Let's review the facts:
Bush asked our National Guard, Army Reserves, all 4 branches of the military and the full throttle of the Pentagon to fight the enemy and possibly give their ultimate sacrifice, their life. What did he ask the rest of Americans to sacrifice?
Bush diverted our troops from Afghanistan, where its government the Taliban aided and abide Al-Queda.
Bush forced and succeeded in cutting taxes putting our economy at peril during a time of war.
Bush continued and expanded a policy of borrow and spend.
Bush continued importing middle east oil without demanding they would ensure oil revenues were not being used to support rogue nations or extremist organizations.
Bush continues to fund the Iraqi government even though the Iraqi's have billions of dollars from their oil revenues.
Bush continued extending the age limit before a retiree is eligible for Social Security benefits.
Bush continued to issue no bid contracts favoring his ties to non-military companies working in the war zone.
Bush continued to reduce taxes even though he asked all first-responders to increase their efforts. Instead budgets for first-responders have decreased.
Bush continued his borrow and spend policy by giving Americans a pittance or so called "stimulus funds" of $300 to help jump start the economy.
Bush continued deregulations for corporate America knowing it could lead to bad business practices and little if any oversight from Congress.
Bush did not ask for a declaration of war.
Bush did not mandate recycling in order to reduce imports.
Bush did not increase military pay for the National Guard and Reserves, leaving millions of military families to file for Welfare.
Bush did not ask or create a system which would limit the American people to reduce their consumption of gasoline.
Bush did not create a military draft, leaving our current military weary from extended tours of duty.
Bush did not impose a harsh rationing of any product made with or containing oil.
Bush did not create or promote any type of increased revenue like war bonds allowing all Americans to financially support this war.
Bush did not ask our children to save their pennies and dimes to support children whose parents are in the war zone.
Bush did not extend unemployment benefits to millions of Americans who have been laid off.
Bush did not ask oil companies like ExxonMobil to donate from their $18 billion profits to help in the war effort.
Bush did not act when he was briefed in August 2001, of the actual threat of Al-Qaeda Saudi nationals to use airplanes to attack the US.
Bush did not capture and force an unconditional surrender of the Afghani government, the Taliban.
Bush did not capture Osama Bin Laden.
It also seems to me that the Bush Administration has been manipulating the stock market to keep the economy 'booming' over the past 7 years. If many of you remember, the stock market was having trouble and in order to afford the war in Iraq, money needed to flow.
This is not a factual story, but it is only my perception from body language and use of language (what is said, and what is 'not' said.) These guys are mentioning jobs and saving taxpayers, homeowners, etc.
The primary issue seems to be that the Financial Institutions are not loaning money due to the fact that they have enough bad debt that in order to ensure the life of the corporation, they are keeping their cushion close.
In order to get money flowing, why not create a new banking environment, and put the $700 Billion in that bank?
It would seem to me that this would be the most effective way to get banking going again.
Republican operatives are using an anti-Muslim film and push polling to raise fears of terrorism and smear Barack Obama
Richard Silverstein, Guardian, 9/22/08
We are now entering the closing weeks of what promises to be yet another close and contentious presidential election contest. As each side seeks to maximise its advantages and minimise its weaknesses, the Republican party has chosen the lowest of low roads, engaging in two sleazy political marketing campaigns over the past week.
First, DVDs of an anti-Muslim documentary film are being distributed to 28 million voters in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado and Wisconsin. Second, Republican telemarketers have begun push polling aimed at scaring Jewish voters in swing states from voting for Barack Obama…
The mass distribution of Obsession is an obvious Republican scare-tactic, right out of the Rovian playbook. Party operatives believe that scaring Americans into believing there's a jihadist under every bed will play to Republican strengths and Democratic weaknesses on national security. They swiftboated John Kerry in 2004. Now they're jihadising Barack Obama.
Ali Gharib, Inter Press Service, 9/19/08
WASHINGTON, Sep 19 (IPS) - Millions of voters in U.S. states crucial to this fall's presidential election received DVD copies of a controversial documentary film as advertising inserts in their morning newspapers over the past week, with more expected to be sent out over the upcoming weekend.
The 2006 film, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West", which has been accused by critics of encouraging Islamophobia, was reportedly delivered, or slated for delivery this weekend, into tens of millions of households in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri and other "swing states" that don't vote consistently for either party and usually decide elections.
Republicans and their candidate, Sen. John McCain, have made the battling the threat posed by radical Islamists a central platform of their campaign, while presenting their Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, as being weak on the issue. Obama has also fought off persistent "smear" campaigns, particularly among Jewish voters, that he is a closet Muslim. Read More »
Word count: 830
[Ahmed Rehab is strategic communications director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil liberties group. He may be contacted at arehab@cair.com]
You have to wonder about a film that could muster no better an endorsement to adorn its poster than that of CNN’s resident right-wing extremist Glenn Beck. "Obsession is without exaggeration one of the most important films of our time," says Beck. (Who would accuse Glenn Beck of exaggerating?)
The film Beck is lauding, “Obsession: Islam’s Radical War against the West,” is a 2005 work of anti-Muslim propaganda that has recently been widely distributed via an unprecedented campaign. Read More »
Apparently according to the last bit I heard on the radio, Congress/Potus etc.. want to establish a federal entity to transfer all bad debt to. Huh? You mean forgive their evils, and allow the American people to once again feel burdened?
I was coincidentally just reading about the War of 1812. Did you know that this war was caused by impatient and greedy Navy Admirals? And the man who represented the U.S. as Ambassador in Great Britain hadn’t been relaying the messages properly. On the home front, there was a man who after having had ‘soldiers’ attack, and acting as a hero, then robbed them, and used them to keep the war going over and over again. Then suddenly, an Act of Congress to form a bank, to which was sent back to Congress with the letter below.
January 30, 1815.
To the Senate of the United States:
HAVING bestowed on the bill entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States of America" that full consideration which is due to the great importance of the subject and dictated, by the respect which I feel for the two Houses of Congress I am constrained by a deep and solemn conviction that the bill ought not to become a law to return it to the Senate, in which it originated with my objections to the same. Read More »
Required viewing by ALL people.
It deals with the historic anti-semitism in religion and the importance of the separation of church and state. It examines the Catholic Church and it's failures, as well as the rise of evangelical groups, and their influence on governments past and present.
A real 5* documentary. Sarah Palin should see it.
peace to US all,
marsha
Michael Collins: Not One Dime for Georgia
The president of the Republic of Georgia eats his tie on national television. BBC
$1.1 Billion Giveaway for the Republic of Georgia Announced:
"The United States Supports The Recovery, Stability,
And Continued Growth Of Georgia's Economy"
The White House, Sept. 3, 2008
(Wash. DC) We're not talking about the great state of Georgia, which deserves everything it has coming to it and more. We're talking about the Republic of Georgia, a nation of 4.5 million people wedged between Russia and Turkey.
On Wednesday, September 3, the White House announced a comprehensive aid package valued at $1.1 billion dollars to help the Republic of Georgia recover from the whipping it took after it attacked Russian peace keeping forces in South Ossetia, a breakaway province of Georgia near the Russian border. That region experienced a major war in 1991 and varying tensions since.
Russian personnel were in Georgia as part of a multi-national peace keeping regime created by the United Nations and endorsed by the European Union in 2006.
Read More »Some comments to "Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq" yesterday said things such as 'read up before you post!'
I was a national security consultant to the Department of Defense at a time when that meant I took my martinis "shaken not stirred." Under contract to the DoD, I co-authored a conflict prediction study forty years ago that set forth today's MidEast situation with perfect accuracy. Yesterday's commenters implied I don't understand the MidEast. In fact, I predicted it 40 years in advance, perfectly! Which made me the only Presidential candidate who actually has foreign affairs competence. My writings here are not from readings, but from hands on experience.
I met the Shah, and spent time with the CIA controllers who lived in the palace "furnishing advice" on his every act. The Shah was our puppet, owned lock, stock and barrel. British MI-6 created the Shah by kidnapping him when they killed his father for collaborating with Hitler, and MI-6 agents raised and educated the Shah. Our CIA took him over in the 1960s. Yes, he used torture. Duh! Iran is in Central Asia!
Everyone between Poland and China uses torture as casually as Columbia University undergrads deprive their opponents of the right to free speech and freedom of assembly.
Jimmy Carter ordered our CIA out of Iran and cut off all support and supplies. The Shah had the most modern Air Force in the world, all state of the art American technology because Iran was the armored firewall protecting Arabia and oil from takeover by the USSR, with whom they shared a long, and viciously battle torn border.
When Carter cut off replacement parts and withdrew the thousands of American contractors who maintained the advanced technology air force, armoured brigades, and communications systems, Iran's military was rendered immobile within weeks.
When Carter withdrew the hordes of American intelligence gatherers, the Shah lost much of his knowledge of the Russian sabateurs infiltrating Iran and who were organizing, supplying, paying salaries to, and training the so-called "popular uprising."
Every day there was military action of both Soviet organized phony internal "rebels" as well direct small scale invasions by USSR secret police groups operating in every poluation center inside Iran. As soon as Carter crippled Iran's military, death loomed large.
The Ayatollah Khomeni lived in exile in Paris financed by the USSR. Just as we had CIA sitting alongside the Shah every day, Soviet Russia had agents walking beside Khomeni all day long, every day. Iran was the biggest prize of the Cold War. Remeber, this was immediately after the Soviet/China alliance whupped us in Vietnam.
As soon as the Russian terror squads verified that Carter really had, with monumental stupidity, removed all support from the Iranian government so that the Soviet guerrillas could operate inside Iran with impunity, Soviet agents took control of the Tehran aerodrome, and chartered, using Russian bank accounts for payment, an Air France plance to fly Khomeni back into Iran while a US Air Force plane flew the Shah to safety.
Ever since then Russia and Iran have functioned as a single weapon against American interests.
Iran controls the "democratically elected" government of Iraq. Iraq's President and his top officers have large personal offices in Tehran! They shuttle back and forth getting their instructions from the Ayatollahs.
This is no different from the way the Chinese Communist Secret Service had a so called "Arkansas restauranteur" with an office and satellite dish accross the street from the White House. That "restauranteur" was never vetted for White House access by the Secret Service but had a special, one of a kind pass, that let him run in and out of the White House and barge in unannounced on Bill Clinton's meetings. He was Clinton's best friend and confident. When the "restauranteur" was supoened by Congress, he boarded a plane to Hong Kong and nobody including our CIA has been able to find him.
Intelligence agencies have enormous influence behind the scenes of all governments. How do you think French President Sarkozy got together with the Russian President on 90 minutes notice and negotiated a Treaty that let the Russinas do anything they want in Georiga and still be in compliance with the Treaty?
And Sarkozy loves Nobama.
WHY THE SUNNIS FEEL BETRAYED
We promised them a role in the Iraqi government if they fought on our side against Al Quada. Now the Iraqi government is not embracing them, but exterminating them. And the Iraqi government has its real offices in Tehran. The President of Iraq commutes to his Tehran office for instructions from his masters before making any decisions.
The Iranians hate the Sunnis as much as Pakistan hates India. Fallujah was the site of a massacre of Shiites by Sunnis many centuries ago. For Shiia, the annual pilgrimage to Fallujah ranks almost equal with the pigrimage to Mecca, for Shiia to reiiterate their hatred of Sunnis and reinforce their desire for vengeance. US public television regularly broadcasts coverage of this annual Shiia convention to pledge vengeance against the Sunnis. Nobama's withdrawal makes it possible.
Indeed, today's news reports that Shiite Extremist Muqtada al-Sadr is rousing his militia to protest our withdrawal as too slow.
We are following the Nobama timetable to leave Iraq, so the Iranian Shiites can exterminate their enemies for ten centuries, the Sunnis.
Gen. Petraeus success came from convincing the Sunnis to fight alongside us to expel Al Quaeda. We promised them a role in the government in exchange for fighting on our side. Now that we and the Sunnis have succeeded, the Iranian backed Shiite government has put a bounty on the heads of the Sunnis fighters and have sent the Shiite Iraqi Army (that we equipped and trained) out to arrest and disarm our Sunni allies. The Sunnis now view us as having betrayed them. Iran and their ally Russia correctly view us as fools for letting this disaster occur. The next world war will be Russia and Iran taking all the MidEast oil while China sits laughing in the background as the rest of the world destroys itself and us. And Nobama and McSleep are too stupid to notice this happening, let alone how to do anything about it. Iran benefitted tremendously from Jimmy Carter. Before Jimmy Carter Iran was our strongest ally. Carter turned it over to the Shiite extremists, who thanked him by seizing our Embassy and humiliating America. Now Nobama and McSleep are letting the Shiite Extremists take over Iraq, and from there, the entire MidEAst. May God help us, because both our Democratic party and the Republicans are never going to help us.
Clearly recent events in South Ossetia are the stake in the heart of this theory which is based on a fundamentally flawed view of the how capitalism operates in the world. Way back in the 1990's, the argument was naively purported, that the free markets being introduced in Russia (and more gradually in China) would lead to prosperity, peace, and liberty for those nations. Evidence to the contrary however, might suggest that theory be scrapped. Russia's economy is a disaster area, aside from the enormous treasure of oil. In China, corporatism has fit far too neatly into the communist political system, and has empowered the state repressive apparatus rather than the citizenry. Worse yet, despite the liberalization of their economic systems, these states have come to view the United States as foe. Moreover, the United States and its Western European allies have not in any sense disarmed themselves against Russia and China. Read More »
Human life is more important than vengeance. As much as we want answers in life, the last thing you want to do is risk the lives of others for self gratification. There has to be a line the separates us from them. How many times have we been involved in foreign actions that wound up causing more trouble. Israel is a major faux pas in our history. There is no excuse for displacing Palestinians in order to accommodate any people from any land, regardless of faith. There were agreements made long ago with the Palestinian people, and it seems we assisted in violating those promises.
(More Below) Read More »
Speak softly and carry a big stickwhile we are mired in Iraq.
We can not, stay in Iraq, and be capable of having any credibility as being able to stand up against the national crisises which have, and will pop up.
McCain can rase as much of a ruckus as he wants, but as long as he and his friends at BushCo want to keep us mired in Iraq, McCain's protestations are as impotent as a certain Republican pitchman for a pharmaceutical corporation.
No matter what, we can't credibly threaten to being yet another war, while we have already strained our troops to the breaking point, in the two wars which we are already embroiled in.
Especially when the newest international threat is the Russian invasion on Georgia.
With our capable troops over-extended on two fronts, our national guard troops being over-deployed, there is no way that we can even think of begining another war, let lone one with Russia.
There goes our big stick...
What people don't seem to get is that the Constitution is established in order to form a more perfect union than we had previously, and to protect all people equally without regard for any other thing. If you're a person, you are guaranteed by the Constitution your liberty. So long as you don't violate another persons exercise of the same.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Let's break it down. We the people of the United States - Establishes the source of this law is from the people of the United States. That would be all of us.
To fix the union already in place, we establish Justice by creating a Judicial Branch. We insure domestic tranquility. It's important to note... DOMESTIC. Not foreign. We don't have any power on a federal level to promote Democracy, which is just a Trojan Horse.
Provide for the common defense - equally defend each state from invasion or rebellion. Provide for the general welfare - KEY - This means beyond all other things that whether it be for the common state or person, each of these object will be treated like others of the same. Treat people equally and treat states equally.
Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Simple. Since the reason for establishing the Constitution is to secure liberty for ourselves and our future generations... it would seem that any infringement upon the American Citizens by the Federal Government would be contrary to it's establishment. This is the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND!
Everyone seems to think the Constitution empowers the federal government to do whatever is necessary to protect itself. No, on the contrary, it would protect itself last if by doing so it could protect the people. When you establish something by law for specific reasons, the actions taken by that establishment must be restricted to its purpose. Once the government has acted in such a way that it endangers the general welfare, it has dissolved itself.
So now the Federal Government has powers it was never granted because it has lead you to believe it has such powers. And as long as you believe in the boogey man, he will continue to exist.
In a previous commentary, I pointed out that Georges Bush, Senior and Junior; Dick Cheney; David Addington; along with the entire Carlyle Group; are on the same payroll as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nouri Maliki, and Muqtada al-Sadr. I omitted several other names from that list including those of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. When one examines recent history, one must consider the following: the former Soviet Union began implementing a free market economic system in 1983. A mere 25 years later, Moscow boasts of having the most billionaires in residence of any city in the world, among them Wally Putin. When this Muscovite consortium of oil billionaires challenged the management authority of British Petroleum in Russia, Putin, overnight, went from being the face of modern Russia to a throwback to the Brezhnev years. In response to Putin�s rejection of western influence over his new cash cow, the United States and Western Europe formed political and economic alliances with neighboring Georgia and launched an effort to enroll this �pro-democracy� state into NATO. Thus began the current conflict.
It is no coincidence that Bush and Putin were together at the Olympics when Putin boldly announced that the invasion had begun, reminiscent of two mafia dons meeting at a racetrack. This new battlefield is yet another turf war where oil is the prize rather than heroin. The only good news is that the greed and corruption among Russia�s �leadership,� is so thorough and pervasive that little or no money has been allocated for the modernization of the Russian war machine. That fact, coupled with the reality of the depletion of American military power resulting from the Iraq fiasco, when East meets West on the field of battle in Georgia, this war may have to be fought with knives and clubs.