June 2008

Rose

Originally uploaded by intoxination

Still having fun with my new lens.

I ended up taking a few very needed days off, but now I am back. Life had been getting too crazy, and this primary season did nothing to help that. After the spectacle the media made of itself last week with the "Obama, Hillary meeting", I just got turned off from the news. I haven't even seen Hillary's concession speech yet. It's pretty bad, because I am and have long been an Obama supporter, but the way the media is treating everything is absolutely disgusting.

I need to say also that the Obamanicas and Clintonites in the blogosphere have played right into the hands of the media on this. Every claim of sexism in the media that Hillary made, and that many laughed off. Well it was proven last week. We no longer have political discourse in this nation, we got tabloid politics.

Getting the "Republican Congressional Medal of Distinction" a week after you agree to rehab in lieu of conviction on drug (cocaine and marijuana) charges. Damn those Republicans are a smart bunch!!!

And we finally get Phase 2 of the Iraqi pre-war intelligence report. This is the phase Republicans held up in 2004, because "it would effect the outcome of the presidential election". Would it? Hell yes it would. Here are some of the key findings:

* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.