I'm sure race has nothing to with the recent surge of nooses in the news since we are soooo over bigotry in the U.S.
Police are looking for whoever dangled a 3-foot rope with a small loop at its end from a tree outside a campus cultural center that is home to several black organizations. The incident is being treated as a possible hate crime.
"This is bigger than a noose," Black Student Union President Altmann Pannell told his fellow students, many of whom were wearing "Terps as one" buttons."
"This is bigger than a noose because we as a community know that something else is going on in this country," Pannell said to murmurs of agreement. linkage
That "something else" is not missed by minority communties, especially when the disparities in justice are blatantly tied to the color of one's skin.
For a year, Jena (pronounced JEEN-uh), a poor mining community of 3,000 people, has been embroiled in racial tensions pitting the black community against white school officials and a white prosecutor. It began last August when a black student asked at an assembly if black students could sit under a tree where white students usually sat. The next day, two nooses hung from the tree.
Black parents were outraged by the symbolism, recalling the mob lynchings of black men. They complained to school officials. District superintendent Roy Breithaupt and the school board gave three-day suspensions to the white students who hung the nooses, overruling the recommendation of then-principal Scott Windham that the students be expelled.
The case of the Jena Six has been covered extensively by fellow bloggers, such as Hello, Negro with information on how to donate to the defense fund; also My Right Mind! who offers a slew of tips to assist these young teens.
Nooses are more than just complex slip knots in a rope - they are both symbolic and directly representative of torture, murder and racist mob rule.
But before you go there, I want you to think about this:
Lynching is sometimes justified by its supporters as the administration of justice (in a social-moral sense, not in law) without the delays and inefficiencies inherent to the legal system; in this way it echoes the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, which was justified by the claim:
"Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice."
What are some of the possible reasons why racism seems to be on the rise in the Good Ol' USA? Hey! It's not like anyone in our government would ever encourage this kind of terrorizing behavior with its own actions and ideologies...
The "traditional" conservative Claes G. Ryn has argued that neoconservatives are "a variety of neo-Jacobins." Ryn maintains that true conservatives deny the existence of a universal political and economic philosophy and model that is suitable for all societies and cultures, and believe that a society's institutions should be adjusted to suit its culture, while Neo-Jacobins
are attached in the end to ahistorical, supranational principles that they believe should supplant the traditions of particular societies. The new Jacobins see themselves as on the side of right and fighting evil and are not prone to respecting or looking for common ground with countries that do not share their democratic preferences. (Ryn 2003: 387)
Further examining the relationship between Neoconservatism and moral rhetoric, Ryn argues that
Neo-Jacobinism regards America as founded on universal principles and assigns to the United States the role of supervising the remaking of the world. Its adherents have the intense dogmatic commitment of true believers and are highly prone to moralistic rhetoric. They demand, among other things, "moral clarity" in dealing with regimes that stand in the way of America's universal purpose. They see themselves as champions of "virtue." (p. 384).
Thus, according to Ryn, neoconservatism is analogous to Bolshevism: in the same way that the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy established ways of life throughout the world to replace them with communism, the neoconservatives want to do the same, only imposing free-market capitalism and American-style liberal democracy instead of socialism.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, had the following to say in a December, 2005 interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel:
"They are not new conservatives. They're Jacobins. Their predecessor is French Revolution leader Maximilien Robespierre."
Sheeple see... Sheeple do... Or some terrorizing thought like that?
"Cenk is Tired of it all, the right wing propaganda, the weak democrats, the iraq war, all of it. Watch the entire Young Turks at www.theyoungturks.com."
And so it continues. The semi epsilon moron minus class of the DC elitist punditry hall of shame - David Brooks, William Kristol, David Brodeur, etc. - continue to get the megaphone in order to cheer on more failure... And those of us that have been right every step of the way continue to watch this country go to hell.
Just received an email from our Washington reporter, Erin Kelly, who just got off the phone with Rep. Jim Walsh. She's writing a story for tomorrow's paper that reports the moderate Republican is switching gears and is now calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Not only that but Walsh, who visited Iraq during the weekend, says he will no longer support funding the war.
Going from supporting the Iraq occupation to being willing to cut off the funding in order to end the disaster all in one recent visit?
Jim Walsh is obviously turning into nothing more than another dirty-hippy-peacenik republican that wants to embolden the enemy. The freakin' defeatist communist!
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
The letter was written by these active duty, serving in Iraq soldiers:
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
I encourage you to read the entire letter if you still don't get the point... Oh yeah, and our allies, the Brits, have had enough too:
The UK Indpendent reports that the British military command wants to get out of Iraq as soon as possible.
Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay.
Last month Gordon Brown said after meeting George Bush at Camp David that the decision to hand over security in Basra province – the last of the four held by the British – "will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground". He added: "Whatever happens, we will make a full statement to Parliament when it returns [in October]."
Two generals told The Independent on Sunday last week that the military advice given to the Prime Minister was, "We've done what we can in the south [of Iraq]". Commanders want to hand over Basra Palace – where 500 British troops are subjected to up to 60 rocket and mortar strikes a day, and resupply convoys have been described as "nightly suicide missions" – by the end of August.
I have a bad feeling that the Brit's experience in the south of Iraq is a precursor for an even more dangerous and humiliating scenario for the American troops to their north.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Congress is on vacation now, and has yet to do the right thing when it comes to Iraq...
If you are in the minority party of warmongers and are about to try and spin the Iraq occupation with a fake Petraeus report in September, written by the White House, STOP... STOP THE FUCKING BULLSHIT NOW! We The Majority of The American People already don't fucking believe a word you say anymore. And neither do the soldiers. And if you are in the majority party in Congress, STOP PLAYING POLITICS AND START ENDING THE OCCUPATION NOW!
If you haven't got the leadership skills needed to end the occupation now, while you control both the Senate and the House in Congress, than why the hell would we ever give any of you the keys to the White House?
Walsh must be just as evil as all of those dirty-hippy-peaceniks in the military that think the occupation of Iraq is anything less than the path to bush martyrdom.
Starting this Saturday, there will be a week of antiwar protests and actions in DC with events being organized by multiple coalitions and groups.
There are over 100 transportation centers mobilizing for the September 15 antiwar march in D.C. Buses will be rolling from dozens of cities. You still have time to sign up for a seat. (Here in Connecticut, buses will be leaving Hartford, New Haven, and New London. Full details at AnswerCT.org.)
The ANSWER Coalition, who called the protests, is facing $30,000 in fines for putting up antiwar posters in D.C. in what is obvious politically motivated selective prosecution. The fines may well go much higher. ANSWER has filed a lawsuit claiming freedom of speech. Three antiwar organizers were arrested at a completely legal press conference last week for putting up one poster.
Let's all make it to D.C. to protest these outrageous, heavy-handed attempts to stifle legitimate protest. The Petraeus report will be released on Sept. 15, and there will be a full week of action in D.C. organized by multiple groups to protest the war.
Schedule for Sat Sept. 15 - 21
Sat. Sept. 15 - March on Washington and Die-in. The march will be led by Iraq War veterans. The Die-in will be civil disobedience. Lead organizer for march: ANSWER Coalition. Lead organizer for Die-in: Veterans for Peace.
Sun. Sept. 16. National Training Session for the other Days of Action.
Mon. Sept. 17. People's March inside Congress. Lead organizer: Code Pink.
Tue. Sept. 18. Congressional Occupation Day. Lead organizer: Grassroots America.
Connecticut's very own JR. Senator, Joe neocon Lieberman, bloviates in another WSJ propaganda hit piece claiming that "advocates of withdrawal risk making the exact same mistake" (Which mistake Joe? Of being completely and totally correct and making you and your warmongering republican brethren look like total failures and lunatics AGAIN?) and, meanwhile, support for the continued occupation of Iraq is slipping even further both in Iraq and the USA to the dismay of Republican operatives currently hitting the airwaves to share their rosy propaganda pictures.
Iraqis currently overwhelmingly oppose the presence of coalition forces to the point where the support of violence against the occupying coalition forces is rising.
Similarly, 80 percent of Iraqis disapprove of the way U.S. and other coalition forces have performed in Iraq; the only change has been an increase in negative ratings of the U.S. performance among Kurds. And 86 percent of Iraqis express little or no confidence in U.S. and U.K. forces, similar to last winter and again up among Kurds.
Accusations of mistreatment continue: Forty-one percent of Iraqis in this poll (vs. 44 percent in March) report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces. That peaks at 63 percent among Sunni Arabs, and 66 percent in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
This disapproval rises to an endorsement of violence: Fifty-seven percent of Iraqis now call attacks on coalition forces “acceptable,” up six points from last winter and more than three times its level (17 percent) in February 2004. Since March, acceptability of such attacks has risen by 15 points among Shiites (from 35 percent to 50 percent), while remaining near-unanimous among Sunnis (93 percent).
Kurds, by contrast – protected by the United States when Saddam remained in power – continue almost unanimously to call these attacks unacceptable.
Acceptability of attacks on U.S. forces also varies by locale, peaking at 100 percent in Anbar, 69 percent in Kirkuk city and 60 percent in Baghdad, compared with 38 percent in Basra and just three percent in the northern Kurdish provinces.
Remember that one of those things that the lying Surge ESCALATION supporters are touting are the successes in Anbar. Anbar, where there is a 100% acceptability among locals of killing American and other coalition force occupiers.
Bush said he was encouraged by the update he received today from Petraeus and Crocker and touted recent progress especially in the Anbar province.
“I was pleased with what I heard,” the president said. “The strategy we put in place earlier this year was designed to help the Iraqis improve their security so that political and economic progress could follow. And that is exactly the effect it is having in places like Anbar.
Bush said continuing this progress is vital to meeting the strategic interests of our nation.
“We can’t take this progress for granted. Here in Anbar and across Iraq, al Qaeda and other enemies of freedom will continue to try to kill the innocent in order to impose their dark ideology,” Bush said.
“I am going to reassure them that America does not abandon our friends. And America will not abandon the Iraqi people. That’s the message all three of us bring,” Bush said.
If Anbar is the success story, then it is obvious that bush is looking to replicate this 100% support for killing coalition forces across Iraq as a "key to a secure, stable Iraq." As you watch "All three" of them - Bush, Petraeus and Crocker - feed their propaganda and lies to Congress in the next week, remember these successes they had previously been touting in Anbar.
In fact, as near as we can tell, a lot of the numbers, the key metrics about what's actually happening on the ground remain classified.
And not just the numbers themselves.
A few days ago we flagged Karen DeYoung's piece in the Washington Post about critics questioning the alleged decline in violence in Iraq. And one key point she focused in on is the methodology that the folks in Baghdad are using to derive their numbers. Is it really true that it matters how a person is shot (in the front of the head or the back) for whether or not they get counted? Is it true that we're not counting Sunni-on-Sunni or Shia-on-Shia deaths? Or even killings by the folks we're now allied with in al Anbar province?
The best we can tell the methodology Petraeus's staff is using to tabulate the numbers also remains classified.
In other words, it's not just a matter of getting the numbers from Petraeus and his staff and deciding whether you believe them or not. They won't even tell us what the numbers are -- let alone how they came up with them.
The AP reveals that a “briefing chart prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency says what Gen. David Petraeus won’t. Insurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians, their security forces and U.S. troops remain high.” Most of the insurgent attacks in Iraq continue to be focused on U.S. forces, as the chart shows:
Attacks are up, or have remained pretty much the same, even when you take into account the manipulation of data by the liars that are spewing them out as their idea of success. The only decline? Iraqis have figured out how to avoid killing Iraqis and shifted their focus, and sharpened their aim, on to coalition forces. The Iraqi puppet regime has figured out that the real numbers of casualties are hurting the failed bush administrations' quest for eternal war, so the neoconservative hands up the Iraqi governments asses are are playing the "hide the truth" game from the UN by denying the UN access to Iraq Health Ministry stats:
One of the most credible Iraq-casualties tabulations, crunched by the United Nations, was lost this year after the Iraqi government, embarrassed by the high reported death toll, refused the U.N. access to Health Ministry statistics.
And it's not hard to see why: here are the 2006 numbers from the U.N., month by month, versus an AP-reported month-to-month breakdown of figures compiled from the Iraqi ministries of defense, health and interior.
Jan 06: 1700 UN -- 549 Iraqi ministries
Feb 06: 2100 UN -- 545 Iraqi ministries
Mar 06: 2250 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries
Apr 06: 2200 UN -- 686 Iraqi ministries
May 06: 2669 UN -- 932 Iraqi ministries
Jun 06: 3149 UN -- 885 Iraqi ministries
Jul 06: 3590 UN -- 1062 Iraqi ministries
Aug 06: 3009 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries
Sep 06: 3250 UN -- 1099 Iraqi ministries
Oct 06: 3600 UN* -- 1288 Iraqi ministries
Nov 06: 3400 UN -- 1846 Iraqi ministries
Dec 06: 2800 UN -- 1927 Iraqi ministries
If I've made any mistakes in compiling this, I'll adjust as necessary. But here you can see the discrepancy in determining how many Iraqis died each month in 2006 alone.
Is there any doubt that the bush numbers for 2007 are even more dubious? The Iraqis that manage to survive this colossal failure can see the death count around them on a daily basis. There is little doubt why they want us to leave Iraq. But...
"How long do you think US and other Coalition forces should remain in Iraq?"
The autumn 2007 poll reflects growing disillusionment with the occupying forces' presence in Iraq. There is a growing consensus among respondents that coalition troops should leave the country immediately.
Some 47% of respondents now back an immediate withdrawal, compared with 35% in February.
The poll also shows dwindling support for troops remaining in the country, even in support of the Iraqi government and security forces. Only 10% of those surveyed favour coalition forces remaining for that purpose.
Iraqis want us out... So much so they overwhelmingly support killing us in order to get that message across and they really don't care about the disaster that bush and the neocons failures will leave behind. In other words: Don't let the IED hit you on the ass on your way out!
As you may know, a report about the situation in Iraq by General David Petraeus, the Commander of U.S. forces, and others is scheduled to be released next week. If the report says that the situation in Iraq is IMPROVING, what should the U.S. do next: should the U.S. increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, keep the same number of U.S. troops in Iraq as there are now, decrease the number of troops in Iraq, or remove all its troops from Iraq?
Increase 6% Keep the same 32% Decrease 39% Remove all troops 17%
So, even if Petraeus says that the surge is improving things, a solid majority -- 56% -- will still favor removing some or all of the troops. Of course, this number could be related to the fact that in two polls now -- by The Washington Post, and by Gallup -- solid majorities say they don't expect Petraeus to honestly assess the success of his own performance. So no wonder majorities are saying his testimony won't affect what they want for Iraq.
Hey! Americans are starting to get used to the fact that anyone associated with the bush administration will lie to anyone that will listen to them when it comes to keep their endless war alive.
General Petraeus will go before Congress this afternoon to argue that the surge is working -- that sectarian killings and attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces are substantially down. The military's secret numbers will serve as support for those conclusions, even as numbers from within the government (e.g. those collected by the Defense Intelligence Agency) dispute them.
Let's just repeat that fact over and over. Because that's what Petraeus is planning on doing on Monday, as Karen DeYoung (in an article buried on page A16) explains clearly. Go read the whole article, closely, for a description of the many methods of the Administration's hocus pocus. But I'd like to focus on one particular tactic.
MoveOn has a hot new ad in today's NYT pointing out that Petraeus' statements differ from all the known metrics out there. And boy has it made Sanctimonious Joe pissed. Not surprisingly, Joe is trying to call in those chits he got for agreeing to caucus with the Democrats in January.
The personal attack on Gen. David Petraeus launched today by Moveon.org is an outrageous and despicable act of slander that every member of the Congress -- Democrat and Republican -- has a solemn responsibility to condemn.
General Petraeus has served his country honorably and selflessly for over thirty-five years. He has risked his life in combat and accepted lengthy deployments away from his family to defend our nation and its citizens from its enemies. For this, he deserves the respect, admiration, and gratitude of every American -- not the disgraceful slander of Moveon.org.
It has been widely reported that Moveon.org has worked closely over the past months with many members of the Democratic Party in coordinating their efforts to derail the strategy that General Petraeus has been leading in Iraq.
[snip]
As a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, I therefore call on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to denounce Moveon.org in no uncertain terms for its vile attack on Gen. Petraeus. General Petraeus deserves no less.
Mind you, Joe doesn't address the central allegation that MoveOn makes--that Petraeus is lying to Congress. Which he'd have to do to prove his own accusations about slander. Rather, Sanctimonious Joe says we've got to honor Generals, even if they lie to us.
But the difference this time is that he will knowingly be getting up in front of Congress to tell these lies, and we, the vast majority of Americans, all know it well ahead of time.
Although he has already betrayed the USA by spreading bush propaganda, much like the mistake Joe Lieberman has continually made, we will all be watching to see if Petraeus goes the distance in a typical bush fashion and perjures himself in his testimony to Congress over the next little while.
Just how much of this is dressed-up "Stay the Course!" BS? Take a look at this graph showing troop levels past, present and future (If the incompetent bush gets his way):
WHOA! Is this a familiar pattern? And someone out there representing CT supports this rinse and repeat policy? Sure enough, Bush can always count on Joe Neocon Lieberman:
And lo and behold... We are right back to "STAYING THE COURSE" so that bush can try to punt his failure off on to the next administration. Bush got what he wanted with the last re-escalation, and I guarantee you that as soon as the few soldiers that come back after this most recent surge have finished their minimum time in the USA they will get another flight back to Iraq to RE-ESCALATE this Iraq hole even deeper than it has already been dug.
Rinse... Repeat... Rinse... Repeat... Rinse... Repeat... etc. ad infinitum
Today, General Petraeus attempted to put a positive spin on a failed policy. While the General highlighted some notable military successes, other credible reports underscore the lack of real progress we have made in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office’s report released last week shows the Iraqis have failed to achieve fifteen of eighteen benchmarks. General Jones’ report states that the Iraqis are far from being able to take over for their own security. And the daily news reports out of Iraq paint a grim picture. Our Armed Forces, stretched and deployed nearly to the breaking point, have done their duty bravely and courageously, but the ends to which they have been directed – the political stability of Iraq - are increasingly beyond their control.
This surge isn’t working and General Petreaus effectively admitted this today. This summer has been the bloodiest yet so far for U.S. troops in Iraq, with 264 soldiers killed. There is indisputable proof that this strategy has not accomplished the basic goal laid out by the President in January – giving the Iraqis breathing room to achieve political consensus. To grant this Administration an extension of this failed policy would not only put our soldiers at greater risk, it would put this country as a whole in a more perilous position.
I hope that today marks a new era in our national debate on Iraq. The President must face the facts - achieving military success will not lead to Iraqi political success.
Every best wish, Christopher S. Murphy
Ain't nobody holding their breath on a reasonable response like Murphy's coming from the Lieberman warmongers' camp for lying republican children...
He was a member of the Mitt Romney campaign, charged with bringing in money to the biggest spending campaign. But, besides sucking up cash for Full of Mitt, Lichfield was also involved with child abuse. He quietly slinked away from the campaign but...not much has been heard about this in all the yelling and screaming over Hsu even though he's been bringing in far more money for Flip Flop than Hsu has brought in for Democrats.
Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS [Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, founded by Lichfield] were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse."
...The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, alleges brazen acts of child abuse, including that students of the various programs had been forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.
And this is just one of many more scandals that are simmering in the background of the other GOP sex scandals. Remember that the Blogosphere is digging around Patrick McHenry and others...
The Wranglers' Mighty Mite 'W' over Danbury's Vikings was built on an edge in total offense of 217 to 27 yards.
A defense which limited Danbury to a single first down was sparked by Caleb Anderson, Isaiah Jenkins, Will Roode and Andre Taylor, who chalked up an interception.
The offense was led by Trent Bryant's 81 yards rushing and two touchdowns and Mike Carrozza's 90 yards rushing.
Tim Gesualdi contributed 20 yards rushing and a TD.
Those players found plenty of holes in the Danbury 'D' thanks to the blocking efforts of Steve Herron, Tommy Gavel, Alex Davlos and Mike Simao.(edited for spelling and other- CM1)
Yeah... I'm proud of Connecticut Kid2. :) He is one of the smallest players and he isn't going to be the star player on any football team, but he is having fun and learning. All of the kids and the coaches on the team have worked hard the last few weeks and they played the entire game as a team.
Here is Hannity and Colmes trying to tell people that there really isn't that much support for Ron Paul amongst their viewers regardless of the poll:
And somebody proves The Big Lie... Just another poll showing that Paul is the only credible candidate conservatives have and the corporate lackeys in the media hate it, ridicule it, and lie about it. Denis Kucinich and Mike Gravel get the same treatment too. And the vast majority of the American people align closer to those 3 candidates ideologically than they ever could to the rest of the candidates.
Killing the troops based on a pack of neoconservative republicans' lies... How many unnecessary deaths of American soldiers did your Senator or Representative buy last session?
The Iraqi newspaper, Azzaman, in a blistering editorial bluntly told Prime Minister Maliki he was “in total denial about the daily killings, the uprooting of millions of Irqaqis, the impoverishment of almost the whole country and even the imminent imploding of a whole nation.” The editorial noted Maliki on assuming office had promised to reach out to all factions, but has completely failed to take such action.
Unlike President Bush in Washington D.C., the editors of Azzaman live in daily contact with the Maliki mess.
Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.
On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST. NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the Army in shame.
It should be broadcast on PBS on 9-7-07... In other words, tomorrow if you are still up reading at this hour. Today if ya catch this with your breakfast. (h/t C&L)
By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.
It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.
As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.
The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.
...snip...
How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.
Wishing and hoping for the best for her and her family, as well as for the many other millions of Iraqis that have left their homes in the hopes of finding some peace and safety for themselves and their families.
The Department of Homeland Security “has given up on one of its broadest anti-terrorism data-mining tools after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without the required privacy safeguards.”
It’s worth noting, however, that Joe Lieberman, as head of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, promised to investigate the government’s response to Hurricaine Katrina. From January of 2006, when Joe was running for office:
The White House is dodging questions about Hurricane Katrina response and has instructed other agencies to join it in fending off investigators, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said on Tuesday. The White House denies the allegations.
Lieberman went so far as to suggest that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to kill the investigation.
“My staff believes that DHS has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation’s natural progression to where it leads,” Lieberman said. “At this point, I cannot disagree.”
The Connecticut senator, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, further said no real reason is being given for the administration’s reticence.
“There’s been no assertion of executive privilege, just a refusal to answer,” Lieberman said. “I have been told by my staff that almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the White House.”
Bush’s Best Democratic Buddy Joe Lieberman gives the president a pass on Katrina.
Jan. 11, 2007 - Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”
(As a side note, I think the above paragraph is a pretty clear demonstration of the fact that when Joe says “bipartisan” what he really means is “Karl Rove’s bitch.” Because nobody wants to bring the troops home more than Joe, you know.)
But since so many of our Democratic 08 candidates are current or former members of the Senate, maybe they would like to prod their colleague Joe about his promise to give residents of New Orleans an explanation for the government’s mishandling of the disaster and what happened to their lives?
But how does Lieberman feel about patriotic Americans that want to see him uphold his oath to protect the Constitution? We have a right to privacy and the department Lieberman heads, the Department of Homeland Security, flushed it down the toilet along with the Constitution.
Why should we have to rely on the GAO to keep Lieberman's department in line?
A report by Congress' Government Accountability Office cautioned last March that the program should complete privacy analyses and notify the public of how individuals' data would be verified, used and protected before ADVISE was implemented. "Like other data-mining applications, the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism," the GAO warned.
Then in separate reports released without fanfare in July and August, the department's inspector general and its privacy office concluded that between 2004 and 2007, three pilot tests of ADVISE used personally identifiable information without first completing required privacy impact analyses. The DHS privacy office concluded the tests "created unnecessary privacy risks."
This is the second such error at DHS. The Secure Flight program to screen domestic air travelers was barred from implementation by Congress after it was learned that it acquired live data for testing rather than using made-up data. That program, however, is going into testing this fall having issued the required privacy impact assessment and dropping the use of commercial data, such as people's credit card histories.
Are you so fuckin' incompetent and so hyper-partisan against our freedoms that you are incapable of running the DHS in an ethical manner? Are you so anti-American that you can't protect citizens from the abuses of illegal data mining operations by your own department?
These questions can and should be asked of Susan Collins, the other incompetent republican Senator tasked with running the DHS, as well. Lieberman and Collins, both of them bush hacks, embrace the ideals of repeated failure, incompetence, and criminal negligence with no accountability.
FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers Hurricane Victims Reported Illnesses By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01
The Federal Emergency Management Agency since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday. [...] As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.
What is Congress's role in a situation like this? To investigate. You might expect that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, who chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security—the committee that oversees FEMA—to lead an investigation. But you’d be wrong. Just as they failed to look into the incompetence that led to the Katrina disaster, Joe and Suzy have been AWOL on this scandal too.
To these two republicans (face the facts, Lieberman is a republican now) that are supposed to provide oversight of the DHS and FEMA, what are a few more dead black and poor people? Who gives a shit if the bulk of the displaced survivors are still displaced, and still in mortal danger because of something these two refused to do anything about? And who cares about Americans' fucking rights to privacy? Those are just quaint ideals to these two, these two bush ass-kissers that have embraced the neoconservative goals of an all surveillance all the time fascist society, regardless of rights entrenched in the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.
These two republicans, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, want nothing to do with providing real oversight of their departments repeated failures, want nothing to do with helping the poor and minorities, want nothing to do with protecting our freedoms, want nothing to do with an open democracy.
And they have both come to embody all things wrong and republican during the bush years.
Last night’s broadcast of Countdown on the mothership, NBC, was a major coup for Keith Olbermann and his MSNBC program.
For all the clamoring for attention that goes on amongst the cable news kiddies, they are all fighting for slices of a relatively small pie. The ratings leader, Bill O’Reilly, averages about 2 million viewers a day. The lowest rated network news program (CBS) pulls in over 6 million. So graduating to the network opens millions of doors to a cablecaster.
Olbermann, not surprisingly, benefited from this. The early results show him with 4.1 million viewers. That only earned him a third place finish, behind “60 Minutes” and “America’s Funniest Videos,” but it was good enough to quadruple his average MSNBC audience. What’s more, (and this has to hurt) it is twice what Bill O’Reilly does on an average night.
Lies about Countdown are most assuredly forthcoming from Rupert Murdoch's Republican stooge, O'Liely, any minute now... You can read more at News Corpse about why there is still room for growth in those numbers for KO and Countdown.
This is a good showing for a brand new entry in the time slot. I suspect that the football game shown afterwards may have helped his numbers a little with people tuning in expecting a pre-game show, or just not wanting to miss kick off. I wonder how his numbers compared to the game's numbers?
The key here is to see if he can replicate (or increase) those numbers when he gets slots like that again. Another good measure of how well he did might be if there is a spike, even a little one, on his regular 8 pm (EST) and midnight slots. That might be some of those NBC viewers going out of their way to find his show on MSNBC. I hope that does happen... One of his Special Comments on a prime time network would probably shake a few viewers out of their seats.
This week News Corpse comes back with numbers showing that the NBC broadcast was a resounding success and it showed in Countdown's recent ratings numbers on MSNBC:
On August 26, 2007, Keith Olbermann's Countdown was broadcast on NBC. Despite a scattered schedule wherein the program was delayed or preempted in many markets, it performed respectably, delivering 4.1 million viewers. But what I was waiting for, was to see if there would be any afterglow that reflected on his MSNBC airing. There was:
For the week ending August 31, Countdown averaged 278,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demo. That's a 17% increase over the program average for the 2nd quarter of 2007. It is fair to conclude that this spike was due almost entirely to the promotional value of the NBC broadcast. None of the other programs on MSNBC's schedule enjoyed a comparable bounce. Olbermann's numbers exceeded his 2nd quarter average (230K) as well as his prior week average (242K).
If you haven't seen Countdown before, here is a clip of Keith Olbermann's most recent Special Comment. These Special Comment editorials have become a fan favorite and hallmark of the show:
"Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.
Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.
Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.
Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.
And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.
In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.
Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.
Even if it means your resignation.
Even if it means your impeachment.
Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.
Even if it means a Democratic Congress -- and those true Patriots among the Republicans -- standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.
This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…
For those who are around tonight, we are back on the air live for Don't Hijack My Thread! The time, as always, is 8PM Eastern/5PM Pacific and we hope to hear from you. Info is posted at the Political Nexus site (http://www.political-nexus.blogspot.com) as well as below. "Don't Hijack My Thread!" is an interactive discussion on today's hot political topics with a progressive slant. Join "rapid fire" hosts Adam Lambert (clammyc) and David Atkins (thereisnospoon)!
Tonight's juicy list of topics include the following:
Republican hypocrisy - the case of Senators Craig and Vitter
Bill Richardson's spectacular implosion
Iraq spending - another $200 Billion?
Bush and media figures' Iraq visits vs. the reality of ethnic cleansing and the GAO/NIE reports
"Manly" Bush admits to crying alot - is he cracking up?
Don't Hijack My Thread! will be recording another live show this week and we need callers. Think you have what it takes to sit on hold for upwards of five minutes for a few moments of radio obscurity and acute political observation?
The show is scheduled to tape Wednesday, 8:00 PM (EST), though times are subject to change and update, of course! We are still in BETA testing, after all...
For those interested in calling in, the number is: (718) 508-9410
You can stream the show live as it airs or download it an hour after air time. The link to past shows for podcast or streaming is here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/epradio
TIPS FOR CALLERS:
Please turn the radio off in the background when you go on air
We can't screen callers or talk to you off-air, so be ready to state your name or blogger handle when we suddenly throw you live, on air with clammy c and the gang!
Speak LOUD and CLEAR. We are severely limited in terms of our ability to control sound volume and even audio quality. We are looking into ways of increasing production values
Familiarize yourself with our format and foibles by taking a listen to last week's show, linked in a previous Don't Hijack My Thread! post. Just click the media player embedded for your convenience--you don't have to download ANYTHING.
I think we’ve reached a tipping point, Ladies and Gentlemen:
“The National Coalition of American Nuns is impelled by conscience to call you to act promptly to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for … high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group wrote in a letter written on behalf of its board members.
The letter says that impeachment is warranted for their “deceiving the public under the false pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction” and “destroying” the reputation of the United States and the good will of other nations.
“The time for impeachment is now — before the example of George W. Bush’s regime is set in stone,” they wrote. “Future generations will thank you for preserving the freedom of our nation and its relation to the entire human community.”
Proving there is a huge difference between the warmongering "Religious Right", an extremist misnomer, and the "Religiously Correct" that chose to put into action the teachings they espouse.
You may have seen stories in the news recently about malware on Blogger, such has this one from the BBC or this one from Committee to Protect Bloggers. Blogger was not compromised. Instead, the blog posts are from bloggers whose machines were compromised by a Trojan horse. These bloggers had their mail2blogger email addresses in their computers' address books (a perfectly legitimate use case), so when the malicious software spammed every address in their address book with its content, a copy of that email was posted to their blog.
We are in the process of notifying impacted bloggers and recommending that they scan their computers and run current anti-virus software, available in the Google Pack. This is also good advice for all computer users, especially those who may have clicked the links in the emails sent by the virus. For more information about computer security, check out upenn.edu and us-cert.gov.
Watch for notices coming your way if you use Blogger. Take note, and take care to update and run your spyware and firewalls. Also: As soon as you run them you might just want to take the precaution of changing your passwords. It is something that I have learned firsthand needs to be done regularly. My Blog was hijacked once, but I caught it before any serious damage was done.
Today's Hartford Courant and New Haven Register share the results of the annual Labor Day report issued by Connecticut Voices for Children, which looks at how well Connecticut's economic growth has been trickling down to wage-earners. Apparently, not very well:
The state's wage earners - low, median and high - earned less in real dollars in 2006 than in 2002, the report said.
Real wages for workers in every category are either flat or have declined, the report said. In real wages, someone who earned $18.36 an hour in 2001 earned $17.75 an hour last year, the report said.
"Health care costs are consuming a larger proportion of total compensation," said Hall, citing one reason for stagnant or declining wages. "There seems to be a disconnect between an economy that's doing well and the wages people are being paid."
The gain in lower-paying service jobs has not quite compensated for the loss of higher-paying manufacturing jobs.
The state continues to keep shedding manufacturing jobs, although the rate of loss is dropping. Those traditionally well-paying jobs are being replaced by lower-paying service jobs. "That is not a positive direction for our state economy and it is not a situation that is going to right itself," he said.
Things were different in the 1980s, when hourly workers saw real wage growth of 14.9 percent; in the 1990s, low wages dropped, but median wages increased slightly and high wages jumped the most.
The articles point out that these conditions are part of a national trend, and Connecticut Voices for Children say that wage-earners would benefit from a change in priorities:
The group is urging the state's policy-makers to strive for more higher-wage jobs, provide more child care and housing subsidies for low-wage families and invest more in education.
In a separate report issued in July, The Connecticut Department of Labor stated that; "we are now just 4,900 jobs short of our all-time high of 1,700,700 reached in July 2000."
The good news is that we're gaining jobs. The bad news is that although we have just about reached the number of jobs we had six years ago, the wages paid for the jobs being produced are not keeping pace with the cost of living.
I have never claimed to be some Economics expert... But I do have some resources that are competent in this area of expertise. And I can read these tea leaves and tell that this is bad. Really bad. This national trend is the direct result of "The Great Republican Experiment" that has obviously completely failed America since the Ronny Raygun administration and their followers started pissing themselves with extremist tax and spend conservatism and fear of the rest of the world.
Live in fear and the American free market truly dies.
