Major Political Changes in the USA

[slum_goddess]

9000 US soldiers dead?

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.

Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially...

if this is true (and knowing bushCo, i wouldn't put it past them), these jokers are truly fucking w/our right to know exactly what's what in terms of how many troops have died.

[DudeAsInCool]

GOP's Hagel: 'The White House Is Completely Disconnected From Reality' ...

US News and World Report   |  Kevin Whitelaw   

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Read more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/#a002856

[slum_goddess]

not exactly in the states but: New US move to spoil climate accord

'Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper Britain's attempts to tackle global warming have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer. These papers - part of the Bush administration's submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month - show how the United States, over the past two months, has been secretly undermining Tony Blair's proposals to tackle climate change.

'The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The documents show that Washington officials:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.' and much more bullshit from here

i'm wondering what Tony Blair is thinking right now (maybe it's 'bush-fucked in the ass once again')

[DudeAsInCool]

More on the Downing Street Memo

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/17/forum/

[slum_goddess]

GOP's Hagel: 'The White House Is Completely Disconnected From Reality'

why did it take him so long to wake the fuck up? granted, he's a republican, but still..

[DudeAsInCool]

House won't cut public broadcasting funds

Big Bird and National Public Radio won a reprieve Thursday as the House restored $100 million that had been proposed as a budget cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 284-140 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting, whose supporters rallied behind popular programs such as "Sesame Street," "Postcards From Buster" and "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2005/06/23/public/index.html

[slum_goddess]

Steve Giliard on karl rove's latest bullshit: 'As a New York(er), I find this the equvilient of blood libel. (You know, the lie that the Jews used Christian babies blood for matzoh). No one asked what party 343 firemen belonged to when they died, or the 34 policemen. No one asked what party nine members of the 69th Regiment, New York City's own infantry regiment with a lineage going back to WW I, were when they were killed in Iraq, two of whom were immigrants, one a Pakistani muslim. No one asked and no one cared.

'To say that New Yorkers, who are 5-1 Democrats, are shirking from the service of their country is an insult to them and their service. No one asked for party enrollment when they took their oath and it is wrong to suggest that it matters now. Many New Yorkers, and Califonians as well, have died in the service of their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...I smelled the dead in my windows for a week after 9/11. While you sat back and worried about some Sikh blowing up your mall, every time I took a breath, burning flesh and paper filled my nose. Every day, for a year, I opened the paper to read about yet another funeral. On nice, sunny days, I get reminded of 9/11.

Then, I get to read about how Congress wants to pull $125m in aid for Ground Zero workers.

'So don't fucking lecture me about defending the people who protect my city. You don't drive by the firehouse memorials on every goddamn firehouse in the city. You don't see the stories about fucked up families left behind. You live in a fantasy world where big strong men kill the brown people and make you feel like a man. We know what they did for us far better than you ever will, no matter how much you pretend to understand. You don't. And you never will and you never want to.

'But in my real world, I had an appointment in the new Cantor Fitzgerald building this week. Maybe you don't know what that means, but let me explain. The majority of civilians killed on 9/11 worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Nearly 700 dead. So when you see their logo, it can creep you out. Because there is no way to escape that ghost.

'Not that you care. You sit in your home and cheer the confused teenagers in Irqq dying for your ideas and you don't lift a finger to help them. You don't volunteer, do you? Not at the local VA, or military hospital. Nope. You just sit there, a big old coward, cheering on children as they get crippled in the quest to make the Islamic Republic of Iraq. A fight you will not join, either.

'But like most conservatives, you expect others to do what you will not...' more here

[slum_goddess]

seen at the young college rethugs' conference (taken by two lib/dem students undercover who dispatched some amazing shit here)

[Kooperman]

'So don't fucking lecture me about defending the people who protect my city. You don't drive by the firehouse memorials on every goddamn firehouse in the city. You don't see the stories about fucked up families left behind. You live in a fantasy world where big strong men kill the brown people and make you feel like a man. We know what they did for us far better than you ever will, no matter how much you pretend to understand. You don't. And you never will and you never want to.

'But in my real world, I had an appointment in the new Cantor Fitzgerald building this week. Maybe you don't know what that means, but let me explain. The majority of civilians killed on 9/11 worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Nearly 700 dead. So when you see their logo, it can creep you out. Because there is no way to escape that ghost.

'Not that you care. You sit in your home and cheer the confused teenagers in Irqq dying for your ideas and you don't lift a finger to help them. You don't volunteer, do you? Not at the local VA, or military hospital. Nope. You just sit there, a big old coward, cheering on children as they get crippled in the quest to make the Islamic Republic of Iraq. A fight you will not join, either.

'But like most conservatives, you expect others to do what you will not...'

Powerful words of truth. We have an evil man surrounded by equally evil and devious assistants running the country. Mere impeachment would be too kind for these people...prison cells are where they belong, yet the news media is too afraid to get behind bringing this gang of world predators to justice.

[slum_goddess]

the fucking media should be all lined up and shot/hung in front of the white house w/all the bushCo criminals as well as what happened to that crap the NYTimes wouldn't print before the election (cause they dint want it to influence the election)? not that the new scandals or whatever would make any difference to me (i have scandal fatigue...it's prolly a defence mechanism of some kind, like chipping away at what's left of my innocence gland).

[DudeAsInCool]

Supreme Court Says Yes and No on 10 Commandment Displays

http://nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28commandments.html

[DudeAsInCool]

Santorum Blames Catholic Sex Scandals On Boston, 'Seat Of Academic, Political And Cultural Liberalism'

http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=30

[DudeAsInCool]

Time Magazine to Hand Over Reporter Notes

NEW YORK -- Breaking ranks with The New York Times, Time magazine said Thursday it would comply with a court order to hand over the notes of a reporter threatened with jail for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the unmasking of a CIA operative.

Time relented after just days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from its White House correspondent Matt Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who have been locked in an eight-month battle with the government to protect their confidential sources.

The magazine said that the high court's action will have "a chilling effect" on journalists' work but that Time had no choice.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines

[slum_goddess]

the other day the house of representatives voted to give themselves another pay raise. dig this shit: tom delay (of all people) says: 'it's not a pay raise--it's an adjustment so they don't lose their purchasing power.'

[DudeAsInCool]

tom delay (of all people) says: 'it's not a pay raise--it's an adjustment so they don't lose their purchasing power.'

That asshole pig has no shame

[slum_goddess]

52 house members file FOIA request for Downing Street Minutes docs

'Representative John Conyers, Jr., (D-MI) House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, along with 51 other Members today submitted a broad and comprehensive FOIA request to the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State seeking any and all documents and materials concerning the Downing Street Minutes and the lead up to the Iraq war..' more at link above

[DudeAsInCool]

Rumsfeld, Secret Pentagon Group Manupulated World View On Iraq

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html

[slum_goddess]

um Dude, that piece is like two years old, lol, i read it in germany

[slum_goddess]

Daniel Ellsberg: I wrote bush's war word--in 1965 (Daniel Ellsberg worked in the State and Defense departments under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971.)

[DudeAsInCool]

Bill Would Reduce Government's Role in Protecting Species

WASHINGTON, July 3 - Republican critics of the Endangered Species Act in Congress have drafted legislation hedging the government's obligation to take all necessary steps to bring back to robust health any species on the brink of extinction.

Read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/politics...serland&emc=rss

[DudeAsInCool]

Rove ain't talkin' Newsweek on the Rove Factor:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/

[slum_goddess]

rightwingers off to Iraq to report the real good news on US spreadin' democracy (since we have a liberal media who are bullshitting amerika that we're losing). kos says 'the crazies are going to Iraq to "report" the "truth":

"A contingent of conservatives talk radio hosts is headed to Iraq this month on a mission to report "the truth" about the war: American troops are winning, despite headlines to the contrary. The "Truth Tour" has been pulled together by the conservative Web cast radio group Rightalk.com and Move America Forward, a non-profit conservative group backed by a Republican-linked public relations firm in California.

"The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines by the mainstream media about our defeat in Iraq," Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host (search) for KSFO Radio in San Francisco and co-chair of Move America Forward, said. Morgan said the media is "imposing a Vietnam template on this war." "This is not Vietnam," she said. "War is war, and it's dangerous, and the killing is taking place all of the time. At the same time, where there is danger, there is success and there is a mainstream media that is determined to shut out that success."

kos: 'Awesome for them. Let them see the truth. But, for the record, the truth includes travelling out of the Green Zone. And it includes foregoing armed bodyguards and security escorts.

'If they want the truth, let them see it the way the average Iraqi sees it.'

i cannot wait to read the lies--that's /if/ they live to tell whatever made-up shit they can get others to swallow.

[DudeAsInCool]

Rove ain't talkin' Newsweek on the Rove Factor:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/

The NY Times takes a look at the quiet Spy and the outspoken Diplomat at the center of the case:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/politics/05wilson.html?

[DudeAsInCool]

Here is a look at Sandra Day O'Connor's important swing vote role on the Supreme Court:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/ind...nor5/index.html

Lets hope the replacement is as least a moderate conservative...

[DudeAsInCool]

NY Times Reporter Order to Jail For Refusing to Name Source

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/07/politics/07l...artner=homepage