Tag: Iraq

Rightwing to Give Rudy ‘Harriet Miers Treatment’

Jon Ponder

The trogs at the GOP are not happy that a liberal Republican is their party’s likely nominee. Now the long knives are out for Rudy Giuliani as rightwing groups plot to bring his presidential nomination down the way they did the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court:

[The] Right is facing what some of them see as an even more ominous threat: the prospect that Rudy Giuliani could win the GOP presidential nomination. And just as they did with Miers, right-wing activists – especially anti-choice Catholic ones – are gearing up to launch an all-out attack in an effort to deny Giuliani the nomination:

And Free Republic, the Internet locus for advocates of American authoritarianism and theocracy, has purged Rudy’s supporters from its ranks:

Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor’s candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.

In a plaintive post on the blog “Sweetness & Light,” exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor’s campaign, blasted the site’s new “anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad.” Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, “there haven’t been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of — until now.”

This is ironic, of course, because no candidate is more authoritarian than Giuliani, who once tried to forbid public criticism of him when he was mayor.

These same virtual goons purged supporters of George W. Bush from the site in 1999 but had to recant after it became clear Bush had been ordained as the party’s next Dear Leader.

Andy Card ‘Loudly Booed By Hundreds’ at UMass Commencement

Jon Ponder

Maybe there is hope for America yet:

President Bush’s former chief of staff Andrew Card was loudly booed by hundreds of students and faculty members as he rose to accept an honorary degree at the University of Massachusetts on Friday.

The boos and catcalls – including those from faculty members who stood onstage with Card – drowned out Provost Charlena Seymour’s remarks as she awarded the honorary doctorate in public service.

The AP report says one faculty member on the stage with Card held up a sign: “Card – no honor – no degree.” Grads held up yellow signs that read, “Honor Grads, Dis-Card.”

GOP Leader Boehner Sobs on House Floor – If Pelosi Cried, Her Career Would Be Over

Jon Ponder

“After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take ’em on!? When are we going to defeat ’em?!”
— Boehner

Boehner’s Boo-Hoo: Is the standard of comportment for political leaders different for men and women? You bet. There was a prime example of the difference last week when Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) took to the floor during the debate on the war-funding bill to deliver a tearful (drunken?) non sequitor on 9/11, terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Watch the clip and ask yourself what would happen if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to lose control of her emotions while addressing the House (or anywhere). Corporate media would be in full meltdown. Pols and pundits would be raising “serious” questions about her ability to lead. Rightwing radio would be telegraphing an unspoken message loud and clear: Told ya. Women are too unstable to lead. It’s doubtful she would survive the scandal.

What’s caught on tape here is not Boehner’s macaca moment, but you could make a case that is equivalently as cringe-making as Howard Dean’s scream. Lucky for Boehner, Big Media is ignoring his performance. Lucky for him, he’s a guy.

Transcript follows:

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May is National Military Appreciation Month. Participate!

Trish

Military Times has put together a wonderful resource so we can all share in National Military Appreciation Month. There’s a great multimedia gallery, where you can view amazing, and often very moving, pictures and film clips. You can also submit a salute to a specific service member, everyone in the military, the families waiting for them to come back, or all of the above.

Take a few minutes to post your own salute. If you need inspiration:

“I salute my brother, my hero, Rick for all the courage and maturity he has displayed in the army these last four years. He is currently stationed at ft. bragg, NC and he already did one tour in Iraq in 2005.. For all of other deployed military men and women, i pray for your safe arrival home. God bless our troops. Without our military, our country couldn’t survive. Ricky, I love you. i can’t wait until you come home. You’re my older brother, my protector, and my HERO.”
— Lisa
Branchburg, NJ

“Thank you for all that you do to keep our nation safe!”
— Rob
Virginia

“I would like to say a special thank you to my son, Kyle DeMitry, who is in the Navy and my daughter-in-law, Suzi DeMitry, who is in the Army. I am so proud of you both! I would also like to say thank you to all those serving in the states and abroad, thank you for keeping us safe and free. We owe you everything!!!!”
— Anita
Salisbury, NC

Also, do what I did a couple of weeks ago. If you see someone in uniform dining out or getting a cuppa joe, pick up the tab. It’s a tiny way to say thank you to people who are willing to do something most of us aren’t, but that we trust someone else will.

My First $50 Tank of Gas

Jon Ponder

And the tank wasn’t even completely empty. Fortunately for me, I don’t drive often, maybe once or twice or week, and rarely go more than 10 miles even then. (And, yes, I live in the Los Angeles sprawlplex.)

What is really going on here is a multi-billion-dollar shakedown of the American people by Bush’s cronies.

It’s tempting to think that high gas prices in 2007 were part of the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton agenda when they invaded Iraq in 2003. But like most conspiracy theories around these clowns, that idea gives them way too much credit.

I doubt they invaded hoping to lower gas prices, but the fact that we’re on the brink of $4 a gallon is just another result of their incompetence at both war-making and domestic governance — combined with the fact that George W. Bush doesn’t give a damn.

Rightly or wrongly, Americans used to blame their presidents for high gas prices, and normal presidents would take action, or at least appear to, as a signal of solidarity. But Bush is impervious to public opinion — not just because he’s not up for reelection but because he was born into the aristocracy, and fancies himself a business tycoon. As such, he sees suffering by the little people as simply collateral damage to the greater good of corporate profitability.

Profitability is the salt in the wound, of course. Big Oil’s profits are through the roof. What is really going on here is a massive shakedown of the American people by Bush’s cronies.

The ultimate irony is that Republicans who hate paying taxes don’t feel a similar sense of outrage over paying extra to Big Oil for no reason other to line the pockets of fat cats.

Iraqi Parliament Majority Favors U.S. Withdrawal

Jon Ponder

Our Liberal Media seems desperate to bury this story. Via BuzzFlash.com, I found it buried inside the Washington Post site:

A majority of members of Iraq’s parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq’s legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress.

The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament’s approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007

Sussing Out Bush’s Never-Ending Surge

Buck Banks

Political analyst Craig Crawford equates the pattern the Bush administration has established with Congress with Muhammad Ali’s infamous boxing tactic he used against George Foreman — the “ropa dope.” By laying back on the ropes, Ali was able to prolong the fight until Foreman wore himself out whaling away on him.

The White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress.

Crawford sees the same kind of tactic at work in George Bush’s surge, which seems to somehow keep getting extended. As Crawford sees it:

Back in December, when Bush announced his new Iraq strategy, his GOP war supporters — and even the White House itself — had pinpointed this summer as the soft deadline for determining whether it is working. But early last month the president announced that the troop boost would not even be completed until June, thus buying a few more months.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., among others in their party, are now settling upon September as a deadline. But the White House might be preparing the way for another “ropa dope” of Congress. Yesterday the Pentagon announced that another 35,000 troops were notified that they are likely to be heading to Iraq by December. That suggests that, come September, the White House will be asking for a reprieve until the end of the year — and possibly beyond.

Retired Generals’ Ads Might Be Last Straw on Iraq

Trish

If Bush means what he says about listening to the military, a series of ads featuring retired generals should produce critical mass on Iraq. Brought to us by Vote Vets, the first spot features former Iraq commander Maj. Gen. John Batiste.

Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people…Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to “Protect America, Not George Bush.”

Batiste comes right out and says he left the armed forces in protest over Bush putting service members at risk for a failed strategy.

Following is a list of the elected officials the ads are aimed at. If one of them belongs to you, remember that nothing makes an impression on a public servant like a call from the folks back home.

They are:

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine
Sen. John Sununu, N.H.
Sen. John Warner, Virg.
Sen. Norm Coleman, Minn.

Rep, Mary Bono, Palm Springs, Calif.
Rep. Phil English, Erie, Penn.
Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl, Bath, N.Y.
Rep. Jim Walsh, Syracuse, N.Y.
Rep. Heather Wilson, Santa Fe, N.M.
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Springfield, Mo.
Rep. Tim Johnson, Urbana, Ill.
Rep. Mike Rogers, Brighton, Mich.
Rep. Fred Upton, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Rep. Mike Castle, Wilmington, Del.

Future ads will feature Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and our personal favorite, Gen. Wesley Clark. Pony up some bucks, if you can, so the spots can be run nationwide.

Dick Morris: Keep Troops in Iraq As a ‘Convenience’ to Terrorists

Jon Ponder

Political terror: One of the stupidest scare tactics deployed by Pres. Bush et al is that idea that if we leave Iraq, the 4,000 or so al Qaeda terrorists there would “follow us home.” Obviously, nothing about our presence in Iraq prevents al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq — or Afghanistan, Pakistan, London, Düsseldorf or anywhere else — from coming here.

“Convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.”
— Dick Morris

You’d have to be pretty thick not to see through that, but since the Bushies continue to hammer at it, it must be working with their base.

Now Dick Morris, the professional Clinton-hater and semi-pro foot fetishist, has taken this dumbest of all war rationales to the next level, saying we must keep our troops in Iraq to serve as live bait for the terrorists:

One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within [the terrorists’] arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

Translation: Support our troops by making them terrorist magnets.

What is really scary here is the fact that about a quarter of our fellow citizens are so ignorant and/or easily deluded that they can’t parse the cynicism behind statements like these.

Writing the Book on Iraq Reconstruction

Buck Banks

Wasteful reading: The plot is thick, the characters familiar. The inspector general tasked with overseeing the Iraq reconstruction has been criticized by disgruntled former employees for using agency resources and personnel to produce a book along the lines of the 9/11 Commission Report about the reconstruction. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation that some believe might have been instigated from the White House due to the agency’s occasional (gasp!) criticisms of the Bush adminsitration’s handling of the decon … er … I mean reconstruction of Iraq.

Waste represents a transgression that is less than fraud and abuse, and most waste does not involve a violation of law.

SIGIR spokeswoman Denise Burgess said the project, called the “Story of Iraq Reconstruction,” or SIR, is a “capping report” that will present SIGIR’s unique perspective on the reconstruction, including the period before oversight was established.

“What it’s not going to be is a publication with a whole bunch of reports in it,” Burgess said, explaining that it would use a narrative style to appeal to a wide audience. Citing the Iraq Study Group report and the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission as models, she said the SIR project would “drill up” to capture the full picture of reconstruction.

Burgess said plans for publishing the report still are being fleshed out, but it is expected to be complete by the end of 2007. She said she did not know the size of the team working on it, but said it consisted of in-house employees, though she said contractors have done much of the writing for the IG’s quarterly reports to Congress and three lessons learned reports.

But, in a plot twist eerily similar to the firing of federal prosecutors, some have seen the heavy hand of the White House behind the yearlong investigation:

Some news reports have suggested that the investigation could be a form of retaliation by administration officials against Bowen, whose office often has been critical of the reconstruction effort.

White House spokesman Tony Snow also has said there is no link between the White House and the investigation, noting that “when people raise allegations, somebody is going to look into it.”

So who can blame Bowen for wanting to protect his reputation in these days of legacy-building? Meanwhile, he continues the difficult task of overseeing the rebuilding of a ruined country:

In February, Bowen worked with the head of the Government Accountability Office and IGs at the State and Defense departments to come up with a common definition for “waste.” The overseers agreed that “waste represents a transgression that is less than fraud and abuse, and most waste does not involve a violation of law. Rather, waste relates primarily to mismanagement, inappropriate actions or inadequate oversight.”

Whew! I’m glad we finally got that “waste” definition out of the way four years into the thing. Now we can carry on with the real job of rebuilding. Once we definitively define it, that is.