtha being to the left of his Democratic caucus on military affairs is like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) being to the right of the caucus on gay rights. But Murtha seemed unconcerned. Asked if he had any co-sponsors, he replied, "I didn't ask for any."

Murtha was not subtle at his news conference, standing in front of seven American flags and a photo of John F. Kennedy. He was almost finished reading a seven-page statement when he went off script to describe the wounded Iraq war vets he visited. He described a father stroking the hand of his comatose son and the soldier who lost both hands but couldn't get a Purple Heart because it was friendly fire.

Funny how knee-jerks like Dana Milbank never mention Marines...or any other military veteran, except when they come out against the war. If Mr. Milbank ever bothered to get out of his elitist northeast enclave and talk to the rank and file troops returning to America he would find an overwhelming majority of them support our President and the mission over there. Of course he won't because that information would run contrary to his intended mission of running down the President. Milbank, I'm laughing at your "credentials" as a "columnist" and "journalist." I'm also laughing at any claim you might make as a patriotic American.

Full Story: Dana Milbank Anti-American at Heart

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Pitiful, Paltry, Parsimony by Pols

House Approves Spending Reductions
Senate Passes Bill Extending Some Tax Measures

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 18, 2005; Page A01

The House narrowly approved a broad five-year budget plan early this morning that squeezes programs for the poor, for college students and for farmers, handing Republican leaders a hard-fought victory after weeks of resistance in GOP ranks.

The plan, which would save the government just under $50 billion, passed 217 to 215, with 14 Republicans joining all House Democrats in opposition. Just last week, Republican leaders were forced to pull the bill from consideration after it became clear they lacked the votes for passage.

Republicans salvaged the win this time only by jettisoning one of President Bush's top domestic priorities, opening Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, then trimming planned cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and student lunch programs. Those changes pared back the measure's savings by more than $4 billion, and moderate Republicans say they expect the final version will be cut back further in negotiations with the Senate.

On the Senate side of the Capitol, moderate Republicans scored another victory last night, winning passage of a five-year $50 billion tax package that left out one of the centerpieces of Bush's second-term economic agenda. The measure, which passed 64 to 33, did not include an extension of the deep cuts to the tax rates on capital gains and dividends that passed in 2003 and are set to expire after 2008. Instead, the Senate approved a tax measure largely devoted to hurricane relief and the extension of tax measures with bipartisan appeal.

By last night, a victory for the House budget measure had grown vital to GOP leaders, who appeared on the verge of losing control of a Republican conference balkanizing between blocs of conservatives and moderates. Yesterday afternoon, they suffered an embarrassing and rare defeat when nearly two dozen renegade Republicans teamed with Democrats to shoot down a giant health and education spending bill for the coming year.

By a vote of 224 to 209, the House rejected the $142.5 billion measure, which contained spending cuts in many health care and education programs that are strongly supported by moderate Republicans and by Democrats. Many rank-and-file lawmakers were unhappy with the bill as well because it did not contain special programs and projects they had sought for their congressional districts.

What courage, what bravery, what bul-----nevermind. What a joke. Out of a $4.991 trillion in discretionary spending budgeted from 2006-2010, the House could only find $50 billion, and the Senate a paltry $35 billion. At a $42 billion compromise, that only amounts to 0.8%. Democrats are wailing and moaning and whining about the deficit, but they are unwilling to do anything about it. Conservatives have known this for some time, Democrats politicians are liars and everything they say should be preceded by a dose of salt. If a Democrat Politician tells you something, you better check to see if his fingers are crossed before you believe him. They don't care about the deficit, they don't care about the economy, they don't care about the people, they only care about power.

Full Story: Miniscule Budget Cuts

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Nobility in a Family and a Young Man

DETERMINED TO SERVE
Fallen Marine fulfilled a dream
Family mourns the 20-year-old lance corporal killed in Iraq

By ARMANDO VILLAFRANCA
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Belinda McCrackin's habit of watching televised broadcasts of the war in Iraq turned into near obsession with every passing day her son spent there as a Marine.

I prayed every day and my prayers were just longer and stronger" the more he was in Iraq, she said.

She has stopped asking for his safe return. Her prayers now belong to the family her son has left behind.

Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher M. McCrackin, of Liverpool, who had wanted to serve in the military since he was a child, was killed Monday in the blast of an improvised explosive device in New Ubaydi. He was 20.

His mother said McCrackin and his twin brother, Michael, were in the JROTC programs during high school and were determined to join the military at a young age.

"They both wanted to join the military since they were little boys," their mother said. "They always said they wanted to be soldiers, and that's what they did."

McCrackin had been in Iraq since July, after joining the Marine Corps upon graduation from Alvin High School in 2004.

Christopher and Michael, who joined the Navy, entered boot camp within 10 days of each other.

Marine Maj. Jim Spakes, the brothers' JROTC instructor at Alvin High School, attributed their strong desire to serve from their upbringing. The brothers' grandfather and an uncle served in the Navy while other family members served in various branches of the military.

"He exemplified what's right with this country's young men and women who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect us," Spakes said.

McCrackin was born July 23, 1985, in Brownsville. His family moved to Houston when he was just weeks old and then settled in Brazoria County four years ago.

His mother said he believed military service would give him an opportunity to travel. If he decided not to stay in the Marines, she said, he wanted to attend college and eventually become a high school history teacher and JROTC instructor.

McCrackin married his high school sweetheart, Natalie Weaver, on Oct. 23, 2004, and the two had a son, Ethan, after he joined the Marines.

His wife said she moved to California in April and the three spent the next few months together as a family before he was shipped to Iraq.

"It was wonderful to be with him and being a family with him and having our own time together," she said.

She said she has no regrets and is coping with the loss, but that this has been "the hardest part of my life."

God Bless him and his family for his service and their sacrifice. This one has got to be confusing to Democrats. Someone who wanted to serve his country, and did so. That is something that Democrats seem unable to understand. They don't understand how anyone could love freedom or their nation more than their life.

Full Story: Noble Sacrifice

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Corruption is Corruption Whether Big or Small

Justice of peace convicted
Jury finds Bell guilty of trying to illegally obtain handicapped parking placard

By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

A longtime Harris County justice of the peace spent the night in the county jail after a jury determined Wednesday she illegally used her dead mother's name to obtain handicapped parking placards.

Betty Brock Bell, 56, was fingerprinted by sheriff's deputies, then escorted from District Judge Mary Lou Keel's courtroom through a side door into a confined area. Bell's purse and personal belongings were handed to family members for safekeeping.

A small entourage of well-wishers urged Bell to stay strong as deputies led her away.

"Judge, it's going to be all right," one woman called out.

Bell's punishment has not been determined. Jurors will continue hearing evidence today in the sentencing phase of her trial.

The jury deliberated more than three hours Wednesday before convicting Bell of tampering with a governmental record, a state jail felony. She could face up to two years in state jail or five years' probation.

Because Bell has been convicted of a felony, the county attorney is empowered to seek her removal from office.

Bell's attorneys would not comment after the verdict. One of her supporters, who declined to identify himself, ordered her attorneys, Greg Russell and Jeffrey Gelb, not to speak to the media.

Prosecutor Donna Goode also declined to comment until the trial is finished.

During a visit to the Harris County Tax Office last year, Bell signed her late mother's name on an application seeking to renew some handicapped parking placards. Bell told the part-time clerk who processed her paperwork that the parking placards were for her mother, even though her mother had been dead for nine months, testimony revealed.

After the transaction, the clerk remembered hearing from someone that Bell's mother was deceased and notified her supervisor of the incident.

That eventually led to Bell's indictment by a Harris County grand jury.

She was later charged with aggravated perjury after she was accused of lying to the grand jury investigating the handicapped-parking application.

In closing arguments Wednesday, Bell's attorneys claimed her prosecution had an underlying motive but did not elaborate. They also said the state's witnesses did not have "clean hands."

"Hasn't she already been punished? She hasn't been on the bench since this happened," Russell told the jury.

I see no problem here, she intentionally broke the law, and then perjured herself. She should be fired and banned from the bench. There is no ambiguity here. She knew what she was doing was wrong and she chose to do it anyway, end of story. She is supposed to uphold the laws in her position as JP. She deserves no special treatment nor should she be given any breaks. This is the kind of corruption which leads to undermining of the whole court system.

Full Story: Corruption in Court

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Senate Plays "3 Card Monte" With Pork Spending

Funding for Alaskan Bridges Eliminated
Republicans Make Largely Symbolic Move in Reaction to Criticism of Transportation Spending

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 17, 2005; Page A18

The "Bridge to Nowhere," a pork-barrel project that has attracted a lot of unfavorable attention, may not be going anywhere for a while.

The $223 million span linking the small town of Ketchikan to sparsely populated Gravina Island and a second Alaskan bridge project have been stripped of their funding by congressional negotiators as they race to wrap up legislative business.

That decision reflects a growing unease among Republicans of criticism of runaway government spending in a transportation bill that includes 6,000-plus special projects for House members' districts. But the maneuver is largely cosmetic and may only slow the bridge projects. As part of the deal, Alaska will get to keep the $454 million that Congress set aside for the two bridges, and technically the state can use the transportation funds for any project it chooses -- including the bridges.

Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.), one of the negotiators of the Department of Transportation spending bill for the coming year, said constituents approach him regularly to complain about the bridge. Other lawmakers reported similar experiences in their districts, Knollenberg said. Fiscal conservatives were particularly furious, regarding the bridge as proof that the Republican-led Congress had lost its way.

"The bridges did not pass our test of priorities," Knollenberg said. "We felt we could not in good faith approve this project."

The Senate tried unsuccessfully last month to redirect a portion of the Alaska bridge funds to fix a heavily traveled interstate bridge outside New Orleans that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. That effort drew furious words and a resignation threat from veteran Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), former chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

This time, Stevens is steering clear. Lawmakers who have worked with him on the issue in recent days said he accepts that the bridges have placed his fellow Republicans in a political bind. "I'm unhappy we have to make any change," Stevens said. He said of the funding transfer, "it's the best we can hope to work out."

"It's largely symbolic," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who would have preferred to strike all $24 billion in special projects that members stuffed into the highway bill. "The money will still go to Alaska," as opposed to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, or to fund other budget priorities, McCain said.

Listen to the little piggies squealing. This is a poor showing for those who claim to be budget hawks. This is Pork-Fest Light, meaning Pork Fest without all of the meaningless trimmings. This is really a dissapointment for the fiscally reponsible.

Full Story: Fleecing America

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Opportunist Republican Senators in for Rude Awakening

Tide Turning in GOP Senators' War View
Bipartisan Amendment Is Rebuff to Bush

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A06

For the past three years, President Bush has set the course on U.S. policy in Iraq, and Republicans in Congress -- and many Democrats, too -- have dutifully followed his lead. Yesterday the Senate, responding to growing public frustration with the administration's war policy, signaled that those days are coming to an end.

The rebuff to the White House was muffled in the modulated language of a bipartisan amendment, but the message could not have been more clear. With their constituents increasingly unhappy with the U.S. mission in Iraq, Democrats and now Republicans are demanding that the administration show that it has a strategy to turn the conflict over to the Iraqis and eventually bring U.S. troops home.

"I think this is a clear sign that Republicans are walking away from the president, that they're no longer willing to tie their future and political standing to the president and his policy on Iraq," said Ivo H. Daalder, a Clinton administration official now at the Brookings Institution. "They found this was the easy way out -- an implicit rebuke, not an explicit rebuke. But this was a rebuke."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) declined in an interview to call the Senate-approved amendment, which he co-sponsored, a repudiation of the White House. Instead, he said, it shores up the administration's arguments. He noted that the National Security Council staff had been shown the language in advance and was given the opportunity to critique it.

But Warner also said senators were "not unmindful" of widespread unease in public opinion about the war. Calling the next 120 days critical to success, he said the United States must do all it can to prevent Iraq from fracturing into civil war. But he added that the Senate vote was a "strong message to Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that you have got to come to grip with your internal problems. . . . It's a signal to the Iraqis that we mean business."

The jolt to the White House came just as the administration was attempting to beat back perceptions that the president misled the country before the war by overstating the strength of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. That fight pits Democrats against Republicans.

En route to Asia on Monday, the president delivered another riposte to his critics, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld joined in yesterday, quoting statements from the late 1990s by President Bill Clinton and others in his administration about the threat posed by Iraq.

If the fight over prewar intelligence has become a proxy battle over the question of whether it was right or wrong to go to war, yesterday's Senate debate moved the issue to another arena, to the question of whether the U.S. strategy to stabilize Iraq is working and what is the best way to end the occupation there.

James M. Lindsay, vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Senate action "doesn't change much in terms of the substance of American policy, but it clearly does signal a change in the parameters of the political debate. . . . It says the American political debate has now shifted to how to get out of Iraq."

There are still significant differences between the two parties on this second question, and sizable differences within the Democratic Party. In recent weeks, prominent Democrats, including Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), have proposed far more explicit plans to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq. Others, such as Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), remain strong supporters of the war. But the vote yesterday showed that Republicans are growing nervous.

Yesterday's action came on a pair of amendments offered to the defense authorization bill. The Democratic amendment, sponsored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.) and many others, stated that 2006 should be a year of "significant transition" to Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi forces taking responsibility for their country's security. It mandated quarterly reports to Congress by the administration on progress toward that goal, and an estimated timetable for the eventual redeployment of U.S. forces. That amendment lost on a 58 to 40 vote.

The Republican amendment, co-sponsored by Warner and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), embraced the bulk of the Democratic amendment but removed what the White House and some Republicans saw as the most odious language, the requirement for the administration to establish an estimated timetable for withdrawal. With that change, the amendment sailed through on a vote of 79 to 19.

It would have been easy for Republicans to defeat the Democratic amendment and leave it at that, but given the state of public opinion and the opposition to Bush's policies, Republicans needed a vehicle to show constituents that they understand the public's frustration -- and to signal to the White House that they expect more than statements of optimism about the pace of a conflict in which American troops are dying almost every day.

White House communications director Nicolle Wallace said the administration was not bothered by the day's events. "The Senate endorsed administration policy, which is a conditions-based withdrawal in Iraq. It also exposed a divide in the Democratic Party," she said.

Oh Danny Boy...I think you're going to find this "rebellion" by Senate Republicans to be a short lived one. I don't believe that the Republican Senator's constituents are going to take this any better than did I. I may be wrong, but I suspect that these Senators will return after Thanksgiving Vacation with their tails firmly planted between their legs, thoroughly chastised by their base. There are a lot of us unhappy campers out here jsut waiting to bend the ears of the rebellious Republicans.

Full Stroy: Republican Rebellion

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Justice Backs Georgia Photo ID Plan

Criticism of Voting Law Was Overruled
Justice Dept. Backed Georgia Measure Despite Fears of Discrimination

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 17, 2005; Page A01

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.

The Justice Department has characterized the "pre-clearance" of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.

But an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post recommended blocking the program because Georgia failed to show that the measure would not dilute the votes of minority residents, as required under the Voting Rights Act.

The memo, endorsed by four of the team's five members, also said the state had provided flawed and incomplete data. The team found significant evidence that the plan would be "retrogressive," meaning that it would reduce blacks' access to the polls.

A day later, on Aug. 26, the chief of the department's voting rights section, John Tanner, told Georgia officials that the program could go forward. "The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the specified changes," he said in a letter to them.

Eric Holland, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement this week that "disagreements are healthy in a debate" and that voting rights decisions are made "after reviewing both the pros and cons very carefully."

"At the end of the day, the section chief is responsible for tendering a recommendation" to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, he said.

The Georgia voter ID program has been the subject of fierce partisan debate since it was approved by the state's Republican-controlled legislature in March. The plan was blocked on constitutional grounds in October by a U.S. District Court judge, who compared the measure to a Jim Crow-era poll tax. A three-judge appellate panel, made up of one Democratic and two Republican appointees, upheld the lower court's injunction.

The program requires voters to obtain one of six forms of photo identification before going to the polls, as opposed to 17 types of identification currently allowed. Those without a driver's license or other photo identification are required to obtain a special digital identification card, which would cost $20 for five years and could be obtained from motor vehicle offices in only 59 of the state's 159 counties.

Proponents said the measure was needed to combat voter fraud, but opponents charged that Republicans were trying to keep black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, away from the polls.

The screams you are hearing are those of the voting dead people who will have their voting priviledges revoked finally. The Democrats' arguments that this is an attempt to discriminate or in some way interfere with the ability of blacks to vote is pure BS. The American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund's August 2, 2005 report showed that the bulk of voter fraud and intimidation which occurred in the last election was perpetrated by the Democrats so it is small wonder that they are whining now. They have been unable to win at the polls for a considerable time now if the playing field is level.

Full Story: Georgia ID Back

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Congress Constricts Patriot Act (A Little)

Congress Arrives at A Deal on Patriot Act
Limits Would Spare Some Controversial Government Powers

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 17, 2005; Page A01

House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement yesterday on revisions to the USA Patriot Act that would limit some of the government's powers while requiring the Justice Department to provide a better accounting of its secret requests for information on ordinary citizens.

But the agreement would leave intact some of the most controversial provisions of the anti-terrorism law, such as government access to library and bookstore records in terrorism probes, and would extend only limited new rights to the targets of such searches.

For President Bush, renewal of the act would provide a boost as he looks to restore his image as a strong commander in chief in combating terrorism. And Democrats said yesterday that the administration largely got what it wanted -- a major break after lawmakers challenged the White House in recent days on the conduct of the Iraq war, budget policies and tax cuts.

The deal would make permanent 14 Patriot Act provisions that were set to expire at the end of the year. Three other measures -- including one allowing law enforcement agents access to bookstore and public library records -- would be extended for seven years, or three years longer than the Senate had agreed to. The House initially extended the provisions for 10 years but later voted to accept the Senate's four-year extension.

Also extended for seven years is a provision allowing roving wiretaps that follow an individual who may use multiple means of communication, rather than targeting a single phone line. The agreement also extends for seven years a provision of a separate intelligence law passed last year that allows federal investigators to track an individual not connected to a foreign government but suspected of operating as a "lone wolf" terrorist.

The compromise would weaken a block of House-approved death penalty provisions that had elicited concern in the Senate and in legal circles. In the event that a jury could not agree to impose the death penalty on a convicted terrorist, House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) had hoped to empower prosecutors to impanel a new jury. The deal also excludes a House proposal to allow a death penalty for terrorist offenses that "create grave risk of death."

I guess this is good news. I'm not that strong an advocate for these laws. I believe that freedom has some prices which must be paid and that one of those is the increased risk of being killed by a crazed killer whether terrorist of looney tunes disaffected Democrat (just kidding here) voter. Some of the provisions in the Patriot Act I find completely innocuous, but others are intrusive, and unnecessary in a free society. Even those which are innocuous, I find objectionable because any law is a restriction of our rights, and if it is unnecessary, then it needs to be eliminated. Therefore, this is a constriction of the original Patriot Act and therefore a good thing.

Full Story: Reigning in Government (a little)

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Bob Woodward's Testimony Before Fitzgerald

Testifying in the CIA Leak Case

Bob Woodward
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A08

On Monday, November 14, I testified under oath in a sworn deposition to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for more than two hours about small portions of interviews I conducted with three current or former Bush administration officials that relate to the investigation of the public disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The interviews were mostly confidential background interviews for my 2004 book "Plan of Attack" about the leadup to the Iraq war, ongoing reporting for The Washington Post and research for a book on Bush's second term to be published in 2006. The testimony was given under an agreement with Fitzgerald that he would only ask about specific matters directly relating to his investigation.

All three persons provided written statements waiving the previous agreements of confidentiality on the issues being investigated by Fitzgerald. Each confirmed those releases verbally this month, and requested that I testify.

Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to Niger to determine if there was any substance to intelligence reports that Niger had made a deal to sell "yellowcake" or raw uranium to Iraq. Wilson later emerged as an outspoken critic of the Bush administration.

I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst.

I have not been released to disclose the source's name publicly.

Fitzgerald asked for my impression about the context in which Mrs. Wilson was mentioned. I testified that the reference seemed to me to be casual and offhand, and that it did not appear to me to be either classified or sensitive. I testified that according to my understanding an analyst in the CIA is not normally an undercover position.

I testified that after the mid-June 2003 interview, I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst. Pincus does not recall that I passed this information on.

Fitzgerald asked if I had discussed Wilson's wife with any other government officials before Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003. I testified that I had no recollection of doing so.

He asked if I had possibly planned to ask questions about what I had learned about Wilson's wife with any other government official.

I testified that on June 20, 2003, I interviewed a second administration official for my book "Plan of Attack" and that one of the lists of questions I believe I brought to the interview included on a single line the phrase "Joe Wilson's wife." I testified that I have no recollection of asking about her, and that the tape-recorded interview contains no indication that the subject arose.

I also testified that I had a conversation with a third person on June 23, 2003. The person was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and we talked on the phone. I told him I was sending to him an 18-page list of questions I wanted to ask Vice President Cheney. On page 5 of that list there was a question about "yellowcake" and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's weapons programs. I testified that I believed I had both the 18-page question list and the question list from the June 20 interview with the phrase "Joe Wilson's wife" on my desk during this discussion. I testified that I have no recollection that Wilson or his wife was discussed, and I have no notes of the conversation.

Though neither Wilson nor Wilson's wife's name had surfaced publicly at this point, Pincus had published a story the day before, Sunday, June 22, about the Iraq intelligence before the war. I testified that I had read the story, which referred to the CIA mission by "a former senior American diplomat to visit Niger." Although his name was not used in the story, I knew that referred to Wilson.

I testified that on June 27, 2003, I met with Libby at 5:10 p.m. in his office adjacent to the White House. I took the 18-page list of questions with the Page-5 reference to "yellowcake" to this interview and I believe I also had the other question list from June 20, which had the "Joe Wilson's wife" reference.

I have four pages of typed notes from this interview, and I testified that there is no reference in them to Wilson or his wife. A portion of the typed notes shows that Libby discussed the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, mentioned "yellowcake" and said there was an "effort by the Iraqis to get it from Africa. It goes back to February '02." This was the time of Wilson's trip to Niger.

When asked by Fitzgerald if it was possible I told Libby I knew Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and was involved in his assignment, I testified that it was possible I asked a question about Wilson or his wife, but that I had no recollection of doing so. My notes do not include all the questions I asked, but I testified that if Libby had said anything on the subject, I would have recorded it in my notes.

So lots of grist for the mill here. We know two of the "administration officials," I. Scooter Libby and Andrew H. Card, both of whom are "current" members of the administration. So, if Bob Woodward is to be believed and he really intended to imply that his interviews included someone not in the current administration, then that leaves the third person as not being in the current White House. Who fit's these criteria? Well most obvious is Colon Powell, followed by Ari Fleischer. Interestingly, Ari Fleischer officially resigned his position in July of 2003, but announced his resignation on May 20th. Woodward interviewed the third administration official around June 20th. Did this lame-duck spill this information? Is this why President Bush said that anyone involved in the outing of Valerie Plame would be "taken care of?" I also have to question the liklihood that Pincus didn't remember Woodward's telling him of Plame's involvement in the CIA.

Full Story: Woodward Testifies

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It's About Time! Two Months is More Than Enough Time for Refugees to Find Lodgings

FEMA will stop paying for evacuees' hotels
Mayor wants the agency to extend the Dec. 1 deadline

By ARMANDO VILLAFRANCA
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it plans to stop paying for hotel and motel rooms for Katrina and Rita evacuees beginning Dec. 1, including 19,000 hurricane evacuees still in Houston hotels.

FEMA had planned to place families in longer-term housing before Dec. 1, but more than 53,000 hotel rooms remain occupied by evacuated families — primarily in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

Houston's hotel population of evacuees has decreased to 19,000 from about 60,000 in September, according to a city statement released Tuesday.

Mayor Bill White is asking FEMA to grant Houston extensions of the hotel emergency assistance being offered to Louisiana and Mississippi, where allowances are being granted because of a shortage of available housing.

"Today, I have talked with the senior FEMA official in the United States and the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. They have committed to review both deadlines for hotel reimbursement based on the hotel population and for acquiring needed apartments based on the supply and demand for apartments in Houston," White said in a statement.

Houston officials are moving more than 500 people daily into apartments.

"We may be asking for extensions of these deadlines based on market conditions and commitments previously made by FEMA, and we feel confident that FEMA will review those requests on the merits," White said.

This is a huge expense for the American taxpayer. It is about time for the refugees to have found employment and housing. I am not in favor of the tax-payer being saddled with these peoples expenses for any longer. It is time for them to take responsibility for themselves.

Full Story: Enough is Enough

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More "Special" Citizens

UT-Austin gets funds to attract Hispanics
$12.3 million grant to help pave students' way to higher education

By GRANT SCHULTE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A $22 million package of grants unveiled Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will help the University of Texas at Austin recruit and retain Hispanic students and broaden their presence on college campuses state- and nationwide, officials announced Tuesday.

A private $12.3 million grant will fund a program to help Hispanic students overcome the economic and social barriers that have prevented many from attending college, leaders from UT said. Another $1.6 million will go toward educational counseling programs at schools including the University of Houston, Texas A&M University and UT at San Antonio.

UT President Larry Faulkner pledged to create a campus culture more "comfortable and welcoming" to Hispanic students.

Sara Martinez Tucker, the president of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which received the grants from various private charities, said UT and the University of Georgia were chosen for the $12.3 million grant to test a pilot program for areas with an established Hispanic population (UT) and an emerging population Georgia).

The program will expand the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's regional offices so they can offer more outreach services.

Hispanics comprised 13.3 percent of UT-Austin's student body in 2004, according to the school, a proportion that has inched upward in recent years. According to the U.S. Census, more than one-third of the population statewide is Hispanic.

The five-year initiative was the largest chunk of the $22 million package that will filter through the scholarship fund, a California charity that helps Hispanics through college. The other grants will help pay for scholarships, educational outreach programs and peer counseling services nationwide.

You don't make students "feel" more welcome by having special funds to pay their way into school. You can't give people social acceptability, or ease. If you want Hispanic students to fit in better, then they need to earn their way to that acceptability by becoming a part of the society in general. This is not a reasonable use of taxpayer funds. I have no problem with private funds for this kind of thing, but it still will not help them fit in. That only comes from hard work and time. It is time for the Left to understand that money cannot buy equality, self-respect, or acceptance.

Full Story: Going Beyond Equality

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Ooh! Those Evil Oil Companies.

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force

By Dana Milbank and Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force. In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's work; that meeting is not noted in the document.

The task force's activities attracted complaints from environmentalists, who said they were shut out of the task force discussions while corporate interests were present. The meetings were held in secret and the White House refused to release a list of participants. The task force was made up primarily of Cabinet-level officials. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club unsuccessfully sued to obtain the records.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who posed the question about the task force, said he will ask the Justice Department today to investigate. "The White House went to great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task force," Lautenberg said.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on the document. She said that the courts have upheld "the constitutional right of the president and vice president to obtain information in confidentiality."

The executives were not under oath when they testified, so they are not vulnerable to charges of perjury; committee Democrats had protested the decision by Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) not to swear in the executives. But a person can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for making "any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation" to Congress.

Alan Huffman, who was a Conoco manager until the 2002 merger with Phillips, confirmed meeting with the task force staff. "We met in the Executive Office Building, if I remember correctly," he said.

Hey Dana and Justin, How many energy companies were invited into the White House during the Clinton Administration along with all of the wacko environmentalists that set Clinton's policies. Did you report on that? What were the laws that came out of those meeting? How much did kowtowing to those special interests cost the American taxpayer? Why is it wrong for those individuals who know the energy industry best to be asked to help structure an energy policy. Why would we want the greenies to tell us how to structure our energy policy. I personally am glad that Shell, Exxon, Chevron et al were consulted. They are businesses which generate jobs and revenues. Groups like the Sierra Club, and other Green organizations contribute NOTHING to the economy, energy production, or the tax revenues.

Full Story: Cheney Talked to Oil Companies

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Hagel's Weakness Reveals Itself: He's No Conservative

Hagel Defends Criticisms of Iraq Policy
Administration Calls Statements by Democrats Harmful to War Effort, Troops

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A06

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) strongly criticized yesterday the White House's new line of attack against critics of its Iraq policy, saying that "the Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them."

With President Bush leading the charge, administration officials have lashed out at Democrats who have accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Bush has suggested that critics are hurting the war effort, telling U.S. troops in Alaska on Monday that critics "are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible."

Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and a potential presidential candidate in 2008, countered in a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations that the Vietnam War "was a national tragedy partly because members of Congress failed their country, remained silent and lacked the courage to challenge the administrations in power until it was too late."

"To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic," Hagel said, arguing that 58,000 troops died in Vietnam because of silence by political leaders. "America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices."

Hagel said Democrats have an obligation to be constructive in their criticism, but he accused the administration of "dividing the country" with its rhetorical tactics.

Hagel supported the 2002 resolution to authorize military action in Iraq, but he has emerged as a strong skeptic of the Bush administration's handling of the war. In his speech, he called for a regional security conference to help invest Iraq's neighbors in the effort to stabilize the country.

At one point, while answering a question from the audience about Syria, Hagel suggested that the Middle East is worse off after the invasion because the administration failed to anticipate the consequences of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "You could probably argue it is worse in many ways in the Middle East because of consequences and ripple effects," he said.

Hagel, your clueless if you believe that the failure of Congress in the Vietnam War was because they didn't speak out. It was because the spineless Congressmen abandoned the Vietnamese people and the troops. It was because people like you were talking about how it was "worse off" because we were there. You may be a gotten medals for your service in Vietnam, but you are a gutless coward now. You seem to be more interested in saving your political butt by following the latest polls than you are in standing for principle. You are the worst sort of RINO. Forget the Presidency.

Full Story: Useless Hagel

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Frist Republicans Abandon Principles and Troops

Senate Presses for Concrete Steps Toward Drawdown of Troops in Iraq

By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

Reflecting heightened public anxiety over the Iraq war, the Senate yesterday issued its most direct challenge yet to President Bush's handling of the conflict, as it pressed for concrete steps toward troop withdrawals and a requirement for the White House to provide more information on military operations.

By a vote of 79 to 19, the Senate approved a resolution designating 2006 as "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty . . . thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq." It would also require the White House to submit to Congress an unclassified report every 90 days detailing U.S. policy and military operations.

The resolution was offered by Republican leaders after the Senate rejected a Democratic resolution, 58 to 40, that would have pressured the administration to outline a plan to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq. On that vote, five Democrats voted with the GOP majority, while only one Republican -- Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) -- voted yes. Democrats have moved aggressively to challenge Bush over how the United States went to war and how the war can be brought to an end.

At a news conference in Kyoto, Japan, where he is on an Asian tour, Bush said he saw the development back in Washington as "a positive step," since the Senate rejected the Democratic amendment. As for the final language, he said, "I view this as an amendment consistent with our strategy and look forward to continuing to work with the Congress." The required reports, he added, "we're more than willing to do. That's to be expected."

Despite the partisan nature of the final votes, the day's debate reflected clear unease in both parties about the administration's Iraq policy -- and a new willingness by the Senate to insist that Bush provide more clarity on how he intends to exit Iraq.

The weaker GOP measure was added to a defense policy reauthorization bill, along with other provisions that would codify the treatment of military detainees and establish new legal rights for terrorism suspects. One of those provisions, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would establish strict guidelines for interrogation of suspected terrorists. Another would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorism suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.

The Senate approved the overall legislation by 98 to 0. A final compromise must be reached with the House, but the bipartisan Senate action suggests a potentially pivotal shift, with Republicans and Democrats alike no longer content to follow Bush's lead on the war.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called the war-related resolution "a vote of no confidence" on Bush's Iraq policies. "Staying the course will not do," Reid said.

However, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) insisted on the Senate floor that his colleagues were in no way trying to shift administration policy or rebuke the White House. He called such an assessment "absurd" and "ridiculous."

Frist, your lying to yourself and the American people. Harry Reid was spot on in his assessment. This was cowardice under fire. You have abandoned the President, but like most cowards, you waited until he was on his way to Japan, and could not appropriately respond to your betrayal. Next time just stab him in the back with a knife. Senator Frist, you have abandoned any chance you might have had to get my vote or that of many like-minded Republican Conservatives.

Full Story: Frist Failure

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More Gutless Senate Republicans: Decide to Strike Blow Against Economy

Senate Panel Does Not Extend Tax-Rate Cut

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Facing a stalemate over one of President Bush's top economic policy goals, the Senate Finance Committee yesterday gave up efforts to extend deep cuts to the tax rate on dividends and capital gains and approved a $60 billion tax measure largely devoted to hurricane relief and tax cuts with bipartisan appeal.

The measure, which could pass the Senate today, marks the latest in a string of legislative setbacks for Bush, who has repeatedly called on Congress to make his first-term tax cuts permanent and has taken particular pride in the 2003 dividends and capital gains tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2008.

The Senate measure diverges sharply from a Ways and Means Committee tax package moving toward a House vote as early as Friday. The House package, which cuts taxes by $70 billion over five years, would extend the dividends and capital gains tax cuts through 2010. It would not extend a measure to mitigate the impact of the alternative minimum tax, which is increasingly snaring the middle class.

Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) would like to use the political pressure of a rising AMT burden to drive a broad tax-code overhaul.

The House and Senate are struggling to complete tax cuts called for in the congressional budget resolution, which would accompany budget-cutting measures. In both chambers, the tax packages cut revenue more than the budget packages slice spending. Democrats and some moderate Republicans question the wisdom of expanding the deficit over the next five years.

The Senate measure -- drafted by Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) -- won plaudits yesterday from moderate Democrats and Republicans, who called it a modest, consensus approach that reflects the tough budget choices needed in the face of rising war costs, back-to-back hurricanes, the unprecedented cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast and soaring energy costs.

"The fact is, these are a confluence of challenges that require a confluence of choices," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who forced Republican leaders to back down on the dividends and capital gains extensions when she argued such cuts would primarily benefit the wealthy as Congress was moving to cut programs for the poor.

Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Blanche L. Lincoln (Ark.) joined Republicans to pass the bill out of the committee, 14 to 6.

Conservative Republicans had held up Finance Committee action for nearly a week to pressure Snowe, and they lamented the panel's failure to extend tax cuts that they say have resulted in a windfall of corporate tax payments.

Senate GOP leaders hope dividend and capital gains tax cuts will be included in the final tax bill that emerges from House and Senate negotiations, but House Republicans have their own problems. House Republican moderates who have stymied passage of a $54 billion budget cutting measure have also been outspoken about what they see as a tax cut weighted to the wealthy.

Well, I guess the Republicans have decided to hand the next elections over to the Democrats without contesting them. Grassley and Snowe have proven themselves Democrats at heart. Go! Leave! Jump like Jeffords, we neither want nor need you or your like in the Republican party. You don't believe in Republican principles, you don't support Republican policies, so get out ogf our party. As for the other, gutless poll watchers, you are about to self-destruct. You are now facing the very real possibility of a boycott by the base of the Republican Party. There are a lot of us who are really angry with what you are doing. Many of us are embarrassed to be called Republicans. Cowardly, callow, gutless, unprincipled, I freely use those terms now with regard to Republican Congressmen.

Full Story: Republican Surrender

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The Treason of Mr. Rockafeller, Step Down Now Mr. Senator

Rockefeller’s Confession
What was the West Virginia Democrat doing as a freelancing prewar diplomat?

By William J. Bennett

Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, the following exchange took place between Chris Wallace and U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The — I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.

While Democrats in Washington are berating the White House for having prewar intelligence wrong, a high-profile U.S. senator, member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, who has a name more internationally recognizable than Richard Cheney's, tells two putative allies (Saudi Arabia and Jordan) and an enemy who is allied with Saddam Hussein (Syria) that the United States was going to war with Iraq. This is not a prewar intelligence mistake, it is a prewar intelligence giveaway.

Syria is not only on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the country many speculate is where Hussein has secreted weapons, it is also the country from which terrorists are flowing into Iraq to fight our troops and allies. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have had, over the years, conflicted loyalties. What was Senator Rockefeller doing? What was he thinking? And all this before President Bush even made a public speech about Iraq — to the U.N. or anyone else.

This is further proof that Democrat Congressmen have been and still are actively working against America's interests. Senator Rockafeller is guilty of betraying our nation and revealing what should have been considered state secrets by anyone aquainted with our government. Talk about "misusing intelligence information."

Full Story: Rockafeller Traitor

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Alito: The Right Man for the Job

No Right to Abortion, Alito Argued in 1985
Reagan-Era Papers Show Staunch Conservatism

By Jo Becker and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 15, 2005

As a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," declared his firm opposition to certain affirmative action programs, and strongly endorsed a government role in "protecting traditional values."

The comments came in a job application to then-Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III in 1985, when Alito was seeking to bolster his conservative credentials and move up at the Justice Department. Alito was subsequently promoted to deputy assistant attorney general.

Alito, an assistant in the Office of the Solicitor General at the time, said he was "particularly proud" of his contributions to cases in which the Reagan administration had argued before the Supreme Court that "racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." He said it had been a "source of great personal satisfaction" to help advance such legal causes -- positions that he said "I personally believe very strongly."

The letter was included in 168 pages of documents released yesterday by the National Archives. The documents portray an ideologically committed conservative and offer the first public articulation of Alito's personal political philosophy as he portrayed it five years before his appointment as a federal appeals court judge.

With Alito's confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Jan. 9, the papers provoked swift reaction on Capitol Hill and among both liberal and conservative interest groups.

Opponents charged that the documents offer further evidence that Alito would vote to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision recognizing a constitutional right to abortion and would roll back civil rights and protections of religious freedom. Defenders said that Alito would put aside personal views and base his rulings on the law and a respect for Supreme Court precedent.

In his application to Meese, first reported yesterday in the Washington Times, Alito wrote that "I am and always have been a conservative" and described "the greatest influences on my views" as the writings of William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the conservative National Review, and Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Alito said he was "a life-long registered Republican" who had made political contributions to a number of GOP campaigns in his home state of New Jersey as well as conservative national political action committees.

"I believe very strongly in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement, and the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values," he wrote. "In the field of law, I disagree strenuously with the usurpation by the judiciary of decision-making authority that should be exercised by the branches of government responsible to the electorate."

His interest in constitutional law, Alito said, was "motivated in large part" by disagreement with Supreme Court decisions in the 1950s and 1960s, when the high court was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Alito said he was particularly disturbed by its rulings "in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment."

The Warren Court ruled that police had to inform criminal suspects of their rights before questioning them, that indigent defendants had a right to counsel and that improperly seized evidence could not be used at trial. It found that the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibited public schools from holding organized Bible reading or prayer. And it established a one-man, one-vote principle by mandating that political districts be drawn in such a way as to be roughly equal in population.

Alito said his intellectual development was further shaped by the writings of the late Alexander M. Bickel, a Yale Law School professor and a leading constitutional conservative. Bickel was a mentor to and close friend of Robert H. Bork, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan but did not win confirmation amid a storm of controversy.

Bickel denounced the "results-orientation" of the Warren court and, like many other conservatives, agreed with then-Justice Byron R. White, who in his dissent described the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision as an "extravagant exercise of judicial power." The Roe decision concluded that a right to privacy includes the right to abortion.

Becker and Babington's sad attempt to sway public opinion with this article is really amusing. Darth Vader Ginsburg...excuse me that's Ruth, Ruth Bader Ginburg was lead counsel for the ACLU and make it very clear that she was pro-abortion prior to her even being nominated. No one in Congress batted an eye. She carried the day 97-0. So now we have Samuel Alito who has clearly come out as a strong adherent to the Constitution, as written, and the press is making a big deal of his stand. Note the mention of Robert Bork...Ooh, the name makes chills run down the spine of all Liberals. There is a movement in the Democrats to describe "activism" as overturning stare decisis and/or ruling laws made by Congress and signed into law unconstitutional. This is of course ludicrous and an example of "new-speak." Activism is, purely and simply, the applying of a judges personal opinion when deciding a case thus creating law where there is none merely because the judge thinks that's the way it should be. No more, no less. Alito's credentials prove him to be the antithesis of that. Oh yeah, and the Warren court was one of the very worst in history.

Full Story: Alito's Excellent Record

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No More Public Money for Self Indulgence on Access TV

MediaSource in quagmire as funds dwindle
White will urge council to renew the contract with Houston's quirky public-access TV

By MATT STILES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

It's been two months since City Council split along partisan lines and refused to renew the $800,000 contract for embattled public-access channel Houston MediaSource.

The cable station, mired in lingering controversy ever since nudity was broadcast on a show last summer, remains on the air, but its reserve funds are dwindling.

Supporters and producers worry about the future of the channel, its professional staff and the freedom it offers the community to air a mostly innocuous blend of quirky, homegrown programs.

"It's like the sword of Damocles. It kind of hangs over everything," said Bart Womack, a producer and local free-speech activist who launched a Web site, amendment-one.org, to address his concerns.

Mayor Bill White, whose first loss on a council vote was on the MediaSource contract, has said he intends to try again to get the panel to renew the deal. The deal diverts small, monthly fees collected by cable providers to a nonprofit — MediaSource since the mid-1980s — to run a city-mandated access channel. The station is distinct from the Municipal Channel, which airs council meetings and other official programming.

That new vote could come by the end of the year, said White, who recently installed several new MediaSource board members, asking them to search for a possible replacement to longtime Executive Director Patti Garlinghouse.

"I'm personally for having public access," he said recently. "I don't think any nonprofit or public institution can be perfect. But, right now, there is some burden showing that there have been real changes at MediaSource."

Garlinghouse, whom board Chairman Garth Jowett has said is well regarded among her public-access counterparts nationally, declined to comment about her future for fear it would aggravate the board.

"I have full confidence in the fact that the council will ultimately vote for our contract," said Garlinghouse, declining to elaborate.

Access television is a doubtful indulgence for taxpayer funds with so many other priorities exist. Why is it that the taxpayer should pay for people to get to play-act in front of a camera? If these people want to star in their own television show, let them seek private funds to pay for it. $800,000 would feed and house a lot of homeless people. Several more policemen or firemen could be hire for this much money. The tax-payer is not a bottomless pit of money for the Mayor to tap for indulging his personal pet projects.

Full Story: End Access Television

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High Minded Ideals Ring Hollow When Americans Die

Medical Experts Debate Role In Facilitating Interrogations

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005

On Oct. 19, leaders of several medical organizations flew to the U.S. Navy detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After meeting with officials and two psychologists who served as consultants during interrogations with detainees, a vigorous debate sprang up among the experts over the ethics of physicians and caregivers participating in the debriefing of prisoners.

The debate, which participants said was conducted in earnest over a lengthy dinner at Andrews Air Force Base after they returned from Cuba, explored concerns that medical experts in general, and psychiatrists and psychologists in particular, have aided U.S. government interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, often by applying their insights into human behavior to break the will of prisoners.

Although the Bush administration has asserted that it does not condone or practice torture, articles in prominent medical forums such as the New England Journal of Medicine have said that doctors and behavioral scientists have violated ethical norms while interrogating terrorism suspects at the behest of the U.S. government and become "complicit in torture."

This weekend, the American Psychiatric Association came to the conclusion that psychiatrists should never participate in coercive interrogations, or even lend advice to government officials carrying out interrogations that involve sleep deprivation, threats, humiliation, sensory deprivation or the use of prolonged stress positions, according to the group's president, Steven S. Sharfstein.

The move comes as officials of the American Medical Association are weighing the ethics of doctors helping interrogators, and it follows a call by the American Psychological Association this summer for its members to abjure participation in cruel and degrading techniques. All the groups have long proscribed torture.

The psychiatrists' policy effectively says that numerous techniques practiced by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere are unethical for psychiatrists to be involved with, said Sharfstein, who is also president and chief executive of the nonprofit Sheppard Pratt behavioral health system based in Baltimore. "It has to do with the profession and the perception of the profession," said Sharfstein, who explained that the restrictions applied even to psychiatrists who did not have a doctor-patient relationship with prisoners. "You are never not a physician."

While the American Psychological Association also ruled this summer that cruel and degrading techniques were out of bounds for psychologists, the group has not spelled out exactly what specific techniques that would allow and disallow.

Many techniques to break the will of prisoners have come from psychological studies of normal people, as well as animal experiments that have explored the boundaries of extreme fear and helplessness.

I am getting really tired of so-called Americans professionals, putting their careers above the interests of their nation. Lawyers who are seeking to profit, at tax-payer expense, by trumping up complaints among the detainees and psychiatrists who refuse to help their nation protect the American people from these monsters, need simply to have their licenses to practice yanked. We don't need people in this country who avidly avail themselves of the benefits our nation provides and then refuse to give back to the country in a time of war. It is well and good to have high moral principles, we admire those who do, but when those principles are guided more by political ideals than moral ideals, then they ring hollow.

Full Story: Too High Minded to Help

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Pincus Lies, Again

Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes
Experience With Faulty Data Has Made Senators More Wary, Panel Chairman Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page A04

The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.

"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

"We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets."

He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.

The intelligence panel vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), also appearing on Fox, called the review "absolutely useful" because "if it is the fact that they [the Bush administration] created intelligence or shaped intelligence in order to bring American opinion along to support them in going to war, that's a really bad thing -- it should not ever be repeated."

Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said the White House is "supporting" the study, adding: "I think that what you're going to find is that the statements by the administration had backing at the time from accepted intelligence sources."

He said that when administration statements turned out to be wrong, that was "because the underlying intelligence was not true, but that's not the same as manipulating intelligence, and that is not misleading the American people."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), appearing with Roberts on "Late Edition," said that Iraq became the center of terrorism after the March 2003 invasion.

"I'm afraid we're going to see Iraq is not only the center of the war on terror, which it was not before we attacked Iraq, but now it is going to, I'm afraid, export it."

He added that Iraq "has become the heartland of terrorism. It was not before we attacked."

---------SNIP---------

The president and his senior aides have said since before the invasion that Washington went to war primarily because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the United States and its neighbors because of his connection to terrorists. Once fighting began, they argued that Iraq was the central front in the battle against terrorism.

There you go again Walter, you just can't help yourself can you? Everytine you inject your own opinion into your analysis, you betray your bias. I suggest that you go back and read the President's speeches. Weapons of mass destruction were only one of the reasons we went to war. The President repeatedly talked about securing freedom for the Iraqi people. He repeatedly mentioned the stability of the region and the gradual democratization of the Middle East. You and your chronies continually and intentionally omit those facts in your coverage of the war in Iraq.

Full Story: Pincus' Poor Prejudice

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Beatty Play-fake for the Camera

Beatty's talk about running for governor is just that
Insiders say he no longer has the time for politics

By CARLA HALL and TINA DAUNT
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES - Warren Beatty has been a movie star most of his life. And he's dabbled in liberal politics for four decades. He even managed to merge his two personas in Bulworth, the darkly comic movie tale of a presidential candidate gone wild.

Now, at 68, Beatty has bulldozed from stage left into California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political traveling show, literally and figuratively. With his movie-star wife, Annette Bening, at his side, he was turned away from a rally for Schwarzenegger in San Diego on Nov. 5, and landed on the front page he has openly coveted.

As he trampled the governor's special-election campaign trail, talk has turned to whether he's paving his own path to next year's gubernatorial race.

"I have to give you a stock answer," Beatty said Wednesday. "I don't want to run for governor, but I would have no inhibition at all.

"Let me put it another way — I feel I would have a perfect right to change my mind. Everyone does have that right."

Beatty has never run for anything, but he's basked in the spotlight of speculation before. Every few election cycles, he falls into his "I'm not saying I'm running, but I'm not saying I'm not running" persona. In 2000, he stirred up a brief flurry of publicity that he might be interested in running for president.

But people familiar with Beatty or with the rough world of politics, or both, say there's no reason to believe this time will be any different.

Who cares what Beatty does? He is only doing this for the publicity. Like many on the Left, he is a "publicity whore." Unlike Ronald Reagan, who had his bona fides, Beatty is a show pony. Like all those on the Left, all he can offer is something Americans have already rejected, socialism. He and Barbara Streisand share this pseudo-populism while living in the lap of luxury.

Full Story: Beatty Boorish

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Left Wing Whining Begins Anew

Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice
Veterans Exit Division as Traditional Cases Decline

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page A01

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Long time litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights cases.

The division has also come under criticism from the courts and some Democrats for its decision in August to approve a Georgia program requiring voters to present government-issued identification cards at the polls. The program was halted by an appellate court panel and a district court judge, who likened it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.

"Most everyone in the Civil Rights Division realized that with the change of administration, there would be some cutting back of some cases," said Richard Ugelow, who left the division in 2004 and now teaches law at American University. "But I don't think people anticipated that it would go this far, that enforcement would be cut back to the point that people felt like they were spinning their wheels."

The Justice Department and its supporters strongly dispute the complaints. Justice spokesman Eric Holland noted that the overall attrition rate during the Bush administration, about 13 percent, is not significantly higher than the 11 percent average during the last five years under President Bill Clinton.

Holland also said that the division filed a record number of criminal prosecutions in 2004. A quarter of those cases were related to human-trafficking crimes, which were made easier to prosecute under legislation passed at the end of the Clinton administration and which account for a growing proportion of the division's caseload.

Once again there is nothing a Conservative or Republican can do that will not be roundly criticized by the Left. The civil rights horse is virtually dead, discrimination is virtually eliminated in this country. Most differences between the races are now a matter of choices made by individuals, not choices made for them. Most poverty is self-inflicted. ID cards have nothing to do with discrimination, they have to do with voter fraud prevention. Democrats don't like them because they are the largest perpetrators of voter fraud.

Full Story: Civil Rights, Preferential Treatment

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Moderate Recipe for Defeat

Moderates Unhappy but Sticking With GOP for Now

By Claudia Deane and Chris Cillizza
Sunday, November 13, 2005

Earlier this fall, when former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers was still the one making courtesy calls on Capitol Hill, it was Republican conservatives whose outspoken discontent was drawing attention. Now, with a conservative gubernatorial candidate defeated in red-state Virginia and GOP centrists getting stubborn in the House and Senate, it's moderates who are getting their chance to gripe.

If the party's rank-and-file voters are any indication, it's moderates who by far are the grumpier group.

In an August Washington Post-ABC News poll, a solid 85 percent of GOP moderates approved of the job George W. Bush was doing as president, including 60 percent who "strongly approved." By early November, overall support had dropped 24 points among moderates, and only 30 percent remained strong backers. In contrast, overall support among Republican conservatives has held steady.

It's not just Bush who is getting lackluster reviews. While 74 percent of conservatives say Republicans in Congress are doing a good job, backing falls to 54 percent among GOP moderates, down 22 points from early summer. About one-third of moderates say their party's leadership is taking them in the wrong direction.

One potential wedge is the role of conservative religious groups in determining the party's agenda. In the most recent Post-ABC News poll, 44 percent of GOP moderates said that conservative religious groups have "too much influence" in the Bush administration, compared with 17 percent who thought those groups didn't hold enough sway. About a third saw religious conservatives as appropriately influential.

But there are also important cleavages among Republicans over Iraq. The majority of moderate Republicans are still behind the war (nearly 6 in 10 said it was worth fighting). In contrast with conservatives, however, a 66 percent majority of moderates called the current level of U.S. military casualties "unacceptable."

And moderates were also more likely to say the charges contained in the indictment of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby represented a serious crime if proved, rather than a minor one.

The poll offered a couple of consolations for the Republican leadership: First, conservatives in their party still outnumber moderates (55 to 39 percent in the most recent survey). Second, few moderates currently see the Democrats as an appealing alternative. Asked which party they would support if the midterm elections were being held now, 13 percent of Republican moderates chose the Democrats, and 80 percent stuck with the GOP.

The moderates offer a recipe for Republican defeat. Why would American voters support a "Democrat Light" party when they could, if that is the direction they are leaning, support the real thing? I have said and will continue to say that Ribpulicans win best with strong conservative values. When they back away from those values, they lose the support of the American people.

Full Story: Cowering Moderates

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Activist Justices Defend Seeking Legal Autority Outside Constitution

The High Court Looks Abroad
As Congress Backs Bush Foreign Policy, Justices Voice Qualms
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page A05

With President Bush's foreign policy generally backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, friction is developing with a branch of government that usually stays out of international issues: the Supreme Court.

Both in their decisions and in public remarks off the bench, key members of the court are expressing views either explicitly or implicitly at variance with the administration's approach.

The issues range from U.S. tactics in the war against al Qaeda to relatively arcane questions of consular access for foreigners on death row in the United States. But a common theme runs through them: concern by members of the court about America's image in the world. Where the White House has pursued policies in the teeth of international opposition, the justices have often spoken with a multilateralist accent.

"Congress has been notably acquiescent. The court has not," said Michael J. Glennon, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "Congress has been a facilitator. The court has been an objector."

On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales chided Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy by name for using the opinions of foreign courts for guidance in recent rulings on constitutional cases. The justices' professed goal, supporting their judicial colleagues abroad, may be laudable, Gonzales told an audience at the University of Chicago's law school, but "the judiciary is not supposed to have a foreign policy independent of the political branches."

Mindful of their institution's historical avoidance of foreign affairs, the justices have kept their public observations muted, indirect and polite. Gone are the days when, at the height of the Cold War, Justice William O. Douglas called for diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China. And, as the court is an institution that can only respond to lawsuits, not initiate policy changes, the practical impact of the justices' views is limited to cases that come before them.

Still, the court's membership includes people such as Kennedy, a regular at a summer seminar on constitutional law in Salzburg, Austria, and Breyer, fluent in French, who are well traveled and know about international affairs. The justices come into frequent contact with international colleagues at conferences, making them part of a burgeoning transnational class of legal experts. And, for any justice, the court can serve as a bully pulpit from which to comment, however carefully, on the United States' standing in the world.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor used a speech at West Point on Oct. 20 to make a point about the alleged mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody, telling cadets: "We need a clear set of rules to reaffirm our values as a nation. This is crucial in the ongoing war of ideas. We have to demonstrate two things in particular: First, this country believes in protecting the basic humanity of all people, and that includes even our adversaries. Second, we will not stoop to the atrocities and inhumane tactics of some of our adversaries."

In June, Kennedy observed in public remarks that he was "concerned that nationalism or self-interest will obscure the greatness of American traditions." Later, he gave a long interview, in Salzburg, to the New Yorker magazine, in which he held forth on the importance of good relations between the U.S. judiciary and its foreign counterparts.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had made a similar point in an April speech. "We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe -- liberty, equality and justice for all -- are encountering extraordinary challenges," Ginsburg told a meeting of the American Society for International Law. "But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges."

This is entirely unacceptable. SCOTUS justices derive their authority from the Constitution of the United States of America, not from international treaties or agreements. They need to restrict their oppinions to sources within the Constitution, not from foreign sources. Justice Kennedy, nationalism is the SOURCE of the "greatness of American traditions." Justice Ginsburg it is not your job to "join hands with others..." That is the job of the Executive Branch. Your job is to keep your nose stuck in the Constitution. It is the only source of ultimate legal authority. Any other course taken by you and the other activist justices is a gross violation of your oath and duty.

Full Story: We Need More Retirements

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Bush Strikes Back Against Democrats

Bush Spars With Critics Of the War
Exchanges With Democrats Take Campaign-Style Tone

By Linton Weeks and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005

TOBYHANNA, Pa., Nov. 11 -- President Bush and leading congressional Democrats lobbed angry charges at each other Friday in an increasingly personal battle over the origins of the Iraq war.

"It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," Bush said as he used a Veterans Day address here to lash out at critics. "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will." Democrats retaliated with a barrage of statements accusing the president of skewing the facts, just as they maintain he did in the run-up to the invasion of March 2003.

Although the two sides have long skirmished over the war, the sharp tenor Friday resembled an election-year campaign more than a policy disagreement. In a rare move, Bush in his speech took a direct swipe at last year's opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), while the White House issued an unusual campaign-style memo attacking Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman followed with a speech blistering 10 Democrats for "political doublespeak."

From their campaign-style war rooms, the Democrats and allied liberal interest groups churned out "fact sheets" dissecting Bush's comments and comparing them with past statements and investigation findings in an effort to undercut his arguments. Kerry accused Bush of "playing the politics of fear and smear on Veterans Day."

The fierce back-and-forth underscored how central Iraq has become in the political environment leading into next year's mid-term congressional elections. After a succession of setbacks for Bush, including slow hurricane relief and a failed Supreme Court nomination, his public standing in opinion polls has tumbled to the lowest level of his presidency.

Anxious White House advisers believe that although other bad news will fade, Iraq remains the most significant long-term threat to the president's political fortunes. Without more tangible signs of progress in the coming months, they fear Bush could find it enormously difficult to reassert his leadership of the country and steer his party through next year's elections.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 64 percent of Americans disapprove of how Bush is handling the war and 60 percent believe it was not worth fighting -- in both cases, the worst numbers for the president since the invasion. The perjury indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, has revived the issue of the administration's truthfulness in building the case for war, and nearly 3 in 5 voters in the Post-ABC poll do not consider Bush honest.

Following the past five years of continuous anti-Bush propaganda from the press, the constant hammering of the thruth with the lies the press continues to propagate, it is not surprising that President Bush's numbers are down. Now, because President Bush has chosen to fight back at last, he has become the target of criticism by these same liars. The President doesn't like to do this, he is too polite to enjoy doing what I would take great pleasure in doing. I guess that's why I'm not President. It is time for the administration to mount this campaign full bore. President Bush, the time has come for slash and burn. These Democrats don't care if you're nice to them, they merely look upon that with contempt.

Full Story: How dare he fight back

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The Log in the Press' and Democrat's Eyes

Democrats Losing Race For Funds Under Dean

By Chris Cillizza
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, November 12, 2005

The Democratic National Committee under Howard Dean is losing the fundraising race against Republicans by nearly 2 to 1, a slow start that is stirring concern among strategists who worry that a cash shortage could hinder the party's competitiveness in next year's midterm elections.

The former Vermont governor and presidential candidate took the chairmanship of the national party eight months ago, riding the enthusiasm of grass-roots activists who relished his firebrand rhetorical style. But he faced widespread misgivings from establishment Democrats, including elected officials and Washington operatives, who questioned whether Dean was the right fit in a job that traditionally has centered on fundraising and the courting of major donors.

Now, the latest financial numbers are prompting new doubts. From January through September, the Republican National Committee raised $81.5 million, with $34 million remaining in the bank. The Democratic National Committee, by contrast, showed $42 million raised and $6.8 million in the bank.

"The degree to which the fundraising has not been competitive is obviously troublesome," said former congressman Vic Fazio (D-Calif.), who is now a lobbyist here. He expressed confidence in Tom McMahon, Dean's executive director at the DNC.

One House Democratic leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relations with Dean's operation, put it more bluntly: "There is plenty of time, but the red flashing sirens should be going off there."

As Democrats are riding high in the wake of Tuesday's elections, running unexpectedly strong even in traditional Republican states such as Virginia, the DNC's fundraising problems represent a potential cloud. But those results could also boost the spirits of partisans in ways that will make it easier for Dean to even the balance.

As critics see it, Dean has disappointed on two fronts. The DNC has not replicated the success of Dean's presidential campaign two years ago in tapping vast numbers of new and smaller contributors over the Internet. And skeptics say he has not yet established rapport with and won the confidence of high-dollar donors.

DNC officials acknowledge that elements of their fundraising operation have started more slowly than expected. But they and other Dean defenders say his record should be viewed in context.

Now here's a conundrum for the press, how can it be that the Republicans, one foot in the grave as the press implies they are, are out fundraising the Democrats, led as they are by the highly popular and "well respected" comedian Howard Dean. I mean, we know that Republicans receive the majority of their money from small donors, and that the Democrats are forced to rely on their wealthy Left-wing benefactors like Soros. If president Bush and the Repulicans have alienated the American people, how can they possibly be out fundraising the "wildly popular" Democrats.

So now, poor Howard Dean looks like he's to be the next sacrificial lamb to the astounding self-deception that Democrats are dominating politics. This is not surprising, the Democrats are willing to cast aside anyone at anytime for expedience.

Full Story: Setting up Dean

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Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus Continue Relentless Attack of Lies on President

Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument

By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."

Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."

In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

Dana Milbank, Walter Pincus, you have no credibility anymore. Your agenda is clear. Your artless lies have no more relationship to the truth than the myth of Jimmy Carter's high moral character. You seem to be incapable of writing a story with any semblence of objectivity. You are so blinded by your hatred of President Bush that you warrant nothing but absolute contempt from the public. You and your yellow rag the Washingon Pest are best reserved for use in the family fireplace or for lining a birdcage. I laugh at your label as "journalists" I suggest you try the moniker of "hacks."

Full Story: Pincus Milbank Lies

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Open Letter to Senator John Kerry, E-Mailed Today

Dear Senator Kerry,

Your despicable lies prove you to be a contemptable political hack. If President Bush "cherry-picked" intelligence, then you did also. You are unworthy of serving in the Senate. If you and your fellow Democrats can't be relied upon to tell the truth then you need to step down and make room for honorable citizens.

Your own words, sir:

John Kerry > October 9, 2002
"I will be voting to give the president of the US the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

John Kerry > January 23, 2003
"Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. His consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction."

John Kerry > February 23, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East."

John Kerry > January 31, 2003
"If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."

Following your campaign proved to me that you were an unapologetic liar. It is good to see that you haven't changed. You proved your lack of honor when you betrayed your fellow soldiers in your cowardly testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations April 22, 1971. You apparently are happy to continue to work against our troops, as you did then.

Sincerely,

Will Malven

FOLLOWING IS JOHN F. KERRY'S STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S VETERANS DAY SPEECH:

John Kerry Responds to George Bush's Veterans Day Political Attacks

John Kerry issued the following statement from Boston, where earlier today he participated in a Veterans Day tribute to America's veterans and active duty armed forces.
"I wish President Bush knew better than to dishonor America's veterans by playing the politics of fear and smear on Veterans Day. Instead of trying to salvage his slumping political fortunes, the Commander in Chief should honor our men and women in uniform with a clear strategy for success in Iraq. But this Administration abandoned that path long ago, and our troops have paid the price for it.

"This administration misled a nation into war by cherry-picking intelligence and stretching the truth beyond recognition. That's why Scooter Libby has been indicted. That's why a statement in the State of the Union Address was retracted. It's a dangerous day for our national security when an Administration's word is no good. Today they continue the same games hoping Americans forget the mess they made in Iraq that's cost over 2,000 Americans their lives and their failure to find Osama bin Laden. Americans will not forget, and neither will those of us who defend our country by asking tough questions and demanding a new course in Iraq."

We continue to witness the truth about Democrat politicians. That truth is Democrats put politics above the good of this nation, above the good of its people, above the moral priciples of truth and honor. They are dedicated to the defeat of our troops in Iraq, merely for the sake of capturing power in Congress. Our enemies use the words of the Democrat leaders to build the morale of their troops.

John Kerry, Dick Durbin, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, John Edwards, and Cal Levin among others are lending aid and comfort to our enemies in a time of war. Your false statements are treasonous. You are deserving of the contempt and condemnation of the American people. You are traitors, by definition. Look it up, it's there in black and white. How you can hold your heads up in public is beyond understanding. You are the allies of the Islamic Jihadists. Your every action in Congress, your every statement proves you to be working against our troops in combat. You are standing with the enemy and against your own troops and your own people.

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Bed-Wetters Block Budget Resposibility, ANWR Drilling

House Budget Measure Is Pulled
Moderates Buck GOP Leadership In Both Chambers

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 11, 2005

House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull their $54 billion budget-cutting bill off the House floor yesterday, amid growing dissension in Republican ranks over spending priorities, taxes, oil exploration and the reach of government.

A battle between House Republican conservatives and moderates over energy policy and federal anti-poverty and education programs left GOP leaders without enough votes to pass a budget measure they had framed as one of the most important pieces of legislation in years. Across the Capitol, a moderate GOP revolt in the Senate Finance Committee forced Republicans to postpone action on a bill to extend some of President Bush's most contentious tax cuts.

The twin setbacks added to growing signs that the Republican Party's typically lock-step discipline is cracking under the weight of Bush's plummeting approval ratings, Tuesday's electoral defeats and the increasing discontent of the American electorate. After five years of remarkable unity under Bush's gaze, divisions between Republican moderates and conservatives are threatening to paralyze the party.

"The fractures were always there. The difference was the White House was always able to hold them in line because of perceived power," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "After Tuesday's election, it's 'Why are we following these guys? They're taking us off the cliff.' "

Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) did not dispute that.

"One of the challenges of any second-term administration is you always lose a certain amount of identification with the Congress, because everybody in the Congress in the first term knows you'll be out there in the next campaign with them," Blunt said in an interview yesterday. "Your motives are always a little more suspect when you don't have to face the voters again."

The House budget vote was supposed to reestablish the Republican commitment to a smaller government that would change the federal approach to Medicaid, food stamps, agriculture subsidies, student loans and a host of other programs.

But moderate Republicans made it clear that was not the way they wanted the party defined. The GOP leadership had already abandoned a provision in the budget that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a policy goal Bush has embraced since he came to office. But it was not enough to secure the votes of moderates who said remaining policy changes were hitting the nation's most vulnerable citizens just as the party was preparing another round of tax cuts that would benefit the most affluent.

"I've told the leadership they're asking for the dismantling of the Republican conference" with this budget, said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a leading moderate. "The clear evidence from Tuesday's election results is that Americans are moderate. They need to start listening to us."

Bed-Wetters like Boehlert are in for a rude awakening. The clear evidence is that appeasing Liberals, pandering to the Left will lead to the loss of the House and Senate. Boehlert needs to get out of Washington once and a while and talk to his constituency. The American people are conservative. This has been proven time and time again. Sherwood, if you believe that currying favor with the NYT or Washinton Post is a winning proposition, you are sadly mistaken. When you appease the Left, they merely laugh at you. Reagan was broadly believed to be too Conservative to win the 1980 election. He proved the pundits wrong, not by running to the Left, but by running as himself. Conservatives elected G.H.W. Bush because they were promised another four years of Reaganism, when they didn't get it, conservatives abandoned G.H.W. Bush in 1992. In 1996 they stayed away from the polls because there was little philosphical difference between Dole and Clinton. Conservatives were hesitant in supporting G.W. Bush in 2000, because of his "compassionate conservatism" line. The returned to him in droves in 2004 because of the strength he had shown in the war. Republicans are now in danger of losing them for the next 6 years.

Full Story: Weak Republican Bed-Wetters

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Leftists Groups Seeking to Weaken Corporate Power

Corporate boards asked to limit their political donations
The letters were sent by groups hoping to make directors aware of the state's law

By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Four campaign-finance reform organizations said Thursday that they have sent letters to more than 400 corporate board members asking them to adopt new company policies to limit corporate donations in American politics.

The targeted boards oversee 54 companies that donated $2.3 million to the Texas Association of Business or Texans for a Republican Majority, TRMPAC, to influence the 2002 Texas House elections.

Both groups are under indictment for violating state campaign finance laws. U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, who founded Texans for a Republican Majority also faces campaign finance law-related criminal charges as do two of his political associates. All say they are innocent.

The letters to the corporate directors were sent out by the state directors of Common Cause of Texas, Public Citizen, Texans for Public Justice and Campaigns for People.

"We're not even sure whether the 400 outside directors of these corporations are aware that their corporations gave money to Tom DeLay's TRMPAC or TAB," said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice. "We want to make sure those corporate directors are aware."

McDonald noted that eight of the 54 corporations were indicted in the investigation run by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

"There were many more than eight corporations that participated in funding and enabling the activities of TRMPAC and TAB," McDonald said.

Four of the indicted corporations have settled outside of court without admitting fault.

Suzy Woodford of Common Cause said most corporations make their donations through executive committees that give the board of directors deniability if something goes wrong.

"We need to hold the board of directors accountable for the use of corporate money in elections," Woodford said.

Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen said the Texas law banning most corporate money in elective politics has been in place for more than 100 years. He said corporations need to start honoring it.

The joint letter called on the corporate boards to adopt standards outlined by the Center for Political Accountability in Washington, D.C. The core portions of those standards are that corporate boards take control of political donations made by the company and that they report all political spending to corporate shareholders.

Seems to me that this letter would have been better directed to Ronnie Earle who seems to have a penchant for blackmailing corporations into donating to his personal favorite charities. However, as no laws have been broken and these charges against DeLay are total garbage, the letters are simply a ploy to attempt to frighten corporations out of donating to Republican causes. Campaign finance laws are an unconstitutional restriction of the right of freespeech.

Full Story: The Old Lefty Con

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REMEMBER THEM...

On This Veterans Day

Friday, November 11, 2005

Estimated number of war-era veterans, as of Sept. 30, 2005:

World War I : About 50.


World War II :3.526 million.


Korea :3.257 million.


Vietnam :8.055 million.


Desert Shield/Storm (theater only): 615,000.


Iraq/Afghanistan (theater only): 433,000.

These are the true heroes of our society, not the Michael Jordans or Joe Montanas. They sacrificed so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have today. Ask God to Bless them today.

Original Post: Veterans Day

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Well At Least Some In Congress Have Vision

U.S. Access to Space Station Is Preserved

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A12

Congress amended the Iran Nonproliferation Act this week, allowing U.S. astronauts to continue to fly aboard Russian spacecraft and forestalling the possibility that the United States would lose access to the international space station.

The Senate, which drafted the original amendment, unanimously approved a modified version of the bill late Wednesday, after similar House action two weeks ago. The amendment will be sent to the White House, where President Bush is expected to sign it.

The House also easily passed NASA's $16.5 billion budget for 2006. Lawmakers largely followed the administration's wishes in sculpting a program that emphasized Bush's initiative to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars. The Senate was expected to easily pass the identical bill.

Congress did disagree with the administration by adding $60 million to an aeronautics budget that NASA wished to cut. The bill also earmarked more than $300 million for special projects sought by individual lawmakers.

"I wanted to not have any earmarks," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on science, State, Justice, Commerce and related agencies. "But you have to negotiate to get a bill." NASA's budget is part of the subcommittee's spending bill.

The need for an amendment to the Iran Nonproliferation Act became apparent after the 2003 Columbia disaster grounded the space shuttle, forcing U.S. astronauts to rely for prolonged periods on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to and from the space station.

This is good news for America, we cannot afford to be the "village idiot" of the world. We need a good ambitious space program which will inspire our youth to pursue science and mathematics with enthusiasm. This is especially important with China moving "all in" in the Space Race. Of course personally, I would like to see us spending $100 billion on the space program, but that's just me. I remember the "golden years" of NASA and the glory days.

Full Story: NASA funding

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Senate Republicans Move to Close Detainee Loopholes

Senate Approves Plan to Limit Detainee Access to Courts

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A07

The Senate endorsed a plan yesterday that would sharply limit suspected foreign terrorists' access to U.S. courts, an effort to overturn a landmark 2004 Supreme Court ruling that has allowed hundreds of detainees held by the military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detentions.

At the same time, the proposal would give Congress some oversight of the military process set up to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees are terrorists and should continue to be held. The measure would subject those tribunal decisions to limited review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Approval of the plan, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and endorsed 49 to 42 mostly along party lines, marks a partial but significant victory for the Bush administration, which has argued that suspected enemy combatants overseas cannot challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

But the administration has also argued that all matters related to the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists should be left to President Bush.

The amendment to a defense authorization bill was endorsed three days after the Supreme Court announced it would rule on the legality of military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay detainees, setting up what could be one of the most important rulings on presidential war powers since World War II. The vote also came amid ongoing debate in Congress over a proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to ban cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment of U.S. detainees.

Graham said in an interview last night that the proposal is aimed at forging a compromise between the administration and civil liberties advocates who have been fiercely critical of the government's detention policies, and to stem the tide of lawsuits filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees.

"We've got a chance here, if we work together, to bring clarity to confusion, to create a legal process that we as Americans can be proud of and to make sure we're not losing ground in the war on terrorism by losing good intelligence," Graham said.

The White House last night signaled support for the plan. But civil liberties groups called it a step backward and complained it had not received meaningful debate.

Looks like Liberals are bound and determined to aid the radical Islamists to destroy this nation. I don't know, I guess maybe their just stupid, and don't see the risk to this nation. It's either that or maybe, like the Leninists, they see the destruction of our society as their opportunity to restructure society to their liking. Socialism/Communism anyone? This was a great move by the Senate Republicans.

Full Story: Closing the Loophole

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Mr. President, It's About Time!

Bush Aide Fires Back at Critics On Justification for War in Iraq

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A01

The White House went on the offensive in the debate over the Iraq war yesterday, insisting that U.S. intelligence had compiled a "very strong case" that Saddam Hussein harbored banned weapons and accusing congressional critics of hypocrisy because many of them voted for force three years ago.

Bristling from fresh assaults on its justification for war, the White House dispatched national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to the briefing room to issue a rebuttal to "the notion that somehow the administration manipulated prewar intelligence about Iraq." The administration's judgment on the threat posed by Iraq, he said, "represented the collective view of the intelligence community" and was "shared by Republicans and Democrats alike."

Some of the critics today," Hadley added, "believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people. For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks."

The unusually combative statement by the normally mild-mannered Hadley underscored how the issue has inflamed political dialogue in Washington in the days since a senior White House official was indicted in the CIA leak case. Democratic leaders have seized on the indictment to refocus attention on the broader question of how President Bush led the nation to war.

For the Bush team, the Iraq war has evolved into the most damaging political liability at a time of multiple setbacks, and the president's advisers do not want Democrats writing the history of how the war began. The White House decided to respond aggressively in hopes of convincing the American people that Bush relied in good faith on intelligence that proved wrong in an effort to protect them -- rather than skewing the data to rationalize a war he was already determined to wage, as many Democrats contend.

Successive investigations have documented the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to correctly judge Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs before the war, including a commission appointed by Bush that concluded that the intelligence was "dead wrong." The government relied on lying sources, fragmentary information and unwarranted analysis, the commission found, resulting in one of the "most damaging intelligence failures in American history."

Democrats immediately took issue with Hadley's account. Within minutes of his briefing, the Senate Democratic caucus issued a statement saying the responsibility did not fall on lawmakers who voted to authorize use of force: "Some critics of how the administration misused intelligence did believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. What these critics object to is the hyping of the intelligence by the Bush administration."

In a separate statement earlier in the day, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) recounted the various urgent warnings about supposed Iraqi weapons delivered by Bush and his advisers in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion -- warnings that all proved overstated if not flatly wrong.

"In his march to war, President Bush exaggerated the threat to the American people," Kennedy said. "It was not subtle. It was not nuanced. It was pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to al Qaeda justified immediate war."

Soo...Teddy, how is what President Bush and his Administration said any more alarmist than what your fellows said? Say...John Kerry for example
who on October 9, 2002 stated:

"I will be voting to give the president of the US the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of ma