The Truth Shall Set You Free
or not

"Michael Brown, head of the federal disaster agency at the time of Hurricane Katrina,charging that the White House knew New Orleans' protective levees had broken far earlier than it they acknowledged.
Testifying to a Senate committee yesterday, Mr Brown said that by the evening of Monday 29 August, his Fema agency had reported to superiors that catastrophic floodwaters were pouring into the city, that fires were breaking out and large numbers of people were stranded.
Mr Brown placed the bulk of the blame for the administration's botched response on a "dysfunctional" Department of Homeland Security. Its obsession with terrorism, he said, had reduced natural disaster relief to the status of "stepchild" of the DHS, set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks."

Even as it was defending itself on that front, the White House came under unprecedented attack from a top former CIA official for its misuse of intelligence to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Official intelligence was not relied upon in making even the most significant national security decisions," Mr Pillar writes in the new issue of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs. "Intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made ... and the intelligence community's own work was politicized."

Further evidence that the administration had manipulated intelligence came in documents showing that Lewis Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, told prosecutors he had been "authorised by superiors" to leak classified intelligence to reporters in the early summer of 2003, as it became increasingly evident that contrary to White House claims, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

In a separate embarrassment, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has claimed that he met Mr Bush "almost a dozen times", and had even been invited in 2003 to the President's ranch in Texas for a thank-you meeting for campaign contributors.
In fact Mr Abramoff has emails he received from President Bush where the President clearly was familiar enough with Abramoff to make jokes and comments regarding his (Abramoff's) family members.[source]

Hypocrisy, Republican is thy name.
Will this be enough to free some of the diehard Bush people from their delusions? Only time will tell.
posted by wanda at 10:14 PM

Wiretapping Pays Off
the super-secret State of the Union Address

You REALLY have to watch this video. ;)



Maybe that warrentless wiretapping thing isn't so bad after all. How else could we have gotten this super-secret, for 'their' eyes and ears only video?
posted by wanda at 4:21 PM

Murtha

...Still Needing to be Point Man

(guest post by - Scott)

The second-highest ranking Republican in New York State government, Joseph Bruno, called on President Bush to pull the troops out of Iraq, warning that the American military is incapable of putting an end to the violence wracking the country. He said the bloodshed in Iraq was over religion and predicted it would continue for decades. "Bruno is running away from the president," said Henry Sheinkopf, a veteran political consultant in New York City. "He's got to save his majority."

Just a couple days before his flip regarding what to do about Iraq- on CBS's "60 Minutes" Jack Murtha predicted the "vast majority" of U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by year's end if not sooner.

Regarding Murtha’s more recent appearance on "60 Minutes", a conservative newspaper, with deep connections to wealthy conservative money, the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, in an editorial recently wrote/concluded (in an interesting 180-degree change of heart regarding Murtha in November 05… at the time Murtha changed the issue debate, on a natonal level, from "were we wrong to go into Iraq?" to "what do we do now?"), : “Jack Murtha predicted the "vast majority" of U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by year's end if not sooner. We hope he's right. The time has come.”

I say Murtha has influence. I also say he represents the kind of leadership point guy the left needs to rally around in a big way right now.

posted by wanda at 9:31 AM

Excited For Halliburton

Contract Award New Detention Centers in the US

(guest post by -Scott)

Halliburton, (Dick Cheney’s Halliburton with net profits of over $2 billion last year) , landed a still another big new government contract a couple weeks ago. These guys are hot!

I’m pretty excited about this one. The company’s press release says the contract has: “…a maximum total value of $385 million…”

While the contract was open to competitive bidding, the New York Times story reported, Halliburton’s subsidiary company, “KBR” was, again, the only bidder. That aspect, (there being no other bidders), seems to be a consistent fact of Halliburton’s awarded contracts lately – I wonder why? Have its business competition surrendered? (Somebody check this - please?)

Halliburton's subsidiary "KBR" would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. They would be located on unused military properties and could contain up to 5,000 people.

This represents contract infrastructure for constructing large detention centers on US soil - for essentially whatever purpose detention centers might be deemed necessary. Just some handy spare detention centers - nothing to get excited about.

Anyway, I am beside myself in celebration of another one-bidder government contract awarded Halliburton - especially a package like this. ~ Amazing frankly.

posted by wanda at 9:38 AM

The Path of [Self] Destruction

Cuba plans large anti-U.S. rally

Cartoon Protests turn deadly


Iran thumbs nose at 'resoloutions'

Deficit to hit $423 Billion

THIS folks is the REAL State of the Union.
The United States, and Americans are hated throughout the world in ways and at levels never seen before. It's moving closer and closer to our home shores everyday.
There's a war of religions being mounted and the religious right in this country is fast becoming the American Taliban.
Despite all the booming economy we're not just maintaining a record deficit, it's continuing to grow at record levels. While unemployment appears to be down that's actually misleading. The rise in employment levels is directly tied to the ongoing rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. These aren't permanent jobs.
Three quaters of our National Deficit is owned to China. China, people.
To put this in simple language. How long do you think your bank would let you operate with an overdrawn account?
Do I think George W. Bush is personally responsible for every thing that is wrong in this country? Of course not. But you know what? The buck has to stop somewhere. And in my opinion it stops at the Oval office. An office he occupies. That cocky, cowboy attitude that he brought into the White House and into Congress has infected the consciousness of not just this country but the world at large. Talk about your Dumbfuck Mountains Brokeback Mountains!

What is it going to take to wake up the sleeping, the apathetic, the silent majority?
How many have grown complacent with the status quo? How many people now believe that we're so screwed it's not worth the effort to put up a fight? How many believe their vote no longer counts?
How do we reach these sit-back-and-do-nothings?
For starters, we realize, and accept the fact that we face gargantuan odds. That we're not the biggest or best equipped 'army'. Then we resolve to go to war with the army we have and we fight. We get out there and we wage battle against those who have led us down this path of destruction.


Ladies and gentlemen, we have our work cut out for us. The hijackers have overtaken our country. They have weapons we don't. They have the controls, we don't. The odds are against us. But we can't let this ship go down without a fight.
So, we dig in, dig down, use whatever means is available to us, and we fight!
Let's Roll!!
posted by wanda at 3:08 PM