About time justice gets served here in the Buckeye State:
A prominent GOP fundraiser at the center of an Ohio political scandal changed his plea to guilty Wednesday on federal charges that he illegally funneled donations to President Bush's re-election campaign.
How many illegal activities have to occur and result in convictions before we can say Bush stole the 2004 election also?
The probe into the Haditha killings has found they were unprovoked:
A preliminary military inquiry found evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops' account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Forensic evidence from corpses showed that victims had bullet wounds, despite the initial statements by Marines that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that also claimed the life of a soldier, a defense official said.
Of course Bush is promising action on this:
President George W. Bush said on Wednesday there would be punishment if an investigation turns up evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Marines in the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha.
"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said. "I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken there will be punishment."
I guess that action would be criminal punishment for the actual shooters and medals of freedom for the people who covered it up. And for those who don't believe there was a cover-up check out the following.
Exhibit A:
The three-week probe was the first official investigation into the killings.
This is great news (via
Raw Story):
As Taking The Long Way debuts at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 best-selling
albums chart this week, with first week's sales of 525,829, the Dixie Chicks
have become the first female group in chart history to have three albums
debut at #1, breaking the record the Chicks established in 2002 when the
group's last studio album, Home, debuted at #1 and made them the first
female group ever to have two albums debut at #1.With the #1 debut of Taking The Long Way, the Dixie Chicks have also
become the first female group in chart history to have three studio albums
occupy the #1 slot on the Top 200.Taking The Long Way has achieved one of the year's Top 5 first week's
sales tallies and has the best first week's sales for any female act on the
Top 200 in 2006.
This will send a message to the music industry that America wants songs
critical of the war and of Bush. This is not the 60's anymore. Music no longer
shapes culture, rather music conforms to the current views of society. Now that
Bush's approval is in the dump music executives are willing to take a chance
(actually a safe bet) and produce these kinds of albums.
Don't forget that the only way we can show our true support is to actually
purchase these albums. I have the list of anti-war albums on the right of the
page with links directly to their page on Amazon. We all need to spend a few
dollars and help light the fire of the anti-war music movement.
Yesterday Tony Snow said Bush did not learn of the Haditha massacre by Marines until Time published an article in their March 27, 2006 issue. For something this big to be kept from the commander in chief (if they are being truthful), lends even more credibility to Murtha's statements that this has been a cover up:
CONGRESSMAN JOHN MURTHA (D-PA): "Well, what I worry about Wolf is [that] this happened six months ago and you heard nothing about it. As a matter of fact, the original story was that an [improvised explosive device] killed these 15 people. It became very confusing to the public. Time Magazine came out with an article and they still tried to cover it up.
"Now, there were payments made to victims which aren't made unless we kill them one way or the other. And secondly, they knew about it the day afterwards...
"And the longer it goes the worse it is for us, because it looks like it's our policy to do something like this...
"This helps [al Qaeda] recruit terrorists."
You can also view the video of Murtha's interview at Raw Story.
So is this the kind of media exaggeration that Bush is always talking about then? Perhaps he should have someone in his staff start surfing the internet because there were stories of the massacre online before the Time article appeared. Either Bush (through Tony Snow) is lying about when he learned about it or he is truly out of touch with the realities of Iraq.
On the one year anniversary of Dick Cheney saying the insurgency was in their "last throes", we find this out:
The Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
In a report assessing the situation in Iraq, required quarterly by Congress, the Pentagon painted a mixed picture on a day when the U.S. military command in Baghdad said 1,500 more combat troops have arrived in the country. The extra troops are part of an intensified effort to wrest control of the provincial capital of Ramadi from insurgents.
The report to Congress offered a relatively dim picture of economic progress, with few gains in improving basic services like electricity, and it provided no promises of U.S. troop reductions anytime soon.
On the other hand, it said the Iraqi army is gaining strength and taking lead responsibility for security in more areas.
So I guess "last throes" to Cheney means they were half way through their run of terror. Of course if the Pentagon is publicly saying they would last until next year, that means we will still be hearing about these attacks five years from now.
AJ has more on the latest rash of violence.
We heard this past winter about troop reductions. The U.K. even pulled out 1500 troops. Now we are sending more back in:
The U.S. military said Monday it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency.
The insurgents have assassinated 11 tribal leaders in the Ramadi area since the end of last year, when Sunni sheiks in the city began open cooperation with the U.S. military. That alliance was heralded by U.S. commanders as a sign of a major split between Sunni insurgents and the larger Sunni community of western Iraq.
So is this progress? Is this the great accomplishments we have heard the Bush regime brag about over the past several months? Here is a headline from today:
The sad part is these headlines occur on a daily basis now. They are getting more and more common and yet Bush lies to the American people and says things are going so good. We are at the point that the only way we can have some hope for restoring peace in the Middle East and restoring our position in the world is to impeach Bush and turn him over to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes. After that we need to put a leader in who will try to gain international support to go in and fix this fuck up Bush has made.
What is really bad is that we probably need another 100,000-200,000 troops in Iraq but Bush won't do it because it will show he has screwed up and in doing so killed thousands of people.
This story appeared yesterday in the U.K.'s Independent and is very disturbing:
Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.
Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.
The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.
"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."
If you read this and removed all the identifying information of it being the United States then you would think it was coming from some place like Cuba, China or Iran. Unfortunately it is coming from the United States and is the purest form of government propaganda.
They are so out to get Harry Reid that they will find anything and try to turn it into a scandal. The AP is really sinking to a new low on this one:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, who has criticized Republican ethics, accepted free ringside tickets to three professional boxing matches from Nevada officials who were trying to influence his federal legislation regulating the sport.
Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission.
Reid defended the gifts, saying they would never influence his position on the boxing bill and that he was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. "Anyone from Nevada would say I'm glad he is there taking care of the state's No. 1 businesses," he told The Associated Press.
So if a Senator accepting tickets to his states largest sporting event is against the rules then how do lobbyists even operate?
Here is the big irony of this. My congressman and the Majority Leader, John Boehner, accepted gifts from Indian Tribes directly related to the Abramoff scandal. For him though this is fine because as he said "he was working for his constituency". Now the interesting part is that the Indian tribe he accepted gifts from make up 0% of his constituency. So he was accepting gifts from someone out of his district and using those to help affect legislation and that is OK but for Reid to accept gifts from someone in his district that is not OK?
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day today. There will be limited posting.
And happy one year anniversary to Intoxination. Wow the time sure flies.
I am glad to see how much the Middle East is loving us. We "liberated" Afghanistan from the Taliban and this is how we are thanked:
A deadly traffic accident Monday involving U.S. troops sparked the worst rioting in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban regime, with hundreds of protesters looting shops and shouting "Death to America!" At least eight people were killed and 107 injured, an official said.
Hundreds of Afghan army troops and NATO peacekeepers in tanks were deployed around the city, as chanting protesters marched on the presidential palace and rioters smashed police guard boxes, set fire to police cars and ransacked buildings, including the compound of aid group CARE International. Computers were set on fire and smoke billowed from the buildings, according to an Associated Press reporter.
The reporter saw several demonstrators pull a man who appeared to be a Westerner from a civilian vehicle and beat him. The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators.
A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition expressed regret for any deaths and injuries, and said there would be an investigation. Afghan President Hamid appealed for calm and said the government "will do its utmost to protect the lives of the people and their property."
We are not wanted in the Middle East and our government can not get that through their heads. The longer we stay in Iraq and Afghanistan the more they will hate us and the stronger that will make people like Osama.
