Cashing In on Terror »
Robert Scheer / TruthDig
Thanks to bin Laden and Bush’s exploitation of “war on terror” hysteria ... a propaganda farce that draws resources away from serious efforts to counter terrorism to reward the corporations that profit from high-tech weaponry that has little if anything to do with the problem at hand ... the taxpayers have been hoodwinked into paying for a sophisticated military arsenal to fight an enemy that no longer exists ... (and) the top 34 CEOs of the defense industry have earned a combined billion dollarssince 9/11.

The Great Iraq Swindle »
Rolling Stone
How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury.

Friday vigil feature on KNBC (YouTube) »

Oh, come on!
Bush Admin allows toxic attack on hurricane victims ... whose side are they on?
FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers »
Wahington Post
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.

CNN's crack staff at work ...

Hey! One of them "major candidates" might possibly have some 'nads!
Obama Says Some Have 'Hijacked' Faith »
AP

Just exactly what the f@ck you gotta to do to get kicked out of office around here ... ?
Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information »
US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

980 US Troops Killed
Since Last Memorial Day»

Fascinating, very highly recommended ...
Real life in Iraq
Hometown Baghdad »
A sobering series of short, ongoing documentary web videos following the lives of a few Iraqi 20-somethings trying to survive in Baghdad:
• a recent graduate of the University of Baghdad Dentistry School
• an aspiring rock musician living in one of the city's more dangerous neighborhoods
• and a student at the University of Baghdad Medical School

Gutting the Homeland out of
Homeland Security ...
Governors say war has gutted Guard »
Chicago Tribune
Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup »
KCBS
Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort ... The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.
Surprisingly, Bush Admin Blames the Victims »
Apparently they had nothing to do with half of Kansas' National Guard equipment somehow winding up on the other side of the earth ...
AP / HuffPost

God help us ...
The Christian Right's Strategy of Infiltration
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda - which is very different from simply being people of faith - is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It's also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. But this conspiracy is no theory.
Paul Krugman »
Scandal shines on Christian law school
Regent University School of Law, founded by radical televangelist Pat Robertson, is beset by a questionable agenda as well as unqualified, dubious and excessivly disproportionate ties to the Bush administration.
Boston Globe »

"Where the hell is our outrage?"
Corporate titan Lee Iacocca bashes the Bushies in his new book ... "We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car."
Truthout »
excerpts »

Indiana Shopping Alert!

The delegation arrived at the market with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees – the equivalent of an entire company – (five) attack helicopters circled overhead ... soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans ... sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit. “... like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican
NY Times »
In a classic psyops move, the entrourage was told to take their helmets off and even General Petraeus put on a forage cap ... What the American public did not know is that McCain's primary purpose is to get location and interview footage for a 60 Minutes segment.
IraqSlogger »
McCain (et al) put American soldiers' lives at risk just so they could have a photo op.
Larry Johnson (ex-CIA agent)»

This time he really means it
Good question ... »
In an interview, Pelosi said she was puzzled by what she considered the president's minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new "way forward" for U.S. forces in Iraq.

PELOSI: He's tried this two times – it's failed twice. I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

Bush, unilaterally and out of nowhere, claims illegal power to spy on Americans' mail
New postal law lets administration peek through your mail »
NY Daily News
Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant ... when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20 ... then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

Science and those pesky facts
Birds do it, bees do it ... »
Times UK
The Natural History Museum in Oslo is staging a government-financed exhibition in its august halls that shows that homosexuality – far from being unnatural – is actually rampant in the animal world.
Exxon Mobil Cultivates Global Warming Doubt »
Reuters / truthout
US Health Care System:
Paying More, Getting Less »
Think Progress (multiple sources)

Happy New Year!
... but not so much for the friends and families of 3000 Americans
... and not so much for the friends and families of 600,000 Iraqis
The Incompetent in Chief takes nearly 3 whole precious hours out of yet another holiday at his Texas vacation compound to consider options in Iraq »
AP

On the fourth christmas day since he attacked Iraq our dear leader gave to us:
300 Dead Californians »
2946 Dead Americans »
22,229 Wounded Americans »
3193 Dead Coalition Soldiers »
600,000 Dead Iraqis »
and a record deficit »
Merry Christmas everybody!
oh, and don't forget ... every single one of these statistics have families and friends who might not be celebrating quite as much as they'd like to this year and next year and the year after that and the following year and the following year and ...
Bush: "I must tell you, I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume" »
People Magazine (ABC News)

Women Lose Ground in the New Iraq »
Washington Post (Truthout)
Once they were encouraged to study and work; now life is "just like being in jail."

Say anything against this f@cked up war or the imbeciles who launched it and you're a traitor ... but this however isn't helping the enemy
DoD Posts Counterinsurgency War-Fighting Manual On Web »
IraqSlogger
Now you and everyone, including Al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents, can read the entire 282-page manual.

Ronald Reagan's Apocalypto »
Robert Parry / Truthout

With leaders like this who needs enemies:
Yet another example of a half-baked notion gone horribly bad ... Bush / Republican propelled website makes Nuclear Bomb plans available to terrorists worldwide
U.S. Website Reveals Nuclear Primer »
NY Times

Army Times, Air Force Times,
Navy Times and Marine Corps Times:
Rumsfeld Must Go »
Editor & Publisher

Caught on tape:
Army Recruiters Misleading Students to Get Them to Enlist »
ABC

Bush Is Weak on Terror »
Stephen Van Evera / AlterNet
Despite the tough talk, Bush's regime has done more to help the terrorists than hurt them. ... focused on an offensive military and intelligence campaign abroad while neglecting five other critical fronts: bolstering homeland security, securing weapons and materials of mass destruction from possible theft or purchase by terrorists, winning the war of ideas across the world, ending conflicts that fuel support for al-Qaeda, and saving the failed states where al-Qaeda and like groups can find haven ... bungled parts of the military offensive by diverting itself into a counterproductive sideshow in Iraq and by alienating potential allies.

Iraq Oversight Agency Silenced »
TruthDig / NYT
An obscure provision inserted at the last minute into a military authorization bill signed by President Bush has closed the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The oversight agency had repeatedly embarrassed the administration by exposing corruption, exploitation and negligence in the reconstruction effort in Iraq.
The Corrupting Power of Military-Industrial Complex »
J Klein, P Pontoniere/ AlterNet
For One California Profiteer, URS Corp,
Iraq is Going Great »
Sarah Anderson / AlterNet
While the firm's workers earn a modest wage for risking their lives, execs are raking it in from the safety of their San Francisco offices.

US's Point of No Return »
Robert Parry
Election 2006 not only marks the last chance to exact some accountability from those responsible for the disastrous Iraq War and other failures, but it also represents a point of no return for a nation hurtling toward a future of endless warfare abroad and a new age of totalitarianism at home.
Turning the Corner Into Madness »
Robert Scheer
The dire predictions President Bush is making about “cutting and running” from Iraq are almost identical to the horrifically inaccurate ones Presidents Johnson and Nixon made about Vietnam.

Veterans Group Proves GOP Does Not Support Troops »
Bob Geiger
... careful scrutiny by the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) shows that by a ludicrous margin, it is Senate Democrats, not Republicans, who truly support active troops, Veterans and military families.
The list - click here

Study – Iraq's "Excess" Death Toll Has Reached 655,000 »
Washington Post / IVAW

How would you spend $2,000,000,000
... this week?
Cost of Bush attack on Iraq nears Two Billion Dollars per week »
Boston Globe

20 Things We Now Know
5 Years After 9/11 »
Bernard Weiner
10 Most Brazen War Profiteers »
Charlie Cray / AlterNet

lazy minds
Media Misses the Point ... Again »
Joe Conason / NY Observer
Rather than confront Mr. Wilson’s accusations directly, the White House went after him and his wife—and then lied about the involvement of its senior officials in disclosing her identity. The perpetrators of these unpatriotic partisan acts have yet to be punished, and the President, as usual, has failed to uphold his own professed ethical standards. It is a simple matter, and yet still too challenging for the national press to understand.
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA »
David Corn / The Nation

Winning the Battles, Losing the War »
McClatchy Newspapers
... a growing number of analysts, many of them former top government counterterrorism officials, argue that the very notion of a "war" on terrorism is the wrong strategy. In relying overwhelmingly on bombs and bullets, they say, the United States has alienated much of the Muslim world, driving away even moderates who might be open to Western ideas.

Cukes and Consequences
Slow Food Nation »
Alice Waters / The Nation
... the environmental, political, cultural, social and ethical consequences of our national diet. By exchanging the values of the fast-food marketplace for those of the family table, we can lay the foundation of a healthier food system and a healthier public life.

Bush To War Widow:
No Point In Discussing Pros And Cons Of The War »
TPM Cafe
(At a private meeting with Bush) Hildi Halley, a woman from Maine whose husband is a fallen soldier, told him directly that he was "responsible" for the deaths of American soldiers and that as a "Christian man," he should recognize that he's "made a mistake" and that it was his "responsibility to end this." She recounted to me that she was "very direct," telling Bush: "As President, you're here to serve the people. And the people are not being served with this war."

I'm The Flatulator
... heh heh
The Prez likes to fart »
Capitol Hill Blue
(According to US News & World Report) The President farts - a lot. He farts in front of other White House staffers. He likes to joke about farts, cusses constantly and laughs with glee at the misfortune of others.

Stars, Stripes, and the Star of David
America's One-Eyed View of War »
Independent / UK
To Many Iraqis, Lebanon Resembles a Three Years Ago Mirror Image »
Inter Press Service
Number of Iraqi Civilian Deaths Reach Yet Another Record High in July »
NY Times
Bush Said to Be Frustrated by Level of Public Support in Iraq »
NY Times

The Death and Destruction President's quest for global chaos showing progress ... on the other hand, nothing's better
Bush Speeds Up
Bomb Delivery to Israelis »
NY Times
Air-Guitar Diplomacy »
Maureen Dowd
One year later: Baghdad as well as
New Orleans, Getting Less Power »
NY Times
Looking for a spare $6 Billion? US Aid to Israel: What US Taxpayer Should Know »
Tom Malthaner
General: Afghanistan Close to Anarchy »
Guardian UK
Meanwhile in Bush's liberated Iraq today:
2 Americans and "dozens" of Iraqis die »
AP

The Most Dangerous Alliance in the World »
Norman Solomon / Media Monitors Network
Israeli officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Hezbollah and Hamas. And Hezbollah and Hamas officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Israel. Plenty of real crimes to go around. At the same time, by any measure, Israelis have done a lot more killing than dying ... a pattern is deeply entrenched in U.S. media and politics: the smaller-scale killers condemned, the larger-scale killers justified with endless rationales.

Crass ... in so many ways
as if his policy wasn't bankrupt enough, behold the beloved leader as he gaffes his way across Europe pawing women, demonstrating base table manners and cussin up a storm.
Groper in Chief »
President Potty Mouth »
TruthDig
What Bush’s Open Mike Revealed »
Robert Scheer

Reaping Bushit: Death and Deficits
Bush gave green light for Israeli attack »
Guardian UK
The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.
From my home, I saw what the 'war on terror' meant + Paradise Lost »
Robert Fisk
Over 3,000 Iraqi Civilians Killed in June »
NY Times
14,338 civilians have died violently in Iraq in the first six months of the year.
The Ruinous Cost of the War in Iraq »
Huck Gutman
... the cost of the Iraq war through fiscal 2006 is $319 billion. In addition to this, both CRS and the General Accounting Office have found that the Defense Department, in reporting on the costs of the war, has omitted substantial amounts of war spending. So the figure is likely to be higher, and it will of course keep growing as the tragic occupation continues.
The illusion of freedom »
Doug Thompson / Capitol Hill Blue
"(The US) used to stand for things that meant something," a longtime friend, a career soldier, said. "Not now. Honor, justice, loyalty, pride: None of these words have any meaning now ... We've destroyed their country," he said of the Iraqis. "We've turned it into a hellhole."

Ghetto Tax Being Paid by Urban Poor »
NY Times

Nation cringes as the worst president ever continues long, painful slog to the end
George W. Bush Is Dead To Me »
Mark Morford / SF Chronicle
... The more staunchly conservative of the two (republicans) even went so far as to say he was so embarrassed and humiliated by this president, by this administration, so appalled at all the war atrocities and the wiretapping and the misuse of law, the fiscal irresponsibility and the abuse of the lower classes and the outright arrogance, that if the Dems could somehow produce a decent moderate candidate with a brain, he'd have zero problem switching allegiances and voting for him. Or her.

The need to know: No questions,
no dissent in our endless war »
Paul Scott / Minneapolis Star Tribune
The outrage currently directed at the Times should be directed at Bush and the congressional Republicans who are now preparing the American psyche for the raiding of newspaper offices by federal marshals. They used to intimidate the president's opponents with spin, but that stopped working, so now they need to raise the fear of jail and death. Just as they always do in failing governments intolerant of criticism and contemptuous of the press.

The Treason Card »
Paul Krugman
Over the last few months a series of revelations have confirmed what should have been obvious a long time ago: the Bush administration and the movement it leads have been engaged in an authoritarian project, an effort to remove all the checks and balances that have heretofore constrained the executive branch.

Much of this project involves the assertion of unprecedented executive authority - the right to imprison people indefinitely without charges (and torture them if the administration feels like it), the right to wiretap American citizens without court authorization, the right to declare, when signing laws passed by Congress, that the laws don't really mean what they say.

But an almost equally important aspect of the project has been the attempt to create a political environment in which nobody dares to criticize the administration or reveal inconvenient facts about its actions. And that attempt has relied, from the beginning, on ascribing treasonous motives to those who refuse to toe the line.

What really really bad incompetent leadership looks like
Wanted Dead or Alive?
... maybe not so much
CIA Closes Unit Focused on Capture of Bin Laden »
NY Times
You've been a national security threat far longer than you realized
Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say »
AlterNet / Bloomberg
Deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, confrontation with Iran, North Korea, eroding relations with Russia ...
Bush's Legacy of Failure »
Washington Post

Happy Independence Day
Put away the flags »
Howard Zinn / The Progressive
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed ... These ways of thinking – cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on – have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
Don't fly the flag today. Burn it! »
Doug Thompson / Capitol Hill Blue
America today is a hypocrite, a nation driven by lies, one that claims to spread democracy throughout the world when it has none to spread. America is a paranoid police state, a hoard of frightened citizens controlled by a fanatical government who feels the need to watch and monitor its populace 24/7.
Don't Turn Us Into Poodles »
Nicholas Kristof
... the one thing worse than a press that is "out of control" is one that is under control. Anybody who has lived in a Communist country knows that.

More inept plans gone bad
Cost of the War Approaches Half a Trillion Dollars »
Rep. John Murtha / Huff Post
National Guard to miss border mission deadline »
Associated Press
Supremes Think Bush Broke Law Too »
Americablog (multiple sources)

Usless Death Number 2755
Iraq War Ends Silently for One Soldier »
NY Times

Is this good news?
US Embassy in Baghdad issues very grim report on real life in Iraq »
Editor & Publisher

liberation
Iraq's War on Women »
Independent UK
The women of Basra have disappeared. Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women's secular freedoms - once the envy of women across the Middle East - have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country.

leadership
High Cost of Prisons Not Paying Off »
LA Times
The U.S. spends more than any other nation – $60 billion a year – to house inmates, but sees little good as a result, a bipartisan panel says.
GOP Takes Aim at PBS Funding ... Again »
LA Times
Bolton Pisses Off Everyone at UN »
One World Net
The U.S. move to link the payment of dues with management reforms, which aims to bypass the 191-member General Assembly, apparently stems from the rationale that those who pay more should have extra influence over the governance of the institution ... like they own Class 'A' and we own common stock ... thanks to Bolton's dysfunctional diplomacy, other countries don't believe the U.S. is negotiating in good faith.
The American Dream is over »
The Guardian
Even America's richest think they're getting too many tax breaks from a government determined to keep the poor in their place ... In California, incomes for lower class families have fallen by four percent since 1969. For upper class families they have risen 41 percent.

Fags, Flags and Cussin ...
war, atrocities, gas prices, global warming, disaster preparedness, health care, deficits, immigration, education, corporate corruption, evaporating pensions, political corruption, nonresistant governmental oversight, voting irregularities, presidential incompetence, homeland security incompetence, domestic spying, drug abuse, crime, nuclear proliferation, famine, disease, pollution, Darfur ... obviously it's high time to be taking on the important issues facing US
Gays, flag-burning and indecency! »
Julie Mason / Houston Chronicle

The Clownification of America »
Stephen Pizzo
Unless the loser on American Idol pulls a gun and opens fire, that show belongs in the entertainment section and not on my front page.

Lying Phonies »
AmericaBlog