Why the hell are we giving the King 100 billion more bucks for the quagmire in Iraq when the money is not being account for that he has…

9 billion vanished… Hmmm, I wonder where?

Here is a warm and fuzzy story to make your day (Clicky)

Please for the love of god write your congressperson and ask for a real explination!

House

Senate

I support the warriors! This war sucks!

Well if you can't convince them to trust you through your actions, buy off good media. Yet another columnist has been caught cashing the government check.

From Solan.com

By Eric Boehlert

Jan. 27, 2005 | And three makes a trend.

One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, “Ethics & Religion,” appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

It has gotton so bad that some lawmakers will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week.

You can read about this on Editor & Publisher’s web site.

When is the people that put him in office wake up and realize they have been brain washed, none of it is real. The lead to war was manufactured; the Social Security Crisis is not a crisis at all. You all are being lead to the slaughter, you are sheep.

At least Armstrong Williams got $240,000, wonder that this dope was paid.

Jeff Gannon, a Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent, who accused his colleagues in the press corps of “work[ing] off of the talking points” provided by Democrats.

Well it looks like this guy has been caught cutting and pasting from a RNC "Fact Sheet" of 8/9/04. In fact this guy's article was over 50% lifted right off the said "Fact Sheet"

You need to read this for yourself, this guy did not even bother to change the words around, just cut and paste!

Thanks Media Matters for America for your hard work.

Here is some examples…

From the RNC “Fact Sheet,” 8/9/04"

Association Health Plans (AHPs) to give America’s working families greater access to affordable health insurance. By allowing small businesses to band together and negotiate on behalf of their employees and their families, AHPs would help small businesses and employees obtain health insurance at an affordable price, much like large employers and unions.

He writes in his article

Bush is also promoting greater access to association health plans. He says that by allowing small businesses to band together and negotiate on behalf of their employees and their families, AHPs would help small businesses and employees obtain health insurance at an affordable price, much like large employers and unions.

Or

From the "Fact Sheet"

President Bush’s initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes: American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;

He writes

Bush established several initiatives to dismantle the barriers to homeownership that include a program that provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families.

What a scumbag, If you care to, drop his “News” site am email newstips@talonnews.com

The King held court for the press… In true Bush fashion he stammered his way thought as if he just learned English yesterday.

And to show the major ego of this man, he makes fun of seniors, real for yourself.

Q I seem to remember a time in Texas on another problem, taxes, where you tried to get out in front and tell people it’s not a crisis now, it’s going to be a crisis down the line — you went down in flames on that one. Why –

THE PRESIDENT: Actually, I — if I might. (Laughter.) I don’t think a billion-dollar tax relief that permanently reduced property taxes on senior citizens was “flames,” but since you weren’t a senior citizen, perhaps that’s your definition of “flames.”

Q I never got my billion –

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Because you’re not a senior citizen yet. Acting like one, however. Go ahead. (Laughter.)

Q What is there about government that makes it hard –

THE PRESIDENT: Faulty memory. (Laughter.) Go ahead. (Laughter.)

You can SEE it here, from AmericanBlog

Sadly 36 37 of my countrymen have lost their life Wednesday in Iraq. 31 of them were killed in a helicopter accident, and 5 6 were killed while battling the insurgence.

Mr. Bush, is this you wanted when you told us why we are going into Iraq? We should not be there; you have failed the troops, and bankrupting the nation. On the Day of Judgment, George, you will be unable to wash the blood off your hand.

Read a story on this

I found this great story from a soldier who is back from Iraq…

March Madness
by Mike Newall

URL to full story (WELL WORTH THE READ)

The majority of vehicles in Resta’s brigade, as throughout much of Iraq, were poorly armored. Most were protected by only half-inch sheets of plywood. During their initial drive into Iraq, the brigade lost its first soldier. He was riding in an unarmored Humvee and was killed by a roadside improvised explosive device (IED). From then on, Resta placed his armor vest on the seat to protect his legs and crotch.

“A lot of times, the only way you find an IED is when one explodes on you,” he says. “You’re driving along and without warning there is an explosion and then a deafening roar. They’re very indiscriminate killers.”

Once in Iraq, Resta’s brigade was assigned to the Army’s 1st Infantry Division and stationed in northeast Iraq. Insurgents attacked the camp with rifle and mortar fire two or three times a week. One time, an 8-year-old Iraqi girl was riding in a vehicle that bypassed an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint. An AK-47 round passed diagonally through her stomach, shredding her internal organs. She was brought into Resta’s camp for treatment. He remembers her long, brown hair laying across her lifeless body.

Hey, We should go spend another 44 million on another party.

A CBS News/NY Times find that majority of Americans feel that the King is driving our nation in the wrong direction.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans say their outlook on a second Bush term is generally optimistic - a low number when compared to Mr. Bush’s approval rating before his first term or Bill Clinton’s before his second. At the same time, 56 percent say the country is on the wrong track, versus 39 percent who say it is on the right track.

Where were you people on November 2nd?

Mr. Bush’s 49 percent approval rating at the start of his second term trails every re-elected U.S. president in the past half-century. By comparison, Bill Clinton’s approval rating was 60 percent, Ronald Reagan’s 62 percent and Dwight Eisenhower’s 73 percent at a similar point in their careers.

Even Richard Nixon - just a year and a half before he was forced to resign the presidency - fared better than Mr. Bush with an approval rating of 51 percent when he took his second oath of office in January 1973.

Hey buck-up, we know how Nixon’s second term ends, and I suspect that as the King’s court unravels, and the truth becomes known, we may see a repeat.

Read the whole story here

In an interview with Judy Bachrach, editor of Vanity Fair Magazine, the host was expecting a fasion/style report, but Judy had a totally different agenda then what fox wanted. A must see video for all you FNC lovers, and haters.

I know FNC claimes to have no Rightwing slan, but the host sure is showing otherwise.

Click here to see the video.

Video from FNC hosted on…

In True Bush Faison, Let us create a crisis where there is none.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top White House economic adviser charged on Tuesday that anyone who opposes Bush administration plans to overhaul Social Security was being willfully ignorant about problems with the current system.

In prepared remarks for the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Gregory Mankiw, said “the sophistry of those opposed to reform” should be avoided because it masks real problems with the retirement program .

“Reasonable people can debate what kinds of reforms are best, but don’t let the ‘Ostrich Caucus’ convince you to put your head in the sand,” Mankiw said.

President Bush says changing the Social Security system, including new private savings accounts, is a priority for his second term. But Democrats and many private economists insist Social Security is not in as serious trouble as the White House alleges and claim the administration is trying to scare Americans about its condition.

Mankiw said Bush was “committed to acting now” and said that, although the White House hasn’t decided yet what it wants to advocate on Social Security, people should be wary of comparing a reformed system with current law.

“The benefits now scheduled for future generations under current law are not sustainable given the projected path of payroll tax revenue,” Mankiw said. “They are empty promises. Unless a listener is discerning, empty promises will always have a superficial appeal.”

He suggested that, unless the Bush administration’s call for some type of unspecified reforms was accepted, “the United States will face little choice but vastly higher taxes” and reduced economic growth in future.

Jesus, the King is going to do his best to crame this down us, reguardless of if it is right.

For the love of all things that are great about America, please click here and tell your congress person NO!

From the NY Times

A Question of Numbers
By ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Published: January 16, 2005

In 1938, the Social Security Act was only three years old, but its future was already very much in doubt. Conservatives claimed it would bankrupt the nation, and independent critics argued that the way it was financed amounted to ”financial hocus-pocus,” as one editorial in The New York Times put it. President Franklin D. Roosevelt defended the program, said by a cabinet member to be his favorite, with some of his trademark oratory. ”Because it has become increasingly difficult for individuals to build their own security,” the president told a national radio audience, ”government must now step in and help them lay the foundation stones.”

Social Security did become the cornerstone — not only the biggest government entitlement plan but also the most universal, the most popular and the most enduring. But the debate over Social Security never ended. Barry Goldwater wanted to repeal it; Milton Friedman wrote in 1962 that it was an unjustifiable incursion on personal liberty; and David Stockman, the budget director who personified Ronald Reagan’s efforts to shrink the federal government, tried to take a hatchet to Social Security, which he called a ”monster.”

But in this 70-year struggle, no other conservative has ever come as close to transforming the program as George W. Bush. He is making Social Security reform, including a partial privatization, a centerpiece of his second term. If the most ardent ideologues have their way, such a reform would be a first step toward a wholly new approach to retirement security — one that would set aside the notion of collective insurance and guaranteed minimums for that of personal investing and responsibility.

This could do more to reverse the New Deal, and even the Great Society, than Goldwater, Stockman and Reagan ever dreamed of. ”We call it a conservative New Deal,” says Stephen Moore, author of ”Bullish on Bush: How George W. Bush’s Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger.” In Moore’s words, it will be a fundamental shift ”from an entitlement society to an ownership society.” The key to this transformation, according to a generation of conservative thinkers and crusaders, is reducing the size and changing the nature of Social Security, which now pays benefits of half a trillion a year, and which will only grow bigger as America grows older.

The campaign to privatize has not only been about ideology; it has also focused on Social Security’s supposed insolvency. Moore’s book calls Social Security a ”Titanic . . . headed toward the iceberg” and a program ”on the verge of collapse.” A stream of other conservatives have bombarded the public, over years and decades, with prophecies of trillion-dollar liabilities and with metaphors intended to frighten — ”train wreck,” ”bankruptcy,” ”cancer” and so forth. Recently, a White House political deputy wrote a strategy note in which he said that Social Security is ”on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness.”

The campaign is potentially self-fulfilling: persuade enough people that Social Security is going bankrupt, and it will lose public support. Then Congress will be forced to act. And thanks to such unceasing alarums, many, and perhaps most, people today think the program is in serious financial trouble.

But is it? After Bush’s re-election, I carefully read the 225-page annual report of the Social Security trustees. I also talked to actuaries and economists, inside and outside the agency, who are expert in the peculiar science of long-term Social Security forecasting. The actuarial view is that the system is probably in need of a small adjustment of the sort that Congress has approved in the past. But there is a strong argument, which the agency acknowledges as a possibility, that the system is solvent as is.

Although prudence argues for making a fix sooner rather than later, the program is not in crisis, nor is its potential shortfall irresolvable. Ideology aside, the scale of the fixes would not require Social Security to abandon the role that was conceived for it in 1935, and that it still performs today — as an insurance fail-safe for the aged and others and as a complement to people’s private market savings.

PREDICTIONS AND BEST GUESSES

About 47 million people — retirees and their dependents, under-age survivors of deceased workers and the disabled — receive a check from Social Security every month. The money for this colossal endeavor comes from a payroll tax on current workers and on their employers. The program is a model of efficiency; expenses are low, as pension plans go, and participation is near universal. Benefits rise with the level of earnings, but they are tilted toward progressivity, so that those at the bottom get more in proportion to their earnings and those at the top get less. Social Security also delivers a considerable nonmonetary benefit: people who have contributed throughout their working lives know that, regardless of the ebb and flow of their careers and, indeed, of the stock market, a guaranteed pension awaits them.

NOTE: This news store goes on for 9 pages….

Please click here to read it all

• ACS State & Local Solutions, Dallas, Texas
• A.G. Spanos, Stockton, Calif.
• Alagem Capital Group, Beverly Hills, Calif.
• Altria Corporate Services, Inc., New York
• American Financial, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Ameriquest Capital Corporation, Orange, Calif.
• Argent Mortgage Company, Orange, Calif.
• AT&T, Washington D.C.
• Bank of America Corporation, Charlotte, NC
• Boone Pickens, Dallas, Texas
• Bristol-Myers Squibb, Washington, DC
• Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Corp., Topeka, Kan.
• Carl H. Lindner, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Chevron Texaco, Concord, Calif.
• Cinergy Corporation, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Corporate Capital, LLC, New Orleans, La.
• Dr. Miriam Ochshorn Adelson, Las Vegas, Nev.
• Elliott Broidy, Los Angeles, Calif.
• Exxon Mobil Corporation, Washington, DC
• FedEx Corporation, Memphis
• First Data Corporation, Greenwood Village, Colo.
• Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Mich.
• Golden Eagle Industries, Inc., Charlotte, N.C.
• H. Edward Baher, Bluffton, S.C.
• Hunt Consolidated, Inc., Dallas, Texas
• Kojaian Ventures, LLC, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
• Long Beach Acceptance Corp., Paramus, NJ
• Marriott International, Inc., Washington, DC
• Mariott Vacation Club International, Washington, DC
• Nancy and Rich Kinder, Houston, TX
• National Association of Home Builders, Washington, DC
• Nelson Peltz, New York, NY
• New Energy Corp., South Bend, IN.
• Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
• Pfizer, Inc., New York, NY
• Rooney Holdings, Inc., Tulsa, OK
• S. Davis Phillips, High Point, NC
• Sallie Mae Inc., Reston, VA
• Sheldon D. Adelson, Las Vegas, NV
• Southern Company, Atlanta, GA
• Stephens Group, Inc., Little Rock, AR
• Strongbow Technologies Corp., Burtonsville, MD
• Susan and Michael Dell, Austin, TX
• The Home Depot, Washington, DC
• The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC, Chevy Chase, MD
• The Timken Company, Canton, OH
• Time Warner, New York, NY
• Town and Country Credit, Irvine, CA
• United Parcel Service, Roswell, GA
• United Technologies, Hartford, CT
• UST Inc., Greenwich, CT
• Wachovia Corporation, Jacksonville, FL
• Washington Television Center, Washington, DC

Well the Bush administration has been busy this summer, scaring the shit out of people so they would vote for him, and seeking a reason to go to war with Iran.

Your Majesty, how do you do it?

Seymour Hersh says…

This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah–we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism

Hersh also states the hawks in the Pentagon …

have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership.” The same source adds that the “Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran.

Read the report in the New Yorker

UPDATE: Bush Won’t Rule Out Action Against Iran Over Nukes! (Clicky)

From America’s Future
Stop Bush's #1 Domestic Priority - Privatizing Social Security

President Bush and his Wall Street cronies are salivating at the thought of privatizing Social Security. But if we all work together, we can stop the Bush plan dead in its tracks. Demand that your Member of Congress declare their opposition to privatizing Social Security in any way!

Today across this great Nation, we take a day off to celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. Honestly for many years in my life this was just a day off, as most of King's speeches and teachings were well before my birth, and in my white world, no longer applicable.

Given the times we find our self in, King's words ring true. I am glad I have grown as a person to seek the information, to read, and to learn..

So please take a few moments and read this…. "A Time to Break Silence" 4/4/1968

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of new. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…" We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might with our morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter- but beautiful- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? Their choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

King was not of this world; his words were forged in knowledge, strength, and an insight into humanity that is desperately missing today. Dr. King, we need you.

From Media Matters

As the battle over Republican efforts to privatize Social Security heats up (a conservative organization began running pro-privatization television ads featuring footage of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a campaign his grandson denounced), reporting on the topic has continued to disappoint.

ABC’s Good Morning America featured a discussion between ABC senior national correspondent Claire Shipman and Michael Tanner, a principal Social Security privatization advocate and Cato Institute director of health and welfare studies. ABC did not balance Tanner with a guest opposed to privatization, and Shipman treated him as an impartial expert rather than an interested party. Unsurprisingly, as Media Matters detailed, the Shipman-Tanner segment grossly misled viewers and distorted the possible impact of privatization on future retiree benefits.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) noted an NBC broadcast that ignored privatization critics while presenting a conservative activist as an impartial “analyst”:

On the January 11 NBC Nightly News broadcast, anchor Brian Williams seemed to be addressing that issue, introducing a segment by noting that “critics say he’s exaggerating the problem to sell his plan, while not yet talking about big cuts in future retiree benefits.”

But the report that followed included no such critics of the administration’s “crisis” rhetoric.

[…]

NBC did include comments from one worker who was worried about future benefit cuts in Social Security. His fears were balanced by a soundbite from David John, billed by NBC as a “Social Security Analyst” and one of the “supporters of the benefit cut.” Left unmentioned, however, was Johns’ institutional affiliation: He works for the conservative Heritage Foundation, one of the most active pro-privatization think tanks in the country.

Columbia Journalism Review’s CJR Daily echoed a frequent Media Matters complaint, criticizing New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller for presenting a disagreement about Social Security’s future as a simple difference of opinion rather than a matter of fact:

Bumiller handles these uncomfortable facts deeper in the story, writing, “Even without changes, Mr. Bush’s critics say, the system would be able to pay three-quarters of promised benefits four decades from now, when baby boomers have long retired.” (Italics added [by CJR Daily].)

As we just pointed out, the system will be able to pay three-quarters of promised benefits four decades from now. This is fact, not conjecture, and not tenuous political rhetoric. But instead of laying it out as fact, Bumiller hides behind the coattails of “Mr. Bush’s critics.”

Here, we call it “reportorial authority,” and it doesn’t require finding unnamed “critics” to hide behind. In this case, it requires nothing more than going to nonpartisan sources like the CBO, or Social Security’s actuaries, to ascertain the veracity of a provocative statement uttered by a partisan.

As the Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby explained:

Correcting misstatements by major officials is part of a journalist’s job description! And they shouldn’t feel they have to find a Democratic spokesman to contradict Bush; that is their job as reporters. As we think Michael Kinsley first asked, how stupid would it be to write something like this: “Today, George Bush said the earth is flat. A Democratic spokesman quickly challenged him.” Objective reporters don’t need third parties to interject simple matters of fact.