24 September 2004
22 September 2004
21 September 2004
editoriale: Lt. Col. Bill Burkett
OK, so unless Karl Rove has completely outdone himself this time, then yeah, this guy has got to be the forger.
Question Time
an editorial from the Washington Post Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A20 PRESIDENT BUSH hasn't taken questions from White House reporters in nearly a month. He's had just 15 solo news conferences during his presidency, the last a 13-minute session at his Texas ranch. When he does answer questions at town hall-type campaign rallies, they're from pre-screened supporters. As Towson University professor Martha Joynt Kumar notes in a forthcoming article in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Mr. Bush opened a news conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai by saying, "We'll answer questions in the tradition of democratic societies." Under the Bush presidency, that tradition hasn't flourished. One piece of good news, as reported by The Post's Mike Allen and Dan Balz today, is that the Bush campaign has tentatively agreed to a series of three debates with Democratic opponent John F. Kerry along the lines of the proposal by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The deal is for three 90-minute debates, the first on foreign policy, the second a town hall forum with undecided voters and the third on domestic issues. If this agreement holds, Mr. Bush will have done the right thing -- but it doesn't reflect well on him that the campaign's original demand was to limit the encounters to two debates and eliminate the session with voters. Face-to-face meetings of the two candidates for a total of 4 1/2 hours also won't compensate for their lack of availability elsewhere. According to Ms. Kumar, Mr. Bush has held 82 press conferences during his term, including joint sessions with foreign leaders in which half the questions are from foreign reporters and answers from the foreign leaders eat up much of the time. His father, by contrast, had a total of 142 press conferences, 83 of them solo. White House officials like to point out that Mr. Bush favors short question-and-answer sessions over formal East Room affairs. Even if those were adequate substitutes, however, Ms. Kumar's analysis shows that both President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton clamped down far less than this president when they were running for reelection. According to her numbers, between Jan. 1 and Aug. 27 of the election year, the first President Bush engaged in short Q&A's with reporters 56 times, Mr. Clinton 85 times and the incumbent president just 33 times. Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, seems content to follow Mr. Bush's model on the campaign trail. As The Post's Paul Farhi reported, the Democratic nominee hasn't had a press "avail" to answer reporters' questions in more than a month. In the two weeks leading to his party's convention, Mr. Kerry spoke to reporters twice, for a grand total of six questions. Yes, Mr. Kerry submits to individual interviews, particularly with local media in battleground states. That's fine, but it's not a substitute for frequent give-and-take with a group. Mr. Kerry has promised that, if elected, he would hold at least one press conference a month. "I want America to know what I'm doing. I want you to know what I'm fighting for. I want you to ask me questions," he told reporters. Lofty rhetoric from both candidates. Now, how about a question. © 2004 The Washington Post Company
17 September 2004
re: I found the plan for post-war Iraq!!!!
'Far graver than Vietnam' Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scaleRetired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends." Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong." Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan." General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
the moving target
from "grave and growing" to "stockpiles of WMDS" to "we know where the weapons are" to "weapons of mass destruction program related activities" and now... "intentions" OK, so now we know... we invaded a sovereign nation over 'intentions'. Thanks to the Project for New World Order.
Ouch, the truth hurts
indeed
This from hardline conservative columnist Mark Helprin...
The Pentagon's New Map: DCCXLVI
First, that the Iraqi army would instantly collapse as soon as U.S. forces crossed their border in a "cakewalk."Second, that Ahmed Chalabi, now charged by our own puppet Iraqi government with money laundering and counterfeiting, would quickly emerge as the popular natural leader of Iraq once President Saddam Hussein was toppled. Third, that because no serious anti-American guerrilla operations could ever get established Iraq, only a small number of U.S. troops would have to remain after the fall of Saddam. Fourth, that strong links between Saddam and al-Qaida would be found following our occupation. Fifth, that overwhelming evidence of weapons of mass destruction would quickly be uncovered by U.S. troops. Sixth, that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would discredit and weaken al-Qaida throughout the Arab and wider Muslim world. Seventh, that Iraq would quickly develop a stable democracy after the fall of Saddam. Eighth, that Sunni and Shiite forces would never find common cause against U.S. forces. Ninth, that reconstruction in Iraq would occur quickly and easily (disproving the State Department's far more cautious assessment of how difficult it would be). Tenth, that NATO didn't matter and we could safely ignore it in occupying Iraq. Eleventh, that the United Nations didn't matter and that we could safely ignore it as well. Twelfth, that we could put together a militarily significant "coalition of the willing" -- which recalcitrant allies like France and Germany would quickly regret not joining and thus finally be prevailed upon to send in troops to ease the burden on our own forces in Iraq. Thirteenth, that leaders of countries such as Japan, Spain and Poland who took the plunge and sent forces to Iraq would not suffer enfeebling electoral or political losses as consequences of doing so. Fourteenth, that Iraq's oil could be made to flow again on a lucrative scale within a few months of the invasion, and pay for everything from conquest to reconstruction. Fifteenth, that the occupation of Iraq and opening up of its oil fields would rapidly cause global oil prices to drop back into the range of $20-$25 a barrel, if not even lower -- breaking the cartel power of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Saudi Arabia and Iran. Sixteenth, that the toppling of Saddam would demoralize the Palestinians and break the back of the second Palestinian intifada, thereby ending the wave of suicide-bombing massacres of Israeli civilians. Seventeenth, that the occupation and remaking of Iraq would quickly boost the prospects for stable, pro-American democracies throughout the Middle East. (The prophets at the American Enterprise Institute, home to Lynn Cheney and, since he left the Pentagon, Perle, were particularly hot to trot on that one.) Eighteenth, that the CIA and other primary elements of the U.S. intelligence community who could not be bullied or manipulated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz and their acolytes in the Pentagon could be ignored forever. Nineteenth, that L. Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority (heavily staffed by neocons, almost all of whom have since prudently fled back to suburban Washington) could ignore the intelligence assessments and policy recommendations of the U.S. Army on the ground. Twentieth, that last spring's crackdown on Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would be quickly and easily carried out and that he would enjoy no significant support from the wider Iraqi Shiite community. Twenty-first, that any insurgency in Iraq would be carried out solely by embittered old Saddam loyalists and evil outside agents, none of whom would be able to operate for long because they would find no significant support among the wider Iraqi community. (Krauthammer was particularly enthusiastic about that one.)
Lt. Col. Bill Burkett
Is he the forger? The excerpts below, pulled from the transcript of Hardball with Chris Matthews, seem to lay out the most likely events that led to the 'missing' National Guard files of George W. Bush. Bill Burkett's weirdness considering... As was mentioned earlier, the DoD has 1 week to find the rest. And again, where is Joe Allbaugh? http://editoriale.blogspot.com/2004/04/wheres-joe-allbaugh.html http://editoriale.blogspot.com/2004/03/joe-allbaugh-his-wife-and-california.html ------------------------------ LT. COL. BILL BURKETT, RET., TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD: In a series of three sub-events, I witnessed the governor‘s office call to the adjutant general of the Texas National Guard, a directive to gather the files, and then the subscript to that was make sure there was nothing there that would embarrass the governor. I witnessed also the directive, an informal directive to a staff member to gather those files, and then on a third occasion, I witnessed that in fact, there was some activity under way with some files, some personal files of Bush, comma, George W., first lieutenant, 1 lt., as it was put in handwriting at the top of files within a trash can. MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s set this in time. When did you make these—did you see these events occur? BURKETT: These events occurred in late spring of 1997. MATTHEWS: 1997. Tell me about the location of these events. When did you—where did you—where were you when you witnessed these three events that involved the president‘s National Guard records? BURKETT: Mr. Matthews, I was a traditional guardsman until 1996, and to make this extraordinarily brief, I‘m a strategic planner in the private world, or was. I was brought to active duty for a short period of time under a special project to build a strategic plan that would make the Texas National Guard more effective, more efficient, and more relevant to the active duty force. I had access and in fact worked directly for Adjutant General Daniel James, through other people—it sounds like a conflict, but in this case, when you‘re doing planning, you have to know the vision and the intent of the commander. That was my job as a professional officer. In 1997, I had access to hear the telephone call and then I also had access to hear the transfer and (UNINTELLIGIBLE). MATTHEWS: OK. Let‘s go through the events that you‘ve witnessed, that you‘re eyewitness to. First of all, there‘s a telephone call, a conference call involving the adjutant general, General James. What did you hear him say about the president—or heard said to him about the president‘s Guard records and who was talking? BURKETT: Well, there was nothing said about the Guard records as far as quality or something, but the conveyance directive was, and these are paraphrased words, the exact words are probably within—better phrased outside, and I don‘t want to play a word game, but the conveyance was for the adjutant general to gather those files, or cause those files to be gathered. That Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett from the governor‘s office would be out, they were writing a book for the governor‘s reelection campaign or something further maybe, and that those files needed to be gathered, and the last conveyance was to ensure that there was nothing in there that would embarrass the governor. MATTHEWS: Whose voice did you hear on the phone? BURKETT: Mr. Joe Allbaugh, chief of staff of the governor‘s office. Mr. Dan Bartlett was also on that telephone call. MATTHEWS: How about Karen Hughes? What was her role? BURKETT: She was not on that phone call. I never had access to, nor did I see Karen Hughes within this entire event. She was simply referred to as coming out to Camp Mayberry (ph) to view the files and write a book. MATTHEWS: How do you know that Dan Bartlett‘s voice was the voice you heard? How do you know Joe Allbaugh‘s voice was the voice you heard? BURKETT: Primarily because there was reference to both of them in the first phone call, there was reference to both of them within the conveyance, the informal but direct conveyance of that message to gather the files to the state service... MATTHEWS: What do you mean by conveyance? I don‘t know that. What is conveyance? (CROSSTALK) BURKETT: It is just, in this case, it was General James was moving between meetings very rapidly. General officers do that sort of thing. Senior officers do that thing. He happened into somebody that was on the way to—he was—that he saw on the way to the meeting that was responsible for that area, and he told him he wanted this done. MATTHEWS: And where was that? Where did you overhear that conversation? BURKETT: That was the following—that was the following day, Mr. Matthews, the day after the directive from the governor‘s office. MATTHEWS: So how many instances did you observe this effort to try to gather the president‘s—the now president‘s records? How many times did you overhear conversations? BURKETT: The first time I overheard a conversation, then I heard the conveyance, as I said, the directive to get it done. The third time I saw files in a trash can.
Bush memos: Forged but accurate?
OK, so let's see if I understand this correctly... the memos themselves are forged, but what they say is true.... ? If that's the case then hopefully we can start talking about what they say, rather than who forged them (though it's not appropriate to rely upon a document you've already declared a forgery). I still believe that all incriminating military files were destroyed prior to Dubya's election campaign in 2000. Possibly long before that in anticipation of running for the Presidency. Who knows though... ? This story is getting weirder by the minute.
I found the plan for post-war Iraq!!!!
Actually, that was a lie.... no I didn't. Unfortunately though, neither has anyone else.
keeping the Bush administration accountable
is no easy task... despite the efforts of scores of open-government advocacy and watchdog groups. Wednesday, broadcasters got a chance to speak up at a Congressional hearing regarding their role in combatting terrorism. They apparently seized the opportunity to remind the Homeland Security Committee that their ability to fulfill their mission of informing the public has been compromised by the Bush administration's secretive nature and countless dubious classifications.
Quote of the Day - 9/17/04
More on Putin's power grab
from the Christian Science Monitor:
Bingo from William Saletan
of Slate.com. A straight-forward piece on the hypocrisy of George W. Bush.
16 September 2004
learn about your president
Slate.com today offers tons of tidbits from Kitty Kelley's new book "The Family". Definitely check them out. Here's my favorite:
Page 253: At Andover, George W. Bush writes a morose essay about his sister's death. Searching for a synonym for "tears," he consults a thesaurus and writes, "And the lacerates ran down my cheeks." A teacher labels the paper "disgraceful."
Russian Federation vs the media
representing heightening tensions between Russian media outlets and the Russian government; here's an update from the BBC focused on reporting during the crisis in Beslan, detailing instances of harrassment, obstructionism and in some cases attacks against jounalists. As a side-note, (related or not? don't know), there was this from last week (leading russian journalist 'poisoned').
15 September 2004
simple request for the Bush Administration
Please stop using my 2004 tax dollars to kill the same people that were liberated by using my 2003 tax dollars. Assholes. Oh, and the next time you feel compelled to show the world how big your balls are, listen to the smart people if they tell you to keep your pants on. That's (assuming here) why you have them on your staff. Just sayin'
stop the madness
bring our troops home With each and every case like this, we become further entrenched in cycles of violence akin to that of Palestinians + Hamas vs Israelis. When our military forces kill Iraqi civilians and Arab reporters there are 2 immediate consequences: The first consequence George Bush seems to understand very well and seemingly enjoys; that a bunch of Arabs are dead, and cant kill us later. This is in fact, why we invaded Iraq, correct? To preemptively kill the terrorists before they kill us? The second consequence which, like grammar and simple math, seems entirely beyond George Bush's powers of comprehension, is more dramatic, more direct, and well... is the consequence that will most likely result... a new breed and generation of ACTUAL terrorists! Yay! And now they're ACTUALLY hell-bent on killing Americans... just like George said! Except this group didn't have a terrorist's mindset, until our Apache helicopter blasted another crowd of civilians and killed someone's brother, sister, mother, father, whatever. I hope someone finds a way to end this god damned war and give the keys to Iraq to the fucking people of Iraq. IT IS THEIR COUNTRY AFTER ALL!
A Response to Russia
an editorial from today's Washington Post . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, September 15, 2004; Page A24 THE BOLDNESS of Vladimir Putin's assault on Russian democracy in the past few days ought to have been galvanizing to a U.S. president who has made the defense of freedom the rhetorical centerpiece of his foreign policy. Instead, the abrupt announcement by the Russian president that he intended to combat terrorism by abolishing elections for governors, and eliminating local elections for individual members of parliament, has been greeted with confused, contradictory and timid murmurings from the State Department and the White House. Distressed Russian politicians described Mr. Putin's act as "a constitutional coup d'état" and "a step toward dictatorship." Yet not until yesterday did Secretary of State Colin L. Powell speak out, and then only to understate the obvious: Russia, he observed, "is pulling back on some of the democratic reforms." Why the pulled punches? Surely it cannot be because there still is room to debate where Mr. Putin is leading his country. For years some Russia watchers in the Bush administration insisted on giving the former KGB officer the benefit of the doubt as he moved to restrict freedom of the press, centralize authority in the Kremlin, and jail or exile private businessmen who failed to kowtow to him. Just a year ago, President Bush himself gave Mr. Putin dubious credit for a "vision for Russia" as "a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive." Since then Mr. Putin has blatantly manipulated elections for the Russian parliament as well as his own reelection and trampled on the rule of law in his relentless prosecution of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Now he would strip Russia's 89 provinces and regions of their right to choose their own leaders, and appoint the governors himself. Mr. Bush, however, has never publicly revised his evaluation of Mr. Putin's leadership. Instead, his administration has continued to cast the Russian president mainly as a comrade in the war on terrorism. After the barbaric slaughter of children by terrorists at a school in the city of Beslan nearly two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld explicitly connected Mr. Putin's relentless war against the separatist republic of Chechnya with the U.S. campaign in Iraq. "The civilized world has to stay on the offensive," he said, "and that's exactly what the coalition is doing." On Monday Vice President Cheney seconded this notion, even as an unnamed White House official told the New York Times that Mr. Putin's abolition of elections was "a domestic matter for the Russian people." Like a number of dictators around the world, Mr. Putin is learning that Mr. Bush's passion for delivering speeches about freedom doesn't mean he is willing to defend it in practice. Were he to do so, he would begin by issuing a statement as clear as that delivered yesterday by Democrat John F. Kerry. Mr. Kerry began by vowing to "work constructively with Russia" against terrorism, and then added: "I remain deeply concerned about President Putin's ongoing moves to limit democratic freedoms and further centralize power. Russia will be a much more effective partner in the war on terror if its government is transparent, open to criticism, respectful of the rule of law and protects the human rights of its citizens, including those in Chechnya. Simply looking the other way -- as the Bush administration has done -- is not in the national security interest of the United States or Russia."
We the People of the United States
in Order to form a more perfect Union, hereby declare war on the Bush administration's assault against open and accountable government. Why? Because we can.
In related news: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press released it's 5th Edition of Homefront Confidential last weekend, which details the impact of the War on Terror on the public's right-to-know and access to information.
Putin consolidates powerbase
using the New World Order terrorism trump card... whilst his loyal Bolsheviks whistle away their own authorities. More in this article from the NY Times: From Those Putin Would Weaken, Praise
14 September 2004
some recovery
Following last week's underwhelming jobs report, Smartmoney.com's Scott Patterson interviewed the Economic Policy Institute's Lawrence Mishel for answers to some pretty direct questions about the Bush team's economic policies and, more specifically, the effect of Bush's policies on unemployment. What he got in return was a stinging economic indictment of the Bush administration's 'plan'... their words vs. their actions... reality vs. their spin... and economic impact vs. campaign rhetoric. He exposes, again in this case, that what the Bush administration says must be taken with extreme caution. here's an excerpt:
SM: How have policies by the Bush administration, such as the tax cuts, affected the job market? LM: Some people say that a president doesn't have much affect on jobs and growth. Whatever the case is for most presidents, this president has said that his plan was going to create a lot of jobs. And he has been able to radically restructure the tax system to lock in trillions of dollars of tax cuts, both in 2001 and 2003. There's actually a great parallel between what's happened with the war in Iraq and taxes. It seems to me that in both cases, there was a policy that the administration wanted to pursue, whatever arguments got them there were the ones they used. So in the November 2000 election, he said we want to put money back in your pockets because of the huge surplus. Then it was the same tax cuts because we were going into a recession. Their tax policies have never really been driven by the urge to create jobs in the short term. Rather it was an effort to reshape the tax structure to lessen taxes on income from wealth. The tax proposals that they issued didn't make sense as a short-term job stimulus. There were no economists who thought the reduction of taxes on dividends would be good for short-term job growth. In 2003, the president promised that if we passed the tax cuts, we would generate 300,000 jobs a month. He's actually averaged at best half that, and we're more than 2 1/2 million jobs behind the administration's target of nearly four million new jobs added by now. So by their own criteria, their policies have failed.full article: What Happened to the Jobs? see also: The State of Working America 2004-2005
10 September 2004
08 September 2004
07 September 2004
Scared yet?
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,"
Am I reading this right? Did Fear-mongering Dick just warn the American public that terrorists will attack the US if the Bush/Cheney junta is voted out of office in November?
If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set"- Says the man whose Vice Presidency is marked by a complete denial of the threat from terrorism, until we were ACTUALLY attacked.
- Says the man who peddles mushroom cloud rhetoric to scare the public into consenting to war with Iraq.
- Which pre-9/11 mindset is Dick referring to? The same mindset as Wolfowitz',where he asked "why are we worrying so much about just one man"?
So what to make of this campaign rhetoric? At a minimum it's fear mongering and at worst it's a threat. Hey Dick, what're you going to do when America votes you out of office for being the arrogant manipulative imperialistic lying schmuck that you are? Are you going to ensure that your longtime Taliban friends orchestrate another attack on America? Get out Dick. America doesn't want you or your barely-literate pseudo-President in office any more... your jig is up.
Coke or Pepsi?
Did Bush use cocaine while chilling at Camp David during his father's Presidency?
A new book, titled The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty claims that he did. So does Sharon Bush, his former sister-in-law, who claims "not just once either".
BBC is reporting
that the US Army will soon 'axe Halliburton deal'. Reuters also has this. It'll be so sad to see them go... parting is such sweet sorrow... errr.. something like that.
06 September 2004
05 September 2004
Jeffrey H. Smith: Did Bush Miss Vietnam's Lessons?
from today's WashingtonPost (Jeffrey Smith is a former general counsel of the CIA.)
04 September 2004
03 September 2004
"a pattern of mistakes and oversights"
Way to go Ashcroft... thanks for keeping us safe!
Russian school siege timeline
from BBC News a timeline of the Russian school siege and hostage situation in the town of Beslan, where armed militants were holding as many as 400 children under demands that Russian troops withdraw from war-torn Chechnya. As of this morning, reports coming out of Beslan indicate that as many as 150 people, mostly school children, may have died from a series of heavy gunfire and several explosions that caused the school's roof to collapse. *update: BBC/Q&A: The Chechen conflict BBC/Pictures of the school battle
02 September 2004
latest on Israeli espionage case
from MSNBC's Jim Miklaszewski, Pentagon espionage investigation continues.
U.S. government sources confirm to NBC News that the Israeli diplomat suspected of receiving U.S. secrets is Naor Gilon — political advisor to the Israeli embassy in Washington.
01 September 2004
curtail dissent
Someone inform the Bush administration that their tireless efforts to placate the American public are becoming transparent. Over classification, stonewalling investigations and now this? From Defensetech...
Seems to go hand in hand with this May 2004 post on the removal of the FDR memorial quotes from the from National Park Service webpage. You know, scary things like this *below* that the Federal Government has deemed inappropriate for the public to see...Defense Tech: WORST. REDACTION. EVER. Just when you thought our government's secrecy policies couldn't get any more ridiculous, this little nugget comes down the pike. In a legal battle with the ACLU, the Justice Department blacked out a section of a legal document -- not because it disclosed sensitive information, but because it contained a quote from the Supreme Court that warned about the dangers of stifling speech in the name of "security." "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent." "Now we have absolute, incontrovertible proof that the government also censors completely innocuous material simply because they don't like it," The Memory Hole's Russ Kick thunders. "The mind reels at such a blatant abuse of power (and at the sheer chutzpah of using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using national security as an excuse to stifle dissent)."
Wednesday's "Alan Keyes is a total lunatic" update
As if we needed more evidence... Monday night Maryland's oddest carpetbagger, and the GOP's newest radical candidate for Senate in Illinios referred to Mary Cheney (the Vice President's lesbian daughter) as a 'selfish hedonist'. What's more? The remarks were made on Sirius OutQ radio, a satellite channel whose programming is intended for a gay and lesbian audience. Way to swing that undecided voter Alan! Keep moving your mouth and I'll have endless material for the 'you're a total lunatic update'.
And the cycle continues
Well, I guess we can expect Apache helicopters to be hovering over Gaza blasting all things Hamas-related, in retaliation for the latest cold-blooded murder of 16 Israelis. Just when you thought it was safe to buy a bus ticket in Israel... when will this end?