This little video says it best. The Founding Fathers were NOT Christian.

From the Washington Post (Bolds are Mine)

AS ONE OF THE top appropriations staffers to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), Letitia White made a nice salary. Ms. White, who oversaw the dispensation of earmarks for Mr. Lewis, earned almost $118,000 in 2000 and nearly $125,000 in 2001. But the following year, Ms. White took a hefty pay cut: Her pay dropped to slightly over $113,000. An effort to save the taxpayers money?

Don’t bet on it. The rules — such as they are — that require congressional staff members to wait a single year before lobbying their former committees apply only to those who earn a certain amount — in 2002, $112,500. Even though Ms. White was a bit over that limit, her pay cut, on an annualized basis, put her $80 below the cap — and cleared the way for her to join a lobbying firm and rake in $670,000 in lobbying fees during her first year in business. Why endure a cooling-off period when your former boss makes you a hot commodity?

Ms. White’s lucrative trip through the revolving door was detailed by Paul Kane last week in Roll Call. The story reported how in March 2002, Ms. White and her husband went on a nearly $9,000, nine-day trip to Italy paid for by defense contractor General Atomics. The company received $6.1 million in two separate earmarks in the defense appropriations bill passed that year. Ms. White left the appropriations staff on Jan. 8, 2003; she joined the lobbying firm renamed Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & White on Jan. 9. Name partner Bill Lowery is a former Republican congressman from California who is one of Mr. Lewis’s closest friends. And guess who Ms. White signed up as a client on her first day? General Atomics.

I urge you to read this, this is the bill that will distroy America.

Thanks to Balkinization for hosting the PDF

We were digging around in the Friday News Dump, and look what we have found. The Bush administration has sold $4.1 to 6 billion in some of the finest United States military hardware we make to the Arabs. The benefactor of our military hardware, Abrams Battle Tanks and Apache helicopters to Saudi Arabia, and missiles and helicopters to Bahrain, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Now please note that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and the money to fund the project was funneled through the United Arab Emirates. Great, we are egging on a total war in the region and we are arming as many people as we can!

Here is the Google search.

Oh, look what we found in the “Friday News Dump”, Bush’s new terror detainee bill that he wants would allow him to suspend the rights of Americans as he sees fit. The bill would allow Bush to deem anyone loosely suspected of terrorism and remove due process, access to a lawyer, a guarantee of a speedy trial, and much more. Now I know you right-wing nuts will say “If you have done nothing wrong, why are you worried” well for 2 reasons. Reason one is what this administration defines as a terrorist, so far we have found PETA, an Amish Church, many anti-war groups, and people who are just expressing their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Secondly, you right wingers should fear the same power in Hillary Clinton’s hand (I don’t!), if Bush’s bill goes through we can all look forward to Hillary declaring the GOP terrorists and rounded ya all up.

If this does not make you sick, then you are a good German, and I hope you like your new Nazis!

From the AP (bolds are mine!)

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

-snip-

According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."

Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.

"That’s the big question … the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.

Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court — and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.

The administration’s proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.

-snip-

Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he expects to take up the detainee legislation in September.

Yah Bush wants to poice state, and you fucked up Republicans are going to allow it, way to be good Germans!

Who’s on the Armed Services Committee?  Here are the Senators along with their offices’ phone numbers.

Republicans
John Warner, Chairman (Virginia): (202) 224-2023
John McCain (Arizona): (202) 224-2235
James Inhofe (Oklahoma): (202) 224-4721
Pat Roberts (Kansas): (202) 224-4774
Jeff Sessions (Alabama): (202) 224-4124
Susan Collins (Maine): (202) 224-2523
John Ensign (Nevada): (202) 224-6244
James Talent (Missouri): (202) 224-6154
Saxby Chambliss (Georgia): (202) 224-3521
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina): (202) 224-5972
Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina): (202) 224-6342
John Cornyn (Texas): (202) 224-2934
John Thune (South Dakota): (202) 224-2321

Democrats
Carl Levin, Ranking Minority Member (Michigan): (202) 224-6221
Edward Kennedy (Massachusetts): (202) 224-4543
Robert Byrd (West Virginia): (202) 224-3954
Joe Lieberman (Connecticut): (202) 224-4041
Jack Reed (Rhode Island): (202) 224-4642
Daniel Akaka (Hawaii): (202) 224-6361
Bill Nelson (Florida): (202) 224-5274
Ben Nelson (Nebraska): (202) 224-6551
Mark Dayton (Minnesota): (202) 224-3244
Evan Bayh (Indiana): (202) 224-5623
Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York): (202) 224-4451

Well looks like they have been busted. The Coal Industry puts out a memo that they should cast doubt on Global Warming.

ThinkProgress has the details..

A secret memo by the coal industry details a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about global warming. The memo expresses fear that if the government addresses climate change — through a carbon tax or regulating greenhouse gasses — it will cut into their profits.

Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists.” (The memo also refers to people who believe in global warming science as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”)

But the coal-based utility leading the campaign ran up against a problem: there is no scientific community who agrees with them. The memo acknowledges almost everyone who disputes global warming science have no “involvement in climatology.” So they’ve decided to lavish funding on one climatologist who will do their bidding: Pat Michaels.

The memo describes how the coal-based utility contributed “$100,000 to Dr. Michaels this year.” It also “contacted all the [utilities] in the United States” asking for contributions to Michaels’ research and “obtained additional contributions.” Here are a few highlights from Michaels’ career:

– In 2003, Michaels famously “proved” that global warming was mostly hype by mixing up degrees and radians.

– In 2004, Michaels told Business Week, “We know how much the planet is going to warm. It is a small amount, and we can’t do anything about it.”

– This year, Michaels completely misrepresented a study by Curt Davis to falsely claim that Antartica has been gaining ice in recent years.

In 2003, A Harvard scientist told the Senate Republican Policy Committee that Michaels has “published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”

Funding Michaels is part of a larger propaganda campaign, involving several industries, described in the memo. Other activities include bankrolling a movie that attacks An Inconvenient Truth, deceptive advertisements by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and aggressive lobbying. Corporations meet regularly with Michaels and CEI to discuss strategy.

You can read the memo here. Desmog blog has more.

John Bolton, the un-confirmed US Ambassador to the United Nations, office threatened the website ThinkProgress if they published the fact that John Bolton was to busy giving speeches at foreign right-wing think-tanks than to do his job at the UN and go an a trip to look at the genocide going on in the country of Sudan. When they called to confirm this fact the office of John Bolton “Grenell also told us if we publicized the fact that Bolton had not attended UNSC trips “we’ll just blast you out of the water.””

This is the “man” Bush wants as our top Ambassador (Bush had to recess appoint him last tim), the man that had a decision to make, Right-wing think-tank, or mass slaughter of human beings, Bolton choose to turn his back on the human beings (Much like the rest of the Bush Administration). Now I am sure it would have been different if the people being slaughtered were white, but they were not, because as you know, the Bush administration hates brown people, all brown people.

This story makes me so sad, you Bush supporters should be ashamed of yourselves, that this is the what you have chosen to put our men in women in because you were told by the moron in chief that this is somehow a noble cause. That Iraq, a nation that did nothing to us, had no way of doing something to us, is worth the 2600 men we have lost, the 50,000 we have wounded, and the 300 billion we have thrown away. Shame on you, you have blood on your hands. All the while, Afghanistan’s Taliban, the ones that “hosted” those that perpetrated 9/11 are taking over Afghanistan again. Read this, this is what you have done…

From the Washington Post

July 26 Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question about morale for more than an hour. But not until his convoy of armored Humvees had finally rumbled back into the Baghdad military base, and the soldiers emptied the ammunition from their machine guns, and passed off the bomb-detecting robot to another patrol, did he turn around in his seat and give his answer.
   

"Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."

Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said.

As President Bush plans to deploy more troops in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers who have been patrolling the capital for months describe a deadly and infuriating mission in which the enemy is elusive and success hard to find. Each day, convoys of Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles leave Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad with the goal of stopping violence between warring Iraqi religious sects, training the Iraqi army and police to take over the duty, and reporting back on the availability of basic services for Iraqi civilians.

From the Washington Post (Bolds are Mine, So there)

The discord at a conference in Rome yesterday over a proposed cease-fire in Israel and Lebanon underscored the widening gap between the United States and Europe over how to stop the fighting. And the images of mayhem from the two-week-old war, combined with the rising death toll in Iraq, have further rattled a domestic audience that polls show was already uncertain about Bush’s leadership.

For the president, the timing could not be much worse. In a second term marked by one setback after another, the White House was in the midst of a rebuilding effort aimed at a political comeback before November’s critical midterm elections. Now the president faces the challenge of responding to events that seem to be spinning out of control again, all but sidelining his domestic agenda for the moment and complicating his effort to rally the world to stop nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

The crisis imperils one of Bush’s signature ambitions. This is a president who eschewed Middle East peacemaking of the past as futile, embarking instead on a grand plan to remake the region into a more democratic, peaceful place. A year ago, a wave of reform seemed to take hold. Yet today radicalism is on the rise, Iran is believed to be closer to nuclear weapons and Bush is sending thousands more troops to Baghdad to quell spiraling violence.

End Short the Washington Post is saying, Bush, the “President” of the United States is a total failure, everything he touches turns to crap, because crap makes crap.

It is getting to the point that the White House is not even hiding it’s contempt for Congress, and the American people. Every time we turn around we learn yet another thing Bush and his Republican conspirators hide from American and Congress.

From the Washington Post

The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it had long known about Pakistan’s plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor, but it said the White House was working to dissuade Pakistan from using the plant to expand its nuclear arsenal.

The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos. Snow said the administration had "known of these plans for some time."

The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia’s arms race. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. nuclear policy toward India and Pakistan.

What are we going to learn next, Bush knew about 9/11, and choose to do nothing, oh wait….

• Why did Bush cut and run from Afghanistan?
• Is this what the American people paid for, a failed state with our name all over it?
• Do we get our money back? Where is Osama bin Laden?
• If we went to Afghanistan to get those that perpetrated 9/11, are we to assume that the failure of this operation should be taken a message to the victim of 9/11 that they have served their propose to cause chaos in the whole of the Middle East, and you really don’t give a shit about the victims?

Bush has squandered the tragic events of 9/11 to further the neo-con cause. The Neo-cons do not give a rat’s ass about Americans, only war, and the profit of war.

Well this fall out in the Middle East is going just like the neo-cons want. What we are seeing is a plan called “Clean Break”, Randi Rhodes read this on the air. The Bush/Cheney people will not be happy until the have totally fucked us, they want the war they were promised with the USSR, and they will be damned if the whole collapse of Communism is going to stop them. Damn the neo-cons have nukes, and want to use them.

I beg of you my readers to take the 14 mins (22 mins for the slower readers) to read all of this. Know thy enemy.

From the Executive Intelligence Review, please note that this was penned on October 17 of 2003! (bolds are mine)

Turn the clock back seven years. On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle, currently a member, and formerly the head of the Defense Policy Board in the Don Rumsfeld Pentagon, delivered a document to the new Israeli Prime Minister, Jabotinskyite Benjamin Netanyahu. Perle, and a team of American neo-cons, had been tasked by Netanyahu—through the Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS)—to draft a strategy for abrogating the Oslo Accords and overturning the entire concept of "comprehensive land for peace," in favor of a jackboot policy of U.S.-Israeli-Turkish raw military conquest and occupation.

The short policy memo, which Netanyahu, and his successor-Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, totally adopted as the core strategy of their administrations, spelled out a four-pronged attack on the peace process and the entire Arab world. It has become a self-evident truth that, since the Bush "43" and Sharon governments came into power simultaneously in early 2001, "A Clean Break" has been the guiding strategic doctrine of both—particularly following the irregular warfare attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Perle-Wurmser policy document demanded: 1) Destroy Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, blaming them for every act of Palestinian terrorism, including the attacks from Hamas, an organization which Sharon had helped launch during his early 1980s tenure as Minister of Defense. 2) Induce the United States to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. 3) Launch war against Syria after Saddam’s regime is disposed of, including striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and targets in Syria proper. 4) Parlay the overthrow of the Ba’athist regimes in Baghdad and Damascus into the "democratization" of the entire Arab world, including through further military actions against Iran, Saudi Arabia, and "the ultimate prize," Egypt (see Documentation following for the "Clean Break" report).

Later in Fed 25, 2005, following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri the EIR wrote

The document flatly stated that Israel should engage "Hisbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by … establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces [and] striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper." Furthermore, it said, Israel should divert "Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon." The paper also called for focussing on "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq…."

The outcome of the regional convulsions provoked by the "Clean Break" doctrine, was to be a new Middle East, with Israel hegemonic in the region, presiding over a series of newly balkanized states, run by puppet regimes. The Bush Administration has recently restated its intention to pick off these governments, dubbed "outposts of tyranny," one by one. The order in which they were to be hit was assumed to start with Iran. Instead, Syria was moved into first place.

I find it odd that the “President” has to release a Press Release that is called “Setting the Record Straight: President Bush’s Foreign Policy Is Succeeding”. How bad does your administration have to be to have to “Set the Record Straight”. This is a clear indication that the foreign policy is a total failure if you have to “Set the Record Straight” clearly your actions are calling you a failure, so you have to put out a press release. I find this funny as hell.

What is more shocking is this tripe by the White House has endorsed allowing Israelis to basically do the administrations dirty work.

On Wednesday, Max Boot Wrote: “Our Best Response Is Exactly What Bush Has Done So Far – Reject Premature Calls For A Cease-Fire And Let Israel Finish The Job.” (Max Boot, “It’s Time To Let The Israelis Take Off The Gloves,” Los Angeles Times, 7/19/06)

Yah, Bush knows America does not want to go to more failed wars with failes leaders, so he is going to allow others to force us into the war he wants so bad!

It is becoming crystal clear to me that Joe Lieberman was only in it for himself, he does not care about the democratic process, he does not care about Democrats, he does not care about America, he only cares about himself, period. His people said he is not ruling out a party switch from "Democrat" to Republican if the Democrats do not give them a win he thinks he has earned… I am not kidding folks, Joe will take his cry baby toys and change parties if he looses the primary. Well yet another reason why I would not vote for him. I feel a REAL Democrat would never switch.

Yesterday we brought you word that some Republicans in Connecticut think it would be a good idea to offer their line to Joe Lieberman if he loses the Dem primary to Ned Lamont and if current GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger can be given the push […]

So today Election Central has just posed a simple question to the Lieberman campaign:

Will Lieberman or will he not rule out running on the GOP line if he loses to Lamont in August and it’s offered to him?

This is fairly straightforward: Yes, or no? Which is it?

The question has been posed to Lieberman campaign deputy press secretary Noah Kores, and the campaign is mulling it.

I hope he is sent home packing.

France, UK, Russia, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, and many many more nations have been getting there people out of Lebanon for days now, America, just got there. Americans can not get any info from the embassy or anywhere else. Bush has apparently enacted the now famous, and deadly, Katrina Doctrine. What is the Katrina Doctrine you may ask, easy it is a clear understanding between the people of America, and the government they pay for that be it at home or aboard your government will not be there to help you should the gates of hell open up. Bush’s Katrina Doctrine: Adapt or Die, your on your own.

From CNN

Tony and Monika Esseily and their three children were asleep in their apartment, nearing the end of a month-long holiday, when Israel began bombing Beirut.

"It was an extreme shock when I woke up and — actually, we heard it," Monika Esseily told CNN. "3:20 in the morning, we got up, and the whole sky was just alit. And I’m like, ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no.’ "

Beirut’s airport was closed after Israel warplanes bombed its runways, and every night is punctuated by the sound of airstrikes. (Read story on recent airstrikes)

"I have two kids [and] a baby, and they’re scared. I’m scared," Esseily said. "First time I’ve ever encountered something like this."