tensions

Things got beyond heated last night outside the Rand Paul/Jack Conway debate in Lexington last night:

At one point, violence broke out when Lauren Valle of MoveOn.org approached Paul and tried to give him an “employee of the month award” from Republicorp. Republicorp is a fake business MoveOn created to symbolize what it says is the merger of the GOP and business interests controlling political speech.

Television video shows Valle, of Washington, D.C., being pushed to the ground and at least one foot stepping down on her head.

Here’s the video of the assault

It takes a really big man to stomp on the head of a woman, who is being held on the ground by a bunch of guys. Of course to Rand Paul, this is probably a flash back from his college days and to the GOP, it’s nothing more than the way the Bible says to treat women.

UPDATE

The following statement was released by Rand Paul:

This has a real potential to become a fire storm:

Fifteen British Marines on patrol in the Persian Gulf have been "seized" by the Iranian navy, the British Ministry of Defense said.

The Marines were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

A U.S. military official who monitors the region told CNN the Marines stopped an Iranian ship suspected of smuggling automobiles, and boarded it for an inspection.

The British ministry's statement said the Marines "completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters."

Now they are reporting that there is some debate as to rather the U.K. ship was in Iranian waters. I wonder if this would have happened if we talked to Iran in 2003 when they offered?

Here is the reason why we won't be able to help Israel out militarily - we can't. Look at a couple of the stories today. First from Iraq:

A suicide bomber pulled his van into a busy market on Tuesday, lured labourers with job offers and blew himself up, killing scores in one of the worst attacks in Iraq since the new government was installed in April.

The blast in the Shi'ite city of Kufa killed 59 people and sparked clashes between police and angry protesters, dealing a fresh blow to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's efforts to promote national reconciliation and avoid a slide toward civil war.

Then we go to the other war - Afghanistan:

U.S.-led forces will launch "decisive operations" to reclaim two southern towns captured in recent days by the Taliban, the military said Tuesday. Scores of Taliban militants chased police out of the two towns near the Pakistani border.

"The Taliban extremists have taken control of the areas of Garmser and Naway-i-Barakzayi, however, coalition forces do have them under observation," military spokesman Col. Tom Collins told reporters in Kabul.

Our military is so bogged down right now with the war of necessity, Afghanistan and the war of choice, Iraq, that there is no way we can offer aide to our ally. We are losing towns in Afghanistan again and Iraq is closer to a full out civil war, that will add to the tensions already coming from the Israel conflict. This is how bad things are getting in the Middle East and a majority of the problems are attributed to our failed foreign policies. Things are only going to get worse from here.

Gives me flashbacks of Footloose:

Chicago gay rights activists are concerned about what may have been a hate crime in the Lakeview neighborhood.

The Chicago Public Library says that about 100 books were destroyed after someone set a fire in the section for gay and lesbian literature.

It happened Tuesday about noon at the John Merlo branch of the public library in the 600 block of West Belmont.

Newsradio 780 is told that someone is believed to have set fire to books with a cigarette lighter and that about 90 gay and lesbian books were destroyed, and that about 10 books destroyed in the African American literature section.

Thanks Bill Frist. By your quick action last week to bring this very heated debate back to the floor of Senate so it could reach its certain doom, you have created more tensions in our nation. What a guy you are.

My post earlier today showed how even a senior official in the Iraqi government is calling the tensions there a "civil war". Ironically CBS is still sucking up to the Bush administration's talking point by avoiding that term. This is a shot from their web page today:

"Civil Conflict". 80 people died yesterday (which is common pace anymore) and Iraqi citizens are stocking up on fire arms. Call it what it is - "CIVIL WAR". When will these corporate news mongers learn that Bush doesn't make the news, he is the news.

Following the Medicare/Medicaid debacle that happened first of this year it seems like Republicans are scrambling to once again distance themselves from Bush and also try and save that some of the vital senior votes this fall. This from Reuters:

President George W. Bush's plan to cut $36 billion from Medicare ran into stiff opposition on Wednesday from dozens of his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives.

The move creates doubts about getting Bush's 2007 budget through Congress -- and is another sign of growing tensions between the president and his fellow Republicans in Congress.

In another headache for Bush, a top Senate Republican said he was putting on the back burner the president's proposal to expand tax-free Health Savings Accounts, a major component of the administration's effort to reduce health care costs.

About time they wake up and realize that Bush's plans just do not work. In January, numerous states had to declare public emergencies because seniors could not get their vital medications filled under the new program. While the news has pretty much stopped covering this story, it is still going on. They can ignore it all they want but come November when that 30-35% of the voter populace, who are seniors, cast their decisions it will not be forgotten.

Explosions have just rocked Egypt. While no one has claimed
responsibility for the serious of bombings that have claimed at least 46 lives,
it seems as though it could be either al Qaeda or someone influenced by their
beliefs. This comes on the same day that London Police shoot and kill a person
apparently attempting to set off another bomb in a London subway. This can only
make one stop and wonder if al Qaeda is gaining even more strength.

During President Bush’s prime time speech a few weeks ago,
he stated that “we are fighting them there so that we don’t have to fight them
here”. This is starting to seem like another misconception given by the
President who promised to restore trust to the Oval Office.

With two attacks in London, only two weeks apart, it seems
that the terrorists are taking the words of the President and turning them
around. We are in a war with an enemy who can slip in and out of our radar
screen. They can be riding the bus with you or passing you in the grocery store.
It is an enemy fighting for a religious cause, and that is the hardest enemy to
defeat.

The problem we are faced with is a rough one. We have a
commander in chief who has been less than truthful with the American people. His
subordinates have been involved in a political smear campaign that has
ultimately crippled our intelligence community, and he has led us into another
war on false pretenses.

While we are trying to go about our lives as usual, we can
not help to worry about the next terrorist attack happening in our own
communities. While we are involved in these two wars, which seems to have merged
to one large war, our tensions between China are increasing over Taiwan. When
you add it all up, we very well could be looking at the starts of World War 3.