Help Push Skippy Over The Edge

skippy the bush kangaroo is about 59 hits from the 2 million mark... Impressive! Stop by and give them all a thanks for what they all do there.

Mess, Disaster, Bring'em Home, Impeach

Just a quick glance at titles of recent LTTEs in the Danbury NewsTimes:

• Bush presidency creates big mess
  
  
• Bush presidency a total disaster
  
  
• Support the troops, bring them home
  
  
• It's time to discuss Bush impeachment

Pretty much says it all...

College Republicans Medically Challenged

Is there any wonder why their party is in decline? Via Scarce at MLN:

Max Blumenthal's hilarious and thoroughly appalling "unauthorized" College Republican Convention Tour.

On July 13, 2007, I visited Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where the bodies of American soldiers killed in Iraq were freshly interred. Afterwards, I headed across the street to the Sheraton National Hotel, owned by right-wing Korean cult leader Sun Myung-Moon, to meet some of the war's most fervent supporters at the College Republican National Convention.

In conversations with at least twenty College Republicans about the war in Iraq, I listened as they lip-synched discredited cant about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Many of the young GOP cadres I met described the so-called "war on terror" as nothing less than the cause of their time.

Huffington Post

Untitled from huffpost and Vimeo.

They are all too busy or too sick to fight the war they cheerlead for, BUT hey, at least some are "Officially Not Gay"... Well after prayin' an' stuff. Just ask Ted Haggard and Mark Foley how that works.

Soldier Challenges Congress ABC picks it up

A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.

Veteran activist jimstaro at ePluribus Media Youtubed an ABC report covering this story I blogged about on Saturday:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.

YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a fucking load of crap. If YOU aren't there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support...

Don't ever fucking tell me YOU support the troops.

That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq's desert sands.

Via the NY Times:
More soldiers and their families are speaking up against the Iraq occupation.

sptmck at 1%More Conscious has 100% more well chosen words concerning the soldiers that are mad about the longer deployments and the others that no longer believe in the mission in Iraq.


And this ABC video aired later in response to the original report:

Rep. Murphy on Passport Problems

Via ctblogger's recording, editing and uploading magic:

As many frustrated travelers deal with the National Passport Center's inability to process passports on time, Congressman Chris Murphy is stepping in offer his assistance.

And, YEP! We know what a headache it has become from personal experience. You can get some info on who to contact over at HatCity Blog.

Why are we still funding the occupation of Iraq?

'Cause it sure as hell ain't for freedom:

Basra, Iraq – On Monday, hundreds of Iraqis, led by the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), took to the streets of Basra to demand that the Iraqi Parliament reject the proposed Oil Law. [1]

Simultaneous demonstrations took place in Amara and Nassiryya. Local governate officials made statements in support of the demonstration and, along with the governor of Basra, have committed to sending letters to the Minister of Oil supporting the Union’s demands.

Hassan Juma’a Awad al Assadi, President of the IFOU, charges that the proposed Oil Law surrenders Iraq’s economic sovereignty to multinational oil companies: “‘We will lose control over Iraqi oil. Therefore, the social progress in Iraq will be curtailed substantially, because the oil companies want huge profits; they are not concerned about the environment, wages, or living conditions…” The IFOU calls for immediate and complete withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq. The union represents 26,000 members in 10 state oil and gas companies across four governorates in the south of Iraq.

The Union was moved to public protest after initiating a strike on June 4, 2007 over a range of workplace issues and in opposition to the proposed Oil Law. IFOU leaders have said their members are prepared to strike again in defense of their nationalized oil industry. Iraq’s oil has been in the public sector since the 1970s.

Oh yeah... It is those "Iraq Constitution changes" they keep talking about that have everything to do with stealing their oil, and nothing to do with spreading freedom or Democracy.

Well, unless you are talking about spreading bushies FREEDUMB...

If the Democratic party were serious about ending the occupation of Iraq they could do it. All it would take is 40 Dems to shut down Congress in an ongoing filibuster:

Almost exactly two months ago, I wrote that Democrats need a Mr. Smith - someone, anyone in the Senate to shut the institution down in order to force Congress to respect the will of the American people and start ending the war in Iraq. Now, Democrats don't even need Mr. Smith-style bravery - they need only to force the Republicans to filibuster the effort to end the war.

Yes, that's right - Democrats have the power to make the Republican Party stand up on the floor of the Senate, and shut the government down in order to continue the Iraq War, if that's what the GOP wants to do. Miles Mogulescu at the Huffington Post explains:

In recent decades, there has been a "gentleman's agreement" that old-fashioned filibusters are no longer required: If 41 Senators block a vote, the Majority Leader just moves on to other business. Where once the filibuster was reserved for matters of national importance where a minority stood on principle, now the ease of filibustering has made it routine...Majority Leader Reid has the power, however, to ignore the "gentleman's" agreement and force an old-fashioned filibuster. Republican Minority Leader Bill Frist did this in 2003, forcing the Democrats to stage a real filibuster against the nomination of right-wing judge Miguel Estrada.

So, folks, here we are again, asking whether Democrats are going to use the power the public gave them in the 2006 election specifically to fulfill their election promises to end the war. The country is tired of Democrats' Innocent Bystander Fable (see the video above for what I mean). Nobody outside of Washington, D.C. believes - nor should they believe - that Democrats don't have the power to end the war, or must have 60 votes in order to end the war. Nobody believes those excuses because they are as dishonest and destructive as President Bush telling us Iraq had WMD.

But Iraq is about the oil, and the democratic party is using the occupation as much as bush is. Bush and the GOP uses it to spread fear and divide the nation, BUT the Dems are using it as a means to get control of the White House. And they both use it all as a means to get to the oil.

I stayed up until until about 3 o'clock listening to the debate on the floor.

I just wish the Dems would filibuster EVERYTHING to stop Congress all together until they get the Republicans to stop filibustering votes on pulling out. They may as well. What they are doing hasn't done anything to change things. All it takes is 40 Dems to stop Congress in its tracks and end the war.

If they really wanted to end it, they could.

Louisiana Racism and the Jena Six

This story has been in the AfroSpear for quite a while. Here is a YouTube video to get you up to speed on the Jena Six backstory:



And a few more links and info on this:

This video was made with audio, video, photographs, and scans of court documents on June 25, 2007, in Jena, Louisiana.

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles.

Yesterday, I was in Jena for the first day of the trial for Mychal Bell, one of the Jena Six. The D.A., perhaps in response to public pressure, tried to get Bell to cop a plea. Bell refused, and today, jury selection began. After today, we'll know whether or not the case will be tried in front of an all-white jury. Jena's 85-percent white, and it remains to be seen whether or not the six can get a fair trial.

Both off-the-record and on, Jena residents told me racism is alive and well in Louisiana, and this is a case where it rose above the levee, so to speak.

Update: Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to face trial, was found guilty of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same on June 28th. A comprehensive look at the case, the trial and the verdict was published on July 2nd at friendsofjustice.

Welcome, BoingBoing and Kottke readers.

For more information about the Jena Six, please see this youtube video and the following links:

Links:

• Abbey Brown's reporting from Alexandria, LA @ The Town Talk, a local paper.
  
• Jennifer Townley's been logging TV reports for TV8 in Monroe, LA.
  
• Discussion on dailykos
  
• Friends of Justice (Word Document with case timeline)
  
• Blogs: AntiEssentialistSpeaksUp, afrospear , voxexmachina, listentomeforaminute, acephalous & technorati
  
• Discussion boards on towntalk.com
  
• I became aware of the story thanks to the documentary "Race Hate in Louisiana" on BBC2. An article can be found here
  
• Long comment thrash on reddit
  
  
• Online petition re: the Jena Six
  

YOU CAN NOT WIN a WAR CRIME

Via GreyHawk at ePM:

I'll keep this simple. There is no way to "win" when there is no game afoot -- a crime cannot be "won." It can only be "gotten away with" or stopped.

Our involvement in Iraq is a crime, not a war. It is not an attempt to bring democracy, nor an attempt to free the Iraqi people, nor an attempt to remove WMDs. It never was. Those were just the attempts to put an acceptable face on it, in order to provide justification for the most abominable, bold-faced and heinous crime of the twenty-first century.

For those who are in a position and who have the responsibility to act to end this, there is only thing to remember:

You don't "win" a crime.

You can stop it, or you are complicit in and an accessory to the crime.

Go on and read the rest. Even if you can't win a war crime, it is just as hard to get Congress to admit that they are accessories in bushies war crimes as long as they continue to fund this illegal invasion and occupation in Iraq.

Remind me why we are still in Iraq

Please! Remind me why we are still in Iraq...




Can you say IMPEACH?
I thought you could...

Joe Props up the Fillibuster

Via Think Progress:

War supporters responded yesterday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) call for an up-or-down vote on Iraq withdrawal legislation by threatening a permanent Iraq filibuster. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed “an automatic 60-vote threshold for all key Iraq amendments.”

Meanwhile, as the GOP obstructionists get set for this little overnight filibuster, what is Joe neocon Lieberman doing? He is out here using soldiers as PROPS on the very day he plans to join another GOP effort to stab soldiers in the back:



More soldiers are turning on the occupation of Iraq as a Mother, and a Marine, discusses her and her husbands positions on Iraq:

But she says she stopped believing in the war last month after a telephone conversation with him.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”

The other day I posted on a soldier challenging the pResident or any member of Congress to take a tour with him:

A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.

Guardian has a new video linked on their front page, that covers events on and after May 19, 2007. It's a Flash 8 and takes a minute or two to load.

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.


It is pretty plain and simple. You either support the troops by bringing them home... Or you don't support the troops at all. Cut and dry. There are no shades of gray in this.

When soldiers come right out and tell you shit like this it is a serious matter. They must have absolutely no confidence in their leadership or the mission they are being given if they are willing to risk the penalties of speaking out against their orders.

Beth Pyritz, an Army wife in Virginia,
has joined an antiwar group.

“I backed this war from the beginning, but I don’t think I can look my kids in the eyes anymore, if my husband comes home in a wooden box, and tell them he died for a good reason.”

Military Families Speak Out, one such group, which was started in the fall of 2002, now has about 3,500 member families. About 500 of them have joined since January.

Nancy Lessin, a founder of the group, said it was noteworthy that about a hundred military wives living on bases had joined in the last three months. Wives living on bases, she said, are more reluctant than parents of soldiers to speak out.

For Beth Pyritz, 27, who recently joined the group, the turning point came last month when her husband, an Army specialist, left for Iraq for his third deployment.

So it seems that it is going to be up to Congress to actually support the troops by ending the bushies' authorization to wage endless wars. bush won't do it. He never has supported the troops. It remains to be seen if Congress can finally do the right thing here.

A YouTube Update as ABC News picks up part of the Guardian report:

Vitter changes his diaper and gets back to work

Cartoon with permission from Todd Umbarger*

Via NOLA.com, David Vitter has a fresh diaper on and is set to return to work on his campaign for family values:

After remaining in seclusion since his telephone number turned up last week in the records of an escort service in Washington, D.C., Senator David Vitter will make a public statement this afternoon at the Sheraton Galleria in Metairie.

snip

Vitter has not responded to allegations which resurfaced last week that he was a regular customer of a prostitute who went by the name of Wendy Cortez when he was a state representative in the late 1990s. He has previously denied that allegation.

He also did not respond to claims by a local madam that he had been a customer at her Mid-City brothel around the same time.

*ed. note: I have received permission to use cartoons from former New Milford, CT native and artist Todd Umbarger. I hope to find many uses for his talent and humor in the future. Many of you may be familiar with his work from Bob Geiger's Saturday cartoon roundups feature that is linked off of Crooks and Liars almost every weekend.

Todd Umbarger
I'm an illustrator living in New York City, and the creator of three cartoon series: The Wisdom of Bush (politics), Jaggies (video games) and Bad Sports (duh).

Thanks again, Todd!

[update] Via TPM TV's Veracifier, the Vitter news conference today:



I can't tell from the video if he was wearing a diaper or not...

Joe Lieberman Filibusters Our Troops

Joe neocon LIEberman gives us a headzup on his part in the FILIBUSTER of Jim Webb's bill which would have guarenteed our deployed soldiers the R&R time that President Bush denies them:



Here is a little heads up on what the soldiers think of your way of supporting the troops, Joe:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

"I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me."

Guardian has a new video linked on their front page, that covers events on and after May 19, 2007. It's a Flash 8 and takes a minute or two to load.

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

"We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months."

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.

YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a fucking load of crap. If YOU aren't there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support...

Don't ever fucking tell me YOU support the troops.

That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq's desert sands.

H/T Lithiumcola at The Booman Tribune.

and Via the NY Times:
More soldiers and their families are speaking up against the Iraq occupation.

sptmck at 1%More Conscious has 100% more well chosen words concerning the soldiers that are mad about the longer deployments and the others that no longer believe in the mission in Iraq.

Even Republicans worry about Republicans stealing votes

From BradBlog and via C&L's Blog Roundup:

August 11 is the date for the Iowa GOP presidential "straw poll." In this "straw poll" Republican voters from all over Iowa will walk, drive, or share a bus to the campus of Iowa State University where they will be allowed to pay $35 each for the honor of casting a ballot for their choice for President.

This "poll" is semi-important within the world of Republican politics. Both McCain and Giuliani have decided to pass and will not participate. However, for the candidates who are lower down in the polls this "straw poll" may be all important. The supporters of Dr. Ron Paul, for instance, claim that he has thousands of supporters within the state and that they are going to do all they can to get them to Ames.

With all of that the supporters of Paul have got another gripe and concern that sounds much like the same concern many in the Election Integrity community have; the poll, which used to be done on paper ballots, hand-counted in public, will be conducted on Diebold Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines.

Read More...

This is just how bad it is in America today. Republicans that don't trust these voting machines, and for good reason IMHO, anymore than most of the left.

They need to throw all of these machines in the trash.

Joe Lieberman: Dumb OR Criminal?

I want everyone to think about this little quote from Crooks and Liars for a moment:

What will Bush say about this LA Times report? “Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.”

Most estimates of the foreign insurgents in Iraq that I have read from the military put their numbers at 2% to 4% of the total insurgency. We'll take the high number as the example here and assume that it is 4%.

We now learn that half of them are from Saudi Arabia. Take away 2%... Which leaves us with 2% of the insurgents that are from various other countries. Just think about how little influence Iran has in Iraq. It has been proven time and time again that the supposed "arms links" are completely bogus. (You know? The propaganda arms connections that Joe neocon Lieberman is always screeching about...) And now that we are learning that half of the foreign insurgents are from Saudi Arabia, Joe's answer is to bomb Iran? Forgive me if I laugh in your face.

Bear in mind that most of the 911 hijackers were Saudies, and most of the money going into Iraq to fund the insurgency traces back to... You guessed it! Saudi Arabia. And now, half of the foreign insurgents are from Saudi Arabia too.

And the neocon wetdream is to bomb Iran?

Recently the criminally warmongering idiotocracy in Washington has even tried to say that Iran was behind the kidnapping of some American soldiers. When the investigation was finished all that was proven was that it was Iraqi policemen and insurgents that had taken part in and planned that insurgent operation. In otherwords, some people were flat out lying to the American people.

Remember back in January when Iraqis made a brazen attack on a U.S. base in Karbala and they killed and kidnapped U.S. soldiers? Remember how the military blamed it on Iranian agents and financiers? Well...forget it.

According to a U.S. Army investigation, the Iraqi Police assisted a brazen January assault on U.S. troops in the southern city of Karbala -- an attack that a U.S. military spokesman tied to Iranian operatives earlier this month.

USA Today obtained a copy of the Army's February 27 report. The report found that the Karbala policemen exploited "a level of trust" that U.S. commanders placed with them to provide security for a provincial headquarters where a contingent of soldiers were stationed. In the assault, one of the most sophisticated on U.S. troops to date, gunmen passed themselves off as part of a U.S. security team and entered the compound past police checkpoints, eventually killing five soldiers.

USA Today reports that in advance of the attack, Iraqi police abandoned their stations, as did Iraqi civilian employees of the compound's PX. The gunmen exhibited signs of knowing how U.S. forces would defend themselves under attack, and used that apparent knowledge to pin down and abduct soldiers and officers.

I guess that makes these people look kind of foolish. It's always amusing when a bit of the military's psychological operations is exposed for the baloney that it is. I hope Joe Lieberman doesn't cry. This news gives the lie to Lieberman's recent opinion piece:

According to Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, the Iranian government has been using the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to train and organize Iraqi extremists, who are responsible in turn for the murder of American service members.

Gen. Bergner also revealed that the Quds Force -- a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps whose mission is to finance, arm and equip foreign Islamist terrorist movements -- has taken groups of up to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time and brought them to three camps near Tehran, where they have received instruction in the use of mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices and other deadly tools of guerrilla warfare that they use against our troops. Iran has also funded its Iraqi proxies generously, to the tune of $3 million a month.

Based on the interrogation of captured extremist leaders -- including a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah, apparently dispatched to Iraq by his patrons in Tehran -- Gen. Bergner also reported on Monday that the U.S. military has concluded that "the senior leadership" in Iran is aware of these terrorist activities. He said it is "hard to imagine" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- Iran's supreme leader -- does not know of them.

Except it turns out that that '24-year veteran of Hezbollah' was Gen. Bergner's source for the Karbala attack. Bergner was either lying through his teeth, duped, or 100% wrong. Pity the fools that listen to a word the neo-cons say

Just look at the evidence of the propaganda that the bush criminals are illegally tossing at you in a steady stream of BS:

Austrian Rifles via Iran?: Another Crock

An extremely well-informed observer sent me this comment on the story that Iran is sending high-powered Austrian rifles to Iraqi Shiites. Like the whole USG story about Iran supplying deadly weapons to dangerous Shiite militias, this one turns out to be riddled with falsehoods.

The original article about Austrian rifles in Iraq appeared in the Daily Telegraph and is full of inconsistencies. For instance they say that the US found 100 of these rifles in Iraq and 170 American and Coalition troops have been killed by that weapon.

As far as I know 170 is the total of US and Coalition troops killed by Shiite militias; total combat casualties are about 3000! The vast majority has been killed by IEDs and other explosives. The article bases its accusations on a US display of weaponry designed to prove that Iran has been supplying Shia insurgents in Iraq, but there is no single line about the Austrian rifles. (Juan Cole)

Is this just more anti-Iranian propaganda:

Iran Caught Red-Handed shipping Arms to Taliban

The April convoy was tracked from Iran into Helmand province and led a fierce firefight that destroyed one vehicle, according to the official analysis. A second vehicle was reportedly found to contain small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and more than 650 pounds of C4 demolition charges.

A second convoy of two vehicles was spotted on May 3 and led to the capture of five occupants and the seizure of RPG-7mm rockets and more than 1,000 pounds of C4, the analysis says.

It strikes me as odd that Afghanistan's Helmand Province is along the Pakistani border, where you would be more likely to find "Taliban allies," yet they are saying it is arms shipments from Iran. It strikes me twice as odd given previous claims like this that have been discredited in the past. (DLiNM)

Perpetuating the PowerPoint Lies

The White House was told twice to redo the Powerpoint presentation purporting Iranian ties to American deaths. According to The National Journal the intelligence community demanded that the presentation be rewritten and washed of overstated claims:

At least twice in the past month, the White House has delayed a PowerPoint presentation initially prepared by the military to detail evidence of suspected Iranian materiel and financial support for militants in Iraq. The presentation was to have been made at a press conference in Baghdad in the first week of February. Officials have set no new date, but they say it could be any day.

Even as U.S. officials in Baghdad were ready to make the case, administration principals in Washington who were charged with vetting the PowerPoint dossier bowed to pressure from the intelligence community and ordered that it be scrubbed again.

This still wasn't enough scrubbing top get the facts straight and so some of the misinformation still persists. The NewsTimes provides one of the many arguments to support Murtha's plan to require fully trained and EQUIPED American soldiers before they can be deployed in theater:

News Times Live Editorial:
"Almost four years later, the armor problems remain. It's not a matter of money; it's a matter of planning.

This week, the Pentagon admitted that there is a shortage of armor to protect troops involved in the president's so-called 'surge' that will add more than 20,000 American military personnel to the Iraq war.

The president spent part of Wednesday's news conference alleging that Iran is supplying new deadly weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But what is he doing to require that American troops have the armor they need to protect themselves against these new weapons?

Known as 'explosively formed penetrators,' these weapons are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in Iraq."

Yes the armor problems still remain, but so does the misinformation campaign that the lying Bush administartion intended to seed in the news. There are two major problems with the "evidence" supplied by the military and the Bush administration.

1. About 170 out of the over 3000 American deaths are POSSIBLY attributable to the Iranian supported Shia militias. Why? Because that is the total number killed by all shite in that time. A drop in the bucket. And certainly not all of the US forces killed by Shia insurgents are not all linked to Iran. The vast MAJORITYof the IED's and other weapons used to kill Americans are planted or used by the Sunnis. A group that Iran does not support. However, Saudi Arabia sends truckloads full of money to the Sunnis is Iraq, the Sunnis that are largely responsible for the most deaths and injuries of American soldiers in Iraq. I don't think the Sunnis are buying cakes and cookies with that Saudi money.

2. Some of the weapons that the military showed as evidence of being supplied by Iran had markings written in English. Iranians mark weapons they manufacture in Farsi, although, Pakistan manufactures the same/similar weapons and marks them in English. Other weapons, like EFPs, that are purported to be too sophisticated to have been made by the Shia or the Sunnis, and therefore "must be coming from Iran", are similar to weapons that many other groups like Hezbollah and the IRA have made in the past, according to Middle East expert Juan Cole. (Scroll down, click on the Juan Cole video)

The Danbury NewsTimes bit on the EFPs lie, and blaming Iran. As noble as the real thrust of the Editorial may be, it is still perpetuating Bush propaganda.

The evidence clearly points to countries that are known supporters and financiers of the Sunnis (IE: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.) and/or just the easy spreading of information on typically used weapons amongst terrorism groups everywhere. And just whose name pops up to reenforce this manipulation of inteligence?

U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday.

One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. “I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,” said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich.

Republican Neocon extremist and propagandist Joe Lieberman. And pushing a lie that was already laid to rest over year ago:

Against the inference that this all comes from Iran is the concept that Iraqis themselves would be capable of copying a design and therefore do not need to get bombs from Iran.

And there have been a number of news reports over the last year expressing scepticism, even among military personnel, about the link to Iran.

The Washington Post reported last October that British troops in the south doubted the claim.

A year ago, the London Times said that British officers in Basra had stopped making any such claim, saying only that the technology matched bomb-making found elsewhere in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Syria.

While reporters and news agencies across the country are starting to catch whiffs of Bush Neocon propaganda, and pointing out some of the stinkers, they are still missing some of the really BIG lies. And most of them relate to the Drumbeat for War with Iran that is just a repeat of Iraq lies all over again:

Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

I'm just waiting for the fictitious mushroom clouds to start to reappear...
(DLiNM)

Any and all of these lies and propaganda always seem to find a way out of Joe Lieberman's big gaping piehole at some time or another. Either Joe neocon Lieberman is taking part in a criminal act of spreading propaganda to be used against Americans OR he is the dumbest fuck in American politics that is being duped again and again by his criminal bush pals.

Now, I have never underestimated Joe LIEberman's ability to lie, nor have I ever thought him to be particularly stupid, but allowing him the benefit of the doubt here I will ask him to clarify:

Which are you Joe? Dumb as fuck OR a criminal?

Not that I will necessarily believe your answer either way. But the simple fact remains that the evidence is piling up in the wake of your disastrous lies and propaganda actions. And we will make sure that you are held responsible for them.

Another Soldier: I couldn’t support the war anymore

More soldiers are turning on the occupation of Iraq:

But she says she stopped believing in the war last month after a telephone conversation with him.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”

Earlier today I posted on a soldier challenging the pResident or any member of Congress to take a tour with him:

A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.

Guardian has a new video linked on their front page, that covers events on and after May 19, 2007. It's a Flash 8 and takes a minute or two to load.

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.

YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a fucking load of crap. If YOU aren't there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support...

Don't ever fucking tell me YOU support the troops.

That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq's desert sands.

Via Lithiumcola at The Booman Tribune. Buzz it if you want to...

It is pretty plain and simple. You either support the troops by bringing them home... Or you don't support the troops at all. Cut and dry. There are no shades of gray in this.

When soldiers come right out and tell you shit like this it is a serious matter. They must have absolutely no confidence in their leadership or the mission they are being given if they are willing to risk the penalties of speaking out against their orders.

Beth Pyritz, an Army wife in Virginia,
has joined an antiwar group.

“I backed this war from the beginning, but I don’t think I can look my kids in the eyes anymore, if my husband comes home in a wooden box, and tell them he died for a good reason.”

Military Families Speak Out, one such group, which was started in the fall of 2002, now has about 3,500 member families. About 500 of them have joined since January.

Nancy Lessin, a founder of the group, said it was noteworthy that about a hundred military wives living on bases had joined in the last three months. Wives living on bases, she said, are more reluctant than parents of soldiers to speak out.

For Beth Pyritz, 27, who recently joined the group, the turning point came last month when her husband, an Army specialist, left for Iraq for his third deployment.

So it seems that it is going to be up to Congress to actually support the troops by ending the bushies' authorization to wage endless wars. bush won't do it. He never has supported the troops. It remains to be seen if Congress can finally do the right thing here.

[update]sptmck at 1%More Conscious has 100% more well chosen words concerning the soldiers that are mad about the longer deployments and the others that no longer believe in the mission in Iraq.

Soldier - I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation

A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.

Guardian has a new video linked on their front page, that covers events on and after May 19, 2007. It's a Flash 8 and takes a minute or two to load.

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.

YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a fucking load of crap. If YOU aren't there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support...

Don't ever fucking tell me YOU support the troops.

That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq's desert sands.

Via Lithiumcola at The Booman Tribune. Buzz it if you want to...

[update] Via the NY Times:
More soldiers and their families are speaking up against the Iraq occupation.

[update deux]sptmck at 1%More Conscious has 100% more well chosen words concerning the soldiers that are mad about the longer deployments and the others that no longer believe in the mission in Iraq.

[update trois] Veteran activist jimstaro at ePluribus Media Youtubed an ABC report covering this story:



And this one aired later in response to the original report:



Crooks and Liars has picked this story up from ABC one up. They don't have the video up (yet?) but I do. heh

The Real News Network

Check out The Real News...

They are producing the news you need to know. No advertising. No corporate or government underwriting. Just real News produced in the interests of the members that support them. People like YOU.

Dear members and friends,

Please visit our freshly redesigned website and watch our new video “The Promise”. It features journalists from around the world and will show you the exciting vision of The Real News taking shape.

Over the summer, The Real News Beta will test new formats and novel ways of delivering the news. We're building up to daily news coverage in the next few months and you can watch that process unfold.

They'll be new programming and new features on the site every day. Please let us know what you think and how we can do better.

www.therealnews.com

Best wishes,

Paul Jay
Senior Editor, The Real News Network

Go on over and check out the news stories and interviews they have already produced while they do their BETA test.

Trust me on this. After years of information starvation from our news networks you will find a feast of intelligent reporting in the dozen or so stories they have already put up. Poke around in the sections telling you about what the Real News is about.

I guarantee You will be pleasantly surprised.

Keep The Pressure On The FCC

Net Neutrality:


What can you do? Call these numbers and let them know you support Net Neutrality!

Most important, call TODAY!

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin: 202-418-1000

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell: 202-418-2200

FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate: 202-418-2500

Or call the FCC's main switchboard: 888-225-5322

Via Save the Internet:

You can help make the internet faster, more open and accessible to all. Tell Congress to preserve Net Neutrality and help ensure that the benefits and promise of the Internet are available to all Americans.

Tell your story to the FCC

Sign the petition and send a message to Congress

Call your members of Congress

Write a letter to your hometown newspaper

Support the SavetheInternet.com Ad Fund

Promote SavetheInternet on your blog or site

Tell five friends to join the fight for Internet freedom

Take action today!

Conservative Pundit on DC Madam's list

via ThinkProgress:

The prominent conservative pundit and lobbyist, Jack Burkman, was outed yesterday when it was revealed that his phone number “appears in the database of phone records of the ‘DC Madam.’” Previously, Wonkette reported allegations that Burkman may have solicited sex from a young woman who later blogged about it on MySpace.

But not too worry, he is a hypocritical GOP pundit and lobbyist with the money to pay for a Google Adword campaign to fight back against the truth...

Don't be evil, eh?

C&L has something up on Jack the John from 2006:

Remember June 16th, 2006? That’s when Burkman got exposed by a couple of girls on MySpace and posted Crooksandliars graphics of Jack to check him out. Her site is set to private now, but Wonkette still has some info…They called him a “CREEEEP”

Here is a money quote from Burkman on playing the victim card from Scarborough Country:

SCARBOROUGH: Jack Burkman, respond. Does the Republican National Committee have a hit list and is Mr. Clarke on the top of it?

JACK BURKMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Not to my knowledge.

And I‘ll tell you, he‘s learned from Clinton. He‘s already making himself out to be a victim. He‘s playing all the angles.

Too funny, considering Burkman is playing the "vast liberal conspiracy victim card" right now, and is "playing all the angles" himself.

And another money quote via Blue Girl, Red State:

Jack Burkman is the right-wing nutjob who said this: "[T]his issue [gay marriage] and the moral fabric of the country is five times as important as the war on terror and the war in Iraq combined... I mean, if Osama bin Laden thinks he can defeat the United States by knocking over buildings, he's crazy. But where we will fall and where we are falling as a civilization is from within."

Jack Burkman thinks he is the cause of the "falling as a civilization" since he does not respect the institution of marriage. We'll take his word on that one... And just remember who Jack Burkman worked for as a lobbyist:

Family Research Council Personnel:

• Tony Perkins - President
• Chuck Donovan - Executive Vice President
• Tom McClusky - Vice President for Government Affairs
• Paul Tripodi - Vice President for Administration
• Charmaine Yoest - Vice President for Communications
• Robert Morrison - Vice President for Academic Affairs
• Jack Burkman - former Family Research Council lobbyist
• Robert Maginnis-former Vice President for Policy^[30]

And yes... That would be the Dobson group associated with our own local hypocrites, the Family Institute of Connecticut. You know... The FIC Blog with the bloviating hypocrites and Liars that have, to this day, still refused to actually retract and amend their falsehoods. But what can you expect from those that claim religious persecution on many political arguments, but attempt to persecute those with different religious beliefs than theirs in their politics.

How many sex scandals are going to break this week?

Via BooMan:

Sexual Deviant Week Continues

  They haven't publicly announced exactly why State Rep. David Almond (R-NC) resigned his office yet.  But I hear it was because he broke it out and asked a legislative aide to service it.

The 63-year-old woman was reassigned Monday as a "floater," meaning she is no longer assigned to a specific office...

..."It's disheartening, but if the allegations made by the complainant are correct, then the resignation is certainly appropriate," [House Speaker Joe] Hackney said.

I'll say. What is it with these GOoPers?

This has to be the worst week for political sex scandals in the history of the GOP... And that is saying a lot.