Andrew Sullivan reports some disturbing news — particularly if you happen to be Lindsey Graham:
Next week, I’m informed via troubled White House sources, will see the full
unveiling of Karl Rove’s fall election strategy. He’s intending to line up 9/11
families to accuse McCain, Warner and Graham of delaying justice for the
perpetrators of that atrocity, because they want to uphold the ancient judicial
traditions of the U.S. military and abide by the Constitution. He will use the
families as an argument for legalizing torture, setting up kangaroo courts for
military prisoners, and giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies.
This is his "Hail Mary" move for November; it’s brutally exploitative of 9/11;
it’s pure partisanship; and it’s designed to enable an untrammeled executive.
Decent Republicans, Independents and Democrats must do all they can to expose
and resist this latest descent into political thuggery. If you need proof that
this administration’s first priority is not a humane and effective
counter-terror strategy, but a brutal, exploitative path to retaining power at
any price, you just got it.
Related Posts
Brad, could it be possible that the 9-11 families plan on speaking exactly what they think? Or are you thinking Rove has them hypnotized?
Speaking of Lindsey, here’s what he had to say on the anniversary on 9/11. I just got the release a little while ago…
Brad…
this may be your weakest post ever. Weak on so many points it is not worth stating them. I hope, in the morning when u wake up…u recall this post. It is embarrassing.
Chris
As pathetic as Lindsey Graham has become.
Remember, Brad, you don’t have to stop hating Dear Leader to want us to win in Iraq.
Brad,
if you want to be a sub-blogger to Sullivan, why don’t you just ask him to hire you? You have added absolutely zero value to Sullivan’s post and if we want to read his blog, I’m sure we could do so without your help.
I don’t know if this is the worst of your posts but it’s got to be in the top 5, at least.
Personally, I hope Graham is toast in 2008. Anybody but Graham! He has been a major disappointment as a senator. I guess that’s what happens to a once decent guy when the drive-by media sycophants surround him every single day and he lets all the faked flattery get to his head.
Yes, absolutely, Lexie. We need another GOP rubber stamp like Demint.
Jeez, maybe there’s a large marionette for Bush that can stand run against Graham next time.
Thanks for publishing Sullivan’s post.It shows again how low this administration will sink to control and destroy the nation.Last night’s speech did not commemorate the victims of 9/11.Once again,he used the tragedy for his own delusional political means.I don’t hate Bush anymore.It’s gone beyond that.I believe he’s truly evil.He’s the most dangerous “man” in the world.
Bill,
Or the stupidest.
After seeing Bush’s “commemoration” last night – and now seeing this, I have absolutely no regrets for resisting Brad’s call for unity. When we have a president who doesn’t see every issue as an opportunity to expand his own power, then we can talk about unity.
There is a bit of a Catch-22 here. In order to govern you have to get elected. Apparently the way to get elected in this country is to engage in political skuldudgery. If you don’t engage in partisan mud-slinging (as Democrats usually do) you don’t get elected. Hence the delimma. So what we end up with is a group of people that are brilliant, ruthless campaigners but are tragically flawed when it comes time to govern.
Oh wait Dave, you mean 9/11 families like the ones that Ann Coulter shredded for speaking out against the Idiot in Chief.
Sorry, I forgot Democrats aren’t allowed to express opinions anymore because we all hate America (it has been scientifically proven by Lee for those of you who missed it). Also, forgot about the double standard here on this blog.
I don’t think any of those senators has much to worry about. They’re all more popular than Bush in their home states, and all of them have attained a national stature that makes them difficult to beat back with faux indignation.
The ironic thing is, these senators are being targeted for suggesting that integral parts of the Constitution should be a part of US tribunals. I can think of few times in American history when standing up for the Constitution would land you on the President’s blacklist. Apparently our president’s administration has joined that unworthy roll.
Of course, Andrew Sullivan could be wrong, in which case we’re really having a pertinent debate here.
I want Graham to explain his push for amnesty for 22,000,000 illegal aliens, and nothing to keep another 50,000,000 from coming in.
Sullivan’s been having a tough time ever since he realized that his sexual orientation can’t be reconciled with this Catholic faith and other conservative Christian traditions. He has gotten quite shrill over the years as his dislike for the Bush Administration has grown. That’s fine, but recognize that in his push for perfection, Sullivan enjoys the luxury of not having to act. He can sit back, make his comments, take his potshots, and keep on feeling sorry for himself. He, like most of us, is not charged with fulfilling an awesome responsibility. And it was clear to most of us last week that Bush was going to push Congress hard to get the questions opened by the Supreme’s Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, so Rove — and others — will surely play a role in getting Congress to act, so Sullivan’s invocation of demon Karl should be expected.
Let’s look at some of the issues in the mini-screed Brad excerpted. .
Legalizing torture. “Torture” is easier to define than what’s covered in the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, particularly Article 16 which reads in part:
I’m not being flippant when I note that some parts of my basic training were degrading; some hazing incidents are known for being remarkably cruel and inhuman. Bush is asking Congress to legislate a standard in accordance with the convention.
Setting up kangaroo courts for military prisoners. This refers to Bush’s speech last week on setting up military commissions to try suspected terrorists. The Bush administration has published information on myths and facts regarding the its proposed legislation to create military commissions. Graham and others are pushing for something like the full courts martial approach as prescribed by the UCMJ UCMJ for military personnel. That seems unwarranted, unprecedented, and unwise. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, makes his case against the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and for what Congress should do here. Senator Graham needs to keep in mind that Gitmo detainees do not have POW status because they are unlawful combatants.
Giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies. This is related to the torture discussion above and already is having an impact on government personnel according to this article in yesterday’s WaPo
The Wall Street Journal calls it “Jack Bauer” insurance.
If Congress gets the “kangaroo” courts wrong and does not pass some sort of immunity, then we’ll run the risk of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed surrounded by his team of slip-and-fall attorneys suing the CIA, anyone who’s ever worked for the CIA, DoD, and everyone else.
Now there are folks who would like to see Bush, Rumsfeld, and others arrested; they will certainly make their voices heard. I’d urge them, just as I’d urge Sullivan, to consider the policy they want to create and whether we want to have a CIA and DOD staffed with professionals willing and able to do hard things to keep us safe, or whether they’d like to turn the whole mess over to criminal and civil attorneys who can chase former Bush administration officials and former civil servants around while New York burns.
Sullivan’s been having a tough time ever since he realized that his sexual orientation can’t be reconciled with this Catholic faith and other conservative Christian traditions.
Mike C
When you begin a diatribe with a line like that,there’s no point in reading the rest.
Mike writes:
“Senator Graham needs to keep in mind that Gitmo detainees do not have POW status because they are unlawful combatants.”
How do you know? What evidence do you have to support this claim? I could just as easily claim that because we’re holding these people indefinitely we’re incarcerating many innocent people.
That is the crux of the matter. We don’t know what there status is unless we have a trial. To hold them indefinitely is un-American.
Mike–I don’t know what Sullivan’s religion or sexual orientation has to do with this particular issue.
You’re making two assumptions with which I would take issue…one, that there are not some in power now or operating at CIA or DOD who possible SHOULD be subpoenaed, investigated, and/or prosecuted,
and two, that the granting of “flexibility” on rules of evidence, etc., would never be used for purposes beyond the terrorist threat.
Methinks Rove using techniques like trotting out 9/11 families is something akin to “going to the well” once too often. I predict backfire. Interesting, too, how it is Senators Graham, McCain, Warner…all three with strong military links, who are questioning all this most resolutely.
Oh, by the way, Mike, since we’re commemorating 9/11, here’s somebody…a hero no less…who was able to reconcile his sexual orientation with his Catholic faith.
Mike C:
Senator Graham needs to keep in mind that Gitmo detainees do not have POW status because they are unlawful combatants.
bud:
How do you know? What evidence do you have to support this claim?
RTH:
Mike “knows” this because Dear Leader told him ro believe it– just like Kim Jong Il tells his subjects what to believe.
George W. Bush would never mislead us. Ahhhh– Saddam’s WMD— chooo!
Reading all this trash makes me want to leave the country for the 2008 elections. I think they’re going to be the nastiest ever, and you can look at some of the posts above and see what it will be like.
And, jeez, stop trashing Brad. It is a little immature don’t you think? I don’t agree with some of what he says, but I don’t resort to name calling.
Rachel Maddow interviewed an innocent Gitmo detainee Moazzam Begg, author of
“Enemy Combatant My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar”
this morning on Air America. He spent years in prison without being charged. He was interrogated over 300 times, stripped naked and humiliated in other ways. His only crime was supporting Muslim resistance groups in Kosova against the tyrannt Mulosivich during the 90s’.
4 legs good, 2 legs bad! Watch how it will all snowball…
Was no one else reminded of Napoleon (the pig, not the runt)during Bush’s speech last night?
Orwell, maybe it was just me…
Nasty?
When Karl Rove is using all the power of the executive branch to whip up lynch mobs against senators (of his own party!), what would make you think that it won’t be gentlemanly discussion of ideas?
Bud & RTH — I looked it up. The terrorists move about without uniforms as civilians, using bona fide civilians as cover, to get into position to attack. See Qualification as POW. They don’t. There may be innocent Gitmo detainees, the one you cited was released. Some or all of what he said may be true.
Phillip — Sullivan’s disposition and tone seem to have taken a turn toward the bitter and cynical over the past several years. For a while he was of the opinion that the Church would lighten up and that the Bush administration would support same-sex marriage. I don’t care about his faith or sexual orientation except to the extent that he’s made such a big deal about both that it’s no longer worth the effort to dig for what used to be frequent nuggets of insight.
I agree that law-breakers should be punished. But note that the law is fuzzy with regards to what qualifies as degrading, inhumane, etc.; Bush and crew want better definitions. Keeping the law fuzzy means that folks won’t be sure of the limits and will tend to opt for caution over prudence. The congressional sausage machine will have to work this out, to achieve perfection.
Finally, Rove is not the left’s problem, the left is. You give him far too much credit. But please do focus on him rather than coming up with coherent alternatives. Here’s an idea, make up your own list like this one.
I think that Captain Worley has it about right.
Carl Rove is actually Ann Coulter without makeup.
Mike C,
Rove is everywhere. He even orders federal prosecutors to charge people with fraud!
Man Accused of Fraud Blames Karl Rove
The Geneva Convention applies to uniformed combatants of nations at war.
The Islamic terrorists are transnational guerrillas, assassins and killers of masses of innocent people, who do not wear the uniform or fly the flag of any nation. Their goal is to destroy governments in the Middle East, not to establish them.
Gitmo Detainees Return To Terror
7 Ex-Prisoners Allegedly Violated Pledge To Renounce Violence
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2004
(CBS/AP)
Some 146 detainees have been released from Guantanamo, but only after U.S. officials had determined the prisoners no longer posed threats and had no remaining intelligence value.
(AP) U.S. military officials say that despite being freed in exchange for signing pledges to renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, at times with deadly consequences.
At least two are believed to have died in fighting in Afghanistan, and a third was recaptured during a raid of a suspected training camp in Afghanistan, said Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman. Others are at large.
Additional former detainees are said to have expressed a desire to rejoin the fight, be it against U.N. peacekeepers in Afghanistan, Americans in Iraq or Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
Some 146 detainees have been released from Guantanamo, but only after U.S. officials had determined the prisoners no longer posed threats and had no remaining intelligence value.
Mike C:I looked it up. The terrorists move about without uniforms as civilians, using bona fide civilians as cover, to get into position to attack. See Qualification as POW. They don’t. There may be innocent Gitmo detainees, the one you cited was released. Some or all of what he said may be true.
Mike, you don’t have a clue whether the detainees at Gitmo are 100% terrorists or 90% victims of grudges, greed for reward money, or simply misfortunates who were in the wrong place.
Bush tells you that they’re “terrorists” and that’s all you need. You obviously don’t care either way and neither does Dear Leader.
If Bush were serious about debunking the terrorist hijacking of Islam then he would hold Nuremburg-type trials for the top-level terrorists– demonstrate American justice, one of our strongest and most attractive systems.
Instead he opts for secret, kangaroo courts like so many preceding authoritarians.
The two most frustrating aspects to this whole debate are that 1) the enemy is confused about its motives and 2) the arguments of domestic opponents are incoherent.
On Thursday, 9/7/06, Aljazeera television showed a 90-minute video with Osama bin Laden and senior al-Qaeda members meeting some of the men who carried out the September 11 attacks against the US in 2001.
Sheesh! The US and its NATO allies intervened to stop the slaughter of Muslims. It just servers as another reminder that no good deed goes unpunished and that the US will be hated by some no matter what we do..
Let me return to one of my favorites pumped up by domestic opponents, the Terrorist Surveillance Program. On one level, it’s illogical to fight a program that uses foreign signals intelligence systems to intercept communications between known foreign-based terrorists and their contacts in the US. If it’s legal to intercept the purely foreign communications — there’s no dispute about that, Congress wrote the rules years ago and has modified them from time to time — why raise a stink about the calls to the US? Think about this for a minute. Imagine that you’ve tapped into the broadband / telephone lines at Joe’s Jihad Camel-Stop on the Afghan / Pak border. You can legally record all calls all day long, except for those that have a US area code. Does that make sense? So you demand a warrant for the calls to the US area code — how do you get a warrant when you can’t name the parties involved, the specific content of the call, and other minutiae in advance? Moreover, the legal nuance some TSP opponents rely on is the definition of intercept: even recording and not listening to a conversation or reading an email constitutes an “intercept.” They’ve set criteria that are impossible to attain. (There is a procedural remedy built into the law that handles inadvertent technical violations of this sort: the recorded communication in question is erased along with any and all information [date, time, number called, number originating the call, etc.] about the call.)
Given the difficulty of getting legislation through Congress, the naiveté or idiocy of many of its members, and the importance of the information collected, a prudent person would find legal and practical means of keeping the program going. Bush found the authority in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) as I pointed out here, and it seemed to work well by keeping key leaders in Congress informed until the New York Times spilled the beans last December.
Federal Judge Richard A. Posner opines that the debate over the Terrorist Surveillance Program / warrantless wiretapping is odd, calling it “aridly legal” and recommending that Congress move promptly to remove any doubt by passing legislation authorizing it. Now there’s a pragmatic solution that Congress may finally be getting around to with the Bush administration’s urging.
There are other pragmatic solutions, but politics in a political year don’t bode well for any sort of legislation, even for things that both parties regard as essential.
Neat, no? I’m sure that the Republicans are or will be guilty of some of the same, but that’s Congress and you never sausage a place. (With apologies to Pedro.)
RTH – You wrote:
Er, that’s what the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision was all about. Bush and crew had to wait for the ruling to determine the legitimacy of the adjudication process. And if you were to examine what you recommend — Nuremburg-type trials — you’d find that there remain serious questions about the validity of that court. But, like most of what you hurl this way, the charge is baseless, devoid of fact or of informed opinion.
Which brings me to a possible banning moment. The nature of your input — the quality of your input and tone of your remarks — makes me wonder what your motivation is. This is an unfair question, but I’ll ask it since others on your side have certified that I am not a chickenhawk: Which is more important to you: defeating the terrorist threat or defeating Bush by defeating Republicans?
I ask this because you and yours have invested even more time creating a greater fantasy of an evil-doer Bush administration based on few facts and many outright distortions. Take the Plame Flameout. Even the “Dean of the Washington Press Corps” found the episode silly, singling out former Clinton administration hit-man Sidney Blumenthal for special treatment:
Three years of fantastic innuendo, speculation, charges, calumnies, and lies.
That you guys on this blog and Andrew Sullivan have bought into and boosted these fantasies is incredible. Do you really think that Bush and Rove believe they can gain votes by strong-arming McCain, Warner, and Graham? Don’t you think that they’ll be somewhat subtle, offering arguments both intellectual and emotional? Heck, I don’t know what Rovian tool will be used against these Republican Senators, but I am sure that it’s one that won’t upset the targets and the other potential rebels like the senators from Maine.
Have you seen the Rove events that C-SPAN broadcasts? You ought to, because he’s a keen analyst that interprets the polls well and describes quite openly what to do to win. He talks about turnout, how to maximize turnout, how to win. The Democrats should pay more attention because Rove opens says what the Republicans are going to do and why they are going to do it.
Actually, Democrats probably do pay attention, but can’t come up with a compelling, coherent message that will win enough independents while generating the funds needed from the far-left moneybags, the trustfunder left.
There are plenty of grounds on which to attack Bush without resorting to fantasy. Fiscal responsibility is a great one that would even attract votes from the right. Unfortunately, Democrats don’t have a good track record there except in the matter of raising tax rates.
I recommend a move to reality, to evidence-based argument. Try it for a change.
I liken the vitriolic assaults on Graham and McCain to crabs in a bucket who pull down other crabs trying to escape. Graham and McCain attempt to climb out of the bucket of the party first and country second mentality.
This is exemplified by Lee’s attempt to discredit Graham for his immigration policy. Such wildly simplistic analysis belongs in a 6th grade book report.
Karl Rove, from what I understand, is a self-described agnostic who is the mastermind behind the “culture of life” (Catholic inspired terminology) campaign strategy. He sees faith as a medium for recruiting voters and winning elections and NOT a moral based stance on what’s best for our country.
The Sullivan story doesn’t seem so far fetched when considering Rove’s past. I don’t know if Sully is right and I don’t particularly care for Sully. Far worse than Sully, I find it exceedingly offensive to trot out flag burning, gay marriage, and other values issues for the sake of political gain. This, in turn, makes me find Rove exceedingly offensive.
Before his defenders on this blog start typing “Clinton” or “liberals” in reply, how about deal with this issue on it’s own merits. Some on here don’t see any problem with the venom Coulter spews on behalf of the moral right, so I expect blind obedience on behalf of Rove.
Mikey sez:
And if you were to examine what you recommend — Nuremburg-type trials — you’d find that there remain serious questions about the validity of that court.
We could hold secret trials like so many police states; not allow defendants to face their accusers like the Brits prior to 16th Century; torture confessions and information like the Spanish Inquisition; and, declare the defedants guilty as charged. Then we could kill’em “legal’n all.”
Our enemies would say that we’re flaming hipocrites and discredit us in the eyes of the watching world.
But, heck, cowboys like Bush and the neo-cons have never given a rats rear about world opinion. Actually winning a figurative battle of ideas is sadly beyond the ken of the neo-cons and certainly out of Bush’s grasp. Instead we get a modern version of the crusades with “Democracy” substituting for “Jesus” and “terrorists” standing in for “Beelzebub.”
Of course, there’s still questions about the Nuremburg trials. They were cobbled together and had only the shallowest basis of “legality.” So is the trial of Saddam.
But, Nuremburg offered the Allies a chance to showcase the depraved barbarity of the Nazis. It offered a chance to change the course of warfare; to set a precedent that future monsters might take heed of the international community setting certain limits on conduct called “crimes against humanity.”
The best disinfectant is sunlight. Bush’s answer is more of the same– secrecy, unaccountability, lack of any legitimate due process and personal whim.
But, like most of what you hurl this way, the charge is baseless, devoid of fact or of informed opinion.
Mikey, you’re a verbose and overweening idiot. You think because you dress up your insults in 50 cent words and phrases that it makes them more acceptable, more polite.
I, OTOH, make it simple: you’re full of crap. YOU have to have brass balls the size of grapefruit to even suggest banning ME before asking the following:
Which is more important to you: defeating the terrorist threat or defeating Bush by defeating Republicans?
What an idiotic, presumptive and insulting question. I won’t even dignify it with a response. Shove it.
Your subscription to the Bush personality cult makes no sense unless YOU’RE more interested in making the U.S. a one party state with a defacto strong man than in defeating Muslim fundie terrorists.
The rest of your post is mostly partisan tripe unworthy of comment.
But, I am moved by your sheer chutzpah at mourning the legal troubles of a Presidential adviser so careless of government secrets that he confirms the identity of a CIA operative to a reporter.
You bemoan “Three years of fantastic innuendo, speculation, charges, calumnies, and lies.” Did you have such a heavy heart when Clinton was hounded by a $2.5 million Scaife disinformation campaign which morphed into the leaky, legal, lynch-mob headed by Ken Starr?
For a while he was of the opinion that the Church would lighten up and that the Bush administration would support same-sex marriage. I don’t care about his faith or sexual orientation except to the extent that he’s made such a big deal about both that it’s no longer worth the effort to dig for what used to be frequent nuggets of insight.
Mike C
Being denied the civil right to marraige is a VERY big deal.It has a huge effect on the lives of millions of men,women and children.
Through all the rants, fact twisting, personal assaults, innuendo and other nonsense posted here by Mike and other Decider appologists I never hear anything about what defines victory in the war on terror. If victory cannot be defined it cannot be achieved. Hence the war on terror, by definition, continues endlessly. Since we’re always at war the president always has a handy out for any decision he makes about national security: “Since we’re at war, and I’m commander in chief, we need to do X”.
X includes (but is not limited to):
Secret courts
Torture
Secret prisons abroad
Killing of civilians (collateral damage)
Warrantless surveillance
Holding prisoners without charge
Multiple tours of duty by military personnel
Huge no-bid contracts for Halliburton
On the other hand, we’re NOT at war when it comes to:
The Draft
Tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy)
Adequate spending for veterans programs
Homeland security
What we really have is a war when it suits the administration. If it doesn’t serve their agenda, we’re really not at war.
All of this bitterness toward Karl Rove, another rock solid decent patriotic American. The leftist media and many on this blog had this guy arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in a virtual way for something he never even did. And yet, no apologies, other than a recent article by David Broder calling for the media in general to publicly apologize. Rove is simply a brilliant political strategist. He is not even Bush’s chief of staff.
Bud, the Tax Cuts Bush enacted are the main reason the economy is booming like it is. Would you rather have high taxes and recession, high unemployment, and inflation. You need to study economic history instead of wailing on and on about taxes for the rich. Are you aware that “the rich” are paying 40% MORE taxes under Bush than they did under Clinton?
Dave, define taxes and define rich. This is a phoney talk radio discussion point that simply does not fly. Here’s how (these aren’t actual numbers but are used merely to show how dishonest statistics can be if used improperly):
Assume that in 1998 “rich” was defined as anyone making $100,000/yr. By that definition there were 1,000,000 Americans. These folks paid FEDERAL INCOME TAX at the rate of 35%. If you do the math you’ll see that they paid $35 billion.
Fast forward to 2006. Cut the tax rate to 25%. The payroll tax remains the same. But now, thanks to inflation and population growth we have 2,000,000 “rich” Americans. They pay $50,000,000, roughly 40% more in FEDERAL INCOME TAX than they did in 1998. Yet in inflation adjusted terms they pay a smaller share of the cost of running the government since they pay a smaller percentage of their income towards the payroll tax (something that is not cut or adjsuted significantly).
This is all just a phoney numbers game played by the right. In actual wealth terms the very rich are much better off but the rest of us are suffering under a huge tax burden. Poverty rates continue to climb, real wages are stagnant or falling and fewer Americans are enjoying health insurance under Bush vs. Clinton.
Bud, you said –Fast forward to 2006. Cut the tax rate to 25%. The payroll tax remains the same. But now, thanks to inflation and population growth we have 2,000,000 “rich” Americans. They pay $50,000,000, roughly 40% more in FEDERAL INCOME TAX than they did in 1998.
You just made my case. Inflation has been ver low and population growth has only been about 2%. So more people ARE prospering and thus the tax load can be shared by more Americans. Perfect!!!!!!!!!! Poverty rates are going down too. That is a fact. There are many, many FREE medical clinics that people can and do use. Check it out. NO ONE is being denied medical care.
This is really getting deep in here. I hope everyone in here is aware that most of the tax cut y’all are bandying about came as a result of eliminating the ‘marriage penalty’ and the tax credit/increase in deduction per child (I don’t have kids, so I really don’t remember what it was). Anyway, this ‘benefit for the rich’ is saving you around 1600 bucks if you are married and have one kid.
No matter what your income is.
Ah, I love the argument of tax cuts. This goes back to another strategy of the GOP that was detailed in “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” The GOP trots out these “tax cuts” and futher enriches the wealthy.
Through brilliant strategy and marketing, they convince Joe Sixpack that he will benefit, while the bottom line is that he is actually paying more because payroll taxes have in fact increased under GW, not to mention that Health Care costs have increased at about 15% per year far outpacing any 2-4% increase that many people receive for cost of living increases in pay.
Dave, Lee, Lex, et al, how many of you make over $250,000 per year, or have over $2,000,000 in liquid assets. (I would gather none.) You all parrott these idiotic talking points, while I am sure that, save one case out of all of you, you are actually less well of than you were six years ago. You have merely been brainwashed that you are better off. Look at your bank account and your investment portfolio (if you have one) and compare it to where you were six years ago.
Also Dave, did you really say inflation is low? I guess that’s why they have raised interest rates about 14 times in the last two years. It’s called combating the impending stagflation. You know not what you say.
RTH –
I don’t recall proposals for secret trials, but for military tribunals. And Sully’s fears have been realized with the Bush Administration’s sharp, unmerciful attacks on Republican senators yesterday. According to today’s WaPo:
The Rovian maneuver has Graham crying like a baby, no?
Er, no. Seems like there’s been reasonable negotiations, no sign of Cheney giving Graham a nuggie or of Bolten twisting McCain’s arm.
You need to drop the Plame thingy because the facts don’t support you. We now know that Rove did not knowingly disclose any secrets about Wilson’s wife to a reporter. Nor was he the mastermind of some jihad against Wilson or his wife. Read Broder, Pincus, and other reporters on this. Note the turnaround David Corn has made in his new book; you may recall that he was one of the original accusers who made what are now known to be outlandish charges a few days after the Novak column appeared.
Aha! Projection surfaces and hits a nail right to the side, bending it and cracking the wood. Summoning the ghost of Scaife who did finance journalistic and other investigations into Clinton’s personal affairs, raising the specter of a Starr-like investigation, and the like sets the stage for Act 2, the Soros-financed initiatives underway to undermine the Bush administration, at least in your mind. As you know, Rep. John Conyers has laid the foundation for Bush impeachment hearings with his magnum opus The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance. (Conyers has a short summary here; there’s a more thorough analysis of the document’s charges and potential impact here.)
Clearly Whitewater was a waste of time since only fifteen convictions resulted and one president impeached for perjury in a civil matter. The upcoming impeachment of Bush for pursuing a War on Terror with vigor, should the Democrats win the House, is far more important. Perhaps Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will testify. Why, this might even bring Osama hisownself our of hiding to testify, making me wonder if Conyers has done all this just to snag the 9/11 mastermind. Of course, some of Conyers’ buddies think that Bush was responsible for 9/11…
Mike, how dare you endorse the President’s wiping of his rear with MY CONSTITUTION? If you want to live in a theocratic police state then it is YOU, AND NOT LIBERALS that can choose from any of the many hellholes of Earth to live in. May I suggest Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia?
No one is above the law. And by the way, this is not a WAR, please refrain from PAROTTING ANOTHER OF THE GOP’S MOST RIDIDCULOUS SOUND BITES. THAT PHRASE HAS NO MEANING!!!!!!
Mike, try to keep it short. A few good points is all we really need, not War and Peace.
I’ll just respond to one of your ramblings, the “Plame thingy”. Libby is still under indictment for his roll in this whole sordid affair. It appears that Armitage was the original “outer”, but that Rove orchestrated a political maneuver to discredit Wilson. Wilson exposed the Bush propaganda lies about Iraq and Rove quickly sought to silence him. Probably not illegally but certainly irresponsibly. No appologies are needed. Rove is still a scumbag, just not a criminal.
Bud, do you have any inkling of the huge difference between tax rates and actual tax revenue? Do some research on that and redo your example with actual revenue.
My tax example apparently wasn’t very clear. The point is simple enough though. A given number presented without background is meaningless. Dave simply threw out a number (40%) without explaining it. You could just as easily say that inflation is up 40% since Clinton was in office. It’s a true number but meaningless.
Democrat Lies to Undermine the War Effort
Secret courts
Torture
Secret prisons abroad
Killing of civilians (collateral damage)
Warrantless surveillance
Holding prisoners without charge
Multiple tours of duty by military personnel
Huge no-bid contracts for Halliburton
FACTS
* Military trials with counsel
* No torture according to Red Cross and UN inspectors
* Islamic terrorists captured abroad were imprisoned there before being transferred to Guantanamo
* Most civilians killed have been the intentional victim of the Islamofascists
* All domestic surveillance is with a federal court warrant. Surveillance of foreign terrorists calling Americans requires no warrant, because it is not on US soil.
* Being captured at an non-uniformed combatant is reason enough to be held until assessments can be made and charges filed.
* Military personnel are stretched thin, but they aren’t complaining, and they don’t appreciate being used by seditious partisans who don’t respect them, and don’t volunteer to relieve them.
* Halliburton has a blanket contract to handle all the BIDDING of contracts by the hundreds of firms actually doing reconstruction of Iraq. Any of those complaining can see the RFQs in the Congressional Register, contact GSA and place a bid.
Wow! I actually agree with Lee! I didn’t think that would ever happen.
The MUslim terrorist Hamdi who was released recently thanks to a horrible court decision has now joined Hezbollah and is free to kill Jews and Americans once again. But if we had secret courts, how was he acquitted?
More great news to celebrate, and special note to Mark Whittington,, notice that the lefties running this joke of a radio station aren’t even giving laid off employees a severance.
Air America Radio will announce a major restructuring on Friday, which is expected to include a bankruptcy filing, three independent sources have told ThinkProgress.
Air America could remain on the air under the deal, but significant personnel changes are already in the works. Sources say five Air America employees were laid off yesterday and were told there would be no severance without capital infusion or bankruptcy. Also, Air America has ended its relationship with host Jerry Springer.
Mikey, just one of your more irritating (and dishonest) techiques is attributing thoughts and opinions from various liberal or “left” sources to anybody that doesn’t agree with you.
For the record, I’ve always thought that Rove was clever– maybe a unique political genius. I doubt that anyone else could have foisted George W. Bush, the failed bidness man and dilettante fratboy, on American voters twice.
Unfortunately, from 9/11 to the end of Bush’s administration Americans will pay the price in blood for Bush hitting the “trifecta” that he falsely claims.
In any event, I always had my doubts that Rove would be caught leaking to Bob Novak– again. In their new account of Rove’s political career, The Architect,” Moore and Slater tell the story of GOP corruption kingpin Jack Abrahamoff meeting with Rove– on a DC street near the WH.
Abrahamoff’s car pulled up to Rove on the sidewalk and the two chatted about legislative “bidness.” Rove stood outside and Abrahoff spoke through an open window. Abrahamoff told a bemused client-witness: “We’re not stupid. Like I said, everything that comes out of the WH is logged. The phone calls he makes. The phone calls he receives. It keeps things a lot cleaner.”
According to Factchecker.org:
July 8, 2003 – Columnist Robert Novak calls senior White House adviser Karl Rove, according to subsequent media accounts. Novak tells Rove he had heard that Joseph Wilson’s wife, who worked for the CIA, played a role in Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger. Rove confirms the story to Novak without mentioning Valerie Wilson’s name or covert status, saying “I heard that, too.” ( Rove … Talk on C.I.A. Officer, NY Times, July 2003). Novak will later write that he originally acquired the information from an official who is “no partisan gunslinger.” Novak says, “When I called another official for confirmation, he said: ‘Oh, you know about it.’” (Novak, ” CIA Leak” Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 2003).
[…]
July 11, 2003 –Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper calls Rove, who cautions him to be careful of Wilson ’s story, “‘Don’t get too far out on Wilson ,’ he told me,” Cooper later writes. Rove tells Cooper that Wilson ’s wife works for the CIA on “WMD” (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and that it was she, not Cheney or the CIA’s director, who was “responsible” for sending Wilson to Africa. “Rove never used her name…indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week,” Cooper later recalls adding, “Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status.” Cooper says Rove ends the call saying “I’ve already said too much.”
[…]
September 29, 2003 – McClellan says he has spoken to Rove, denies that Rove was involved in the leak, and says, “If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration.” ( White House Press Briefing, Sept. 29, 2003) . […]
September 30, 2003 – The Justice department publicly announces an official criminal investigation. Commenting, Bush says, “And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.” (” President discusses job creation, ” U. of Chicago , Sept. 30, 2003 ).
==================
The inescapable conclusion: Rove at minimum assisted in outing a CIA operative to a reporter. Whether there’s enough evidence to convict him is another matter.
You’d have to either be exceeding dense or simply hyper-partisan not recognize that “Bush’s Brain” more than likely orchestrated the entire affair to discredit an administration critic.
In your case, I’m not sure that we need to choose between the two options.
From Lee:
* Military trials with counsel
Whether there’s counsel or not they’re still held in secret. Your point here is a non-sequetor.
* No torture according to Red Cross and UN inspectors
You’ve got to be kidding!? No sane person could still believe that the American military has not tortured prisoners. That sort of claim, given the volumunous photographic evidence from Abu-Ghrab, is simply beyond the pale in it’s idiocy. Do you also deny the Holocaust?
* Islamic terrorists captured abroad were imprisoned there before being transferred to Guantanamo
What’s your point? They’re only being transferred now because it has proven to be a political liability for the Decider.
* Most civilians killed have been the intentional victim of the Islamofascists
At least you concede that SOME civilians have been killed by American bombs, or in some cases now coming to light outright murder.
* Being captured as an non-uniformed combatant is reason enough to be held until assessments can be made and charges filed.
This one grates on me most of all. HOW do you know these are non-uniformed combatants. Many have claimed (plausibly in my opinion) that they were simply rounded up and sent packing to a POW camp. Many are held for years at a time.
* All domestic surveillance is with a federal court warrant. Surveillance of foreign terrorists calling Americans requires no warrant, because it is not on US soil.
Your first sentence may or may not be true. The attorney general when asked about it didn’t flatly state that domestic warrantless surveillance was not conducted. But any surveillance of American citizens falls under constitutional protection. No distinction is made concerning who or where they’re talking.
* Military personnel are stretched thin, but they aren’t complaining, and they don’t appreciate being used by seditious partisans who don’t respect them, and don’t volunteer to relieve them.
Many military personnel are doing more than complaining. Suicide rates are high among soldiers forced to spend extended tours in Iraq. It is the chickenhawks in power that don’t respect the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. I don’t see the Bush twins volunteering.
* Halliburton has a blanket contract to handle all the BIDDING of contracts by the hundreds of firms actually doing reconstruction of Iraq. Any of those complaining can see the RFQs in the Congressional Register, contact GSA and place a bid.
Yes, a NO-BID blanket contract. This comment is just plain ridiculous.
May I offer a time out here? I’ve been unsure about him in the past, but in today’s NYT, I’ve found a person in this administration on whom it has dawned that we shouldn’t necessarily jump every time Osama says jump. Stunning and rare example of adult thinking from this administration! Could the grownups be finally taking over (rumors of Rice winning arguments over Cheney give added hope)?
What makes your post seditious is how you PRESUME the terrorists are innocent and America is bad, even though you cannot come up with one example to support what you want to believe.
You don’t believe the lawyers for the captured terrorists.
You can’t find a one in uniform, fighting for a country, just tens of thousands of transnational terrorists.
You can’t find a single warrantless wiretap of Americans.
You don’t care how many civilians are killed by the terrorists intentionally, but are outraged by just one killed accidentally by Americans.
You dismiss the Red Cross inspections of GITMO which said the prisoners were “very well treated and cared for”.
You don’t care that Halliburton has the contractors bidding for work in Iraq, and only made 9% gross profit for overseeing the work.
I’ll only respond to this one point:
“You don’t care how many civilians are killed by the terrorists intentionally, but are outraged by just one killed accidentally by Americans.”
I care about both. By the way you state this apparently you don’t care about the civilians accidentally killed by Americans. That cavalier attitude is exactly why so many people abroad are turning against us.
We know what the Democrats would do about killing civilians, because
* they stood by and let Saddam murder thousands of Kurds with nerve gas,
* starved 1,000,000 more to death while the UN collaborated with Saddam to embezzle the Oil-for-Food money
* let Muslims and other savages butcher 700,000 civilians in Somalia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Liberia and the Sudan.
As I’ve hinted at before, I think we should all re-read Animal Farm, and then consider it in light of our current situation.
Is Snowball/bin Laden still alive or is he just a propaganda piece used to keep us animals afraid and in line? Has he just jumped to a neighboring farm? Amazing how video of him suddenly surfaces when war criticism reaches its hottest.
Why do the hard-working Boxers continue to support a party that has not their best interests at heart? Will Karl “Squealer” Rove have his sins someday visited back upon him?
Will Napoleon Bush ever be exposed and then relegated to the pig sty of American history? How many of our young eggs will we sacrifice to his imagined cause?
What say you, beasts of England?
Since the ostrich crowd lives in a fantasy world anyway, why not read a caricature of their world?
Have you read the text, Lee? I’ll help you with the big words.
Capital A – “imagined cause”????? That is the root cause of the problem leftist pacifists have in this country. To most of you, 9-11 was simply a TV movie, or at best some aberrational event like the passing of the comet Kohutek(sp?). So you sit and wonder, while you wait impatiently for American Idol to start up their new season, sipping on the new Blak Coke, or whatever leftists do, and your hate for Bush builds. Bush and Rove, 2 guys that won’t run for anything in the future, are the target of all of your bitterness and even rage. But, to many of us, this is good news, because as your hatred and bitterness grows, common sense Americans turn to their only sane alternative. So, Cap A, keep that head in the sand and try that Blak Coke, its not bad at all.
What the heck is “Blak Coke” and what planet does Dave live on?
I’m pretty sure that the “imagined cause” that Cap A had in mind was the fruadulent causes for invading Iraq that Bush & Co. used to scare Americans.
But, I’ll leave it to Cap to explain his post.
Dave, what evidence do you have that Rove “is a decent guy”? You deny that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get Bush and other republicans elected?
The Democrats hate everyone who points out and cleans up their messes, and that is a lot of people to hate.
5 times Clinton orders let Bin Laden get away from us.
Madeline Albright tipped of the Pakistanis of our air strikes.
Some of the 1993 WTC bombers escaped to Iraq.
Zarqawi, when wounded, went to Baghdad for hostipal treatment.
Clinton was a coward. Cohen, Berger and Albright were inept fools who lied to America, and they still have their residue in the State Department trying to sabotage this war in order to cover up their own failures.
RTH –Read the Broder column on Wilson/Plame or the latest Novak column. Your Bush / Rove fantasy has left the building. Wilson started his attack on the Bush administration and the outing his wife in May 2003 by passing nuggets to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. To reduce the real estate that I might otherwise occupy, I refer you to Christopher Hitchens’s latest recap, which is simply that Wilson lied, Rove was maligned, the press failed, and this has been a waste of time. I suggest that you and others abandon your fantasy but expect that you’ll not.
As for the Haliburton / KBR “no-bid” contract: it’s called LOGCAP. Its first version was instituted after the Gulf War when the DoD realized that writing hundreds of contracts to get necessary support risked military success when events moved quickly. DoD therefore spent a lot of time and money developing an omnibus contract to provide logistical support for the warfighter. An omnibus contract is typically an indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity (IDIQ) umbrella contract with a broad but well-defined scope of work. By that I mean the equivalent of GSA Schedules for a class of goods or services. For example, there are schedules for office supplies that let a government unit order paper, paper clips, and whatever from suppliers that has jumped through the GSA hoops to have its catalog available to federal agencies. There’s no need for a lengthy (typically 90 days) full procurement exercise to get a toner cartridge.
That was the rationale for LOGCAP — a broad catalog of goods and services that would support military operations. KBR won the first five-year contract, lost the second, but won the third — LOGCAP 3 — during the Clinton Administration. Here’s an excellent summary of the contract and its history. Note that at the time the linked article was written, Haliburton KBR was making around 4% profit on its work. Higher than money market, but hard-earned.
The anti-Haliburton allegations are absurd (see the previously linked article). The Afghanistan and Iraq support projects were no-bid, but that’s because they were task orders under an omnibus contract that had been competed. That Haliburton / KBR has had trouble defending costs incurred should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with federal contracting for several reasons. My take is that their systems — cost accounting, property management, procurement — failed them in the rush to provide services. Imagine getting an order to provide housing, meals, and other amenities to troops in and around Bumfolk Iraq and then properly accounting for every meal, trailer, generator, gallon of fuel, payroll to indigenous or imported employee, etc. I imagine that the management team deployed for the support was overwhelmed with the complexity of the task, yet accomplished it expeditiously but without all transactions properly recorded. The terms and conditions of the order may have seemed reasonable at the outset, but during execution proved onerous.
But what you don’t realize is that as a major federal contractor, Haliburton provides office space to in-house DCAA auditors. These dedicated folks will examine every transactions (DCAA conducts a 100% audit of all work for Iraq) to ensure that reimbursements are fully supported and documented.
Thanks in part to GAO recommendations, the follow-on contract, LOGCAP 4, will be a awarded to several different companies so that DoD can compete support for specific project among several contractors who’ve submitted proposals and won one of the competitively awarded contracts..
Now that Mike C has very ably explained the LOGCAP contracting process, I wonder how soon one of the lefties will once again be bellyaching about the so-called “No-Bid” contracts. Plain, undeniable facts never stopped them before from spouting off anyway.
Mikey, I’m sure that you wish the Plame affair would just disappear. It’s just so darned inconvenient to have the top echelon of Dear Leaders administration complicit to various degrees in outing a CIA operative.
I refer you to the compilation of news stories above that document Rove’s role in outing Plame. It’s odd that Rove, famous for his ability to recall infinite details about political campaigns, seems to only recall aspects of the Plame affair when another witness is about to confirm his involvement. (See, Cooper, Matthew.)
Using an alcoholic ex-Trotskyist and a lukewarm Republican pundit as sources for debunking Wilson and Plame just doesn’t seem to work for me. I wonder why…
It occurs to me that we haven’t even mentioned the former chief of staff for Cheney, Scooter Libby, who’s been indicted in Plamegate.
Looks like the fish rots from the head, Mikey.
Randy, here is one small tidbit about Rove’s past that sheds some light.
In December 1969, Rove’s father left the family, and divorced Rove’s mother soon afterward. After his parents’ separation, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father; both he and his older brother Eric were the children of another man. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for “how selfless” his love had been. [5]
Rove’s mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada, in 1981, when Rove was 30 years old. He did not meet his biological father until he was in his 40s.
I’ve heard ruumors that Karl Rove played the role of Sigmund in the Saturday morning classic, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Any truth to that?
Mike writes (regarding Halliburton):
“The Afghanistan and Iraq support projects were no-bid …”
End of story. The rest of Mike’s rambling is just spin (with the required Clinton reference thrown in of course).
Doesn’t he have his own blog?
He’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Dave, have you read the Orwell text or do you just ignore it (like I do Cacklera’s posts) because “them’s a lotta words”? If you opened that book’s covers, you’d find it is chillingly, symbolically apropos to the current debacle our country is facing.
No one is doubting terrorists attacked us. Those of us who can reason think that we should have gone after the source, not people in the general area where those terrorists are.
I don’t know why you are blind to this. Would you punch your brother if your cousin hit you? Would you sue the makers of Blak Coke if the makers of Sundrop poisoned you?
I can’t make it any clearer than that.
For the love of God, what the sheoal is Blak Coke?!?
Yeah,Animal Farm is pretty short,almost a novella.Stop bloggin’ for a couple of hours and read it.
Why is it the actual working contractors for Halliburton have to bid for the work? Marriott, Bearing Point, Jacobs Engineering, Brown and Root, Fluor, Level 3, IBM, HP, Dell, … all bidding for work which is posted on the internet.
Individuals can even bid to do all manner of work in Iraq. You have to have expertise in something, so that eliminates most lefties.
Dave’s tidbit about Karl Rove’s personal life is of slight interest (but irrelevant).
Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? OK, his family life sucked. I’m sorry. He grew up as a fat Republican supporter of the Vietnam war who was unwilling to serve. I’m sorry that people probably made fun of him for being a chickenhawk nerd.
Should his family life excuse his political career? Should we cut him some slack for the whispering campaign that he initiated accusing Ann Richards of lesbianism? Maybe we should overlook his campaign smearing Judge Mark Kennedy of Alabama as a pedophile in 1994. Should Rove’s mother’s suicide cancel out his encouragement of rampant homophobia to elect Bush? I guess that his parent’s divorce would excuse confirming on multiple occasions the identity of a CIA agent. And, the confusion about his biological dad– obviously his victimhood absolves him of the scurrilous push polls about McCain fathering a black Black baby.
Wait! Aren’t Republicans supposed to be all about personal responsibility? Isn’t victimhood the refuge of the weakling liberals?
Maybe you’d like to actually share the source with us, Dave.
Joseph Wilson lied about Iraq not trying to obtain uranium from Niger. He was exposed when his official reports were given to the Senate which had Wilson saying that Saddam indeed was trying to obtain uranium, and it was confirmed by other State Department and CIA operators.
So Wilson and the NY Times cooked up this diversion about Valerie Plame and kept it alive for years, knowing that Rove and Cheney had nothing to do with it. Liars all.
RTH – Rove’s adoptive father actually is gay and Rove loves the guy. So much for him smearing alternate lifestyles. You won’t hear Cheney smearing gays either. So, Don’t believe the nasty nonsense that flies through the media and internet unless you have firsthand knowledge.
Cap A – Coke Blak is the newest product from Coke. I bought some in Atlanta a few weeks back. Coke with a coffee flavor, actually very good and fairly low in sugar. I advise trying it.
To All – An Iraqi official has testified that Al Qaeda was involved with Salman Pak terrorist training center and with Saddam. The NY Sun published it today.. I gotta run, cant link it right now.. This should cause some crow eating by the liberals who have perpetuated the lie about AQ not having anything to do with Iraq.
I’m sorry Karl Rove . . .
By Eric Mink
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/13/2006
After reviewing all this material, I feel obliged to say: I’m sorry Karl Rove . . . still has a job.
[…]
My column of July 20, 2005, criticized Rove’s actions in the Wilson affair. Whether his acts were criminal or not, I wrote, Rove helped end the career of a 21-year CIA veteran who was working to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In doing so, he betrayed the trust of the American people.
Since the revelation about Armitage, I’ve done a lot of soul searching. I went back to the voluminous official legal filings of the prosecution and defense in the Libby case. (www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html) I reviewed the first-person accounts of sworn grand jury testimony written by Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper (July 25, 2005) and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller (Oct. 16, 2005); Miller spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court before agreeing to testify.
[…]
With respect to the specifics, Armitage or no Armitage:
— There is no question that the Bush White House was deeply concerned about the potential harm that Ambassador Wilson’s criticisms could do to administration foreign policy. In an April 5, 2006, court filing, Fitzgerald refers to many documents and conversations in his investigative record “that reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson. . . .” The “concerted actions” they took to do so included talking to reporters, and it was during such conversations that they revealed or confirmed Mrs. Wilson’s employment at the CIA.
Among those involved in figuring out how to counter Ambassador Wilson’s criticisms of the administration were Rove, Libby, Stephen Hadley (then deputy National Security Adviser, now National Security Adviser) and Cheney. Among those who talked directly to reporters about Mrs. Wilson’s employment at the CIA were Libby and Rove — despite categorical denials by White House press secretary Scott McClellan in 2003 on Sept. 29, Oct. 4, Oct. 7 and Oct. 10.
— Was Mrs. Wilson’s CIA status classified information? In a Feb. 15, 2005, concurring opinion written in a case involving Judith Miller’s efforts to avoid the grand jury, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David S. Tatel noted the following: “The special counsel refers to Plame [Mrs. Wilson] as ‘a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last five years.’ “
— Abuse of power and foot-dragging? Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel on Dec. 30, 2003. By that time, three of the five felonies with which Libby has been charged already had been committed, his Oct. 28, 2005, indictment alleges. Fitzgerald’s authority to investigate criminal cover-up acts such as perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators was affirmed explicitly by Acting Attorney General James Comey in a letter dated Feb. 6, 2004.
Those who dismiss such acts as trifles or technicalities might refer back to Tatel’s concurring opinion. The exposure of Wilson’s identity, he wrote, “harmed national security” and “. . . perjury in this context is itself a crime with national security implications.”
— As for Rove, the undisputed record establishes that he spoke to Novak by phone early in July. During the call, Novak wrote, Rove served as a second source for the information about Mrs. Wilson’s job at the CIA, confirming what Armitage had told him and, thus, enabling publication of Novak’s columnon July 14, 2003.
And on July 11 — before Novak’s column appeared — Rove spoke to Time’s Cooper by phone and told him that Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA in connection with weapons of mass destruction. “This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson’s wife,” Cooper wrote and testified under oath. Rove reported his conversation with Cooper to Hadley in an e-mail later that day.
The last word on apologies belongs to Richard Armitage. In an interview broadcast on the “CBS Morning News” last Friday, Armitage told correspondent David Martin that he has regretted his inadvertent disclosure from the moment he realized what he had done. “I feel terrible every day,” he said. “I think I let down the president, I let down the secretary of state, I let down my department, my family and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.”
Karl Rove has yet to say anything of the kind.
And since any reporter could have, in 5 minutes, searched the Internet and found Mrs. Joseph Wilson, aka Valerie Plame, and her employer and her non-secret job title, they could have figured out that the Wilsons were playing CYA after his NY Times article falsely stated that Saddam was innocent of trying to obtain uranium.
Valerie Plame had found that Saddam was trying to buy uranium. We know that because her group at the CIA wrote a report saying that which was presented to the U.S. Senate.
Joseph Wilson found that Saddam was trying to buy uranium. We know that because his input is contained in the State Department report to the U.S. Senate and the 9/11 Commission.
Wilson lied, was caught, and the press tried to blow a smokescreen, even covering up the fact that Armitage was the source and playing along with the Rove/Cheney/Libby ruse.
Dave sez:
Rove’s adoptive father actually is gay and Rove loves the guy. So much for him smearing alternate lifestyles. You won’t hear Cheney smearing gays either.
Nah, you won’t “hear” either one “smearing gays.” All you have to do is watch the campaigns that they run. Homophobia is a cornerstone of the Republican GOTV effort. It’s the wedge issue, the motivating force that Rove realized he needed to get Bush re-elected.
Rove realized that despite his best efforts in 2000 about five million evangelicals didn’t vote… for anyone. Rove had counted on them. In 2004 he jesttisoned the soft and fuzzy “Compassionate Conservative” theme and ginned up the religious right’s homophobia with “Sanctity of Marriage” ammendments on state ballots.
Who knows what effect Rove’s father’s sexual orientation had/has on him. I’m certainly not going to take any public statements on his part at face value.
Rove’s pattern is to use wedge issues that appeal to the rabid rightwing base. He’s said that he’s agnostic but that doesn’t stop him from using religious wedge issues. He’s said that he “loves” his gay father but that certainly doesn’t stop him from using slander, libel and dirty tricks appealing to homophobia to win elections.
BTW, Dave, if you dont rely on media reports then what basis do have for thinking that Rove is a stand-up guy? Do you know him personally?
“The special counsel refers to Plame [Mrs. Wilson] as ‘a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last five years.’ “
Obviously, Lee hasn’t listed one of his job descriptions: Knowing more than (Republican) Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and the CIA.
“There is no question that the Bush White House was deeply concerned about the potential harm that Ambassador Wilson’s criticisms could do to administration foreign policy.”
“Criticisms”, my foot! They were lies, pure and simple. Lies!
“Criticisms”, my foot! They were lies, pure and simple. Lies!
Which, of course, justifies outing a CIA operative in revenge.
Why Lee has already added another job description: constitutional scholar. It seems that he thinks “lying” about the president is “sedition.”
If we’re to believe this multi-talented poster then a lot wingnuts– including many of the Republican leadership– should be in jail from the lies they told about Clinton.
But Lee’s expertise at constitutional scholarsip seems to be on par with his educational research acumen: Sadly deficient, D-, and doesn’t play well with others.
RTH – I hate to break the news to you but most of those marriage amendments were forced on the states by gay rights groups. Yes, it played into the hands of GOP strategists because it stirred up the base, but so what. Remember the mayor of FRisco running out and granting marriages to a gargantuan gang of gays? And in Massachusetts too. The people spoke and voted these referendums down but it did stir up the marriage traditionalists.
Capital A has nothing to refute the facts about Joseph Wilson and other State Department failure lying to cover their mistakes about Iraq.
At least his ad hominem diversion was complimentary, in his recognition of my education in constitutional law. His civility is improving, though his debating has not.
Dave, what a peculiar viewpoint. Gay American citizens who want equal treatment under the law “forced” states to legalize discrimination.
Gosh, that sounds so much like Jim Crow and those uppity Blacks who forced good White folk to legalize racial discrimination.
Nobody “forced” reactionary people to enshrine their prejudices and bigotry into law.
In the case of Massachusetts the state supreme court with, I believe, a majority of judges appointed by Republican governors, concluded that the constitution didn’t prohibit same sex marriages.
There was no such impetus in key swing state, Ohio. The state already had a law on the books defining marriage as between a man a woman.
From the Cincinnati Equirer:
Gay issue may energize GOP
Marriage question seen as boon to Bush
Republican leaders pushing a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban gay marriage say the movement could energize conservative voters and help re-elect President Bush.
Once an unspoken political fact, the Republicans have become increasingly open about the implications of the issue on presidential politics – leading the Kerry campaign and some gay-rights activists to cry foul.
Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell sent a letter to supporters last month saying gay marriage is an important issue in “determining where Ohio’s electoral votes will go.” Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, admitted to Ohio reporters at the Republican National Convention last month, “To the degree it energizes people who might otherwise not vote, it tends to help us.”
And the leader in the effort to place the gay marriage ban on the ballot, Phil Burress of Loveland, spoke about the issue to a national meeting of social conservatives before the GOP convention. On the agenda: “Using Conservative Issues in Swing States,” according to a report in the New York Times.
“I have said all along that from the polling data we have seen, it will definitely energize people of faith. It will give President Bush a better chance at winning Ohio,” said Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values. “But I can’t just leave that laying there. I’ve also said repeatedly it’s not why we’re doing this.”
Still, those admissions have led to charges by some Democrats and gay rights activists that the gay marriage amendment is little more than a cynical election-year ploy.
“I think Mr. Burress is talking out of both sides of his mouth, as he always does,” said Timothy Downing, leader of Ohioans for Growth and Equality, a Cleveland-based gay rights group. “They are being completely dishonest about this. It’s about pumping up the vote. There is an ulterior motive here.”
It’s no coincidence, he said, that similar measures will appear Nov. 2 in at least three other swing states, including Arkansas, Michigan and Oregon.
Missouri amended its Constitution last month in a special election that drew a record turnout. The question also is on the Kentucky ballot in November.
[…]
“All things flow from there,” said Blackwell, who said he was asked by Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman earlier this year to do “surrogate work” on gay marriage in Ohio.
Here’s some more Republican “family values” from the Buckeye state:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Bob Ney agreed Friday to plead guilty to two criminal charges in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Papers in the case said the Ohio Republican had accepted trips worth more than $170,000.
Justice Department officials said prosecutors would recommend the 52-year-old congressman serve 27 months in prison. A formal admission of guilt would make Ney the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in a Republican-heavy scandal that erupted at the dawn of the election year.
2 down (Delay and and now Ney), 228 to go.
RTH – next thing you know those “uppity blacks” will expect to run the DNC. How dare they?
I’ve never understood why you married folk would take away from or deny gays the right to be as miserable as you are.
signed,
Swinging Single in the Catbird’s Seat
Dave, three out of the eight officers of the DNC are minorities: Japanese-American, Hispanic, and African-American.
Tell me all about the African-Americans on the RNC. Is Don King on the RNC?
South Carolina is 29.4% AA. Tell me how many AA Republicans hold state-level office? Hint: it’s less than one.
BTW, I notice that you suddenly dropped the Republican/Rove homophobia issue. Funny how that happens when you’re confronted with facts.
“I notice that you suddenly dropped the Republican/Rove homophobia issue. Funny how that happens when you’re confronted with facts.”
Huh? What’s there to argue about on that issue? Where’s the problem, that the issue was forced on Rove and that he chose to make lemonade out a lemon? Contrary to your viewpoint, “gay American citizens who want equal treatment under the law” already have that. They can marry a member of the opposite sex just as much as I can, and I can’t marry a member of the same sex anymore than they can.
Instead the gay lobby tried to force a fundamental change in the entire institution of marriage and the backlash was something fierce. Strangely enough, they probably would have achieved their goal within a couple of decades anyway but their attempt to have the courts smash it down people’s throats just didn’t go down that well.
RTH – AA Republicans…. there may be a few members of Alcoholics Anonymous, does that count? But really, the GOP is truly the big tent party. Log Cabin Republicans, Hispanic Gop’ers, AA’s, and we can claim Tiger Woods, perhaps the world’s biggest living athletic legend.
Republicans are against changing marriage traditions by law and the American people have spoken. Isn’t that the way its supposed to work?
The Pervert Wing of the Democratic Party wants to redefine marriage in a series of steps intended to legalize child moslestation, statutory rape, sexual assault and other acts which have historically been considered to be criminal.
Former Clinton Aide Critical of Attempts to Shut Down ABC’s 9/11 Special
By Chad Groening
AgapePress
September 13, 2006
(AgapePress) — A national defense analyst who served as a military attaché to
President Bill Clinton says the controversial ABC miniseries that has been
lambasted by the former Chief Executive and his advisers was, in fact, very accurate.
On Monday evening, ABC presented the second three-hour segment of “The Path to 9/11,” a docudrama about the struggle facing America’s counter-terrorism experts
between the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the fatal attacks on September 11, 2001. The bombing occurred slightly more than a month after Bill
Clinton first took office; George W. Bush had been in the Oval Office less than eight months when the two hijacked airliners smashed into the twin towers.
Drawn from detailed information contained in the 9/11 Commission Report and other sources, the six-hour miniseries promised to “take viewers on an
unforgettable journey through the events that presaged that fateful day” so they
could “understand what went right and wrong, and what can be learned from [the]
crucial eight-year period” between the two events.
Sunday’s three-hour segment, however, created a furor with Clinton and members
of his former administration, who wanted the entire program shelved. They accused the filmmakers of including “fictitious” and “false and defamatory”
scenes of how they responded to the terror threat. But retired Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson says his former boss had several chances to nab terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“In fact, Clinton did sign the presidential finding saying that we needed to either kidnap him or kill him,” Patterson recalls. “But just signing a piece of paper didn’t result in any kind of action, because every time it came down to it and we had a chance to get bin Laden dead or alive, President Clinton chose not to.”
Patterson is convinced several terrorist attacks would have been averted if Clinton had acted. “In the timeline of the movie and also [during] my time there, this was in early 1998 now,” he explains. “And if you’ll recall, later in
1998 we had the two embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed hundreds
of people.”
Those attacks and others, says Patterson, could have been prevented. “[W]e could
have prevented the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, we could have prevented 9/11, and
we could have prevented the bombings of the embassies in Africa if President
Clinton had taken one of these opportunities,” he states. “We had eight chances at least to either nab bin Laden or to kill him.”
The former Clinton aide says the former president’s desire to cover up the truth
about his decisions related to bin Laden will not work. “I think President Bill Clinton is responsible for 9/11 and the war on terror, personally. That is his legacy,” Patterson comments. “I think he’s trying to change that legacy, which is what [he was] trying to do by not having this series shown.” Instead, he believes Clinton will go down in history as the nation’s worst Commander-in-Chief.
Patterson says the producer of the miniseries asked him about the accuracy of
the events in “The Path to 9/11,” and the former presidential aide replied it
was a very accurate portrayal of the events.
Lee, even the most avid of Clintonista followers know that he was especially weak on terrorism and crime in general. I remember reading he would only meet with the FBI director once or so each year. The facts that AQ grew unimpeded during the Clinton days cannot be disputed.
The Pervert Wing of the Democratic Party wants to redefine marriage in a series of steps intended to legalize child moslestation, statutory rape, sexual assault – Lee
This is the most idiotic post I’ve read on here. Lee, you must crave attention.
They were lies, pure and simple. Lies!
Posted by: LexWolf | Sep 14, 2006 3:17:02 PM
Lex, I imagine you were referring to the prewar intelligence used to bolster the claims of the administration. Clearly, there was atleast some “massaging” of the truth.
I’m surprised the righties haven’t made more of the favorable trend in the polling for the president. I think it has to do with declining gas prices and an uptick in the stock market. Since the situation in the middle-east is as awful as ever this shows how important economic issues are in American politics. I still think the dems will take the House, but it will be very close. The battle for the senate is probabaly a long shot for the good guys. However, much can still happen. This really is a political junky’s dream come true – a close, down-to-the-wire finish.
Mr. Ewart is apparently unaware of the factions in Democratic Party for whom homosexual “marriage” is just a first step towards legalizing polygamy, bondage and child prostitution. They even have advocacy groups where he can read them saying so.
In most states of Mexico, prostitution, child prostitution, and other forms of abusing women are not even illegal.
I can see why Lee won’t use his real name. I’d be too embarassed as well.
Bud, the barometer to watch is where Lieberman, in a blue state, is leading as an independent BECAUSE he is strong on Iraq and national security in general. Democrats cant win the majority on a platform of surrender in Iraq, impeach Bush, and raise taxes.
Dave, I think what’s really happening is that while people disagree with the president on Iraq they’ve assimilated it into their collective thinking and even many who oppose the president are looking elsewhere to decide their vote. The impeach Bush issue is really a fringe event that won’t sway many voters either way. This was proven during the Clinton impeachment debacle. Most Americans weren’t swayed politically.
As for taxes, who’s advocating raising taxes on anyone but the super wealthy??? Most Americans don’t care if Bill Gates or Ross Perot pay more in taxes.
I stand by my previous post, this is all about economic progress. Even though most Americans are suffering economically under Republican rule enough are fooled by the falling gas prices into believing things are improving that they shift a bit in their views on the president. American voters really are fickle.
But before you gloat too much remember the president is still below 45% approval in most polls. And the generic vote for congress still favors the dems.
Randy, the name of those of us posting facts you cannot answer is irrelevant. Any child could do it, and you would still be without a cogent response.
The fact is that there are hundreds of radical homosexual groups with sites on the Internet, who advocate decriminalizing “man-boy relationships”, and all sorts of other depravity. They openly support the ruse of “gay marriage” as one step to their goals.
It is also a fact that child prostitution is rampant in Mexico, because it is not even illegal in most of the country. Those who oppose sealing the Mexican border and deporting the illegals enable the traffic in children sold North into slavery.
Lee, these are FACTS only in the mind of the neocon. These are what we in the real world call OPINIONS. I doubt there are hundreds of man-boy advocacy groups, but I’m sure there are a few. I’m also sure there is child prostitution in Mexico. And it’s the liberals that would attempt to do something about that, not the neocons. What proposals have been presented by the Republicans in congress to help alleviate child prostitution in Mexico?
There are all kinds of radical groups proposing all kinds of radical stuff. Most groups supporting gay-marriage have no ulterior motive.
Depravity is of course a matter of opinion. I think it’s depraved to want to kill people via capital punishment. Or to kill animals because their fur looks pretty. Or to torture prisoners in contradiction to the Geneva Convention.
Why don’t you do a search for some of the “man boy” groups supporting “gay marriage” as a gateway to legalizing child abuse? I don’t want to filthy up my computer.
Next, check the laws in Mexico and see how few states outlaw prostitution, child prostitution, child pornography, etc.
Doing nothing to seal the Mexican border enables their gangs trafficking in drugs, prostitution and worse. You moderate, fence-straddling, conflict averse Americans need to wake up and face reality.
Lee, your posts have become completely meaningless. You appear to be a bitter man.
BECAUSE he is strong on Iraq and national security in general. – Dave
Dave, I doubt the war is THE REASON why Liberman is running so strong in Connecticut. He is a very strong public servant in general. I’d vote for him regardless of his stance on the war.
Bud, I think we’ve hit a point where traditional indicators may not reflect the financial well-being of most Americans. Granted, many now have stocks, but a boost of a couple thousand dollards is not a financial windfall for a middle class American.
Randy, if you are unaware of the huge numbers of Mexican gang members invading the USA, and bringing child prostitutes and drugs, then study up on the subject instead of hiding your head in the sand and cursing those who try to educate you.
Read this, Senator Graham:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763671.html
Militants freed from Israeli custody behind 14 attacks
Members of terror organizations who were released from Israeli custody after being defined as not having “blood on their hands” perpetrated 14 terror attacks in the past several years. In them, 132 Israeli civilians were killed and many others were injured, according to a report released over the weekend by the Almagor Terror Victims Association.
The organization said that from 1993-99, Israel released 6,912 terrorists in the context of various confidence-building gestures, some of whom returned to terror activities “at the cost of huge destruction of life.”
Almagor on Sunday called on the Israeli public “not to be led astray by formulations that take the terrorists’ murderousness lightly” and “not to console ourselves with the hope that the next terror attack will not hurt us or our immediate surroundings.”
The organization issued a list of 14 major attacks carried out or engineered by released terrorists, including the 2002 Park Hotel attack in Netanya (29 killed, 155 injured), the 2002 Karkur Junction attack (14 killed, 42 injured), the suicide attack at Jerusalem’s Cafit Cafe (11 killed, 20 injured), and the 2003 suicide attack at Cafe Hillel, also in Jerusalem, in which seven people were killed and many more were injured. [Etc.]
Randy, The Lamont people, backed by the usual hate America crowd of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, etc threw everything they could at Liebermann to win the primary. They werent attacking Joe L. on his tax increase votes, or even his unwavering support of large insurance corporations,, no, they went after his Iraq support. So that is the defining issue. And Joe will win now because of enough people in CT who realize they need a leader who wants to protect them.
Sept 11, 2001 was just the icing on 8 years of Democrats failing to protect America from radical Islamic jihad, and they know that if they ever stop spinning the stories and the people catch on, they will never win the Senate, House or Presidency back.
They have to lie about Iraq to cover their asses.
Dave, you stated that Joe is running strong “because” of his stance on the war. I’m quite sure many people are voting for him because of his public service and willingness to think for himself. The war is merely a subset of this.
I believe the usual hate America crowd is a terribly oversimplistic statement. Aren’t Americans dying in Iraq for the very right to protest and speak out – true American rights and values? Why is it that someone who questions or even protests the war is so demonized?
I get the idea Lee has video surveillance cameras around the perimeter of his yard, gaurd dogs, a bunker under the house, and a year’s supply of canned goods. A squirrel rustling around in a tree spooks him and BLAMO, a couple M16 rounds of live ammo taking out Mr. Squirrel, Mr. Bluebird, and Ms. Jones across the street.
An INNOCENT Canadian falsely accused and TORTURED is why the stances Senators Graham and McCain take are to be commended. They shun the reactionary approach of “ends justifies means” for a thoughtful analysis of the decisions the US makes in the war on terror.
Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
Western civilization really is at risk from Muslim extremists.
By Sam Harris, SAM HARRIS is the author of “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason.” His next book, “Letter to a Christian Nation,” will be published this week by Knopf. samharris.org.
September 18, 2006
TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, “The End of Faith.” In it, I argued that the world’s major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.
This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.
This difference does not bode well for the future of liberalism.
Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I’d like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.
But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.
On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.
This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that “liberals are soft on terrorism.” It is, and they are……
In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.
Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise……..
While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren’t.
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.
To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization…….
(MORE)
Randy – The construct of America haters is one of the worst terms I could use regarding a US Citizen. The problem is that this is a true and apt description. Yes, there are varying degrees of this type of hatred but the definition fits. I don’t have time to find and post all the individual comments that prove my point. The more visible of the America haters are those in the public eye all the time. Johnny Depp is a case in point. He publicly stated that he would never raise his children in the US yada yada yada i.e. he does hate America. Madonna is another. I believe Pitt and Jolie birthed their child in Namibia for this very reason. Those are the extremes. Now look at Sharpton and Jackson. They may hate Jews more than America but if given their way, they would overthrow our government and install a sort of fascist communist state. Count on that. Then we have the globalists who believe that nationalistic and patriotic beliefs in America are outdated and dangerous. To them, the US should subjugate itself to world courts, the UN, so called global treaties that would damage the US. Worst even, globalists think that the US should NOT be a superpower, as that isnt fair to the non-superpowers, so to them giving our military effectiveness and technologies away to our worldly colleagues is a valid proposition. Clinton, for one, went out of his way to see that the Chinese space and high technology programs were improved. Needless to say, he and Gore collected money for that charitable act to the red communists. So, yes, we have the hate America crowd, some are just more subtle about it.
Randy had fallen silent in his defense of gay marriage, as he becomes aware of it being a ruse to legalize sexual assault and molestation.
Based on your comments then, homosexuals aren’t Americans? If they are, you’ve just defined yourselves as American haters, no better than that foreign enemy you strive against.
You’d want to share the views of a fundamentalist Muslim? If they’re so crazy with respect to most matters (as you constantly harp), then why wouldn’t they be flawed from that perspective as well?
The Pope actually just launched the Hail Mary play for the Republicans. By quoting some guy from yesteryear about Islam thus becoming their newest target for hate and murder, the world and American voters are being reminded that we aren’t playing beanbag with kids on the terror front. Here the IFs are threatening to kill the Pope because he expressed a quoted that said they were violent. Does anyone need more proof than that. Then again, Lindsey Graham wants to make sure even the would be Pope Killers are treated very nicely if in captivity. Sadly, that is the priority with Lindsey. I would rather hear him speak out against the killers and praise our military and CIA, but dont expect that.
Wow, Lexie, it looks like Sam Harris has decided that the Christian Taliban is the lesser of two evils.
If I’m reading your excerpt correctly then Harris thinks that living under intolerant (but militarily aggressive) Christians is preferable living under intolerant (but militarily aggressive) Muslims.
Luckily, that’s a false choice– just like Bush’s false choice between legalizing government torture of any suspect and surrender to the terrorists.
I can’t imagine how Rush Limbaugh and James Carvelle keep all their screen names straight.
Capital A, doesn’t your inability to discuss the subjects make you hesitate from posting those childish word games of yours?
Doesn’t the fact that child molesters and rapists openly lobby for their crimes to be legalized as “gay marriage” make you at least pause in your reflexive support?
Why can’t you separate honest homosexuals from the predators and try to have our laws do the same?
Lee, no one on these boards (and by that I mean NO ONE)is more childish than you. Every one of your posts is infected with the fear of a quivering, whimpering snotnose. As a result, you unnecessarily lash out as a child often does.
The greatest curiosity to me is what exactly is your talent for separating those you deem as “honest” and those you classify as “dishonest”? I’ve read about, heard from and studied men who claimed to have had that talent. In the end, it was little more than a child’s twisted fantasy as more and more, the pile for the latter classification grew much taller than that of the former.
Child molesters are their own classification. Their ilk knows no bounds. Stop scapegoating a group by association just because you despise that group. At least be honest in your hatred, if possible. Experimentation with reality and lies is a phase of childhood, I know.
Digressing, the terrible trio is also wrong on the matter of China and India. If you three could stop choking down the conservative-line pablum, you’d realize that these countries are simply running out of potable water. No water means no superpower status. Proof, once more, that the US is blessed, despite the babies crying to the contrary…
Trois enfantes terribles, stop trying to scare people with your boogeytales. Hide under your beds and suck each other’s thumbs. Or better yet, place them where they probably more appropriately belong.
Capital A, I was going to scold you for getting caught up in a name calling match with Lee. Then I realized I just did almost the same thing on the “Unity” thread. I guess it’s just too easy with someone so incredibly obnoxious.
Cap A – That is a strange proposition that China and India are running out of water. Just like we buy oil, Chindia can buy water. Let alone that technology is advancing for the conversion of salt water to fresh at ever lower costs. Water will not be an insurmountable issue.
Also, I don’t see anything that Lee has posted that is obnoxious. He uses no profanity and backs up what he posts. Stop being offended and get on with the debates. let the best debater/blogger win, but let’s cease with the ganging up.
Also, I don’t see anything that Lee has posted that is obnoxious. He uses no profanity and backs up what he posts. – Dave
Lee supported none of the following. Maybe you care to take a stab:
Lee stated “most Hispanics you meet are illegal aliens”. Dave, I checked with my wife, my son, my mom, my priest, the spanish teachers at my school, and the college professors at USC where I teach a course. Everyone checked out. (BTW, his inflated figure was 22 million illegals, of which 90% are Hispanic. The census states there are over 42 million LEGAL Hispanics – at most 1/3 are illegal). You support this statement?
Lee stated that Liberals want to legalize child pornography and child molestation. You agree with this?
Lee stated that 96.8% of all crime is committed by illegal aliens. Even Lex said this is bogus. You believe Lee?
Lee stated “black students from nontraditional homes have parents that don’t care about them”. Dave, explain how he knows this is true for every single black parent AND why would it be only single black parents who don’t care?
Lee stated that he is an economist, engineer, finger print technician, and volunteer fire captain. Puhleeze.
Then again, Lindsey Graham wants to make sure even the would be Pope Killers are treated very nicely if in captivity. Sadly, that is the priority with Lindsey. – Dave
Yes, I think he’s running on this issue his next campaign; “I’ll treat Pope Killers VERY nicely if I’m reelected”. In lieu of campaign signs, he’ll tag walls like gangstas. Similar to Crip Killer or CK, he’ll be a PK and will wear Michigan stuff because they killed N.D.
Of course, he’s also busy helping coyotes dig tunnels in El Paso. And, according to Lee, he’s a Liberal so he’ll be pushing for legalized child molestation.
This should have been in Brad’s candidate interviews, but I guess he got scooped again.
Randy, Many of us supported Graham’s election to the Senate because we thought we were putting a solid conservative with common sense into the Senate. What we are seeing instead is a camera happy media star who revels in publicly performing like the opposition party to the president. The episode of legalistic politically correct handcuffing of the US military and CIA so we can treat non-uniformed combatants exactly the same as US citizens is the last straw. He can buddy up with John McCain all he wants but when he loses his senate seat I guess he can have his own show on MSNBC or CNN.
AS for Lee, you need to let some of this stuff that has been blogged 1000 times go. Move on to new discussion.
Dave, if you’ve seen this bull crap “1000 times” then how can you suggest Lee is “not obnoxious” and “supports his statements”? I think you conveniently overlook his bull crap because he is “with you” in bashing democrats with simplistic, even fanatical criticism (“the anti-semtic left”).
Yes, Graham wants to be a star, that’s why he goes out on a limb with politically risky stances. He doesn’t blindly follow the pied piper of party first, country second. That’s why he’s catching heat. This is exactly why is will run stronger than ever in the general elections. I’ll vote for him over any democrat!
Randy, all your defenses of Lindsey Graham’s do-nothing attitude towards illegal aliens are just tactics of quibbling over the exact numbers of Mexicans, Guatemalens, Asians, Poles, burglars, drug runners, pimps – none of which can be exactly known because they are all criminals who live in the shadows.
What we do know are the numbers were capture, and too often, release back into our streets. We do know how many child prositutes are arrested from Mexico. We do know that most Mexican states have no laws against prositution and child molestation. That’s a culture we need to keep out of America.
Lindsey Graham wants to run for VP with John McCain, even if it is on a mealy-mouthed losing ticket, in order to run for president in 2012. That is why he is turning his back on his constituency to suck up to the media and get face time on TV.
Cap A, you’re right – the perverts who are open about their scheme to use “gay marriage” as a first step to legalizing child molestation are being honest.
It’s the supporters of “gay marriage” who pretend that it is about committed relationships between adults who are lying to themselves.
Just like we buy oil, Chindia can buy water.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 19, 2006 3:26:46 PM
Umm, no they can’t “just buy water.” The desert is rapidly encroaching on China. They are, quite simply, drying up. They can build no walls to keep out Mother Nature, it seems.
Their younger generations are drying on the vine, as well, and as a direct result of this shortage of the elixir of life, that same posterity is being gifted with shorter life expectancy.
The entire world is suffering from a lack of potable water due to our carelessness and self-destructiveness that seems inherent in human nature. Water will someday be more valuable than platinum if its use and misuse continues at this rate.
I’m sorry to throw a monkey wrench into the tidal wave of your company line, Dave et al, but those are the facts. As residents of America and as far as natural resources are concerned, we just seem to be one of the most blessed…or the least cursed.
Here’s where the Decider’s foreign policy has gotten us:
“Taliban-style rule feared in Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia – The Islamic militia that controls much of southern Somalia said Tuesday it will train students for holy war against foreign peacekeepers, an ominous development amid fears that a Taliban-style regime is emerging in the country.”
Bush has created a world full of extremists. Sadly, it’s becoming way to easy to find examples. As Major Clipton said at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai: “Madness, Madness”
Muslim clerics and KGB agents created a world of terrorists, starting in the 1940s.
Not Bush.
Not Clinton.
Not Reagan.
Not Carter.
Not any American president.
There is a difference in the reluctance of some in both parties to recognize the threat and do something about it.
700 miles of fence
Last week the House passed The Secure Fence Act which calls for 700 miles of double
layered fencing and improved surveillance along the southern border. It also
reverses present policy and gives border agents the right to disable fleeing vehicles along the border.
Then yesterday Senator Frist picked up the bill and appears determined to carry it
into law. He actually filed parliamentary motions that will force the bill onto the
Senate floor, saying ?It is time to secure the border with Mexico.?
Lindsey Graham’s office says he is going to vote for it. We’ll see.
http://www.teamamericapac.org/plainpages/senatenumbers.htm
(R) Jim DeMint (202) 224-6121
(R) Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972
700 miles of fence
Last week the House passed The Secure Fence Act which calls for 700 miles of double
layered fencing and improved surveillance along the southern border. It also
reverses present policy and gives border agents the right to disable fleeing vehicles along the border.
Then yesterday Senator Frist picked up the bill and appears determined to carry it
into law. He actually filed parliamentary motions that will force the bill onto the
Senate floor, saying ?It is time to secure the border with Mexico.?
Lindsey Graham’s office says he is going to vote for it. We’ll see.
http://www.teamamericapac.org/plainpages/senatenumbers.htm
(R) Jim DeMint (202) 224-6121
(R) Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972
700 miles of fence
Last week the House passed The Secure Fence Act which calls for 700 miles of double
layered fencing and improved surveillance along the southern border. It also
reverses present policy and gives border agents the right to disable fleeing vehicles along the border.
Then yesterday Senator Frist picked up the bill and appears determined to carry it
into law. He actually filed parliamentary motions that will force the bill onto the
Senate floor, saying ?It is time to secure the border with Mexico.?
Lindsey Graham’s office says he is going to vote for it. We’ll see.
http://www.teamamericapac.org/plainpages/senatenumbers.htm
(R) Jim DeMint (202) 224-6121
(R) Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972
Cap A – Surely you have more faith in technology than that kind of thinking. Run out of water,, are you kidding here? Yes, Mother Nature can run some areas out of water at her whim, but have you heard of pipes to transport water? How about salt water desalinization? Are you one of those “overpopulation” believers? The earth is 80% water and you think we will run out of it. No wonder Algore can sell those books?
Dave, if a river or lake runs dry in Africa, all these $4/1000 gallons of water desalinization plants or these miles of pipes will suddenly appear? There’s been years of talk about the water shortage in Atlanta, let alone Africa.
Yes, there’s plenty of water, but the will and finances for piping and cleaning the water is not there. That’s part of the point. We continue to use up resources as if there is an endless source in lieu of being smarter.
Henry Hubble, Exxon honcho, admitted that they “aren’t interested in renewable energy” at this time. Yet, they are running at maximum capacity. Not to mention, the US is “addicted to oil” and this threatens our security. If we don’t have the collective will now to take better care of our resources then when will we?
This grasshopper approach of not planning for our future will leave our future generations out in the cold.
RAndy, you really need to talk to some real experts from American corporations regarding energy for one thing. US corporations, after the Carter rationing disasters, implemented massive energy and fuel savings programs. Had those programs not been implemented, US industry would now be using at least 50 to 75% more energy than what they are now using. Yet, the drumbeat of the left continues about how companies could care less about energy, water, etc. If Exxon would only lose money on renewable energy, and they would, then they should NOT invest in it.. That is the system.
As for water, again you have to be kidding. If humans really really need water in an area, they will get it there. Whether via salt water conversion or piping or for that matter hauling it via ocean freight, they will get it. The market will answer that call.
You realize that experts back in the 1800’s said that oil was ONLY in OIL CITY, PA and then it would run out. Same with coal, etc. And then we have nuclear, clean dependable energy that the environmental wackoes and lawyers have about shut down in the US. There is NO energy shortage, only an oversupply of hungry lawyers.
If humans really really need water in an area, they will get it there – Dave
Drought in Africa threatens millions.
Droughts plaguing several Middle Eastern and South Asian countries…massive humanitarian crisis.
Atlanta faces Severe Water Shortage.
“90% of world’s transportation relies on oil…Aspo suggests the key date is not when the oil runs out, but when production peaks, meaning supplies decline. It believes the peak may come by about 2010.”
Bush has alredy conceded that a drop in production puts us at risk, which was the motivation for the “addicted to oil” posturing that lasted maybe a week.
Since the Democrats have blocked new refinery construction for 30 years, the ones we have run at full capacity. More crude oil will not solve the problem when you cannot refine it.
I thought they were busy pushing to “legalize child molestation”. Those dems sure know how to multi-task!
Randy, I spend a lot of time in Atlanta. A severe drought to me is not defined by having to limit some lawn watering and car washing. Then we have golf courses, where millions of gallons of water are pumped daily. With the writer’s definition, a severe drought in America is about the equivalent of McDonald’s temporarily running low on fries. Sub-saharan Africa does have droughts but look at Arizona. Because of technology, millions of humans can live in Arizona. Without technology, it would be nearly uninhabitable.
Given an opportunity, the free marketplace (at least in the US) can solve most of the water problems. At a cost, water can be distributed from the plentiful areas to the dry areas.
Instead of laughing off the child molestation agenda of radical homosexuals, Randy, why don’t you summon the intellectual courage to research some of the groups advocating the decriminalization of statutory rape and other crimes through the ruse of “marriage”?
Then look at how prostitution and child prostitution is legal in most of Mexico, to understand how easy it is for the illegal aliens in the USA to traffic in human slaves.
Refusing to seal the borders and clean out the Latino gangs is a tacit approval of their trade in drugs and prostitution.
Dave, you’re just arguing to argue now. Examine the facts about worldwide shortages of potable water. It will represent the glass ceiling for a lot of these “so-called summoning superpowers.”
Whether you believe me or not, I don’t really care anymore. The facts are out there to peruse and process.
In one instance, I was moved by a story concerning a Chinese villager, 78 years old, who had to ride on 21 miles on muleback, everyday, to fill up two wooden buckets that represented the water supply for the entire village. The stream on which they were dependent was little more than a trickle.
If I’d have been backpacking in NC or SC and had seen one like it, I wouldn’t even have bothered stopping. Of course, the water (which was often dried up) was as foul-looking as you could imagine. I was struck by the fact that my SweetWater ™ purifier that I use on hiking trips would represent a giant technological and healthy leap if these villagers had something similar.
What am I going to do about it? I don’t know yet. Something more than complain, to be sure…
My eyes have only recently been open to this issue. Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink…
Cap A – That is a sad tale about the 78 yr old China man. But, you have to realize that communism has a lot to do with that. Odds are the red commies have a central government authority that “plans and controls” water projects. ARe you listening out there socialists and communists, big government types? And Africa, a continent literally loaded and overflowing with fresh water, is run primarily by Muslims who have proven over and over that they are not fit to lead governments. What else can one expect? And that comment about me arguing for arguments sake, what is that all about? Free enterprise can and will solve many of the world’s problems if the big government types would allow it. That includes education in the US also.
I think charity blended with education would solve those same problems. I understand communism and traditionalism are the basis of their problems. They are also the twin roots of many of ours, by the way.
The more you examine the world, the more you see humans aren’t so different after all. The variations that do exist are arbitrary and often inspired by government and/or religion. The true, honest differences that exist outside of those strangling weeds actually serve to make us all unique and interesting.
The Chinese culture is both amazing and problematic if you study it at all. That’s why I wish you two would kill the “red China” talk. Most of the citizens would love to throw off the yoke of oppression, it’s just that the entire traditional system has them trapped. The government’s goals do not square with its people.
Sound familiar, Americans?
The Chinese government is running the country, literally, into the ground. They silence, defame or kill off the very scientists they hire to present them with the facts when those same inconveniences don’t square with their view of the world.
In light of the current problems facing our country, we’re not so different after all.
Dave, I think you are a bit too zealous in your adament support of the free market. It’s hardly perfect. Without government controls many social/spillover costs are simply be absorbed by society as a whole. Persons not using a particular good or service pay part of the cost. The result is we produce too much of certain goods that produce costs that are not reflected in the price of the finished product and too few that have low spillover costs. Time after time libertarians simply ignore the problem with spillovers.
Automobiles are the prime example. The cost of a new car does not reflect the pollution, safety problems or congestion it renders onto society. (Not to mention the troubles necessitated by the need to import oil). Hence we have too many cars that pollute and kill people, and too little public transportation that is both safer and cleaner.
An even better example is tobacco. For years we had too much of the stuff and thousands of Americans died, many of whom did not even smoke. Thanks to the government, the spillover costs were communicated to the public and action was taken. Through higher cigarette taxes and a societal revolt we now have a much healthier environment that takes into account spillovers. The free market was, in effect, failing. Government stepped in and things improved.
And by the way, where are all the free market promoters when it comes time to anti up for the military? Why don’t we just allow the free market handle that? Useful though it is the free market is not capable of producing the optimum solution to every problem.
Government schools have certainly been effective in getting students to absorb socialist slogans about how heavy regulation actually makes markets more efficient. They can’t explain why, of course, but some have memorized a few examples, which they can recite, but not explain, because those who truly understand how markets work also know how government works, and doesn’t work.
“Government schools” have also led me to ponder a few other questions such as:
Why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up? Why can’t Lee ever properly use commas and conjunctions?
No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothin’ in Lee’s arguments. Whenever his liquor begun to work, he most always went for the govment.
(Apologies to Mr. Twain…)
Bud, you think the problem is we have too many cars, etc. etc.. — but the real problem is when government planners start making decisions about whether you have too much or too little of anything. I can see it now under the Bud tenure. A govt. law telling us how many cars or trucks we are allowed. Each family gets one car and after that one you pay a $10,000 annual second car tax. China regulates babies that way and aborts (kills) the second one. That is communism/socialism right there.
And tobacco, that plant has been demonized beyond belief. Without it, what will we smoke in our peace pipe?
Capital A, have you ever thought about filing a civil lawsuit against the public school which left you so unable to understand economics?
Dave, we’re in s society that sponsors abortion and leaves our teenagers to linger in the throes of unabashed capitalism and marketing. We’re in no position to counsel other countries on the treatment of their youth.
Lee, you DO understand how to use commas in direct address! Her-cu-les! Her-cu-les!
It’s bad enough when a lefty can only criticize our typing errors and not the content of our postings.
It’s even worse when they attempt to criticize grammar and punctuation, and don’t know the rules.
“What’s the dirtiest part of your body? I think it’s your mind.”
Frank Zappa
Lee’s getting weird.
That’s your most civil post this week.
But, like all your other posts, it addresses no topic except your personal prejudice, and is devoid of facts.
Capital A, have you ever thought about filing a civil lawsuit against the public school which left you so unable to understand economics?
Posted by: Lee | Sep 22, 2006 5:18:03 AM
That’s your most civil post this week.
But, like all your other posts, it addresses no topic except your personal prejudice, and is devoid of facts.
Posted by: Lee | Sep 22, 2006 6:53:49 PM
One of the many things I don’t “get” about Lee is that he claims to be a blueblood, yet he bastardizes (in ever single post!)the very language he would wield as a scepter against the mongrel dogs such as we.
“What makes a man a monster?” That’s a literary theme that fascinates me.
What has made you so angry, Lee? I don’t get it. Explique, Monsieur Madman?
Only a slightly related note, what happened to Herb? I miss the guy’s postings. I always considered Herb as the Marvel Comics Presents: “What if…Lee found religion and lived a happy and fulfilling life?”.
Try to post something factual about the thread topic, Cap. No one cares about your personal problems, or your problems with the English grammar.
Cap, I care. When calling out Lee for being hateful and for skewing facts, please do so with proper grammar.
I don’t hate, but do call out the ignorant, dishonest, greedy, uncivil socialistic liberals.
Why not call out the ignorant, dishonest, greedy, uncivil reactionary conservatives also?
I don’t hate, but do call out the ignorant, dishonest, greedy, uncivil socialistic liberals.
Posted by: Lee | Sep 25, 2006 8:40:42 AM
Anyone else see this as an oxymoron?
Which dumb position of Lindsey Graham’s do you folks like?
* Refusal to round up illegal aliens.
* Opposition to building a wall to keep Mexico out and sealing the borders.
* Amnesty for illegal aliens.
* Unlimited work permits for future immigrants.
* Encourage illegal aliens by not punishing employers.
* Let human and animal diseases enter the country without any controls.
Hey Cap, why the association with Lee’s views? I don’t share them with him at all.
The topic is Lindsey Graham’s views.
Why does that leave you folks so speechless?
Hey Cap, why the association with Lee’s views? I don’t share them with him at all.
Posted by: Herb Brasher | Sep 26, 2006 5:10:28 AM
Herb, I guess I always imagined you two as being from the same generation with one aging more positively than the other. I assumed this so I’m probably wrong on that point.
All apologies, Herb, and Lee, you’re welcome.
Which dumb position of Lindsey Graham’s do you folks like?
Posted by: Lee | Sep 25, 2006 6:02:17 PM
I believe Lee made use of personification.
Lee, you left out Graham driving large trucks, crammed with illegals, over the border with his coyote cohorts.
Does the fact that you like a politician but are unable to explain why ever cause you to stop and think about it?
How about your inability to explain the political positions you support?
Well I think I’ve aged pretty well, but others will have to decide that. And for all the medication expense, I’m in pretty good health, which I can only be thankful for.
After all, no use in complaining, as my brother-in-law says, because nobody will be listening anyway.
As for Lee, we really don’t know how old he is, do we?
I want to know why L. Graham wants to give SS benefits to illegals who fraudulently applied for them? Just because they worked under illegal conditions does not then qualify them for lifelong SS benefits.
For the same reason he wants to grant quickie citizenship to all the illegal aliens who can qualify.
That leaves another 10,000,000 who will remain in the underground economy, because they are fugitives from justice, or otherwise involved in criminal activities like dope smuggling and prostitution.
Gee, Dave and Lee must really be upset that the Great Communicator set such a terrible precedent for his party.
I am a big fan of Graham’s because he puts country over party. Most politicians are no better than many bloggers on here who are fanatically partisan and evaluate PUBLIC servants based on how well they toe the party line.
Graham is willing to compromise because he thinks for himself. He does what he believes is best for the country, even if this puts him at odds with some fanatical constituents who care more about ideology and resisting the enemy democrats at all costs.
Randy, everyone agrees SS is going broke. How does adding millions of people to the benefits side of SS who never paid in on the contribution side serve the best interests of the country? And especially when the people being added got to this point by breaking our laws. If this is compromise, what is defeat?
Randy is saying nothing about the actual elements of Graham’s giveaway to the illegal aliens. He talks in vague slogans, avoiding mention of amnesty, instant citizenship, tax amnesty, welfare, and no border security.
Compromise with Mexico is not what US Senators are supposed to do.
No, we wouldn’t want any compromise. Maybe we could threaten to blow Mexico back into the stone age to get what we want.
Dave, is it ideal to integrate these people? No. But what should be done about the illegals in this country now? Aside rounding them up, which is a joke, what should be done?
Randy, rounding them up is not a joke. Let’s say 500,000 Americans went out tomorrow and robbed 500,000 banks. Would you then say trying to round these people up is impossible, its a joke. Breaking the law is breaking the law. I dont care if it takes 50 years but the illegals have to be deported.
How to get rid of the criminal aliens by enforcing the laws and passing better ones:
* Clarify the 14th Amendment to end the modern federal court creation of instant citizenship for anchor babies. To become a citizen, you have to apply and go through the process, or be born to both parents being married citizens.
* Any employer caught employing illegal aliens or immigrant workers falsifying applications will lose rights to bid on government jobs.
* No tax deductions for wages of illegal aliens.
* No bank accounts for illegal aliens, and no bank wire transfers for them. Require a State Dept document.
* No welfare, education or medical treatment for illegals.
* Set high or no bail for illegals arrested for any crime. 500,000 have skipped bail now. Speedy trials and deportation. Bill the home country for the prison costs.
* Fence off the entire Mexican border and patrol it.
* End all H1-B and L1 visas, send everyone home, and make them re-apply. There are 3,600,000 illegal workers who came here legally and then disappeared.
Lee writes:
Clarify the 14th Amendment to end the modern federal court creation of instant citizenship for anchor babies. To become a citizen, you have to apply and go through the process, or be born to both parents being married citizens.
Do they have to be married to each other?
It makes no sense to encourage citizens to have children out of wedlock, because that is probably the greatest factor in poverty.
Likewise, the laws should not be written or interpreted in a stupid manner, to encourage illegal aliens to sneak in here and have instant citizen babies so they can stay and mooch up welfare.
If the mother is a born citizen, then her child should be a citizen, whether she is married or not, but not if the father is not yet a naturalized citizen.
Education is the greatest factor in poverty (or lack thereof, Lee. Appropriate that that would escape your attention…
Educate these people instead of sending them on the run and watch the problems you listed begin to decrease.
I see no punishments in your proposal for those who left our borders wide open, though. Strange, since some of those would be your heroes…
Lack of education is the result of poverty for children, and a cause of continued poverty as adults.
Children without two parents usually don’t complete high school. Those born out of wedlock have high rates of illiteracy and failure to graduate.
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which contains a nationally representative sample of young mothers and their children, chart divides children into four groups:
* Out-of-Wedlock, Never Married (children born out of wedlock whose mothers never married after their birth);
* Out-of-Wedlock, Subsequent Marriage (children born out of wedlock whose mothers married subsequent to their birth);
* Within Wedlock, Divorced (children born to married parents who later divorced);
* Within Wedlock, Marriage Intact (children born to parents who were married at the time of birth and remained married).
Children born out of wedlock to never-married women live in poverty 51 percent of the time. By contrast, children born within a marriage that remains intact are poor 7 percent of the time. Thus, the absence of marriage increases the frequency of child poverty 700 percent. However, marriage after an illegitimate birth is effective, cutting the child poverty rate in half.
From the very beginning, children born outside of marriage have life stacked against them. In addition to poverty, children born into illegitimacy are more likely to experience retarded cognitive development (especially verbal development); lower educational achievement; lower job attainment; increased behavioral and emotional problems; lower impulse control; and retarded social development.
Such children are far more likely to engage in sexual activity; have children outside of marriage; be on welfare as adults; and engage in criminal activity.
Dave, please. 500,000 people robbed a bank is a big freaking “What If” that doesn’t merit consideration.
Yes, it’s illegal, but taking 50 years to round them up is like suggesting we will stop everyone from speeding (after all, breaking the law is breaking the law). Brad made a great point, the Nazis couldn’t come close to 100% success rate, how would we?
It sounds like a great conservativce ideological goal, but it’s not remotely realistic.
You don’t have to round up 22,000,000 illegal aliens.
Just use my measures above to cut off their money, and they will run back to Mexico.
22 is over inflated, but you’ll post some erroneous math to suggest otherwise.
Your measures include branding them with bar codes or something to that effect.
You make up this crap to divert attention from the fact that you are the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby.
12,000,000 illegals is the count of the 2000 Census. It is a low estimate.
22,000,000 is the estimate based on employment records and other data, compiled by Bear Stearns Economic Research, the Pew Immigration Study, Stanford U, researchers at Southern Cal, and other credible authorities.
The number is important only to the magnitude of the criminal invasion. They all have to be removed from America in ordedr to establish control of a immigration policy.
Pew Hispanic Center estimates that nation’s illegal immigrant population surged to 10.3 million last year, mostly because of arrivals of Mexicans.
NY Times 9/22/05
Dr. Jeffrey S. Passel at the Pew Hispanic Research Center in Washington, D.C. compiled an estimate which matches the 2006 estimate by Homeland Security of 11 to 12,000,000 illegal aliens.
Dr. Passel’s report uses a gross figure of 30,000,000 illegals, and works back with a discounting method to 21,000,000 as of March. From there, he and DHS reclassify 10,000,000 illegal aliens into a grey area.
The Border Patrol estimates 968,000 illegal per year, with 500,000 captured or returning on their own.
GAO and the IRS estimate 3,000,000 illegals a year, with 500,000 returning.
Fuzzy math
Yes, the Residual Method of Estimating is fuzzy enough that even Dr. Passel discusses the possiblity that it has an error of 8,000,000….
Net Illegal immigration has also soared from about 130,000 per year in the 1970’s, to 300,000+ per year in the 1980’s to over 500,000 per year in the 1990’s to over 700,000 per year in the 2000’s. Total illegal immigration may be as high as 1,500,000 per year [in 2006] with a net of at least 700,000 more illegal aliens arriving each year to join the 12,000,000 to 20,000,000 that are already here.
– Pew Hispanic Data Estimates, – Jeffrey S. Passel. “Estimates of the Size and Characteristics of the Undocumented Population”, Pew Hispanic Center, March 21, 2005.
Pew Hispanic Center estimates that nation’s illegal immigrant population surged to 10.3 million last year, mostly because of arrivals of Mexicans.
NY Times 9/22/05
You just can’t follow Dr. Passel’s estimate of 30,000,000 with possible duplicates removed, down to 20,000,000 illegals, can you?
If 10,300,000 illegal aliens don’t bother someone, then 20,000,000 or 40,000,000 won’t either. They just can’t deal with the problem on any magnitude.
fuzzy math
Even the most simple math is fuzzy to you, Randy, especially concerning issues that you cannot face.
The State has been running some articles about the 24,000 “Hispanics” (they really aren’t Hispanic) in SC public schools.
Most of them arrived here illegally.
They have the highest dropout and failure rates of any demographic group.
So why would any American want to import non-paying failure and inject it into our school system?
Racism rearing it’s ugly head.
You think the State is racist for reporting the school retention problems and low test scores of Latino students?
Are the schools racist for keeping records and publishing the facts?
Or are white liberals racist for expecting and excusing failure by non-white students?
Fuzzy thinking
Busted you.
With your fuzzy math? Sure, ok.
That’s not my math, and it is only fuzzy to you.
I find the liberal brand of patronizing racism to be due to fuzzy thinking, too.
High Crime Rates in Mexico
1. ^ Mexico City crime rate rises sharply. AP/Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (1997,
December 15).
2. ^ Jordan, Mary. “In Mexico, Rape is an Unpunished Crime”, The Washington Post,
2002, June 30.
3. ^ Orrenias, Pia M. and Coronado, Roberto (May/June 2003). “Falling Crime and
Rising Border Enforcement: Is There a Connection?”. Southwest Economy.
4. ^ a b Country profile – Mexico. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Retrieved on 2006-06-08.
5. ^ Contreras, Joseph. “Losing the Battle: A sharp spike in drug-related violence
has some analysts worrying about the ‘Colombianization’ of Mexico”, Newsweek
International.
6. ^ Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (2002). Encuesta
Nacional de Adicciones 2002.
7. ^ Bailey, John, Ph.D. (2000-2002). “The Mexico Project”. Center for Latin
American Studies, Georgetown University. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
8. Mexico Police and Law Enforcement Organizations. Photius.
9. Police Drug Corruption. Drugwar.com.
10. Civil and Political Rights: Independence of the Judiciary, Administration of
Justice, and Impunity. U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
11. Hayward, Susana, “Mexican journalists seek justice in deaths of colleagues”,
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, September 7, 2004.
12. Cevallos, Diego, “WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY-MEXICO: 5 YEARS, 15 JOURNALISTS
KILLED”, IPS – Inter Press Service/Global Information Network, May 2, 2006.
13. “The very odd couple, Can Rudolph Giuliani make Mexico city safer?”, The
Economist, 2002, October 17.
14. Preston, Julia. “State Department Warns of ‘Critical Levels’ of Crime in
Mexico”, The New York Times, 1998, May 1.
15. Tips for Travelers to Mexico. U.S. Department of State.
16. Sánchez, Marcela – host. “Leaders of the Americas, Live online chat with
Mexican President Vicente Fox”, The Washington Post, 2001, February 15.
17. “Demonstrations against crime surge spread all over Latin America”, Pravda,
2004, June 24.
18. LaGesse, David. “Mexico to allow extradition to U.S.”, The Press Enterprise
(Riverside, Ca.), 1996, March 29.
19. Talhelm, Jennifer. “State Department defends U.S. and Mexico crime-fighting on
border”, San Diego Union-Tribune.
20. Texas Attorney General – Press release archives.
21. Murder money & Mexico. PBS.
22. “Giuliani targets Mexico crime wave”, BBC, 2003, January 14.
23. “Huge march against crime wave”, China Daily, 2004, June 28.
24. “Mexico deploys federal forces against organized crime along border”,
KRISTV.COM, 2005, June 13.