Will every single person in Colorado who ever voted for Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) please go to your rooms and stay there? Like, forever?
Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo’s campaign stood by his assertion that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good “deterrent†to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the United States, his spokeswoman said Friday.
“This shows that we mean business,†said Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser. “There’s no more effective deterrent than that. But he is open-minded and willing to embrace other options. This is just a means to deter them from attacking us.â€
Tancredo and Pat Buchanan’s sis must have missed it last year when so-called “insurgents” bombed the Golden Dome mosque of Samarra. That wasn’t exactly a success, deterrent-wise, for the bombers, since violence in Iraq skyrocketed and has never abated to this day.
All this time, I thought Bush/Cheney was as bad as it could get for harebrained diplomacy.
Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told CNN’s Elise Labott that the congressman’s comments were “reprehensible†and “absolutely crazy.â€
Republicans made good on their promise to “Swiftboat” Hillary Clinton on Monday, deploying their most practiced liar, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, to go on CNN and insert into the record a falsehood about the contents of a letter Clinton wrote to the Pentagon in May, falsely claiming that Clinton “demanded” to see Pentagon plans for leaving Iraq. The truth is, Clinton simply sought assurance that contingency planning was underway.
“[Sen. Clinton] was demanding the plans for withdrawal from Iraq.” — Vice. Pres. Cheney’s big lie about Clinton on “Larry King Live” this week.
Clinton responded by challenging Pres. Bush “set the record straight” on the role of Congress in oversight.
Unfortunately, on the day after Cheney’s intentional lie made a little news, cable news began its full-time coverage of the freeway bridge collapse in Minneapolis — and after today, Congress is heading into a month-long recess. Still, all eyes should be on the Clinton campaign to see if they will respond more forcefully to GOP Swiftboating in the 2008 campaign than the John Kerry campaign did in 2004.
On Monday, in what appears to have been a carefully calculated move, Cheney chose a soft target — “Larry King Live” on CNN — as the platform for his Swiftboat attack on Clinton, knowing full well that King would allow him to get away with deceiving his audience. Cheney arrived for the interview with the lie pre-scripted and ready to go:
KING: A member of the Department of Defense sent Hillary Clinton a letter saying she should not criticize because it helps the enemy. Do you agree with that letter?
CHENEY: It didn’t say she should [not criticize]. She was demanding the plans for withdrawal from Iraq. And…
As noted, Sen. Clinton “was demanding” no such thing. Here’s the text of her letter to the Pentagon in May:
Given the express will of the Congress to implement a phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq and the importance of proper contingency planning to achieve that goal, I write to request that you provide the appropriate oversight committees in Congress – including the Senate Armed Services Committee – with briefings on what current contingency plans exist for the future withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Alternatively, if no such plans exist, please provide an explanation for the decision not to engage in such planning.
The seeds of many problems that continue to plague our troops and mission in Iraq were planted in the failure to adequately plan for the conflict and properly equip our men and women in uniform. Congress must be sure that we are prepared to withdraw our forces without any unnecessary danger.
True to form, Larry King ignored Cheney’s false statement about the Democratic frontrunner, and gave Cheney the opportunity to characterize the Pentagon’s outrageous letter in response to Clinton — which was written by Eric Edleman, a longtime Cheney henchman — as “a good letter” and, what the heck, to compound his lie about the senator:
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
“The man is afraid of the voice of the people and that the people understand and know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stifle the ability of journalists to let the people of America know what’s really going on with their government.”
— “Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House ‘absolutely abhorrent,’” The Wrap reports.
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far… The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
— Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), breaking with President Trump in a direct-to-camera video.
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.
A new Fox News Poll finds 71% of voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the Iran War, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 43% of Republicans. Sixty percent say U.S. military action against Iran was the wrong decision, while just 37% say it was right.
“The Trump administration last year spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers as part of its plan to shrink the government and save taxpayers money, according to a new estimate by a congressional watchdog,” CNN reports.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
