Life in OUR America, Volume 6, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

"Bruno's friend turns records over to FBI"

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

First published: Friday, December 29, 2006

ALBANY -- A Chatham veterinarian and close friend of Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno is providing horse ownership records to the FBI, a source familiar with the broadening investigation of Bruno said Thursday.

Jerry Bilinski, 62, is providing records for a U.S. grand jury looking into links between Bruno, a horse breeder, and Jared Abbruzzese, who with partner Wayne Barr Jr., owns and races horses.

Bilinski is a principal of Excelsior Racing Associates, a bidder on the franchise to run races at the three NYRA tracks.

He would not take calls Thursday.

[Livyjr]

"Spitzer prepares to take over after 12 years of Republican rule"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
Last updated: 11:02 a.m., Saturday, December 30, 2006

ALBANY -- Calling himself "the new CEO of the state," Eliot Spitzer says he has a "sense of excitement and anticipation" as he prepares to take over as New York's 54th governor on New Year's Day.

That doesn't mean there aren't tough times ahead for the man who gained fame by taking on powerful Wall Street interests as the state's hard-charging attorney general, Spitzer told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview on the eve of his elevation to New York's top state government job.

"You don't run for an office like this without preparing yourself for both the enormity of it and the difficulty of it, but that doesn't mean you don't break out in a cold sweat sometimes," the millionaire lawyer from New York City told the AP.

"There's an enormous amount to be done, so we'd better put on our body armor," he said.

"The stakes are big and the battles will be tough."

Spitzer, a Democrat, easily beat former state Assembly Republican Minority Leader John Faso Nov. 7 to win the office being vacated by George Pataki, who after three, four-year terms is eyeing a run for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Spitzer faces the same divided state Legislature that the last Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo, and Pataki dealt with -- a Republican-led Senate and a Democratic-controlled state Assembly.

The notoriously gridlocked Legislature in 2004 earned the title of the nation's most dysfunctional.

Spitzer said he believes he can work with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but he also says he will reach beyond them to rank-and-file lawmakers to move his agenda.

"All elected officials deserve to be heard," Spitzer said.

While there has been speculation Spitzer's ascendancy could lead to the ouster of Bruno or Silver -- or both -- the governor-elect said he won't assist any overthrows in the short term.

"There are no proxy battles planned right now," he said.

"To continue the metaphor, I guess we had our proxy vote on November 7 and we got a new CEO."

"There is a new CEO of the state and I'm going to run the state with my partners."

Nonetheless, Spitzer made it clear he plans to be the senior partner, saying he would "certainly do what a governor is supposed to do, which is to take the helm and say here are the priorities."

Spitzer said the biggest impediment is simply trying to change the status quo given the power of special interests in New York, including those inside and outside government.

"It's not that dissimilar from a corporate setting -- an executive who may not be performing well yet is often very difficult to unseat," he said.

"What I will lay out in the inaugural address on Monday as well as in the State of the State (address on Wednesday) will really focus on the twin arguments that government needs to be changed and the economy needs to be revitalized," he told the AP.

And while Spitzer's campaign slogan was "On day one, everything changes," he said Friday, "You can't pick too many battles, too many overarching objectives."

As part of his grand plan, Spitzer said he would push for new limits on Medicaid spending that already consumes more than $45 billion of the state's $115 billion budget, improve the state's education system and deal with the costs of doing business in New York state by overhauling the workers' compensation and unemployment insurance systems.

He said he will stick to his campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

"We cannot, as a state, afford to raise taxes now because we would lose our competitive position with respect to other states, nations and economies which we're competing with," he said.

Spitzer said he was open to entreaties from county officials that they be allowed to raise cigarette taxes to raise money.

"We'll look at it for the counties, but the state is not raising taxes," he said.

Spitzer was to take the official oath of office shortly before midnight Sunday in a private ceremony at the Executive Mansion in Albany.

A more formal inaugural ceremony, including his formal address, was scheduled for noon outside the Capitol on New Year's Day.

The outdoor ceremony, the state's first, was a contrast to a glitzy show put on by Pataki on New Year's Day 1995 as he filled an Albany sports arena with music, pomp and a celebrity audience that included radio shock jock Howard Stern.

For guests to the Spitzer inauguration, there was going to be plenty of New York's cuisine.

The Anchor Bar was bringing its famous chicken wings from Buffalo, while the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse was offering up its ribs and pulled pork.

There was to be cheesecake from Junior's in Brooklyn, spiedies (skewer-roasted beef cubes) from Lupo's in Binghamton and even the "garbage plate" -- a hot dog or hamburger heaped with home fries, macaroni salad, baked beans and meat sauce -- from Nick Tahou's in Rochester.

Spitzer also planned a 5 p.m. concert at Albany's Times Union Center arena featuring James Taylor and Natalie Merchant.

[Livyjr]

"Bruno friend draws scrutiny from FBI - Senate majority leader, business associate have tangled relationship"

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

First published: Sunday, December 31, 2006

ALBANY -- Sherrie and Jared Abbruzzese might seem to have it made.

A mansion in Loudonville.

Country club memberships.

His and hers Cadillacs and Mercedeses in their fleet of eight high-end cars.

Jets.

A 27-foot boat.

Horses.

People still talk about the 50th-birthday party thrown a couple years ago for "Jerry," as he is called, at the couple's 9,600-square-foot home, estimating it cost at least $100,000.

He is known to toss down $100 tips at the prestigious Schuyler Meadows Club, where he is an enthusiastic if average golfer.

But now Abbruzzese, 52, is being scrutinized in an FBI probe that has found he paid Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees.

Interviews and a review of court documents reveal that his business dealings have included accusations of fraud and deceit, and even a multimillion-dollar judgment that threatened to take his home until that ruling was reversed.

In recent years the entrepreneur has been dogged by complaints of deceiving stockholders and fleecing investors.

None of those complaints has ever been sustained in court.

Abbruzzese and his local lawyers have refused repeated interview requests, and there was no response when reporters attempted to reach him at his home.

Flashy and outspoken, the businessman is described by associates as a "close friend" and business associate of Bruno, the state's most powerful Republican politician.

But beyond friendship, their relationship is a tangled web of public money and private enterprise that has now drawn the attention of law enforcement.

Bruno and Abbruzzese share a love of thoroughbred horses and for business.

Bruno has declined to discuss Abbruzzese, although the senator has acknowledged that the FBI is probing his own private business dealings, which include serving as a consultant to Abbruzzese.

The disclosure of the federal grand jury's investigation has heightened interest in Abbruzzese's troubled history in business.

In one 2002 lawsuit in Texas, a jury found Abbruzzese liable for a $9 million fraud, but an appeals court overturned the verdict -- and then Abbruzzese, without admitting guilt, agreed to settle the matter out of court.

The settlement occurred shortly after a $5 million judgment was filed against Abbruzzese in state Supreme Court in Albany.

In those two related cases, Thomas Dixon and David E. Webb, two executives of a company acquired by Abbruzzese's CAI Wireless, an Albany-based telecommunications venture, alleged in federal court in Texas that Abbruzzese deceived them by persuading them to forfeit stock options Abbruzzese allegedly knew could soon become extremely valuable.

They said he persuaded them to quit in 1999 and take a modest severance package just as WorldCom Inc. was preparing to acquire all the stock of CAI Wireless.

Later, WorldCom collapsed in scandal and declared bankruptcy, but not before buying CAI for $414 million at $28 per share.

Dixon's and Webb's stock options would have allowed them to buy that stock at 87 cents a share.

Meanwhile, Abbruzzese and his wife, major shareholders of CAI, walked away wealthy, according to federal records.

"There's a strong case that could be made that Jerry ended up getting victimized," says Abbruzzese's lawyer, Christopher Rentzel, who casts him as "the last man standing" in that case.

Armed with their then-valid jury verdict, Dixon and Webb filed suit in Albany to foreclose on Abbruzzese's home, an eight-bedroom mansion assessed in 2003 at $1.5 million.

They alleged Abbruzzese had fraudulently conveyed title to the home to his wife, Sherrie, to keep it out of their reach.

After their verdict was overturned, Dixon's and Webb's foreclosure was stayed in court while Abbruzzese agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of his settlement by Jan. 15, according to court records.

In another recent case, Abbruzzese was sued in Delaware by the largest stockholder of Motient Corp., a wireless mobile data service business, for allegedly steering millions of dollars in business to other businesses he controlled, including his own Albany investment service and Tejas Inc., a small Texas investment advisory service whose shares are publicly traded.

The stockholder alleged in the suit that Tejas provided Abbruzzese with at least 100,000 shares of Tejas stock for delivering business to Tejas while shareholders of Motient were not made aware of that conflict of interest.

At the time, Abbruzzese had left his role as a director at Motient.

He became a director of Tejas, which acquired his Albany company.

Bruno purchased stock in Tejas a couple of years ago, according to a public document.

The purchase came around the time other records show Bruno used Abbruzzese's airplane and occasionally flew with Abbruzzese.

But the Motient lawsuit was dismissed by a Delaware judge who described it as "at best ... a weak claim of corporate waste."

The judge said the stockholder had failed to prove allegations that Motient directors, including Abbruzzese, lacked independence and made imprudent decisions.

In that case, the suing stockholder alleged that Motient was being managed by an associate of Abbruzzese, Gary Singer, who was supposed to be banned for life from serving as an officer of a publicly traded company.

A convicted felon, Singer had served prison time for fraud, money laundering and racketeering.

Investors in Abbruzzese's CAI Wireless enterprise also sued in 1996 and 1997.

Abbruzzese, who was chairman of CAI, was accused by stockholders in a lawsuit of selling his stock while pumping up the company to investors with misrepresentations, omissions and unrealistically positive public announcements.

The company later sought protection from creditors in bankruptcy court and merged with MCI WorldCom Inc.

The stockholder suit was settled out of court for $3 million, $2.2 million of which went to the shareholders, according to plaintiffs' lawyer Michael C. Spencer and court records.

The settlement said the defendants, including Abbruzzese, continued to deny allegations of wrongdoing and liability.

The liability insurance company for the directors and officers paid out the money as part of the settlement in July 1998, Spencer said.

Abbruzzese also owned about a 15 percent stake in Evident Technologies Inc., a high-tech startup business based in a historic building in downtown Troy, and was Evident's co-chairman.

In 2003 and 2004, Bruno personally earmarked two $250,000 grants in discretionary state funds to the company through Empire State Development Corp.

ESDC, the economic development agency controlled by Gov. George Pataki, separately gave the company another $525,000.

A private proposal by Evident to sell stock from December 2005 says the "Abbruzzese Group" owns 464,756 shares of Evident, including shares held by companies owned or controlled by Abbruzzese, such as Dove Interests LLC and Bazaguma (derived from the names of Abbruzzese's four children) LLC and 15,840 shares held by Sherrie Abbruzzese.

The same document says another Abbruzzese business, Niskayuna Development LLC, was granted the rights to buy 85,000 shares of stock in Evident at a discount for helping to secure Evident assistance from ESDC.

An official with the state economic development agency, Vanessa Cuti, said no record of Abbruzzese's involvement in any of the ESDC grants can be found.

Abbruzzese's business partner, Wayne Barr Jr., is an Evident director and also controls more than 90,000 shares of Evident stock, the document reveals.

Abbruzzese's newest company, Wave Technologies, is based in Corporate Woods office park on Albany's north side.

Abbruzzese also is a horse farm operator and enthusiastic fan of thoroughbred racing.

He led the charge to raise $3 million for Empire Racing Associates, one of the entities bidding to take over the franchise for New York's three thoroughbred racetracks.

The franchise of the New York Racing Association to run the tracks will expire at the end of 2007.

Until this spring, Barr -- Abbruzzese's business partner -- served as Bruno's appointee on the NYRA board of trustees.

NYRA is bidding to hold onto the franchise, competing with Empire and a third venture, Excelsior Associates.

It will be up to Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer and the state Legislature -- including, presumably, Bruno -- to determine who will get the lucrative racing franchise.

In October, after Abbruzzese became the target of the lobbying commission for alleged lobbying law breaches related to flights provided to Bruno, he was replaced on the Empire Racing Associates board.

Empire ousted him altogether on Dec. 26 -- after news of the FBI probe surfaced -- saying it will buy out his 6 percent stake.

"I guess he was bringing some negative publicity," said Richard Bomze, president of the New York State Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

Empire Racing includes several large gaming and track operators, including Magna Entertainment, which until late 2005 had employed Kenneth Bruno, the majority leader's son, as a lobbyist.

Timothy Smith, president of the former Friends of New York Racing, said he attended the New York City event where Bruno flew with Abbruzzese's help on Dec. 1, 2005.

It was an annual meeting in Manhattan of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which Smith once led before forming Friends to lobby for racing law improvements.

The Friends group also included Abbruzzese as a director.

At the New York City gathering, Bruno addressed the crowd, joking that he had to leave early to take the train back to Albany, Smith said.

Abbruzzese is a major donor to Republican campaigns, as is Barr.

Barr and Abbruzzese also own and race horses, Abbruzzese through an enterprise known as Weather Watch Farm.

Bruno raises and breeds race horses as well.

Sherrie Abbruzzese, 48, Abbruzzese's wife, who also owns a race horse, paid $90,000 in 2005 for a waterfront lot from First Grafton Corp., a secluded Rensselaer County development in which Sen. Bruno was a 25 percent investor.

The Abbruzzese land is near the property where Kenneth Bruno, a former Rensselaer County district attorney, has built his own home.

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

BIG ASSETS

* Real estate: 8-bedroom mansion on 5.27 acres in Loudonville "conservatively" appraised at $1.5 million in 2003.

* Vehicles: 2006 Land Rover; two 2006 Mercedeses; two 2006 Cadillac Escalades; 2002 Mercedes; 2007 Mercedes; and 2005 BMW

* Aircraft: Falcon-20 and Gulfstream-3 jets

* Watercraft: 27-foot Sea Ray

* Horses: thoroughbreds licensed to race in New York

BIG LIABILITIES

* Federal grand jury subpoenas and FBI investigation of his activities

* $5 million judgment obtained by two former business associates of Jared Abbruzzese

* Threat of foreclosure on Loudonville home if 24-month payment plan not completed by Jan. 15

* Lobbying commission investigation of his airplane rides for Sen. Joseph Bruno

* $3 million settlement won by shareholders of CAI Wireless, Abbruzzese's former company

CONFIDENTIAL OFFERING

Evident Technologies, which received a subpoena from the FBI in its investigation of links between Jared Abbruzzese and Sen. Joseph Bruno, was created in 2000 to develop products that could be used in the nanotechology industry.

It is considering becoming a publicly traded company.

Evident sought to raise $10 million from private investors in 2005.

Tejas Securities Group, an affiliate of Tejas Inc., was hired for the stock offering.

Abbruzzese is a director of Tejas Inc., which purchased one of his companies in 2005.

He was also co-chairman of Evident.

Bruno bought stock in Tejas in 2004, according to a public disclosure, and sent $500,000 in state funds to Evident from using his discretionary member item pot between 2002 and 2004.

MAJOR STOCKHOLDER

Confidential offering document shows Abbruzzese Group -- Jared Abbruzzese's companies, his wife Sherrie and affiliates -- owns nearly 15 percent of Evident as of Dec. 1, 2005.

FBI is investigating Abbruzzese's use of and payments to Capital Business Consultants, Bruno's private consulting firm based at his Brunswick home.

RELATED TRANSACTIONS

Abbruzzese received stock warrants from Evident -- certificates giving him the right to pay $10,000 to purchase 85,423 shares of Evident at $4.80 each -- for helping Evident obtain funding from a grant program run by Empire State Development Corp.

One series of Evident shares were priced at $14.38 and another at $10.41, suggesting Abbruzzese could profit by hundreds of thousands of dollars if he exercised his power to buy stock.

A final portion of the warrants became valid if Evident leased space at Russell Sage College.

Bruno helped arrange public funds to support a business incubator program at Russell Sage College used by Evident.

Sources: New York State Depart@@hyphen@@mant of Motor Vehicles, New York Racing & Wagering Board, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Delaware State Court of Chancery, Albany County State Supreme Court, Albany County Clerk's Office, New York Legislative Ethics Commission, landings.com, Evident Technologies Preliminary Confidential Offering Memorandum.

[Livyjr]

"Improving the Business Climate"

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

New York State Business Council, Bolton's Landing, NY

September 21, 2006

[As Prepared for Delivery]

Thank you, Peter, for that kind introduction, and thank you all for inviting me here today.

I want to recognize Dan Walsh and thank him for his leadership over the past 18 years as President and CEO of the Business Council.

Dan, you have been an outstanding advocate for New York's private-sector business community, and you will be missed.

I also want to welcome Ken Adams as the Business Council's new President.

Ken, I look forward to working with you to make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And in too many other respects, our government bureaucracy hinders rather than assists businesses.

Well, I have a message for you: If I am elected Governor, on Day One of next year we are going to begin to implement an aggressive strategy to reduce the cost of doing business in New York and make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And we will streamline regulations to make them friendly to business.

As Governor, I will ensure that the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform places renewed focus on breaking the regulatory logjam in the State's permitting process for new development.

It's time that our State government becomes part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Thank you.

http://www.spitzerpaterson.com/main.cfm?ac...&s=spitzer3

"Business leaders look to Spitzer to revive upstate New York"

By MARK JOHNSON, Associated Press
Last updated: 11:22 a.m., Sunday, December 31, 2006

ALBANY -- Business leaders in upstate New York are looking to Gov. Eliot Spitzer for revival of a region hobbled by high taxes and business costs as it struggles to keep people and attract jobs.

Thousands of people left New York state for other parts of the country last year, making it one of only four states that failed to grow since 2005, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last month.

New York's estimated population on July 1 was 19.3 million, down 9,538 from a year earlier.

That's due in part to the distressed upstate economy.

"Both people and businesses are voting with their feet in upstate New York," said Thom Kraus, chief executive of the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce.

In New York, the average workers compensation case costs $19,737, nearly double the U.S. average of $10,562, a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of New York State found.

The study showed the state's average electricity cost of 11.86 cents per kilowatt-hour is 58 percent higher than the national average 7.49 cents.

Spitzer defeated Republican John Faso in November after a campaign that emphasized trimming both taxes and spending, revitalizing the upstate economy and adding billions of dollars to education.

There is optimism Spitzer can succeed.

Spitzer "spoke consistently and forcefully about these issues and has continued to talk about the need for better economic policy since the election," said Matthew Maguire, spokesman for the Business Council of New York State.

"How effectively the special interests opposing change dig in is impossible to predict, but you can see an energy and momentum behind the possibility of change that is new and refreshing."

Change is much needed, many business owners say.

New Yorkers pay an average of $44 per $1,000 of income in property taxes.

That compares to the average U.S. cost of $33.

State residents pay an average of $42 in income taxes per $1,000 earned, almost double the U.S. average of $22, according to the Public Policy Institute study.

Census figures released earlier this year show that the population of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region fell from 1.19 million in 1990 to 1.15 million in 2005.

The area ranked as the nation's 37th most populous in 1990.

It's now ranked 47th.

In the Syracuse area, the population fell from 660,000 in 1990 to 652,000 in 2005, dropping from 64th to 79th place.

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas area grew from 741,000 in 1990 to 1.71 million in 2005.

Phoenix grew from 2.24 million to 3.87 million.

The New York State Economic Development Council released a study in November that found New York is competitive with other states in a number of areas, including incentives offered to businesses, its environment for encouraging innovation, its skilled work force and a strong education system.

But most business owners were pessimistic about the state's ability to attract investment because of high taxes, electricity costs and workers compensation costs, said Brian McMahon, the group's executive director.

The manufacturing sector has been particularly hard hit by those factors in recent years.

In 2000, the industry accounted for more than 745,000 jobs statewide.

That number fell to about 579,000 in 2005.

"If we can make steady, sustained progress on costs, when we have these other assets and advantages, that should form a solid foundation for growth," McMahon said.

Many upstate business leaders say that policies set in Albany may be fine for New York City, not for places like Rochester and Binghamton.

Under legislation to clean up former industrial areas, "you can force a company in Manhattan to spend an enormous amount of money to clean up a site, but then they end up with an incredibly valuable piece of property," Kraus said.

"If you do that in Niagara Falls, at the end of the day, the land is not worth as much."

A collection of upstate New York business groups has formed Unshackle Upstate, an initiative to press Albany for reforms it says will enhance the state's business climate.

The group is pushing to reform the state's $44.5 billion Medicaid program -- by far the country's largest and criticized as rife with fraud -- and the workers compensation system, rated as the second most costly per case in the nation after California.

Unshackle Upstate and others also want to alter or repeal other statutes they say hurt business.

Those include the Wicks Law, which requires multiple contracts on most local construction projects, the Taylor Law, which can give public employee unions advantages in contract negotiations, and the so-called scaffold law, which makes building owners and contractors liable for work site injuries even if workers were at fault.

[Livyjr]

"Daunting days ahead for Spitzer - Incoming governor faces some major challenges in translating campaign talking points into reality"

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

First published: Sunday, December 31, 2006

ALBANY -- It's time for Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer to walk the walk.

Starting Monday, Spitzer must show how he and legislative leaders will get a balanced, on-time budget.

He must prove that his government will be open and transparent, even as the closed-door, three-men-in-a-room paradigm seems impossible to break.

He must demonstrate leadership in reforming lobbying, campaign financing and politics-as-usual.

He will need to change a culture in which lawmakers are accustomed to stalling, horse-trading and bringing home money for their districts, all under the nearly nonstop pressure of facing re-election every two years.

As the state's 54th governor, Spitzer must show 19 million New Yorkers how things, as he continues to say, will change on "Day One."

"The proof will be in the pudding when you get behind the rhetoric, when the policies have to be implemented" said John Faso, the Republican Spitzer beat in capturing 69 percent of the vote in November.

So far, Faso said, Spitzer seems to be making the right moves, coming up with "top-notch" appointments and smart advisers, while identifying key initiatives.

During this transition period, Spitzer has continued to talk like the "Sheriff of Wall Street," the name he acquired for tackling business corruption during his eight years as attorney general.

But, come Monday, he'll have to act, too.

For instance, he says he won't go along with the typical pork barrel spending of the Legislature, but he hasn't said what he'll do differently other than to require that discretionary grants, or member items, be identified in the budget.

That would require lawmakers to reveal the specific items months before they've done so in the past.

Spitzer hasn't said anything about greater agency oversight of the controversial spending.

Such funds, lawmakers say, have been used by leaders to enforce loyalty and discipline.

Trying to remove that power could put Spitzer immediately at odds with Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

On the thorny -- and financially crucial -- issue of American Indian casinos, Spitzer has to deal particularly with the Oneidas' Turning Stone casino in Verona, which has been operating for nearly two years in alleged violation of state and federal gaming laws.

So far, he has said only that it's a problem he will have to sort out.

And there are other questions.

He has sharply criticized Gov. George Pataki's scores of secretive public authorities.

Now that they will be part of Spitzer's realm, which will he eliminate?

Will he curb their spending and borrowing and release expenditures such as the employee salaries?

On the financial front, how does Spitzer's promise to cut $6 billion from property taxes get done?

How does he honor his commitment to trim Medicaid spending and direct hospital closures?

How does he confront the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, which calls for $1.9 billion in extra aid to New York City schools -- especially since Assembly Democrats think that figure is too low?

Other districts, too, will be clamoring for a share of any increase in aid.

Faso said Spitzer's first budget plan, due Feb. 1, and the negotiations leading up to the April 1 start of the fiscal year, will be telling.

Democratic insiders don't expect Spitzer to have smooth sailing, partly because of the institutional tensions between the Legislature and the executive branch, partly because Silver is unwilling to move as swiftly as results-oriented Bruno and Spitzer.

A problem facing Spitzer is the enormous amount of extra cash expected to arrive in Albany because of a good year on Wall Street, Faso said.

Spitzer said he would cut waste and rethink programs so he could afford the property tax relief and education spending he proposes.

But downsizing the budget is easier when there's no money to point to, fiscal analysts say.

"He's going to have to stick to what he said about controlling state spending -- easier to do in hard times," said Elizabeth Lynam, of the Citizens Budget Commission.

Faso said Spitzer will likely have to fend off spending sprees demanded by special interest groups and the Legislature if he's serious about crafting a budget that copes with multibillion-dollar budget gaps in upcoming years.

Spitzer has also promised not to raise taxes.

Douglas Muzzio, a public affairs professor at the City University of New York's Baruch College, said Spitzer will send a clear signal if he fights with the Legislature over revenue projected to be available for budgeting.

Such fights have featured Bruno criticizing the state budget director for being too conservative and Silver suggesting the governor's numbers are politically biased.

"I would expect him initially to try to work with both Silver and Bruno, but at a point soon into his term, they're going to come to loggerheads," Muzzio said.

"He will have to demonstrate, particularly to Silver, that he can work with legislators -- as a challenge to the speaker's authority."

Such strategies can backfire for a governor, as lawmakers are inclined to gather around their leader.

But Spitzer has promised to use his bully pulpit to take his quest for change to the public.

How soon will he do that?

On the political front, Spitzer says he'll fill 1,000 jobs during his first year, but he pledges to be blind to political party registrations.

The Democratic Party, which hasn't had a governor in New York for most of Silver's time as speaker, may be counting on some spoils.

Party friction, which started six months ago at the Buffalo convention when Silver was denied his bid to introduce Spitzer, may ignite a fire before long, some political observers say.

Spitzer has talked about lobbying and ethics reform, and the indictments of several lawmakers in recent years could help him press the cause.

Attention focused on those issues could open his administration to criticism if Spitzer doesn't act promptly.

"He doesn't want to get mired in it," said Dan Walsh, recently retired leader of the Business Council of New York State.

Spitzer, Walsh said, will also have to steer lawmakers away from changing the Berger Commission plan for hospital closings and mergers or risk losing $1.5 billion in federal funds earmarked for the state if it abides by the commission's recommendations.

Tinkering with the plan could also "whittle" the savings it projects from restructuring the health care system, Walsh said.

Several observers, including Walsh, say Spitzer will likely send messages early.

Walsh expects Spitzer to unveil a worker's compensation reform plan in his first State of the State address on Jan. 3, combining restricting permanent partial disability payments with a modest increase in benefits.

The new governor will also send a message by promptly negotiating new contracts with public employee unions, some observers predict.

All contracts expire at the end of March.

The issues will be rapid-fire, those interviewed say, and the public will be comparing Spitzer's campaign promises to his actions.

But with his mandate, he's "riding high and riding strong," said one Republican lobbyist, and shouldn't have to bend to any group.

"I think Eliot Spitzer will prove to do what he says he's going to do," said Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who unsuccessfully challenged Spitzer in a primary for governor.

"He's got a big challenge ahead of him, but I think he's up to the task."

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

end quotes

DESPITE ALL OF THE NEWSPAPER HYPE ......

AND ALL OF THE PUFFERY .....

ELIOT SPITZER ......

REPRESENTS EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH ALBANY, NEW YORK ......

SINCE HE HAS BEEN ITS LAWYER ....

AND PROTECTOR .....

While serving as Attorney General of the State of New York .....

In REPUBLICAN George Pataki's EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT ....

And so .....

Expecting Eliot Spitzer to clean up Albany ......

Is like expecting an adder to safeguard you in your sleep ......

And so ....

[Snuffysmith]

The shame of punishment as pornography

By Sam Leith
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 01/01/2007

You can't beat a good hanging, eh? Ever since the first indications that Saddam Hussein would be hanged "sooner rather than later", the civilised world has taken on the aspect of an over-excited dog making love to a cushion. He's had his possessions sent on! He's been handed over to the Iraqis! Any second! Any second now! Come on... let's see that noose...

What we've been seeing over the past couple of days is the pornographisation of a judicial process. There's no question that Saddam's crimes were terrible. There's no question that, however jury-rigged the legal process by which he was held to account for them, it is proper that he was held to account. But our fever of excitement over that hempen rope is no more than the baying of a mob.

Why, for example, do we seem surprised that the Prime Minister didn't issue some statesmanlike pontification on the subject? What was he supposed to say? Would we have admired him for emerging from a Bee Gee's swimming pool to declare to camera, trunks still dripping: "Tee hee! Snappy-snap-snap went his horrid old neck. Goody gumdrops. I do hope it hurt"? Shades, there, of David Blunkett's uncharming announcement that he was planning to toast Harold Shipman's death with a bottle of bubbly.
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Mr Blair was right to stay silent. The announcement of the death sentence – one greeted, tellingly, with far less excitement than its physical enactment – was the political moment. The rest is theatre.

And, gosh, how we enjoyed it. The formula was unvarying. "All dignity lost," one or other news channel would intone, "the blood-soaked tyrant of Iraq died yesterday, reduced to the status of a common criminal." Aren't the assumptions underpinning that simply bizarre? It seems to suggest that a "common criminal" is a worse thing to be than a mass-murdering despot – that where he really got his comeuppance was in being taken down a peg or two and dying a chav.

And is it true that he lost all dignity? If we were honest, we'd admit that Saddam conducted himself on the scaffold with all the dignity he could be expected to muster. He refused a mask. He stood up straight. He went quietly and prayerfully to his death. Meanwhile, as a colleague points out, what was happening around him – even though the balaclavas were unavoidable – more closely resembled a gang of provos at work in an Armagh back-room than the sober unrolling of a sovereign state's judicial process. Let's not even begin to think about how these images will play with Saddam's Sunni supporters.

Yet editorials and news reports have jeered at Saddam's "stupidity", gloated over his "loss of dignity", and picked over with glee the details of how his guards kept him awake to tease and torture him. We've been hot to download videos and picture galleries of the dictator's last moments; amused to learn that he was denied a last cigarette.

Once we decided Saddam was a "monster" – a monster whom, let's not forget, the West for a long time supported in full knowledge of the nature of his regime – we gave ourselves permission to indulge the basest, most voyeuristic atavism. Cloaked in this murderous sanctimony, we join as one with the crowds who gather weekly in Teheran to enjoy watching criminals swing from a crane.

Nietzsche's warning that "he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster" has seldom seemed more apt. The rhetoric of a war launched in the name of civilisation has degenerated into the cackling of a tricoteuse at the foot of the guillotine. We should be bloody ashamed.

As DH Lawrence argued, "pornography does dirt on sex". The same applies here. The pornography of death does dirt on life. And the pornography of punishment does dirt on justice.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for..._post&f=228

[jeffmoskin]

You can't beat a good hanging, eh? Ever since the first indications that Saddam Hussein would be hanged "sooner rather than later", the civilised world has taken on the aspect of an over-excited dog making love to a cushion. He's had his possessions sent on! He's been handed over to the Iraqis! Any second! Any second now! Come on... let's see that noose...

Also called TEXAS JUSTICE

[Snuffysmith]

A Lynching...by Riverbend (Iraqi blogger)
It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

"A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account."

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?act=post&do=reply_post&f=228&t=68667


- posted by river @ 10:12 PM
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...228&t=68667

[Snuffysmith]

From the Baltimore Sun
An all-consuming 'war on terror'
By Ian S. Lustick

December 31, 2006

PHILADELPHIA -- The official mantra is that we fight in Iraq because it is the "central front in the War on Terror." The exact opposite is the case.

We are trapped in fighting an unwinnable - even nonsensical - "war on terror" because its invention was required in order to fight in Iraq. After years of slaughter in Iraq, the neoconservative fantasy of a series of cheap, fast, neo-imperial victories is dead. But the war on terror lives on, stronger than ever.

How did the war on terror take on a life of its own and trap the entire political class, and most Americans, into public beliefs about the need to fight a global war on terror as our first priority, even when there's little or no evidence of an enemy present in the United States? What accounts for $650 billion worth of expenditures, along with baseless cycles of "sleeper cell" hysteria and McCarthyist policies of surveillance and "pre-emptive prosecution" not seen in this country since the early 1950s?

Consider how Congress responded to the war on terror. In summer 2003, a list of 160 potential targets for terrorists was drawn up, triggering intense efforts by members of Congress and their constituents to find funding-generating targets in their districts. The result? Widening definitions of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the number of assets deemed worthy of protection: up to 1,849 in late 2003; 28,364 in 2004; 77,069 in 2005; and an estimated 300,000 in 2006 (including the Sears Tower in Chicago but also the Indiana Apple and Pork Festival).

Across the country, virtually every lobby and interest group recast its traditional objectives and funding proposals as more important than ever given the imperatives of the war on terror. The National Rifle Association declared that it means that more Americans should own and carry firearms to defend the country and themselves against terrorists. On the other hand, according to the gun control lobby, fighting the war on terror means passing strict gun-control laws to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

Schools of veterinary medicine called for quadrupling their funding. Who else would train veterinarians to defend the country against terrorists using hoof and mouth disease to decimate our cattle herds? Pediatricians declared that more funding was required to train pediatricians as first responders to terrorist attacks, because treating children as victims is not the same as treating adults. Pharmacists advocated the creation of pharmaceutical SWAT teams to respond quickly with appropriate drugs to the victims of terrorist attacks.

Aside from swarms of consulting firms and huge corporate investments in counter-terrorism activities, universities across the country created graduate programs in homeland security, institutes on terrorism and counter-terrorism, all raising huge catcher's mitts into the air for the billions of dollars of grants and contracts just blowing in the wind.

The same imperative - translate your agenda into war on terror requirements or be starved of funds - and its spiraling consequences surged across the government, affecting virtually all agencies. Bureaucrats unable to describe their activities in "war on terror" terms were virtually disqualified from budget increases and probably doomed to cuts. With billions of dollars a year in state and local funding, the Department of Homeland Security devised a list of 15 National Planning Scenarios to help guide its allocations. To qualify for Homeland Security funding, state and local governments had to describe how they would use allocated funds to meet one of those chosen scenarios.

What was the process that produced this list? It was, in part, deeply political, driven by competition among agencies, states and localities that knew funding opportunities would depend on exactly which scenarios were included or excluded (anthrax, a chemical attack on a sports stadium, and hoof and mouth disease were included; attacks on liquid natural gas tankers and West Nile virus were excluded).

Most instructive of all was the unwillingness of the government to define the enemy posing the terrorist threat. Al-Qaida is a tiny threat compared to the size of the enemy required by the thousands of interest groups crowding toward the counter-terrorism trough. For this reason, the enemy in these scenarios is referred to by the Department of Homeland Security as "the universal adversary," present everywhere and capable of taking on any shape. Instead of responding to real threats posed by real enemies, we find ourselves preparing for an endless list of possible bad things that could happen, as if the devil himself were out to get us.

The dimensions of the war on terror are still expanding rapidly in the face of a small - if not entirely absent - domestic terrorist threat. But politicians, forced into playing Chicken Little to avoid seeming to suffer from a "pre-9/11 mentality," can offer no break on spending or war-on-terror rhetoric. Neither have universities and the press. While universities rush to the counter-terror trough, it's as good as it gets for the press. "Hurricane Osama," the real storm of the century, is always just about to hit - and never goes away. Every false alarm of another 9/11 attack on the way sends the news media into paroxysms of sensationally foreboding, emergency-mode coverage, helping enliven the credibility of hundreds of TV episodes, films and potboiler novels with the same plot: maniacal, brilliant Middle Eastern terrorists poised to strike but for the heroics of a few bold souls operating within a generally incompetent government.

Americans have learned that the Iraq war was a disastrous mistake. But they have yet to be able even to imagine the truth about the war on terror more generally. As long as politicians and pundits justify alternatives to the present course in Iraq by invoking the need to fight the war on terror more effectively, the United States will remain, as Osama bin Laden observed in his November 2004 videotape, trapped in a maelstrom of waste, worry, and witch hunt that "bleeds America to the point of bankruptcy."

Ian S. Lustick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is author of "Trapped in the War on Terror." His e-mail is ilustick@sas.upenn.edu.

Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for..._post&f=228

[Livyjr]

"The shame of punishment as pornography"

By Sam Leith
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 01/01/2007

There's no question that Saddam's crimes were terrible.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for..._post&f=228

Actually .....

As Americans .....

WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER ......

THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN .....

WHO IS NOT AN AMERICAN .....

DID ANYTHING AT ALL .....

AND HE CERTAINLY DID NOT VIOLATE ANY AMERICAN LAWS .....

And so .....

Let us please have that record stand correct .....

And let us also not forget .....

With respect to Mr. NOW-ALLEGEDLY-DECEASED Saddam Hussein ....

THAT HE WAS AN AMERICAN MONSTER ...

If in fact he was one at all .....

AND AS AMERICANS ON THIS FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR 2007 ....

Let us go right to this website ....

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

AND LET US ALL TAKE A MOMENT ....

AND GAZE UPON POOR SADDAM .....

SHOWN HERE AT A MORE GLORIOUS TIME OF HIS LIFE ......

WHEN HE WAS BEING SUCKED UP TO .....

BY DONALD RUMSFELD .....

THEN ENVOY OF THE REPUBLICAN AMERICAN HERO, RONALD RAYGUN ....

And as we do ......

Let us all ponder the fate .....

OF AMERICAN PUPPETS ALL OVER THE WORLD ......

NOW THAT AMERICA HAS HUNG ONE OF ITS "FAVORITE SONS" ......

THE VERY MAN .....

INTO WHOSE FACE .....

DONALD RUMSFELD CAN BE SEEN GAZING IN TO .....

WITH SUCH LOVE AND ADMIRATION .....

AS AMERICA HAD FOR SADDAM BACK THEN .....

In this website right above here ....

And so ......

[Livyjr]

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up.

(Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

HEY!

RIVERBEND .....

Over there in Iraq ....

Yeah, you .....

I just wanted to tell you .....

And all the people of the CANDID WORLD, actually .....

That this CNN crowd ....

THESE AIR-HEADED, BUBBLE-GUM CHEWERS .....

ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL OF US OVER HERE IN AMERICA ....

BUT QUITE OBVIOUSLY .....

THEY ARE REPRESENTATIVE .....

OF SOMETHING .....

And when you stop and consider .....

That it takes some BIG BUCKS to support such a PROPAGANDA ORGAN as is CNN .....

Well ....

Hey ....

Follow the MONEY .....

CNN is a REPRESENTATIVE ....

Of somebody's money .....

AND THAT IS WHERE IT ALL STARTS ....

THE ENTERTAINMENT SPECTACLE SURROUNDING SADDAM'S DEATH .....

THE PROMOTION OF DEATH AND VIOLENCE AND HATRED .....

BECAUSE THERE IS REAL BIG BUCKS IN ALL OF THAT ....

AND CNN IS A MEANS TO PROMOTING THAT END ....

THE MAKING OF MONEY OFF OF BLOODSHED .....

AS A BUSINESS INVESTMENT .....

And so .....

I just wanted to make it clear that not every American is a whacked-out LUNATIC .....

Not every American viewed this spectacle with pleasure .....

NOT EVERY AMERICAN EVEN BELIEVES A SINGLE WORD THAT CNN HAS TO SAY .....

THE AIR-HEADED BUBBLE-GUM CHEWERS WHO CAN'T QUITE GET IT RIGHT .....

Even though there were six of them making the pitiful attempt .....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

From the Baltimore Sun

"An all-consuming 'war on terror'"

By Ian S. Lustick

December 31, 2006

PHILADELPHIA --

Consider how Congress responded to the war on terror.

In summer 2003, a list of 160 potential targets for terrorists was drawn up, triggering intense efforts by members of Congress and their constituents to find funding-generating targets in their districts.

The result?

Widening definitions of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the number of assets deemed worthy of protection: up to 1,849 in late 2003; 28,364 in 2004; 77,069 in 2005; and an estimated 300,000 in 2006 (including the Sears Tower in Chicago but also the Indiana Apple and Pork Festival).

Well .....

Hey .....

Don't forget Perigo Mountain in the Town of Poestenkill, New York, now .........

We need a lot of funding for protecting that ......

Well, hey .....

I mean .....

It is a fair-sized mountain .....

And people up this way are real sure that if TAY-RISTS were going to strike America again ......

Well ...

They think there is a real good chance this time .....

That they will try to take down Perigo Mountain up here ......

Smash an airplane into it .....

And knock it down .....

Or maybe a nu-q-lar weppin will be put next to it in a stolen garbage truck or something .....

And they'll blow it up .....

Just to demoralize people up here .....

To make us want to surrender ....

And wear Bhurkas and such ......

And well ....

Some of the boys think there should be a twenty-four hour a day guard placed on it .....

Perigo Mountain, that is .....

And well .....

Hey ...

The guards shouldn't have to do it for free, after all ......

They should get something out of it ......

This is America, after all .....

And you need a buck in your pocket, just to survive ......

And so .....

They say that Chuck Schumer is a big proponent of protecting Perigo Mountain ......

SENDING SOME FEDERAL MONEY UP TO POESTENKILL TO PAY FOR PROTECTING PERIGO MOUNTAIN FROM THE TAY-RISTS ....

And of course, Hillary Clinton is too .....

And I think she might even want to put some anti-aircraft artillery batteries up there .....

Just in case the TAY-RISTS come in as paratroopers .....

Like George Pataki believes they will ......

Make an airborne landing on top of Perigo Mountain .....

Because it is the high ground around here .....

AND WHO HOLDS THE HIGH GROUND .....

AUTOMATICALLY WINS .....

And so .....

DON'T GO CUTTING OUR FUNDING FOR PERIGO MOUNTAIN, IS WHAT THE PEOPLE IN POESTENKILL ARE SAYING TO SENATORS CHUCK AND HILLARY ......

AND PRESIDENT GEORGE, AS WELL .....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

From the Baltimore Sun

"An all-consuming 'war on terror'"

By Ian S. Lustick

December 31, 2006

Americans have learned that the Iraq war was a disastrous mistake.

But they have yet to be able even to imagine the truth about the war on terror more generally.

As long as politicians and pundits justify alternatives to the present course in Iraq by invoking the need to fight the war on terror more effectively, the United States will remain, as Osama bin Laden observed in his November 2004 videotape, trapped in a maelstrom of waste, worry, and witch hunt that "bleeds America to the point of bankruptcy."

Osama bin Laden .....

If he even exists .....

Is doing to America ....

What Raygun the REPUBLICAN is said to have done to the former "EVIL EMPIRE" - the Soviet Union .....

DRIVE UP DEFENSE COSTS ......

JUST KEEP DRIVING THEM UP .....

Until the cost cannot be met ....

And so .....

In the east .....

The Orient .....

There is a saying .....

That to make something small .....

You must first make it big .....

But that is nuanced, I realize .....

And so .....

Would not be understood by the likes of George W. Bush .....

Who appears to be blessed with the intellect of a DONKEY .....

Which is quite a statement about Harvard and Yale when you think about it ......

That those two schools combined together to produce such a world-class *** as is George W. Bush ....

And in the east .....

There is another concept .....

Related to swordsmen .....

Warriors .....

Which excludes poor George .....

One more time .....

Because OUR AMERICAN George was a "PARTY-BOY" ......

And that is the "DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS" ......

Which is considered to be an art .....

And a science ......

And it is a PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOL ....

As it is intended to be .....

MAKE THE FIGHT LAST A REAL LONG TIME .....

Instead of getting it over quickly .....

As America must do .....

So far away from home .....

With such long logistical lines to have to defend .....

WITH DICK CHENEY'S HALLIBURTON SUCKING MONEY OUT OF OUR AMERICA'S TREASURY FOR EACH MILE TRAVELED .....

THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS .....

Not eight hundred .....

Not nine hundred ....

But the full thousand .....

Small cuts .....

Never fatal ....

HO ....

Nicked you there ...

Right in the eye-brow ....

Now you can't see ......

HO .....

Pinked you .....

Right in the ear lobe .....

Now you are distracted ....

Got to get you reeling though .....

SO .....

HO .....

Cut you on the fingers .....

Cut you on the forearm ....

Open up your wrist ....

Just a little, though .....

Make your arms and hands weak .....

Drop your guard some ....

HO ....

A small cut on the now-exposed chin .....

Open that up some ....

Just a lot of small cuts .....

One after the other ....

WITH THE INTENT OF DECEIVING THE OPPONENT .....

AS TO THE TRUE LEVEL OF YOUR SKILL ....

EVEN AS YOU ARE BLEEDING HIM TO DEATH .....

With nothing but a continuing series of very small cuts and nicks ...

HO ...

Got you on the nose that time, didn't I ......

Bet that stings .....

And so ....

[Snuffysmith]

Bravo Liv! You are really on a roll today

This start of the New Year 2007

And speaking of 2007,


Bush’s Worst Year Yet Is Now Here
by Martin Schram
Providence Journal


There are two schools of thought about the tradition that highly trained professional pundits practice at this time of year by unveiling their New Year’s predictions.

Some say these predictions are not worth the paper they are written on. But I say they are. Punditry predictions are worth the price of one slim piece of newsprint — if not in its pristine form, then certainly after the accrued accumulation after the newsprint is recycled as lining in birdcages.

It was more than a few years ago that this pundit got out of the prediction business — not because of an inability to produce anything resembling accuracy, but because it had become increasingly impossible to accurately predict anything optimistic or uplifting. It had gotten to the point that the predictions were sounding even darker than the news.

It was not always that depressing. There was a time when some positive predictions produced the added virtue of becoming true. More than two decades ago, the late Ed Turner, then CNN’s executive vice president, began a cable news magazine article by citing something from CNN’s December 1988 year-end show, back when I was just starting to pedal my news-cycle punditry without training wheels. "Marty Schram, alone, became a historical footnote on CNN’s air," he wrote, and quoted my prediction: "First of all, the Berlin Wall will come down in 1989. Write it down. It’ll happen."

That began an era in which I mixed prognostication with recreation by surfing waves of optimism. In a December 1990 column, I predicted: "The Fall of One Nobel Laureate: Mikhail Gorbachev, no longer able to keep together his economically crumbling and nationalistically clamoring union, will resign. A KGB/military hard-liner will rule. . . . Moscow’s new, repressive communist regime will collapse in just a few months. The Soviet Union will break into a confederation of nation-states, sharing a military but little else. The world will worry about who controls the nuclear weapons."

Well, since you know that also came to pass, I’d better fess up by noting it was my second prediction in that column. Number One? The fall of Fidel Castro, as the first byproduct of “the decline and fall of global communism.” Somehow, in the fog of news, I apparently thought that was either more important or more likely than the collapse of Gorbachev and Soviet communism. Go figure. (Statistically, my successful prediction batting average was about equal to that of a Chicago Cubs benchwarmer.)

By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated as America’s 43rd president, it had become apparent that nothing uplifting could be predicted with confidence. Rather than start a new year off by gushing gloom and doom, I gave requisite prognostication a rest.

Nobody wants to be The Grinch Who Stole New Year’s. But the slim possibility that some good may be accomplished by telling an unpleasant truth means that 2007 may be a year to get back into the New Year’s prediction business.

Unconscionable blunders of willful arrogance and willful ignorance on the part of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld produced a failed policy in Iraq that is more perilous than any of the failed policies of any of the presidencies in our nation’s history. These policies have left more than 130,000 brave U.S. troops mired in Iraq, with no sure way to accomplish their mission nor extricate themselves without leaving behind a failed state that is even worse.

Months ago, it seemed to me that we needed to rush more troops to Iraq to help safeguard U.S. soldiers and marines who are now caught in the uncivil war that is being waged between the Sunni insurgents and the Shi’a militias and their complicit police thugs.

But Bush rejected more troops when it made sense. Now the Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned that a 15,000-30,000 troop surge for a few months will do more harm than good. Their reasoning is compelling: More troops may mean more targets for insurgents and militia and may spark a new recruiting boost for al Qaeda’s terrorist ranks in the region and beyond.

Prediction: Bush, now a desperate Undecider, will compel a military fig-leaf acquiescence and order more troops for a few-months surge. Sadly, it will only prove his Joint Chiefs of Staff were right. Only by starting to withdraw troops can the United States jolt Iraq’s government so that its Shi’a-installed leaders will demand the disbanding of Shi’a militia — and that is the only way Iraq can even have a chance of controlling its own destiny.

Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service (martin.schram@gmail.com).

© 2006, Published by The Providence Journal Co.

[Livyjr]

"Court: Lift shroud on pork - Times Union wins ruling ordering state leaders to reveal secret spending"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, October 25, 2006

A state judge ordered Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on Tuesday to turn over to the Times Union the names of lawmakers who sponsored member items -- known as pork barrel grants and projects.

The discretionary cash comes out of a $200 million pool of public funds within the state budget.

The newspaper took the state Legislature's two most powerful leaders to court earlier this year, accusing them of violating the state Freedom of Information Law by illegally concealing the names of lawmakers who distribute millions in taxpayer money on pet projects.

State Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Sackett of Sullivan County ruled Bruno and Silver "failed to articulate a rational basis for redacting the names" in documents turned over to the newspaper.

"It's a great day for New Yorkers," said Eve Burton, general counsel for the Hearst Corp., which owns the Times Union.

"The decision brings us back to the fundamental principles of democracy," said Burton, who argued the case two months ago.

"Voters are entitled to know how their representatives are choosing to use taxpayer dollars."

Darren Dopp, spokesman for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said as the Democratic candidate for governor, Spitzer has made his personal views on the need for transparency on member items clear.

But Dopp could not comment on the lawsuit due to "attorney-client privilege."

"We had a role to fulfill, and we continue to have a role to fulfill," he said.

Asked how Spitzer would advise the state on the question of appealing, Dopp declined to comment, saying the attorney general will "consult with the client as to what the next step will be."

"Spitzer prepares to take over after 12 years of Republican rule"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
Last updated: 11:02 a.m., Saturday, December 30, 2006

ALBANY -- Calling himself "the new CEO of the state," Eliot Spitzer says he has a "sense of excitement and anticipation" as he prepares to take over as New York's 54th governor on New Year's Day.

And while PRESIDENT OF ALL THERE IS FOR LIFE George W. Bush has OUR America reeling and staggering and bellowing like the Cyclops with the stake in its eye over there in IRAQINAM ......

New York State ......

Is about to receive its IMPERIAL GOVERNOR .....

The self-professed .....

And deluded .....

Or confused .....

In the minds of the people of New York State NORTH of New York City .....

CEO of New York ....

When he is actually only the governor .....

None other than the MYTH-MADE-MAN .....

Eliot "Big EL da Man" spitzer ......

"Spitzer takes oath of office - 'Day One has begun,' governor declares"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, January 1, 2007

ALBANY -- Promising to "do my best" to reform Albany and bring new energy to state government, Democrat Eliot Spitzer was sworn in at midnight Sunday as New York's 54th governor in a private ceremony by the judge with whom he began his legal career two decades ago.

Flanked by his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, his three daughters -- Elyssa, 17; Sarabeth, 14; and Jenna, 12 -- Spitzer took the oath of office in a loud, clear voice with his hand on same Bible his father, Bernard, and his mother, Anne, had given him when he was first sworn in as state attorney general in 1998.

As soon as he finished saying: "So help me God," the crowd gathered in the drawing room, which is already bedecked with Spitzer family photos and portraits of past governors, erupted into cheers.

"Go get 'em, Eliot!" someone called out.

"As I was just informed, Day One has begun," Spitzer said.

"It is a joy to be here."

"It is exciting."

"I will do my best as the public has asked me to do."

Spitzer noted the portraits, which were moved to the mansion from the state archives, of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Al Smith and Hugh Carey -- who was on hand to witness the event.

Spitzer called the men "really remarkable individuals on whose shoulders we all stand."

He also noted a handwritten copy hanging in the mansion of the U.S. Constitution from 1787, which he said was from the Poughkeepsie Convention at which the state decided to support ratification.

The document is on loan from the state archives.

Spitzer joked that Article I, which discussed the powers of the Legislature, is posted.

"By next week, I can promise you Article 2 will be posted," Spitzer joked, noting that Article 2 deals with the powers of the executive.

U.S. District Court Justice Robert W. Sweet administered the oath of office to his former clerk, Spitzer, who won the Nov. 7 gubernatorial election against Republican John Faso with an historic 69 percent of the vote.

"You and Silda together have achieved this unique and extraordinary approval from the voters," Sweet said.

"It promises progress for all New Yorkers and in order to empower you to perform this task would you please raise your right hand, place your hand on the Bible and repeat after me."

Spitzer, 47, clerked for Sweet after he graduated from Harvard in 1984.

He worked in private legal practice and in the Manhattan district attorney's office from 1986-1992.

Spitzer was elected state attorney general in 1998 and re-elected to that office in 2002.

Spitzer's handpicked lieutenant governor, former Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, of Harlem, was sworn in Sunday night in a private ceremony.

Paterson is New York's first black lieutenant governor and also the first visually impaired man to hold the office; he is legally blind.

The Democrat who is taking over for Spitzer as attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, son of former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, was sworn in at midnight Sunday by Chief Judge Judith Kaye in his new offices on the second floor of the state Capitol.

The state comptroller's office will remain temporarily empty.

Its former occupant, Democrat Alan Hevesi, who won re-election this November, recently resigned and pleaded guilty to a felony in connection with his use of public employees as aides to his ailing wife.

Spitzer's official swearing-in, which was witnessed by close friends, family members and staffers, will be followed by a public ceremony Monday in West Capitol Park.

During his inauguration speech, Spitzer planned to make it clear he believes major changes are in order following 12 years of Republican rule, telling New Yorkers the reforms he will seek are "substantial in size and historic in scope."

Outgoing GOP Gov. George Pataki declined to seek a fourth term this fall and is now considering a run for president in 2008.

"Over the last decade, we have seen what can happen when our government stands still in the face of great challenge and inevitable change," Spitzer said in an excerpt of his address, provided by his staff.

"We've seen it in the burdensome property taxes and the health care we can't afford; in the jobs that have disappeared from our upstate cities and the schools that keep failing our children; in a government that works for those who hold office -- not those who put them there."

Spitzer, a populist who has been discussed by some as a potential future presidential candidate, planned to call for "a new brand of politics."

"What is needed now more than ever is a politics that binds us together, a politics that looks to the future, a politics that asks not what is in it for me, but always what is in it for us?" Spitzer planned to say.

The public swearing-in was originally scheduled for noon, but has been delayed an hour due to expected inclement weather.

As a result, all of the afternoon inaugural festivities were pushed back -- including a free concert at the Times Union Center.

Spitzer is widely credited with redefining the attorney general's office, largely through his investigations of the financial and insurance industries, which earned him national recognition and the nickname "the Sheriff of Wall Street."

During his gubernatorial bid, Spitzer's slogan became: Day One, Everything Changes.

He promised to bring a new brand of ethics and optimism to Albany while also promising to make the "hard choices" necessary to bring the state's fiscal house in order.

Spitzer is expected to begin his first day in office with a 6 a.m. run in Washington Park, making good on a campaign pledge he made during a rally at the Lake House.

An early riser who begins most of his days with a run in Manhattan's Central Park, Spitzer invited members of the public to accompany him on Monday's two-mile jaunt in Albany.

Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Bush’s Worst Year Yet Is Now Here"

by Martin Schram

Providence Journal

Unconscionable blunders of willful arrogance and willful ignorance on the part of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld produced a failed policy in Iraq that is more perilous than any of the failed policies of any of the presidencies in our nation’s history.

These policies have left more than 130,000 brave U.S. troops mired in Iraq, with no sure way to accomplish their mission nor extricate themselves without leaving behind a failed state that is even worse.

"Bush team weakening security"

By H.D.S. GREENWAY

First published: Monday, January 1, 2007

When George W. Bush first announced his Cabinet in 2001, many old Washington hands thought it was as good a national security team as had ever been assembled.

And so it seemed.

These were experienced people from previous administrations when Republicans had reason to claim they were more effective guardians of the nation's security than the Democrats.

I had hoped the son would follow the same path as his father, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft.

How hollow that hope seems now.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whom Scowcroft says he can hardly recognize anymore, has turned out not only to be the most powerful vice president in history, but also one of the most destructive.

His near Vladimir Putin-like obsession with beefing up the power of the executive branch at the expense of Congress and the judiciary has undermined the checks and balances upon which the republic was founded.

His "1 percent doctrine," as author Ron Suskind called it, the principle that if a country presents even the slightest suspicion of a threat it has to be whacked, has put this country in great peril.

Cheney's manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq war is now legend.

His secretive style, his seeming advocacy of torture, his baleful influence in the affairs of state, his interference to make sure that men and women with expert knowledge of the Middle East and Iraq be removed from the decision-making process, the fear mongering, the constant refrain that all criticism, or even questioning, is unpatriotic have all weakened this country both morally and physically.

Cheney's wings may have been clipped a bit as allies and soulmates leave government, but he remains the keystone in the crumbling edifice of pre-emptive war and don't-talk-to-evil.

Condoleezza Rice was a failure as national security adviser, and has yet to show much as secretary of state.

She seems to have learned little from the catastrophic failure of Iraq, as evidenced by her proclaiming the failed American-Israel attack on Lebanon as the "'birth pangs of a new Middle East," clinging to the Bush dictum that military force is the way to democracy.

She is more successful at secretary of state, however, than the hapless Colin Powell, who was undercut and outmaneuvered by Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney from the very beginning.

He understood that the Iraq war was going to be a mistake, but he played the good soldier to the detriment of his country, allowing himself to be used in the flow of erroneous information to build up support for war.

He lent his great prestige to an enterprise he didn't believe in.

Then there is Rumsfeld of Abu Ghraib, whose decision to under-man the Iraq invasion cost the United States any hope of winning the war.

A classic bully, Rumsfeld used intimidation to dominate his Pentagon and choke the free flow of information and advice from his most senior officers.

Obsessed with undercutting colleagues, he refused even to return Rice's phone calls.

"Enigmatic, obstructionist, devious," as Scowcroft put it, Rumsfeld's war strategies have hurt his country more than any other secretary of defense in living memory.

And then there is the President himself, "inexperienced and rigidly self-assured ... 'Bush' managed to fashion with the help of a powerful vice president a strikingly disfigured process of governing," as author Mark Danner writes.

Stubbornly incurious and utterly convinced in the rightness of his instincts over sober consideration and evidence, what seemed at first a virtue of steadfastness after 9/11 is now revealed as a terrible failure of leadership, and a near total lack of accountability.

Those who should have been helping to make policy found they were there only to affirm it.

It was an abdication of responsibility to have delegated so much power to Cheney, and to have not intervened when his Cabinet members were at one another's throats.

This has been an administration that "if the sober consideration of history and facts stood in the way of bold action then it would be history and the facts that would be discarded, " according to Danner.

And so to Iraq -- a war the Pesident finally admits we are not winning, but has yet to admit we are losing.

His "state of denial" of the Iraq disaster, as Bob Woodward put it, gives little hope that the United States can soon disengage.

For six years the Bush administration's national security team has been a dysfunctional family soap opera.

H.D.S. Greenway writes for The Boston Globe.

[Livyjr]

Hey, kids .....

It's "SCOOTER" .....

You all remember "SCOOTER" ......

"Hey, SCOOTER, dude, what's the haps, eh?"

CAT FIGHT LOOMS LARGE ON THE HORIZON!

"Journalists drawn into leak trial - Testimony key for both sides in perjury case against ex-White House aide 'Scooter' Libby"

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press

First published: Tuesday, January 2, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Some journalists who made careers out of questioning government officials and bearing witness to history may soon find themselves answering questions from prosecutors as key witnesses in the CIA leak case.

Ten or more reporters from some of the most prominent news organizations -- including The New York Times, Time magazine and NBC News -- could be called to testify in the perjury and obstruction case of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

It's rare for reporters to become witnesses.

But the Libby case is even more unusual because journalists will be dueling witnesses -- some called by the defense team, some by prosecutors.

"It will be unprecedented and, as far as I'm concerned, horrifying," Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said of the case, for which jury selection begins in two weeks.

Prosecutors want to show that Libby lied to investigators about his conversations with journalists regarding outed CIA officer Valerie Plame, and they are expected to rely on former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert to make their case.

Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, has said he had no reason to lie and simply didn't remember those conversations.

His attorneys have said they will call as many as seven unidentified journalists to testify about their conversations with Libby to bolster his case.

The Libby case has rankled news agencies for nearly three years, since Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald began subpoenaing journalists to testify before a grand jury.

Fitzgerald said it was the only way he could investigate whether any laws were broken.

After a lengthy court fight that included an 85-day jail term for Miller, Fitzgerald won cooperation from journalists.

When Libby was indicted, it was clear reporters would be key witnesses.

Plame's identity was first revealed by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

She believes she was outed as retribution for her husband's criticism of the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

[Livyjr]

And speaking of 2007 ....

"Bush’s Worst Year Yet Is Now Here"

by Martin Schram, Providence Journal

And they keep getting worse .....

The further we go ....

Into what has to be the worst presidency in OUR nation's history ....

BUT .....

We brought it on ourselves ....

By putting a clown into the highest office in this land .....

Without a safety mechanism to protect us from his ravages afterward .....

And so ....

In life ....

We get what we deserve .....

And apparently .....

America ....

OUR America .....

Somehow deserved a double dose .....

Of George W. Bush .....

And so .....

SUCK IT UP, AMERICA .....

"Slower growth forecast in 2007 - Analysts say cooling housing market will slow economy's expansion to lowest in 5 years"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press

First published: Tuesday, January 2, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The slowdown that hit the U.S. economy will persist into 2007 as the once red-hot housing market continues to suffer through a serious correction, analysts say.

As the new year begins, many private analysts are forecasting the economy will perform at the slowest pace in five years, a full percentage-point lower than growth in 2006.

One such analyst is Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, a forecasting firm.

"The recession in the housing market does not seem to have had much of an impact on the consumer," he said.

"The bad news on housing has been offset by good news on wages, jobs and the stock market."

While the slowdown will cause the unemployment rate to rise, economists remain hopeful that the economy will remain on track to achieve the Federal Reserve's hoped-for "soft landing."

That is described as a scenario in which growth slows enough to dampen inflation but not trigger a recession.

But there are plenty of risks that could make the landing more bumpy -- another surge in oil prices or a more severe collapse in housing, which could rattle consumer confidence. '

At the moment, though, economists like Behravesh and David Wyss of Standard & Poor's of New York feel there is only a 1-in-4 chance the slowdown will turn into an actual recession.

The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, expanded in 2006 by 3.3 percent, many economists believe, just slightly above the 3.2 percent GDP growth of 2005.

For 2007, Global Insight is forecasting a GDP growth rate of just 2.3 percent.

That would be the slowest pace since the economy grew by just 1.6 percent in 2002.

[Livyjr]

And continuing along in here ....

"Dems to inherit agenda dominated by war"

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Tue Jan 2, 12:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Now the majority party, Democrats will inherit an agenda dominated by the war in Iraq when the new Congress convenes Thursday, increasing their exposure to what has mostly been a politically damaging issue for Republicans.

In the weeks ahead, the new Democratic Congress will be confronted with President Bush's new plan for Iraq and a White House request that lawmakers authorize an estimated additional $100 billion to pay for the war.

Democrats also may be asked to support a plan lifting restrictions on reserve deployments to ease the strain on active-duty troops.

While Democrats may try to deflect as much attention as they can toward Bush — citing the president's ownership of the war and congressional limitations on foreign policy — they no doubt will find themselves playing a starring role in a debate that cost Republicans votes in the midterm elections last fall.

"They'll have to show they can govern and govern in a way that will help the executive branch resolve this," said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

But resolving Iraq won't be easy, and Democrats run the risk of going too far in criticizing the president.

Recent polls show Americans remain frustrated with Bush's handling of the war, but don't think Democrats have offered much of an alternative.

"They will be in the majority, and they will be blamed if they try to block the president from implementing an exit strategy," Thurber said.

The president is thought to be considering a plan to increase the number of forces in Iraq.

But the specifics of how many troops will be added to the existing 140,000 force and for how long are not known.

Bush said last week he planned to engage lawmakers before making his announcement later this month.

Congressional leaders planned to attend a White House reception expected at midweek.

Foreshadowing the debate to come, Democrats swiftly rallied against the notion of sending more troops, saying Iraqis must take a stronger role in security matters.

"The Iraqis need to understand that the responsibility for the future of that country is theirs," Rep.-elect Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., said Saturday in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

"I have not heard from our military, clamoring for additional soldiers," Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., said upon returning from a trip to Iraq with Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff.

Marshall and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who also visited Iraq during the Christmas holiday, reported that some progress was being made in Anbar province where Iraqi security forces and local leaders were collaborating to push out al-Qaida fighters.

But, Skelton said, violence in Baghdad has accelerated and additional U.S. troops might not help.

"I will look carefully and with an open mind at any proposal the president may make, but my view remains that removing some number of American troops —however small — would send a more powerful message to our Iraqi partners than raising force levels," Skelton said.

The debate will play out in hearing rooms this month.

Skelton and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who will head the Senate Armed Services Committee, have invited Defense Secretary Robert Gates to testify.

Levin said he would like that hearing to take place Jan. 11.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised to testify before his committee after Bush makes his announcement.

Democrats say they also want to hear from independent military experts and members of the Iraq Study Group.

The debate also will play out in Congress's review of the president's spending requests for the war.

The Pentagon says it needs an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until the end of the current fiscal year in September.

That request is expected to arrive on Capitol Hill in February.

Democrats are eyeing ways to attach conditions to war funds that won't hurt troops and may even attract Republican support.

John Podesta, former President Clinton's chief of staff and now president of the liberal Center for American Progress, recommends lawmakers demand in that spending bill that the president seek lawmakers' approval if troop levels exceed 150,000 in Iraq.

Democrats in 2007 may be confronted with another politically sensitive Iraq issue regarding whether to support increased involuntary call-ups of Guard and Reserve troops.

In December, Schoomaker warned that the Army will break without adding more active-duty soldiers to the ranks and changing current mobilization policies backed by Pentagon civilians.

The issue of allowing lengthy involuntary deployments is a tricky one for lawmakers who want to reduce the pressure on active-duty forces but also hear from reservists that they too are facing serious hardships.

Biden and other Democrats agree that Iraq will dominate much of their work next year, but contend they must not be blamed for a war run ultimately by the president.

"This is President Bush's war," Biden said.

But political experts say the public might not agree.

"When you're in the minority, you don't have to do much more than criticize the status quo that wasn't working," said Norman Ornstein, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute.

"When you're in the majority, people will look to you for leadership."

end quotes

As for me .....

I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the Democrats .....

Being able to do a single thing about IRAQ ......

THEY HAD NO INTEGRITY BACK IN THE VIET NAM WAR TIMES .....

And I can't see where they have any now .....

BUT THEN ......

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH WHATSOEVER IN THE REPUBLICANS, EITHER .....

AND ESPECIALLY GEORGE W. BUSH .....

WHO SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE FOR GROSS NEGLIGENCE AND SHEER INCOMPETENCE .....

BUT THE DEMOCRATS ARE TOO GUTLESS AND CRAVEN TO STAND UP FOR OUR AMERICA .....

AND DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE .....

WHICH IS TO FIND ANOTHER AND BETTER COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FOR OUR AMERICAN MILITARY .....

AFTER IMPEACHING THIS PRESENT INCOMPETENT ONE ....

AND PUTTING HIM ON TRIAL FOR ALLEGED WAR CRIMES ....

JUST AS WAS DONE TO SADDAM HUSSEIN ......

FOR KILLING LESS PEOPLE IN IRAQ THAN GEORGE W. BUSH APPARENTLY HAS ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

"Dems to inherit agenda dominated by war"

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Tue Jan 2, 12:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Now the majority party, Democrats will inherit an agenda dominated by the war in Iraq when the new Congress convenes Thursday, increasing their exposure to what has mostly been a politically damaging issue for Republicans.

In the weeks ahead, the new Democratic Congress will be confronted with President Bush's new plan for Iraq and a White House request that lawmakers authorize an estimated additional $100 billion to pay for the war.

Democrats also may be asked to support a plan lifting restrictions on reserve deployments to ease the strain on active-duty troops.

While Democrats may try to deflect as much attention as they can toward Bush — citing the president's ownership of the war and congressional limitations on foreign policy — they no doubt will find themselves playing a starring role in a debate that cost Republicans votes in the midterm elections last fall.

Marshall and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who also visited Iraq during the Christmas holiday, reported that some progress was being made in Anbar province where Iraqi security forces and local leaders were collaborating to push out al-Qaida fighters.

But, Skelton said, violence in Baghdad has accelerated and additional U.S. troops might not help.

"I will look carefully and with an open mind at any proposal the president may make, but my view remains that removing some number of American troops —however small — would send a more powerful message to our Iraqi partners than raising force levels," Skelton said.

From pp. 35,36, FIASCO - The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks .....

"THAT WAS A DECLARATION OF WAR ......"

Rep. Ike Skelton, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee was alarmed as he listened to President Bush point to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as threatening adversaries in his 2002 State of the Union address.

"States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world," Bush warned.

"We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side."

"I WILL NOT WAIT ON EVENTS WHILE DANGERS GATHER."

"I WILL NOT STAND BY AS PERIL DRAWS CLOSER AND CLOSER."

"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NOT PERMIT THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS REGIMES TO THREATEN US WITH THE WORLD'S MOST DESTRUCTIVE WEAPONS."

When the speech ended that January night, Skelton walked back across the Hill to his congressional office and glumly told his staff ......

"THAT WAS A DECLARATION OF WAR."

Skelton was a classic conservative Democrat from the heart of the heart of the country, representing a swath of twenty-five rural Missouri counties running from the edge of the Ozark Mountains north to the soybean fields along Interstate 70.

His dreams of attending West Point died when he was stricken with polio as a teenager, but he never lost his interest in the military, and especially in military education.

HE IS SO DEEPLY READ IN MILITARY AFFAIRS THAT HE ONCE RELEASED A NATIONAL SECURITY BOOKLIST, A COMPILATION OF FIFTY VOLUMES HE CONSIDERED KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE ARMED FORCES.

IT IS A THOROUGH OFFERING, HEAVY ON AMERICAN AND BRITISH CAMPAIGNS, BUT RANGING FROM BIOGRAPHIES OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND HANNIBAL TO GRANT'S MEMOIRS AND STRATEGIC THINKER ELIOT COHEN'S SUPREME COMMAND.

The more Skelton heard the Bush administration talk, the more he worried.

The last of the Truman Democrats sensed he was about to be run over by the first of the twenty-first-century Republicans.

For George W. Bush was a bit of a revolutionary, having much more in common with the freewheeling 1960s than did Isaac Newton Skelton, a restrained son of the middle border.

In the following months, Skelton would begin asking questions - INCLUDING, WHY DID THERE APPEAR TO BE NO PLANS FOR POSTWAR IRAQ? - AND GOT FEW ANSWERS.

FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS HIS UNHAPPY ROLE WOULD BE THAT OF A CONGRESSIONAL CASANDRA, HIS FORESIGHT ACCURATE BUT DISREGARDED.