Subject to Change, version 2.0
I'm a goddamed liberal. Deal with it.


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Tuesday, June 28, 2005
 

Pushing our buttons.
Another goddamn smug Republican. (bolds mine)





WASHINGTON - A White House official said Friday the administration finds it "somewhat puzzling" that Democrats are demanding presidential adviser Karl Rove's apology or resignation for implying that liberals are soft on terrorism.



"I think Karl was very specific, very accurate, in who he was pointing out," communications director Dan Bartlett said, contending the comments weren't aimed at all Democrats. "It's touched a chord with these Democrats. I'm not sure why."







I'm just simply flabbergasted!



Jesus, what a dick.



Notice the mocking language they're using. "Somewhat puzzling." "I'm not sure why." My god, what children.



Make no mistake; this is another tactic to piss us off. This "My Goodness!" attitude is all an act. They are openly mocking us, trying to make us angry again, and hoping we'll start trumpeting for more apologies.



Don't fall for it.



What Rove said is over and done with. Yes, it was incredibly offensive. But as they've shown time and again, the Radical Republicans will NEVER apologize for anything. Ever. It was futile for us to even suggest it. As has been stated on other blogs, we should have used his comments against him, and we should have openly mocked him. But... no use crying over spilled milk.



However, we cannot allow these ridiculous attempts to provoke us to... well, provoke us. They are trying to divert our attention elsewhere so we take our eyes off the brass ring.



Hmmm... what in the world could possibly be coming up that they'd want us looking the other way?







President Bush is using the first anniversary of Iraq's sovereignty to try to ease Americans' doubts about the mission and outline a winning strategy for a violent conflict that has cost the lives of more than 1,740 U.S. troops and has no end in sight.



In a prime-time address from Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division, Bush was to argue that there is no need to change course in Iraq despite the upsetting images produced by daily insurgent attacks.






He could do this from the White House, of course, but it will be so much more convincing if he uses cannon fodder American soldiers as his backdrop. Might even wear a new costume, I tell you what.



Iraq is in shambles, more proof about the Bush Administration's lies continues to appear, and they are running scared. The last thing they want is a strong Democratic party watching every move they make.



Let it go. We don't need apologies from the likes of them.








(The cross-post is blue, and there's nothing I can do.)

By noemail@noemail.org (Paul the Spud). [Shakespeare's Sister]
12:28:13 PM    

Pre-War War.

Via Raw Story:



THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began. Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq [...]

[Suburban Guerrilla]
7:51:16 AM    


Religion Is Suffocating America.

We can probably all admit to ourselves, if we are honest, that religion has absolutely no fucking place in the public discourse, for the following reason: Religion is based on personal belief You know, it doesn’t get much simpler than that. If you believe in a God and I believe in the same God, there really [...]

[The Blaghdad Café]
6:21:59 AM    

Progress.

France will be the site of a multi-national nuclear fusion plant. As the technology improves, it could be good news for all of us.

[Suburban Guerrilla]
6:08:29 AM    

Press-Gang, Anyone?

In February 2003, Acting Director of the Selective Service System Lewis Brodsky met with a small group of high-level DoD and SSS participants to propose the reinstitution of the draft and its expansion to include older draftees and women. While this was much played down as merely bureaucratic woolgathering and given barely any notice by the media, it continues to haunt us. Now Bob Herbert wants...

- Riggsveda

[corrente]
6:07:51 AM    

You No Playa Da Game, You No Maka Da Rules.

The Guardian reports that the US is "pressing the UN to block the use of needle exchange programmes in countries where drug use is driving the spread of Aids, arguing that the schemes encourage users to continue their habit."

[BAD ATTITUDES]
5:40:26 AM    

System Cannibalization.

Soon, there will be nothing left to develop but gas chambers. Taubman targets shopping mall 'cash cows' in China What does a "cash cow" represent? Hmmmm. This seems to answer my question: Hong Kong shopping mall to display dinosaur fossils...

[DunneIV -- Trying not to be retarded about all this]
5:35:52 AM    

Cenk Uygur: What the Media Should be Asking the American People

There were a lot of amusing and bemusing reasons given by the mainstream media for their lack of coverage of the Downing Street Memos. But my personal favorite was this one – everyone already knows the Bush administration was lying about the war.

Really? Then why did they vote for him in November? Are people happy about being deceived or do they simply expect it out of this administration or government in general?

Actually, these are terrific questions that the media should be asking the American people. Given that everyone knows the Bush administration was lying about the reasons for the Iraqi war, how do you feel about being lied to?

You might want to start by asking the parents and families of US soldiers killed in Iraq. How do they feel about being lied to?

Or how about you just ask the wives of soldiers who lost their arms or legs in Iraq. How do you feel about the lies that led us into a war where your husband lost his limbs? I wonder if they would be as cavalier about the issue as the press seems to be.

Then ask the average taxpayer who has to foot a $208 billion bill for the war. And that’s just what we’ve paid so far. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld says we might be in there for 12 more years. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is even more pessimistic and thinks it is a generational commitment. If we’ve paid $208 billion for a little over two years, imagine what the bill is going to be for a generation of occupation. Please ask the American taxpayer how they feel about being lied to about that?

“The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” – Paul Wolfowitz, [Congressional Testimony, 3/27/03]

“In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries and Iraqi oil revenues…The American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.” – USAID Director Andrew Natsios, 4/23/03

$1.7 billion?

That’s how much the war cost last week. Literally. The $208 billion we’ve spent so far divided by the roughly 118 weeks we’ve been in Iraq comes out to $1.76 billion a week.

The administration’s cost estimate was off by more than hundred fold – and that’s just in little over two years. And no one was fired over that small miscalculation. Imagine if a project at your work cost over hundred times what you said it would cost -- and the project wasn’t even close to being done. Do you think you’d keep your job?

I love the cavalier attitude of the media – everyone knew it was a lie. Really?

Then let’s ask the average American how they feel about being manipulated into thinking Iraq had something to do with 9/11. That the administration used their grief and outrage over September 11th to trick them into going to war with a country that had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. Let’s see if they’re just as cavalier as the press.

Let’s ask the average American how they feel about pulling troops out of the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to invade Iraq when it turns out Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and was absolutely no threat to us. Let’s ask them how they feel about the President spending all of our resources to get Saddam Hussein, who did not attack us and could not attack us, and saying he is “unconcerned” about Osama bin Laden, who did attack us and could attack us again.

Let’s ask the average American how he or she feels about being played for a fool when the administration based the invasion on WMD allegations. Especially when the Downing Street Memos indicate the British and the Americans knew Libya, Iran and North Korea had more capacity for WMD and no one knew for certain if Iraq had any WMD (by the way, in case you’ve been living in a box, it turned out Iraq didn’t have any). When the administration tricked the public with talk of mushroom clouds and Iraqi submarines and drone planes. Does the public feel taken advantage of now? Let’s ask them.

According to Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, the CIA drew up a report about red-and-white Iraqi submarines patrolling the Tigris River. Iraqi submarines! That’s still my favorite.

But then again, Dick Cheney thought we would be greeted as liberators and he now believes the insurgency is in its last throes.

And Dana Milbank thinks John Conyers is playing make-believe?

But if you think those are outrageous fabrications and outright lies by the administration -- you’re right -- but wait till you get a load of this doozy by the Secretary of Defense on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." [3/30/03]

Well, if they knew where they were, then where the f—k are they?

It’s one thing to say you think they might have WMDs and turn out to be mistaken, it’s another to say you know they have them when it is clear that you did not know any such thing. How about giving the American people that quote above by Rumsfeld and asking them, “How do you feel about your Secretary of Defense lying to you so brazenly?”

And, oh by the way, how do you feel about Iraqi submarines? And the nuclear capability they were supposed to have and the possibility that might be able to strike us in 45 minutes?

There are so many blatant lies that I partly don’t blame the media for thinking that it is accepted fact that everyone knows the administration lied about the reasons for going to war. But I think it’s fair to ask the people and find out for sure. And more importantly, ask them how do they feel about being lied to?

The lies are not in dispute. Whether people have enough information about the lies is in dispute. And how they feel about those lies once they have the information is in dispute.

Perhaps the American public is so jaded about their elected leaders that they think it’s standard operating procedure for the government to mislead its own people. Or perhaps when they find out the truth, they are not going to be pleased.

Only one way to find out … ask them.

- Cenk Uygur

[The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
5:34:18 AM    

Welcome Back, My Friends.

 ... to the show that never ends. A lot of folks in liberal blogtopia (hat tip in this instance to Making Light) have been posting about the comments by Bush Administration personnel that it's perfectly legal and appropriate to detain for life for anyone suspected of being an enemy combatant:

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict." "No, sir," Wiggins responded. "If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at...

[Paperwight's Fair Shot]
5:33:32 AM    


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