Wreckoning Force

WANNA HAVE A WAR?

2007-09-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

Then do it right! Reinstate the draft, allocate money, find a reason to have a war.

Ask any Veit Nam vet what they think about this mess were in.

My Band

2007-09-02T04:06:00.001-07:00

What can I say. We're a pop band with an attitude. Hence the name. Someone had to bring back the power of the Minneapolis scene.

We grew up with the likes of The Replacements, Soul Asylum, Husker Du and The Magnolias. In fact, members of this wayward group were label mates back in the good ole bad days. We carry on the tradition that the Minneapolis music scene is world re·nowned for. Heart pounding rock and roll.

Whether you like us or not, we are a rock band who is not afraid to wear our infuences on our sleeve, and pay homage to the artists who gave us the inspiration to get us where we are today.

Please check us out

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=103331783

All Of This To Save A Buck

2007-08-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

I think this about sums it all up. Just where did we think we were going to get the money to maintain our roads & bridges.

Nick Coleman: Public anger will follow our sorrow
By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
Last update: August 02, 2007 – 11:33 AM

The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.
The fear of falling is a primal one, along with the fear of being trapped or of drowning.
Minneapolis suffered a perfect storm of nightmares Wednesday evening, as anyone who couldn't sleep last night can tell you. Including the parents who clench their jaws and tighten their hands on the wheel every time they drive a carload of strapped-in kids across a steep chasm or a rushing river. Don't panic, you tell yourself. The people in charge of this know what they are doing. They make sure that the bridges stay standing. And if there were a problem, they would tell us. Wouldn't they?
What if they didn't?
The death bridge was "structurally deficient," we now learn, and had a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.
Would you drive your kids or let your spouse drive over a bridge that had a sign saying, "CAUTION: Fifty-Percent Bridge Ahead"?
No, you wouldn't. But there wasn't any warning on the Half Chance Bridge. There was nothing that told you that you might be sitting in your over-heated car, bumper to bumper, on a hot summer day, thinking of dinner with your wife or of going to see the Twins game or taking your kids for a walk to Dairy Queen later when, in a rumble and a roar, the world you knew would pancake into the river.
There isn't any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble then a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.
Only this isn't a metaphor.
The focus at the moment is on the lives lost and injured and the heroic efforts of rescuers and first-responders - good Samaritans and uniformed public servants. Minnesotans can be proud of themselves, and of their emergency workers who answered the call. But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it isn't just concrete and steel that has failed us.
So far, we are told that it wasn't terrorists or tornados that brought the bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.
They are troubling.
If it wasn't an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a lousy accident - a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support - then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.
In a word, it was avoidable.
That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.
For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.
I'm not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.
Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.
How ironic is it that tonight's scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.
At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren't enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.
And now, one has fallen, to our great sorrow, and people died losing a gamble they didn't even know they had taken. They believed someone was guarding the bridge.
We need a new slogan and we needed it yesterday:
"No More Collapses."

I'm Back!!!

2007-07-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the extended absence!!! I've been taking care of some personal matters. I'll be back at it within the next few days.

I want to thank all of my viewers for their support.

For right now...This guy is an idiot!!! But we already knew that. Didn't we?

Nothing like talking out of your ASS!!!!!

All Politics Aside - Bring Back Variety Shows

2007-05-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

Come on people! You know that you always had a favorite. Mine was The Carol Burnett Show.

There were many others. Andy Williams, Sonny & Cher, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, Glen Campbell, Flip Wilson, Donny & Marie, The Smothers Brothers, Hee Haw. The Starland Vocal Band even had a short lived variety show.

I loved these shows. I wish they would come back!

Need I Say More

2007-05-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Gee wiz! I thought everybody was into the Bob Crewe Generation.

Ever Have One Of Those Months

2007-05-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

With all of the crap that's going on in the world right now, you'd think that there would be so much to bitch and moan about. I've come to the conclusion that I would rather take some time to reflect on everything around me, and simply, take a real good look inside for once.

Lord knows I would love to be able to change everything, and everyone, but that just ain't gonna happen! I've gotten to a point in my life where the simple things are rapidly becoming the most important things in my life. You know, home, relationships, friends, life, love etc.

I have been so angry, and so negative for so long, that I have almost forgotten what its like to be at peace with myself. Does that make any sense at all? I'm not quite there yet, but it is really a good feeling to be able to finally let go of some serious baggage I have been carrying around for way too long.

Its high time I do some positive things! Not only for myself, but for the people around me that really matter.

I think I have finally figured it out.

Old News But True News

2007-04-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

Distortions of truth have been commonplace within our government for many, many years. From covert action to sex scandels, our government is based on half truths and deception. While the real issues that face us seem to go by the wayside. Why does our government seem to feel the need to be deceptive in its actions? I'd like to hear what you all think.

Bush Misled America about the Threat from Iraq
See also this analysis of the fraud by retired federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.
Why did we invade Iraq? Was it because, as the White House claimed, Saddam Hussein was an immediate and serious threat to America. Or did Bush mislead the public, the Congress and the UN by consistently overstating this threat.
Bush claims he was forced to to invade Iraq as a last resort. But Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the very beginning of his presidency. Many of his team came from the PNAC, a thinktank which urged the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and pointed out the need for a "new Pearl Harbor". “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Ron Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”
This is not a situation where Bush said ten things and one of them was wrong. Basically everything Bush said about the threat from Iraq was false. He had no solid evidence of any threat but still led us into this deadly and costly war. Here are the main lies about the threat from Iraq given by Bush and Cheney:

Lie #1 - Uranium from Niger - Bush said "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." in his State of the Union Address. The documents supporting that statement were forged.

Lie #2 - Iraq and 9/11 - Bush led people to believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11 by repeatedly linking them in his speeches. This was so effective that at one point 70% of Americans actually believed Saddam was behind 9/11. Bush has since admitted that this was not true.

Lie #3 - Congress Knew - Bush has stated that Congress had access to all the same information that the White House had. Thus he should not be blamed for making the mistake of going to war. But Bush was briefed many times about the falsehood of various stories and this information never reached Congress. [ZNet]

Lie #4 - Aluminum Tubes - Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell said that some aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to buy were intended for use in a uranium centrifuge to create nuclear weapons. These were the only physical evidence he had against Iraq. But it turns out this evidence had been rejected by the Department of Energy and other intelligence agencies long before Bush used them in his speeches. [NYTimes] [MotherJones] [CNN]

Lie #5 - Iraq and Al Qaeda - Bush still insists that there was a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. But the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The nature of the relationship seems to be that Al Qaeda asked for help and Iraq refused. Al Qaeda was opposed to Saddam Hussein because Saddam led a secular government instead of an Islamic government. [ZNet] [CNN] On 9/8/06 a Senate panel reported there was no relationship. [ABC]

Lie #6 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Bush insisted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but his "evidence" consisted mostly of forged documents, plagiarized student papers, and vague satellite photos. The United Nations was on the ground in Iraq and could find nothing. After extensive searches Bush was finally forced to admit that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Lie #7 - Mobile Weapons Labs - Bush and his team repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs capable of producing anthrax. Colin Powell showed diagrams of them at his speech before the UN to justify invading Iraq. These claims originated from Curveball, a discredited Iraqi informer who fed Bush many of the stories related to WMD. On May 29, 2003, two small trailers matching the description were found in Iraq. A team of bio-weapons experts examined the trailers and concluded they were simply designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But, for over a year, Bush claimed these were part of Iraq's bio-weapons program. The expert's report was suppressed and only recently made public. [WashPost] [ABC]
Bush wanted so much to convince people of the need to invade Iraq that the White House set up a secret team in the Pentagon to create evidence. The Office of Special Plans routinely rewrote the CIA's intelligence estimates on Iraq's weapons programs, removing caveats such as "likely," "probably" and "may" as a way of depicting the country as an imminent threat. They also used unreliable sources to create reports that ultimately proved to be false. [Mother Jones] [New Yorker] [Wikipedia]
By lying to Congress, Bush violated US Laws related to Fraud and False Statements, Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001 and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Title 18, Chapter 19, Section 371.

I Just Don't Get It

2007-04-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here we have a person who is attempting to make peace within this wartorn and divided region, and the idiot President wants nothing to do with it.

Bush wants no part of peace - Warmonger, Isolationist, Fearmonger, War for Profit

I am so sick of this! This is absolute bullshit!

On last stop of tour, Pelosi visits Saudi advisers' chamber
By Donna Abu-nasr, Associated Press
Last update: April 05, 2007 – 10:04 PM

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Saudi Arabia's unelected advisory council on Thursday, the closest thing in the kingdom to a legislature, where she tried out her counterpart's chair -- a privilege no Saudi woman can have because women cannot become legislators.
"It's a nice view from here," Pelosi said as she sat in the chair, facing the ornate chamber with its deep blue and yellow chairs and gilded ironwork.
On the last stop of her Mideast tour, Pelosi, the first woman in her position, said she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's prohibition of female politicians with Saudi government officials, but she refrained from criticizing the kingdom over it.
One day after Pelosi's sharply criticized meeting with Syrian President Bashir Assad, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., paid a similar visit. He said President Bush had not promoted the dialogue that is necessary to resolve disagreements between the United States and Syria.
"That's an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies," Issa told reporters after separate meetings with Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the administration had a clear line on members of Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- going to Syria. "We do not think it is useful," he said, adding that such a visit "only makes [the Syrians] feel validated."
Washington accuses Syria of backing Hamas and Hezbollah, groups it deems terrorist organizations.
In Riyadh on Thursday, Pelosi sidestepped a question about the absence of female Saudi council members, saying: "The issue has been brought up in our discussions with the Saudis on this trip."
The Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Council, was expanded and given more powers in 1992 as a gesture toward forming a legislature. Its 150 members are chosen by the king and advise him, and the body has the power to propose new laws for the government's approval. The kingdom, ruled by the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, held its first elections in 2005, choosing local councils. Women were forbidden from voting or running.
Pelosi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, meeting with King Abdullah at his farm outside Riyadh, where they discussed at length the Arab peace initiative proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and relaunched at a summit in Riyadh last week.
The initiative offers Israel peace with all Arab states if it withdraws from lands seized in 1967 and allows the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Israel has said it would only accept the proposal if some changes were made, but Arab nations have said Israel should accept it as a basis for negotiations.
Pelosi leaves for Washington early today

Bring Them Home Now!!!

2007-03-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

Please check out this site, and do whatever you can to support these troops in coming home to their loved ones. And to put and end to the lunacy that is going on in Iraq.

Time to Bring the Troops Home
Chalmers Johnson

The United States is today virtually the only nation on earth that maintains large contingents of its armed forces in other people's countries. After World War II and during the cold war, the United States built a chain of military bases stretching from Japan and South Korea through Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and Australia to Diego Garcia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, England and Iceland--in effect ringing the Soviet Union and China with thousands of overseas military installations. In Japan alone, following the Korean War, there were 600 US installations and approximately 200,000 troops. There are still today, ten years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, some 800 Defense Department facilities outside the United States, ranging from radio relay stations to major air bases. To those unlucky enough to live near them (sometimes dependent on them for work or customers), these military outposts often appear less like "peacekeepers" than occupiers.
In East Asia, the United States maintains massive and expensive military forces poised to engage in everything from nuclear war to sabotage of governments that Washington finds inconvenient (for example, the government of former President Suharto in Indonesia, which in May 1998 the US government helped to bring down via troops its Special Forces had trained). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the United States still deploys some 100,000 military personnel and close to an equal number of civilian workers and dependents in Japan and South Korea. These forces include the Third Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa and Japan; the Second Infantry Division in South Korea; numerous Air Force squadrons in both countries (Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa is the largest US military installation outside the United States); the Seventh Fleet, with its headquarters in Yokosuka, Japan, patrolling the China coast and anywhere else that it wants to go; and innumerable submarine pens (for example, White Beach, Okinawa), support facilities, clandestine eavesdropping and intelligence-collecting units, Special Forces and staff and headquarters installations all over the Pacific.
From approximately 1950 to 1990, the US government invoked the cold war to justify these so-called forward deployments--actually, in less euphemistic language, imperialist outposts. During the late 1940s, when it became apparent that the Chinese Communist Party was going to win the Chinese civil war, the United States reversed its policy of attempting to democratize occupied Japan and devoted itself to making Japan Washington's leading satellite in East Asia. The United States entered into an informal economic bargain with Japan: In return for Japan's willingness to tolerate the indefinite deployment of US weapons and troops on its soil, the United States would give it preferential access to the American market and would tolerate its protectionism and mercantilism. These were advantages the United States did not extend to its European allies or Latin American neighbors in the cold war.

My Next Read - This Is the Man

2007-03-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Obama’s Foursquare Politics, With a Dab of Dijon
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By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: October 17, 2006
Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois and the Democratic Party’s new rock star, is that rare politician who can actually write — and write movingly and genuinely about himself.

Deborah Feingold
Barack Obama

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE
Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
By Barack Obama

375 pages. Crown Publishers. $25.

Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Book News and Reviews
His 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” written before Mr. Obama entered politics, provided a revealing, introspective account of his efforts to trace his family’s tangled roots and his attempts to come to terms with his absent father, who left home when he was still a toddler. That book did an evocative job of conjuring the author’s multicultural childhood: his father was from Kenya, his mother was from Kansas, and the young Mr. Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia.

And it was equally candid about his youthful struggles: pot, booze and “maybe a little blow,” he wrote, could “push questions of who I was out of my mind,” flatten “out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory.” Most memorably, the book gave the reader a heartfelt sense of what it was like to grow up in the 1960’s and 70’s, straddling America’s color lines: the sense of knowing two worlds and belonging to neither, the sense of having to forge an identity of his own.

Mr. Obama’s new book, “The Audacity of Hope” — the phrase comes from his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address, which made him the party’s rising young hope — is much more of a political document. Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama’s policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq.

But while Mr. Obama occasionally slips into the flabby platitudes favored by politicians, enough of the narrative voice in this volume is recognizably similar to the one in “Dreams From My Father,” an elastic, personable voice that is capable of accommodating everything from dense discussions of foreign policy to streetwise reminiscences, incisive comments on constitutional law to New-Agey personal asides. The reader comes away with a feeling that Mr. Obama has not reinvented himself as he has moved from job to job (community organizer in Chicago, editor of The Harvard Law Review, professor of constitutional law, civil rights lawyer, state senator) but has instead internalized all those roles, embracing rather than shrugging off whatever contradictions they might have produced.

Reporters and politicians continually use the word authenticity to describe Mr. Obama, pointing to his ability to come across to voters as a regular person, not a prepackaged pol. And in these pages he often speaks to the reader as if he were an old friend from back in the day, salting policy recommendations with colorful asides about the absurdities of political life.

He recalls a meet-and-greet encounter at the White House with George W. Bush, who warmly shook his hand, then “turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.” (“Good stuff,” he quotes the president as saying, as he offered his guest some. “Keeps you from getting colds.”) And he recounts a trip he took through Illinois with an aide, who scolded him for asking for Dijon mustard at a T.G.I. Friday’s, worried the senator would come across as an elitist; the confused waitress, he adds, simply said: “We got Dijon if you want it.”

In his 2004 keynote address Mr. Obama spoke of the common ground Americans share: “There is not a Black America and White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.” And the same message — rooted in his own youthful efforts to grapple with racial stereotypes, racial loyalty and class resentments — threads its way through the pages of this book. Despite the red state-blue state divide, despite racial, religious and economic divisions, Mr. Obama writes, “we are becoming more, not less, alike” beneath the surface: “Most Republican strongholds are 40 percent Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people’s personal attributes.”

Mr. Obama eschews the Manichean language that has come to inform political discourse, and he rejects what he sees as the either-or formulations of his elders who came of age in the 60’s: “In the back-and-forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004,” he writes, “I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage. The victories that the 60’s generation brought about — the admission of minorities and women into full citizenship, the strengthening of individual liberties and the healthy willingness to question authority — have made America a far better place for all its citizens. But what has been lost in the process, and has yet to be replaced, are those shared assumptions — that quality of trust and fellow feeling — that bring us together as Americans.”

His thoughts on domestic and foreign policy try to hew to this consensus-building line. Some of his recommendations devolve into little more than fuzzy statements of the obvious: i.e., that America’s “addiction to oil” is affecting the economy and undermining national security, or that the education system needs to be revamped and improved. Others echo Bill Clinton’s “third way,” methodically triangulating between traditionally conservative and traditionally liberal ideas.

Mr. Obama writes that “conservatives — and Bill Clinton — were right about welfare as it was previously structured: By detaching income from work and by making no demands on welfare recipients other than a tolerance for intrusive bureaucracy and an assurance that no man lived in the same house as the mother of his children, the old A.F.D.C. program sapped people of their initiative and eroded their self respect.”

He uses the Bush administration’s tough language to talk about national security in the age of terrorism (“if we have to go it alone, the American people stand ready to pay any price and bear any burden to protect our country”) but adds, crucially, that “once we get beyond matters of self-defense,” he is “convinced that it will almost always be in our strategic interest to act multilaterally rather than unilaterally when we use force around the world.”

He assails President Bush for waging an unnecessary and misguided war in Iraq and for promoting an “Ownership Society” that “magnifies the uneven risks and rewards of today’s winner-take-all economy.” Yet he also takes the Democrats to task for becoming “the party of reaction”: “In reaction to a war that is ill-conceived, we appear suspicious of all military action. In reaction to those who proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market principles to tackle pressing problems. In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lose the courts and wait for a White House scandal.”

This volume does not possess the searching candor of the author’s first book. But Mr. Obama strives in these pages to ground his policy thinking in simple common sense — be it “growing the size of our armed forces to maintain reasonable rotation schedules” or reining in spending and rethinking tax policy to bring down the nation’s huge deficit — while articulating these ideas in level-headed, nonpartisan prose. That, in itself, is something unusual, not only in these venomous pre-election days, but also in these increasingly polarized and polarizing times.

Vote Different

2007-03-19T23:26:00.000-07:00

I saw this over at THE OCD GEN X LIBERAL site. She couldn't post this because of blog issues. This is a very powerful ad, so I thought I would pass it along to everyone for her. Thanks Lizzy.

His War? It's Personal Now

2007-03-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

This man seems to be driven by some sort of personal issue. I think it's pride. And pride is the devils work!!! He really thinks what he's doing is the right thing. Micromanage? They can't even manage what they got themselves into. What a buffoon.

Bush threatens to veto any Iraq bill with 'strings'

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Accusing Congress of trying to "micromanage" his administration's war in Iraq, President George W. Bush used his weekly radio address to threaten a veto of an emergency spending bill unless it is passed "without strings and without delay."
The purpose of the legislation, he said, "should be to give our troops on the front lines the resources, funds, and equipment they need to fight our enemies," but "some in Congress are using this bill as an opportunity to micromanage our military commanders, force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, and spend billions on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror."
Long used to getting his way with a compliant Republican Congress, Bush's signature issue has run into trouble in the new Democratically-controlled chambers, elected last fall largely due to widening public opposition to the war, which has killed more than 3,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Still, Bush said that the "troops urgently need Congress to approve emergency war funds" and that he has "has begun pursuing a new strategy in Iraq."
The new approach has produced "hopeful signs," he claimed and will "help the Iraqi government stabilize the country, rebuild the economy, and advance the work of political reconciliation."
On Saturday, three suicide bombers driving trucks full of chlorine hit in Anbar province, killing two policemen and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to seek treatment for exposure to the gas, the Associated Press reported.
He added that the bill would place "impose arbitrary and restrictive conditions on the use of war funds and require the withdrawal of forces by the end of this year if these conditions are not met." That would "handcuff our generals in the field by denying them the flexibility they need to adjust their operations to the changing situation on the ground."
Further, "these restrictions would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders."
Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the legislative branch has the sole power to appropriate funds; no money can be spent by the government without an act of Congress.
"Congress needs to approve emergency funding for our troops, without strings and without delay" he concluded. "If they send me a bill that does otherwise, I will veto it."

Why?

2007-03-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

What the hell do we have to do to get these kids back home? This debacle has to end now. I am so sick of this sorry excuse for a war. Geez, they won't even increase spending to protect them. People, we have got to stop feeding into this crap!!

The Senate on Thursday rejected a Democratic resolution to withdraw most American combat troops from Iraq in 2008, but a similar measure advanced in the House, and Democratic leaders vowed to keep challenging President Bush to change course in Iraq.

Skip to next paragraph
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage » The vote in the Senate was 50 against and 48 in favor, 12 short of what was needed to pass, with just a few defections in each party. It came just hours after the House Appropriations Committee, in another vote largely on party lines, approved an emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that includes a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. The House will vote on that legislation next Thursday, setting the stage for another confrontation.

The action in both houses threw into sharp relief the Democratic strategy of ratcheting up the pressure, vote by vote, to try to force the White House to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. But it also highlighted Republican unity in opposition; in the Senate, only one Republican, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, voted with the Democrats.

Republican leaders said they counted the day as a victory. “It is clear now that the majority of the Senate opposes a deadline for the withdrawal of troops,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, countered, “The Republicans are rubber-stamping the president’s failed policy. That’s the message here.”

President Bush, speaking at a Republican fund-raising dinner, applauded the senators who voted against a timetable. “Many of those members know what I know: that if American forces were to step back from Baghdad now, before the capital city is more secure, the scale and scope of attacks would increase and intensify,” he said.

The Democratic resolution in the Senate would have redefined the United States mission in Iraq and set a goal of withdrawing American combat troops by March 31, 2008, except for a “limited number” focused on counterterrorism, training and equipping Iraqi forces, and protecting American and allied personnel. The House measure set a withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008.

The prospects for either the House or Senate measure winning final passage were always considered slim, given that the Senate legislation needed a so-called supermajority of 60 to advance. Even so, the White House issued forceful veto threats, sending a clear signal to Republicans where the president stood. The White House also worked behind the scenes this week to keep Republicans on board.

Both parties consider these measures an important political statement, a measure of how far the debate over Iraq has moved in recent months, and a sign of Americans’ discontent with the war.

But Senator Norm Coleman, a moderate Republican from Minnesota who voted against the Democratic measure, argued that the final vote could still be misleading. “There is frustration and deep concern about the war,” said Mr. Coleman, who is facing a tough re-election fight next year.

As they left the Senate floor, several other moderate Republicans who are facing difficult re-election campaigns next year were quick to register their opposition to the president’s overall Iraq strategy. But they said they were leery of legislating a troop pullout to begin within four months.

“That is such a short time frame for withdrawal,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who opposed the president’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.

In the end, the Senate resolution did not attract the contingent of seven Republican moderates who joined Democrats in opposing Mr. Bush’s troop buildup plan last month. The only Republican defection was Mr. Smith of Oregon, who said in a statement, “Setting specific dates for withdrawal is unwise, but what is worse is remaining mired in the quicksand of the Sunni-Shia civil war.”

Two Democratic Senators, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, crossed party lines to oppose the withdrawal plan. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent and staunch supporter of Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy, voted as expected with the Republicans. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican running for president, was campaigning in Iowa at the time of the vote.

Democrats asserted that the only alternative to their plan was endorsing, once again, the status quo in Iraq. In a debate steeped in anger and dismay, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia declared, “We were wrong to invade, we were wrong to think victory would be quick or easy, and we are wrong to stay on in occupation that earns us only hatred — with no end, no end, no end in sight.”

Republicans declared that the resolution would be devastating to the American war effort, “like sending a memo to our enemy,” or “giving notice to the other side of when we’re going to depart,” in the words of Mr. McConnell.

The Senate also voted overwhelmingly on Thursday in favor of a pair of nonbinding resolutions, one Democratic and one Republican, expressing support for the troops in Iraq and pledging to provide them with all necessary funds. Republicans have asserted that Democratic policies to end the war will eventually lead to a financing cut that will harm the troops. Democrats furiously deny that charge and have seized on the scandal over poor conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as evidence that Republicans are not true champions of the troops.

Despite the flurry of votes, the Iraq debate in the Senate is far from over. Senate Democrats said they would try to influence the president’s Iraq policy when they begin taking up the administration’s military spending request next week.

Across the Capitol, the House Appropriations Committee advanced its version of that legislation by a vote of 36 to 28. It was considered a major test vote, with Representative Barbara Lee of California the lone Democrat voting against it. “The American people sent a mandate to us to bring home our men and women before the end of the year,” Ms. Lee said. “I don’t think the president deserves another chance.”

As she spoke, two protesters sat in the back of the hearing room, holding a sign handwritten with black ink on pink paper that said: “Wake up. Stop Buying Bush’s War.” Other antiwar activists milled about outside the committee room, occasionally confronting lawmakers as they came and went.

Largely because of the strength of antiwar sentiment in the House Democratic caucus, and complaints that the legislation’s timetable is not fast enough, party leaders still face a fragile majority when they bring this legislation to the full House next week. While the House proposal calls for most American combat troops to be removed from Iraq no later than Aug. 31, 2008, it would require the drawdown to start up to a year earlier if the Iraqi government cannot show progress.

The plan also places conditions on the war financing, including a requirement that troops receive proper training, equipment and a period of rest between deployments. As a gesture to conservatives, the legislation would allow the president to waive those requirements on national security grounds.

“In World War II, troops were in action 30, 40, 50 days and then got relief,” said Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat. “Now, we don’t have the troops to relieve them.”

But Representative Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, accused Democrats of loading up the legislation — which now has a price tag of $124 billion — with an array of sweeteners, simply to draw support for a controversial plan to bring closure to the Iraq war.

“Welcome Kmart shoppers,” Mr. Rogers said. “This is the shopping mart for those who are nervous about supporting the precipitous withdrawal of troops. This is an effort to buy votes.”

How Far Left Are You Really?

2007-03-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

I found this article and thought to myself, just how can anyone be completely liberal. Now don't misundertand me here. I'm about as far left as I can get, but can you actually be 100% I'm curious. I also found a funny little test we can all take.

Liberal Test

I was a 47! Whew! I was worried there for a second.

THE DEFINITION OF LIBERALISM

The purpose of this section is to define liberalism, and the differences between it and other political ideologies. A critique of these political positions will be reserved for later sections of this FAQ.

In defining the differences between liberalism and conservatism, there are five main political spectrums to consider. These are:

1. Individualism vs. Altruism
2. Anarchy vs. Organization
3. Democracy vs. Constitutionalism
4. Equality vs. Merit
5. Competition vs. Cooperation

Let's define each spectrum, and see where liberalism and conservatism reside on them.

Spectrum One: Individualism vs. Altruism

An individualist (in this case) is someone who is 100 percent self-interested. An altruist is someone who is 100 percent interested in the well-being of others. Of course, there is a spectrum between these two positions.

There are many ways to believe in pure individualism and still allow that individuals can cooperate in the sort of interdependent, specialized society that makes us all richer. Libertarians and extreme conservatives believe in the "invisible hand," a term coined by 18th century economist Adam Smith. In his desire to get rich, a baker bakes bread for hundreds of people, and in this he is led by an "invisible hand" to feed society, even though such altruistic notions were not part of his original intention. When individuals are allowed to seek their own rewards, the argument goes, the common interest naturally takes care of itself. No central authority needs to consciously promote the common interest.

But liberals can be pure individualists too. They point out that the "invisible hand" is an important concept, but it hardly works in all cases. The criminal seeks his own self-interest, yet causes harm to society. A polluter finds it cheaper to dump pollution than to treat it, and this self-interest is equally harmful to society. Because it is in the self-interest of individuals to live in crime-free and pollution-free societies, they have a need to defend the common interest. In short, there are selfish reasons to promote the common good through government.

A good many other people, however, believe that humans are not 100 percent individualists; rather, they naturally possess a degree of genuine altruism as well. Perhaps the clearest example is romantic and sexual behavior, which is genetic (hormonal). The resulting social union of man and woman is responsible for the creation of new individuals in the first place. And nature has given us maternal and paternal instincts which cause us to sacrifice unselfishly for the survival of our children. This school of thought claims there are also non-family examples of natural altruism as well. These arguments will be addressed in a later section.

Spectrum Two: Anarchy vs. Organization

There are many definitions of anarchy, but for our purposes here let us define it as no laws and no governments. Competition is the main characteristic of such a society. It's survival of the fittest -- kill or be killed.

This is not to say that order and cooperative groups do not arise in anarchy; after all, order and cooperative groups seems to have arisen spontaneously in the anarchy of nature. It's just that they are not centrally planned. (Or appear to be.)

In a perfectly organized society, a central organization plans every aspect of life. Cooperation and coordination are its primary traits. Most people entertain the mistaken belief that the centralized government needed to run such a society can only be a dictatorship, but this is hardly true. A highly centralized government can also be democratic, as proven by the social democracies of Northern Europe. (If this is difficult to picture, then imagine a country where people vote on literally everything, from the price of tea to the safety features of automobiles. The government then puts these ballot results into action.) Nor does the central organization have to be a government; theoretically, it could also be a giant business monopoly (like "The Company" in the movie Aliens.)

Anarchy is the ultimate in individual freedom (meaning individuals can do anything they want); a democratically organized society is the ultimate in group freedom (meaning that the majority can do anything it wants). However, most people desire neither of these extremes, and prefer their government to be somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.

A common philosophy of moderation is this: government should support and promote those forms of individual freedom and self-interest which advance the common interest, and prevent those forms of individual freedom and self-interest which harm it.

Although this philosophy is widespread, few people agree on how it should be implemented. Conservatives, for instance, believe that government should allow the invisible hand to work on the free market -- an example of self-interest that advances the common interest. And they believe that government should prevent and punish crime -- an example of self-interest that harms the common interest.

Liberals, on the other hand, believe that government can actively promote, not just allow, the free market. For example, the government can build roads, wire the countryside for electricity and phone service, launch communication satellites and provide economic statistics, all of which allow the free market to flourish. (Conservatives tend to believe these should privatized, but whether this is even possible is one of the controversies we shall explore later on.)

And liberals believe that the government should be more active in preventing harmful self-interest. For example, they believe government should regulate corporate polluters. Conservatives oppose this, but it is inconsistent with the very philosophy that generates their position on crime.

Spectrum Three: Democracy vs. Constitutionalism

Democracy has been with us for thousands of years, but most of these experiments have ended badly. It was the rise of individual rights in the 18th century, as protected by the Constitution, that has distinguished the United States and made it such a successful democracy. (At least so far!)

The Founding Fathers also knew that democracy only works if the voters are educated. But in the 18th century, the overwhelming majority of Americans were illiterate. So they created a representative democracy, or a republic, in which laws were voted upon not by the people, but their elected representatives. For this reason, the United States is technically not a pure democracy, but a constitutional republic -- a fact which conservatives are always quick to point out.

Many of the Founders advocated a government where representative democracy, the constitution and the courts form a system of checks and balances. The entire rational behind such a triangular system is to prevent too much power from accumulating in any one segment of society. We all know the old adage: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Liberals acknowledge the value of all three corners of this system. If anything, they would argue that democracy could be strengthened, because mass education has largely wiped out illiteracy in America. Therefore, more direct forms of democracy are possible, like state or even national referendums. More radical liberals advocate replacing our representative democracy with a direct one -- but there is a real question of whether or not the people are that educated.

Conservatives, on the other hand, argue that the constitution should be strengthened, and democracy proportionately weakened. Why? Because they perceive that the Constitution gives them the individual freedom to act however they want, as long as they don't violate other people's individual freedom. Democracy, on the other hand, often tells individuals what to do. If a law you voted against is passed, your personal will is denied. In other words, democracy forces individuals in the minority to act in the interest of the majority, which is why conservatives tend to oppose it. Libertarians take this opposition to an extreme.

Spectrum Four: Equality vs. Merit

The debate between equality vs. merit is one of the oldest in our society. When merit is rewarded, competition becomes supreme, the fittest survive, and people get what they deserve. When rewards are given out equally, people become more pleasant and civilized to each other, but incentive falls, since trying harder doesn't get you anywhere.

For classification purposes, there are three types of societies: egalitarian, moderated meritocracy, and unrestricted meritocracy.

Socialism is the best example of an egalitarian society. When Marx wrote "From each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs," he was acknowledging that people are certainly born with different abilities, but they should be rewarded equally.

Libertarianism is the closest example of an unrestricted meritocracy, where there are the fewest constraints on the fittest reaching the top. Unfortunately, we have no historical examples of such a government.

Conservatism and liberalism are examples of moderated meritocracies. In a moderated meritocracy, the most successful continue to be rewarded the most, but a percentage of their power or income is redistributed back to the middle and lower class. Liberals, who lean more towards equality, believe the degree of redistribution should be rather high; conservatives, who lean more towards merit, believe that it should be rather low. In our economy, a progressive tax code achieves this effect, and liberals and conservatives argue over how steep its progressivity should be.

Spectrum Five: Competition vs. Cooperation

In general, the right favors competition; the left, cooperation.

The advantage of competition is that it drives humans to their maximum potential and maximum performance. The disadvantage of competition is that it can be destructive.

The advantage of cooperation is that we are all stronger together than we are separately. The disadvantage of cooperation is that it diminishes incentive, since trying harder than the next person will not achieve anything.

There is a complex interplay between competition and cooperation in human society (and, indeed, in all animal life). It is possible to engineer society to emphasize competition (by emphasizing the individual) or to emphasize cooperation (by emphasizing society). Finding the right mix requires an accurate understanding of the roots of competition and cooperation, as well as a knowledge of game theory (which is the science of competition and cooperation).

Hell Hath No Fury

2007-03-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely despise this %#%^*#$ woman. I think it's great for the Dems though. Every time she opens her mouth, more hate is spewed. Keep on running your mouth Ann. Eventually, you'll offend everyone.

Our Ann Coulter Problem
Why the press can't ignore her.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, March 5, 2007, at 6:09 PM ET
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter shocked nobody last week by calling presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" during her appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Here's the YouTube video, as well as the quotation captured by the Associated Press: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I—so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

It's true that the Democratic Party leaders displayed outrage. The Edwards campaign e-mailed the Coulter news to its supporters, calling her remarks a "shameless display of bigotry." Howard Dean, Democratic National Party chairman, called her statement "hate-filled" and demanded that the Republican candidates for president repudiate it.

The three Republican front-runners did exactly as Dean instructed with such speed that they must maintain 24/7 "Ann Coulter Damage Control Departments." A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the comments "wildly inappropriate." Rudy Giuliani harmonized, saying the comments "were completely inappropriate." Mitt Romney's spokesman slammed Coulter's quip as "an offensive remark." Top conservative bloggers expressed similar indignation, which the Human Events Web site collected: "Ann Coulter doesn't speak for us," harrumphed Red State. Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey wrote that "such offensive language—and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it—is intolerable to us." Newsbusters' Warner Todd Huston dubbed Coulter "the H.L. Mencken of our times ... minus the intellect."

The context of Coulter's one-liner was probably too Hollywood for her audience. (As UPI explained, Coulter was probably riffing off actor Isaiah Washington's recent—and calculated—entry into rehab after he called one of his Grey's Anatomy co-stars a "faggot.") Townhall.com's Dean Barnett wrote that "uncomfortable silence" and not "boisterous laughter" followed her remark.

Coulter has been drawing on her outré political vocabulary for so long that the CPAC utterance couldn't have come as a surprise to her foes, her allies, or even the apolitical who avoid the news. The Washington Monthly cataloged her gift for extreme speech five years ago, just as she was perfecting her political phonemes. Here are a few choice Coulter cuts:

"[Clinton] masturbates in the sinks."—Rivera Live, Aug. 2, 1999

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.' "—Hannity & Colmes, June 20, 2001

The "backbone of the Democratic Party" is a "typical fat, implacable welfare recipient"—syndicated column, Oct. 29, 1999

To a disabled Vietnam vet: "People like you caused us to lose that war."—MSNBC, Oct. 11, 1997

"Women like Pamela Harriman and Patricia Duff are basically Anna Nicole Smith from the waist down. Let's just call it for what it is. They're whores."—Salon.com, Nov. 16, 2000

"I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote."—Hannity & Colmes, Aug. 17, 1999

"My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism."—MSNBC, Feb. 8, 1997

It's probably unfair to Ramsey Clark to call Coulter his right-wing analogue, but there you are. He defends the indefensible, she attacks the undefended. Neither have any shame. Both regard negative publicity as good publicity. Both color their hair.

The press marginalized Clark for his nuttism long ago, but every odious phrase turned by Coulter only makes her a bigger star. Perhaps the newspapers, TV news, the blogs, and the politicians feel obliged to censure her publicly for her transgressions because, unlike Ramsey, she makes them in acceptable or semiacceptable settings such as at a CPAC conference or on a TV show and not at Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad. The press and the pols are also afraid that silence in the face of new Coulterisms will be interpreted as sanction, so they huff and puff at her scuzzy comments, as they did this week, to prove their own enlightenment. All that does is advertise Coulter's ideas to still-greater audiences, which translates into additional book sales and TV appearances, which drive still more book sales. She couldn't be happier.

Not everybody can pull off this trick. Dinesh D'Souza out-Coulters Coulter in his new book, The Enemy at Home, published by Doubleday, by blaming 9/11 on America's cultural left. (I'm not kidding.) Although he's mastered the art of the outrageous, he's too easily wounded by his critics because he wants to be taken seriously as a "scholar." The attacks on his ridiculous book have produced genuine sadness, as all this I-can't-get-no-respect grimacing in this January 2007 piece for the Washington Post Outlook section indicates.

Coulter doesn't make D'Souza's mistake of striving for respect. Effrontery is what she does for a living, and she's comfortable with it. So, I suppose it's only a matter of time before she calls Barack Obama a Black Panther masquerading as Uncle Tom, describes Hillary Clinton as a dyke Hitler, or reaches for something even more irreverent. As long as respectable forums like TV talk shows, New York publishers, and CPAC continue to give her a platform, the press won't be able to leave her alone. And this chapter of the Coulter show hasn't even concluded. According to Media Matters for America, Coulter will appear on CNN's Paula Zahn Now tonight.

Have We Seen The Light Yet

2007-03-04T15:25:00.001-08:00

Desperate? I Think So.

2007-03-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

Remember This Guy?

2007-03-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

Remember this guy? Why haven't we caught him yet? Oh, I remember now, we're just next door protecting democracy as we see fit to force it on others. We can't even win a war in a country the size of Maine, let alone find one guy. Do we really even want to find him?

OK Enough With Anna Nicole Stuff

2007-03-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

This truly amazing. How is it that we can keep sending more and more troops abroad, but we're not able to protect ourselves. 88% WOW. Hummm, maybe I should become a terrorist. Calling all terrorists! If there's ever a time its now. You could get away with just about anything in this country if you were sneaky enough

88% of National Guard Units Rated ‘Not Ready’
Heavy deployments of the National Guard and reserves for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have deepened shortages, forced the cobbling together of units and hurt recruiting, according to a congressional report delivered Thursday, resulting in 88% of all units inside the U.S. rating as “not ready”. State Guard officials say they are unprepared to respond to a large-scale terrorist attack or natural disaster, and the current troop increase in Iraq is expected to require the call-up of as many as four National Guard combat brigades.

And Now We Go Back To More Coverage Of The Anna Nicole Smith Story

2007-02-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

Bleeech!!!!!!!!!!! Ha Ha Ha
Hey Folks - THERE'S A WAR ON AND HUNGRY AND DYING PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD

Anna Nicole Smith: We can't help ourselves
By John "Jack" Telfer, editor
02/25/2007
Email to a friend Post a Comment Printer-friendly
A recent survey showed that a strong majority of Americans felt the death of celebrity Anna Nicole Smith had received too much coverage in the media.
So why is broadcast media, particularly cable television, continuing to bombard viewers with stories about Smith night after night, program after program?
Because the cable companies know that Americans' actions do not match their words.
Those in the tabloid news and magazine business know it as well, as has been demonstrated by their cover stories in recent days.
The media is driven by numbers and the numbers indicate that while people say they have had too much of Anna Nicole Smith, they continue to watch. One recent special on the celebrity brought in the highest ratings for that night. Higher ratings and newsstand sales are numbers the media can use to garner more money for advertising.
So why wouldn't they take advantage of a hot celebrity death story such as Anna Nicole Smith?
If Americans really didn't want to see any more of Smith on television or in the magazines, there is a very simple solution -- they just need to stop watching the programming and buying the magazines. But for many reasons, that is easier said than done. Call it our human nature, our sinful nature, or our natural tendency to play in the mud rather than pure, clean water, the end result is the same.
We can't help ourselves.
We say we don't like the coverage of Smith because admitting we are intrigued by a story like this means admitting we enjoy watching the dirt about a fallen celebrity exposed for all the world to see. Something just doesn't seem right about it, but we are glued to the TV anyway.
Well, not everyone. There are many who are not infatuated with the Anna Nicole Smith story. They have had enough and become experts with their remotes, quickly changing channels when the latest in this bizarre story comes on the television. The problem is even without watching more than the teasers of this soap opera story you learn far more than anyone needs to know, including things like: Another man claiming to be the father of her baby; the family's battle over where she should be buried and the family viewing her decomposing body.
Why do we watch this stuff? As the Apostle Paul said nearly 2,000 years ago (paraphrased), we do the things we don't want to do and we don't do the things we want to do.
The world advances in so many ways, but some things never change.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TAKE CHARGE

2007-02-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

What part of we need to get out of this "WAR" don't these people understand? We have done everything wrong from the very beginning. Remember, we were providing this country with weapons for years. And now they will just use them against us.

There was no justification, and certainly no provocation. It was all a sham. And is all about oil.

I am so tired of reading about our sons and daughters either coming home in boxes, or permanently disfigured. I remember VeitNam.

I think we're just making al-Qaida stronger, and the insugency worse. From my limited point of view, things are not getting better. If they were, we wouldn't need to send 21,000 more kids into harms way.

On a side note - How did this woman get into this position in the first place. I know how she did, but how did she!!!

Rice: Congress Shouldn't Micromanage War
Sunday February 25, 2007 6:31 PM
AP Photo WX101, WX102
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war and suggested President Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation.
But Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers would step up efforts to force Bush to change course. ``The president needs a check and a balance,'' said Levin, D-Mich.
Rice said proposals being drafted by Senate Democrats to limit the war amounted to ``the worst of micromanagement of military affairs.'' She said military leaders such as Gen. David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, believe the president's plan to send more troops is necessary.
``I can't imagine a circumstance in which it's a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress,'' Rice said. She was asked in a broadcast interview whether Bush would feel bound by legislation seeking to withdraw combat troops within 120 days.
``The president is going to, as commander in chief, need to do what the country needs done,'' she said.
The Senate Democrats' legislation would try to limit the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq by revoking Congress' 2002 vote authorizing Bush's use of force against Saddam Hussein.
One draft version supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would pull out combat forces by March of next year and restrict U.S. troops to fighting al-Qaida terrorists, training the Iraqi security forces and maintaining Iraq's borders.
Democrats have acknowledged that the proposal does not yet have enough votes to overcome GOP procedural obstacles and a veto by Bush. But they are hoping the latest effort will draw enough GOP support to embarrass the president and keep the pressure on.
Levin said it was appropriate for lawmakers to limit the broad wording of the 2002 war resolution given how the situation in Iraq has deteriorated.
``This is not a surge so much as it is a plunge into Baghdad and into the middle of a civil war,'' he said. ``We're trying to change the policy, and if someone wants to call that tying the hands instead of changing the policy, yeah the president needs a check and a balance.''
Sensitive to wavering Republicans, Rice made clear that Bush had no intention of backing away from plans to send 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq. While the U.S. role has changed since its overthrow of Saddam, the United States is obligated to see the mission through by working to build a stable and democratic Iraq, she said.
Rice said it is impossible to distinguish what is going on in Iraq from the larger fight against al-Qaida.
``Some of these car bombs may indeed be the work of an organization like al-Qaida,'' she said of the violence that continues to rock Baghdad.
``I would hope that Congress would recognize that it's very important for them to have the oversight role,'' Rice said. ``But when it comes to the execution of policy in the field, there has to be a clear relationship between the commander in chief and the commanders in the field.''
Senate Republicans recently thwarted two Democratic attempts to pass a nonbinding resolution critical of Bush's troop plan.
In the House, a nonbinding anti-war measure was approved this month. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she expects the next challenge might be to impose money restrictions and a requirement that the Pentagon adhere to strict readiness standards for troops heading to the war zone.
But that plan has drawn only lukewarm support from Democrats in the Senate and some in the House, who believe it is a politically risky strategy that could be seen as an unconstitutional micromanaging of a president's power to wage war.
``We're going to fund the troops as long as they're there,'' Levin said.
Rice appeared on ``Fox News Sunday'' and ``This Week'' on ABC. Levin was on ``Meet the Press'' on NBC.

2007-02-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

This is the man who is control of our destiny...Did anybody really vote for this guy? Who will he really piss off next? I'm scared.

WTF People

2007-02-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

This is our closest ally? Or are they just smarter than we are. I say it again, WTF

February 21, 2007 -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that Britain will cut its forces in southern Iraq by nearly one-quarter within the next months.
Blair's announcement came as Denmark said it would soon withdraw all of its forces from Iraq.
Blair, speaking to parliament in London today, acknowledged that the situation in Al-Basrah, where British forces are based, is not as rosy as he had hoped.
Blair contrasted what he called the "orgy of violence" in Baghdad and some other parts of Iraq with the relative calm in Al-Basrah.
But he said the security environment is good enough to allow 1,600 British troops to return home in the next few months, and another 500 by the end of the year.
The remaining 5,000 British soldiers will vacate three bases they now control in the city, as well as a logistics base at nearby Shuaiba, and regroup at the Al-Basrah airport.
"What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be, but it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by the Iraqis," Blair said.
Blair contrasted what he called the "orgy of violence" in Baghdad and some other parts of Iraq with the relative calm in Al-Basrah. The southern Iraqi city has a negligible Sunni presence, contributing to the low level of sectarian violence.
Blair said the greatest number of attacks in the area have been against foreign forces. More than 130 British troops have been killed in Iraq since the invasion.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney welcomed Blair's announcement, saying the troop reduction is a sign that "things are going pretty well" in Iraq. And U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Berlin that "the coalition remains intact."
Under Pressure
Blair's government has been under intense pressure to bring British soldiers home. But he said the partial withdrawal and regrouping of British soldiers would not take away their ability to carry out important security operations.
"The British forces that remain in Iraq will have the following tasks: training and support to Iraqi forces, securing the Iraq-Iran border, securing supply routes and, above all, the ability to conduct operations against extremist groups and be there in support of the Iraqi Army when called upon," Blair said.
Blair's announcement came as Denmark announced it will withdraw its 460-strong contingent from southern Iraq by August.
Both moves were welcomed by Iraqi officials, who said they were ready to take greater responsibility for security in the region.
By contrast, the United States is sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq to help quell violence in Baghdad and in western Al-Anbar Governorate.

2007-02-24T01:11:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my first post, hope it's not my last

The madness has to stop now, or were all going to die!!!I've got a lot to say on this subject...For now my question to all of you is. How the hell can we do it? And soon.

Our political leaders can't seem to get their %&$@ together to solve this debacle. We do we have to do?

I've got a lot to say about this, so if anbody out there is willing to listen, share or argue with me, I'm all ears!