I don’t know what to say.. By the way, you know we have now been in Iraq longer than we were in WW2… Bush is a failure.

From Reuters via Yahoo!

The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops, the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

This follows July’s decision by commanders to augment the U.S. military presence in Baghdad to try to curb escalating sectarian violence that has heightened concern about all-out civil war in Iraq.

As American troops continue to fight a tenacious insurgency nearly 3 1/2 years into the war, U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached at least 62 in August — increasing from 43 in July and ending three straight monthly declines.

August’s total still was about average for a war in which about 64 U.S. troops have died per month. There have been 2,635 U.S. military deaths since war began in March 2003, and another 19,773 troops have been wounded in action, the Pentagon said.

Recent moves including the Pentagon’s July 27 decision to delay for up to four months the scheduled departure from Iraq of about 4,000 soldiers from an Alaska-based brigade have indicated significant U.S. troop cuts are unlikely in the near future.

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I am guessing that Bush’s war in Iraq is far more important than anything on the home front, crime has sky-rocketed, and law enforcement is strapped for cash (Republicans cuts in funding) and forced to work on “War on Terror”

From Washington Post (Bolds are Mine)

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told a gathering of mayors and police chiefs from 50 cities that he was concerned about reports of growing violent crime _ including homicides, robberies and aggravated assault _ in cities nationwide. He acknowledged difficulties due to demands with fighting terror and wars abroad.

"I’m well aware that there are many needs and desires on the part of law enforcement that we have not been able to serve well," McNulty said at the national crime summit organized by the Police Executive Research Forum.

He said the Justice Department was seeking more funds for its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives division to stem gun trafficking. But reclaiming money that was diverted from crime-fighting to anti-terror efforts may be difficult, he said.

"I wish I could stand here and say all that will be restored in the next year or two," McNulty said. "We are facing some big challenges. I see the challenges in fighting the war on terror. I see it is very expensive to fund soldiers overseas. At the same time, we have to find ways to get resources to win here at home."

Congrats Bush and the Republicans, we are now no longer safe anywhere!

It is no secret that the Senator from the State of Virginia, George Allen, is a raciest of the highest order. He called a dark-skinned man, who was born in Virginia, a “Macaca” not to long ago, and then claimed that he made the word up (“Macaca” is a racial slur used in places like Tunisia to describe the “locals”, now you may say, “How would he know that? Well Allen is fluent in French, and his mother is from Tunisia). Well the glossy veneer that the raciest Allen has painted on is starting to chip, and boy are we seeing just how over-the-top raciest this man is.

The Nation has done a little digging, and unearthed a lot of Hate from Allen.

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.

…After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC’s newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum’s point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

Descended from the White Citizens’ Councils…the CCC is designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In its "Statement of Principles," the CCC declares, "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races."

Lowell at Raising Kaine dug up some quotes that illustrate what, exactly, the CCC and their good friend Allen are all about.

*"Each of the three major races plays a distinct role in history. . . . The whites were the creators of civilization, the yellows its sustainers and copyists, the blacks its destroyers." (www.cofcc.org, 12/98)

*Abraham Lincoln was "surely the most evil American in history," and Martin Luther King was a "depraved miscreant." (www.cofcc.org, 12/98)

*"The Jews’ motto is ‘never forget, and never forgive.’ One can’t agree with the way they’ve turned spite into welfare billions for themselves, but the ‘never forget’ part is very sound." (Citizens Informer, Winter/97)

*"The presence [in Congress] of even one white person with our interests foremost in his mind is simply unacceptable to the issues-obsessed conservative race traitors. Texas Governor George Bush and his brother Jeb in Florida have manifested their self-hatred by embracing Hispanics ahead of whites. Somehow we must find a way to relieve whites of their self-hatred." ("Open Letter to White People," www.cofcc.org, 12/98)]

A Tip of the hat to the DailyKOS for finding these gems.

I live not to far from the DC area, and I work in Virginia, so I have been forced to watch his ads, and I will tell you this, he is not pointing out how much as a raciest son-of-a-bitch he is in NO.VA. I would also like to note that he started running his ads MONTHS ago, and would not say he is a Republican, odd.

The same idiot that brought you the greatest phrase ever uttered by an old man, “It’s not a dump truck, it is a series of tubes” when speaking about the internet has found yet another thing that he does not want in the tubes, and that is information about how your government spends money. Senator Ted Stephens has good reason to keep this information out of the tubes, because he is the master of the earmark, the fattest pig at the government teat, remember the “bridge to nowhere?” (for the record, the “bridge to nowhere did go somewhere, that somewhere was to a remote island who’s main property owner was in fact the Senator. Had the earmark made it the $1 billion dollar bridge would have been a huge windfall for the Republican)

TPM Muckrakers picks it up.

>Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) held up a bill that would create a free, searchable database of government contracts and grants because he was worried about the proposal’s price tag, his spokesman told me this afternoon. Its cost has been estimated at $15 million.

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Stevens’ office has asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the sponsor of the bill, for "a cost-benefit analysis to make sure this does not create an extra layer of unnecessary bureaucracy,” spokesman Aaron Saunders said. The Senator “wanted to make sure that this wasn’t going to be a huge cost to the taxpayer and that it achieves the goal which the bill is meant to achieve.”

Saunders added that Stevens’ hold was not "secret," and that he would back the bill if the analysis shows that "it achieves its goal and it achieves its goal well."

But Sen. Coburn’s spokesman John Hart questioned Stevens’ motive. "The only reason to oppose this bill is if he has something to hide," Hart said.

haha. that is rich coming from the man that has been nothing but a "huge cost to the taxpayer"

From ThinkProgress

This morning, the Census Bureau released new figures about health insurance, income, and poverty. It’s not a pretty picture.

The number of Americans without health insurance continues to rise at an alarming rate, men and women are earning less money and there are as many people living in poverty as there have ever been. Some key stats:

– In 2005, 46.6 million people were without health insurance coverage, up from 45.3 million people in 2004.

– The percentage of people without health insurance coverage increased from 15.6 percent in 2004 to 15.9 percent in 2005.

– The median earnings of men declined 1.8 percent to $41,386. The median earnings of women declined 1.3 percent to $31,858.

– In 2005, 37.0 million people were in poverty, not statistically different from 2004.

This helps explain why just 32% of Americans approve of Bush’s handling of the economy. Just 22% believe the economy is getting better, “the lowest level of public confidence in the direction of the economy seen in five years.”

Because he is half-black. I guess according to this messed up group of "Christians" in the state of Mississippi…

From The Carpetbagger Report

First up from the God machine this week is a Baptist church that is filled with the Christian spirit — just as long as church officials approve of your racial background.

Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo, Mississippi, voted out a 12-year-old boy who "asked Jesus to live in his heart" at the church two weeks ago. Why the ban? Joe is biracial, and church members didn’t want the black side of his family attending with him.

They were "afraid Joe might come with his people and have blacks in the church," church pastor John Stevens told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

To his credit, Pastor Stevens resigned from the church the same day 12-year-old Joe was voted out of the church. Cliff Hardy, a local police officer, also resigned from the church. "My best friend is a black man," he said. "I wouldn’t be comfortable going to a place where I couldn’t ask my best friend to go to church with me."

The local paper contacted church members, but they refused comment. Go figure.

He has some other great things in his "This Week in God" post.

The Bush Administration and the Republican House and Senate members that protect him want you to think that Iraq is going great. This is a crock of crap if there ever was one.

Bush has already made it clear he has NO PLAN to win in Iraq. Bush also told us over and over “As soon as the Iraqis stand-up, we will stand-down” this policy changed on Monday, and the new plan is, as long as Bush is in the White House we WILL NOT take our troops out of Iraq as long as he is the “President”. That is the new plan, No matter how bad it is, no matter how many troops die, as long as Bush is in the White House we are there to stay, period!

Now this weekend you may here some right-wing talking heads telling you how great Iraq is going, and they will point to the British turning over a base in the south. Now this may from the “one-liner” that may sound great, but the fact is, this has been a disaster. The “Iraqi Troops” that the British turned the base over looted the base, and then mutinied and started to attack other Iraqi troops! No I am not making this ship up, out troops are in the middle of a total cluster-fuck!

From the Washington Post (The Bolds are Mine)

British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling, a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" trumpeted a message from Sadr’s office that played on car-mounted speakers in Amarah, capital of the southern province of Maysan. "We have to celebrate this occasion!"

-snip-

The withdrawal sparked wide-scale looting at the base and then intense clashes late Thursday between Iraqi army forces guarding the camp and unknown attackers, a military intelligence official said. The volatile situation worsened when the 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi army’s 4th Brigade mutinied and attacked a local military outpost, said the official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

The British soldiers, members of the Queen’s Royal Hussars, are preparing to trade their heavy Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior fighting vehicles for lightweight Land Rovers, Burbridge said. They expect to become a flexible, mobile force with no fixed base and receive supplies by airdrops.

Everyday Bush makes me SO proud that he is the "President". In Bush’s America we work to erase 50 years of equality because everyone knows black people do not vote Republican. If you do not vote Republican to Bush, you are not human. What next? Maybe some “Colored People” water fountains at the White House?

From the Shreport Times

Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials.

Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also is considering filing a formal charge with the U.S. Department of Justice. NAACP District Vice President James Panell, of Shreveport, said he would apprise Justice attorneys of the situation this week. He’s considering asking for an investigation into the bus incident and other aspects of the school system’s operations, including pupil-teacher ratio as it relates to the numbers of white and black children, along with a breakdown of the numbers of black and white teachers employed.

"If the smoke is there, then there’s probably fire somewhere else," Panell said in a phone interview from New Orleans. "At this point, it is extremely alarming. We fought that battle 50 years ago, and we won. Why is this happening again?"

Easley would not comment much on the allegations Wednesday, saying it is a personnel issue. She acknowledged that she has investigated the claim. And she confirmed that the bus driver did not run her route Wednesday, nor would she today.

Asked if the driver would work for the rest of the year, Easley said, "I’m not going to answer the questions. "» You’re getting all that you’re going to get from me. I’m sorry."

Red River Elementary School Principal Jamie Lawrence tried to rectify the seating situation when it was brought to her attention. But it was ultimately handled at the Central Office, Patricia Sessoms said.

Sessoms aunt, Iva Richmond, is the mother of two of the children, ages 14 and 15, and foster parent to three others, ages 5, 6 and 10. Janice Williams, who is the mother of the other four children, is Richmond’s neighbor. All nine children catch the bus at a stop on Ashland Road.

Is there nothing tat the GOP would not do to further weaken and politicize everything in America. If you have heard some weirdo drove from New Orleans to thank the “President” for his great work fixing the Gulf Coast. From what I have seen, he is the ONLY person that has been helped by this administration.

This was not the spontaneous event that Bush and the new media would like you to think it was, in fact like most of this administration; it was all a big set-up. The “grateful citizen” Rockey Vaccarella is a right wing hack (like most in the right wing).

Attytood has the full story

This guy is a symbol of the misery that so many people in Louisiana and Mississippi? If we didn’t know any better, this couldn’t have been more of home run for Bush if the whole thing had been set up by Karl Rove.

Hmmmmm…

In fact, we had a hunch — that maybe, just maybe, Rockey Vaccarella had a background himself in GOP politics.

And, whaddya know? Turns out that the earthy Vaccarella — a highly successful businessman in the fast-food industry — is indeed a Republican pol, having run unsuccessfully under the GOP banner for a seat on the St. Bernard Parish commission back in 1999. We don’t have a good link, but here (via Nexis) is part of his bio that ran in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on Oct. 15, 1999:

ROCKEY VACCARELLA
PERSONAL
Republican
35. Born in New Orleans. Grew up in Arabi and Chalmette. Lived 11 years in
Meraux.
Married, two children.
Graduated from Chalmette High, 1982. Attended St. Bernard Community
College.
Director of operations, Lundy Enterprises, as manager of 31 Pizza Hut
restaurants and 450 employees. Former general restaurant manager of Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits on East Judge Perez Drive in Chalmette.

And in fact, Vaccarella seemed very confident that he would be meeting with Bush when he left home, to the point where he had a date scheduled and everything:

Dinner with the President is planned for the evening of August 22nd.

As it turned out, dinner last night was with the White House aide running Katrina relief, and he met Bush at the White House today. Close enough. Before he left Louisiana earlier this month, Vaccarella made it clear that he’s no Cindy Sheehan:

This is just sad, uber-right-wing nut Randall Terry wants you to think he is all about family-values, just please ignore his gay son.

From Yahoo News.

Randall Terry, a right-wing Christian leader, doesn’t run away from "family-values issues" in his Florida state Senate race, but his gay son, Jamiel, says things are not what they seem.

Among the senior Terry’s pledges are preserving traditional marriage and opposing adoptions by gay men and lesbians. He has touted efforts to stop abortions. His campaign mailers sum up the value he puts on family: They show a picture of him with his wife, a daughter, and three grinning young sons — taken before a fourth was born this summer.

But Jamiel, Terry’s adopted son, says the picture is missing two people — him and his sister, Tila, also adopted. Both have been estranged from Terry since Jamiel came out as a gay man and Tila had a child out of wedlock.

Odd, I thought that gay children only came from gay parents, or is Randall not telling us the whole story. It also calls into question the right-wing family-values agenda as a whole, if wing-nut Randall Terry can’t make sure his son is not gay and his other child is not a getting knocked-up then it is safe to say the whole agenda is tripe.

CNN is reporting…

The U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday it has been authorized to recall thousands of Marines to active duty, primarily because of a shortage of volunteers for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number of Marines who may be forced back into service in the coming years. The call-ups will begin in the next several months.

This is the first time the Marines have had to use the involuntary recall since the early days of the Iraq combat. The Army has ordered back about 14,000 soldiers since the start of the war.

Marine Col. Guy A. Stratton, head of the manpower mobilization section, estimated that there is a shortfall of about 1,200 Marines needed to fill positions in upcoming unit deployments.

What part of Iraq is a "miracle" to the Republican Hack Sen. James Inhofe from sad state of OK. He said that the U.S. involvement in Iraq has been incredibly successful and developments there have been "nothing short of a miracle,"

It is a miracle this man can breath and drive at the same time, it is a miracle he has not sold the state of Oklahoma to.. wait, he is a Republican he has sold the whole nation out.

it is time to send these dumb-asses home, or to the front lines in Iraq, your call.

Please remember that the number of Nuclear bombs held by North Korea before George Bush, Zero, the number they have now, more than 5. Yah Bush! Now North Korea says that it wants to go to war with the west! Yah Bush! Do us a favor George and go-away, because of your foreign policy, or total lack thereof the world is a far more dangerous place than it was before you came along. You SUCK at making America safe, and the loser Republicans that have allowed you to make us less safe SUCK as well.

From the Reuters

North Korea said it had the right to launch a pre-emptive attack to counter a U.S.-South Korean joint military training drill, its official media reported on Tuesday.

U.S. and South Korean troops began military exercises on Monday dubbed Ulchi Focus Lens that are aimed at testing command structures and communications.

The annual exercises have been held without incident since they began in 1975 and the North usually brands them as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war.

But the drills this year are being held with tensions high on the peninsula after North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles on July 5 and reports last week it may preparing to test a nuclear weapon.

In its KCNA news agency, North Korea said the drills were "an undisguised military threat and blackmail against the DPRK (North Korea) and a war action."

"The Korean Peoples’ Army side, therefore, reserves the right to undertake a pre-emptive action for self-defense against the enemy at a crucial time it deems necessary to defend itself," the agency cited an army spokesman as saying.

Wow, these people are so dumb. I am starting to think that the Death Cult called Christianity has had a good run, but it is time to go… Fired by the church because she is a gal, after 54 years at the same church. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

From AP

WATERTOWN, N.Y. (AP) - The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church.

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city’s day-to-day operations is a woman.

"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert’s dismissal.

"If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age," Graham said. "Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now."

Lambert has publicly criticized the decision, but the church did not publicly address the matter until Saturday, a day after its board met.

In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert’s dismissal, but it did not say what they were.