Almost a week late - from Monday:

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots, No. 135

1. Senate Republicans
Okay, hands up - who watched the 39-hour judicial nominations wankathon last week? I know I didn't. Well, okay - I did tune in once or twice. The entire colossal waste of time was perpetrated by Republicans who, pissed off that Democrats wouldn't roll over and nominate four of Bush's nutjob justices, were trying to score political points by holding a multi-day cry-fest. Never mind the fact that the Democrats have already approved 168 of Bush's judicial nominees - nooo, that's not good enough for the power-mad Republicans who are for some reason laboring under the misapprehension they have a huge mandate for this kind of nonsense. Here's a thought guys - if you want the Democrats to approve every single one of Bush's justices, how about getting him to nominate some folks that are acceptable to everyone, not just to crackpot wingnuts? Gee, there's a thought. Meanwhile, let's not forget that one of Bush's most important campaign promises in 2000 was his pledge to "change the tone" in Congress and bring the two sides together in a bipartisan explosion of good will and compromise - not that he's managed to keep any of his other campaign promises, mind you (except the one about shoveling fat piles of cash to his multimillionaire buddies).

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"If you tell a lie often enough maybe it'll become true" says the GOP fairly godmother

G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue

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Truth and Bush would not recognize each other, if they ever should meet

BBC NEWS | Bush interview: Key points

On the protests that anti-war activists plan for his visit:
"Well, freedom is a beautiful thing, I would first say, and it's, aren't you lucky to be in a country that encourages people to speak their mind? And I value going to a country where people are free to say anything they want to say."

That is why Americans who protest Bush are place behind wire fences in "first amendment zones." Before Bush the first amendment zone was the nation. I guess Bush thinks Britons are luckier than Americans?

Mr Bush on the fight against terror:
"There are terrorists who are willing to kill innocent life in order to create fear and chaos. There are terrorists who want the free world to retreat from duties so that they can impose Taliban-type governments and enslave people. There are people like Saddam Hussein, who tortured and maimed and killed, and at the same time threatened and created conditions of instability."

"See See" says George, "See there is a link between Saddam and terrorism, they both appear in the same answer!"

On whether he believed the claim that Iraq could unleash weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes:
"Well, I believed a lot of things, but I know he was a dangerous man, and I know that for the sake of security he needed to be dealt with."

Yes Saddam was a bad man, yes he was a dangerous man, but with sanctions in tact he was not any danger to America. And quite frankly he states my main problem with the man in this brief and stupid answer: "I believed a lot of things." Bush does not deal in facts or truths. He deals in beliefs. He believes he is right. He believes he was placed into the presidency at the time by God. He believes that Condi, and Rove, and Rummy, and Dick are unbiased accurate sources of information, and that is his only source of information. I believe Bush is a danger to America, to the hopes of freedom, and a hinderence to our war against terrorism.

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Dukakis: "the worst national administration I’ve ever lived under"

The former governor was not shy about sharing why he thinks he lost the election. He said he had not developed a strategy to deal with attacks from the Bush campaign.

"I ran into a bit of a buzz saw," Dukakis said.

He said he dropped eight points in one week after Bush allegedly had President Reagan refer to Dukakis as an "invalid." Dukakis said he hopes the current Democratic candidates are ready for similar encounters.

"Whoever the Democratic nominee will, in my judgment, be subjected to a brutal attack campaign by Bush," Dukakis said. "This is the worst national administration I’ve ever lived under, bar none. I want this guy out of there." Emphasis Mine.

You, me, and the majority of Americans want Bush out of there, and yet Bush might win. Scary isn't it.

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Protesters cheer as Bush effigy is toppled

Thousands of anti-war protesters have cheered as an effigy of George Bush was toppled as part of a huge demonstration against his controversial visit to the UK.

As Mr Bush was entertained in Buckingham Palace, a few hundred yards away in London's Trafalgar Square a papier-mache statue was dragged to the ground by anti-Bush protesters.

They proceeded to beat the fallen statue with their shoes. The statue had a little Blair in its pocket - priceless.

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Rationalizations

Rationalizations are mental De-Militarized Zones, little protective pieces of logic to buffer us from truths or realities we do not wish to or cannot yet deal with.

Sometimes we rationalize poor behavior to allow us to deal with our poor behavior, such as in my favorite high school rationalization for my laziness when it came to studying for tests. It went like this: Tests are to gauge what we’ve learned from the recent discussions and projects in class, if I cram (heck if I even open the book to study) the night before a test I would be being dishonest and my test would show the results of my studying for the test and the not what I had learned during the recent discussions and projects, therefore I will not study as it is a form of lying. Yes, like many rationalizations it was flawed, but it made me feel better about not studying.

A more common rationalization is the” I’m not getting any dates because I’m just too good for your average person” delusion. That’s a wacky stretch isn’t it, but fairly common.

Many people supported the war because they believed in the imminent threat that Iraq posed, or they believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Some simply believed in the President. When it became more and more obvious that there were no WMDs that the threat was not imminent, and that even Bush says there was no Saddam 9/11 link people began to look for new rationalizations for the war. Why try to rationalize it? Well, a nation you love has just sent its own people to death for a war with no just cause, that isn’t a good thought to have in you mind, better to just “create” a cause.

The Bush administration jumped on that need and quickly supplied a new reason for the war. The war was like “flypaper” for terrorists. Better to be fighting the terrorists in their home front, rather than in our homes. A terrorist bombing a village in Iraq is a terrorist not bombing New York. Okay, it isn’t as morally clean as the original rationalization/justification, but it does absolve some guilt. You of course had to create new facts such has “terrorists are a finite number of people that does not increase."

But now it becomes increasingly obvious that the terrorists in Iraq are basically a creation of the war in Iraq (before the war they were in ‘politics’), brutal Baathists who before were perhaps beating and subjugating Iraqi’s are now busy killing American, British, and Italian troops. al Queada is not losing members to these battles in Iraq. They aren’t even involved. The entire exercise has been a recruiting boon to al Queada, it has weakened our true war against terrorism, and has damaged our international standing, weakening our position in asking for help (which we need) to battle terrorism. What a horrible, terrible truth. How truly treasonous an act our President has committed in taking us into Iraq. It is kind of hard to deal with that, better to think about all the new schools in Iraq, yes?

Few Signs of Infiltration by Foreign Fighters in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 18 — The commanding general of the United States Army division that patrols much of Iraq's western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that his men had encountered only a handful of foreign fighters trying to sneak into the country to attack American and allied forces.

"I want to underscore that most of the attacks on our forces are by former regime loyalists and other Iraqis, not foreign forces," said the officer, Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

During a briefing on Monday for a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, he said that since May, his men had captured perhaps 20 foreign fighters trying to slip into the country from those three countries.

During a period in which border patrols have been intensified and new technology is being used, that number suggests only modest foreign incursions into Iraq, in contrast to estimates by the Bush administration.

In Washington late last month, officials estimated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq at 1,000 to 3,000, and the White House has been suggesting that foreign fighters are continuing to enter the country and are behind many of the attacks, linking the war in Iraq to the global campaign against terror.

In a news conference on Oct. 28, President Bush said: "We are mindful of the fact that some might want to come into Iraq to attack and to create conditions of fear and chaos. The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear and retreat because they fear a free and peaceful state in the midst of a part of the world where terror has found recruits."

During a news briefing on Tuesday evening, General Swannack, who took over the region two months ago, said his men had captured 13 foreign guerrillas and killed 7 others. Ten days ago, Col. David A. Teeples, who is part of General Swannack's command, said only a small number of the foreigners were among the 500 to 600 people his forces had captured in attacks on coalition forces

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A call to action from Moveon.org about the recent AARP move towards evil:

For years, Democratic lawmakers have been working to make sure that seniors have access to prescription drugs and reasonable healthcare. Now, in an attempt to score political points, the Republican Congressional leadership is pushing through a bill that appears to offer a solution. Actually, the bill undermines the entire Medicare program, pushing people into the very HMOs which contribute heavily to Republican lawmakers and barring the government from negotiating for lower drug prices.

Given the danger to seniors, one might expect that the millions-strong American Association of Retired People (AARP) to be on the case. But after huge contributions from pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, and pressure from Republican lawmakers, the AARP is selling out its membership and backing the bill.

In response, 85 members of Congress (so far) have canceled their AARP memberships, or announced that they will never join (if they're not yet old enough to be eligible). [1] Today, we urge you to do the same. If the AARP won't stand up for the elderly when it comes to health care, what good is it? You can reach the AARP at:

National hotline: 1-800-424-3410

If you're a member, tell them you're quitting.

If you're too young to be eligible, tell them you'll never join.

You also may want to let your Representative and Senators know that you're keeping the AARP accountable. You could also tell them that you expect them to demand real health care reform -- not this industry-backed bill.

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Perle: The war was illegal

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
...

Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war....

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Ms. Dowd: The Buck House Stops Here

Everything Mr. Bush did in London reinforced the idea that this was a trip made not so much to thank the British people for their friendship, but to send a message to the voters back home that he was at ease as a world leader.

The White House spared Mr. Bush from having to endure a session with the rowdy Parliament and flew him by helicopter over the protesting rabble, who think a bullying Bush administration dragged Britain into the war under false pretenses. (Scotland Yard even wanted to keep the president in a "mobile-free bubble" that would block cellphone calls in his vicinity, but the phone companies refused, calling it "Bush hysteria.")

The White House packaged the visit for the viewers at home.

How else to explain the same Bush advance geniuses who brought us the "Mission Accomplished" banner putting up a blue PowerPoint-ish backdrop for the president's speech at Whitehall Palace that stuttered, "United Kingdom," "United Kingdom," "United Kingdom."

The people in the United Kingdom already knew he was in the United Kingdom. And the kingdom isn't very united at the moment.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, captured the spirit of the moment when he told NPR that the Republican National Committee should foot the bill for Mr. Bush's extraordinary security, the largest police operation ever in Great Britain. All this, he harrumphed, "just so George Bush can use a few clips of him and the queen in his campaign advertisements for re-election next year."

There was a dispiriting contrast between G.W.B. shutting out the world and avoiding the British public, and the black-and-white clips this week of J.F.K. reaching out to the world and being adored by Berliners.

There was also a dispiriting contrast between the Bush administration, hiding the returning coffins of U.S. soldiers and avoiding their funerals, and the moving pictures of the Italian politicians and people, honoring their dead with public ceremonies and a week of mourning.

The bubble in London is just an extension of the bubble the Bush team lives in at home. It superimposes its reality on the evidence for war, the ease of the occupation, the strength of the insurgency and the continuing threat from Saddam and Osama.

Isolationism has been a foreign policy before. But for this administration, it seems to be a way of life.

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No need to click really, unless you like to read an article that graphically discusses sexual fetishes, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Santorum
or:
Rick Santorum
or:
Senator Santorum
and finally:
Senator Rick Santorum

What's all this then?

Well as we know Sen. Santorum has equated homosexuality to beastiality. In honor of that Savage Love, a graphic Dear Abby for homosexuals in some alternative papers, had a contest to coin a graphic sexual act "The Santorum." Well he found a winner back in June, but Dan Savage has issued a challenge to all geeks to get the Santorum on google to bring up his graphic sex term instead of the Senator. I thought I'd do my part. Presently the sex term comes up number six on Google (impressive). Hopefully with this site and others linking Santorum to that term we can get that even higher.

Thanks to Atrios for bringing this up.

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What, another electronic voting story?

Mistaken vote may have led to Smyrna election tie

Not really, more just a humorous reminder that every vote counts. Even fake ones.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) -- A tie in Smyrna's city election earlier this month may have been the result of a vote accidentally cast by a poll worker demonstrating how to use new electronic voting machines, officials said.

Elections administrator Hooper Penuel said the vote was cast by poll worker Bob Swanner and could not be rescinded.

"The button was pushed by mistake during the demonstration, and he (Swanner) has no recollection as to which candidate received the vote," Penuel said.

Both Town Council candidates, Clyde Jones and James Yates, received 1,227 votes in the Nov. 11 election.

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Voting Machine Update

Fairfax Judge Orders Logs Of Voting Machines Inspected

It took more than 21 hours from the time polls closed Tuesday night for Fairfax County, the putative high-tech capital of the region, to get final election results from its new, computerized vote machines.

Widespread problems in the system, which the county paid $3.5 million to install, also opened the door to possible election challenges by party leaders and candidates.

School Board member Rita S. Thompson (R), who lost a close race to retain her at-large seat, said yesterday that the new computers might have taken votes from her. Voters in three precincts reported that when they attempted to vote for her, the machines initially displayed an "x" next to her name but then, after a few seconds, the "x" disappeared.

In response to Thompson's complaints, county officials tested one of the machines in question yesterday and discovered that it seemed to subtract a vote for Thompson in about "one out of a hundred tries," said Margaret K. Luca, secretary of the county Board of Elections. Emphasis mine.

Maybe now Republicans will think that invalid elections are a big deal?

Presently in congress there is Legislation that could add voter-verified paper ballots to touch-screen electronic voting machines the has 61 cosponsers, but it is stalled in a House committee. How could it be stalled you ask? All 61 cosponsers are members of the democratic party. Hmmm... party loyalty and insuring the integrity of our election process. These shouldn't be difficult decisions.

Anyway, here's a good summary of the voting machine story that we cover from time to time at TCS: Electronic Voting Debacle (yep from a British IT site of all places).

So, how do you know that the machine actually counted your vote? You don't! Oh sure, you may see a screen at the end of the process that shows you what you selected ... but how do you know that those choices are actually tabulated? The answer: trust the companies that make the machines. But that attitude, if it ever made sense, has been shown to be not just wrong but foolhardy in the past several months.

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Restoring dignity to the White House?



Bush chose to give his sole one-on-one newspaper interview in a year to The Sun, a newspaper that displays a (at least) top less young lady on Page 3 every day, and has content that is straight out of the National Enquirer.

Yes, our dignified pResident just one click away from the page 3 girl, an article about an adulterer offended by his wife's infidelities, and a fasinating investigation into "who's hitting or touching a bum note?"

So did Bush do this interview because “It has a large readership”? Or did he do it because it is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Bush's sole one-on-one TV interview this year was with Fox... owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Oh, and George if you are going to speak movingly about the loss of British and American troops the least you could do is sit up straight, damn it! I'm a slouch, but you're supposed to be President and your are talking about the loss of life you have caused and you can't fucking bother to sit up?

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ooops

U.S.'s 'Iron Hammer' Code Name 1st Used by Nazis

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Bush Picks Oil Man as Saudi Ambassador

Do we need to say more?

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The AARP community is also angry at the sell out.

If you are a member of AARP let them know what you feel!

AARP :: Community :: Message Boards,

some posts:

SELLOUT LEADER OF AARP JUST SOLD US OUT!
AARP BACK STABBERS!!
AARP folds under Bush administration
rATTED OUT BY AARP

(seniors love the all caps)

And in a posting titled: , there is this message: Bill Novelli was supposed to lead us away from the KOOLAIDE.

Kind of an unfortunate choice of words given that today is the 25th anniversary of the Jim Jones massacre.

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From hero, to whistle-blower, to celebrity

Pity the poor PR boys at the Pentagon. It may be hard, but try.

They thought they had it made:

A pretty, blonde soldier ambushed by the Iraqis, courageously firing until her ammo runs out, shot and stabbed and carried off by the enemy who, after taking time out to rape her, deposit her unconscious body in a hospital, where she is slapped around by evil medical staff, then, nine days later, is rescued in a daring, nighttime raid that is videotaped and can be shown repeatedly around the world and who, as soon as she recovers, will tell what it's like to be an all-American hero. It was a gift from the propaganda gods.

Just two problems: It didn't happen that way, and the designated hero, Pte. Jessica Lynch, refuses to say it did.

In fact, Lynch is telling anyone who asks that she is no hero: "That wasn't me. I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do ... I'm just a survivor."

Okay so far, modesty and all.

But Lynch is also a mite angry about the Pentagon's manipulation of events and can't seem to stop correcting the record.

She says she never got off a shot because her gun jammed. The Iraqi medical staff were kindness itself. She was out cold for three hours after her Humvee crashed in the grenade attack, so she doesn't remember any sexual assault. And shocked Iraqi doctors deny it.

As for the dramatic, Rambo-style hospital raid on April 1, she says there was no resistance, no Iraqi military in the hospital, and staff even offered the rescuers a key.

The Pentagon "used me to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch told a fawning Diane Sawyer on ABC last week. "It's wrong."

Yikes. Time for Plan B: It isn't our fault.

A senior military official tells Time magazine that, contrary to appearances, the Saving Private Lynch story was not, no way, a calculated PR ploy, but more a "comedy of errors," based on patchy battlefield intelligence. The media just ran with it.

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Nice post at Orcinus: Manifestly Unfit: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush

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AARP - Tool of Evil

You know, in the good old days that old folks always talk about, old folks made sure children were taken care of, they understood, to be cliche, that children were our future.

Old folks as represented by AARP believe children are marks, and politics a great and lucrative scam.

When I lived in California the town proposed in a ballot initiative a $40 a year hike in property tax (eeek!) so the local schools could hire art, music, and drama teachers (which they had none) and I believe some more athletic instructors as well. Well, the local AARP fought back tooth and nail, and after who knows how much money on posters and fliers, they got to keep their $40 a year. The children with nothing to do after school took to minor crime, so the city had to hire more police. Okay, I made that last bit up (I hope).

Anyway, AARP has mistaken looking after their constituency for sticking it to the younger generation. I don't mean to disrespect the elderly, that's a demographic I empathize with more and more with each passing year, but I do not think that the lobby that supposedly represents the elderly is doing the elderly any favors when it does the following:

AARP Endorses Republicans' Medicare Bill

In the culmination of a long courtship, Republicans won the AARP's support for Medicare prescription drug legislation on Monday, and the nation's most prominent seniors organization said it would spend $7 million or more in a huge barrage of television advertising to back the plan.

The bill is not perfect, AARP chief executive William D. Novelli told the Associated Press in an interview, ading, "But the country can't afford to wait for perfect."

Okay, so the program is going to increase the deficit insanely, who cares, we aren't going to be alive went that bill comes do.

So the bill is not perfect, how imperfect is it?

Gee, it seemed like such a good idea -- a plan to help senior citizens with their outrageous drug bills.

It's bad enough that the drug companies are ripping off the rest of us, but seniors on fixed incomes are just brought to their knees by these unconscionable prices. They've been begging for help for years, and for years the pols have been promising to deliver. And now they will.

Oops. Bad news.

According to a report by the co-directors of Boston University's School of Public Health titled "New Medicare RX Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Companies," we have once more failed to sufficiently overestimate what special-interest money can do to legislation written by our elected representatives.

According to the report, "An estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to buy more prescriptions will remain in the hands of drug makers as added profits."

Isn't that nice? Sixty-one percent of what the plan costs will be additional profit for drug companies. Just what we had in mind.

Only our fully-bought-and-paid-for politicians (in Texas, we rather delicately refer to them as "whored out") could have taken a plan to help seniors and turned it into a plan to help drug companies already making obscene profits. Their estimated increased profits under this bill are $139 billion over eight years.

Of course, that's not all that's wrong with the bill. It has a peculiar doughnut provision that eliminates coverage for total out-of-pocket drug costs between $2,200 and $5,000.

The legislation also prohibits Medicare from "interfering" to lower drug prices by negotiating or implementing a price structure, or ceiling. Isn't that special?

The above was taken from the Molly Ivins' piece: Cynics, it's a great time to be alive

The AARP is becoming a tool of the GOP to bring senior votes to the Republican party, when individually seniors would be more likely to make a more sane choice.

The AARP needs to be weakened now, before the baby boom generation retires (at which time the "under fifty" tax surcharge becomes law).

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Clark calls Fox News on their spin, and looks very good when he does so.

Warning: This Link requires a video plug-in (and audio)

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Protests begin but majority backs Bush visit as support for war surges

I found this link on Drudge Report, meaning that it is an article that is supposed to be good for Bush.

The survey shows that public opinion in Britain is overwhelmingly pro-American with 62% of voters believing that the US is "generally speaking a force for good, not evil, in the world".

Dam, let's heap on the faint praise. In the nation with which we have a "special" relationship, only 38% disagree with the statement "generally speaking a force for good, not evil, in the world"?

Give Bush four more years people, I'm sure he can turn that 38% into a majority.

Personally, I'm with the 62% of Brits, I do think the US is generally a force for good, not evil, in the world. But perhaps that is because I separate our great nation from its greatest embarrassement: the court installed Bush.

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It's always good to check up now and then and hear what our elected President is saying;

Gore: Decline of Newspapers Bad for Democracy

"Our democracy is suffering in an age when the dominant medium is not accessible to the average person and does not lend itself most readily to the conveyance of complex ideas about self-governance," Gore said. "Instead, it pushes toward a lowest common denominator."

Gore said the results of that inaccessibility are reflected most prominently in the changed priorities of the country's elected officials, who think that debating important issues is "relatively meaningless today. How do they spend their time instead? Raising money to buy 30-second television commercials."

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Hey some people think this site should be less ugly and easier to read. Though I think those improvements might ruin the ambience that was so highly covet here, I would like everyone's two cents. Let me know what you thing (and be patient with comments... they've been slow lately... they're based in the UK and as you know all the servers there are quiet busy hating Bush today).

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Since George Bush isn't actually making the country or world any safer, it is left to people like Jeannie McAllister to do their part.

She is protecting us from facts of nature.

Mom Petitions To Get Puberty Book Removed From Library

...members of the board still are considering an objection to a book that has explicit depictions of sexual development during puberty.

That book, "It's Perfectly Normal: A Book About Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health," is by Robie H. Harris and talks about sexual orientation, birth control, sexual abuse and cartoon panels show biological functions such as egg fertilization.

The objection was raised by Evans resident Jeannie McAllister, a 33-year-old mother of four.

She said she usually screens her kids' library books but she missed this book in a stack her children brought home.

Later she was horrified to see the book her 8- and 5-year-olds had been flipping through contained illustrations of nude people, including a couple having sex.

She was horrified, horrified! She quickly grabbed the book from her children, yelled at them for looking at dirty dirty things; then calmed down and quietly explained to her daughters that the natural urges and feelings that they may feel in the coming years are quiet simply the work of the devil. After breathing a sigh of relief at having caught the book in time, the mother then told the children to go watch MTV and to not bother her until dinner was ready.

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Powell reveals he teaches sexual abstinence to girls

Mr Powellhas described in an interview how he and his wife warn girls about the dangers of Aids. "Abstinence is a good thing to teach young people before they're ready for the responsibilities of sexual activity," Mr Powell said. "Abstinence works. We know it works ... and it is a perfectly sensible strategy to take to young people."

Mr Powell was drawing on his personal experience as he defended plans to spend one third of the $15bn (£8.8bn) the US has pledged to the global fight against Aids on abstinence projects. During an interview with the BBC World Service due to be broadcast today, he described how he and his wife, with whom he has three children, frequently came face to face with girls who belonged to the sector of society at the "greatest risk" of contracting HIV.

The encounters took place via an organisation operated by his wife in Washington known as Best Friends, which aims to demonstrate to girls how to improve the quality of their lives.

The conversation generally goes like this:

Powell: Girls, babies come from having sex. George Bush exists because of people having sex.
Girls: EWWWWWWWWW!

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Politician or telemarketer?

AIR FORCE CHAPLAIN James Helton says he was flabbergasted when he first heard the news from his wife. “She told me you’ve been selected for a national award by Congressman DeLay, and they really want you to call the office.”

Helton wondered why a powerful Republican leader would want to honor a humble Air Force reservist and quickly returned the call. He was so upset by what he heard that he invited NBC News to record the conversation when he called back a second time.

First there was a recorded message: “This is Congressman Tom DeLay. I’m asking you to serve as an honorary chairman on our business advisory council, and you will be recognized with our national leadership award.”

Then, a telemarketer came on the line: “You’d be invited to private dinners with congressmen and quarterly strategy sessions in Washington.”

In the call, Helton was also promised an exclusive black-tie president’s dinner and his name in a newspaper ad.

REQUEST FOR A GIFT

Then came the pitch from the telemarketer: “We’re asking each chairman for a one-time gift of $300 or $500 for the ad. Can we count on your support?”

Helton replied: “That’s pushing my budget a little. Does it have to be paid all at once?”

“Would $100 or $200 be any better for you? And I could even split that down into two payments as well,” replied the telemarketer.

Helton, an independent voter who voted for Bush in the last presidential election, did not send a dime. “It was dishonest, it was sleazy, and it was certainly unbecoming a national party like this,” said Helton.

Worse, the GOP is not just a national party, it is the "ruling party" of our nation, and it cannot gain support threw honest discussion of the issues, so it depends on sleazy marketing gimmicks.

NBC News played the tape for Fred Werthheimer, a frequent critic of fund-raising practices of both parties: “I’ll tell you what your qualification is for getting an award: that they have your telephone number and can reach you by phone.”

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Life according to the new right: Veterans Day is not about Veterans, it is about supporting war.

Anti-Iraq war veterans pulled from parade 11/12/03

TALLAHASSEE -- A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday's Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental.

Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War were yanked off a downtown Tallahassee street, directly in front of the Old Capitol, while marching in the holiday parade they had legitimately registered in.

As organizers allowed the parade to roll on -- including veterans from various wars, several high school marching bands and even a group of young women from the local Hooters restaurant -- the anti-war veterans were ordered onto sidewalks where they passed out leaflets and displayed a banner reading, "Honor the Warrior, Not the War."

"There's a war going on that's based on lies, just like Vietnam," said veteran Tom Baxter, an Army equipment maintenance officer in Vietnam for 16 months in 1967-69. "They were lying then, and they're lying now."

Parade chairman Ken Conroy, a Korean War veteran, said he ejected the anti-war veterans because they were offensive and because Tallahassee police also wanted them removed.

Oh, and no surprise, Conroy lies too:

Tallahassee police Sgt. David Folsom denied police played any role in the situation and said Tuesday was the first time he could recall anyone being excluded from the parade.

"We don't police the participants," Folsom said. "We don't have an opinion on who's in it, as long as they're not walking around naked or drinking in public. It's just not a police decision."

continued:

Parade spectators were surprised to hear the anti-war veterans were ejected.

"I don't think it's right," said LaToya Jackson, a JROTC member from Rickards High School. "They said they were supporting the troops, just not the war."

Marc and Khristina Munday of Tallahassee suggested the veterans have earned a special right to have their voices heard.

Not in Bush's America, if you don't support Bush, you don't get heard. Nothing personal.

- rob 1:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You can't keep a bad idea down

IT'S BAAAAACK: Policy Analysis Market (PAM)

On July 20, 2003, financial support from the U.S. Department of Defense for the Policy Analysis Market was terminated. In the two months since, solid reporting has conveyed that PAM was never intended as a "Market in Terror." In addition, many individuals have expressed the wish the PAM be reestablished beyond government involvement. PAM will open for trading in March 2004 free of government involvement.

PAM was mentioned a few times in TCS, lastly with Poindexter's resignation from the DoD for PAM.

So you want to make money on your dire apocolyptic scenarios? Now there is a site for you.

- rob 1:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Media of Our Greatest (and almost last) Friend in The World Sums Up Our pResident: Chicken George



BUSH PULLS OUT OF SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT

GEORGE Bush was last night branded chicken for scrapping his speech to Parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war MPs.

The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and Lords during his state visit to Britain.

But senior White House adviser Dr Harlan Ullman said: "They would have loved to do it because it would have been a great photo-opportunity.

"But they were fearful it would to turn into a spectacle with Labour backbenchers walking out."

The decision to abandon the speech came as extraordinary security measures costing £19million placed London under a state of virtual siege ahead of Mr Bush's arrival tomorrow.

Roads in Whitehall were closed with concrete blockades. Overhead, a no-fly zone has been established with the RAF on standby to shoot down unidentified planes. All police leave is cancelled.

The only speech Mr Bush, who will stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, is now due to give will be to an "invited audience" at the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: "This is yet another slight on this country by the president of the USA.

"The least he could do is subject himself to questions from MPs."

But why, in American he gets no questioning from the media, and he has new rules in place where Democratic Congressman can no longer ask any questions whatsoever (unless a GOP biggie approves of the question).

John McDonnell said: "Bush might be able to run from the protesters, he might be able not to see the banners.

"But he must not be able to hide from the anger felt across the country at this unjustified war."

Previous world leaders, including Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Francois Mitterand, have all given speeches to the Lords and the Commons while visiting Britain.

- rob 11:33 AM - [PermaLink] -

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