Impeachment: 'It's Not Up to Pelosi,' Say Grassroots Leaders

Got that right! Impeachment should always be a grassroots movement

OneWorld U.S. Home / Today's News - Impeachment: 'It's Not Up to Pelosi,' Say Grassroots Leaders:

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (OneWorld) - When Democratic lawmakers return to Washington next month to take over Congressional leadership positions, many will be under heavy pressure from their supporters to start impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush.

From civil libertarians to antiwar groups, hundreds of grassroots organizations are currently engaged in a nationwide campaign for impeachment, even though some leading Democratic politicians have publicly said it's not an option.

Last Sunday, 'Impeachment for Change,' an umbrella group representing a wide array of grassroots organizations, arranged as many as 75 countrywide events to mobilize support for congressional hearings into the conduct of the Iraq war and the wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

'It's time for Democrats to do the right investigations,' said David Swanson, director of Democrats.com, a Web-based campaign group that has been pushing for impeachment since May 2005 when the leakage of a British secret report suggested that Bush manipulated intelligence to justify the military occupation of Iraq. NEW YORK, Dec 14 (OneWorld) - When Democratic lawmakers return to Washington next month to take over Congressional leadership positions, many will be under heavy pressure from their supporters to start impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush.

From civil libertarians to antiwar groups, hundreds of grassroots organizations are currently engaged in a nationwide campaign for impeachment, even though some leading Democratic politicians have publicly said it's not an option.

Christians Rebuke Dr. Dobson

Rebuke, hell.......
He needs to be flogged in the town square!

Christians Rebuke Dr. Dobson:

Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most powerful political voices for the Christian Right, has been officially rebuked and rebutted by a voice from within the Christian ranks. The Institute for Progressive Christianity (IPC), a recently christened research institute founded by a diverse group of moderate and progressive Christians, issued a crisp and confrontational reply to Dobson's remarks made during the 11/22/06 interview on Larry King Live. This action has drawn the ire of such high profile conservative media icons as Rush Limbaugh and the Townhall think tank.

During the course of the King interview Dobson said, 'But it's interesting to me that those, again, on the more liberal end of the spectrum are often those who have no value system or at least they say there is no moral and immoral, there is no right or wrong. It's moral relativism.' (no it isn't, you Jackass!

It is immoral to send other people's kids into an illegal war, a war of aggression, with deception and fear-mongering. We are pretty damn clear on that. Are you, Mr. Dobson?

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." Remember that? It is immoral to say and do things that bring out vengeance-seeking in people. "Woe be unto him who causes one of these little ones to stumble." Telling lies and stirring up undue hatred;a pretty big stumbling block, wouldn't you say? Or do you even know? Guess, not, because you have made a profession of it.

Most real Christians think you are a big fool. You only have the ears of the christianists, who do not know any better than to listen to you. God help them!

Will Republicans Find the Courage to Tell Bush and Cheney It Is Time To Go?

Only if it finally dawns on them that they might wind up in the dock right beside Bush and Cheney; or that if they don't do something the Party of Lincoln will end with Bush.

Will Republicans Find the Courage to Tell Bush and Cheney It Is Time To Go?:

I know it will be terribly difficult to face the fact that their control of the Whitehouse must end, even harder to let go of that control.

But if the Republican party is to survive, it must face the fact that Bush and Cheney have been the worst executive team ever to hold office. The Republicans must face the reality that their party could literally become extinct if they passively sit by and allow Bush and Cheney to continue the incredibly destructive job of leadership they have been doing the past six years.

It is not just about saving their party. It is about saving the nation. The US is no longer tumbling down an economic and diplomatic fall. It is plummetting down, losing economic viability, losing allies, becoming the planetary pariah that was once the role of Bush.

Bush is already among the walking dead. His secretary of state is one of the most ineffective, useless ever. His appointees have, deservedly, earned the mistrust of the world. Why would anyone trust ANY of the appointees Bush has chosen?

Every day the Republicans in the congress continue to allow Bush to stay in office, they violate their duty to their constituents, to the nation, to the constitution, to international laws.

Experts Optimistic About Senator's Recovery

We are all pulling for you Tim!

Hang in there, big guy, for youself, your family and....Your Country.

Experts Optimistic About Senator's Recovery - washingtonpost.com:

The experience of other people who have suffered bleeding from arteriovenous malformations inside the brain suggests that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who underwent emergency surgery for that condition Wednesday night, has at least a 50-50 chance of full recovery.

The 59-year-old senator may need another operation or other procedure to completely defuse the abnormal tangle of blood vessels inside his head that he was born with. But statistics suggest that his chance of suffering another bleeding episode in the near future is less than 10 percent and that his brain function is likely to improve from now on.

Devastating Attack on Bush/Blairs excuse for invading Iraq

These two need to be at the Hague.

Independent Online Edition > UK Politics:

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, 'at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.'

Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77

This article is in two parts:

The first part covers the fact that not only were no Arab sounding names found on the manifest of American Flight 77, out of Dulles on the morning of 9/11, but no Arabs were found in the wreckage. nor autopsied.

The second part of the article gives a partial passenger list which may or may not show some very odd coincidences.

Let's face it folks: 9/11 is not going away! More and more Americans have come to the conclusion that something is terribly wrong with the official story.

Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77 - Sierra Times.com:

I am an ex Naval line officer and a psychiatrist in private practice in New Orleans, a Christian and homeschool dad. It troubled me a great deal that we rushed off to war on the flimsiest of evidence. I considered various ways to provide a smoking gun of who and why Sept 11th happened. Astute observers noticed right away that there were no Arabic sounding names on any of the flight manifests of the planes that “crashed” on that day.

Nothing is ever as it appears with the Bushies or the Saudis.

We were highly suspicious of this biy of news when it first appeared.

Something is sure as hell up, and it can't be good.

Consortiumnews.com:

The abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to the United States and the postponement of George W. Bush’s new Iraq policy speech mark a troubling new chapter for a U.S. strategy for the Middle East that continues to spiral toward catastrophe.The abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to the United States and the postponement of George W. Bush’s new Iraq policy speech mark a troubling new chapter for a U.S. strategy for the Middle East that continues to spiral toward catastrophe.

Who Cares What You Think?

Not the preznit from hell, that's for sure!

Dan Froomkin - Who Cares What You Think? - washingtonpost.com:

Despite polls consistently showing that a majority of Americans want American troops pulled out of Iraq in short order, President Bush is refusing to even consider that option.

In fact, signs are that he is leaning in the opposite direction, choosing to send yet more troops into harm's way.

'04 Pentagon Report Cited Detention Concerns

How the hell does one fight terrorism by making cruel treatment of prisoners policy?

'04 Pentagon Report Cited Detention Concerns - washingtonpost.com:

A previously undisclosed Pentagon report concluded that the three terrorism suspects held at a brig in South Carolina were subjected to months of isolation, and it warned that their 'unique' solitary confinement could be viewed as violating U.S. detention standards.

According to a summary of the 2004 report obtained by The Washington Post, interrogators attempted to deprive one detainee, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari citizen and former student in Peoria, Ill., of sleep and religious comfort by taking away his Koran, warm food, mattresses and pillow as part of an interrogation plan approved by the high-level Joint Forces Command.

What We Leave Behind (More Death and Destruction)

It's stuff like this that just makes me want to scream!

Why can't every American, with even half a brain, jut take a few minutes and imagine, if you can, what it would be like to have these god-awful things strewn around the parks and school yards where your kids play.

What about all those places they shouldn't be playing, beacause you have told them not to thus pretty much assuring yourself that, sooner or later, they will.

We have got a shit-load of Karma in this country.

Frida Berrigan What We Leave Behind:

From Kosovo to Lebanon, cluster bomb casualties continue to mount.

In just one week in October, a series of bomb scares swept across Germany. Outside of Hannover, 22,000 people were evacuated when three bombs were discovered. A few days later in the same city, a weapons removal squad defused a 500-pound bomb found near the highway. Finally, a highway worker was killed when his cutting machine hit a buried bomb on the main highway into Frankfurt.
The bombs hadn't been planted by terrorists, and they weren't the opening salvos of the next war. The culprit was unexploded ordnance left over from a war fought more than 60 years ago. 'We'll have enough work to keep us busy for the next 100 to 120 years,' the owner of a bomb-defusing company told the New York Times.

The submunitions dispersed by cluster bombs are a lot smaller than 500 pounds, but their use in every major conflict since World War II ensures that bomb clearers the world over will have work for decades - even centuries - to come. From Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, to the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and onto Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, modern battlefields are littered with bombs that continue to kill long after wars have ended. Ninety-eight percent of those killed or injured by cluster bombs are civilians. And yet international efforts to restrict the use of cluster bombs - modeled after landmine treaties of previous years - are being undermined by lack of U.S. participation. Worse, instead of destroying old cluster bomb stockpiles, the United States is exporting them to allies around the world.

Presidential Tyranny Untamed by Election Defeat

I doubt anyone in his/her right mind really believed that the November election would alter a 60 year old man who has not changed one iota since he was age 5.

Chris Floyd Presidential Tyranny Untamed by Election Defeat:

For those who hoped that November's elections might bring some essential alteration in our degraded estate, some repair of the broken strands, recent events have been dispiriting indeed. Two in particular stand out as exemplary of the ugly reality behind the bright rhetoric of 'change' and 'moderation' now twinkling in the Beltway air. Although apparently unrelated, they are in fact part of the same malignant process that has been devouring the structure - and substance - of the Republic for years.

Support for War Dives as Bush Seeks New Iraq Plan

Bush is an idiot, God Help us all!

NPR : Support for War Dives as Bush Seeks New Iraq Plan:

The White House on Tuesday pushed back until January a major policy address from President Bush on the war in Iraq. The delay comes as several major national polls on the war, all of which became public Tuesday, show plummeting public support.

The president's speech had been promised before Christmas; the delay until next month comes as Mr. Bush continues to debrief policy experts from inside and outside his administration and weigh his options on a new U.S. strategy for Iraq. But one consideration could have been the combined weight of the polls, which offered numbers sure to be disturbing to the president and his advisers.

Assclowns of the Week #53: “Junior, This is an Intervention” Edition.

Everyone who voted for this asshat in 2004, after we knew, essentially, everything we now know, should be horse-whipped!

Welcome to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week #53: “Junior, This is an Intervention” Edition.:

'ISG' might as well stand for “Intervention of Sane Grownups” because the Iraq Study Group’s report, while a watered-down list of seventy-nine recommendations made by five Democrats and five Republicans who never protested or opposed the war, was nonetheless rooted in some much-needed, if belated and redundant, pragmatism.

It’s frightening enough when our bloated government can’t cull together enough qualified people to fight a ragtag band of insurgents in Iraq and have to outsource for solutions out of this mess. It’s even more frightening when, as I’d expected, James Baker’s august group worked for months to formulate initiatives that would be largely blown off by a Chief Executive who still thinks that victory is not only at hand but belongs to us.

Funny. I thought the only beneficiaries of victory would be the Iraqis themselves. You know, the “No more WMD’s in your back yard, no more terrorists hiding in your falafel, no more Saddam killing you in droves” brand of selfless foreign policy?

Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington - washingtonpost.com

First Bandar (Bush) leaves because he is depressed, according the Saudis, now al-Faisal just ups and quits.

What the hell is really going on?

After-all, Cheney was "summoned" to the Kingdom just a few weeks ago. Did old Dead-eye piss off the Saudis?

Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington - washingtonpost.com:

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, flew out of Washington yesterday after informing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his staff that he would be leaving the post after only 15 months on the job, according to U.S. officials and foreign envoys. There has been no formal announcement from the kingdom.

The abrupt departure is particularly striking because his predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, spent 22 years on the job. The Saudi ambassador is one of the most influential diplomatic positions in Washington and is arguably the most important overseas post for the oil-rich desert kingdom.

GHWB must be resting easier

Now that his good buddy, Pinochet, has finally sold the Ford and there will be no trials for his heinous crimes against his own people.

Consortiumnews.com:

Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s death on Dec. 10 means the Bush Family can breathe a little bit easier, knowing that criminal proceedings against Chile’s notorious dictator can no longer implicate his longtime friend and protector, former President George H.W. Bush.Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s death on Dec. 10 means the Bush Family can breathe a little bit easier, knowing that criminal proceedings against Chile’s notorious dictator can no longer implicate his longtime friend and protector, former President George H.W. Bush.

The Real Beijing Olympics, Or, Will It Be A Trade War

Straight from the Ironicles!

MediaChannel » The Real Beijing Olympics, Or, Will It Be A Trade War:

New York, New York: Who has real power over US decisionmaking?

If you think it is the White House, or even the Congress, think again. There has been a power shift underway for years and, believe it our not, our future and fortune rests in the hands of bureaucrats on the other side of the world. Sorry folks, but our red white and blue economy is afloat because of members of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

Yes the Red Menace that we spent so many years fearing as a military threat now represents a far more serious economic threat. Mao must be turning in his grave with the news that no less than six U.S. Cabinet Ministers are on their way to the Middle Kingdom to beseech, beg, lobby and try to persuade the new mandarins not to sell off their vast rervoir of dollars.

Ex-aides allege abuse of power

Another Gooper accused of abuse of power. So, what else is new? This time it is his own aides who are doing the accusing.

Does the GOP know anything about power, other than how to abuse it for personal and political gain?

Ex-aides allege abuse of power - Los Angeles Times:

Rep. Gary Miller of Diamond Bar exercised political muscle for personal gain, they say.

Swift Boat Vets, related groups to face big fines

May the Swiftboat of Fools sink, drowning all aboard!

The Raw Story Swift Boat Vets, related groups to face big fines:

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other so-called '527' nonpartisan groups are soon likely to face significant fines from the Federal Election Commission, according to a story in today's edition of Roll Call.

America Coming Together, a more Democrat-leaning group, and others were cited in an article written by Matthew Murray as facing fines after two years of FEC scrutiny. During the 2004 presidential election, complaints had been filed against the groups for violating campaign finance laws. Texans for Truth, Progress for America Voter Fund, Leadership Forum, the Media Fund, the Joint Victory Campaign, Economic Freedom Fund and Majority Action were other groups confirmed to be likely targets of fines for their conduct in 2004.

Kennedy drops support for Kerry in '08 presidential run

Good move, Teddy.

I like John, but he can't win. That fact is made even sadder because it means that Theresa will never be first lady.

I would rather see him as chairman of an imprtant senate committee doing what he does best; investigating!

Kennedy drops support for Kerry in '08 presidential run - The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON --Senator Edward M. Kennedy Monday dropped his public commitment to support Senator John F. Kerry in a 2008 presidential race, saying that he won't wait 'indefinitely' for Kerry to declare his intentions while the Democratic primary field takes shape.

Kennedy said he doesn't currently plan to endorse another candidate and still might support Kerry if Kerry decides to run. But in an hourlong interview with the Globe's Washington bureau, Kennedy offered strong praise for two of Kerry's possible presidential rivals: senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, calling them 'formidable figures' who are connecting with rank-and-file Democrats.

Cindy, the fight is joined!

So, at last count there were 30 some-odd billion Americans.

How many signatures on petitions will it take to convince Congress that impeachment is not a choice, but an imperative.

Will we have to shut down DC in the spring?

The Capital Times:

NEW YORK - After the death of her soldier son in Iraq, and after it became clear that the misguided policies that put her boy in harm's way would not be changed, a little-known woman named Cindy

Sheehan wrote a letter to the man responsible for those policies: President George Bush.
In the letter, she explained, 'I will make it my life's work to see that you are impeached.'

Bipartisan Group of Members Demands Anthrax Probe Briefing

It's about damned time!

Anthrax, the bridge to 9/11 truth.

Let us not forget that that weaponized anthrax was sent to the Democratic Leadership in the Senate. It was an assassination attempt, nothing less, and yet, no one ever mentions it.

It is as if it never happened.

Whatever happened to the Judicial Watch Inquiry into why White House staff members began taking Cipro on the evening of 9/11, a week before anthrax showed up in Boca Raton?

Bipartisan Group of Members Demands Anthrax Probe Briefing:

A bipartisan, bicameral group of 33 Members sent a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding that the FBI brief Congress on the status of the five-year-plus investigation into the anthrax attacks that killed five people and shuttered parts of the Congressional campus in October 2001.

SAN FRANCISCO / Protesters urge Pelosi to back impeachment

...and, so it begins!

SAN FRANCISCO / Protesters urge Pelosi to back impeachment:

A small but spirited rally in San Francisco on Sunday called on Rep. Nancy Pelosi to put impeachment at the top of the next Congress' legislative agenda.

Pelosi, who next month will become the first Californian and the first female speaker of the House, has said legislative efforts to remove President Bush from office are 'off the table,' even though Democrats will control the House for the first time since 1994. But members of a loose coalition of anti-war groups gathered at U.N. Plaza to demand that she reverse her stand.

'We need Nancy Pelosi to serve and represent her people,' said Norah Foster, an organizer of the rally.

Elizabeth Holtzman Calls for Americans to Put Impeachment Where It Belongs

Accountability for this adminisration, as well as many of their enablers in Congress, is an imperative, not a choice, and certainly not a choice that can be made by one person, like the Majority Leader of the House.

The people must insist...demand it!

Elizabeth Holtzman Calls for Americans to Put Impeachment Where It Belongs -- Back On the Table BuzzFlash:

… many Americans don’t understand that the framers of this Constitution 200 years ago understood that there would be a Richard Nixon, and they understood that there would be a George Bush. And they said: American people, you have a remedy. We’re giving you a remedy. It’s 200 years old. It’s called impeachment. That’s designed to remove a President who threatens our Constitution and subverts our democracy. -- Elizabeth Holtzman… many Americans don’t understand that the framers of this Constitution 200 years ago understood that there would be a Richard Nixon, and they understood that there would be a George Bush. And they said: American people, you have a remedy. We’re giving you a remedy. It’s 200 years old. It’s called impeachment. That’s designed to remove a President who threatens our Constitution and subverts our democracy. -- Elizabeth Holtzman

We Must Prevent Permanent Bases in Iraq

So, why not Impeach, try and jail everyone responsible. Is this not defiance of Congress, like Iran/Contra defied the Boland Amendment?

AlterNet: War on Iraq: We Must Prevent Permanent Bases in Iraq:

Congress passed a law banning permanent bases in Iraq and the Baker-Hamilton Report suggests that Bush state we don't have long-term plans - meanwhile, construction continues.

Should Bush Resign If He Doesn't Shift on Iraq?

Yes! Right before he is arrested for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Should Bush Resign If He Doesn't Shift on Iraq?:

As U.S. policy in the oil-rich region spins out of control, the stark choice confronting the American people will be whether the country can stand two more years of this or whether it's time for Bush to go.

Government Spying Goes Global

If they are tracking my financial transactions they must be bored silly.

Major Gooper corporate supporters had better hope a Democratic Justice Department never gets its hands on the tool they are using to track transactions.

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Government Spying Goes Global:

The government is tracking your transactions to help find terror suspects -- a move that makes about as much sense as assigning guilt based on Google keyword searches.

The Government's Assault on Press Freedom

Does anyone really believe anything anymore?

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: The Government's Assault on Press Freedom:

Vladimir Posner, the former Soviet journalist, used to claim the press was freer in the Soviet Union than it was in the United States. This was during Glasnost, as the Soviet empire was disintegrating. Posner explained that the government was dysfunctional, so journalists did not have to worry about the official censors, and the media had not been privatized, so journalists were not accountable to commercial sponsors and advertisers. The result was a kind of anarchic freedom. The press was free, but only for a brief window in time.

The window in America once was open wide and, I thought, permanently so. I used to tell my students on the first day of class that we had the freest speech and press in the world. I can't do that anymore.

Washington looks to ‘blame Iraqis and run’

This is plan B.

Plan A was to blame the Democrats and those goddamned "libruls, dump the hole mess in the next president's lap and run.

Either way, it is typically Junior: Blame somebody, anybody, take the money and run.

FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Washington looks to ‘blame Iraqis and run’:

Although informed observers say that the writ of the Iraqi government stops at the perimeter of the Green Zone – the heavily fortified enclave in the centre of Baghdad – leading Republican and Democratic politicians are increasingly blaming Nouri al-Maliki’s friable coalition government for a lack of progress.

It is a consensus that was crystallised last week by the Iraq Study Group, which called on Mr Bush to withhold US assistance from Baghdad unless it made progress on fulfilling a long list of US-imposed “milestones”. It is also shared by many senior officials in the Bush administration, which had already drawn up an earlier list of milestones for Mr Maliki.

“You could call it ‘blame and run’, ” said Zbigniew Bzrezinski, a former national security adviser now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “It is based on a pervasive illusion that there is such a thing as an Iraqi government. The more we blame it for doing things it cannot do, the more impotent it will become. ‘Blame and run’ is self-fulfilling.”

White House to Delay Shift on Iraq Until ’07

Why mess up the Holiday with the news that Stupid doesn't plan on making any meaningful changes anyway?

White House to Delay Shift on Iraq Until ’07 - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush’s advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed.

Huge Profit at Goldman Brings Big Bonuses

The Robber Barons are at it again!

Wonder what their tax bill is......

Huge Profit at Goldman Brings Big Bonuses - New York Times:

The Goldman Sachs Group reported today that it earned $9.34 billion this year, the most in Wall Street history, and that it would set aside $16.5 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits for employees.

Average Wall Street Bonuses, 1985-2005 (pdf)That figure works out to an average of $622,000 for each employee, although the payouts will be far from uniform: the investment bankers at Goldman who arrange mergers and acquisitions or sell corporate stock to investors will receive much more, and support staff and other kinds of employees much less.

In the company’s fourth fiscal quarter, which ended Nov. 24, profits increased 93 percent over the year before, to $3.16 billion, or $6.59 a share, exceeding the forecasts of most analysts.

Most other major Wall Street investment banks will report their results later this week or next week, and analysts expect robust figures across the industry.

Dems Get To Work on Higher Education.

Whatever can be done for education, I am all for it.

In the last six years, it has become all to apparent that the dumbing down of America has been a stunning success.

It is high time to reverse that trend.

Now, how to pay for it? Is there any way of taxing stupidity?

Dems plan to cut rates on college loans - Yahoo! News:

Democrats say they are putting education reform at the top of their to-do list as they prepare to take control of Congress.

However, they have not spelled out what the math will look like.

Democrats say they will use their new authority in the House and Senate to slash interest rates on need-based college loans in half — from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent.

'That will be done almost immediately, certainly within the first couple of weeks of the new session,' California Democratic Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record), the incoming chairman of the House education committee, said in an interview.

Vehicle mileage estimates get real

The EPA seems to be shaping up, now that they may be questioned under oath, like the crooked Bushite enablers in many, many other Exec. Agencies.

Vehicle mileage estimates get real - Los Angeles Times:

That 55-mile-per-gallon hybrid car you've been eyeing may end up being a 44-mpg hybrid if you wait for the 2008 model.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a new system Monday for evaluating fuel economy that will lower mileage estimates for most vehicles.

On average, vehicles rated under the 2008 method will post a 12% drop in city gasoline mileage and an 8% decline in highway mileage, said Bill Wehrum, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation.

With the new testing requirements, the EPA is attempting to come up with estimates that more closely reflect the real-world mileage motorists can expect when they purchase a vehicle.

Meanwhile Woolfoitz is busy effing up the World Bank

...just as he helped do to Iraq.

Damn, this evil little Neocon is a one man wrecking ball.

Seems obvious that he is still working for Bush.

Bloomberg.com: U.S.:

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz faces mounting criticism from directors of the international lending organization who say he relies on a coterie of political advisers with little expertise in development while driving away seasoned managers.

Half of the bank's 29 highest-level executives have departed since Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy Defense secretary and an architect of President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, took office in June 2005. Among them is Christiaan Poortman, vice president for the Middle East and a 30-year World Bank veteran, who left in September after resisting pressure to speed up the pace of lending and adding staff in Iraq.

``It was very sad to see someone of Mr. Poortman's caliber leaving,'' Eckhard Deutscher, one of 24 executive directors who oversee the management of the Washington-based lender, said in an interview. ``The bank needs to be very careful not to lose too much of its human capital.

Add Another Dem to Congress.

Cockfight in Texas is finally over and the democrat won.

Rodriguez Wins District 23 Runoff - Politics###:

SAN ANTONIO -- Former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez defeated seven-term Republican incumbent Henry Bonilla in a runoff on Tuesday, adding another Democrat to Congress and deciding Texas' final congressional seat.

With 94 percent of the precincts reporting in the state's largest district, Rodriguez had 55 percent to Bonilla's 45 percent.

The two were the top vote-getters in a special election held Nov. 7, but neither got 50 percent, prompting the runoff.

Anpther Holy Roller Rolls with The Wrong Sex

Is it possible that religious fanatics hate women so much that they can't even have sex with them, except, of course, for having sons?

2nd pastor resigns over gay sex scandal:

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- The founding pastor of a second Colorado church has resigned over gay sex allegations, just weeks after the evangelical community was shaken by the scandal surrounding megachurch leader Ted Haggard.

Haggard, a gay-marriage opponent, admitted to unspecified 'sexual immorality' when he resigned last month as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. A male prostitute had said he had had sex with Haggard for three years.

On Sunday, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in this Denver suburb, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had had sexual relations with other men and was stepping down.

Poor Bush had a week that reeked

Hey, Junior, if you name was Kennedy, you would have been dead 4 years ago.

New York Daily News - Politics - Poor Bush had a week that reeked:

Yet Bush is described by another recent visitor as still resolutely defiant, convinced history will ultimately vindicate him.

'I'll be dead when they get it right,' he said during an Oval Office meeting last week.

Tony Snow is the biggest asshat....

to ever grace the WH news-briefing-room, or whatever they call it, and that is going some!.

(It seems not to matter what they call anything these past years, because "it" never really has anything whatsoever in common with the words they use to identify "it.")

Which brings us back to: Tony is an asshat of the very worst kind.

Press briefings, these days, go something like this:

Hapless WH presscorps member: Tony, yesterday, the President said that the sky is green. Is that really what he meant to say, Tony? Is that the official position of the White House? (as if a freakin' building has any position on anything)

Snow-job: No, No, you didn't hear what the President said, or he was misinterpreted. Yes, the President did say that the sky is greenish. Now if you weren't such an idiot you would know that the President is always right and in fact the sky is often greenish, especially if there is a tornado in the area or, at times, just after a nuclear blast.

Hapless WH press-corps member: Duh, Duh, did you say nuclear blast?

Snow-job: I wouldn't read too much into that.

Crooks and Liars:

Tony Snow attacked David Gregory last week by calling him a partisan after the ISG report came out. The right wingers pounced on him which was very predictable. Snow gives a partisan answer this morning about the ISG that borders on the surreal.

Democratic Congress Should Launch A Comprehensive Investigation Of Iraq War Profiteering and Iraq Oil Revenue

Damned Straight!

All assets suspected of being made by war profiteering and by oil companies through inflated gas prices should be frozen. If those assets can be proven to have been obtained through typical corporate shenanigans, they should be confiscated and put into a new fund for energy independence.

With all the money we have wasted in Iraq, we could have a Prius n every driveway.

Brent Budowsky: Democratic Congress Should Launch A Comprehensive Investigation Of Iraq War Profiteering and Iraq Oil Revenue BuzzFlash:

It is accountability time.

We know that up to $10 billion of reconstruction money for Iraq has been stolen, lost or misused and now we know that virtually none of the Iraqi oil revenue, which Paul Wolfowitz promised would be used to finance the war, has been spent.

It is incredible: all of these monies should have been used to help the people of Iraq, yet much of it has lined the pockets of profiteers, or has disappeared into the ether, or sits in accounts unused. It is accountability time.

We know that up to $10 billion of reconstruction money for Iraq has been stolen, lost or misused and now we know that virtually none of the Iraqi oil revenue, which Paul Wolfowitz promised would be used to finance the war, has been spent.

It is incredible: all of these monies should have been used to help the people of Iraq, yet much of it has lined the pockets of profiteers, or has disappeared into the ether, or sits in accounts unused.

GOP alienation marks turnabout for Bush - Los Angeles Times

Seems even the Goopers know that their party is in dire straights and they don't plan on going down wth Bush's Titanic.

It may already be too late.

The GOP is through for a very long time if the Goopers don't get on-board the Impeachment Train.

GOP alienation marks turnabout for Bush - Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — President Bush, weakened by an unpopular war and the loss of Republican control in Congress, is now confronting disaffection within his own party that could complicate his attempt to set an agenda for his final two years in office.

As Republicans departed Capitol Hill this weekend, some who used to dismiss Democratic attempts to investigate the administration as political posturing are now lining up behind calls for greater oversight of the executive branch.

The Nutcase Ashcroft is back again

Now, no one seems to know what the hell he is talking about in his new book.

God, what a asshat this one is!

But, thanks for reminding us of just how nutso the GOP really is. They actually put you, a man who couldn't beat a dead Democrat in his own state, in charge of the justice Department.

Now there's one for the history books.

Book ties enemy combatant to L.A. plot - Los Angeles Times:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is the last enemy combatant imprisoned in this country. Yet four years after his arrest, government officials still cannot agree on what threat he posed.

In a new allegation, former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft says Al-Marri was sent to the United States a day before the Sept. 11 attacks to plan strikes on West Coast targets, including the tallest building in Los Angeles.

Dems vow change as Congress ends session

Well, that is a great start, Nancy. Raise the minimum wage, so we can afford the energy to turn on our TEEVEES and watch the impeachment hearings that had damned well better be coming.

Lobbying and ethics reform? How can "lobbyist" and "reform" find their way into the same sentence, after all the horrible years of the K-Street Gang, puppets of American and foreign oligarchs? Nancy, you cannot reform lobbying. It's one of those things like house-cleaning bed. You just have to keep at it everyday. Scoundrels will always find a way around any rule you write.

Here is the way you control lobbyists, as they do not reform well: Make this one rule. If you are caught so much as giving a member of Congress a doughnut, you will be put in stockades on the National Mall for a month, after which you will have to leave Washington, never to return. Of course, we wouldn't want to be completely unkind, so we will make sure you will have the company of the elected official to whom you gave the doughnut in a stockade right along beside you.

No more huge megaphones for the rich and powerful: We are going to jam said megaphonea down your criminal, sleazy throats!

Good idea about lower drug costs, as we are all going to need more drugs if Junior and company are allowed to slide on without any accountability!

Dems vow change as Congress ends session - Yahoo! News:

Pelosi is promising that the new Democratic era will get off to a quick start with votes to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, enact lobbying and ethics reform and lower Medicare prescription drug costs.

Constitution Takes New Hit from Senators at Gates Hearing

McGovern is right on, as usual.

That hearing was a fitting last act of a Rethug Congress that has done nothing for the last 6 years but cover-up for the most criminal administration the U.S. has ever had and seat judges in the federal courts who will go to their graves protecting said criminals.

Democrats, you had damned well better listen up. Unless there are huge changes in the next Congress, you will go the way of the GOP. You might think that we don't have a choice. We either can vote for the GOP or you.

But there is another choice, and you can bet that no one is going to like it.

Constitution Takes New Hit from Senators at Gates Hearing:

By Ray McGovern

12/08/06 'Information Clearing House' --- - At Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates to be secretary of defense, it felt like I was paying last respects to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution, though, was not the recipient of the praise customarily heaped on the deceased. Rather, the bouquets were fulsomely shared back and forth among the nominee and the senators—all of them “distinguished,” but none more so than the very reverend John Warner, gentleman from Virginia and departing chair of the committee, who presided at the wake.

Distinguished? The Warner committee is indeed distinguished for the obsequious way it keeps genuflecting to the executive branch. Beneath the pomposity lies a dearth of courage. Led by gentleman Warner, the committee allowed itself to be co-opted by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and sat silently as they disregarded and even ridiculed those few generals with the courage to testify truthfully—Gen. Erik Shinseki, for example, the Army Chief of Staff who warned that more troops would be needed for Iraq. In effect, the committee abnegated its constitutional responsibility to prevent misadventures like launching a war of aggression on Iraq based on transparently false pretences and feckless planning.

The Nuremberg Tribunal defined war of aggression as “the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Think kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition,” torture, for example.

It's Time to Retire Pearl Harbor and James Baker, Too

Great minds think alike! LOL

It's Time to Retire Pearl Harbor and James Baker, Too:

For 65 years the story of Pearl Harbor has been told over and over to remind us how much the enemies of freedom hate us, how fragile our freedoms are, how true it is that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Today this icon of American political culture has its 65th birthday. I suggest that we give it a gold watch, mumble a few words about its “long service to the nation,” and send it off into the sunset of retirement.

Because the Pearl Harbor story has served the nation badly. It has served mainly to justify all sorts of wars, invasions, and usurpations done in the name of “national security,” which have only left us less secure and left some of us -- and many more of our victims -- dead, maimed, or permanently debilitated.

Pearl Harbor has been used to persuade too many Americans that every time the U.S. gets involved in a conflict with another nation, it’s the final battle between good and evil. After all, anyone who opposes our pure innocent policies must be the embodiment of absolute evil, dead set on destroying us, right?

It’s always the same old “bolt out of the blue” story: There are always “evildoers” out there ready to pounce upon us and obliterate us. If we let down our guard even a bit, all the dominos will fall. Now it’s “the terrorists” who lurk in every airport and seaport, ready and able at a moment’s notice to obliterate us if we show the slightest sign of weakness or make the smallest mistake.
Even the Baker-Hamilton ISG Report, which we’re told is the most “realistic” path to peace, paints the same dire picture of falling dominos:

Hillary's Too 'Vane' to Be President

o more Clintons and, For Gawd's sake, no more Bushies.

Let us move on.


Hillary's Too 'Vane' to Be President:

While the country is urgently engaged in finding a way out of the quagmire in Iraq, Hillary Rodham Clinton is busy holding private dinners for key Democrats from primary states and remaining curiously silent on the subject of Iraq. Indeed, as she has transformed herself over the last few years from first lady to presumptive presidential front-runner, the profile that has emerged is that of a politician more comfortable following than leading.

There are politicians with great instincts as leaders — those who recognize not just the crises directly in front of them but those around the corner as well. (And these leadership instincts come from the gut, not from a multitude of consultants, strategists and pollsters.) And then there are politicians with great instincts as followers — those who are the first to stick their fingers in the air and notice even the slightest shift in the wind of popular opinion.

Clinton is in the latter category: She is the quintessential political weather vane.

A Revolt against Broken Forms of Government

If there is any government that is really broken it is ours, no matter what the wicked witch of the west, L Cheney, says.

A Revolt against Broken Forms of Government:


In short, a crucial lesson of the entire Iraq war has been that bad forms of government contribute significantly to bad decisions. Bush has been unforgivably incompetent. Blair has centralised and personalised too much. Both men came into office suspicious of the systems they inherited and eager to change them. This was understandable but in retrospect mistaken. It meant there were fewer effective ways for reasoned objections to affect the decision-making process. The obvious lesson for any successor is to try to avoid such hubris. But will the suspicious and centralising Gordon Brown submit his decisions to a more collegiate and rigorous system of scrutiny, giving equal weight to the views of all departments and officials? I leave the answer to you.

A Revolt against Broken Forms of Government

If there is any government that is really broken it is ours, no matter what the wicked witch of the west, L Cheney, says.

A Revolt against Broken Forms of Government:


In short, a crucial lesson of the entire Iraq war has been that bad forms of government contribute significantly to bad decisions. Bush has been unforgivably incompetent. Blair has centralised and personalised too much. Both men came into office suspicious of the systems they inherited and eager to change them. This was understandable but in retrospect mistaken. It meant there were fewer effective ways for reasoned objections to affect the decision-making process. The obvious lesson for any successor is to try to avoid such hubris. But will the suspicious and centralising Gordon Brown submit his decisions to a more collegiate and rigorous system of scrutiny, giving equal weight to the views of all departments and officials? I leave the answer to you.

Thank You, Jimmy Carter

Memo to all critics of Jimmy Carter:

You are on very thin ice, right now. We don't give a damn what you believe, what religion you claim to follow or what race you are.

If you keep this crap up, be prepared for a good old fashion ass-whipping!

TomPaine.com - Thank You, Jimmy Carter:

Jimmy Carter was the best friend the Jews ever had as president of the United States.


He is the only president to have actually delivered for the Jewish people an agreement (the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt) that has stood the test of time. Since the treaty, there have been bad vibes between Israel and Egypt, but never a return to war, once Israel fully withdrew from the territories it conquered in Egypt during the 1967 war.

To get that agreement, Carter had to twist the arms of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. Sometimes that is what real friends do—they push you into a path that is really in your best interest at times when there is an emergency and you are acting self-destructively.

When the U.S. government is following a self-destructive policy, even a policy backed by people in both major political parties, its best friends are those who try to change its direction and are not afraid to offer intense critique. That’s why a majority of Americans, and 86 percent of American Jews, voted in the 2006 midterm elections to reject Bush’s war in Iraq and his policies suspending habeas corpus and legitimating wire-tapping and torture. Not because we were disloyal, but precisely because we love America enough to challenge its policies even when Vice President Cheney questions our loyalty. We know that critique is often an essential part of love and caring.

That is precisely what Jimmy Carter is trying to do for Israel and the Jewish people in his new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Ask For Little, Get Nothing

Here are our suggestions:

Raise taxes on everyone making a quarter million a year or more.

Inact Universal Health Care and tax medium to large corporations to, in part, fund it.

Create a modest excise tax on all goods made overseas, since many of our corporations have moved overseas to exploit workers in poor countries..

Stop corporate welfare, NOW! No more tax-breaks for oil companies.

Tax-payer dollars should go for alternative energy research, not more money for the freakin' Oil companies and war profiteers!

Start serious, public hearings into who is profitting outrageously from this illegal war in Iraq, both in and out of the government, or even out of the country, and freeze their assests. I'm talking about the corporate officers and the policy makers in Washington, not the company itself, which would hurt the workers.

Harry Truman once said that war-profiteering is nothing short of treason. For once, he was right.

If, in hearings or trials, they are found guity, put the money back into the National Treasury. Who cares if they have to live in a trailor park in "nowhere" Alaska?

TomPaine.com - Ask For Little, Get Nothing:

Mind-boggling. Cowardly. Tone deaf. When I read what passes for the economic agenda for “liberal” Democrats and even progressives, I can’t help but think that they have lost their minds, their imagination or their spines. And I have judiciously left out the expletives that come to mind so my editor will let this piece run.

Let me remind the quivering political leaders and think-tank, inside-the-Beltway experts about the economic insecurity most people face in their daily lives. The divide between rich and poor has never been greater; wages are barely keeping up with peoples’ bills, driven down in part by the corporate global pursuit of the lowest wage possible; personal debt is at an all-time high; 48 million Americans lack health care and millions more pay for inadequate coverage. As for the government, it’s a fiscal disaster mainly because this administration, aided and abetted by some Democrats, has blessed a wholesale raid on the public till by those for whom avarice knows no limits. Yes, Iraq was central to the election but it’s clear that people voted for Democrats because of a general unease about their economic futures.

And what is the response of the newly-elected Democratic majority? Nancy Pelosi pledges the House will raise the minimum wage, give tax credits for college education and allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices. My friends at the Economic Policy Institute are offering a “pay to play” health care solution (meaning, companies can cover their workers through private insurance or pay into an expanded version of Medicare). Everyone apparently agrees that rolling back the insane Bush tax cuts is off limits because such legislation won’t survive a veto.

The president lied; should resign

Had forgotten all about this. Seems like a hundred years ago and pretty damn silly in comparison.

How come no newspaper is calling for the resignation of Chimpy, whose lies have costs hundreds of thousands of lives? Could it be the quite bogus GWOT?

Yeah, Yeah, that's his excuse for everything.

Time for a REAL investigation of 9/11.

BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com: Newspapers That Once Called Upon Clinton To Resign Are Silent On Bush:

"'Has the President so failed in his duties to the nation that he should leave office? The answer to that question is yes, and the time for the President to leave is not after months of continued national embarrassment but now. Clinton should resign.

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker

Though we may have disgreed, Good Journey, Madam Secratary

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick has died, according to the American Enterprise Institute -- where she was a senior fellow. She died Thursday."

FU

Fire back all you like but there is thepepeople who know btter

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Republicans fired back at incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, who accused the GOP Thursday of leaving 'a mess as they go out.'

'House Democrats have spent every waking moment of the past Congress obstructing any effort towards progress,' said Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. 'They have tried to blow up the tracks on immigration reform, tax relief, earmark reform, you name it.

Madden added, 'And now in the last few days of this Congress where they have a chance to help make progress, they decide instead to abdicate their responsibilities and play the blame game. Just goes to show they're a party of zero ideas and zero action.'

Madden was responding to remarks Pelosi and other Democrats made at a news conference regarding the Iraq war and unfinished legislative work.

The Insurgent ( I would like to meet thi s man

Seriouly I would like ot meet this man!

American Prospect Online - The Insurgent:

In August, USA Today released a poll of Americans in which 39 percent of respondents reported feeling some negative bias towards Muslims. Twenty-two percent of respondents said they would not want Muslims as neighbors, and about 33 percent agreed that U.S. Muslims are “sympathetic to al-Qaeda.” These aren't negligible numbers -- and they help to underscore the significance of what happened last month in Minnesota's 5th congressional district.

Voters in that Minneapolis area district made history by electing to Congress Democrat Keith Ellison -- the first African-American to represent the state and the first Muslim ever elected to Congress. But there’s much more to Ellison than those attention-getting firsts. (Indeed, Ellison usually downplays his religion, discussing it only when asked.) A fierce liberal, vocally opposed to the war in Iraq and unafraid to speak his mind about President Bush, Ellison is one of the members of the incoming freshman class interested in shaking up the limits of respectable debate in Washington on a range of issues.

Ellison came to Minneapolis from Detroit to attend law school at the University of Minnesota. He graduated in 1990, and began practicing law in Minneapolis. In 2002, he was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. “He was a pretty effective legislature on urban poverty issues in north Minneapolis and did a good job representing his constituents,” says Kathryn Pearson, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in congressional politics.

Former Detainees Argue for Right to Sue Rumsfeld Over Torture

Make It So!

Former Detainees Argue for Right to Sue Rumsfeld Over Torture - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — Lawyers for former detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan argued in federal court on Friday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was personally responsible, and thus legally liable, for acts of torture inflicted on their clients by American military interrogators. "

Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War | Salon News

Dann yout, people! Mr. Bush hs screwed the pooch! Do you get that?

Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War Salon News:

"Dec. 8, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Whatever its ultimate fate, the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday should have destroyed the spurious notion that flooding Iraq with more U.S. troops might win the war. As the report makes clear, a major influx of U.S. combat brigades into Iraq is somewhere between totally unrealistic and completely impossible.
In interviews with Salon, experts who served on the study group's 'working groups' explained why: The military is running out of troops and equipment. The cold, hard facts about military readiness and a 1.4 million-strong active-duty force rule out a big increase in the size of the U.S. footprint in Iraq.

'We don't have enough is the short answer,' said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University who served on the military and security working group of the bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. Advocating a big increase in troop levels now is just political theater, Hoffman argued. 'This is the beginning of the who-lost-Iraq debate,' he explained. 'No one wants to be a charter member of the club.'

Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War | Salon News

Yes Junior has made everything worse that it have been in mobern history?

So mowwhat?

We have cast ballots against Georgie and his policies. He refuses to listen.

So what the hell do we do?

Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War Salon News:

Dec. 8, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Whatever its ultimate fate, the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday should have destroyed the spurious notion that flooding Iraq with more U.S. troops might win the war. As the report makes clear, a major influx of U.S. combat brigades into Iraq is somewhere between totally unrealistic and completely impossible.

In interviews with Salon, experts who served on the study group's 'working groups' explained why: The military is running out of troops and equipment. The cold, hard facts about military readiness and a 1.4 million-strong active-duty force rule out a big increase in the size of the U.S. footprint in Iraq. 'We don't have enough is the short answer,' said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University who served on the military and security working group of the bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. Advocating a big increase in troop levels now is just political theater, Hoffman argued. 'This is the beginning of the who-lost-Iraq debate,' he explained. 'No one wants to be a charter member of the club.'