Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Snuffysmith]

As I've said before, BushCo had no "exit strategy" because they never planned to leave. At least not until all the oil has been removed.

Which will be around 2050.

That is why they constructed 14 state-of-the-art airbases - to make sure that after the civil war (which they will watch from their executive skyboxes) and after martial law is firmly established) Exxon/Mobil and BP/Shell can proceed with the extraction.

You forgot to mention the $2 billion embassy as well.

[Livyjr]

http://cgi.wn.com/?action=display&article=...xt&index=recent

"Criminal Acts In Politics"

WorldNews.com,Sun 5 Mar 2006

Letters to the Editor René Delavy.

Now folks, this is all I have to tell you for the moment.

Its great fun, isnt its?

You will learn the lesson in the near future, the heavy way so, dear George W. Bush, you will, before your death, see the effect of your stupid treatment of (what you understand in your primitive brain) the "rest of the world".

You will have to learn the philosophical maxim: The lived reality in this world is one thing - but your hollywoodesk fantasies, in the face of a declining power, is something else.

My dear friend Snuffysmith .....

I have to say that this author above here has lost me as one of his or her "adherents" .....

Before I even became one ....

Because this individual is offering nothing constructive for me to grasp onto ....

As an American citizen ....

And I am assuming that the writer of this piece is from another country .....

And is therefore making assumptions about America and Americans that are not totally founded, at all .....

And so ....

There just is no place for me to "get traction" here .....

If I had to say something back to this person, it would be to watch and wait and see what happens themselves ....

For something is going on, for sure ...

But I believe it goes way back in time ...

Long before Ronald Raygun, who I did not think that awful much of, to be truthful .....

And so ....

Compared to other American leaders, George W. Bush is an ABERATION ....

But like Caligula and Nero of Rome ...

George W. Bush does exist ...

And so ...

WHAT IS THE MESSAGE WHEN NATIONS LIKE AMERICA END UP WITH PEOPLE LIKE GEORGE W. BUSH IN POSITIONS OF GREAT AUTHORITY AND POWER OVER THE LIVES OF LARGE NUMBERS OF HUMAN BEINGS ON THIS EARTH OF OURS?

What is that really saying about America?

What is that really saying about the American people?

These are the issues that I am interested in, myself ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/05/...tape/index.html

"Muslims urged to make West 'bleed for years' - Audio attributed to al Qaeda No. 2 may be from recent video"

Sunday, March 5, 2006; Posted: 10:15 p.m. EST (03:15 GMT)

(CNN) -- A taped message attributed to Osama bin Laden's deputy calls on Muslims to attack the "economic infrastructure" of the West and stop Western countries from "stealing" Mideast oil, according to recordings posted on Islamist Web sites Sunday.

The statement calls on al Qaeda's followers to launch attacks that will make Western powers "bleed for years."

And speaking about oil ....

And the American economy ...

Which is based on the ludicrous notion of continuous consumption WITHOUT END...

As if everything on this earth of OURS were in unlimited supply .....

How ridiculous .....

How childish ....

How American a notion that is ....

"Housing Slowdown Ripples Through Economy"

By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 39 minutes ago

DALLAS - The five-year housing boom is indeed over, judging from growing statistical evidence and the performance of some of the nation's leading builders, and the slowdown is already rippling through the economy.

In the last week, the Commerce Department reported that January sales of new single-family homes fell 5 percent — the fourth decline in seven months — and the backlog of unsold new homes hit a record.

And the National Association of Realtors said used home sales slipped 2.8 percent in January, the fourth straight drop and 5 percent below January 2005.

Builders also reported a few hiccups.

Upscale Toll Brothers Inc. said signed contracts in the November-January period fell 21 percent from a year ago, and KB Home reported more buyers backing out of contracts.

Still, the prospect of a housing slowdown appears less frightening than it did a few months ago, according to those who track the industry.

There seems to be little concern that a much-touted housing bubble will lead to a collapse in sales and prices.

New Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last month housing would enter a moderate slowdown but not a crash.

William Mack, a housing analyst for Standard & Poor's, predicted "a soft landing.

The overall market is just taking a step back."

Explanations for the recent cooling-off vary.

Many people bought homes during the past five years and are staying put.

Some analysts blame a decline in consumer confidence.

And interest rates have been rising, especially for adjustable mortgages that allowed people to buy more expensive homes than they could have afforded with a 30-year loan.

"We started to see the strain in July and August, and by the fourth quarter the market definitely had slowed," said Layne Marceau, president of the Northern California region for Shea Homes, one of the nation's largest private builders.

Rising prices and interest rates pushed more buyers out of the market.

When prices finally did cool, sellers couldn't command a high enough price on their old house to buy the new one, said Marceau, who believes the slowdown is temporary.

Builders don't like to cut prices — it angers customers who paid more — but last week, Centex Corp. advertised $25,000 off on select homes in the Dallas area after making a successful similar offer in California.

Around the country, builders are throwing in incentives ranging from financing help to free upgrades like swimming pools and granite countertops.

Some equal 10 percent of the home's list price.

The median price of an existing single-family home has declined since peaking at $219,700 in July to $210,500 in January, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Few analysts expect a sharp drop in national averages, although they say there could be further declines in some areas that have been among the hottest markets in recent years.

David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said California, Las Vegas, Florida and the Washington, D.C., area "have the largest potential for a price slowdown."

The rising prices in those markets were fed by speculators who bought homes intending to "flip" or sell them for a quick profit, Seiders said.

"The biggest fear I have is investor-owned units coming back on the market in large numbers," he said.

Analysts said markets in Florida and the Carolinas seemed to be holding up well.

Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. reported last week that home contracts jumped 61 percent in the Southeast but fell nearly 11 percent in the Southwest and 37 percent in the West during the November-January period.

The builder's profit was flat with a year earlier.

The slowdown that is showing up in national statistics hasn't reached all parts of the country.

"I've never seen a market as good as this," Mike Mishler said as he took a break from making finishing touches on a $1.6 million lakeside home near Dallas.

"Maybe it will slow down in a couple years, but right now we have lots of California folks coming in, and empty-nest people looking for new homes."

Mishler, president of the local builders association, says Texas markets are holding up because they are affordable — the median price in Dallas is $145,000 compared to the national average of $213,000.

But even in Dallas, the inventory of unsold homes rose to a record in the fourth quarter.

By price, the middle and upper ends of the new-home market did best in 2005, with solid increases in everything above $200,000, reflecting strongest markets were in high-priced areas along both coasts.

That pattern mostly continued in January, although there was a dip in the $400,000 to $750,000 segment compared to January 2005.

Housing has played a major role in the economic recovery since 2001, so even slower growth in home sales and prices could have major repercussions.

Asha Bangalore, an economist for The Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, estimates housing created 43 percent of all new jobs from late 2001 until mid-2005.

That included the obvious, such as jobs in construction and mortgage services, but also retail and service jobs that were created because consumers tapped their rising home equity to buy more things.

"The housing slowdown that we are seeing is very modest, not alarming, but I think the ripple effects are going to be enormous because of the employment factor," she said.

For now, home builders are busy finishing the houses that customers ordered last year.

In a sense, their 2006 results are already on the books, and they expect another good year.

"This will either be our most profitable or our second-most profitable year in the company's history," Joel Rassman, chief financial officer of Horsham, Penn.-based Toll Brothers, told investors this week.

Its profits rose about 50 percent in 2004 and nearly doubled last year.

Investors, however, have been bidding down the stocks of home builders since July, prompting executives to complain that their companies are undervalued despite record earnings.

The nine largest publicly traded builders have seen their shares fall 14 to 44 percent since their peaks, with Toll Brothers and Hovnanian the biggest losers.

Alex Barron, an analyst in San Francisco for JMP Securities, said builder stocks have been trading at relatively low multiples of their earnings since the late 1990s because investors always believed the strong housing market was too good to last.

"Investors kept saying, 'Next year housing will go down,'" Barron said.

"I guess they're finally right."
___

On the Net:

National Association of Realtors: http://www.realtor.org

National Association of Home Builders: http://www.nahb.org

[Livyjr]

And then there is CORRUPT GOVERNMENT here in OUR America ...

Where we have some of the very best politicians in the world that money can buy .....

"Senate begins consideration of lobby reform"

By Thomas Ferraro

43 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate began consideration of legislation on Monday that would require lobbyists to disclose more about their activities and ban gifts by lobbyists to members of Congress and staff.

The measure, which has strong bipartisan support in the wake of scandals that rocked the Republican-led Congress, would also impose stiff fines for violation of lobbying curbs.

The Senate hopes to complete action after voting on a long list of possible amendments later this week.

They include one that would deny congressional pensions to lawmakers convicted of accepting bribes.

That proposal was inspired largely by the case of former Republican U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, who was sentenced last week to eight years and four months in jail for accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.

Ethics reform became a top priority after lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in January in a wide-ranging public corruption case.

He is now cooperating with prosecutors and the probe may reach a number of lawmakers.

Members on both sides of the political aisle have demanded reform, saying lawmakers need to clean up Congress and reverse polls that show declining confidence in political leaders.

But some Democrats have blamed much of the recent ethical woes on a Republican "culture of corruption," and hope to use it to gain advantage in the November congressional elections.

"America deserves a government as good as its people," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said, "The American people expect us to work together to develop meaningful bipartisan solutions."

"We are obligated to protect the integrity of this great institution, and, most importantly, to represent the genuine interests of the voters who sent us here," Frist said.

The legislation before the Senate is the product of bills produced last week on bipartisan votes by two committees.

The Republican-led House of Representatives is expected to produce legislation of its own in coming weeks.

[jeffmoskin]

Reform is certainly needed. But can we count on the morality of the present Congress to pass effective legislation.

I don't think so.

[Livyjr]

And then there is CORRUPT GOVERNMENT here in OUR America ...

Where we have some of the very best politicians in the world that money can buy .....

"Senate begins consideration of lobby reform"

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate began consideration of legislation on Monday that would require lobbyists to disclose more about their activities and ban gifts by lobbyists to members of Congress and staff.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said, "The American people expect us to work together to develop meaningful bipartisan solutions."

"We are obligated to protect the integrity of this great institution, and, most importantly, to represent the genuine interests of the voters who sent us here," Frist said.

Reform is certainly needed.

But can we count on the morality  of the present Congress to pass effective legislation?

I don't think so.

And there is the JOKE of this whole thing, jeffmoskin ....

Right out there in plain sight for all to see .....

This CORRUPT CROWD that is in power in OUR Congress now wants us to believe that it can change itself ...

That it can cleanse itself of the CORRUPTION which PERVADES its ranks ......

WITHOUT AN ACTUAL CHANGE IN WHO OCCUPIES THOSE RANKS TAKING PLACE .....

In other words, NO PURGES ARE NEEDED, FOLKS ....

This is like a GUILD OF THIEVES promising the Mayor of a community and its inhabitants that they will no longer be thieves in that community, AND YOU CAN TAKE THEIR WORD ON IT AS LAW .....

Well give me a break, here .....

HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE YOU HAVE TO BE, TO BE A "GOOD" AMERICAN ANYMORE, IS MY QUESTION ...

When I read these words of "Big Bill" Frist in that article above, "We are obligated to protect the integrity of this great institution, and, most importantly, to represent the genuine interests of the voters who sent us here,", I had to ask myself .....

WHO IS THIS GUY TRYING TO KID?

When exactly did "Big Bill" discover that the members of the UNITED STATES SENATE, of which he is one, were actually "obligated to protect the integrity of this great institution, and, most importantly, to represent the genuine interests of the voters who sent us here?"

It certainly does not seem to have been very long ago ......

Maybe right after "BIG JACK" Abramoff went down in flames for BUYING UP some of OUR CHOICE BEEF down there in Washington,. D.C. that is FOR SALE to the highest bidder, as if OUR Congress were little more than a fancy "CALL GIRL" ring ....

A MEAT MARKET for HIGH ROLLERS .....

Personally, I think that "Big Bill" Frist and his crowd down there are now trying to PLAY us, to GULL us, like a carnival barker tries to lure and gull the crowds at a rural county fair ...

And so ...

It will be interesting to watch this whole thing play out .....

It kind of takes us back to some earlier times in the history of OUR America, is what I think .....

And the eternal question of "American VALUES" .....

And exactly what they might be ...

In a country with a history of slave-owning and CORRUPTION such as OUR America has .....

It is very obvious, from the fact that "Big Bill" Frist is the "BIG CHEESE" in the United States Senate, that his "BRAND OF POLITICS" has been a real big seller on the market out there for quite some time now ...

And so ....

It will be interesting to see if there are really any Americans left in this country anymore who find the STINK OF CORRUPTION of this Congress down there in Washington, D.C. so overpowering that they can muster up the votes needed to defeat ICONS OF CORRUPTION in the U.S. Congress this fall ...

Or whether it will be same old, same old, all over again .....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE YOU HAVE TO BE, TO BE A "GOOD" AMERICAN ANYMORE, IS MY QUESTION ...

And speaking of the same old same old .....

YADA, YADA, YADA ....

Yeah, right, Alberto ...

Ah hah, yes, ah hah, OH, I SEE .......

"Gonzales Defends Treatment of Suspects"

By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer

8 minutes ago

LONDON - The U.S. attorney general defended his country's treatment of terror suspects against criticism from Europe and elsewhere, saying Tuesday that the United States abhors torture and respects the rights of detainees.

Alberto Gonzales also said the U.S. did not transport terrorism suspects to nations where it was likely they could be tortured.

Human rights groups and other European critics have alleged that U.S. planes may be using European airports and air space to send suspects to nations that may torture them.

They have also criticized the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo, and a U.N. report last month called for the facility to be closed "without further delay" because it is effectively a torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice.

The U.S. attorney general — speaking Tuesday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London — vehemently denied such charges, but acknowledged that people might interpret the term "torture" in different ways.

The U.S. abides by its own definition, which he said was the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical suffering.

"The U.S. abhors torture and categorically rejects its use," Gonzales said, adding that where appropriate the U.S. sought assurances from foreign governments before transporting detainees there, and did not transport anyone "to a country if we believe it more likely than not that the individual would be tortured."

Gonzales also said the U.S. did not use airports in Europe or anywhere else to move detainees for the purpose of torture.

"The United States has always been and remains a great defender of human rights and the rule of law," Gonzales said.

"I regret that there has been concern or confusion about our commitment to the rule of law."

On the subject of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, Gonzales said detainees were treated properly and afforded with extensive legal protections.

The prison — opened January 2001 at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba — now holds about 490 men suspected of having links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Though many inmates have spent several years at the camp, only a handful have been charged.

Gonzales defended their treatment and said the U.S. had to use all available tools to fight terror, reiterating U.S. claims that the detainees were "highly dangerous people" including terrorist trainers, bomb makers and potential suicide bombers.

"We are aware of no other nation in history that has afforded procedural protections like these to enemy combatants," he said.

Gonzales said the U.S. was continually reassessing the need for the camp to remain open, and could consider closing it if circumstances changed.

He acknowledged disagreements between the U.S. and Europe on tactics in the fight against terror, but said it was critical that the allies continued to work together.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week said Guantanamo was an "anomaly" that he hoped would be closed.

Gonzales said U.S. law also forbids cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in the United States or abroad by military or civilian personnel.

He declined to comment on alleged interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, such as water boarding, during which the victim believes he is about to drown, or the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners.

"If we went around this room, people would have different definitions of what constitutes torture, depending on the circumstances," he said.

end quotes

And if you went and asked George W. Bush what constituted torture, his answer would be NOTHING ...

NOTHING REALLY CONSTITUTES TORTURE .....

Which is to say that nothing actually is torture ....

Which means that anything that we do to human beings that might look like torture to someone else out there in the world ....

IS AN INDICATION OF DELUSION OR MENTAL ILLNESS ON THAT PERSON's PART ...

Because America is a nation that respects the RULE OF LAW ...

And Bert Gonzales is very, very sorry that there has been concern or confusion about his and George W. Bush's alleged commitment to the rule of law ....

And so ....

I guess that is just that ...

And we can all go home now ....

Believing that absolute crap as the gospel truth ....

Which brings me back to my question above here ....

HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE YOU HAVE TO BE, TO BE A "GOOD" AMERICAN ANYMORE?

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"General's Assessment of Iraq Questioned"

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's top general acknowledged Sunday that "anything can happen" in Iraq, but he said things aren't as bad as some say.

"I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."

The comments drew criticism that Gen. Peter Pace is glossing over problems in the three-year-old U.S. campaign.

"Why would I believe him?" asked Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a major critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war.

"This administration, including the president, (has) mischaracterized this war for the last two years."

Murtha, responding to Pace in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that Iraq has 60 percent unemployment, oil production below prewar levels, and water service to only 30 percent of the population.

American troops are doing everything they can militarily but "are caught in a civil war," said Murtha, a former Marine who has called on the administration to bring U.S. troops home.

"There's two participants fighting for survival and fighting for supremacy inside that country," he said of ethnic divisions.

"And that's my definition of a civil war."

And speaking of the same old same old .....

YADA, YADA, YADA ....

"Iraq's Shiite PM Vows to Seek Re-Election"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 56 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Shiite prime minister declared Tuesday he will not be blackmailed into abandoning his bid for a second term, and the Kurdish president bowed to Shiite pressure to delay calling parliament into session until a deadlock is resolved over who should lead a unity government.

A new video broadcast on Arab television, meanwhile, showed three of the four hostage Christian Peacemaker activists.

American Tom Fox was not present.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld rejected suggestions Iraq is engulfed in a civil war but predicted there would be additional "bursts" of sectarian violence in the weeks ahead.

Rumsfeld also claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements had infiltrated Iraq to cause trouble.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," he said.

"And we know it."

"And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."

He would not be more specific except to say the infiltrators were members of the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Rumsfeld asserted that media reports have exaggerated the violence in Iraq since an attack last month on a revered Shiite mosque touched off a wave of violent reprisals between sects.

"I do not believe they are in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said.

Tuesday, scattered bombings, mortar blasts and gunfire killed 16 people.

The unrelenting violence has complicated already snarled negotiations to form a government reflecting Iraq's main ethnic and religious communities, which the United States and its allies hope will stabilize the country so they can start pulling out troops.

The senior British general in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Nick Houghton, told The Daily Telegraph that most of Britain's 8,000 troops could be withdrawn by mid-2008.

The Defense Ministry, however, described that as just one possible scenario and said everything depended on conditions on the ground.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari suggested that the current standoff over his nomination had grown out of a personal dispute with President Jalal Talabani, who is at the center of a campaign by Kurdish, Sunni and some secular Shiite politicians to deny him a second term.

"No one can make bargains with me by enlarging personal disagreements," al-Jaafari told reporters at his office.

"Dr. al-Jaafari will not be subdued by blackmail."

"Dr. al-Jaafari is not violating the constitution."

The Sunni Arab minority blames him for failing to control Shiite militiamen, who attacked Sunni mosques and clerics after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Kurds are angry because they believe al-Jaafari is holding up resolution of their claims to control the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

In a bid to force a showdown in the dispute, Talabani said Monday he would order parliament into session March 12 for the first time since the December elections and the Feb. 12 ratification of the results in line with constitutional directives.

Such a meeting would have started a 60-day countdown for lawmakers to elect a president, approve al-Jaafari's nomination as prime minister and sign off on his Cabinet.

Talabani was mistakenly counting on the signature of Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite who lost his own bid for the prime minister's nomination by one vote to al-Jaafari.

Talabani had in hand a power of attorney from the other vice president, Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, who was out of the country.

The Shiite bloc closed ranks and Abdul-Mahdi declined to sign, for now.

A political committee representing the seven Shiite parties that make up the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest group in parliament, sent Talabani a letter Tuesday asking him to delay the first session until there is agreement on who should occupy top government positions, said Khaled al-Attiyah, an independent member of the alliance.

Parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani said a new date would be set Thursday.

"Talks are still under way between the main blocs in the coming parliament," he said.

"We hope that during the coming days, we will be able to reach a basic level of agreement on when to call the Council of Representatives to convene."

Talabani planned to meet with Shiite leaders Tuesday night in a bid to resolve the crisis.

Shiite leaders are divided over a second term for al-Jaafari even though they came together Monday night to reject the move to drop him.

There were reports that Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric whose backing insured al-Jaafari's nomination at the Shiite caucus last month, had threatened to order parliamentarians loyal to him to boycott the March 12 session if Abdul-Mahdi, the Shiite vice president, had signed the order to convene the legislature.

The political infighting has left a dangerous leadership vacuum in Iraq, underlined by the continuing violence and lawlessness.

The Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams said it did not know what to make of Fox's absence from the silent, 25-second video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.

The three other hostages shown on the tape dated Feb. 28 were James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, of Canada; and Norman Kember, 74, of London.

Al-Jazeera said the exhausted-looking men appealed to their governments to work for their release.

The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility for kidnapping Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., and the other activists, who disappeared Nov. 26 in Baghdad.

The activists were last seen together on a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera on Jan. 28 and dated seven days earlier.

At that time, Al-Jazeera reported the captors said it was the "last chance" for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to release all Iraqi prisoners, or the hostages would be killed.

In its Tuesday statement, the Christian group said 14,600 Iraqis are "currently detained illegally by the Multinational Forces in Iraq."

Also still held hostage in Iraq is American reporter Jill Carroll, 28, who Interior Minister Bayan Jabr has said was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.

Jabr said he believed the freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor was still alive, although the deadline set by her captors for the United States to meet their demands expired last month.

More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The Defense Ministry reported an increase in car bombings and mortar fire in the past week but said attacks appeared less effective.

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of the ministry's operations room, reported 552 attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces and civilians, of which 147 caused casualties.

In continuing violence Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a restaurant on the fringe of Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite slum, killing three civilians and wounding three others.

Assailants attacked a Sunni mosque in west Baghdad with guns and grenades, killing a guard and torching two rooms.

The gunmen ambushed police when they responded, wounding five officers.

Two bombs targeting U.S. patrols in two other neighborhoods killed at least one civilian bystander and injured five others, police said.

There were no reports of American casualties.

Police said four Iraqi officers were killed in two separate attacks on police patrols in Baqouba and Beiji, north of Baghdad.

Two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously at separate sites in the mostly Shiite city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, wounding at least three people, police said.

At least three other people were reported killed in scattered shootings — a Sunni TV station official and an airport employee in Baghdad, and a police colonel in Beiji.

Police found four more bullet-ridden bodies — two of them with their eyes gouged out.

[Livyjr]

And from the TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF IRAQINAM ......

We wing our way back over to here .....

To the TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF ENRON .....

"Fastow Links Skilling to Losses at Enron"

By KRISTEN HAYS, AP Business Writer

1 hour, 32 minutes ago

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow testified Tuesday he crafted and ran partnerships to help the company hide losses and inflate profits with the blessing of his boss, Jeffrey Skilling.

Fastow appeared contrite in his much-anticipated courtroom confrontation with Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who are on trial for fraud and conspiracy stemming from Enron's spectacular 2001 collapse.

But he portrayed himself as a cog in a corrupt machine, with Skilling telling him, "Get me as much of that juice as you can," regarding the partnerships.

Fastow, 44, also fought back tears as he told jurors in a federal courtroom that his wife, Lea, pleaded guilty to a tax crime and finished a yearlong prison term last July for signing a tax return that didn't include illegal income from business deals unrelated to the partnerships.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in January 2004 at her urging, more than a year after he was originally indicted on charges of orchestrating schemes to manipulate Enron's books and enrich himself on the side.

His plea was contingent upon the government striking a deal for his wife, who was initially indicted in May 2003.

He said Tuesday he misled his wife, and told her the kickbacks — a series of checks written to her, him and their two young sons — were gifts.

She endorsed and deposited those checks.

Fastow stared at the floor as the checks, with his wife and sons' names, were displayed for jurors Tuesday on a massive screen.

"I did this," he said, tearful and fighting to compose himself.

"I led her to believe that."

The partnerships that he said Skilling approved — LJM1 and LJM2 — were named with initials of his wife and sons, Jeffrey and Matthew, though Fastow didn't share that detail with jurors.

Fastow, who agreed as part of his plea deal to serve 10 years in prison, is a key pillar of the government's quest to prove Lay and Skilling lied to Wall Street and to their own employees to conceal the crumbling finances that drove the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 2001.

The ex-CFO is central to the defense as well: Lawyers for Lay and Skilling say there was no overarching fraud at Enron, and that the only crimes at the company involved Fastow and two of his former lieutenants stealing money through his schemes.

When talking about his admitted frauds at the company rather than his home, Fastow spoke with confidence, appearing almost professorial.

He was known at Enron to have a quick temper, but under questioning from prosecutor John Hueston, he showed no combativeness.

He said the LJM partnerships gave Enron a buyer of risky investments or poor assets so the company could record income and wipe debt off its books.

Enron didn't mind that other buyers likely wouldn't touch them, he said.

"We were doing this to inflate our earnings, and I don't think we wanted to show people what we were doing," Fastow said.

He said the LJMs were legal and did many legal deals.

"Certain things I did as general partner of LJM were illegal," Fastow said.

He told jurors LJM1, set up in 1999, helped Enron head off potential future losses from its investment in a small Internet startup firm.

But it couldn't finance many other deals because it only had $15 million in investment capital, so Fastow talked to Skilling later that year about setting up LJM2 with at least $200 million.

"He said, `Get me as much of that juice as you can,'" Fastow recalled.

Skilling said the same thing in 2000 about a possible LJM3, though the third version never materialized, Fastow said.

At the time, Skilling was chief operating officer of Enron.

He succeeded Lay as chief executive for six months until resigning in August 2001, when Chairman Lay resumed that role.

LJM2's carefully coordinated deals often involved "warehousing" Enron assets, or pretending to buy them with a guarantee that the energy company would buy them back at a premium, Fastow said.

The deals allowed Enron "to report the numbers it wanted to report," he said.

Fastow also said Skilling was concerned about how detailed disclosures to investors about the partnerships would have to be.

"Because it would attract attention, and if dissected, people would see what the purpose of the partnership was, which was to mask potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of losses," Fastow testified.

The partnerships were lucrative for Fastow.

He was guaranteed a $500,000 annual fee when the first one was set up in 1999 and was also promised 2 percent of the invested capital in the partnerships.

Fastow said he raised almost $400 million for LJM2.

Fastow said such partnerships commonly give the general partner 2 percent of the invested capital — but the additional half a million dollars per year was an extra boost.

Enron's board, which included Skilling and Lay, approved the financial setup.

Fastow said Skilling told the board that Fastow invested $1 million of his own, and "He should get profits because he's got skin in the game."

The ex-CFO also testified that directors approved his role in the partnerships and waived Enron's code of conduct, which barred officers from participating in ventures that posed a conflict of interest.

Fastow described several deals in which LJM2 saved Enron from losses.

He said Skilling urged him to have one of the partnerships buy a minority stake in a troubled Brazilian power plant owned by Enron to help meet earnings targets.

Fastow balked.

"I told him it was a piece of (expletive), and no one would buy it," Fastow recalled.

He said he relented in part because he stood to make money personally on the deal and Skilling assured him he would lose no money.

He said he believed Skilling's verbal assurance, which wasn't written anywhere.

"The way we were using LJM was to help Enron prop up its numbers."

"I knew Enron would not want to leave LJM out in the cold because Enron would want to do more deals," he said.

The LJMs weren't the only entities created to help Enron manipulate earnings, Fastow said.

He discussed so-called Raptors, four fragile financial structures created in 2000 were backed by Enron stock and used to lock in the energy company's gains from asset values or investments and keep hundreds of millions of dollars in debt off the energy company's books.

"Raptor was hiding losses," he said.

During Fastow's testimony, Lay and Skilling occasionally took notes but showed little reaction.

Fastow is among 16 ex-Enron executives who have pleaded guilty to crimes.

The defense claims such witnesses confessed to crimes they didn't commit under pressure from the Justice Department's Enron Task Force.

Federal prosecutors can recommend lenient punishments for such cooperators — more than enough incentive, the defense claims, for them to tell the government what it wants to hear.

Fastow is unique in that he agreed up front to serve a decade in prison.

His only hope of serving less time will be to behave well in prison, possibly reducing his term by 18 months.

But the government has the option to prosecute Fastow on 96 other criminal counts originally brought against him if they deem his cooperation unsatisfactory.

Fastow also acknowledged committing crimes in order to manipulate Enron earnings and enrich himself.

He originally pleaded not guilty but changed the plea, he said, because "I thought it was in the best interest of my family not to go to trial, to take responsibility for my actions and to try to move forward in my life."
___

AP National Writer Erin McClam contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And then ...

There is TOMMY .....

"DeLay tries to fight off GOP challengers"

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:05 p.m., Tuesday, March 7, 2006

SUGAR LAND, Texas -- Rep. Tom DeLay tried to beat back three challengers for the Republican nomination Tuesday in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as House majority leader.

While DeLay was widely expected to win, a close race could foretell a tough contest for the congressman in the fall.

For his part, DeLay said he was confident his constituents would see the campaign-finance case against him for what it is:

"a leftist abuse of power."

The other big Texas primary race Tuesday pitted two little-known Democrats against each other for the right to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry in a state where the GOP holds every statewide office.

Perry had little GOP opposition.

Texas voters could see a historic four-way race for governor in November if two independents with considerable political charisma -- Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and musician and professional wiseacre Kinky Friedman -- gather enough signatures from voters who do not vote in the primary to get onto the fall ballot.

In a third contest Tuesday, Democratic voters in a congressional district stretching from San Antonio to Laredo had to decide a rematch between freshman Rep. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez, who served 3 1/2 terms in before losing to Cuellar in 2004 after two recounts and a court challenge.

With no Republican running in the district, the winner will take the seat.

Rodriguez seized on a photo of President Bush affectionately cupping Cuellar's cheeks at the recent State of the Union address to portray Cuellar as a stealth Republican.

DeLay, 58, was indicted last year and is awaiting trial on charges he illegally funneled corporate donations to GOP candidates for the Texas House in 2002.

The Republicans won a majority in the Legislature that year, and then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that sent more Republicans to Washington in 2004.

DeLay has also come under scrutiny over his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud in January and is cooperating in an investigation of influence-peddling on Capitol Hill.

Tuesday's contest was DeLay's first serious primary challenge in the 22 years since he took office.

Tom Campbell, a lawyer who was general counsel for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration during the first Bush administration, was considered the front-runner among DeLay's Republican challengers, who also included Mike Fjetland and Pat Baig.

Campbell portrayed himself as a man of integrity and branded DeLay "unelectable."

Texas law requires a runoff if no candidate gets more than 50 percent plus one.

While no independent polls were taken for the primary, a poll taken in January by the Houston Chronicle found that DeLay's support in his district was 22 percent.

Only about half of those who voted for him in 2004 said they would do so again.

But Republican strategist Allen Blakemore predicted DeLay would win with at least 60 percent of the vote.

"We have awakened the sleeping giant," Blakemore said.

DeLay, who cast his ballot with his wife, Christine, said he expected Republicans to come out in droves to send a message to his detractors.

"My constituents get it."

"They know what a leftist abuse of power this is," he said of the charges brought by District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

A documentary about Earle's investigation, "The Big Buy: How Tom DeLay Stole Congress," was set for release on Tuesday by a Hollywood producer whose last movie, sponsored by unions, took a critical look at Wal-Mart.

"I welcome it."

"As long as they spell my name correctly," DeLay said.

The Democratic nominee in the fall will be Nick Lampson, a well-financed former congressman ousted from office in 2004 under the new congressional map engineered by DeLay.

Lampson had no primary opponent Tuesday.

The state's top election official predicted only 13 percent of the 12.7 million registered voters would cast primary ballots, so Strayhorn and Friedman should not have much trouble finding the 45,000-plus voters they each need to sign their petitions over the next two months.

Strayhorn, who calls herself "one tough grandma," got elected comptroller as a Republican but is running for governor as an independent, avoiding a primary against the popular Perry.

She is the mother of White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

Friedman is a cigar-chomping cowboy musician whose backup group on the road was called the Texas Jewboys.

At least two veterans of the Iraq war are running for Congress from Texas.

David T. Harris, a Democrat, is expected to take on Rep. Joe Barton in November, and Van Taylor, a Republican, sought the nomination Tuesday to go up against Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards in the Crawford-area district that includes Bush's ranch.

------

Associated Press writer Kelley Shannon in Austin contributed to this report.

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8672
March 8, 2006
Biddle's Pivot
The ominous implications of a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq
by Justin Raimondo
In Iraq, defeat stares us in the face. Efforts to "Iraq-ize" the campaign to crush the Sunni insurgency have the U.S. war effort sinking under the weight of its own implausibility, and American policymakers are flailing around in search of an alternative. As U.S. casualties mount and the specter of civil war materializes into a bloody reality, political support for the war on the home front is rapidly evaporating: a whopping 63 percent now say the invasion of Iraq "was not worth it," and even the troops in the field are coming around to the opinion that the best policy is to cut our losses and get out.

To circumvent this growing demand for withdrawal, the War Party has come up with a number of alternate plans, all of which involve a continued U.S. military presence. Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has advocated what might be called the "downlow" strategy: withdraw to secure bases and attempt to protect the Iraqi civilian population from the consequences of spreading sectarian violence.

Seymour Hersh has reported that the plan now gaining favor is to keep a lower profile on the ground, while escalating the air war – with the idea that the Shi'ite-dominated central government and its supporters in the field would essentially act as spotters for U.S. warplanes, much as the Kosovo "Liberation" Army was used to home in on Serbian targets during Clinton's Balkan adventure and the "Northern Alliance" was utilized as the eyes and ears of the Americans during the initial stages of the Afghan war.

Now we have another entrant in the "win the war" sweepstakes: Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow in defense policy with the Council on Foreign Relations, tells us that the imposition of the Vietnam model on the Iraqi situation has led to a fundamental error. That error is based on a misperception of the insurgency as a nationalist uprising against the occupation, when in fact what is occurring is an inter-communal civil war pitting sectarian ethnic and religious groups against each other in a struggle for dominance. Nationalism, in Biddle's view, has little to do with it: it is, at best, a secondary factor, when the real issue is Sunni fear of Shi'ite hegemony – and retribution enacted by the latter against the former.

This misperception has led the U.S. into a strategic cul-de-sac. According to Biddle, the solution is not to help the Iraqis stand up so we can stand down, but precisely the opposite:

"Critical departures from the current strategy are also necessary. First, Washington must slow down the expansion of the Iraqi national military and police. Iraq will eventually need capable indigenous security forces, but their buildup must follow a broad communal compromise, not the other way around. If the development of the army and the police gets ahead of the agreement, the forces will either exclude the Sunnis and be effective but divisive or include the Sunnis but be weak. The latter result would mean lost effort and perhaps lives, but the former would probably be worse, because it would jeopardize any constitutional power-sharing deal that may emerge from Khalilzad's efforts. This dilemma leaves Washington with no choice but to continue providing enough U.S. forces to cap the violence in Iraq."

What this means, in effect, is that it is time to start tilting toward the Sunnis. If the Shi'ites continue to defy U.S. efforts to shape the political landscape of postwar Iraq, then we must play the Sunni card, employing force if necessary:

"Second, the United States must bring more pressure to bear on the parties in the constitutional negotiations. And the strongest pressure available is military: the United States must threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate. Washington should use the prospect of a U.S.-trained and U.S.-supported Shi'ite-Kurdish force to compel the Sunnis to come to the negotiating table. At the same time, in order to get the Shi'ites and the Kurds to negotiate too, it should threaten either to withdraw prematurely, a move that would throw the country into disarray, or to back the Sunnis."

The idea is breathtaking: after years of propaganda directed at the alleged moral depravity of the Sunni-based Ba'athist regime, which – we were told – killed millions and was on a par with Hitler's Nazis, Biddle wants the U.S. to consider an Orwellian turn-on-a-dime. As poor old Winston Smith put it:

"At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."

One big problem with Biddle's proposal is that it overlooks the difficulties of selling such a strategy at home, where support for the war has waned practically beyond the point of no return. While the oppressed and blissfully ignorant "proles" of Orwell's future dystopia were kept in a state of permanent indifference to the daily depredations of their rulers – partly through terror, partly on account of a limitless supply of "Victory gin" – the American public is still a few notches above that level of mental and moral degradation. They are bound to be confused and even disturbed when told that yesterday's ruthless killers are today's noble allies – and some may even find in it reason to doubt the president's contention that we are fighting for "democracy" in Iraq and "freedom" the world over.

On the ground in Iraq, too, this pro-Sunni turn would have a devastating effect, for, in spite of Biddle's contention that this war isn't about "winning hearts and minds," as in Vietnam, what little support for the U.S. presence as still exists would quickly evaporate. And without that support – especially from leading Shi'ite clerics, such as the Ayatollah Sistani – the U.S. military presence would be completely unsustainable. Alignment with the Sunnis would further isolate the U.S. and empower anti-American Shi'ites led by Moqtada Sadr, whose nationalist opposition to the occupation (in spite of his sectarian allegiance) is supposedly "the exception that proves the rule" when it comes to Biddle's thesis. In this case, however, the exception may very well become the rule if we try to "coerce" the majority Shi'ites into conforming to our plan for the Iraqi polity.

However, Biddle's strategy, as irrational and counterintuitive as it appears, does make a certain amount of sense. Seen in light of the looming confrontation with Iran, an alliance with the Sunnis against the pro-Iranian Shi'ite parties that dominate the central government in Baghdad is not only sensible: it is inevitable. Biddle's proposal paves the way for the U.S. to pivot from the present intervention to the next.

The second phase of the Great Middle Eastern War pits us against a new set of enemies: not only the Iranian-dominated party militias in Iraq, but also Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or "Party of God," and the Alawite regime in Syria (where the Shi'ites are a small minority). As a strategy for winning a military victory over the Iraqi insurgency, Biddle's gambit makes little sense: as the strategic framework for a regional war, however, its apparent irrationality is at least somewhat ameliorated.

If we are moving toward war with Iran and its Syrian ally, then it is perfectly logical to change course and try to rehabilitate Iyad Allawi, the "ex"-Ba'athist official whose party, the Iraqi National Accord, was soundly defeated in the recent elections for National Assembly (despite large amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars funneled into his campaign coffers). As a strategy to advance the grand design of the War Party – "democratizing," i.e., subjugating, the entire Middle East – Biddle's scenario is persuasive.

It is also indicative of a point I made here: that the debate over the war is becoming increasingly polarized between two diametrically opposed alternatives, withdrawal and escalation. The Bush administration's Iraq-ization program essentially tries to straddle the fence between the two: withdraw, but not now, and no deadlines or timetables, please. Biddle, however, poses a fresh alternative: expand the war, and start taking on the Shi'ites. That this is premised on the likelihood of a future conflict with Tehran seems obvious, even though the word "Iran" appears nowhere in Biddle's essay – a strange omission, to say the least, albeit a telling one.

We must either get out, or escalate the war. There are no other alternatives. To keep Baghdad, we must seize Tehran. The neocons urge us "Faster, please!", but they needn't worry: we will soon get up to speed by means of a logical progression. One intervention leads us, ineluctably, to another, and – in the case of war with Iran – to far greater and more destructive conflict.

This is why the cautious proposals of a gradual drawdown proposed by some ostensibly pragmatic critics of the war are, in the end, eminently impractical. The accelerated tempo of the developing conflict will soon outpace such half-measures. As I have said before, we are on the Middle East escalator, and it's going to be a bumpy ride. Only a massive rebellion by the American people – an outpouring of militant antiwar sentiment – can stop the War Party.

[Livyjr]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8672
March 8, 2006

"Biddle's Pivot - The ominous implications of a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq"

by Justin Raimondo

Now we have another entrant in the "win the war" sweepstakes: Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow in defense policy with the Council on Foreign Relations, tells us that the imposition of the Vietnam model on the Iraqi situation has led to a fundamental error.

That error is based on a misperception of the insurgency as a nationalist uprising against the occupation, when in fact what is occurring is an inter-communal civil war pitting sectarian ethnic and religious groups against each other in a struggle for dominance.

Nationalism, in Biddle's view, has little to do with it: it is, at best, a secondary factor, when the real issue is Sunni fear of Shi'ite hegemony – and retribution enacted by the latter against the former.

Good morning, Snuffysmith .....

Hope all is well with you this bright sunny morning .....

I have just finished reading Mr. Raimondo's piece above ....

And as always, it is interesting ....

And the one thought that comes into my head upon my initial reading is this thing of "nationalism" ......

How does one get "nationalism" out of IRAQINAM .....

Which never was a "historical NATION" to begin with .....

Unlike Viet Nam ...

Which had its own history going back a thousand years or more when we were there ...

INTERFERRING WITH THEIR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY .....

BECAUSE OF OIL .....

I have never thought that George W. Bush and his crowd had any idea at all of what they were unleashing when George ordered Saddam Hussein and his sons to get out of Iraq in what was it now, 24 hours, or 32 and 5/8 hours, or, well, something anyway, some increment of time that George apparently thought would make him look MACHO out there on the world stage ...

Where he whirls and pirouets .....

Without his pants on .....

To me, Snuf, right then and there was the REAL TEST of the people of America ...

When George W. Bush was bleating like a goat and barking like a dog at the same time, ordering Saddam Hussein to "get out of Dodge City" .....

And they failed, BIG TIME .....

Because what world leader can tell some other world leader to get out of his country by a certain hour, or else ....

And that answer is - ALL OF THEM CAN ....

OR NONE .....

But there is no space in the middle for ONLY George W. Bush to be telling other world leaders what they can do, but no one can tell him .....

SO ...

At that single moment in time, the American people ALLOWED and ENCOURAGED the DESTABILIZATION of this world of OURS .....

And now it has happened .....

And the fickle American public who once wanted it real badly, now does not want what they asked for ...

Which is the pain and uncertainty of a long-term war ...

WHICH WE NOW HAVE ...

Thanks to the American people .....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

And speaking of the "American people" .....

"Panel says state needs more scientists, engineers - College officials cite need for partnerships, innovative curriculum"

By KENNETH AARON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, March 7, 2006

ALBANY -- It's not only the United States that needs to worry about attracting more scientists and engineers to compete in a global economy.

New York does, too.

During the annual meeting Monday of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, a six-person panel discussed ways to bolster both state and national competitiveness.

"Partnerships are the key to what we have to do," said Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson, who has sounded a steady alarm over what she and others consider too few American students entering the sciences.

"In the end, innovations and discoveries are made by people."

"So we should value those who do it, and support those who study it," she said.

Businesses, schools, universities and governments need to develop ways to draw students to those careers, panelists said.

"We're not in there creating hands-on curriculum that really makes them feel that they'll be making a difference," said Nancy Cantor, chancellor and president of Syracuse University.

R. Mark Sullivan, president of the College of Saint Rose, said his school is changing the way it prepares future teachers, giving them more science and math training.

But he cautioned that bolstering American competitiveness is not something that can be accomplished overnight -- it's a long-term process that needs constant attention.

Abraham Lackman, CICU's president, said the state should consider giving scholarships to, and forgiving the loans of, students who consent to work as science or math teachers in New York state, or work in specific fields at New York companies.

New York does a great job at producing skilled graduates, Lackman said -- but not at keeping them in the state.

John Kelly III, a senior vice president at IBM, said Big Blue could use a few good engineers.

"We are feeling the pinch," said Kelly.

He said the company is trying to do its part -- as part of a pilot program in New York and North Carolina, the company wants to turn 100 volunteers into science and math teachers over the next 12 to 18 months.

[Livyjr]

"DeLay tries to fight off GOP challengers" 
 
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:05 p.m., Tuesday, March 7, 2006

SUGAR LAND, Texas -- Rep. Tom DeLay tried to beat back three challengers for the Republican nomination Tuesday in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as House majority leader.

While DeLay was widely expected to win, a close race could foretell a tough contest for the congressman in the fall.

For his part, DeLay said he was confident his constituents would see the campaign-finance case against him for what it is:

"a leftist abuse of power."

While no independent polls were taken for the primary, a poll taken in January by the Houston Chronicle found that DeLay's support in his district was 22 percent.

Only about half of those who voted for him in 2004 said they would do so again.

But Republican strategist Allen Blakemore predicted DeLay would win with at least 60 percent of the vote.

"We have awakened the sleeping giant," Blakemore said.

DeLay, who cast his ballot with his wife, Christine, said he expected Republicans to come out in droves to send a message to his detractors.

"My constituents get it."

"They know what a leftist abuse of power this is," he said of the charges brought by District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

And of course, we can't talk about "politics" up here in the corrupt State of New York, one of the least, if not the least, democractic state in this union of OURS, without paying HOMAGE to "BIG JOE" Bruno .....

The REPUBLICAN "HAMMER" of the State of New York ...

As "TWO-GUN TEXAS TOMMY" DeLay was for the mighty REPUBLICANS down there in the corrupt REPUBLICAN-controlled TEN-MILES SQUARE of Washington, D.C. .....

"BIG JOE", or the "IRON DUKE", as he is affectionately known here in his DUKEDOM of Rensselaer County in the State of New York has been a FIXTURE of local politics up here for quite a while now ....

Since the 1980's, anyway ...

And if you think a snake has got twists and turns to it as it goes along ...

That snake cannot hold a candle to "BIG JOE" as he wends his way through the political swamp that politics is up here ....

Like that snake smelling a mouse in a tiny hole in a log a mile away ..

OUR "IRON DUKE" has a nose on him that can smell a dollar in a lobbyist's pocket anywhere in the world ...

And so ..

Never fear ....

OUR "BIG JOE" will find a way, come hell or high water, to get himself to where that dollar is ...

And so ....

"Bruno finds way to fly free" 

Albany, New York Times Union 
First published: Monday, February 6, 2006

When the Pataki administration told Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno he couldn't use a state helicopter, the Brunswick Republican wasn't about to be grounded.

He found another way to fly, and still didn't have to pay the tab.

Ah, yes ....

LEFTIST PLOTS ....

And conspiracies, of course ......

That is what they are, really ...

Any attempts by citizens in OUR America to hold POLITICIANS accountable for MISUSE of their offices ARE LEFTIST PLOTS .....

ATTEMPTS AT SUBVERSION ....

For it is embodied in the United States Constitution that POLITICIANS in OUR America can be "FOR SALE" .....

Just as it is similarly embodied in OUR United States Constitution that what we think of as OUR TREASURY is really just a SLUSH FUND for OUR politicians to dip into whenever the JONES TO SPEND is upon them .....

And if you think that having a bunch of crooked, lying, stealing, thieving politicians here in OUR America is a bad thing ...

YOU MUST BE SOME KIND OF COMMIE ....

And so ...

You very likely deserve whatever kind of punishment these lying, corrupt politicians can mete out on you ...

So as to be able to PROTECT us all from LEFTIST ABUSES OF POWER .....

Here in OUR OWN AMERICA ....

"Bruno won't say how 'pork' funds to be spent - GOP Senate majority leader says anyone who wants to know can file Freedom of Information request"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 8, 2006

ALBANY -- Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno refused Tuesday to discuss how his chamber plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in discretionary funds.

As Senate and Assembly leaders prepare to vote on budget bills next week, Bruno, R-Brunswick, bristled when asked how lawmakers will use pots of money that Senate Democrats call "slush" and "pork" funds.

Senate Minority Leader David Paterson and his members brought the issue to the fore Tuesday, saying the system needs to be changed before budget deals are put together.

The changes would include divulging the details of "memorandums of understanding," or MOUs, among the governor, Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader on how discretionary money is to be used.

Bruno declared the topic off-limits.

He said that Paterson, who is looking to run for lieutenant governor this year, was in "campaign mode" by trying to make member item details part of the budget discussion.

"I don't have any interest in getting engaged."

"I'm not running for lieutenant governor," Bruno said.

If people want information about discretionary spending, he said, they can "go FOIL" -- file a Freedom of Information Law request for the details.

While saying "I'm not above campaigning," Paterson said the changes were on his agenda even before he decided to run for lieutenant governor six weeks ago.

"But I am a responsible public servant who is interested in legitimate issues."

"I'm raising it on behalf of taxpayers."

Comptroller Alan Hevesi has called for better accountability on the discretionary spending, with quarterly reporting on how lawmakers and the governor plan to spend money under the MOUs.

Currently, it is impossible to know in advance how the money would be spent, and difficult to figure out in detail how it ends up getting used, a spokesman for Hevesi said.

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said she is introducing a bill that would require the MOUs to be public documents available on state Web sites so taxpayers know how the money will be spent.

Registries of "pork" fund spending are unavailable, she said.

Much of the money in the various discretionary accounts goes unspent and is reappropriated each year, she said.

The unspent discretionary funds could be used for other programs, she said.

If that were to happen -- which is unlikely, according to majority members in both chambers -- the money would support another pitch by Senate Democrats: that half of each year's surplus or excess revenues be used to pay down debt.

Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, said the state's $48 billion in debt will crush future generations.

Every $1 billion wiped out would save the state $100 million each year in debt payments.

Bruno, who has promised an open budget process, would only focus on the Republican initiatives.

They include building on Gov. George Pataki's plan for a comprehensive Medicaid fraud unit.

Senate Republicans call for an independent Medicaid inspector general who would lead a new office for fraud investigators now at eight agencies.

At least 10 percent of the $46 billion Medicaid budget involves fraudulent bills, Bruno said, and a good fraud unit might be able to recover at least $2.3 billion.

He also revealed that the Senate budget to be printed in the next few days will cut about $500,000 in taxes and fees that Pataki has proposed in his $110.6 billion budget plan.

"We just think that's excessive, given the fact that we have a surplus," Bruno said.

He has pegged the surplus at about $4 billion.

The Senate also won't go along with Pataki's proposal to increase cigarette taxes by $1 per pack.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is seeking a 50-cent increase on the excise tax on cigarettes in the city's five boroughs.

Democrats who dominate the Assembly are expected to back Pataki's cigarette tax hike, which would raise about $400 million more in revenues, according to legislative sources.

The Assembly will reject the governor's $600 million plan to continue assessing sales tax on clothing and shoes less than $110 in value.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

[Snuffysmith]

http://teamliberty.net/id229.html
U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive nuclear energy industry

March 5, 2006 – In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive that granted Iran the opportunity to purchase U.S. built reprocessing equipment and facilities designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.

When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, the current Vice President of the United States, Richard B Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.[1]

In August 1974, the current Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He then became Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975)[2] and was the Ford Administration’s Secretary of Defense from 1975–1977.

The current President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz served in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Gerald Ford.[3] Wolfowitz is considered as a prominent architect of the Bush Doctrine, which has come to be identified with a policy that permits pre-emptive war against potential aggressors before they are capable of mounting attacks against the United States.

According to Washington Post Staff Writer Dafna Linzer, “Ford’s team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb. Either can be shaped into the core of a nuclear warhead, and obtaining one or the other is generally considered the most significant obstacle to would-be weopons builders.”[4]

What the current Bush Administration is asserting, particularly through its news agency Fox News, or as I like to call it, the Fascist Opinion X-change, is that it needs to prevent Iran from achieving the exact same nuclear capabilities that President Ford and his key appointees, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were encouraging Iran to accomplish 30 years ago. Iran, a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, is guaranteed the right to develop peaceful nuclear power programs – regardless of whether the United States approves or disapproves the politics or political leadership of that country; a point that Iran has repeated over and over again. For 30 years, Iran has proclaimed that it needs nuclear power since its oil and gas supplies are limited, just like the United States, and therefore has the legal right to produce and operate nuclear power plants. Thirty years ago, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld agreed. Today, Cheney and Rumsfeld appear to be crawling out of their skins with uncontrollable militarized lust for control of Iranian oil fields via a U.S. occupied, Iran. The NEO-CON war drumbeaters have already devised their plans for the liberation of the people again, this time Iranian people, and making things all better, just like they have done in Iraq. Scary stuff, but it is true. In preparation, the Bush Administration has primed the mainstream media so effectively that 8 out of 10 Americans believe Iran poises an immediate nuclear threat to the United States. The President’s recent and risky travel to regional nuclear powers, Pakistan and India, no doubt also served as a strategic warning to those countries to prepare for the certain public backlash to be expected once the U.S. or Israel begins to drop bombs on Iran.

It is also worth noting that in 2000, the World Bank resumed making loans to Iran. As of June 30, 2004, the World Bank as made 51 loans valued at $2.6 billion to Iran. The World Bank gets its funds from the International Monetary Fund, which in turn, gets its money from member nation dues / contributions. The United States is required to contribute $37.2 billion per year into the IMF. The atrocious Federal Reserve Banking Cartel orchestrated this money scheme so that it can continue to print and loan astronomical numbers of debt notes. If the American people understood that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Congress have been funding many activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, most would be skeptical of the federal government’s current claim that Iran’s 30 year old, U.S. sanctioned, nuclear program is somehow now an immediate threat to the security of the United States. The IMF and the World Bank create just enough degrees of separation to shield the government from the people recognizing that the federal government has fed the dog well that it now claims will bite if we do not ‘put it down’ with a pre-emptive strike.



With Wolfowitz at the helm of the World Bank, one has to wonder if once again the Federal Reserve has positioned itself to fund both sides of a warring conflict. One thing is certain; loaning money to fund both sides of a war is a perfected craft of the member banks of the Federal Reserve, which is interested only in loan collateral and interest payments. Patriotism is not part of the equation. What is most disturbing about the relationship between the Fed, IMF, and World Bank is that the $37.2 billion the U.S. is obligated to pay to the IMF annually, is actually secured by the American taxpayer. We the People, and the ability of the U.S. Congress to confiscate our wealth through that unconstitutional apparatus referred to as a federal income tax, makes loaning money to the Islamic Republic of Iran easy because if Iran defaults on its World Bank loans, the U.S. portions of the loans work their way back to the lender of last resort, which is the U.S. Congress. When the U.S. Congress responds to failed loans and failed banking institutions, they assume responsibility for the loan amount, and pass the burden of repayment onto the American people.



Finally, but very much part of the U.S. government’s charade aimed at deceiving the American people into believing that the U.S. has played no part in the development of Iran or its nuclear power programs, is the absolute economic threat that Iran poses to the global value of the U.S. dollar. Unless the U.S. intervenes, on March 20, 2006 the world will have the option of purchasing oil with euros instead of dollars through the opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse. The Iran Oil Bourse will be the third exchange in which global oil transactions will be executed. While financial analysts debate whether such an exchange operating solely in euros will have the potential to collapse the U.S. economy, the complete silence of the mainstream media regarding this most important untold story can be interpreted as a sign that this suggested economic threat is real. As the Bush Administration has proven itself to be the most dishonest, secretive presidency in the history of the United States, it has repeatedly demonstrated that the truth about its motives and agendas can only be found in what is not being reported to the American people. And if the Iran nuclear threat rhetoric is the firewall that the U.S. government is hiding the U.S. dollar global supremacy behind, than any military action in Iran will be solely on behalf of the member banks of the Federal Reserve – at the expense of American sons and daughters serving in the U.S. military and at the burden of the U.S. taxpayer who is already indebted to the federal government to the tune of $28 thousand, which is each and every American’s current share of the Federal Reserve / U.S. Congress banking cartel produced national debt - $28,000 and growing faster than ever!



Here’s a patriotic challenge and very American gut check for your consideration: Next time you hold your children and / or grandchildren, look them in the eye and explain to them how they are, right at this very moment, indebted to the federal government of the United States of America, to the tune of $28,000, and then ask yourself how you allowed it to happen. Sobering fact that feels better to ignore, does it not? But hell, we’re spreading democracy, right? I don’t think so, and hopefully soon, neither will you.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[1] The White House, Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

[2] United States Department of Defense, Biography – Donald H. Rumsfeld, http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

[3] Washington Post, Realism, Rewarded, George F. Will, May 12, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5051101815.html, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

[4] Washington Post, Past Arguments Don’t Square with Current Iran Policy, Dafna Linzer, March 27, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar26.html, [Accessed March 4, 2006]



Freelance writer / author, Ed Haas, is the editor and columnist for the Muckraker Report. Get smart. Read the Muckraker Report. [http://teamliberty.net] To learn more about Ed’s current and previous work, visit Crafting Prose. [http://craftingprose.com]


Copyright © 2002-2006 by MUCKRAKER REPORT.
All rights reserved. For re-print permission, contact Ed Haas: (843) 327-7598.

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.counterpunch.org/selfa03082006.html

The Politics of Distraction and Exploitation
The Democrats and Dubai
By LANCE SELFA

It didn't take long after the flap over the Dubai ports deal broke for media pundits to claim that this issue might just be the push the Democrats need to win back Congress later this year.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen wrote that the Dubai ports controversy gave Democrats the opening to make their case. "It's important to note that the Dubai Ports story is far more significant politically than the issue itself," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "That's because it gives people an opportunity to re-evaluate the president on a whole range of issues relating to national security.

"Our latest survey finds the number who think the U.S. and its allies are winning the 'war on terror' has dipped below 40 percent and is near the lowest levels ever recorded. By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans think things in Iraq are likely to get worse in the next six months. That's the bleakest assessment since the first votes were cast in Iraq over a year ago."

As the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato put it, "Since 9/11, Bush's consistent political advantage has been the public's confidence in him to handle the terrorist threat. The Iraq war has weakened Bush's edge, and now the Dubai ports misstep may destroy it. This has become a troubled and tone-deaf presidency."

While there is still a long way to go before the November mid-term elections, there is no denying that the Democrats are feeling more confident these days. In the Dubai deal, they feel that they have painted the president into a corner--hanging a tangible "flip flop" on "national security" around his neck.

After putting up with years of Bush and the Republicans bashing them for being soft on "national security," Democrats feel they can return the favor. And many of their partisans, including most liberal bloggers and commentators, went along with them.

Yet the fact that Democrats could win support by adopting an openly racist and jingoist position on the ports deal is hardly a cause for celebration. It was yet another example of how confusing support for the Democrats with advancing a progressive agenda leads in the wrong direction.

The key factors driving opposition to Bush are the war in Iraq, declining wages and living standards, and the perception of the administration's corruption and incompetence, as demonstrated by its inaction around Hurricane Katrina.

But Democrats are loath to promise an end to the war, better jobs and health care. And any promises to reform the "culture of corruption" in Washington are likely to evaporate if they become the congressional majority.

So the Dubai controversy gives them a way to talk about something else: how they're tougher than Bush when it comes to the "war on terror." If they listen to the pundits and convince themselves that the Dubai flap helped them, then expect more jingoism and racism from leading Democratic candidates.

In 2004, John Kerry's pro-war message didn't work as well when Bush could still draw on just enough voters who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. In 2006, with Bush widely seen as a failure, the Democrats may indeed gain some support for their hard-line positions on the "war on terror."

But if this is the case, then the millions who most hate what Bush and his administration represent will end up voting for politicians who don't really want to put an end to Bush's disastrous policies as much as they would like to make them work better.

As in the recent tussle over the USA PATRIOT Act--where Democrats waged a brief filibuster, only to drop their opposition after the administration gave them a few meaningless changes to the law--they don't seek to stop the administration so much as give its policies a bipartisan seal of approval.

Democrats aren't aligning themselves with the huge majorities who oppose the war and question the "war on terror" so much as they are rehabilitating these discredited Bush initiatives.

Lance Selfa writes for the Socialist Worker.

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03072006.html

Bush's Last, Best Hope: the Democrats
A Popular Groundswell for Impeachment
By DAVE LINDORFF

The prevailing "wisdom" of our corporate media is that impeachment of President Bush is a left-wing fantasy. As a result, there is virtually no coverage in the media of either the majority sentiment for removing Bush from office or even of the key issues that make this president a poster child for impeachment.

Take the several polls by Zogby International on the impeachment issue. Last June, Zogby polled Americans across the country and found that some 42 percent favored impeaching the president if it were found that he had lied about the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify an invasion. That is a higher percentage of people in favor of impeachment than there ever was for the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton during his entire impeachment ordeal. Yet the poll was not mentioned by any major media news organization.

In November, Zogby repeated the poll. This time, 53 percent of respondents from all over the nation said they thought the president should be impeached and removed from office if he lied about the war. That poll to was totally blacked out.

A third poll early this year found 52 percent of Americans saying Bush should be removed from office if he broke the law and had the National Security Agency spy on American citizens without court warrants. Well, of course he did do that-the president has admitted he did so and says he will continue to do it--so the latest poll was really saying that 52 percent of Americans think he should be sent packing.

That poll too was largely ignored by the major corporate media.

Left-wing fantasy? Are we saying that the majority of Americans are left-wingers?

I don't think so.

But the media are not the only ones who are trying to dismiss popular sentiment for impeachment.

The leadership of the Democratic Party is doing the same thing.

While researching our book on impeachment (The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing George W. Bush from Office, St. Martin's Press, due out in late April), my co-author Barbara Olshanshky and I have found that members of Congress-even firebrands like Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-have been strong-armed behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee not to introduce an impeachment bill in the House. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, where such a bill would be considered, has submitted three bills that relate to impeachment-a proposal for a special committee to investigate possible impeachable crimes by the administration and bills to censure both the president and the vice president for refusing to answer questions from Congress on impeachment-related issues--but that's as far as the Democratic congressional leadership is willing to go.

As the Wall Streeet Journal reported in a March 6 article on the impeachment issue, Democratic Party leaders fear that party support for impeachment could lead to a backlash as happened to Republicans who supported Clinton's impeachment.

This is of course nonsense. The effort to impeach Clinton over his sexual escapades was always viewed by the majority of Americans, Democratic and Republican alike, as a farce and an embarrassment. As the Wall Street Journal notes, support for Clinton's impeachment never rose much above a quarter of the electorate--the hard right element of the Republican Party.

The issues that are driving popular sentiment for Bush's impeachment are much more serious:

* The conspiracy of lies that got the country into a war in Iraq that has already cost some $400 billion and that ultimately may end up costing over $2 trillion, and that has cost the lives of 2300 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis.

* Obstruction of investigations into what the administration knew about the 9-11 attacks before they happened, and why nothing was done to prevent them.

* Undermining of basic Constitutional freedoms, from First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, press and religion to Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure and Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial, to the even more basic rights of citizenship.

* Abuses of power, including the blatant violation of the law in the case of the president's violation of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, the use of over 500 "signing statements" to simply ignore laws passed by Congress, and the ignoring of court orders, as well as the use of government power to attack individuals, as in the case of the outing of underecover CIA agent Valerie Plame in order to punish her whistle-blowing husband, ambassador Joe Wilson.

* Trampling of international law through the authorization of policies of torture of captives and the rounding up and deporting of law-abiding residents based solely upon their ethnicity and religion, all of which have made America a pariah in the international community and needlessly inflamed hatred of America across the Muslim world.

* A criminally negligent attitude towards governing that has brought us the disaster and needless death of hundreds of people in New Orleans, the fiasco of the Medicare drug "program" for seniors, and the chaos of post-war Iraq.

* A criminal know-nothing obstructionism with regard to the urgent crisis of global warming, which even the Pentagon has concluded threatens the national security of the United States far more than any rag-tag band of terrorists.

* A culture of corruption in Washington that makes earlier epic scandals like Teapot Dome look penny-ante, with over 60 Republican members of Congress (that's better than one in four!) linked to just one bribing lobbyist and with war-profiteering by Republican-linked corporations running rampant.

These are all issues that cry out for action, and for saturation coverage in the nation's media.

The polls showing majority support for impeachment make it clear that the public knows all this intuitively, even though people have to get their information from personal observation, from the Internet, or by reading between the lines, because the media are more focused on the Oscars and the latest dramatic murder or kidnapping, and even though the supposed opposition party, for the most part, is afraid of its own shadow.

The prevailing wisdom is that all such talk about impeachment is fantasy, and yet out in the country, some candidates are finding that calling for impeachment brings down the house.

If those candidacies catch fire, and pro-impeachment candidates backed by groups like ImpeachPAC start winning Democratic primaries in late spring, and if those candidates go on to win seats in Congress in November, I am predicting that their spineless colleagues will realize that the public wants action on all these issues, not just business as usual.

With the American public so on edge about so many issues, it might, in the end, not take that many radical upsets in November to create a whole new mood in Congress.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's new book, "The Case for Impeachment",
co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is due out May 1.

He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com

[Livyjr]

http://teamliberty.net/id229.html

"U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive nuclear energy industry"

March 5, 2006 – In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive that granted Iran the opportunity to purchase U.S. built reprocessing equipment and facilities designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. 

Now, Snuffysmith .....

That is some "beef" to chew on ...

And that is a fact ...

And that is what I like to see coming in here ...

Which is some history ...

In a "spoon-fed" type of format such as above ...

And that is not because people are simple-minded ....

To the contrary, it is because this AMERICAN HISTORY between say 1960, and the present time is largely unknown to many people ...

Including myself in some instances ......

So that too big a dose at once just totally overwhelms ...

And so ....

And here I also want to say that I am glad that you brought this HISTORY in, because people really need to know just how long people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have been around OUR "HALLS OF GOVERNMENT" .....

And what they have really been involved with in that time ...

Such as Donald Rumsfeld being Ronald Raygun's SPECIAL ENVOY to Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was gassing Persians for Washington, D.C. .....

And Donald Rumsfeld is probably the only living American who can say that he groveled at the feet of Saddam Hussein, and called him "MR. PRESIDENT" ......

And Donald Rumsfeld is also likely the only living American who can say that Tariq Aziz called him a real swell guy, or words to that effect, back in the days when Tariq Aziz was doing all that alleged nasty, dirty stuff that got him condemned to death as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity .....

And here is Donald Rumsfeld now posing as OUR Secretary of Defense ....

Confirmed into such high office in OUR land .....

By the United States Senate .....

Which surely knows this history better than you or I ...

Since they are privy to all of the rest of what Donald gave to Saddam back then so that Saddam could do on OUR behalf all that alleged nasty, dirty stuff that got him condemned to death as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity .....

Something stinks, of course .....

And it goes back and back in time ....

Before Ronald Raygun, certainly .....

And you have helped "unravel" this conundrum, Snuffysmith, and thereby make it more digestible and understandable for the common citizen who reads these words, and needs time to let the thoughts sink in, by providing us with this comprehensive history above here ....

Well done ...

[Livyjr]

http://www.counterpunch.org/selfa03082006.html

"The Politics of Distraction and Exploitation - The Democrats and Dubai"

By LANCE SELFA

It didn't take long after the flap over the Dubai ports deal broke for media pundits to claim that this issue might just be the push the Democrats need to win back Congress later this year.

So the Dubai controversy gives them a way to talk about something else: how they're tougher than Bush when it comes to the "war on terror." If they listen to the pundits and convince themselves that the Dubai flap helped them, then expect more jingoism and racism from leading Democratic candidates.

Lance Selfa writes for the Socialist Worker.

Not at all, Snuffsmith ....

Not at all ...

Jingoism and racism, I mean ......

Nothing to do with those at all ...

The simple question is .....

SINCE OUR AMERICA IS A SOVEREIGN NATION ...

WITH A CONSTITUTION PUT IN PLACE BY WE, THE PEOPLE .....

TO SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY .....

WHY ARE WE GIVING CONTROL OF THE OPERATION OF OUR PORTS TO A COMPANY OWNED BY ANOTHER SOVEREIGN NATION .....

No matter what race they might happen to be ...

British or Arab .....

What exactly is wrong with that picture?

Besides everything?

The REPUBLICANS want to put OUR America on the block ....

They want to SELL IT OUT ...

To weaken it ...

TO BREAK IT ....

TO ERASE ITS BOUNDARY LINES .....

Because the REPUBLICANS are no longer operating in a world with boundaries .....

They are "MULTI-NATIONAL" ....

And have been for some long time now ...

And so .....

The Democrats, at least right now, in this one issue, are being what I would call AMERICAN about this BUSHCO DEAL to turn control of OUR American ports over to a foreign government ......

And as I read my American history, and my United States Constitution, I would have to say that what they are doing IS WHAT OUR CONGRESS SHOULD BE DOING IN THIS EXACT SITUATION .....

Which is asking BUSHCO WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE .....

Why is control of OUR nation being given over to a foreign government?

THERE IS THE ISSUE ....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

"DeLay tries to fight off GOP challengers" 
 
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:05 p.m., Tuesday, March 7, 2006

SUGAR LAND, Texas -- Rep. Tom DeLay tried to beat back three challengers for the Republican nomination Tuesday in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as House majority leader.

While DeLay was widely expected to win, a close race could foretell a tough contest for the congressman in the fall.

For his part, DeLay said he was confident his constituents would see the campaign-finance case against him for what it is:

"a leftist abuse of power."

While no independent polls were taken for the primary, a poll taken in January by the Houston Chronicle found that DeLay's support in his district was 22 percent.

Only about half of those who voted for him in 2004 said they would do so again.

But Republican strategist Allen Blakemore predicted DeLay would win with at least 60 percent of the vote.

"We have awakened the sleeping giant," Blakemore said.

DeLay, who cast his ballot with his wife, Christine, said he expected Republicans to come out in droves to send a message to his detractors.

"My constituents get it."

"They know what a leftist abuse of power this is," he said of the charges brought by District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03072006.html

"Bush's Last, Best Hope: the Democrats - A Popular Groundswell for Impeachment"

By DAVE LINDORFF

The prevailing "wisdom" of our corporate media is that impeachment of President Bush is a left-wing fantasy.

You know, Snuf ......

While they may rightly call George W. Bush the GREAT UNITER AND ORGANIZER OF ALL THINGS RELATED TO HUMAN ACTIVITIES ON THE FACE OF THIS PLANET OF OURS .......

It is just as true that "TWO-GUN TEXAS TOMMY" DeLay will likely go down in AMERICAN HISTORY as the GREAT CLARIFIER .......

Because what Mr. "TWO-GUN" has done for each and every person living not only here in OUR America, but in the candid world as well, is to SHARPLY DEFINE what a LEFTIST is here in OUR America ...

AND THAT IS SOMEONE WHO IS FOR LAW AND ORDER ...

Which LAW AND ORDER "TWO-GUN TEXAS TOMMY" DeLay, a REPUBLICAN, along with his CONSTITUENTS, whoever exactly they might be, IS OPPOSED TO ....

Which is to say, a REPUBLICAN like "TWO-GUN TOMMY" DeLay IS FOR LAWLESSNESS

FOR HIM ...

And his CONSTITUENTS .....

And so ....

LAW AND ORDER HERE IN OUR AMERICA IS A LEFTIST PLOT TO TAKE OVER OUR AMERICA ...

From the CORRUPT REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS ON THE RIGHT WHO ARE SELLING IT OUT AND RUINING IT WITH THEIR UNBRIDLED GREED .....

And so ....

Yes, Snuf ...

This nation-wide call by the people of OUR America for the impeachment of George W. Bush is indeed LEFTIST when seen through the eyes of the likes of REPUBLICAN STRONGMAN "TWO-GUN TEXAS TOMMY" DeLay .....

And so ...

IN OUR AMERICA, BEING LEFTISH IS A GOOD THING ...

IT MEANS THAT YOU ARE FOR LAW AND ORDER .....

AND THAT YOU ARE AGAINST GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION ...

And so ...

GO LEFTISH ....

FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA .....

OR IF YOU WANT CORRUPTION ....

GO RIGHT ...

VOTE REPUBLICAN ....

AND YOUR WISHES WILL BE FULFILLED ....

And so ...