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

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HF17Dj01.html
America's untested management team
By Henry C K Liu

All top posts in the management team of the world's biggest economy are now headed by untested appointees with little high-level experience in government or proven policy predilections.

First Ben Bernanke, a respected academician with little market experience, replaced Alan Greenspan as chairman of the US Federal Reserve in February. So far, every time the new Fed chairman has made a public statement about his resolve on price stability, a technical euphemism for inflation and deflation, the market has shown its lack of confidence by a substantial price correction.

Edward Lazear, a noted labor economist among whose published papers is "The Peter Principle: A Theory of Decline", replaced Bernanke as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). For those who are not familiar with the Peter Principle, it states that routine promotion in organizations continues until incompetence surfaces.

Then Rob Portman, former Republican congressman from Ohio and recent US Trade Representative, replaced Josh Bolten as director of the Office of Management and Budget, while the latter moved to the White House as chief of staff in April. Word was that Bolten was instrumental in persuading Henry Paulson, his former colleague at Goldman Sachs, to accept the post of treasury secretary, replacing John Snow.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bolten had originally joined the White House as President George W Bush's deputy chief of staff to handle domestic policy. However, as the administration soured on the independent-minded national economic adviser Larry Lindsey, Bolten gradually began increasing his influence over economic policymaking by framing economic issues for presidential consideration. As chief of staff, Bolten is credited as the chief architect of the Bush tax cuts as well as the hiring of another former colleague from Goldman Sachs, Stephen Friedman, to replace Lindsey as assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council.

At Goldman, Friedman was a fearsome strategist for corporate takeovers. He was co-director along with Robert Rubin from 1990-92 and sole director from 1992-94 after Rubin left for Washington to become treasury secretary under president Bill Clinton. After leaving Goldman Sachs in 1994, Friedman became a senior principal for March & McLennan Capital, an investment-insurance unit whose parent company faced a government probe into bid-rigging and price-fixing that has since been settled out of court.

Many are puzzled why Henry Paulson would leave his top job at Goldman Sachs, the world's pre-eminent investment-banking powerhouse, to take the job of US treasury secretary under a prematurely lame-duck president with an approval rating languishing in the low 30% range. After all, David Rockefeller declined a personal telephone appeal from president Jimmy Carter to join a demoralized administration after Carter, in response to popular discontent and declining presidential authority, desperately imposed wholesale resignation of his entire cabinet in 1979, the third year of his first and only four-year term.

After isolating himself for 10 days in introspective agonizing at Camp David, Carter emerged back in the White House to make his disconcerting speech of "crisis of the soul and confidence" to a restless nation facing rising gasoline prices at US$1.25 a gallon (33 cents a liter), with gold rising to $300 an ounce but with the US enjoying a trade surplus with China for another 14 years. Today, gasoline is above $3 a gallon and gold broke above $700, while the US trade deficit with China is at a record high of more than $200 billion a year and still rising; yet President Bush continues to tell Americans that the US economy is fundamentally strong, which raises the question: Why the wholesale cabinet changeover?

The Treasury Department, whose head leads the president's economic team, has not been performing at its most effective level in the past six years of the Bush administration. This was not because of a shortage of talent at the top. Both Paul O'Neill, who ran the Aluminum Company of America, and John Snow, who headed the CSX transportation network, were successful captains of industry with outstanding performance records in the private sector. But in a world where industry has been increasingly dominated by finance, their experience in industry might not have prepared them to deal with the complex challenges facing a treasury secretary of the world's top economic hegemon, or to survive in the political jungle of a faith-based ideological administration.

Both men had difficult tenures as cabinet officers, routinely sidetracked by White House inner-circle cliques whose members aggressively guarded executive prerogative to set erratic economic policies driven reactively by neo-conservative ideology and near-term domestic political considerations rather than long-range, rational responses to developing global economic conditions.

In the US system, cabinet officers are politically appointed captains of the bureaucracy. Executive power often regards the bureaucracy as an obstructionist enemy, yet it is the bureaucracy that provides stable continuous implementation of national policies that transcend partisan politics. Just as a strong White House National Security Council chairman can overshadow a weak secretary of state, most glaringly evidenced in the case of Henry Kissinger over William Rogers, and the case of Zbigniew Brzezinski over Cyrus Vance, White House political adviser Karl Rove - at least until the Central Intelligence Agency leak scandal - overshadowed all cabinet appointees over the setting of US economic policies. The difference is that Kissinger and Brzezinski formulated foreign policies based on the long-range geopolitical interests of the nation, while Rove formulated economic policies based mostly on short-term partisan political expediencies.

The Washington Post reported that before finally and reluctantly agreeing to be nominated treasury secretary, Paulson sought assurances in a long meeting with the president that "the post, which at times has been seen as subordinated by the White House, would have the proper kind of stature".

The importance of the post of treasury secretary
The power of modern nations rests on economic foundations. Historically, the treasury secretary has been the vicar of US economic policy.

The post was first held by Alexander Hamilton, who created the Bank of the United States in a national-banking regime that provided needed sovereign credit to finance the development of the young nation and thus launched the United States on the path toward becoming a major economic power in record time. Hamilton engaged Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state, in a fateful contest between centralized elitism and decentralized populism in economic policy. He also fought Albert Gallatin, then a congressman, over the creation of a powerful Treasury for the federal government with financing authority independent from the states of the union. He designed the collection and disbursement of federal revenue for the promotion of the economic development of the young nation in an era when market fundamentalism in the context of free trade was an economic weapon employed by a hostile and belligerent Great Britain against its former colonies.

The secretary of the US Treasury is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt. The secretary oversees the activities of the Treasury Department in carrying out major law-enforcement responsibilities; in serving as the financial agent for the US government; and in manufacturing coins and currency. The chief financial officer of the government, the secretary serves on the president's National Economic Council. He is also chairman of the boards and managing trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and chairman of the Thrift Depositor Protection Oversight Board, and serves as US governor of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Today, with a globalized economy dominated by financial institutions framed largely by the United States, the post of US treasury secretary is even more critical, for no nation can carry out its foreign policy with its domestic economy in disarray, much less a superpower. Logic would suggest that the top post of the cabinet in today's world should be the treasury secretary rather than the secretary of state, as supranational financial institutions emerge as powerful agencies of superpower financial hegemony. Instead, in today's White House, the national economic adviser is subordinate to the national security adviser. Apparently, in the high temple of free markets, national security trumps market fundamentalism. The nation that leads in the promotion of global free trade is also the most vocal nation in promoting economic nationalism.

Albert Gallatin came of an old and noble Swiss family in Geneva and played a vital part in establishing the financial soundness of his adopted nation, the United States. He graduated with honors from the Geneva Academy, but in 1780 gave up fortune and social position to move to the US, a nation barely 14 years old, to fulfill "a love for independence in the freest country of the universe". In 1785, he took the Oath of Allegiance in Virginia and settled finally in Pennsylvania. A member of the state legislature before being sent by voters to the US Senate, his tentative citizenship caused him to be rejected by that august body, but not before he called on the Senate floor for a statement of the public debt as of January 1, 1794, from the treasury secretary, listing revenue received under each government branch and money expended under each appropriation.

When Gallatin was returned by voters to the House of Representatives, he immediately became a member of the new Standing Committee on Finance, the forerunner of the Ways and Means Committee, the most powerful body on US government finance. While opposing Hamilton on the issue of expanding federal authority, Gallatin actually reinforced Hamilton's ambitious plan for a powerful United States by making certain that the nation's finances and currency remained strong.

In July 1800, Gallatin prepared a report titled "Views of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States", still regarded as a classic, which analyzed the fiscal operations of the government under the US constitution. In Congress, he worked relentlessly and successfully to keep down appropriations, particularly those for "warlike purposes". Thomas Jefferson believed the Sedition Bill was framed to drive the foreign-born Gallatin from office. When Jefferson was elected president in 1801, he tendered Gallatin the post of secretary of the Treasury.

Gallatin took office on a "platform" of debt reduction, the necessity for specific appropriations, and strict and immediate accountability for disbursements. He reduced the public debt by $14 million to build up a surplus even after expending $15 million for the Louisiana Purchase, an acquisition that established the United States as a great continental power. Many accounting practices still in use in the Treasury date back to those introduced by Gallatin. He also sponsored the establishment of marine hospitals, the forerunner of the present Public Health Service. In 1807 he submitted to Congress an extensive plan for internal improvement through the construction of highways and canals. Under Gallatin, the Treasury began the practice of submitting to Congress a detailed annual report of the country's fiscal situation with a breakdown of receipts, a concise statement of the public debt, and an estimate of expected revenue.

After leaving government, Gallatin became the president of the National Bank of the City of New York, later known as the Gallatin National Bank of the City of New York, a forerunner of today's CitiGroup. He was a founder of New York University, the New York Historical Society and the American Ethnological Society, making valuable contributions on the study of languages of the native American tribes.

Andrew Mellon and Alan Greenspan
Andrew Mellon, the 49th treasury secretary, demonstrated precocious financial ability early in life. At 17, he started a successful lumber company, joined at 19 his father's banking firm, T Mellon & Sons, and became controlling owner in 1882 at the age of 27.

In 1889, he organized the Union Trust Co and the Union Savings Bank of Pittsburgh, branched out from banking into industrial activities and built a great personal fortune from oil, steel, shipbuilding, and construction by investing in growth industries such as coke, coal and iron. Mellon established the Aluminum Company of America, the Gulf Oil Corp (1895), the Union Trust Co (1898) and the Pittsburgh Coal Co (1899). In 1937, he gave the nation his magnificent art collection, plus $10 million, to build the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Mellon was appointed by president Warren Harding in 1921 to be treasury secretary to deal with the post-World War I economy. Herbert Hoover was appointed secretary of commerce. Harding's presidential address on March 4, 1921, reflected Mellon's ideas of a revision of the tax system, an emergency tariff act, readjustment of war taxes and the creation of a federal budget system. Mellon campaigned to Congress for tax cuts and lower government spending to reduce the public debt.

In November 1923. Mellon presented to the House Ways and Means Committee what has come to be known as the Mellon Plan, a program for tax reform that subsequently became law as the Revenue Act of 1924, reducing the top income-tax rate to 25%. Through the Roaring Twenties, Mellon was a popular official, much as Alan Greenspan was throughout the irrationally exuberant 1990s.

Despite his open conservatism in government finance, Mellon presided over an unprecedented growth of private debt in the economy during his tenure. Total private debt at the time of the 1929 stock-market crash reached $200 billion, the equivalent of more than $3 trillion in 2005 as relative share of gross domestic product (GDP), or about 25%.

As late as 1930, secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon held that a financial panic might not be such a bad thing. "It will purge the rottenness out of the system," he said. "High costs of living ... will come down. People will work harder, live a moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."

But the rottenness came from easy credit that Mellon was centrally responsible for releasing. And predators picked up the wrecks from unfortunate hard-working people who had lost everything they owned through no fault of their own.

It was comparable to Greenspan's testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on October 29, 1997, on "Turbulence in World Financial Markets": "Yet provided the decline in financial markets does not cumulate, it is quite conceivable that a few years hence we will look back at this episode, as we now look back at the 1987 crash, as a salutary event in terms of its implications for the macroeconomy."

The Asian economies saw their assets lose up to 80% of their market value within a few days during the 1997 crisis; the US did better. From the market peak to the October lows, the S&P 500 lost 35.9% of its peak value but regained the lost value about two years later through the Fed's massive injection of liquidity. The Greenspan formula was to print money whenever the market faltered. The Asian economies were less lucky. As international finance was denominated mostly in US dollars, the Asian central banks were not able to print local currencies to provide needed liquidity to their collapsing markets. They learned from direct experience that dollar hegemony is not benign.

Under Greenspan, the US had amassed $44 trillion of debt by 2005: $10 trillion by the federal government, $2 trillion by state and local governments, and $34 trillion by the public sector, of which the business sector held $8.3 trillion, the finance sector held $12.5 trillion and the household sector held $11.5 trillion. In addition, the United States faces an unfunded contingent liability of $7 trillion in Social Security and $37 trillion in Medicare obligations. The Greenspan debt monkey is 10 times as large as Mellon's after adjustment for inflation. The delayed but unavoidable bursting of Greenspan's debt bubble will make the 1930s Depression look like a minor storm.

Ironically, the onslaught of the Depression in 1929 was blamed by voters on Mellon's fiscal policies, not on his monetary policy or his tolerance if not promotion of private debt. And it contributed to the presidential-election defeat of Herbert Hoover in 1932 by Franklin D Roosevelt.

There are clear indications that history will not treat Greenspan's liquidity joyride with more lenience. This time, since the Greenspan legacy spanned both political parties, US voters, having no third party to turn to as they did in 1930, may well vote against the apocalyptic black knight of neo-conservative foreign policy galloping on a neo-liberal free-trade horse.

Henry Morgenthau
Henry Morgenthau was nominated by president Roosevelt to be the 52nd secretary of the Treasury and served from January 1, 1934, until July 22, 1945, in FDR's "New Deal" and War Administration.

During his historically long term, Morgenthau exercised a stabilizing effect on US monetary policies through progressive taxation and sovereign credit, raising $450 billion ($45 trillion in 2005 dollars in relative share of GDP) for anti-depression government spending programs and for war costs. This amount was more than all the money raised by all of the previous 51 treasury secretaries, enough in current dollar equivalent to pay off all the debts in the US economy today. This shows that under effective leadership the US can be debt-free with the proper resolve and fairly distributed sacrifice to re-emerge as a great nation with unprecedented prosperity without exploitation either at home or abroad.

For seven years during the Depression, from 1934 through December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Morgenthau defended the US dollar against devaluation by intervening in the world financial markets in an effort to make the dollar the strongest currency in the world despite a weak domestic economy, particularly from the rising strength of the German currency as the Nazi economic miracle took off. This effort led to an international monetary-stabilization agreement among the great powers after the Munich Pact of 1938, which did not have a chance to test its worth.

When war in Europe broke out in 1939 over the German invasion of Poland, Morgenthau established a procurement service in the Treasury Department to facilitate the purchase of US munitions on credit by Britain and France. He then provided the US economy with unlimited sovereign credit to meet enormously expanded spending requirements that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor. Mobilization for World War II began first in the financial sector.

Morgenthau financed the war with a program of war bonds, which in the first year of the war alone amounted to a $1 billion distribution. The war bonds not only supported war spending, but also prevented a serious inflationary wave by siphoning off excess funds from the private sector to prevent the emergence of a black market out of the government's wartime price control program. The wartime black market did not flourish, simply because few people had the money to pay black-market prices.

In 1944, the Morgenthau plan, under which postwar Germany would be stripped of its industry, the basis for warmaking, and be converted into an agricultural nation, became policy until the beginning of the Cold War, when the US decided it needed a strong capitalistic Germany with a credible military to resist the spread of communism in Europe. At the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, Morgenthau assumed a leading role in establishing postwar economic policies and currency stabilization with the introduction of a gold-backed US dollar with a fixed exchange rate to finance a revival of world trade under US leadership.

In July 1945, three months after the death of president Roosevelt, Morgenthau resigned as treasury secretary, but remained in office until president Harry Truman returned from the "Big Three" conference in Potsdam, Germany, in early August. The Potsdam Conference and the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945, brought on the beginning of the Cold War.

From 1947 until 1950, Morgenthau was chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, which raised $465 million during that time, and from 1951 to 1954 he served as chairman of the board of governors of the American Financial and Development Corporation for Israel, which handled a $500 million bond issue for the new nation. It is an ironic tragedy of history that the anti-Semitic sins of Europe are being atoned for by the Arab nation with intractable conflicts in the Middle East that will endanger the future peace of the whole world.

Nixon's treasury secretaries
Appointing Democrat John Connally as treasury secretary was a shrewd political move by Republican president Richard Nixon, who had to reorganize his cabinet in response to Democratic gains in the 1970 mid-term congressional elections.

In response to deteriorating domestic and international economic conditions, Nixon announced his "New Economic Policy" (NEP) in 1971. In monetary terms, this meant "closing the gold window", ending US legal obligation to exchange dollars held by foreign banks for gold at $35 per ounce, abandoning the 1944 Bretton Woods regime of a dollar pegged to gold, and fixed exchange rates for world currencies to keep trading partners honest. Floating exchange rates allow countries an escape valve from having to correct their economic inefficiencies through currency devaluation.

With Nixon proclaiming, "We are all Keynesians now," Connally resurrected New Deal anti-cyclical deficit spending with a "full-employment budget", and imposed a wage and price freeze to halt inflation. Connally was described by New York Times columnist James Reston as "the spunkiest character in Washington these days ... He is tossing away computerized Treasury speeches, and telling American business and labor off the cuff to get off their duffs if they want more jobs, more profits and a larger share of the competitive world market."

Nixon's left-leaning NEP, not dissimilar to Lenin's right-leaning NEP, failed to work because it was merely a revisionist label with little substantive content for lack of ideological commitment. Price controls without central planning caused supply bottlenecks in failed markets. The most bizarre example manifested itself in a shortage of toilet seats for new residential construction that delayed occupancy and created cash-flow problems for the mortgage banking sector.

Roosevelt had forbidden US citizens to buy or own gold and devalued the dollar by 60% and kept interest rates at historical lows. Still, US export trade did not rise with dollar devaluation, nor did employment in the domestic private sector pick up. Most of the unemployment was absorbed by the expanded public sector. The economy did not revive until World War II.

In contrast, Nixon's NEP aimed to prevent the dollar from falling by allowing interest rates to rise. Monetarily, the US was heading for runaway inflation not from excess money in circulation, but from fiscal deficits caused by the Vietnam War, the burden of which, unlike World War II, was not equally or equitably shared by all. Foreign wars cannot be sustained without evenly shared nationwide sacrifice. Conversely, an all-volunteer army takes the wind from antiwar movements and makes undeclared executive wars routine. A more warlike foreign policy can then prevail because it is easy to risk other people's lives for one's own patriotism.

Having served as secretary of labor in 1968 and head of the Office of Management and Budget in 1970, George Shultz was appointed treasury secretary by Nixon in 1973. During his tenure, Shultz reversed the NEP begun under Connally by lifting price controls domestically and shifted his attention to the international arena to deal with a renewed dollar crisis that broke out in February 1973. Shultz organized an international monetary conference in Paris in 1973 to formalize the 1971 US decision to close the gold window and the abolition of the fixed-exchange-rate system, which had actually begun to collapse in 1971, causing all key currencies since to float. However, cross-border flows of funds continued to be restricted to keep contagious financial instability at bay.

The year 1973 was a very bad one for the US economy. Phasing out domestic price controls released pent-up inflation in the United States, causing the dollar to fall in the new foreign-exchange market in London. Then, in the autumn, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries induced an oil crisis, pushing the US economy into a severe recession not seen since 1929, with industrial production shrinking 15%, unemployment reaching above 9% and economic output declining 6%. Shultz resigned shortly before Nixon did, only to return to Washington in 1982 as president Ronald Reagan's secretary of state.

William Simon, deputy secretary of the Treasury under Shultz, served concurrently as the director of the Federal Energy Office during the oil crisis of 1973. He was named as the 63rd secretary of the Treasury by Nixon in 1974 and continued under president Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned.

Domestically, Simon faced a worsening economic slump as he took control of the Treasury. In response to the oil crisis, he strong-armed oil-producing nations to deposit their petrodollars in US banks but discouraged them from direct investment in US corporations. This led US banks to lend the petrodollars to developing economies that could only repay the loans with earnings from exports to US markets. This was the beginning of globalization, as the dependence of the emerging economies on US markets for consumer goods forced them to open their financial markets to US capital denominated in dollars. This deregulated flow of dollar-denominated funds across national borders led to financial crises in Mexico and then elsewhere in Latin America and eventually ended up with the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

As treasury secretary, Simon continued the policies begun under Shultz of pressuring Europe, Japan and the Soviet bloc with US financial prowess, keeping international economic policy initiative in US hands to ensure a competitive advantage for the United States. Simon resigned at the end of Ford's partial term when Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976.

The Fed under Volcker and Greenspan
William Miller, after only 17 months as chairman of the Federal Reserve, was named the 65th treasury secretary on August 6, 1979, as part of president Jimmy Carter's desperate wholesale cabinet shakeup in response to popular discontent and declining presidential authority.

Miller was a fallback choice for the Treasury, after numerous other potential appointees, including David Rockefeller, declined personal telephone offers by Carter to join a demoralized administration facing a difficult election in 14 months. In August 1979, Carter felt that he needed someone like Paul Volcker, an intelligent if not intellectual Republican who was highly respected on Wall Street, if not in academia, to be at the Fed to regenerate needed bipartisan support in this time of presidential leadership crisis. Bert Lance, Carter's chief of staff, was reported to have told Carter that by appointing Volcker, the president was mortgaging his own re-election a year later to a less-than-sympathetic Fed chairman. As it turned out, the fate of Carter's campaign actually rested in the hands of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran.

Volcker continued to lead the Fed into the years of "voodoo economics" under Reagan, but Reagan replaced him with Alan Greenspan in the summer of 1987, over the objection of supply-side partisans. (For more details on the Volcker-Greenspan era, see The Presidential Election Cycle Theory and the Fed, February 24, 2004.)

The current president of the United States recognized Greenspan's importance from the beginning. In his first trip to Washington as president-elect in 2000, the first person Bush visited was Greenspan. After Greenspan stepped down last year, Bush nominated Ben Bernanke to replace him. Bernanke was sworn in this February.

Bernanke's false starts
In a speech to a conference on June 5 in Washington, Bernanke gave hints that future rate increases should be expected because price inflation had reached a danger zone even as the US economy is showing signs of slowing down, pointing to slowing consumer spending, the cooling housing market and slower job growth. Bernanke left little doubt that he was more worried about rising inflation than slowing growth and possibly stagflation by calling them "unwelcome developments".

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) promptly plunged 200 points, and fell another 150 points by week's end. What the markets heard was that rate increases might extend beyond the next expected bump up to 5.25% at the Fed's June 28-29 meeting, until inflation pressures ease.

Why Paulson accepted the Treasury job
It is possible that Henry Paulson sees Goldman Sachs facing an uphill battle in the next few years as the US economy slows. Paulson has made enough money in the good years and may consider it smart to leave Goldman at the peak of the market - it's no fun to run an investment bank in a down market.

Paulson is a banker. Bankers are interested in the state of the market, not the economy per se. In two and a half years, a treasury secretary can, with the full power of the Treasury behind him, have a chance of saving the market from imminent collapse from its current structural imbalances.

The formula is to accelerate the crash in order to gain a fast recovery later. The prospect of Paulson engineering a sharp correction in the equity market right after the mid-term congressional election is almost certain. The strategy is to remove the structural bottlenecks and to weed out the weaknesses and have the market resume its upward path by June 2008. This strategy is doable with a heavy dose of government intervention, but it will require a crash to create a serious enough emergency to make government intervention patriotic, possibly including massive bailouts of several troubled giants such as General Motors, General Electric and Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) and the big money-center banks that are up to their necks with credit-derivative exposures.

Strong dollar is the key
The key is to restore the US dollar's strong exchange rate, despite all the talk of the need for a lower dollar to reduce the trade deficit by predictable free-trade economists such as Fred Bergsten of the Institute of International Economics, whose views are distorted by their seeing trade as the entire economy rather than just one aspect of the global economy.

If China refuses to more quickly revalue the yuan against the dollar in the near term, as it most likely will, Paulson can bring up the dollar along with the yuan against the yen and the euro without adding to the US trade deficit, which is mostly with China, and oil, which is denominated in dollars. The way to strengthen the dollar is to raise the Fed Fund Rate (FFR). Paulson can be expected to apply all the pressure he can muster to force Bernanke to raise the FFR, continuing a gradual pace of 25 basis points on June 25 but more sharply immediately after the November elections to bring on a massive correction in the markets. The FFR can rise to 9% or 10% in the name of national security to save the dollar. The recession will be pre-packaged, and relatively short, from fourth-quarter 2006 to Q1 2008 with a sharp recovery in Q2 2008, providing buying opportunities for those who are smart enough to have cash on hand.

Just like Robert Rubin, treasury secretary under president Bill Clinton, Paulson firmly believes that a strong dollar is in America's national interest. Rubin kept it strong by making the current-account deficit finance the capital-account surplus. Paulson will do it by further erasing national borders in global finance, thus making the US current-account deficit meaningless as long as it is denominated in dollars.

The US has transcended the national economy by operating on the dollar economy that is not location-dependent. The name of the globalization game is making money where money can be made most easily. The United States will prosper as the place where the world's rich will come to spend money made elsewhere, leaving behind the pollution and labor disputes and all the dirty business of making money offshore. Paulson will try to make China an economic colony of the United States (albeit with the full cooperation of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, which has designed and promulgated for 28 years an economic policy that leaves China's economy totally dependent on exports to the US) and thus remove bilateral economic conflicts.

Bernanke, not yet a force with confidence, will go along because it is the Fed's duty to support national-security aims and also because a Fed chairman needs a crash to show his wizardry, as Greenspan did in 1987. Besides, no one has opposed Hank "the Hammer" and survived.

Congress and China the wild cards
One wild card is the parochial US Congress. If the Democrats regain the House of Representatives after this year's mid-term election, Paulson will have a tough task ahead.

The other problem is that China is going through a heated debate internally about the wisdom of its economic policy based on exports. Any change in Chinese economic strategy will throw a monkey wrench into Paulson's strategy. Paulson can count on his close links to Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he helped start a business school with several of his Goldman Sachs colleagues. Tsinghua has become in recent decades a hotbed of neo-liberal free-trade market fundamentalism more doctrinaire than Stanford. As a sign of its rejection of progressive policy, the revisionist institution even refused to use the pin-yin romanization (Qinghua) for its name in preference to the Wade-Giles spelling of the Western imperialist era.

There is no guarantee that Paulson will succeed in his possible game plan. The war in Iraq and the pending war over Iran are big uncertainties. In fact, the worst is a gradual, steady worsening of the Iraq quagmire. If the situation in Iraq were to go very badly suddenly, say 3,000 US troops getting killed over one disastrous week, it would be easier for Bush. This slow bleeding in a prolonged occupation is truly deadly for US interests.

Paulson cannot save the economy but he has a chance to create a recovery in time for the 2008 election. After that, whoever rules from the White House will have to face the real music.

Dollar hegemony requires a strong dollar
While I have been pointing out since 2002 (US dollar hegemony has got to go, April 11) the mechanics of how dollar hegemony works, I am not of the opinion that dollar hegemony will die a natural death easily. I coined the term to mean the use of the US trade deficit to finance the US capital-account surplus, both denominated in a fiat currency, thus eliminating any balance-of-payments problem for the United States and depriving the trade-surplus economies of needed domestic capital.

Under dollar hegemony, the exporting economies ship real goods produced with low wages to the United States in exchange for dollars that must by definition be reinvested in dollar assets, not assets denominated in domestic currencies. This is what is hegemonic about the dollar since the emergence of globalization in the late 1990s, not seigniorage, which is not hegemonic by nature because seigniorage is merely a fair fee for services rendered.

Dollar hegemony is the most sophisticated financial regime in history. It is the first time in human financial affairs that currency hegemony is imposed by a fiat currency through floating exchange rates and free convertibility made possible by globalized financial markets. The British Empire was built around the pound sterling, but all local currencies within that vast empire had fixed exchange rates with respect to the pound. After World War II, when the United States took over the British Empire, Bretton Woods was a fixed-exchange-rate regime based on a gold-backed currency - the US dollar, a regime in which cross-border flow of funds were restricted because mainstream economic theory at that time did not consider cross-border flows necessary for trade or desirable for development.

After 1971, when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard because of the drain of gold from recurring US trade deficits, dollar hegemony still did not arise because cross-border flows of funds were still restricted. After World War II, euro-dollars came into existence because of US military overseas spending, dollar-denominated war debts both from allies and from former enemies paid to offshore US accounts and foreign aid, but the United States was still running a trade surplus and euro-dollars stayed outside the country, mostly in Germany and Japan.

It was during the Vietnam War that the US began to run a recurring trade deficit, at first purposely to prevent Germany and Japan from turning communist. The United States allowed Germany and Japan to build up their automotive and steel sectors for exporting to US markets to keep their economies capitalistic but kept the advanced high-tech sectors for itself. Since it takes several thousand cars to buy one commercial airliner, it was no great loss to lose market share in the auto sector. It did create the Rust Belt in the US Midwest, but domestic political power was shifting to the west and southwest where a new aerospace sector was flourishing.

Dollar hegemony did not come into being until after the end of the Cold War, when the global market was suddenly opened to US companies and financial institutions and cross-border flow of funds became routine with the deregulation of financial markets.

It was through Robert Rubin under Clinton that dollar hegemony became formal US policy in the form of "a strong dollar is in the US national interest" even with a rising and recurring trade deficit. Rubin advanced the notion that the US trade deficit was benign because it was neutralized by the US capital-account surplus.

A trade deficit is never a problem as long as it is denominated in the country's fiat currency. Dollar hegemony is a regime in which a fiat currency issued by one government becomes a supranational currency. Dollar hegemony is the device for globalization of finance to tear down national boundaries and to reduce the authority of sovereign nation states.

Resistance to dollar hegemony
The problem with dollar hegemony is not that it will be resisted by other governments; the US dollar is now a supranational fiat monetary unit accepted by all who own capital, not just US citizens. All other fiat currencies are now derivatives of the dollar.

In every foreign government, from Japan to Germany, from China to Russia, there are powerful forces that see supporting a strong US dollar as serving factional if not national interests. This is because the dollar economy is increasingly detached from US economy, not completely but selectively.

The resistance to dollar hegemony is from a revival of economic nationalism, including US economic nationalism against global trade, particularly in finance, where the game of economic control is being played. This conflict is being waged in the domestic politics of every country, with those who need jobs to make a living pitted against those who make money by the manipulation of capital, known popularly as investing. US big business is allied with foreign state capitalism with US official policy support.

Democracy in Latin America is ushering in a parade of radical socialist leaders against dollar hegemony; and the democratic process in the US is also turning against dollar hegemony. The wars waged by the United States to secure oil for its economy have created $70 oil and $3.50-a-gallon (92-cent-a-liter) gasoline for the US consumer, and the worst is yet to come. The double-digit returns on US pension funds come from investment in companies that ship US jobs overseas and stealth inflation that produced $700 gold. Dollar hegemony to the US economy is turning out to be like the computer HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Paulson's challenge
The problem Henry Paulson will face is at home in the United States, not in Beijing or Moscow or even Caracas. He will have to explain to an ever increasing number of US voters how globalized financial markets and supranational economic policy have benefited them or will benefit them in the future.

Conflict of interest in policymaking is unavoidable in a complex financial system. It is not surprising nor unreasonable that those who have done well in the private finance sector should be natural candidates to manage the finances of the public sector. And it can be argued that in a system such as the United States', the private and public sectors are two complementary rings of the national economic circus. Conflicts are tolerable if the management of the public sector by private interests produces a strong economy for all of the general public.

When the economy falters, conflict of interest between private and public becomes a critical issue because it is always the general public that bears most of the pain. An economic downturn in the US will produce populist government by representatives of the general public rather than elitist government by the rich and powerful.

Henry C K Liuis chairman of a New York-based private investment group. His website is HenryCKLiu.com.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)

[Livyjr]

Good morning, Snuffysmith ....

And since you brought up the subject ....

Of the "WASHINGTON, D.C. HACK-O-CRACY" .....

That has been imposed on OUR America ....

BY THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE ....

Through its SURROGATE ....

Or PUPPET ....

George W(itless). Bush ....

This morning ....

On the radio ....

I listened ...

As they were playing back ....

Some debate ....

In the HOUSE OF SOMEBODY'S REPESENTATIVES, BUT NOT NECESSARILY OR LIKELY OURS ....

Down there in Washington. D.C. .....

About staying on in IRAQINAM .....

"STAYING THE COURSE" .....

YADA, YADA, YADA, YADA, YADA et cetera ....

And maintaining an "AMERICAN MILITARY PRESENCE" over there ....

In what is alleged to be "A SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC NATION" ....

CREATED BY GEORGE W. BUSH ....

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, of course ....

And they had on these REPUBLICANS .....

Barking and howling .....

Like a pack of mongrel dogs ....

With a cat up a tree .....

Going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ......

About the NEED ....

TO KEEP OUR MILITARY FORCES OVER THERE IN IRAQINAM .....

Even though it supposedly is a SOVEREIGN NATION ....

With its own alleged GOVERNMENT ....

CREATED BY GEORGE W. BUSH ....

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, of course ....

And to his credit ....

Barney Frank ....

A Congressman from Massachusetts ....

Stood up ....

And confronted these "barking dog" REPUBLICANS ....

WITH THEIR OWN WORDS ....

To wit:

IF, as the "barking dog" REPUBLICANS would have it .....

THEY HAVE INDEED MADE A MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT OVER THERE IN IRAQINAM .....

AS THEY, THE REPUBLICANS ARE CLAIMING, IN THIS RUN-UP TO THE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS IN THIS COUNTRY IN NOVEMBER OF THIS YEAR ....

BY INSTALLING A GOVERNMENT IN IRAQINAM .....

THAT IS CAPABLE OF MAINTAINING "LAW AND ORDER" OVER THERE ....

ON ITS OWN ....

THEN WHY MUST WE BE THERE ANY LONGER?

WHICH IS WHAT THESE "BARKING DOG" REPUBLICANS ARE IN FACT ARGUING ....

THAT BECAUSE OF THE INABILITY OF THIS SAME "GOVERNMENT" THAT THEY ARE TOUTING AS "THEIR" ACCOMPLISHMENT TO REALLY DO THAT JOB OF MAINTAINING "LAW AND ORDER" ....

THAT WE HAVE TO STAY THERE ....

AND DO IT FOR THEM ....

BECAUSE THE IRAQINAMI GOVERMENT ....

IS REALLY NOT COMPETENT ....

AS THE REPUBLICANS ARE CLAIMING ...

AS THEIR ACCOMPLISMENT ....

IN THIS ELECTION SEASON ...

SO THAT WE WILL RE-ELECT THEM ....

AND KEEP THEM IN POWER, HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

Even though they continue to lie to us ...

And to treat us all as fools ....

By claiming that they have transformed the world ....

Into a more peaceful place ...

WHICH IS NOT TRUE ....

IF THE REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO INSIST ....

AS THEY ARE DOING ...

RIGHT NOW ...

IN THE HOUSE OF SOMEBODY WITH A LOT OF MONEY'S REPESENTATIVES, WHICH IS DEFINITELY NOT OURS NO LONGER ....

Down there in Washington. D.C. .....

THAT WE MUST CONTINUE TO MAINTAIN A MILITARY PRESENCE IN IRAQINAM ...

BECAUSE WE ARE AT WAR, OVER THERE ...

IN WHAT THEY ARE CLAIMING IS A PEACEFUL PLACE ...

BECAUSE OF THEM ....

Which, of course ....

Makes what the "barking dog" REPUBLICANS are arguing ....

OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF THEIR MOUTHS AT ONCE ...

LOGICALLY INCONSISTENT ....

And so ....

To me ....

Who am "from the country" .....

This all serves ...

To demonstrate ...

JUST HOW CHILDISH .....

AND RIDICULOUS A PLACE .....

THESE "BARKING DOG" REPUBLICANS HAVE MADE WASHINGTON, D.C. .....

Since they became the "ASCENDENT ONES" .....

And so .....

Based on all of that ....

We should re-elect these REPUBLICANS to power .....

SINCE THEY ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE ...

AT FILLING OUR HEADS..

WITH A LOAD OF LIES...

WHILE THEY STUFF THEIR POCKETS ....

WITH LOBBYIST'S GOLD ....

And so ....

Boy, isn't life just simple ....

When you can look at it like that?

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"House GOP to set up vote on Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

39 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - House Republicans engineered an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for U.S. troops and force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from a conflict that is in its fourth year.

The debate culminates Friday, when the House votes on a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.

"When our freedom is challenged, Americans do not run," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

"This war is a failed policy of the Bush administration," countered House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

"We need a new direction in Iraq."

Democrats decried the debate and vote as a politically motivated sham, and some said they would vote against the measure even though Republicans could then try to claim that Democrats don't support U.S. troops.

A few Republicans who have publicly expressed misgivings about the war also were expected to oppose the resolution.

The House vote comes one day after the Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end by shelving a proposal that would allow "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in Iraq in 2007.

That vote was 93-6, but Democrats criticized the GOP maneuver that led to the vote as political gamesmanship and promised further debate next week on a proposal to start redeploying troops this year.

Congress erupted in debate on the Iraq war four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of both the House and Senate, and as Bush was trying to rebuild waning public support for the conflict.

The administration was so determined to get out its message that the Pentagon distributed a highly unusual 74-page "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war, which began in March 2003.

"We cannot cut and run," the battle plan says at one point, anticipating Democratic calls for a troop withdrawal on a fixed timetable.

As debate got under way in the House on Thursday, the Senate sent the president an additional $66 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan —legislation Bush promptly signed — and the Pentagon announced the U.S. death toll for the war had reached 2,500.

"It's a number," White House press secretary Tony Snow said of the grim milestone.

He said Bush "feels very deeply the pain that the families feel."

The president has tried to rally support for the Iraq war in the days since the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the recent completion of a new Iraqi government.

But as the death toll and price tag of the conflict continue to rise, opinion polls show voters increasingly frustrated with the war and favoring Democrats to control Congress instead of the Republicans who now run the show.

Sensitive to those political realities, Republicans in both the Senate and House sought to put lawmakers of both parties on record on an issue certain to be central in this fall's congressional elections.

In the House, Republicans defended the Iraq war as a key part of the global fight against terrorism while Democrats called for a new direction in the conflict.

Partisan politics took center stage.

Republicans painted Democrats as quitters who advocate a cut-and-run strategy and Democrats derided Republicans as Bush foot soldiers who refuse to challenge him.

"Many, not all, on the other side of the aisle lack the will to win," Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., said.

In turn, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., asserted: "The Republican Congress sat and watched the administration make mistake after mistake after mistake."

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., stuck to the GOP script, saying, "In this fight for the future of peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the globe, winning should be our only option."

"Stay and we'll pay," argued Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who criticized "the failed policy of this administration" and lamented the lives lost, billions of dollars spent and the bruised U.S. image since the war started.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate vote unfolded unexpectedly as the second-ranking GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced legislation he said was taken from a proposal by Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and war critic.

It called for Bush to agree with the Iraqi government on a schedule for withdrawal of combat troops by Dec. 31, 2006.

Democratic leader Harry Reid sought to curtail floor debate on the proposal, and the vote occurred quickly.

Six Democrats, including Kerry, were in the minority.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that terrorism would spread around the world, and eventually reach the United States if the United States were to "cut and run" before Iraq can defend itself.

But Reid, D-Nev., countered: "Two things that don't exist in Iraq and have not, weapons of mass destruction, and cutting and running."

[Livyjr]

"House GOP to set up vote on Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - As debate got under way in the House on Thursday, the Senate sent the president an additional $66 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan —legislation Bush promptly signed — and the Pentagon announced the U.S. death toll for the war had reached 2,500.

"It's a number," White House press secretary Tony Snow said of the grim milestone.

Dick Cheney is briefing George Bush in the Oval Office.

"Oh, and finally, sir, five Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq today."

Bush goes pale, his jaw hanging open in stunned disbelief.

He buries his face in his hands, muttering "My God...My God".

"Mr. President," says Cheney, "we lose soldiers all the time, and it's terrible, but I've never seen you so upset."

"What's the matter?"

Bush looks up and says "How many is a 'Brazilian'?"

[Livyjr]

"Bush rejects calls for pullout from Iraq" 
 
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:05 a.m., Thursday, June 15, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, just back from Iraq, dismissed calls for a U.S. withdrawal as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark for success that would allow troops to come home.

"If the United States of America leaves before this Iraqi government can defend itself and sustain itself and govern itself, it will be a major blow in the war on terror," Bush said, pounding his fist on a lectern set up in the Rose Garden.

Bush also poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses during the news conference -- and later apologized in a phone call after learning that the reporter wore sunglasses because he's losing his sight to an eye disease.

"Bush visit may have downside for al-Maliki"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - President Bush's trip to Baghdad comes at a pivotal time for the new prime minister, as he tries to convince Iraqis the country can stand on its own and end violence — if they unite behind him.

But instead of bolstering that effort, Bush's trip could push away the very Sunni Arabs Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to court.

Many Sunni Arab and even some Shiite political parties dismissed the visit as an attempt by Bush to associate himself with positive developments in Iraq — formation of the new government and last week's killing of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Bush's political standing portends a difficult election for fellow Republicans in November's congressional elections.

"This visit carries a lot of meanings, but this visit means nothing to the Iraqi street."

"There will never be any benefits from such a visit and the only one to benefit from this visit is Bush himself and his troops here, not the Iraqi people," said Hassan al-Robaie, a lawmaker loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Baghdad University political science professor Nabil Mohammed Selim said Bush's trip also was a bid to show the world that he has achieved something in Iraq.

"In fact, nothing has been achieved in Iraq, hundreds of innocent Iraqis are being killed daily because of the chaos," Selim said.

Some Sunnis think the success of the Bush visit can only be gauged on al-Maliki's ability to persuade the U.S. president to start pulling some of the 130,000 American troops from the country.

"We hope that al-Maliki persuades Bush to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, otherwise the visit is of no relevance to Iraqis," said Zafer al-Ani, spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front — the main Sunni Arab partner in al-Maliki's government.

"Iraqi PM launches huge security crackdown"

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is considered a greater threat to Mideast stability than the current government in Iran, according to a new poll of European and Muslim countries.

The poll found that people in Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Russia rated the presence of troops in Iraq higher than the government in Iran as a threat, according to polling by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Views of U.S. troops in Iraq were even more negative in countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan.

"Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military - Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance"

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days.

The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

Asked about clemency for those who attacked U.S. troops, he said:

"That's an area where we can see a green line."

"There's some sort of preliminary understanding between us and the MNF-I," the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq, "that there is a patriotic feeling among the Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of resistance and defending their homeland."

"These people will be pardoned definitely, I believe."

"House GOP to set up vote on Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Republicans engineered an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for U.S. troops and force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from a conflict that is in its fourth year.

"When our freedom is challenged, Americans do not run," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

Congress erupted in debate on the Iraq war four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of both the House and Senate, and as Bush was trying to rebuild waning public support for the conflict.

In the House, Republicans defended the Iraq war as a key part of the global fight against terrorism while Democrats called for a new direction in the conflict.

Partisan politics took center stage.

Republicans painted Democrats as quitters who advocate a cut-and-run strategy and Democrats derided Republicans as Bush foot soldiers who refuse to challenge him.

"Many, not all, on the other side of the aisle lack the will to win," Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., said.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., stuck to the GOP script, saying, "In this fight for the future of peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the globe, winning should be our only option."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that terrorism would spread around the world, and eventually reach the United States if the United States were to "cut and run" before Iraq can defend itself.

"House rejects timetable for Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The House on Friday rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq after a ferociously partisan debate, forcing lawmakers in both parties to go on record on a major issue in re-election campaigns nationwide.

A day after the Senate took the same position against troop withdrawal, the GOP-led House voted 256-153 to approve a nonbinding resolution that says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of American forces is not in the national interest.

"Achieving victory is our only option," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, casting Democrats as defeatists who want to retreat in the face of terrorist threats.

"We must not shy away."

"'Stay the course' is not a strategy, it's a slogan," answered House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as she called for a new direction in a war she labeled "a grotesque mistake."

"It's time to face the facts," Pelosi said.

Angling for political advantage, House Republicans engineered the debate and vote, four and one-half months before midterm elections that will decide who runs Congress — and as polls show voters favoring Democrats to replace Republicans as the controlling party.

Those same polls show the public increasingly frustrated with the war as the death toll and price tag continue to rise.

Voters could hold it against incumbent candidates, regardless of political party, come November.

Republicans across Capitol Hill are sensitive to those political realities.

GOP leaders in both the House and Senate sought to put lawmakers of both parties, and particularly Democrats, on record on the conflict, and looked to draw attention to deep Democratic divisions on the war.

Senate Republicans succeeded in doing that Thursday.

In a maneuver Democrats assailed as a political stunt, GOP leaders brought up legislation calling for withdrawing combat troops by year's end and quickly dismissed it on a 93-6 vote.

Six Democrats were in the minority.

It was the House Republicans' turn a day later.

They scheduled a vote on their symbolic resolution that also praises U.S. troops and labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism.

Democrats denounced the GOP-orchestrated debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and most, including Pelosi, voted against the measure.

They said that supporting it would have the effect of affirming Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.

Still, 42 Democrats broke ranks and joined with all but three Republicans to support the resolution.

Two Republicans and three Democrats declined to take a position by voting present.

Balking carried a risk for Democrats, particularly when they see an opportunity to win back control of Congress from the GOP, because Republicans were expected to use Democratic "no" votes to claim that their opponents don't support U.S. troops.

Sure enough, within two hours of the House vote, the Republican Senate campaign committee circulated news releases that said Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., a Democrat running for an open Senate seat in Tennessee, and Rep. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat challenging Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio, voted to "cut and run" from Iraq.

Lawmakers were mindful of the political implications of the votes throughout the debate that ran more than 12 hours over two days.

In floor speeches, several GOP incumbents who face tough challenges from Democrats in November tried to strike a balance.

They carefully criticized the resolution that their leaders had written, calling it weak and incomplete, but then reluctantly voted in favor of it.

"The American people are looking to us to answer their questions on how much progress is being made, what are the Iraqis themselves willing to do to fight for their freedom and when will our men and women come home," Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., said.

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., agreed, saying: "We should be having a debate and a discussion on how we will prevail, not just that we want to prevail."

Republicans and Democrats alike explained the decision, as each side saw it, that confronts voters.

"The choice for the American people is clear; don't run in the face of danger, victory will be our exit strategy," Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said.

Countered Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.: "It's not a matter of stay the course."

"It's a matter of change direction."
___

Editors: The resolution on Iraq that the House passed on Friday is H. Res. 861. It can be found at the Library of Congress web site http://thomas.loc.gov

end quotes

AND IT REALLY IS A MATTER OF THAT PACK OF FOOLS DOWN THERE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. .....

WAKING THE HELL UP ...

AND READING SOME NEWSPAPERS ....

AND REALIZING ....

THAT THERE ISN'T A WAR IN IRAQ ....

THAT'S JUST A BUNCH OF REPUBLICAN BULL **** .....

COMING AT US ....

FAST AND THICK ....

IN THIS ELECTION YEAR ....

AND WE CLEARLY ARE NOT WANTED OVER THERE ...

IN IRAQ ....

WHICH IS A SOVEREIGN NATION ...

WITH ITS OWN GOVERNMENT ...

AND ITS OWN PROBLEMS TO SOLVE ....

ON ITS OWN ....

BY ITSELF ...

ACCORDING TO ITS OWN VALUE SYSTEM ....

NOR WAS GEORGE W. BUSH'S INVASION ANYTHING BUT THAT ....

AN INVASION ....

WHICH IS WHY IRAQ IS GOING TO GIVE AMNESTY ....

TO THOSE WHO ONLY KILLED THE AMERICAN INVADERS ...

AND SO ....

[Livyjr]

"House rejects timetable for Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The House on Friday rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq after a ferociously partisan debate, forcing lawmakers in both parties to go on record on a major issue in re-election campaigns nationwide.

Angling for political advantage, House Republicans engineered the debate and vote, four and one-half months before midterm elections that will decide who runs Congress — and as polls show voters favoring Democrats to replace Republicans as the controlling party.

Democrats denounced the GOP-orchestrated debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and most, including Pelosi, voted against the measure.

They said that supporting it would have the effect of affirming Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.

And while we are on that subject ....

That being George W. Bush's FAILED POLICIES in IRAQINAM ....

"Initial report on Haditha killings complete"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:46 p.m., Friday, June 16, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Army general investigating whether military personnel tried to cover up any part of the alleged massacre of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha late last year has completed a voluminous report on the incident.

Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell sent his report to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, U.S. military officials announced Friday.

No information about his findings was provided.

Chiarelli now has a number of options and no time limit for taking action, according to Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Multi-National Corps-Iraq spokeswoman, who described the report as "voluminous."

She said he can approve the findings; substitute or add his own findings; send the report back for more information; and make recommendations for action by higher-ranking military authorities.

The Haditha case centers on allegations that a small number of Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment murdered 24 Iraqi civilians -- included unarmed women and children -- on Nov. 19 after a roadside bomb in the town killed one of their fellow Marines.

Bargewell has just one piece of the investigation -- whether the Marines followed proper procedures in reporting about the incident to commanders, or whether anyone engaged in a cover-up.

His investigation also may consider whether any criminal charges should be brought in connection with deliberate attempts to lie about the incident.

A second probe is also under way by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into what exactly happened that day, and whether criminal -- or even murder -- charges should be brought against those involved.

Officials have been expecting Bargewell's report.

Members of Congress have said they want to hold hearings into the matter and said they would like to hear first from Bargewell.

Martin-Hing added that Chiarelli will make no public statements on the report that could interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation.

------

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

[Livyjr]

AND AS THE REPUBLICANS PREPARE TO TRY AND BUY ANOTHER ELECTION ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

"Bush boosts fundraising for midterm vote"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

41 minutes ago

SEATTLE - President Bush darted across the country Friday to raise more than $1 million for a pair of political candidates, part of a stepped-up fundraising pace aimed at helping the GOP retain its majority in Congress.

Bush has been the headliner at 39 fundraisers that have brought in $126 million during this midterm election cycle, with more scheduled in the coming weeks, according to the Republican National Committee.

At the end of June 2002, he had done 38 events.

On Friday, the president flew from the White House to Seattle for a two-and-a-half-hour visit to help freshman Rep. Dave Reichert and the state Republican Party raise more than $830,000.

Then he was off to New Mexico for a two-hour stop to raise $375,000 for Rep. Heather Wilson.

Finally, he was flying on to Texas, where he planned to spend the Father's Day weekend at his ranch.

Monday night, Bush is scheduled to appear before 5,000 donors in Washington for a dinner that is projected to raise $26 million for the GOP House and Senate campaign committees.

The numbers show that even though the president may be down in public opinion polls, Republicans are still willing to shell out big dollars to see him speak in person and support local GOP candidates.

Both Reichert and Wilson live in districts that voted to make Democrat John Kerry president in 2004.

"The president is in high demand by our candidates across the country," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"He energizes and invigorates these campaigns like no one else can."

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said Republicans who appear with Bush at fundraisers are doing so at their own political risk.

"The November elections will come down to one fundamental question for voters: Do you want change or more of the same?" Finney said.

"By appearing with President Bush, these candidates are basically making it clear that all they can offer people they hope to serve is more of the same failed Bush policies."

Reichert, a former sheriff who highlights his centrist credentials in this Democratic-leaning state, issued a statement on the eve of the fundraiser, welcoming Bush's assistance but maintaining a bit of political distance.

"Although the president and I don't agree on everything, I have great respect for the tremendous responsibility the leader of the free world must bear every day," Reichert said.

He faces former Microsoft Corp. manager Darcy Burner, who has been a proficient fundraiser despite being a political newcomer.

Bush predicted this week that Republicans will maintain majority control of the House and Senate this November despite polls showing voters favor putting Democrats in charge.

While he has stayed in Texas almost all of August during previous years of his presidency, this summer Bush plans to spend less time at his ranch and more time on the road supporting candidates in the closely contested congressional races.

Other famous faces at the White House also have been doing their part.

Vice President Dick Cheney has appeared at 66 events that have raised $22 million, while first lady Laura Bush has become much more comfortable on the fundraising circuit after doing very little travel in 2002.

She has appeared at 20 events that have raised $9.7 million.

So far this election cycle, the Bushes, Cheney and others have raised $172.5 million for the cause.

By the end of June 2002 they had raised $179 million.

Some have suggested that private fundraisers have been a convenience for candidates in districts where Bush is especially unpopular — allowing them to avoid appearing with the president while raking in his money.

But Reichert flew with Bush aboard Air Force One and posed grinning and waving with him in front of news cameras upon arrival in Seattle.

The pair then rode in Bush's motorcade to the wealthy, GOP-friendly suburb of Medina, where the fundraiser was held at the home of Microsoft executive Peter Neupert.

It was closed to the media.

Admission to the reception was set at $1,000, and individual photographs with the president cost $10,000.

Bush's fundraiser for Wilson was to be held in an Albuquerque hotel ballroom and open to the media.

Three hundred donors were expected to pay $1,000 per ticket, and photos with Bush were going for $5,000.
___

Associated Press writer David Ammons contributed to this report.
___

On the Net:

The White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

end quotes

Wow ....

TEN GRAND ...

For a fifty-cent photo ....

Of George W. Bush ....

I wonder who in their right mind would pay that kind of money ....

For a picture of George W. Bush .....

Strange ........

Real strange ....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

"Sweeney is part of our nation's problems"

Letters to the Editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, June 17, 2006

In the June 11 edition of the Times Union, Rep. John Sweeney states, "The Democrats are trying to run a national election."

"I've represented the district for eight years."

Does he think we voters are stupid?

If he is elected, of course he's a part of the national government; it's called the House of Representatives.

This is where he has supported our incompetent, dishonest administration.

This is where he has cut taxes for the rich, cut veterans benefits, refused to take a stand on Social Security, supported Bush's mistaken policy on Iraq, and previously has opposed raising the minimum wage.

From where, during the national election of 2000, he raced to Florida to interfere with the counting of ballots.

To top this all off, a publicity flyer, recently mailed from his office, suggested that Washington is broken and Sweeney, if elected, was going to fix it.

What chutzpah!

Of course, he can't admit he's part of the problem.

He has to get elected.

There is no doubt that our country needs a very different direction.

Do we want Sweeney to continue steering us in the same wrong path?

I sincerely hope not.

Let us not fall for his line.

JOE Z.

Wilton

http://www.timesunion.com/

[Livyjr]

"House GOP to set up vote on Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Republicans engineered an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for U.S. troops and force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from a conflict that is in its fourth year.

"When our freedom is challenged, Americans do not run," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

Democrats decried the debate and vote as a politically motivated sham, and some said they would vote against the measure even though Republicans could then try to claim that Democrats don't support U.S. troops.

A few Republicans who have publicly expressed misgivings about the war also were expected to oppose the resolution.

Congress erupted in debate on the Iraq war four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of both the House and Senate, and as Bush was trying to rebuild waning public support for the conflict.

The administration was so determined to get out its message that the        Pentagon distributed a highly unusual 74-page "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war, which began in March 2003.

"We cannot cut and run," the battle plan says at one point, anticipating Democratic calls for a troop withdrawal on a fixed timetable.

In the House, Republicans defended the Iraq war as a key part of the global fight against terrorism while Democrats called for a new direction in the conflict.

Partisan politics took center stage.

"Many, not all, on the other side of the aisle lack the will to win," Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., said.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., stuck to the GOP script, saying, "In this fight for the future of peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East and around the globe, winning should be our only option."

"Stay and we'll pay," argued Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who criticized "the failed policy of this administration" and lamented the lives lost, billions of dollars spent and the bruised U.S. image since the war started.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. .....

Predicted that terrorism .....

Would spread around the world .....

And eventually reach the United States ....

If the United States were to "cut and run" ....

Before Iraq can defend itself.

end quotes

UP HERE ....

WHERE WE THINK ....

REPUBLICAN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER ....

BILL FRIST ....

IS A WEAK SISTER ....

AFRAID OF HIS OWN SHADOW ....

WHO COULDN'T DEFEND OUR NATIONAL SECURITY ....

WITH AN ARMY ....

OR EVEN THREE ....

OR FIVE .....

OR TEN ARMIES .....

BECAUSE HE IS SO AFRAID .......

OF HIS OWN SHADOW ....

THAT HE CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT ...

WE CALL OLD BILL ....

"CHICKEN LITTLE FRIST" .....

BECAUSE HE IS ALWAYS CRYING ....

AND WHINING ....

ABOUT ...

"THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING ......"

"YADA, YADA, YADA et cetera ...."

And so ....

"House rejects timetable for Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - "Achieving victory is our only option," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, casting Democrats as defeatists who want to retreat in the face of terrorist threats.

"We must not shy away."

"The American people are looking to us to answer their questions on how much progress is being made, what are the Iraqis themselves willing to do to fight for their freedom and when will our men and women come home," Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., said.

"The choice for the American people is clear; don't run in the face of danger, victory will be our exit strategy," Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said.

Countered Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.: "It's not a matter of stay the course."

"It's a matter of change direction."

"Lawyers: Threats used against Marines"

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press
Last updated: 8:16 p.m., Friday, June 16, 2006

SAN DIEGO -- Pentagon investigators threatened the death penalty and used other coercive techniques to obtain statements from some of the seven Marines and a Navy corpsman jailed for the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian, two defense lawyers say.

Attorney Jane Siegel, who represents Marine Pfc. John Jodka, 20, said Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials spoke to her client three times after he was taken into custody May 12.

Jodka was questioned for up to eight hours at a time and was not offered water or toilet breaks, Siegel said.

"They used some really heavy-handed tactics to extract the information," Siegel said, adding that her client was not read his rights prior to questioning -- a fundamental right to which all accused troops are entitled -- and was threatened with the death penalty.

Jeremiah Sullivan III, the attorney representing the unidentified Navy medic, said his client was treated similarly.

Marine Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Pentagon spokesman, referred questions to Camp Pendleton, where the troops are being held.

Officials there declined to comment.

Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge advocate who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center, said investigators were within their rights to threaten a suspect with the death penalty since it is the maximum sentence for premeditated murder.

If statements are to be used in a trial, a military judge must first decide that they were given voluntarily, Solis said.

If the defense can argue this was not the case then the statements could be ruled inadmissible.

"To be questioned for eight hours does not necessarily make it an inadmissible statement," Solis said.

"But you have to look at the circumstances that surrounded those eight hours."

The Pentagon began investigating shortly after an Iraqi man was killed on April 26 in Hamdania, west of Baghdad.

Military officials have said little publicly about the man's death, but a senior Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the investigation said evidence so far indicates troops entered the town in search of an insurgent and, failing to find him, grabbed an unarmed man from his home and shot him.

After the killing, the troops planted a shovel and an AK-47 rifle at the scene to make it appear the man was trying to plant an explosive device, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Pentagon originally said the incident occurred in Hamandiyah but officials later acknowledged they had misidentified the town and that the incident happened in Hamdania.

The troops being held at Camp Pendleton served with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and are members of the battalion's Kilo Company.

The highest-ranking among them is a staff sergeant.

More than two weeks ago, Sullivan said he expected murder and kidnapping charges would be brought soon, and a Pentagon official confirmed charges were imminent.

But none has been filed and the delay has not been explained.

According to Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, charges must be filed within 120 days of servicemembers being taken into custody.

Gibson put that date at May 24, which would mean charges might not be filed until September.

Siegel and Sullivan said they do not know what exactly the troops told their interrogators, and they complained that the Pentagon has not shared information about the investigation.

They declined to say what they have been told about the killing.

Until Thursday the Marines and Navy corpsman were held at a maximum level of security at Camp Pendleton and were shackled whenever they left their cells.

Their security level now has been reclassified to a lower level and they are allowed one hour's recreation daily without shackles, Camp Pendleton spokesman Lt. Lawton King said.

Solis said even if the Marines are charged and convicted of murder it's highly unlikely they would actually be executed.

The president must approve such a penalty and that hasn't happened in nearly 200 years, he said.

end quotes

With George W. Bush's "VALUE SYSTEM" in place over there in IRAQINAM .....

With respect to how cheaply held ....

The lives of the IRAQI people are ....

By George W. Bush ....

AND ESPECIALLY THOSE ....

Of George's seemingly favorite victims ....

THE WOMEN ....

AND CHILDREN ....

IF THESE MARINES ....

ARE FOUND ...

TO HAVE MURDERED THIS IRAQI ....

IT IS MORE LIKELY ....

THAT GEORGE ....

WOULD HAVE THE REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS ....

VOTE TO HONOR ...

AND COMMEND THESE MARINES ....

AS TROOPS LOYAL TO GEORGE W. BUSH ...

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ....

AND THEIR "CAUSE" ....

THAN IT IS ....

THAT HE WOULD ACTUALLY PUNISH THEM ....

And so ....

We shall see ...

And so ..

[Livyjr]

"Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military - Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance"

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days.

The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

Asked about clemency for those who attacked U.S. troops, he said:

"That's an area where we can see a green line."

"There's some sort of preliminary understanding between us and the MNF-I," the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq, "that there is a patriotic feeling among the Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of resistance and defending their homeland."

"These people will be pardoned definitely, I believe."

And while the IRAQINAMIS ....

Are getting ready ...

To grant AMNESTY ....

To those IRAQIS ....

WHO ONLY KILLED ....

MEMBERS OF THE INVADING ARMY ...

OF GEORGE W. BUSH ....

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ...

Here is the "WORLD'S PRETTIEST MALE WORLD LEADER" .....

"TEFLON TONY" Blair ....

OF ENGLAND ....

Who is also .....

The world's "BEST DRESSED MALE WORLD LEADER" .....

Who also happens to hold the title ....

Of having the "BEST HAIR STYLE OF ANY MALE WORLD LEADER" .....

And he wants to throw in HIS TWO CENTS .....

About IRAQINAM ....

Along with ...

The "TWO CENTS" ....

Of REPUBLICAN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER ....

BILL FRIST ....

WHO IS LOVINGLY KNOWN .....

UP HERE WHERE I AM ......

AS "CHICKEN LITTLE FRIST" .....

BECAUSE HE IS ALWAYS CRYING ....

AND WHINING ....

ABOUT ...

"THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING, THE TAY-RISTS ARE COMING ......"

"YADA, YADA, YADA et cetera ...."

And since this is a free country ....

Where Tony Blair ....

Is just as good ....

As anyone else ....

Even though ....

It is said ....

That pretty men ....

Like Tony Blair ...

Have empty heads ....

LET'S LET TONY HAVE HIS SAY .....

ANYWAY ....

Even if his head is really empty ....

As they say ...

Those ...

Of pretty men ...

Such as Tony Blair really are ...

And so ....

"U.K. leaders: Iraq handover won't be swift"

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press
Last updated: 11:35 p.m., Friday, June 16, 2006

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- British officials said Friday there will be no swift repatriation of British troops in Iraq despite the Iraqi government's assertion that its forces could begin taking over southern provinces from coalition forces next month.

Iraqi security forces hope to assume responsibly for Muthana province -- where Britain has 150 soldiers -- within weeks.

Speaking at the European Union summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the "situation will arise where we can step down as they (Iraqi forces) step up to the mark."

Britain's defense ministry denied Japanese news reports that coalition troops would withdraw from all four southern provinces within weeks.

"It's 100 percent inaccurate," said a defense ministry spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

"We will not be withdrawing from southern Iraq in the coming weeks."

However, Britain's Defense Secretary Des Browne has acknowledged Muthana is likely to be handed over soon, followed by Maysan -- where Britain has 1,000 troops.

Two other coalition-controlled southern provinces -- Basra and Dhiqar -- are less likely to see a quick exchange of authority.

Blair's official spokesman, who speaks only on condition of anonymity as he is a nonpolitical civil servant, said the handover of individual provinces is a process that will take weeks.

"When it would start would be a matter for the Iraqi government, first and foremost," he said.

A senior foreign office official said "Basra needs a lot of work" before it can be handed over.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss troop deployment, said proposals for control to return to local police and soldiers had been "very well received" by local politicians in Maysan.

But he acknowledged there are coalition concerns over the capability of Iraqi police.

Work is needed to encourage many officers to pledge loyalty to "their police mission" rather than rival militia or their ethnic or tribunal groups, the official said.

[Livyjr]

"Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military - Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance"

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 15, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days.

The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

Asked about clemency for those who attacked U.S. troops, he said:

"That's an area where we can see a green line."

"There's some sort of preliminary understanding between us and the MNF-I," the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq, "that there is a patriotic feeling among the Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of resistance and defending their homeland."

"These people will be pardoned definitely, I believe."

And now that the DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT ....

Of the democratic nation of IRAQINAM .....

Has made it incandescently clear .....

To the people of IRAQINAM ....

And just about everyone in the world ....

For that matter .....

Except these incredibly DENSE .....

PATHETICALLY CLUELESS ....

SLOGAN-SHOUTING REPUBLICANS ....

Down there in the FOOL'S PARADISE ....

Of Washington, D.C. .....

THAT IT IS THE PATRIOTIC DUTY ....

OF EVERY IRAQINAMI ....

TO KILL MEMBERS OF .....

GEORGE W. BUSH'S ARMY OF INVASION ....

IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEIR HOMELAND ....

FROM GEORGE W. BUSH ....

We have ....

From IRAQINAM ....

Just about what a sane, rational observant person would expect .....

Given that declaration ....

By the DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT ....

Of the democratic nation of IRAQINAM .....

And so ....

"Search continues for 2 soldiers in Iraq"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:46 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops on Saturday searched for two soldiers missing after an attack that killed one of their comrades at a checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad.

U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said four raids had been carried out since Friday's attack and that ground forces, helicopters and airplanes were taking part in the search.

He said a dive team also was going to search for the men, whose checkpoint was located by a Euphrates River canal near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad.

Fellow soldiers at a nearby checkpoint heard small-arms fire and explosions, and a quick-reaction force reached the scene in 15 minutes.

The force found one soldier dead but no sign of the two others.

"We are currently using every means at our disposal on the ground, in the air and in the water to find them," said Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

The area is known as the Triangle of Death because of the frequent ambushes and attacks against U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.

The spokesman noted the military was still searching for Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, who went missing on April 9, 2004.

"We continue to search using every means available and will not stop looking until we find the missing soldiers," he said.

Maupin was captured when insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy with the 724th Transportation Co. west of Baghdad.

A week later, Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.

That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot.

But the dark, grainy tape showed only the back of the victim's head and did not show the actual shooting.

The Army ruled it was inconclusive whether the soldier was Maupin.

A 20-year-old private first class at the time of his capture, Maupin has been promoted twice since then.

[Livyjr]

And now that the DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT ....

Of the democratic nation of IRAQINAM .....

Has made it incandescently clear .....

To the people of IRAQINAM ....

And just about everyone in the world ....

For that matter .....

Except these incredibly DENSE .....

PATHETICALLY CLUELESS ....

SLOGAN-SHOUTING REPUBLICANS ....

Down there in the FOOL'S PARADISE ....

Of Washington, D.C. .....

THAT IT IS THE PATRIOTIC DUTY ....

OF EVERY IRAQINAMI ....

TO KILL MEMBERS OF .....

GEORGE W. BUSH'S ARMY OF INVASION ....

IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEIR HOMELAND ....

FROM GEORGE W. BUSH ....

We have ....

From IRAQINAM ....

Just about what a sane, rational observant person would expect .....

Given that declaration ....

By the DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT ....

Of the democratic nation of IRAQINAM .....

And so ....

"Search continues for 2 soldiers in Iraq" 
 
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:46 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops on Saturday searched for two soldiers missing after an attack that killed one of their comrades at a checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad.

Fellow soldiers at a nearby checkpoint heard small-arms fire and explosions, and a quick-reaction force reached the scene in 15 minutes.

The force found one soldier dead but no sign of the two others.

"U.S. lacks the fortitude for imperialism"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, June 16, 2006

The United States of America is a paper tiger.

It reverses the dictum of Theodore Roosevelt.

It speaks loudly and carries a small stick.

Americans are told by their leaders that their country is the last superpower in the world, that we have the duty to bring democracy to the rest of the world, that we have the might and the right, the power and the virtue, to impose by ourself our will on the planet.

This is rubbish.

The United States is not much good as an imperial power because it lacks two of the qualities essential for effective imperialism.

That would require a population which is ready to absorb serious casualties in the cause of the empire and leadership which is sufficiently cynical to abandon moralism when there is a chance to deal.

It will do no good to lecture the American people on their obligation to endure substantial loss of life in a cause that the leadership thinks is a national duty.

Americans will rise up in righteous anger if they have been attacked and destroy the foe.

Make no mistake about that, as the Japanese did in 1941.

But they quickly become impatient with the endless, small wars, in which young Americans die without any clear purpose and without any light at the end of the tunnel.

That may be immature of Americans, but that's the way we are.

We lack the stern moral determination that The Wall Street Journal preaches to us several times a week.

We are not exactly passivists, but we are isolationists.

We always have been isolationists.

Tell us that we must do something about Darfur or Kosovo or Rwanda and we ask why us.

If the rest of the world is interested in doing something, OK, but don't expect us to go it alone for long.

After Korea and Vietnam, that should have been clear.

We went along with the Iraq invasion because our leaders were able to persuade us that it was a war to punish the September 11 terrorists when in fact it was about the belief that a democratic Iraq would shift the balance in the Middle East.

The Journal likes to compare us with the Western Europeans, who have been spoiled by prosperity and the failure of their virility.

They want peace at any price, so they can continue to enjoy the socialist comforts of their consumerist lives.

But such a description applies to Americans too, save for a higher birth rate.

Prosperous countries have no stomach for war, especially when they realize that the people they are fighting are not the people who attacked them.

Americans never voted to become the enforcers of democracy and justice everywhere in the world all by themselves.

Hence, wars like Korea and Vietnam and now Iraq always end badly.

After World War I, the idea of collective security emerged.

The nations of the world would band together to protect one another.

In practice, this meant that the United States protected Western Europe's fragile emergent prosperity from the Russians.

That notion has deteriorated into a theory that America is the great police officer of the world, with an occasional tiny "coalition of the willing" tagging along until the party in a given country that sent troops to Iraq was voted out of power.

Iran is not perceived as a threat now, so former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw called our plan to bomb Iran "nutty," which it surely is.

If the rest of the world, including those most likely to be threatened by fanatical mullahs are not concerned, why should Americans be worried?

Since 1916, the United States has fought in five wars (excluding the first Iraq war).

In each of these conflicts, we came to the rescue of others and gained nothing for ourselves.

Nor did we receive much gratitude for our efforts.

How just those wars were is open to question.

Some probably were, others certainly were not.

But they were not self-serving conflicts.

Somehow the hubris of power, which seems to possess our leaders every couple of decades, seduces them into conflicts they can never win.

They cannot admit to themselves that the world's most powerful country is a paper tiger because its people are not imperialists.

Andrew Greeley's e-mail address is agreel@aol.com.

end quotes

We didn't "go along" with George W. Bush's INVASION of IRAQINAM .....

We had that rammed right down OUR throats ....

Just as did the long-suffering people of IRAQINAM ....

By George W. Bush .....

AND HIS PACK OF REPUBLICANS .....

Who had a mind ....

TO STEAL SOME OIL ....

And so ....

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Jun 17 2006, 05:13 PM

[Livyjr]

"Bush rejects calls for pullout from Iraq" 
 
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:05 a.m., Thursday, June 15, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, just back from Iraq, dismissed calls for a U.S. withdrawal as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark for success that would allow troops to come home.

He defended the decision not to tell the prime minister that the U.S. president was in his country until five minutes before they met and denied that it was because of any concern about al-Maliki's inner circle.

"I'm a high-value target for some," Bush said.

"If the United States of America leaves before this Iraqi government can defend itself and sustain itself and govern itself, it will be a major blow in the war on terror," Bush said, pounding his fist on a lectern set up in the Rose Garden.

Bush also poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses during the news conference -- and later apologized in a phone call after learning that the reporter wore sunglasses because he's losing his sight to an eye disease.

"Bush says troops to stay until not needed"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - President Bush says he will not bend to political pressure for troop withdrawals from Iraq and says he told worried leaders in Baghdad the United States will not leave until Iraqi forces can do the job.

"I assured them they didn't need to worry," the president said Tuesday.

"I am going to do what I think is right."

"Bush rejects calls for pullout from Iraq" 
 
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:05 a.m., Thursday, June 15, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, just back from Iraq, dismissed calls for a U.S. withdrawal as election-year politics and refused to give a timetable or benchmark for success that would allow troops to come home.
 
"It's bad policy," Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference Wednesday, about six hours after he returned from Iraq.

"I know it may sound good politically."

"It will endanger our country to pull out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission."

"U.S. lacks the fortitude for imperialism" 

Albany, New York Times Union 

First published: Friday, June 16, 2006

Americans are told by their leaders that their country is the last superpower in the world, that we have the duty to bring democracy to the rest of the world, that we have the might and the right, the power and the virtue, to impose by ourself our will on the planet.

This is rubbish.

And while we are on the timely subjects .....

OF THE REPUBLICANS ...

PREPARING TO BUY ....

ANOTHER NATIONAL ELECTION ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

Along with the timely issue ....

Of Americans being told ....

BY THESE SAME REPUBLICANS ......

THAT OUR COUNTRY ....

OUR NATION ...

OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC ...

IS THE LAST "SUPERPOWER" IN THE WORLD ....

Which is nothing more than a giant crock of **** .....

"EGO-MASSAGING", on their part ....

And that we have the "DUTY" to bring democracy to the rest of the world .....

WHICH IS ANOTHER GIANT CROCK OF REPUBLICAN **** ....

And that we have the might and the right ....

The power and the virtue ....

TO IMPOSE THE WILL OF THESE REPUBLICANS ....

WITH THE MASSIVE EGOS ....

ON THE REST OF THE PLANET .....

TO ENRICH THESE REPUBLCANS ...

AT A COST OF ENSLAVING ALL ON THE PLANET ...

WHO ARE NOT THEM .....

WHICH IS MOST OF US ....

We have .....

"Four contenders court thousands of activists"

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:36 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2006

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Four Republicans considering running for president in 2008 courted activists Saturday and predicted GOP success in the November elections despite the party's sagging support in polls.

"The theme is we are right on the issues, not just for Iowa but for the country," said New York Gov. George Pataki.

"I understand what the experts are saying, but if we stick to Republican principles we will succeed."

Also at the Iowa Republican convention, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback said, "[u]The Democrats want this election to be a referendum election."

"But the best thing we can do for the Iowa Republican Party is show that this is not a referendum."

"It's a choice."

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Virginia Sen. George Allen joined them at the convention attended by nearly 2,000 people.

Aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee were there, too.

The event is the traditional kickoff of the fall campaign.

"It's never been this early," said Iowa's Republican chairman, Ray Hoffman.

"I think it's a positive for our state."

He said that the attention from presidential candidates will bring money and organizational expertise to local candidates.

"The message is that we need to stand strong for certain principles, ideas and actions," Allen said.

Allen, who faces a Senate challenge from Democrat Jim Webb, said he probably would not return to Iowa, where precinct caucuses launch the presidential nominating season, before the November

He dismissed suggestions that other potential White House candidates would have an edge because they are free to roam Iowa.

Pataki and Romney both have announced they are not seeking another term as governor, and both are frequent visitors to Iowa.

Pataki last week announced a leadership team of key Iowa activists, and Romney followed suit on Saturday, using the state GOP convention as a backdrop to release a list of 50 key Republican activists who have signed on.

Generally cast as a moderate, Romney sounded a theme of social conservatism before delegates at the state convention who are generally more conservative than most Republicans.

"The family is the absolute foundation of our culture," Romney said.

Brownback, a favorite of those social conservatives, touched on issues such as restricting abortion to taking a tough stand on the war in Iraq.

Republicans should not be afraid of backing the war, the senator said, despite polls showing dwindling support.

"I think we should talk about the war," said Brownback.

"I think it's time to have another debate, another national debate about the war."

Pataki has gotten attention for his focus on grassroots retail politics, which he said was the centerpiece of his effort.

"It's certainly something that I love," said Pataki.

"The best way to counteract the negatives about Republicans, the best way to energize the party is to meet people directly."

Virtually all of the Republicans say they are spending their time helping candidates for the fall.

The governor's office is coming open, at least two of the state's five congressional districts feature competitive elections and the Legislature is in a virtual tie.

"An awful lot of the leaders here want me to come back to speak to fundraisers, to help mobilize the troops at their barbecues and picnics," said Pataki.

"It's gratifying to hear they want me to come."

end quotes

And in response to this Brownback dude .....

THE "DEBATE" ON THIS ALLEGED "IRAQ WAR" IS REAL SIMPLE ....

THERE IS NO "WAR" IN IRAQ ...

THAT IS A LOAD OF REPUBLICAN BULL **** .....

THERE IS AN AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF IRAQ, OF COURSE ....

WHICH ITS DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT ....

WANTS ENDED ....

TO THE POINT ...

OF WHERE IT IS GRANTING AMNESTY ...

TO ITS CITIZENS ....

WHO DO THEIR PATRIOTIC DUTY ...

OF KILLING THESE "FOREIGN" TROOPS .....

AND MERCENARIES ....

THAT GEORGE W. BUSH ...

AND REPUBLICANS LIKE THIS BROWNBACK DUDE HAVE SENT OVER THERE .....

FOR REPUBLICAN PURPOSES ...

WHICH ARE NOT REAL "AMERICAN" PURPOSES AT ALL .....

SINCE MOST OF US ARE NOT OIL THIEVES .....

NOR THUGS ....

BUT THAT IS NOT A "WAR" .....

NOT BY A LONG-SHOT .....

AND THAT IS WHAT MAKES THIS UP-COMING ELECTION .....

NOT ONLY A "CHOICE" ....

TO BE FOR REPUBLICAN LIES ....

AND DISSIMULATION ....

AND THIEVERY, OF COURSE ....

AND THUGGERY ....

AND INCOMPETENCE ....

OR AGAINST ....

BUT ALSO A REFERENDUM, AS WELL ....

ON WHETHER CONTINUING REPUBLICAN THIEVERY ....

AND THUGGERY .....

AND DISSIMULATION ....

AND INCOMPETENCE ....

ARE IN THE "BEST INTERESTS" ....

OF OUR AMERICA ....

OUR REPUBLIC ....

OR NOT ....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the timely subject .....

OF THE REPUBLICANS ...

PREPARING TO BUY ....

ANOTHER NATIONAL ELECTION ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

We have .....

"Four contenders court thousands of activists" 
 
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:36 p.m., Saturday, June 17, 2006

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Four Republicans considering running for president in 2008 courted activists Saturday and predicted GOP success in the November elections despite the party's sagging support in polls.
 
"The theme is we are right on the issues, not just for Iowa but for the country," said New York Gov. George Pataki.

"I understand what the experts are saying, but if we stick to Republican principles we will succeed."

Pataki has gotten attention for his focus on grassroots retail politics, which he said was the centerpiece of his effort.

And meanwhile .....

Back in New York State ....

Where most folks ....

Are waiting ...

For George Pataki to leave .....

AND WILL BE QUITE GLAD ....

WHEN HE DOES SO .....

We have this following ....

ON WHAT REPUBLICAN GEORGE PATAKI .....

IS SELLING OUT THERE IN IOWA ....

AS "GRASSROOTS RETAIL POLITICS" .....

WHICH WE JUST CALL ...

PLAIN, OLD, GARDEN-VARIETY "TREASURY LOOTING" BACK HERE ...

FOR PARTISAN POLITICAL PURPOSES, OF COURSE ....

WHICH "TREASURY LOOTING" ABILITY ....

INHERENT IN PATAKI'S POSITION ....

AS REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR ....

OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

MAKES PATAKI ....

A VERY POWERFUL MAN ....

OUT THERE IN CAESAR'S WORLD ....

WHERE IOWA IS LOCATED ....

And so ....

"'Pork' spending draws new scrutiny- Lawmakers' use of funds for pet projects said to be subject of Soares inquiry"

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

First published: Tuesday, June 13, 2006

ALBANY -- Albany County District Attorney David Soares' office has begun an inquiry into the use of discretionary funds known as member items by lawmakers, according to a law enforcement source.

Soares is conducting a grand jury investigation, the source said, triggered by stories in the Times Union about questionable use by some state senators and members of the Assembly of some of the $200 million a year secretly carved up in the Capitol by members of the Legislature and the governor for pet projects.

"I can't comment on anything that may or may not be ongoing; anything involving the grand jury is secret information," said Sam Spitzberg, head of Soares' Public Integrity Unit.

The law enforcement source said subpoenas have been sent to the Legislature seeking information.

The source was not specific about the content of the subpoenas, but said Soares' two-person Public Integrity Unit is leading the investigation.

Spokesmen for the Senate and Assembly said they were unaware of subpoenas or a probe, and a second source familiar with Soares' interest said his subpoenas may not yet have been issued.

The investigation follows reports in the newspaper about the hundreds of thousands of dollars in member item funds steered by Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. and Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., both of the Bronx, to nonprofit organizations under the elder Diaz's control.

Both are Democrats, like Soares.

One of the Bronx charities, Soundview Community In Action, employed Ruben Diaz Sr., a minister, before he became a senator, as well as his wife.

It also hired his first wife, the mother of Ruben Diaz Jr., during the time the assemblyman was directing state member item money to it.

Both legislators have refused interview requests in recent weeks.

However, Assemblyman Diaz granted a telephone interview April 19 before the first story appeared indentifying him as the source of funding.

He confirmed responsibility for the funding and defended its use.

He also criticized the current management of Soundview, which had complained to the attorney general's office about the Diazes.

At least $1 million administered by Empire State Development Corp. was member item money sponsored by Assemblyman Diaz for Soundview.

More than $400,000 in additional funds were sponsored by the Assembly and $15,000 by the Senate through the Office of Child and Family Services.

However, the names of the sponsoring members are unavailable from the agency, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, have refused to release documents that would show the names of legislative members sponsoring grants.

Records show the two Diazes redirected much of their member item funding to Christian Community Benevolent Association, another Bronx charity created by Sen. Diaz after Soundview came under new management and stopped employing Diaz relatives.

Former Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who lost a close Democratic primary and then the election to Ruben Diaz Sr. in 2002, is also calling for an investigation.

Espada, who was investigated by prosecutors for the way he directed his own member item dollars four years ago, wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice April 20 demanding an inquiry of the Diazes.

He alleges the elder Diaz misused employees of nonprofits he controls for political fundraising and campaigning.

Espada was investigated by federal prosecutors after he awarded $745,000 in member item funds to an community-based group he headed and from which he drew pay.

He said it is only fair that the same happen to his adversary.

On Sunday, the Times Union wrote that Sen. Diaz compelled nonprofit employees to donate to his and his son's campaigns, even providing some with money orders so that they would not have to use their own funds.

Contributing to elections in someone else's name is unlawful.

"We are one independent investigation away from getting justice," said Espada, who complained that a probe by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's Office into some of the accusations against Sen. Diaz resulted in a "cover-up."

His letter alleges Spitzer is compromised because he is seeking higher office.

Andrew Lourie, the acting chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, did not return a call.

However, a letter Espada received in response to his inquiry said the federal government is interested in evidentiary information he can share.

Spitzer's spokesman said his investigators conducted a thorough probe into complaints by Soundview staff about misuse of resources and personnel by Sen. Diaz.

Investigators concluded that the Diazes and the current executive director of Soundview, Edward Padilla, were involved in a long-term, adversarial dispute, but specific allegations could not be supported.

end quotes

To his credit ...

New York State GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL Tom Suozzi .....

Went on record .....

At a recent Mayor's convention ....

WITH VERY PUBLIC STATEMENTS ....

THAT I HEARD ON THE RADIO THIS MORNING ...

WHEREIN MR. SUOZZI ....

Challenged bogus and misleading statements .....

Being made ...

By Eliot Spitzer ....

In his campaign for GOVERNOR ...

About how Spitzer could do a better job ...

At clearing up MEDICAID FRAUD ....

As Governor ....

As opposed to Attorney General ....

AND TOM SUOZZI JUMPED RIGHT ON THAT PREVARICATION ...

By pointing out ....

THAT AS NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ...

RIGHT NOW ...

SPITZER HAS FAR MORE CONTROL ....

OVER WHETHER OR NOT ....

THERE IS FRAUD RAMPANT IN THE STATE ....

THAN HE WOULD HAVE AS GOVERNOR ...

And so ...

Mr. Suozzi's point ...

WHICH I CERTAINLY TOOK ...

As a citizen in the State of New York ...

WHO IS DAMN SICK AND TIRED ....

OF THE CORRUPTION IN OUR STATE GOVERNMENT ...

THAT THESE ALBANY POLITICIANS KEEP DISHING US UP ...

YEAR AFTER YEAR ....

WAS THAT IF ELIOT SPITZER REALLY DIDN'T WANT MEDICAID FRAUD IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

In these last several years ...

THAT SPITZER HAS BEEN IN OFFICE ...

As New York State Attorney General ....

SPITZER COULD HAVE MADE A HUGE DENT IN MEDICAID FRAUD IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK ...

BUT INSTEAD ...

HE APPEARS TO HAVE LET IT FLOURISH ....

FOR APPARENT POLITICAL PURPOSES ...

RELATED TO SPITZER'S GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"House GOP to set up vote on Iraq pullout"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Republicans engineered an election-year debate on Iraq to show support for U.S. troops and force lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to take a position on withdrawing American forces from a conflict that is in its fourth year.

"When our freedom is challenged, Americans do not run," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

The administration was so determined to get out its message that the        Pentagon distributed a highly unusual 74-page "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war, which began in March 2003.

"We cannot cut and run," the battle plan says at one point, anticipating Democratic calls for a troop withdrawal on a fixed timetable.

As debate got under way in the House on Thursday, the Senate sent the president an additional $66 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan —legislation Bush promptly signed — and the Pentagon announced the U.S. death toll for the war had reached 2,500.

"It's a number," White House press secretary Tony Snow said of the grim milestone.

"Hey, DUDE, it's like ..."

"Well, hey ..."

"C'mon here ...."

"I mean ..."

"Well, hell ..."

"LOOK, MAN, EVERYBODY KNOWS ....."

"IT'S JUST A NUMBER, MAN!"

"I mean ..."

"Well, you can't have a war, man ..."

"IF YOU'RE AFRAID ...."

"OF PEOPLE GETTING KILLED ..."

"YOU DIG, MAN?"

Ah ...

Yes ...

Yes, actually ...

I think ...

I do ....

And so ...

AIN'T THAT TONY SNOW JUST A KICK?

Reminds me of John Cleese ...

That big, goofy guy ....

Who used to do the pratfalls ....

On Monty Python's FLYING CIRCUS ....

And so ....

"Spokesman: Bush polls don't rule Iraq war"

1 hour, 20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush understands there is growing U.S. concern over his handling of the Iraq war but will not rely on polls to determine when to withdraw troops, his spokesman said Sunday.

"The president understands how a war can wear on a nation," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"Whatever the bleakness is, whatever the facts are on the ground, you figure out how to win."

"You can't do that by reading polls."

"Most people realize simply pulling out would be an absolute unmitigated disaster," Snow said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said she and other Democrats would introduce a resolution this week calling for a phased withdrawal, noting that Bush signed a defense bill last year calling for that in 2006.

"Three years and three months into the war, with all of the losses, the insurgency, the burgeoning civil war that's taking place, an open-ended time commitment is no longer sustainable," she said.

"We want to see an end to this thing."

"We want to transition the mission."

"That isn't cutting and running," Feinstein said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Last week, both the House and Senate rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq.

It came after a ferociously partisan debate engineered by GOP leaders to put lawmakers on record about the war in a congressional election year.

After three years of war, approval of Bush's handling of Iraq has dipped to 33 percent, a new low, and his overall job approval rating was 35 percent in a new AP-Ipsos poll.

The war has brought a U.S. death toll of 2,500 and a price tag of $320 billion.

Snow, speaking on three Sunday talk shows, said Bush has confidence the new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will take on a greater role in the coming months to deal with unrest and sectarian violence in the region.

"The United States is not going to leave until the Iraqi government wants us to leave and the job is done," Snow said.

"As the Iraqis become more able, the Americans are going to move back into support roles and at some point, we are going to be able to leave Iraq."

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said he believes the American people are frustrated by the Bush administration's failure to articulate a clear strategy for winning in Iraq.

Benchmarks and timetables for a withdrawal are needed to gauge progress and limit U.S. casualties, he said.

"If I had known the president was going to be this incompetent in his administration, I would not have given him the authority" to go to war, said Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Americans should be a bit more patient, citing progress including the recent death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after a U.S. airstrike in Iraq.

"We do need to do a better job," said Graham, who appeared with Biden on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"We are having progress in Iraq."

"Zarqawi's death is a sea change."

"If we're going to go on these shows every Sunday and talk about every mistake ever made in a war, we're going to lose this war."

end quotes

Hey, Lindsey, baby ....

GUESS WHAT?

ZARQAWI WAS A PIP-SQUEAK!

A NON-ISSUE!

A NOTHING!

AT ALL ....

EXCEPT SOME SHADOW ....

ON THE WALL ...

THAT HAD YOU ....

AND GEORGE W. BUSH .....

MEWLING ...

AND GIBBERING IN FEAR ....

AND WHAT A PATHETIC SIGHT THAT WAS ....

Let me tell you ...

And Lindsey .....

THERE AIN'T NO WAR IN IRAQINAM!

That is just a bunch of BULL **** that you and the rest of them REPUBLICANS down there in Washington, D.C. are spewing ....

THINKING THAT WE ARE ALL ...

NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF FOOLS IN THIS REPUBLIC OF OURS ....

WHO WILL FALL ....

FOR THE SAME OLD YADA YADA YADA ....

ONE MORE TIME .....

And so ....

And Tony ....

I'm with Senator Biden on this one myself ....

BECAUSE GEORGE W. BUSH ....

IS THIS INCOMPETENT IN HIS ADMINISTRATION ....

HE CANNOT BE TRUSTED ...

WITH TAKING THIS NATION .....

TO WAR ....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

AIN'T THAT TONY SNOW JUST A KICK?

"Spokesman: Bush polls don't rule Iraq war"

WASHINGTON - President Bush understands there is growing U.S. concern over his handling of the Iraq war but will not rely on polls to determine when to withdraw troops, his spokesman said Sunday.

"The president understands how a war can wear on a nation," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"Whatever the bleakness is, whatever the facts are on the ground, you figure out how to win."

"You can't do that by reading polls."

GOP: Poll puts Sweeney ahead - Republicans cite 51-27 lead; Democrats say seat is at risk"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, June 15, 2006

A poll commissioned by Saratoga County Republicans shows incumbent U.S. Rep. John Sweeney with a wide lead in the 20th Congressional District race, but capturing only slightly over half the vote.

After announcing partial results last week, Saratoga County GOP Chairman John "Jasper" Nolan released the whole poll after the Times Union sent him the state law requiring entire polls be made public if portions are cited.

The poll by Zogby International shows Sweeney leading Gillibrand 51 percent to 27 percent.

A little over 22 percent were undecided.

The poll of 401 likely voters, done June 6-7 across the vast 20th Congressional District, had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

The largest chunk -- 32 percent -- came from Sweeney's home base in Saratoga County.

"I did the poll in reference to all the handlers in the various newspapers saying this was a close race," Nolan said.

"Those numbers tell us we are on the right course."

Sweeney said he hadn't seen the poll but was pleased with what he's heard.

"I'm excited by the show of support," he said.

Among seven statewide candidates, only the Democratic designee for governor, Eliot Spitzer, had higher approval ratings in the district, he said.

Gillibrand's campaign not surprisingly took a different view.

"He's an endangered incumbent."

"He's done significant advertising, he's done mail and on TV, and he is still barely above 50 percent," said her campaign manager, Bill Hyers, adding he didn't believe the numbers.

Voters, he said, are just getting to know her.

Sweeney had a favorable rating of 63 percent; about 25 percent have an unfavorable view of him.

Gillibrand's favorable-unfavorable rating was 22 percent to 8 percent, while most --69 percent -- said they were unfamiliar with her.

end quotes

I guess you just have to be a GOP-er ....

To know .....

When a POLL can help you win something ....

Like an election ....

Versus when it can't help you win something ....

LIKE A BOGUS "WAR" .....

And so ....

AIN'T THAT TONY SNOW JUST A KICK?

It sure was astute politics on the part of George W. Bush ....

To add some "comic relief" ......

To his otherwise uptight regime ....

By bringing "John Cleese Look-a-Like" Tony Snow on board ...

To keep us all entertained out here ....

In OUR America ....

And so ....

Having Tony Snow do pratfalls and what-not .....

On national television ....

On behalf of George W. Bush ....

Sure does take our minds off ....

Of exactly how incompetent this George W. Bush really is ...

And what a mess ...

He and the GOP ....

Along with "Hey Jackie Boy, Hey Johnnie" Sweeney .....

Have made of things out there in the world ...

As well as here in OUR America ....

And so .....

As the ROMANS said .....

"BREAD AND CIRCUSES" .....

And so .....

"Heeeere's TONY" .....

Who is now the "RINGMASTER" .....

Of the BUSHCO FLYING CIRCUS ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

AIN'T THAT TONY SNOW JUST A KICK?

It sure was astute politics on the part of George W. Bush ....

To add some "comic relief" ......

To his otherwise uptight regime ....

By bringing "John Cleese Look-a-Like" Tony Snow on board ...

To keep us all entertained out here ....

In OUR America ....

And so ....

Having Tony Snow do pratfalls and what-not .....

On national television ....

On behalf of George W. Bush ....

Sure does take our minds off ....

Of exactly how incompetent this George W. Bush really is ...

And what a mess ...

He and the GOP ....

Along with "Hey Jackie Boy, Hey Johnnie" Sweeney .....

Have made of things out there in the world ...

As well as here in OUR America ....

And so .....

As the ROMANS said .....

"BREAD AND CIRCUSES" .....

And so .....

"Heeeere's TONY" .....

Who is now the "RINGMASTER" .....

Of the BUSHCO FLYING CIRCUS ....

And so .....

"Healthy profits attract scrutiny - State senator says HMOs making money at expense of members; industry disagrees"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, June 15, 2006

ALBANY -- Sen. Neil Breslin went after the state's health maintenance organizations Wednesday, claiming they have almost doubled their profits since 2001 even as they lost members and paid out less on claims.

"I don't think it makes Exxon blush, but on a percentage basis ... that's a lot of money," the Albany Democrat said of the 93 percent profit increase between 2001 and 2005.

HMOs in New York during that period earned combined profits of $5.3 billion on revenues of $81.9 billion.

"How many companies can say 'I've doubled my profits but I've lost a lot of customers,' " he added, explaining that the number of people enrolled in HMOs dropped 14 percent during that period.

Breslin is calling for more oversight and wants to force HMOs to get state approval for rate hikes, which they had to do until 1999.

HMO officials shot back that the study was incomplete, excluding other kinds of health plans.

They also said the higher profits are necessitated by a state mandate that HMOs keep cash reserves.

Moreover, they said, HMOs, like other industries, have benefited from technological advances.

"Yes, profits have increased, but they've increased because of improved effectiveness," said Mark Amodeo, director of public policy and communications at the state Conference of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans.

Leslie Moran, senior vice president at the state Health Plan Association, noted costs have also risen due to higher drug costs and the number of new medications and medical procedures available to people.

Breslin suggested the high cost of enrollment might be the reason membership has declined.

Industry officials pointed to population loss and movement to other types of plans, including self-insurance programs in large corporations and some government entities.

[Snuffysmith]

ONLY IN AMERICA?

AMID KATRINA, U.S. CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS ROSE 6% LAST YEAR - RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JUNE 19): Charitable giving by Americans rose about 6% to $260.28 billion last year, as Hurricane Katrina and other big natural disasters helped lead to the strongest increase in donations since 2000, according to an annual report on philanthropy being released today.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1150675815...e_whats_news_us
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

POWER TRIPS: HOT SPOTS -- AND NOT SPOTS -- FOR CONGRESSIONAL JUNKETS (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JUNE 18): The Center for Public Integrity reviewed 23,000 public documents on privately funded congressional travel over 5 1/2 years beginning in 2000. It found that members of Congress and their aides reported taking nearly 25,000 trips at a cost to sponsors of nearly $50 million.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...0,2190424.story

[Livyjr]

AIN'T THAT TONY SNOW JUST A KICK?

"Spokesman: Bush polls don't rule Iraq war"

WASHINGTON - President Bush understands there is growing U.S. concern over his handling of the Iraq war but will not rely on polls to determine when to withdraw troops, his spokesman said Sunday.

"The president understands how a war can wear on a nation," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"Most people realize simply pulling out would be an absolute unmitigated disaster," Snow said.

WHAT MOST PEOPLE REALIZE, TONY ....

IS THAT GEORGE W. BUSH'S ACT ....

OF KEEPING OUR AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQINAM ....

UNDER HIS INEPT LEADERSHIP ...

LONG AFTER THEY ARE NO LONGER WANTED OVER THERE ....

BY THE FREE CITIZENS OF IRAQINAM ...

IS AN ABSOLUTE UNMITIGATED DISASTER ....

FOR THE PEOPLE OF IRAQINAM, TONY .....

THAT IS WHAT MOST PEOPLE REALIZE ....

JUST AS MOST PEOPLE ALSO REALIZE ....

THAT BRINGING THEM HOME NOW ....

AND GETTING THEM OUT OF IRAQINAM ...

WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG ...

AND DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO BE ...

SINCE IRAQINAM ....

IS NO TREAT TO OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ....

WOULD BE A BLESSING .....

FOR EVERYBODY ....

EXCEPT ...

WELL ....

MAYBE YOU AND GEORGE W. BUSH, TONY ...

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, OF COURSE ....

BUT SINCE YOU'RE ALL LARGELY IRRELEVANCIES ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ...

WELL ....

YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES IN A REAL DEMOCRACY ...

DON'T YOU, TONY?

AND SO ...

"Army charges 3 GIs with murder in Iraq"

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. Army has charged three soldiers in connection with the deaths of three Iraqis who were in military custody in northern Iraq last month, the military said Monday.

The Multinational Corps-Iraq said three members of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division have been charged in connection with the deaths of three male detainees during an operation near Thar Thar Canal in northern Salahuddin province on May 9.

"A noncommissioned officer and two soldiers each have been charged with violating several articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, and obstructing justice," an announcement said.

It added that "on the day the alleged murders occurred, the unit commander ordered an inquiry to determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the three detainees."

It said that a criminal investigation began May 17 and was ongoing.

"The soldiers are currently in pre-trial confinement awaiting an Article 32 hearing to determine if sufficient evidence exists for the case to be referred to court-martial," the announcement said

Once charged, defendants have the right to an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation.

Last week, the Army said it had opened a criminal investigation into the suspicious deaths of three men in military custody in Iraq.

The investigation was requested by Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, who acted after other soldiers raised suspicions about the deaths.

[Livyjr]

WHAT MOST PEOPLE REALIZE, TONY ....

IS THAT GEORGE W. BUSH'S ACT ....

OF KEEPING OUR AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQINAM ....

UNDER HIS INEPT LEADERSHIP ...

LONG AFTER THEY ARE NO LONGER WANTED OVER THERE ....

BY THE FREE CITIZENS OF IRAQINAM ...

IS AN ABSOLUTE UNMITIGATED DISASTER ....

FOR THE PEOPLE OF IRAQINAM, TONY .....

THAT IS WHAT MOST PEOPLE REALIZE ....

JUST AS MOST PEOPLE ALSO REALIZE ....

THAT BRINGING THEM HOME NOW ....

AND GETTING THEM OUT OF IRAQINAM ...

WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG ...

AND DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO BE ...

SINCE IRAQINAM ....

IS NO TREAT TO OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION .... 

WOULD BE A BLESSING .....

FOR EVERYBODY ....

EXCEPT ...

WELL ....

MAYBE YOU AND GEORGE W. BUSH, TONY ...

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, OF COURSE ....

BUT SINCE YOU'RE ALL LARGELY IRRELEVANCIES ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ...

WELL ....

YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES IN A REAL DEMOCRACY ...

DON'T YOU, TONY?

AND SO ...

"Support U.S. troops by getting them out"

Letters to the Editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, June 19, 2006

Edgar Tolmie's June 14 letter was interesting.

He says that al-Zarqawi's death was a milestone in the war on terror.

I wonder if he thinks that the capture of Saddam Hussein was also a "milestone."

Does he realize what has happened since then?

This administration said that our goal in Iraq was to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

He was, for all intents and purposes, removed from power a month after we attacked Iraq.

Mr. Tolmie mentions "Republican President Bush" three times, but fails to mention that Osama bin Laden is still out there.

Lest we forget, he was the perpetrator of 9/11.

There were approximately 2,800 who lost their lives on 9/11.

Since Republican President Bush chose to attack Iraq and not complete our justifiable military action in Afghanistan and capture or kill Osama bin Laden, more than 20,000 American families have lost a son or daughter in Iraq to death, dismemberment or other serious injuries.

While we are all happy that Zarqawi has met his destiny, the important milestone will be when we start supporting our troops by getting them home, out of harms' way and defending America, not Iraq.

DAVID S.

Albany