Chris Shays Killer's Eyes

Via tparty (who works for Jim Himes) at My Left Nutmeg:

It sounds like Ted Mann asked the wrong question:

"The Iraqis," said Shays, before briefly threatening to end the interview on the subject, "are starting to like us, and that's a fact."

The congressman grew animated when asked if that was not an anecdotal judgment, explaining that he had gauged the opinion of Iraqis by going "outside the umbrella of the military" on his frequent visits to the country.

It is a bit of a sore spot, I suppose. In 2008, on the five year anniversary of the invasion, Shays says he regrets his vote on the IWR because we didn't find any WMD in Iraq:

"Knowing what I know now, I would not have voted (for it), on two accounts," said Shays, of the 4th District in Fairfield County, in a phone interview. "One, there weren't weapons of mass destruction. But the second count is if I had known how poorly we would fight the war the first three and a half years. So, you know we made horrendous mistakes."

Yet way back in 2006, when the war was a mere three and a half years old, Shays said we should have gone into Iraq "sooner" and "not for WMD"

MLN has the video of Shays being crazy, as per usual.

Chris Shays is no different than bush or McCain. They are all bloodthirsty warmongers in the GOP.

Obama Picks Up 7 More Delegates in Iowa Saturday

Say what? Say yep... Obama picks up 7 more delegates in Iowa on Saturday:

Iowa Democratic Party officials said that with more than 86 percent of the delegates picked, Obama claimed 52 percent of the delegates elected at county conventions on Saturday, compared to 32 percent for Clinton. About 16 percent of the delegates picked at Saturday's conventions were sticking with Edwards, even though he's dropped from the race since Iowa held its caucuses in January.

Democratic Party projections said the results mean Obama increased by seven the number of delegates he collects from the state, getting a total of 23 compared to 14 for Clinton and seven for Edwards, with one to be decided.

Twelve automatic delegates bring the state's total to 57. Obama has been endorsed by four of those and Clinton three, with the remainder uncommitted.

Note the funky emergence of some funny term that has no definition in political speak: "automatic delegates"? Meaningless unless you are trying to make something "super" seem less sinister when you try and convince them to "automatically" vote for the loser in Colorado:

A while back we noted that top Clinton advisor Harold Ickes had admonished the press not to use the phrase "super delegates" but instead to employ what he claims is the more accurate "automatic delegates." The Clinton campaign has pushed for this change of phrase on the thinking that calling them "super delegates" carries a negative connotation that somehow they're more powerful or privileges than other delegates. And that's important because their path to the nomination will almost certainly have to rely on super delegates going overwhelmingly for Clinton despite Obama's having the majority of pledged delegates.

Got that?

Hey AP! Quit the stenography posing as journalism and report on the facts about the SUPER delegates.

The Report the Government Didn't Want You to Read

The "Iraqi Perspectives Project - Phase II" is up for your reading pleasure:

ABC News has requested and obtained a copy of the Pentagon study which shows Saddam Hussein had no links to Al Qaeda.

(READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.)

It's government report the White House didn't want you to read: yesterday the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's availability and didn't make the report available via email or online.

Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam's government now in US custody, the government report is the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.

Meanwhile... The right wing is grasping at straws (and strawman arguments) to try and justify the criminal bush administration's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Go figure?

I am glad they posted it because I didn't like waiting for my copy in the mail. You can find the "Iraqi Perspectives Project - Phase I" over here. Both of the reports are some pretty heavy reading and won't make as much sense if you aren't familiar with the background of the many organizations mentioned (which would explain the right wings confusion, since they never understood any of it from the beginning as evidenced by their screwing it all up) and they are not exactly written in an entertaining style.

Watching Them Watching You...

According to the ACLU, the fear mongering government figures there are about 927,269 terrorists walking amongst us all at this very moment:

Why are there so many names on the U.S. government's terrorist list?

In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.¹

At that rate, our list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we'd all be dead.

Now, figuring that there are 50 states and then the District of Columbia that makes for about 18,181 terrorists for every state. Perhaps, even, your next door neighbor? As for the District of Columbia? You will find all of the D.C. terrorists scurrying to and from the various GOP offices on The Hill and the White House.

Those effin' Republican terrorists and their fear campaigns...

Bush sings of Rome burning

On Countdown last night, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow sum up just how stupid this bush stunt was:

Radio talk show host Rachel Maddow discusses President Bush’s speech at his final Gridiron Dinner in which he made light of his own failures which have damaged America.

KO mentions at the end of the clip that there will be a special comment coming up tonight on the Ferarro/Clinton insanity. ctblogger has a lot up on that:

"I'd like to take back my 1984 vote please."

Ferraro said, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

It gets worse as Geraldine Ferraro goes batshit crazy against Senator Chris Dodd saying the senior senator supports Obama because "the guys stick together" while throwing the race card in Congressman Rosa DeLauro saying the reason for DeLauro supporting Obama is because of her black constituents.

Go read the rest and watch the video, as Ferarro only digs the hole deeper.

Be My Hillary... Oh No!

"If there's someone you can live without,
then do so.
And if there's someone you can just shove out;
do so."

Hillary Clinton is hell bent on breaking the Democratic Party and all she will get out of it is second place in a two horse race.

AieeAieeAieeAieee!

Clinton Campaign Stealing From Donors

From Blue Jersey:

Some of Kathy's post is confusing, so she has provided some clarification:

I used a figure of speech that might be confusing for readers and I want to clarify: By December 18 I got all of my donations back.

I happily donated $2,000. They had my VISA card on file. Unauthorized donations were made.

In addition, I was actually double charged for an event that I did attend.

Smoking gun: $5,800 is $1,200 over the legal limit.

I would say this in a court of law. I am an honest person...the following statement is true down to the letter:

Matt McQuenney who works in the compliance department at HRC headquarters told me verbatim -"What happened to you with credit card errors is happening to others,. You are not alone. Kathy, I'm trying hard to find out where and who it's coming from. What's going on!"

I voluntarily left the Hillary Finance Committee after I discovered more than $3,000 in unauthorized charges from HRC campaign on my own VISA card! And that set off a wave of overdrafts and $400 in bank charges that I was stuck with. And the compliance officer Allison Wright at Hillary VA headquarters refused to reimburse me for the charges. And the senior finance reps who I notified about more than $3,000 in unauthorized Visa Charges never once aplogized or empathized with my plight, much less sent me a "sorry for all the trouble" note and a check!

Unbelievably, it took me more than a month of pleading and begging via email to get the money back. I was told verbatim:

"Kathy Callahan, you are going to be with us all the way to the White House...So let's leave the money where it is and we'll save time on inevitable future donations and transactions!"

I went into a state of abject shock, disbelief and later anger! Heartbroken. I didn't want to report this entirely correctable problem to anyone outside the Hillary campaign! One long month later, and at the behest of a bank executive who said to me a few days before Christmas Eve, "You are way way way over the legal donor limit, Kathy! What are they thinking? Are they thinking at all?"

So I followed his direction and filed a police report in Ridgefield.

After she filed the police report the Clinton campaign finally returned her money. She is an Obama supporter now. You can read the entire diary here. I am certain you are thinking to yourself this is a made up story. I know I did when I first read it! Well? So did Blue Jersey admins. (worried about libel suits). Then in comments came this information:

Here is a press release on hillaryclinton.com listing Kathy as a member of "Hillary's New Jersey Women for Hillary Council"

This was a story in the Herald News:

Obama's message had already resonated with Kathy Callahan of Ridgefield months ago, when she said she defected from Clinton's finance committee to support Obama.

"Hillary speaks to my mind," Callahan said. "He talks to my mind and heart and soul as a Democratic activist. There is a difference. It's inspiration into action."

The FEC report for Kathy is available online and corroborates the numbers Kathy gave.

This is straight eh! ehffed up. And you can bet that it is busting Blue Jersey's sitemeter... heh



As a side note: This diary is for my wife! ;) She always complains that I go too easy on Hillary Clinton. I just don't have anything personal against Clinton, nor do I share the right wings irrational hatred of her. I just don't like her policies, votes, and I especially do not like the team of conservative-lite beltway insiders she will bring with her in that one in a million chance she wins the nomination, never mind the presidency.

Hey! It's not like Hillary Clinton is a monster or anything but... Well? You get the picture.

Buzz it! If you want to...