Can't say it clearer than the headline - so I won't

McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer

- rob 3:04 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Sign it: Help get an investigation of the Pentagon pundit program

Nearly two weeks ago, the New York Times reported on a covert Pentagon plan in, “an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." The goal of this program: get coverage favorable to Bush Administration policies.
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Co-sign the letter John Kerry wrote to the GAO demanding an investigation and help us get answers.

You wanna do long term damage to a democracy? Make the military a servant of one of the political parties. Heck of a job Bushy.

- rob 2:02 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Clinton touts support from ‘white Americans’

CNN) — In what appear to be the New York senator's most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that "White Americans" are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama’s candidacy.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Yeah white folks don't vote for Obama.

Let's look at some of these states that Obama won:

• Iowa
• Vermont
• Wisconsin
• Idaho
• Alaska
• North Dakota
• Kansas
• Utah

I could go on and on, but I think that last one makes my point clear - white people do not vote for Obama. Let's not be shy about admitting it. I mean you go to Utah and you'd have to drive for hours to find a white person there. Nobody white there, and Idaho? Please don't get me started, you might as well be in Harlem in 1979 - just try to find a white guy in Idaho.

- rob 1:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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President Gore - telling it like it is.

Gore: It Is ‘Obscene’ That Bush Has Dismissed ‘George Washington’s 200-Plus Year Prohibition On Torture’

And these kinds of outrages — a president saying that he has the right to overturn George Washington’s 200-plus year prohibition against torture and torture anyone he wants, with his assistants gathered in the basement of the White House, according to recent revelations, personally reviewing the kinds of torture techniques being used prisoner by prisoner — it’s obscene!

Seriously, after a one week pause after getting inaugurated I want Obama to let lose the hounds!

Jail time for the lot!

Actually what Obama should probably do is arrest them all except since Bush as he is a former elected executive officer of our country. For Bush he should offer a pardon with the understanding that the US will not intercede on his behalf for any international war crime prosecutions.

Then investigate any government contract that benefited him, his family, and his friends. Find out any egregious pilfering of our treasury and go after Bush on that.

Heh, I can write whatever I want on this site (for now) - so there.

- rob 1:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Let the arrests begin.

Federal Agents Raid Office of Special Counsel

Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice.

Agents fanned out yesterday morning in the agency's building on M Street, where they sequestered Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch for questioning, served grand-jury subpoenas on 17 employees and shut down access to computer networks in a search lasting more than five hours.

I can understand if Bloch is a bit confused about all the fuss. Isn't political bias and obstruction of justice the unofficial motto of the Bush administration.

When the next President steps into office give the Bush cronies a week to think they got away with it.

And then let the arrests begin.

- rob 5:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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seldom is it asked:
Is our children learning... witchcraft?

Oh Florida is there nothing you can't do (to amuse us)?

Substitute Teacher Says Wizardry Accusation Cost Him Job

The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students.

Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.

He asked what she meant.

"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,' " Piculas said.

Forget learning - are our schools even teaching how to think?

- rob 11:14 AM - [PermaLink] -

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I'm shocked.

I really thought they had a killer cocktail:

• rubber stamping for eight years every idea the worst President ever could come up with
• ignoring one of the main roles of Congress which is to keep the executive in check
• handing over the writing of laws to lobbyists
• destroying the Republican reputation of fiscal responsibility
• genuflecting the religious right

Seriously, who could have predicted that wouldn't work out?

Rove told us the Republicans would be in power forever.

GOP leaders warn of election disaster

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

- rob 10:36 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Obama: Already trying to make a better world.

Nigeria oil rebels say mulling Obama truce appeal

LAGOS (Reuters) - Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria's oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Can I just say that "oil rebels" sounds like something right out of Mad Max.

- rob 5:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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So John McCain admits we are only in Iraq because of their oil. Blood for oil John? If we said that on TCS we'd be accused of being librul commies. Oh wait we have said stuff like that on this site and we have been called commies.

Blood for oil - the kind of policies McCain supports. And there you have it.

- rob 4:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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FYI get your war on is still running and it is still its own special awesome.

- rob 4:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Please read this.

You have to read it all so you're just gonna have to click and read it: Daily Kos: Deja vu.

When you are done you can always come back to TCS. We'll be here. We'll even wait and not serve those cute little pigs-in-a-blanket we got warming under the heat lamp in the corner until you get back. We promise.

...but they smell so good.

- rob 2:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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White guy, son of an Admiral, married a super rich wife and rides around in her plane: An average Joe

White gal, former first lady, hasn't pumped gas since before the creation of the World Wide Web: An average gal.

Black guy, brought up by middle/lower income single mom: God damn elitist

Obama fights perception he is elitist

FORT WAYNE, Indiana (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought to convince Americans he is not elitist on Thursday as new polls showed his aura of inevitability has declined after weeks of negative headlines.

The ridiculousness of this aside. Why not have an elitist as President? George Washington, Jefferson, that whole freakin' gang were elitists.

Heck we know how an "average joe" worked out (forgetting the fact that Georgie was a member of the privilidged class).

- rob 1:04 PM - [PermaLink] -

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God Bless us.

If it wasn't for Cheney experts might be having influence in the areas of their expertise.

But Cheney is more than an expert, he is omnipotent. No law can touch him, for he is both of the law and above the law. And as America is a land of laws and not men, and laws do not apply to him he must, therefore, be separate from man, QED. He is both Executive branch and Legislative branch and yet he is neither. We can not question him because his ways are incomprehensible to us, much like a particle accelerator is to a NYC pigeon.

US plan to protect right whale from shipping blocked by Cheney

Efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from being killed by ships are being blocked by Vice President Dick Cheney according to leaked documents.

A behind the scenes struggle is raging between the White House and US government scientists who want to force ships to slow down near the calving grounds of the almost extinct right whale.

The right whale controversy is the latest example of the Bush Administration sidestepping the advice of its on scientists which are aimed at protecting endangered species or threats to the environment. On Monday, a judge had to order the administration to release its much-delayed decision aimed at protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

- rob 10:01 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Here is a fact: For every dollar less money you spend on kids down the line you're going to spend 2 to 3 times as much for them when they are teens and adults in higher medical and prison costs. That's the conclusion of a Rand study (not a bunch of commies those guys).

So here we go: South Florida schools biggest losers in state budget

TALLAHASSEE -- Of the myriad losers in a state budget that cuts a record $4 billion in spending, public education will lose the most -- with Miami-Dade and Broward schools getting hit hardest of all.

The two biggest counties together will shoulder more than a third of the $332 million in cuts to K-12 classroom spending in the proposed budget lawmakers will approve when the legislative session ends Friday.

Those school cuts are a fraction of the total slashed from education: $2.3 billion -- 55 percent of the total cuts -- which will reduce spending on everything from construction to class programs in kindergarten through graduate school.
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The biggest budget winner: prison builders. They'll get $305 million to build one private and two public lockups. By the end of the budget year on June 30, 2009, the prison population is anticipated to swell to 107,000.

Seems to be the biggest loser is not Florida schools but Florida itself. Thanks to these guys you can't help but wonder what the prison population will be in the year 2029 (consistently that's the year that my other blog Static Sky is being written in). Looks like prision builders will be the winners for quite a while.

Just a reminder: Doing the right thing - it saves money!

- rob 5:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Army widens probe after finding bad conditions at Fort Bragg

Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, who is responsible for maintaining barracks throughout the Army, told reporters at the Pentagon that most inspections were done last weekend but he had not seen final results.

While not providing specifics about problems discovered during the weekend inspections, Rogers indicated some deficiencies were corrected. In cases where extensive repairs are deemed necessary, the soldiers in that housing would be moved elsewhere until the fixes are completed, he added.

Rogers said it was too soon to know whether the Fort Bragg problem was an isolated incident. He acknowledged the revelations from a video shot by the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier showing poor conditions such as mold inside the barracks, peeling interior paint and a bathroom drain plugged with sewage.
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"We let our soldiers down, and that's not like us," Rogers told reporters. "We let our soldiers down. That's not how we want America's sons and daughters to live. There's no good excuse for what happened."

Really that's not like us? We'd really like it to be not like us, but over and over it seems be standard operating behavior for Bush's Pentagon.

Once soldiers get home from Iraq the Bush administration could care less about them, much like the religious right wanting to make sure every fetus is brought to term but once its poor to hell with them - living humans are not their concern.

These men and women volunteer to risk their lives to serve and protect our nation. They are doing their job despite many knowing that the war itself is wrong. It doesn't matter if the war is a good thing or a bad thing - our soldiers are doing what they should and doing the best they can. The least our government could do is give them toilets that flush!

- rob 5:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Lame.

Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story

I dunno - I trust lots of people - but if they were telling me about a product as an "independent analyst" and they were getting briefed on that product by the manufacturer of said product I'd like to know about it. Even with trust you need to take that fact into account when listening to their opinion.

But we need to trust that Brian Williams's trust of his friends is far more worthwhile to us than just mentioning the fact that their "independent" retired military men are part of a Pentagon program to push Pentagon ideas.

Lame. Please read: Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story

- rob 5:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Though we support Obama we'd really like votes he gets to be from voters and not from the whims of a poorly coded voting machine.

Our dislike of voting machines is not just paranoia of party complicit stealing of elections.

Handing elections over to these machines means handing over your vote to easily hacked computers.

This shows that with voting machines you are even handing over our elections to machines that can't count: Freedom to Tinker » NJ Voting Machine Tape Shows Phantom Obama Vote

The county clerk’s totals show 279 votes in Pennsauken District 6. The per-candidate counts are Clinton 181, Obama 94, Richardson 2, Edwards 1, Kucinich 0, Biden 1, which adds up correctly to 279. The turnout sections of the three result tapes also show a total Democratic turnout of 279 (133+126+20).

But the Candidate Totals sections of the tapes tell a different story. Adding up the three tapes, the totals are Clinton 181, Obama 95, Richardson 2, Edwards 1, Kucinich 0, Biden 1, which adds up to 280. The Candidate Totals on the tapes show an extra Obama vote that doesn’t appear anywhere else.

Oh wow you say - 1 vote. And yes it is only about .3% of the vote for that district, but remember the Supreme Court stopped Florida 2000 recount ended with an official difference of .009% between Bush and Gore. So a .009% difference meant the death of tens of thousands of people - .3% is pretty significant isn't it.

Seriously, adding numbers is one of the easiest things a computer can do - and voting is one of the most important thing a citizen can do. And yet we don't hear about this in the press. Maybe we should put a flag pin on the voting machine and teach it to bowl while under sniper fire. Maybe then we'll read about it.

For possible solutions see: Open Voting Consortium.

- rob 4:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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In this day and age we definitely need sites like Don't Tase Me, Bro!.

Make sure to visit and read yesterday's (4/29) post on the dangers of buying lemonade you aren't familiar with (it'll cost you custody of your child for a couple of days).

- rob 4:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Rove: McCain's too private

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former top Bush adviser Karl Rove called McCain "one of the most private individuals to run for president in history," and said the presumptive Republican nominee must reveal more about his unique life story in order to win the presidency.

Ummm Rove, maybe he does want to talk about his wife being 17 years younger than him or the fact that their relationship started before his previous marriage was over?

Maybe that's why he doesn't want to get too personal?

Or Rove, maybe he does want a big deal made of the fact that his wife created a charity and then proceeded to steal drugs from said charity to support her drug habit?

Or maybe he's worried that he doesn't want to personally trumpet his "i'm ethical" storyline because of his involvement in the Savings & Loan scandals of the eighties or in his involvement in shielding Abramoff?

or maybe it is because there isn't much there there and he's a bit uncomfortable with that.

- rob 4:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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- Teddy Roosevelt



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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.