ReBelle Daily Dispatch
55 Dead in Eight Iraq Suicide Bombings
By MAGGIE MICHAEL,
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession Saturday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites marched and lash themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the death of the founder of their Muslim sect 14 centuries ago. Ninety-one people have been killed in violence in the past two days.
For the second year running, insurgent attacks shattered the commemoration of Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite religious calendar, but the violence produced a significantly smaller death toll than the 181 killed in twin bombings in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala a year ago.
With majority Shiites poised to take control of the country for the first time in modern Iraqi history, the interim government and Shiite politicians vowed the bloodshed would not cause the nation to spiral into civil war.
The suicide bombings were attempts "to create a religious war within Iraq. Iraqis will not allow this to happen, Iraqis will stand united as Iraqis foremost, and Iraq will not fall into sectarian war," Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, the national security adviser for the interim government, told The Associated Press.
"The bombings on Shiite mosques and shrines on Ashoura by terrorists that call themselves Muslims are in fact actions by terrorists only attempting to spill even more Muslim blood by encouraging sectarian violence," he said.
The Saturday carnage was the deadliest of any day since last month's elections for a new national assembly in which the Shiite ticket, the United Iraqi Alliance, won 48 percent of the vote in Iraq's first democratic balloting. The alliance was expected to name its candidate for prime minister in the coming days.
As the violence ravaged the country, a five-member U.S. Congressional delegation including Sen. Hillary Clinton the New York Democrat, met with Iraqi government officials in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
"The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure," Clinton told reporters.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&printer=1
----UMMMM EXCUSE me Senator Clinton....I would beg to differ....The casualy count would indicate that the INSURGENTS do NOT know they have FAILED.--------
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ALERTALERTALERTALERT
BREAKING: Request for new hearings with Riceby saint Thu Feb 17th, 2005 at 15:43:20 PSTThis is going to be a quick and dirty diary so, I apologize now- my day's almost done but I wanted to get this out there. From TruthOut, Rep. Henry A. Waxman; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney are calling for new hearings to ascertain EXACTLY who knew what, when, and whether this administration has continued to lie about warnings involving 9/11. You can see the full text of the letter to Tom Davis, Chairman Committee on Government Reform.
Wide ranging excerpts to follow- with the real kicker at the end:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/17/184320/505
----Congress is about to have another go at Condi...Get that lying bitch!!!! OMG I wish every damn day I could question that lying skank. Gitmo style interrogate her. Where did Boxer go?, she has a rematch to prepare for!---
---And on a personal note..DailyKos You guys are AWSOME !---
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A not slacking Friday…. First Negroponte, now Abrams
'A second sequence of lies was spawned on October 5, 1986, when Sandinista soldiers shot down a small plane carrying three Americans ferrying weapons to the Contras in southern Nicaragua from the CIA-controlled Illopango air base in El Salvador. The plane’s two American pilots were killed in the crash, but its cargo kicker, Eugene Hasenfus, survived. Captured by the Sandinistas, he quickly admitted his role in the operation and stated that he believed the entire effort was controlled by the CIA and sanctioned by the U.S. government.
The discovery of the flight sent U.S. officials into a panic, for it held the potential to reveal to the world that the United States was in fact guilty of exactly the crime for which it had so thunderously denounced Nicaragua—that of using the territory of one nation to aid rebels in another for the purposes of government subversion. The plane was one of several operated by Project Democracy, the named coined by North for the effort to secretly deliver aid to the Contras. Once the operation was shut down, CIA operatives were ordered to fly the remaining planes in Project Democracy’s "little air force," as North called it, to a remote airfield, where bulldozers had dug a large pit.
As North wrote in his 1991 memoir, "The planes were pushed into the pit, covered with explosives, and blown up. The remaining wreckage was saturated with fuel and then cremated. The fire burned for days. When the smoke finally cleared, the charred remains were buried. . . . One might call it the ultimate cover-up."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6968346/#050218
---Have you ever wondered why south of the border of the USA there is a whole string of 3rd world countries...?...No I am being serious....Have you ever wondered?...I will tell you why...For the better part of half a century the C.I.A. at the direction of the Government of the U.S.A has been doing dirty little quiet wars all over the place..Some are not so quiet as the mass graves scream at anyone who listens. If you are thinking..WTF is Christy talking about?...I will clear it up..its very simple actually....The U.S Government 'officially' supplies support for puppet democratic dictators..WE arm thier soldiers...As this is occurring the C.I.A is setting up base camps in the jungles and ARMING THE REBELS....WE are arming BOTH the governments AND the rebels that fight them....But..you ask...WHY would we do that?...That is also very simple...While they kill each other in constant warfare WE rape thier resouces and pick up some VERY cheap land... BUT , but , you ask...isn't that illegal and INSANE?....Simply put...Yes it is both ILLEGAL and INSANE and one day we will pay a terrible price for it.----
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Bush Needs To Look At Self Before Making Threats
Foreign Policy Reeks Of Piety
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 6:16 pm EST February 18, 2005
President George W. Bush should look into the mirror before giving orders and threatening other nations.
His militant foreign policy reeks of piety and is selectively threatening to several nations.
Fortunately he is still guided by the art of the possible, and that does not include Iran and North Korea at this time.
Syria is another story -- weaker, more vulnerable and easier to push around.
At a news conference Thursday, Bush demanded that Syria end its occupation of Lebanon, but he stopped short of accusing Syria of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. An investigation to assign blame is under way.
It would also help if Bush were to practice what he preaches. His orders to Syria might carry more weight if the United States were not occupying Iraq, digging in for the long haul with reported plans for more than one dozen permanent military bases there.
He also is denouncing Iran and North Korea for pursuing nuclear arms, while the United States is studying a new generation of nuclear battlefield weapons and bunker busters.
Furthermore, Bush decries the terrorists who "target innocent civilians," while conveniently forgetting that the United States has dropped tons of bombs on Iraq since launching its invasion nearly two years ago.
The refusal of the Bush administration to count the Iraqi dead makes it easier to overlook that sad toll.
http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/helenthomas/4213448/detail.html
---OMG you Go Helen Thomas! Tell it like it is momma!...This is a goody goody I highly recommend it!---
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Newsletter Criticizing Bush Plan Censored
A federal government union newsletter denounces Bush's plan to privatize social security.
Under a union contract since 1978, the federal government is obligated to distribute the newsletter to the union's 7500 members.
The Bush administration ignores the contract and refuses to distribute the newsletter criticizing Bush.
So far par for the course censorship and illegal behavior by the administration.
But get this for hypocrisy of the nth order: the Bush administration is referring the matter to the Labor Department's inspector general for possible criminal prosecution
OpenDocument&Headline
Agency tries to halt union newsletter attacking Bush plan> for violating federal anti-lobbying laws. Yep, the Bush administration is horrified, yes horrified that public money might in any way be used to influence public policy.
This is of course the same administration that puts newspaper and radio columnists on payroll to push its agenda and announced plans last month to use Social Security Administration employees to convince the public that Social Security is in a crisis and needs private accounts to fix things.
This censorship of union newsletters is nothing new; in December 2002, the Bush folks blocked distribution of a newsletter with a cartoon mocking Bush's tax policies as favoring the wealthy. The union forced the department to distribute the newsletter after the union won a ruling that the government had illegally broken the union contract. So the plea that distributing the newsletter is illegal policy lobbying is the newest ploy to justify its censorship of public employees unions.
Read the whole piece at the link above. Nothing highlights the complete censorship engulfing the federal government than this suppression of even the smallest dissident voice by federal employees.
http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002202.shtml
---HMMMM---
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The 'Jeff Gannon' story
It illustrates the far superior success of right-wing bloggers over lefties in getting mainstream media to jump on news
Saturday, February 19, 2005
T hose inclined to accept right-wing mythology about the "left-wing mainstream media" should consider for a moment the sensational story of fake White House reporter "Jeff Gannon."
Never heard of him? That's not surprising. Mainstream news outlets have scarcely touched it. Yet it's been raging for weeks on left-leaning Web sites, which so far have been unable to elevate the story beyond the blogosphere.
Bloggers on the right, by comparison, have enjoyed spectacular success getting the supposedly leftist media to heed and advance their journalistic agenda. This creates a fertile new issue for industry researchers: Why is it that Internet bloggers on the left, compared with those on the right, have so much less demonstrable influence on mainstream journalism?
The "Jeff Gannon" story is a case in point. Try to imagine this scenario: John Kerry wins the presidency and appoints a press secretary who grants a White House press pass to a fake reporter with a fake name representing a fake news outlet. And what if this "Jeff Gannon," whose real name is James Guckert, gets called upon daily to lob softball questions at White House briefings?
And what if it turns up that Gannon/Guckert has an eyebrow-raising connection to the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame?
And what if Gannon/Guckert was involved in setting up Web sites promoting homosexual prostitution? And what if racy nude photos of him start flooding the Internet?
The only thing imaginary about this scenario was the part about Kerry being president. Had it been Kerry whose aide allowed Gannon/Guckert such access to the president, just think of the furor. Conservative Web jockeys, in tandem with talk-radio shouters, would have created a frenzy thrusting the sordid story onto front pages across the land. At the very least, President Kerry's press secretary would be out of a job.
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1108818080222430.xml
---Bloggers getting their much deserved Appluase...The investigative bloggers on this Gannon thing will be the next wave of those we trust for news...I think a few of those bloggers are some of the best writers I've ever seen....I believe the main stream media has lost its credibility FOREVER...I will never trust them again.----
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TO ALL PATRIOT AMERICANS.
Look and bear witness.
Go here to see the real time counter keeping track of the cost of the Iraqi war in dollars..It is shocking. It also allows you to compare the mounting cost to the true cost of other American programs.
The real cost in lives will never be able to be measured.
http://costofwar.com/
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Ignorance may be bliss, but it's also dangerous
Three weeks later, I'm still waiting for a good explanation of what Jeff Gannon was doing in the White House. And for you to be upset about it.
Gannon is the fellow who made himself memorable during last month's presidential news conference by asking about Democratic pessimism regarding the nation's economy.
Specifically, he asked if President Bush could work with ``people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.''
The unusually partisan phrasing prompted reporters and liberal groups to ask the same question: Who is this guy?
Well, it turns out that Gannon is not really Gannon. James Guckert says he prefers that pseudonym for ''commercial'' reasons.
It also turns out that a company he owns is the registered owner of several sexually suggestive Web addresses. Hotmilitarystud.com, to name just one.
Most curious of all, though, is that it turns out he is not really a reporter, at least not if that term still denotes a disinterested observer of events. Rather, Guckert writes for a website, talonnews.com, which is linked to another site, GOPUSA.com. That site serves, as you might gather, to promote the Republican Party.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10929316.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp&1c
---I just keep thinking today..They ARE waking up...The People are starting to stir now. Thank God, my countrymen AWAKE AWAKE!..Let these troubled times be met and passed into the peace only the enlightened can bring. It is a slow stir but it is definately catching on....----
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Limbaugh to visit Afghanistan with US aid official
18 Feb 2005 01:40:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17299126.htm
---I want to know, can reporters being paid to deliberately distort the truth at the behest of our leaders...can these reporters be subjected to charges of TREASON?...ANYONE...?---
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Gannon attended White House Christmas parties -- but who invited him?
Former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon (aka James D. Guckert) attended at least two invitation-only events in Washington, D.C.: the 2003 and 2004 White House press Christmas parties .
Gannon has been discredited by numerous charges -- most notably that he is a Republican activist who has reproduced sections of Republican Party and White House materials verbatim in his own "news reports," and not a true news reporter. So the question arises: who invited Gannon to these exclusive events?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502190003
---He was not only invited to the parties someone passed this little whoring bastard STATE SECRETS....AGAIN.....TREASON....WHO's whore was he?...Thats the only thing left to learn.----
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Lebanese get civil war warning
By Alistair Lyon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that popular agitationagainst Syria's grip on Lebanon after the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariricould plunge the country back into civil war.Opposition leaders are urging Lebanese to join a peaceful "independence uprising" tofree their country from Syria's military and political dominance, intensifying a war of wordsafter Hariri's assassination in a huge bomb blast on Monday."God forbid, if the roof collapses, it collapses on all of us," Nasrallah told at least100,000 Shi'ite Muslims gathered on Saturday for Ashura, the most solemn event in theircalendar."Today we are responsible for a nation that came out of the civil war ... but we faceacute problems, especially this year and in the past few months," the black-turbanedcleric said."As Lebanese, we have no choice for remedying our crises and problems except todiscuss and meet, even if we are angry and tense," he said. "We must not repeat themistakes of the past."
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5550051
---Please God if you have not turned from us , I BEG of you to have mercy on the innocent and change the hearts of the warmongers and the wicked...----
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ATTENTIONATTENTIONATTENTIONATTENTION
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks
Fri Feb 18, 2:31 PM ET
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in separate guerrilla attacks in Iraq the U.S. military said Friday, three in or near the northern city of Mosul, one north of Baghdad and the fifth south of the capital.
The deaths brought to 1,119 the number of U.S. troops killed in action since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
In the latest incident Friday, one soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military base north of the town of Diwaniya, about 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, the military said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050218/us_nm/iraq_soldier_dc_4
----There is something VERY WRONG about this story...LOOK AT THE TOTAL CASUALTY NUMBER THEY GIVE.....SOMETHING is VERY off with our dead and wounded numbers....Rossi lets work on this some more..Your last email had a good idea about these numbers we should explore our options here.-----
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Israel's Sharon Speaks to Arab Press
CAIRO, Egypt - In his first interview with an Arab newspaper since taking office, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he understood the costs of war and was willing to make painful concessions for peace — though not at the price of his country's security.
Sharon told Egypt's daily Al-Ahram, an independent but pro-government newspaper, that if calm prevailed between the Israelis and Palestinians, the sides could soon begin political negotiations toward a final settlement.
The two-hour interview was conducted in Hebrew in Sharon's office in Jerusalem and published in Arabic in the newspaper's Saturday editions. It seemed aimed at softening Sharon's image in the Arab world as the peace process picks up momentum.
"Generals are always seen as people who want wars. The truth is otherwise," Sharon said, according to a translation of the Arabic by The Associated Press. "I think it is important ... for our generation who lived through it all to really take over the mission of pushing the peace process."
Sharon said his participation in all of Israel's wars gave him a deeper understanding of the importance of peace than other politicians who talk about peace but do not have his experience.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=721&e=7&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_humanizing_sharon
-----Notice how he DID NOT say his former participation in all of Isreals wars had given him the nickname 'The Butcher',,And thats just what OTHER ISREALIS call him..If Sharon HONESTLY wanted to make a 'painful concession', he could start by telling his snipers to quit putting bullets into the heads of 3 year old Palestinian girls sitting at thier dinner tables...----
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Published on Friday, February 18, 2005 by USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-17-guard-sick-usat_x.htm
US Troops Say it's Hard to Get Medical Care
by Dave Moniz
WASHINGTON — National Guardsmen and reservists who are injured on active duty face daunting and sometimes insurmountable hurdles to get medical care, soldiers and military officials told a congressional panel Thursday.
The troops described an Army bureaucracy that loses track of wounded reservists, drops medical coverage before some are healed and often inflicts hardships on families.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, described the problems injured Guardsmen and reservists face as "the equivalent of financial and medical friendly fire."
The panel heard sometimes-emotional testimony from Guard soldiers who have been wounded in battle and administrators responsible for helping them navigate the medical system.
Gregory Kutz, a Government Accountability Office official who helped prepare a new report on deficiencies in Guard and reserve benefits, said that the Army has made improvements in treating Guard and reserve soldiers since 9/11. Still, he said, "many problems remain."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0218-06.htm
----To Our Soldiers both home and away...I love you guys and I appreciate every single day I have lived as a free woman. I am so sorry that our government has betrayed you----
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The Other Reality
It's a good thing
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/19/cpac/index.html
I went to the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Otherwise I never would have known that, despite the findings of the authoritative David Kay report and every reputable media outlet on earth, the United States actually discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, vindicating all of George W. Bush's pre-war predictions. The revelation came not from some crank at Free Republic or hustler from Talon News, but from a congressman surrounded by men from the highest echelons of American government. No wonder the attendees all seemed to believe him.The crowd at CPAC's Thursday night banquet, held at D.C.'s Ronald Reagan Building, was full of right-wing stars.
Among those seated at the long presidential table at the head of the room were Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and NRA president Kayne Robinson. Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular CPAC speaker, gave the keynote address.
California Rep. Chris Cox had the honor of introducing him, and he took the opportunity to mock the Democrats whose hatred of America led them to get Iraq so horribly wrong."America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," he crowed.
Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq." Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_13_digbysblog_archive.html#110878577416291307
---SCARY SCARY----
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Kids Say the Darndest, Most Stalinist Things
By Bill MaherBill
Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher."
February 18, 2005
A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions. Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.
Now, to those of you who think I'm overreacting: Yes, I understand that when you're in high school you're still very young and that no one really cares what kids say anyway — it's not like priests are dating them for their brains. But the younger generation is supposed to rage against the machine, not for it; they're supposed to question authority, not question those who question authority.
And what's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation — the kids who first became aware of the news under an "Americans need to watch what they say" administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment — or the loss of your show on ABC.
President Bush once asked, "Is our children learning?" No — they isn't. A more appropriate question might be, "Is our teachers teaching?" In four years, you can teach a gorilla sign language. Is it too much to ask that in the same amount of time a kid be taught what those crazy hippies who founded this country had in mind?
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-oe-maher18feb18,0,5785989,print.story
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Negroponte's Blind Spots
George W. Bush’s choice of John Negroponte to be the first U.S. intelligence czar signals that Washington is heading down the same road that has led to earlier American intelligence failures and controversies – from politicizing analysis to winking at human rights abuses.
Though Washington insiders expect Negroponte’s nomination to sail through the Senate, one question that might be worth asking about his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s is: "Were you oblivious to the Honduran military’s human rights violations and drug trafficking, or did you just ignore these problems for geopolitical reasons?"
It seems that Negroponte either oversaw a stunningly inept U.S. intelligence operation at the embassy in Tegucigalpa – missing major events occurring almost under his nose – or he is someone ready to tolerate atrocities – including torture, rape and murder – while slanting intelligence reporting to please his superiors in Washington.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/021805.html
---Hitler also installed torturers, murderers, rapists and sadists into place...Then something so shocking happened it is even to this day hard to comprehend.---
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North Korea 'U-turn' on US talks
A North Korean official has said his government no longer wants even bilateral talks with the United States over its nuclear weapons programme.
Pyongyang had been demanding direct negotiations with the US for two years.
Earlier this month, North Korea confirmed it had nuclear weapons and withdrew from discussions with its neighbours and the US.
The US and Japan on Saturday urged North Korea to resume the six-party talks, expressing their concerns.
Pyongyang said earlier it would stay away from the talks for an "indefinite period" and "bolster" its nuclear arsenal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4276477.stm
---Kim Jong Il is an insane liar. He wont talk to us anymore because he knows that Bush cannot be trusted because he is ALSO AN INSANE LIAR. And let the games begin. I hope we survive this stupid stit.---
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Initiative To Probe Contractors For Fraud
Announcement Comes After Sentencing of Former Boeing CFO
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 19, 2005; Page E01
Federal prosecutors yesterday announced a broad initiative to combat procurement fraud as former Boeing Co. chief financial officer Michael M. Sears was sentenced to four months in prison for illegally recruiting an Air Force official to the aerospace giant.
A Pentagon investigative unit is already looking at senior officials who have left the Defense Department within the past four years to work at defense contractors to see if there are potential criminal conflicts, law enforcement officials said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34717-2005Feb18?language=printer
--- Between Boeing and Halliburton we are being robbed BLIND.---
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Secretary of State proposes changes of elections laws
By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.The Secretary of State's office on Wednesday proposed changing election law to give Florida voters more privacy at their polling sites next year and give those who cast provisional ballots a week to prove their eligibility, instead of two days.The measures would also establish the secretary, an appointee of the governor, as the ultimate referee when disputes arise from different interpretations of election law by county supervisors.
The proposals appear to give the secretary sweeping powers and could create a showdown with the 67 county supervisors. They were also not run past the Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate.
Ion Sancho, the Leon County elections supervisor and frequent critic of interference from the governor's office in the elections process, did not return a call from The Associated Press to comment on the proposals Wednesday."They want to control the election process," Sancho told the Orlando Sentinel. Sancho has previously criticized Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood for ignoring pleas for more flexibility on setting up early voting sites, and failing to call for a paper trail for counties that use electronic voting.
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050216/APN/502161235
---Jeb you can bet your brothers sins will take you down as well. By the time WE The People are fully awake...The entire Bush family will be tainted FOREVER.----
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Bush's Iraq Coalition Shrinking
Fri Feb 18,11:31 PM ET
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Sometimes it's hard to know who your friends are — even if they're helping you fight a war. President Bush who hopes to coax more Iraq support from European allies next week, used to boast that some 50 nations had joined the United States in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Today, a public listing is nowhere to be found.
One thing, though, is clear: The coalition is shrinking. "I expect to see the coalition countries begin paring down their forces as they complete their contributions," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee this week.
While a current list of coalition countries — those helping out in Iraq with troops, equipment, monetary or political support — is not easy to come by, there is a public listing of the countries that have actual troops in Iraq. These 20-plus countries, which have combat and support forces in Iraq under the command of Gen. George Casey Jr., make up the multinational force.
Daniel Goure, a Defense Department official in the first Bush administration, said current Bush officials apparently decided to start talking about a "multinational force" instead of a "coalition" to avoid questions about which countries were in or out.
"They're anticipating what is coming down the road," Goure said. "It's an acceptance of the fact that countries are going to be withdrawing."
Also, by formally listing only the countries that have troops in the multinational force, the administration can avoid identifying countries that don't want to make their contributions known to the world, Goure said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/shrinking_coalition&printer=1
---OHHHH We have SECRET allies now....?...How interesting..wonder if there is any allies on that list named Saudi Arabia...or mabey an Isreal?..VERY VERY interesting...----
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Ann Coulter puts her foot in her mouth again
WITH VIDEO!
Ann Coulter appearing on Hannity & Colmes with Michael Brown had this to say about Blacks and the Democratic party
Coulter: ..the closest black to Bill Clinton was his secretary Betty Currie...
Brown: How did you get that Ann?
Colmes: What are you talking about...
Some more dialogue from Ann...
Colmes: Wasn't there a guy named Brown who was black and head of the DNC at one time?
Brown:...I think you're right about that, I think maybe Ann needs..
Coulter tries to bail herself out, but lies in doing so.
Coulter: Is he a black women? I think I said the closest black women to Bill Clinton was Betty Currie..
Brown: Alexis Herman
Coulter: Who is Alexis Herman?
Brown: You said who is Alexis Herman?
Hannity takes her to break.
Alexis Herman was the first African American to become the secretary of labor.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/02/18.html
---This woman makes me want to take a shower ever time I hear her name or her voice. When I actually have the misfortune of seeing her longish horse like face I truely want to claw out my own eyes.---
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Editorial: Phony journalist/Pimping for the White House
February 18, 2005 ED0218A
Heard about the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert muck-up in Washington? If you are an aficionado of the blogs, you've heard plenty. They're having a field day with it. But underneath all the fun lies a serious problem that hasn't got its due from the mainstream press: This White House employs a lot more kinds of fakery than the budgetary smoke and mirrors described in the editorial above.
Here's a summary: For more than two years, a reporter named Jeff Gannon turned up at White House briefings and press conferences, where he asked softball questions with a decidedly pro-Bush bent. For example, at President Bush's Jan. 26 press conference, Gannon asked how Bush could work with lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Clinton, "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."
Well, it turns out that "Jeff Gannon" is really Jim Guckert, and he was a reporter for an online outfit called "Talon News," which was associated with the online group GOPUSA. com, owned by Texas Republicans. It also turns out that Guckert, in addition to reporting for a phony Web site, has no real journalism training and is a $200-an-hour gay prostitute. He ran numerous Web sites like militaryescortsm4m. com. The photos of Gannon that were displayed on those Web sites left nothing to the imagination about his physical attributes.
So the question becomes, just how did this character get White House press credentials, despite supposed post-Sept. 11 security requirements? Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist who worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, says that "if Gannon was using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover." In other words, the White House wanted him at those briefings and wanted him to ask his softball questions, most likely to divert attention when legitimate reporters were getting too pushy.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5247250.html
---HAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW----
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By MAGGIE MICHAEL,
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession Saturday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites marched and lash themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the death of the founder of their Muslim sect 14 centuries ago. Ninety-one people have been killed in violence in the past two days.
For the second year running, insurgent attacks shattered the commemoration of Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite religious calendar, but the violence produced a significantly smaller death toll than the 181 killed in twin bombings in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala a year ago.
With majority Shiites poised to take control of the country for the first time in modern Iraqi history, the interim government and Shiite politicians vowed the bloodshed would not cause the nation to spiral into civil war.
The suicide bombings were attempts "to create a religious war within Iraq. Iraqis will not allow this to happen, Iraqis will stand united as Iraqis foremost, and Iraq will not fall into sectarian war," Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, the national security adviser for the interim government, told The Associated Press.
"The bombings on Shiite mosques and shrines on Ashoura by terrorists that call themselves Muslims are in fact actions by terrorists only attempting to spill even more Muslim blood by encouraging sectarian violence," he said.
The Saturday carnage was the deadliest of any day since last month's elections for a new national assembly in which the Shiite ticket, the United Iraqi Alliance, won 48 percent of the vote in Iraq's first democratic balloting. The alliance was expected to name its candidate for prime minister in the coming days.
As the violence ravaged the country, a five-member U.S. Congressional delegation including Sen. Hillary Clinton the New York Democrat, met with Iraqi government officials in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
"The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure," Clinton told reporters.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&printer=1
----UMMMM EXCUSE me Senator Clinton....I would beg to differ....The casualy count would indicate that the INSURGENTS do NOT know they have FAILED.--------
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ALERTALERTALERTALERT
BREAKING: Request for new hearings with Riceby saint Thu Feb 17th, 2005 at 15:43:20 PSTThis is going to be a quick and dirty diary so, I apologize now- my day's almost done but I wanted to get this out there. From TruthOut, Rep. Henry A. Waxman; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney are calling for new hearings to ascertain EXACTLY who knew what, when, and whether this administration has continued to lie about warnings involving 9/11. You can see the full text of the letter to Tom Davis, Chairman Committee on Government Reform.
Wide ranging excerpts to follow- with the real kicker at the end:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/17/184320/505
----Congress is about to have another go at Condi...Get that lying bitch!!!! OMG I wish every damn day I could question that lying skank. Gitmo style interrogate her. Where did Boxer go?, she has a rematch to prepare for!---
---And on a personal note..DailyKos You guys are AWSOME !---
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A not slacking Friday…. First Negroponte, now Abrams
'A second sequence of lies was spawned on October 5, 1986, when Sandinista soldiers shot down a small plane carrying three Americans ferrying weapons to the Contras in southern Nicaragua from the CIA-controlled Illopango air base in El Salvador. The plane’s two American pilots were killed in the crash, but its cargo kicker, Eugene Hasenfus, survived. Captured by the Sandinistas, he quickly admitted his role in the operation and stated that he believed the entire effort was controlled by the CIA and sanctioned by the U.S. government.
The discovery of the flight sent U.S. officials into a panic, for it held the potential to reveal to the world that the United States was in fact guilty of exactly the crime for which it had so thunderously denounced Nicaragua—that of using the territory of one nation to aid rebels in another for the purposes of government subversion. The plane was one of several operated by Project Democracy, the named coined by North for the effort to secretly deliver aid to the Contras. Once the operation was shut down, CIA operatives were ordered to fly the remaining planes in Project Democracy’s "little air force," as North called it, to a remote airfield, where bulldozers had dug a large pit.
As North wrote in his 1991 memoir, "The planes were pushed into the pit, covered with explosives, and blown up. The remaining wreckage was saturated with fuel and then cremated. The fire burned for days. When the smoke finally cleared, the charred remains were buried. . . . One might call it the ultimate cover-up."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6968346/#050218
---Have you ever wondered why south of the border of the USA there is a whole string of 3rd world countries...?...No I am being serious....Have you ever wondered?...I will tell you why...For the better part of half a century the C.I.A. at the direction of the Government of the U.S.A has been doing dirty little quiet wars all over the place..Some are not so quiet as the mass graves scream at anyone who listens. If you are thinking..WTF is Christy talking about?...I will clear it up..its very simple actually....The U.S Government 'officially' supplies support for puppet democratic dictators..WE arm thier soldiers...As this is occurring the C.I.A is setting up base camps in the jungles and ARMING THE REBELS....WE are arming BOTH the governments AND the rebels that fight them....But..you ask...WHY would we do that?...That is also very simple...While they kill each other in constant warfare WE rape thier resouces and pick up some VERY cheap land... BUT , but , you ask...isn't that illegal and INSANE?....Simply put...Yes it is both ILLEGAL and INSANE and one day we will pay a terrible price for it.----
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Bush Needs To Look At Self Before Making Threats
Foreign Policy Reeks Of Piety
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 6:16 pm EST February 18, 2005
President George W. Bush should look into the mirror before giving orders and threatening other nations.
His militant foreign policy reeks of piety and is selectively threatening to several nations.
Fortunately he is still guided by the art of the possible, and that does not include Iran and North Korea at this time.
Syria is another story -- weaker, more vulnerable and easier to push around.
At a news conference Thursday, Bush demanded that Syria end its occupation of Lebanon, but he stopped short of accusing Syria of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. An investigation to assign blame is under way.
It would also help if Bush were to practice what he preaches. His orders to Syria might carry more weight if the United States were not occupying Iraq, digging in for the long haul with reported plans for more than one dozen permanent military bases there.
He also is denouncing Iran and North Korea for pursuing nuclear arms, while the United States is studying a new generation of nuclear battlefield weapons and bunker busters.
Furthermore, Bush decries the terrorists who "target innocent civilians," while conveniently forgetting that the United States has dropped tons of bombs on Iraq since launching its invasion nearly two years ago.
The refusal of the Bush administration to count the Iraqi dead makes it easier to overlook that sad toll.
http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/helenthomas/4213448/detail.html
---OMG you Go Helen Thomas! Tell it like it is momma!...This is a goody goody I highly recommend it!---
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Newsletter Criticizing Bush Plan Censored
A federal government union newsletter denounces Bush's plan to privatize social security.
Under a union contract since 1978, the federal government is obligated to distribute the newsletter to the union's 7500 members.
The Bush administration ignores the contract and refuses to distribute the newsletter criticizing Bush.
So far par for the course censorship and illegal behavior by the administration.
But get this for hypocrisy of the nth order: the Bush administration is referring the matter to the Labor Department's inspector general for possible criminal prosecution
OpenDocument&Headline
Agency tries to halt union newsletter attacking Bush plan> for violating federal anti-lobbying laws. Yep, the Bush administration is horrified, yes horrified that public money might in any way be used to influence public policy.
This is of course the same administration that puts newspaper and radio columnists on payroll to push its agenda and announced plans last month to use Social Security Administration employees to convince the public that Social Security is in a crisis and needs private accounts to fix things.
This censorship of union newsletters is nothing new; in December 2002, the Bush folks blocked distribution of a newsletter with a cartoon mocking Bush's tax policies as favoring the wealthy. The union forced the department to distribute the newsletter after the union won a ruling that the government had illegally broken the union contract. So the plea that distributing the newsletter is illegal policy lobbying is the newest ploy to justify its censorship of public employees unions.
Read the whole piece at the link above. Nothing highlights the complete censorship engulfing the federal government than this suppression of even the smallest dissident voice by federal employees.
http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002202.shtml
---HMMMM---
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The 'Jeff Gannon' story
It illustrates the far superior success of right-wing bloggers over lefties in getting mainstream media to jump on news
Saturday, February 19, 2005
T hose inclined to accept right-wing mythology about the "left-wing mainstream media" should consider for a moment the sensational story of fake White House reporter "Jeff Gannon."
Never heard of him? That's not surprising. Mainstream news outlets have scarcely touched it. Yet it's been raging for weeks on left-leaning Web sites, which so far have been unable to elevate the story beyond the blogosphere.
Bloggers on the right, by comparison, have enjoyed spectacular success getting the supposedly leftist media to heed and advance their journalistic agenda. This creates a fertile new issue for industry researchers: Why is it that Internet bloggers on the left, compared with those on the right, have so much less demonstrable influence on mainstream journalism?
The "Jeff Gannon" story is a case in point. Try to imagine this scenario: John Kerry wins the presidency and appoints a press secretary who grants a White House press pass to a fake reporter with a fake name representing a fake news outlet. And what if this "Jeff Gannon," whose real name is James Guckert, gets called upon daily to lob softball questions at White House briefings?
And what if it turns up that Gannon/Guckert has an eyebrow-raising connection to the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame?
And what if Gannon/Guckert was involved in setting up Web sites promoting homosexual prostitution? And what if racy nude photos of him start flooding the Internet?
The only thing imaginary about this scenario was the part about Kerry being president. Had it been Kerry whose aide allowed Gannon/Guckert such access to the president, just think of the furor. Conservative Web jockeys, in tandem with talk-radio shouters, would have created a frenzy thrusting the sordid story onto front pages across the land. At the very least, President Kerry's press secretary would be out of a job.
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1108818080222430.xml
---Bloggers getting their much deserved Appluase...The investigative bloggers on this Gannon thing will be the next wave of those we trust for news...I think a few of those bloggers are some of the best writers I've ever seen....I believe the main stream media has lost its credibility FOREVER...I will never trust them again.----
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TO ALL PATRIOT AMERICANS.
Look and bear witness.
Go here to see the real time counter keeping track of the cost of the Iraqi war in dollars..It is shocking. It also allows you to compare the mounting cost to the true cost of other American programs.
The real cost in lives will never be able to be measured.
http://costofwar.com/
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Ignorance may be bliss, but it's also dangerous
Three weeks later, I'm still waiting for a good explanation of what Jeff Gannon was doing in the White House. And for you to be upset about it.
Gannon is the fellow who made himself memorable during last month's presidential news conference by asking about Democratic pessimism regarding the nation's economy.
Specifically, he asked if President Bush could work with ``people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.''
The unusually partisan phrasing prompted reporters and liberal groups to ask the same question: Who is this guy?
Well, it turns out that Gannon is not really Gannon. James Guckert says he prefers that pseudonym for ''commercial'' reasons.
It also turns out that a company he owns is the registered owner of several sexually suggestive Web addresses. Hotmilitarystud.com, to name just one.
Most curious of all, though, is that it turns out he is not really a reporter, at least not if that term still denotes a disinterested observer of events. Rather, Guckert writes for a website, talonnews.com, which is linked to another site, GOPUSA.com. That site serves, as you might gather, to promote the Republican Party.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10929316.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp&1c
---I just keep thinking today..They ARE waking up...The People are starting to stir now. Thank God, my countrymen AWAKE AWAKE!..Let these troubled times be met and passed into the peace only the enlightened can bring. It is a slow stir but it is definately catching on....----
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Limbaugh to visit Afghanistan with US aid official
18 Feb 2005 01:40:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17299126.htm
---I want to know, can reporters being paid to deliberately distort the truth at the behest of our leaders...can these reporters be subjected to charges of TREASON?...ANYONE...?---
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Gannon attended White House Christmas parties -- but who invited him?
Former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon (aka James D. Guckert) attended at least two invitation-only events in Washington, D.C.: the 2003 and 2004 White House press Christmas parties .
Gannon has been discredited by numerous charges -- most notably that he is a Republican activist who has reproduced sections of Republican Party and White House materials verbatim in his own "news reports," and not a true news reporter. So the question arises: who invited Gannon to these exclusive events?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502190003
---He was not only invited to the parties someone passed this little whoring bastard STATE SECRETS....AGAIN.....TREASON....WHO's whore was he?...Thats the only thing left to learn.----
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Lebanese get civil war warning
By Alistair Lyon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that popular agitationagainst Syria's grip on Lebanon after the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariricould plunge the country back into civil war.Opposition leaders are urging Lebanese to join a peaceful "independence uprising" tofree their country from Syria's military and political dominance, intensifying a war of wordsafter Hariri's assassination in a huge bomb blast on Monday."God forbid, if the roof collapses, it collapses on all of us," Nasrallah told at least100,000 Shi'ite Muslims gathered on Saturday for Ashura, the most solemn event in theircalendar."Today we are responsible for a nation that came out of the civil war ... but we faceacute problems, especially this year and in the past few months," the black-turbanedcleric said."As Lebanese, we have no choice for remedying our crises and problems except todiscuss and meet, even if we are angry and tense," he said. "We must not repeat themistakes of the past."
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5550051
---Please God if you have not turned from us , I BEG of you to have mercy on the innocent and change the hearts of the warmongers and the wicked...----
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ATTENTIONATTENTIONATTENTIONATTENTION
Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks
Fri Feb 18, 2:31 PM ET
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in separate guerrilla attacks in Iraq the U.S. military said Friday, three in or near the northern city of Mosul, one north of Baghdad and the fifth south of the capital.
The deaths brought to 1,119 the number of U.S. troops killed in action since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
In the latest incident Friday, one soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military base north of the town of Diwaniya, about 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, the military said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050218/us_nm/iraq_soldier_dc_4
----There is something VERY WRONG about this story...LOOK AT THE TOTAL CASUALTY NUMBER THEY GIVE.....SOMETHING is VERY off with our dead and wounded numbers....Rossi lets work on this some more..Your last email had a good idea about these numbers we should explore our options here.-----
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Israel's Sharon Speaks to Arab Press
CAIRO, Egypt - In his first interview with an Arab newspaper since taking office, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he understood the costs of war and was willing to make painful concessions for peace — though not at the price of his country's security.
Sharon told Egypt's daily Al-Ahram, an independent but pro-government newspaper, that if calm prevailed between the Israelis and Palestinians, the sides could soon begin political negotiations toward a final settlement.
The two-hour interview was conducted in Hebrew in Sharon's office in Jerusalem and published in Arabic in the newspaper's Saturday editions. It seemed aimed at softening Sharon's image in the Arab world as the peace process picks up momentum.
"Generals are always seen as people who want wars. The truth is otherwise," Sharon said, according to a translation of the Arabic by The Associated Press. "I think it is important ... for our generation who lived through it all to really take over the mission of pushing the peace process."
Sharon said his participation in all of Israel's wars gave him a deeper understanding of the importance of peace than other politicians who talk about peace but do not have his experience.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=721&e=7&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_humanizing_sharon
-----Notice how he DID NOT say his former participation in all of Isreals wars had given him the nickname 'The Butcher',,And thats just what OTHER ISREALIS call him..If Sharon HONESTLY wanted to make a 'painful concession', he could start by telling his snipers to quit putting bullets into the heads of 3 year old Palestinian girls sitting at thier dinner tables...----
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Published on Friday, February 18, 2005 by USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-17-guard-sick-usat_x.htm
US Troops Say it's Hard to Get Medical Care
by Dave Moniz
WASHINGTON — National Guardsmen and reservists who are injured on active duty face daunting and sometimes insurmountable hurdles to get medical care, soldiers and military officials told a congressional panel Thursday.
The troops described an Army bureaucracy that loses track of wounded reservists, drops medical coverage before some are healed and often inflicts hardships on families.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, described the problems injured Guardsmen and reservists face as "the equivalent of financial and medical friendly fire."
The panel heard sometimes-emotional testimony from Guard soldiers who have been wounded in battle and administrators responsible for helping them navigate the medical system.
Gregory Kutz, a Government Accountability Office official who helped prepare a new report on deficiencies in Guard and reserve benefits, said that the Army has made improvements in treating Guard and reserve soldiers since 9/11. Still, he said, "many problems remain."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0218-06.htm
----To Our Soldiers both home and away...I love you guys and I appreciate every single day I have lived as a free woman. I am so sorry that our government has betrayed you----
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The Other Reality
It's a good thing
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/19/cpac/index.html
I went to the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Otherwise I never would have known that, despite the findings of the authoritative David Kay report and every reputable media outlet on earth, the United States actually discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, vindicating all of George W. Bush's pre-war predictions. The revelation came not from some crank at Free Republic or hustler from Talon News, but from a congressman surrounded by men from the highest echelons of American government. No wonder the attendees all seemed to believe him.The crowd at CPAC's Thursday night banquet, held at D.C.'s Ronald Reagan Building, was full of right-wing stars.
Among those seated at the long presidential table at the head of the room were Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and NRA president Kayne Robinson. Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular CPAC speaker, gave the keynote address.
California Rep. Chris Cox had the honor of introducing him, and he took the opportunity to mock the Democrats whose hatred of America led them to get Iraq so horribly wrong."America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," he crowed.
Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq." Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_13_digbysblog_archive.html#110878577416291307
---SCARY SCARY----
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Kids Say the Darndest, Most Stalinist Things
By Bill MaherBill
Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher."
February 18, 2005
A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions. Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.
Now, to those of you who think I'm overreacting: Yes, I understand that when you're in high school you're still very young and that no one really cares what kids say anyway — it's not like priests are dating them for their brains. But the younger generation is supposed to rage against the machine, not for it; they're supposed to question authority, not question those who question authority.
And what's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation — the kids who first became aware of the news under an "Americans need to watch what they say" administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment — or the loss of your show on ABC.
President Bush once asked, "Is our children learning?" No — they isn't. A more appropriate question might be, "Is our teachers teaching?" In four years, you can teach a gorilla sign language. Is it too much to ask that in the same amount of time a kid be taught what those crazy hippies who founded this country had in mind?
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-oe-maher18feb18,0,5785989,print.story
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Negroponte's Blind Spots
George W. Bush’s choice of John Negroponte to be the first U.S. intelligence czar signals that Washington is heading down the same road that has led to earlier American intelligence failures and controversies – from politicizing analysis to winking at human rights abuses.
Though Washington insiders expect Negroponte’s nomination to sail through the Senate, one question that might be worth asking about his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s is: "Were you oblivious to the Honduran military’s human rights violations and drug trafficking, or did you just ignore these problems for geopolitical reasons?"
It seems that Negroponte either oversaw a stunningly inept U.S. intelligence operation at the embassy in Tegucigalpa – missing major events occurring almost under his nose – or he is someone ready to tolerate atrocities – including torture, rape and murder – while slanting intelligence reporting to please his superiors in Washington.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/021805.html
---Hitler also installed torturers, murderers, rapists and sadists into place...Then something so shocking happened it is even to this day hard to comprehend.---
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North Korea 'U-turn' on US talks
A North Korean official has said his government no longer wants even bilateral talks with the United States over its nuclear weapons programme.
Pyongyang had been demanding direct negotiations with the US for two years.
Earlier this month, North Korea confirmed it had nuclear weapons and withdrew from discussions with its neighbours and the US.
The US and Japan on Saturday urged North Korea to resume the six-party talks, expressing their concerns.
Pyongyang said earlier it would stay away from the talks for an "indefinite period" and "bolster" its nuclear arsenal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4276477.stm
---Kim Jong Il is an insane liar. He wont talk to us anymore because he knows that Bush cannot be trusted because he is ALSO AN INSANE LIAR. And let the games begin. I hope we survive this stupid stit.---
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Initiative To Probe Contractors For Fraud
Announcement Comes After Sentencing of Former Boeing CFO
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 19, 2005; Page E01
Federal prosecutors yesterday announced a broad initiative to combat procurement fraud as former Boeing Co. chief financial officer Michael M. Sears was sentenced to four months in prison for illegally recruiting an Air Force official to the aerospace giant.
A Pentagon investigative unit is already looking at senior officials who have left the Defense Department within the past four years to work at defense contractors to see if there are potential criminal conflicts, law enforcement officials said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34717-2005Feb18?language=printer
--- Between Boeing and Halliburton we are being robbed BLIND.---
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Secretary of State proposes changes of elections laws
By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.The Secretary of State's office on Wednesday proposed changing election law to give Florida voters more privacy at their polling sites next year and give those who cast provisional ballots a week to prove their eligibility, instead of two days.The measures would also establish the secretary, an appointee of the governor, as the ultimate referee when disputes arise from different interpretations of election law by county supervisors.
The proposals appear to give the secretary sweeping powers and could create a showdown with the 67 county supervisors. They were also not run past the Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate.
Ion Sancho, the Leon County elections supervisor and frequent critic of interference from the governor's office in the elections process, did not return a call from The Associated Press to comment on the proposals Wednesday."They want to control the election process," Sancho told the Orlando Sentinel. Sancho has previously criticized Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood for ignoring pleas for more flexibility on setting up early voting sites, and failing to call for a paper trail for counties that use electronic voting.
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050216/APN/502161235
---Jeb you can bet your brothers sins will take you down as well. By the time WE The People are fully awake...The entire Bush family will be tainted FOREVER.----
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Bush's Iraq Coalition Shrinking
Fri Feb 18,11:31 PM ET
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Sometimes it's hard to know who your friends are — even if they're helping you fight a war. President Bush who hopes to coax more Iraq support from European allies next week, used to boast that some 50 nations had joined the United States in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Today, a public listing is nowhere to be found.
One thing, though, is clear: The coalition is shrinking. "I expect to see the coalition countries begin paring down their forces as they complete their contributions," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee this week.
While a current list of coalition countries — those helping out in Iraq with troops, equipment, monetary or political support — is not easy to come by, there is a public listing of the countries that have actual troops in Iraq. These 20-plus countries, which have combat and support forces in Iraq under the command of Gen. George Casey Jr., make up the multinational force.
Daniel Goure, a Defense Department official in the first Bush administration, said current Bush officials apparently decided to start talking about a "multinational force" instead of a "coalition" to avoid questions about which countries were in or out.
"They're anticipating what is coming down the road," Goure said. "It's an acceptance of the fact that countries are going to be withdrawing."
Also, by formally listing only the countries that have troops in the multinational force, the administration can avoid identifying countries that don't want to make their contributions known to the world, Goure said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/shrinking_coalition&printer=1
---OHHHH We have SECRET allies now....?...How interesting..wonder if there is any allies on that list named Saudi Arabia...or mabey an Isreal?..VERY VERY interesting...----
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Ann Coulter puts her foot in her mouth again
WITH VIDEO!
Ann Coulter appearing on Hannity & Colmes with Michael Brown had this to say about Blacks and the Democratic party
Coulter: ..the closest black to Bill Clinton was his secretary Betty Currie...
Brown: How did you get that Ann?
Colmes: What are you talking about...
Some more dialogue from Ann...
Colmes: Wasn't there a guy named Brown who was black and head of the DNC at one time?
Brown:...I think you're right about that, I think maybe Ann needs..
Coulter tries to bail herself out, but lies in doing so.
Coulter: Is he a black women? I think I said the closest black women to Bill Clinton was Betty Currie..
Brown: Alexis Herman
Coulter: Who is Alexis Herman?
Brown: You said who is Alexis Herman?
Hannity takes her to break.
Alexis Herman was the first African American to become the secretary of labor.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/02/18.html
---This woman makes me want to take a shower ever time I hear her name or her voice. When I actually have the misfortune of seeing her longish horse like face I truely want to claw out my own eyes.---
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Editorial: Phony journalist/Pimping for the White House
February 18, 2005 ED0218A
Heard about the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert muck-up in Washington? If you are an aficionado of the blogs, you've heard plenty. They're having a field day with it. But underneath all the fun lies a serious problem that hasn't got its due from the mainstream press: This White House employs a lot more kinds of fakery than the budgetary smoke and mirrors described in the editorial above.
Here's a summary: For more than two years, a reporter named Jeff Gannon turned up at White House briefings and press conferences, where he asked softball questions with a decidedly pro-Bush bent. For example, at President Bush's Jan. 26 press conference, Gannon asked how Bush could work with lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Clinton, "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."
Well, it turns out that "Jeff Gannon" is really Jim Guckert, and he was a reporter for an online outfit called "Talon News," which was associated with the online group GOPUSA. com, owned by Texas Republicans. It also turns out that Guckert, in addition to reporting for a phony Web site, has no real journalism training and is a $200-an-hour gay prostitute. He ran numerous Web sites like militaryescortsm4m. com. The photos of Gannon that were displayed on those Web sites left nothing to the imagination about his physical attributes.
So the question becomes, just how did this character get White House press credentials, despite supposed post-Sept. 11 security requirements? Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist who worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, says that "if Gannon was using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover." In other words, the White House wanted him at those briefings and wanted him to ask his softball questions, most likely to divert attention when legitimate reporters were getting too pushy.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5247250.html
---HAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW----
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posted by Christy at 7:15 PM
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