Third Graders Debate Iraq War

An excerpt from a presidential debate in Mr. Faustmann's third grade class, Alma Michigan.

An Ad I'd Like To See

An ad I'd like to see from the Obama campaign.

Several clips of George W. Bush talking about WMD. Then a screen showing some conservative paper (WSJ?) saying that there were never any WMD. Then show Bush joking about looking for them under his desk.

Several clips of John McCain and Sarah Palin saying she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. Then a screen showing her in the Nowhere, Alaska t-shirt. Then a screen of WSJ debunking of that lie.

Show Obama saying on the stump, Do they think you're stupid? Do they think you're that stupid?

Obama/Biden '08

What do you think?

No More War

John McCain wants to be a war president, just like George W. Clusterfuck. He expects more wars. He wants more wars in more places. He thinks there is a military solution to every problem.

No to more wars. No to four more years. No to McCain. (Warning, graphic scenes of violence in this five minute film. The violence the Pentagon has erased from the media for six years now.)

Apocalypse Bush

12% of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan died in the past six weeks. In the past six weeks, 64 American soldiers have died in the war George W. Bush has starved for five years to fight his war of lies in Iraq. Why doesn't the New Yorker magazine have a cartoon on the cover showing George W. Bush in burning hell, spending eternity looking under his desk for the weapons of mass destruction? Now that would be funny.

The press corpse continues to stink up the Presidential race. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has dug up one of the bodies. Ron Fournier (we wrote about him here when he wrote a terribly slanted article calling Obama "arrogant") has been appointed head of AP's Washington Bureau. Apparently he's encouraging more opinion and fewer facts. Great. And since you can judge a man by the company he keeps, guess who Ron Fournier was emailing the day Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan and the Bushies were frantically covering up his tragic death? Ron Fournier, "journalist", was emailing with the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove. Here's their exchange, as summarized in a House Oversight Committee report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

And after those pious niceties and expressions of patriotic solidarity, they lied to the Tillmans about how their son was killed. Reprehensible.

Edited to add: Here's a PDF of the House Oversight Committee report; the Karl Rove-Ron Fournier emails are described on page 23.

A little history is in order. Who was the biggest supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11/01? Why, it was George W. Clusterfuck, of course. This post at dailykos details the Bush Administration's decision to send a $43 million dollar gift to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan in May of 2001.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the U.S. government was in on the 9/11 attacks. But George Bush, a stupid, arrogant fool, did everything wrong in his first pathetic 9 months in office. He gave the Taliban millions of dollars. He ignored the Clinton administration holdovers like Richard Clarke who were running around the White House with their hair on fire over Osama bin Laden and the threat of terrorism. He spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation, and when the CIA briefer flew to Crawford to read him the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001, with the ominous headline "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", he told that CIA briefer "All right, you've covered your ass now". All President DumbFuckinFratBoy could think to say when the CIA dared to intrude on his brush-cutting vacation was a dumb joke. He didn't hear the urgency. He spent the month playing Solomon and splitting the baby, deciding that the country would allow stem cell research on very few cell lines, most of which are contaminated with mouse DNA. He fiddled while Osama plotted.

Worst. President. Ever.

We can't elect another stupid, out of touch, arrogant fool again. (cough, cough, John McCain)
.

"I Challenge Anybody In Congress To Do My Rotation"

From the Guardian (uk); you have to go abroad to get real news about what the "surge" really means to Iraq, and to the U.S. soldiers on their second, third, fourth and fifth rotations:



Then go down to the next post and watch all those Bushco fuckers lie, then watch Bush laugh about not finding WMD in Iraq. Ha ha. Impeach their cold, empty souls.

hat tip to Brilliant at Breakfast

Watch This Video: "How to Create an Angry American"

View From ABroad

Tomorrow's cover of my favorite British newspaper, The Independent

Independent (uk): Liar in the White house: Cheney aide found guilty in CIA leak case
Saga of Washington's discredited WMD claims leads to the conviction for perjury of Dick Cheney's key aide

How Blair has stood by Niger claim

The golden couple targeted by White House machine

Cheney is a Synonym for Warmongering Chickenhawk Moron

Sorry for lack of posts, I went to a family wedding this weekend and now am laboring to glaze my work for a sodafiring Friday.

For entertainment today, I recommend reading Liz Cheney's (yes, daughter of Dick) op-ed in today's Washington Post. Then read the hundreds of comments. 46 pages of 'em right now. Here's mine (page 22):

Fact-free BS masquerading as opinion in the WaPo. First off, Lieberman isn't a Democrat -- he's a member of the Lieberman for Connecticut Party. Second, winning is no longer an option. The time for winning was when we invaded Iraq, based on lies, with a too-small force and a ridiculous strategy conceived by the stupidest foreign policy team in the history of the United States. We're just enjoying the fruits of being greeted as liberators, like your idiot father said. Why is the Post letting the idiots who got us into this mess tell us how to get out? Why not give a column to someone smart, oh, someone like Scott Ritter, or Al Gore, or a liberal blogger, or any of the smart people who said, there are no WMD, this whole thing is being made up by Cheney and PNAC, the British tried this 80 years ago and it didn't work, why don't we stick with the real problem which is Al Qaeda and bin Laden and forget about secular Hussein? Oh, that would hurt your cocktail party reputation. Got to stay in the Kewl Kids Klub. Thanks for nothing, WaPo.

TIme To End The War For Oil

Here's why Chimpy McFlightsuit is proposing escalation: It's all about the oil, the riches, the spoils of war. The sons and daughters of the poor will die so the uber-rich can get richer. The Independent (uk) reports that the Iraq parliament is planning to introduce a law that will allow foreigners (giant international oil firms, that is) to take Iraq's oil, for profit. Not only were the WMD not there, they were a complete smokescreen for the real purpose of the war: to make money for Bush and his cronies. Hundreds of thousands of dead, for money. The moneychangers are in the temple. Sickening.


Independent (uk): Future of Iraq: The spoils of war
How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

Independent (uk): Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity

Independent (uk): Iraq poised to end drought for thirsting oil giants
After 35 years, the third-largest reserves in the world are to be opened to American and British companies

Independent (uk): (Commentary) Leading article: The oil rush

Gerald Ford's only achievement in office, according to Frank Rich in today's NYTimes, was getting the U.S. out of Vietnam . Bush isn't getting out of Iraq. His entire plan is staying until he leaves, then dumping the fetid mess in the lap of the next president. That's the plan. Don't let anybody tell you different.

Driving While Democratic

I received this in email:

These bumper stickers were compiled by Jerry Paull, a former Methodist minister in Lakeside, Ohio, who writes: The following actual bumper stickers are now on cars. I didn't write any of them. I'm only the messenger. If they make you laugh, good. If they make you cry, good. If they make you angry, that's good too. If you don't want to read them, hit the delete button.


BLIND FAITH IN BAD LEADERSHIP IS NOT PATRIOTISM


IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION


IF YOU SUPPORTED BUSH, A YELLOW RIBBON WON'T MAKE UP FOR IT


POVERTY, HEALTH CARE & HOMELESSNESS ARE MORAL ISSUES


OF COURSE IT HURTS. YOU'RE GETTING SCREWED BY AN ELEPHANT


BUSH LIED, AND YOU KNOW IT


RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM: A THREAT ABROAD, A THREAT AT HOME


GOD BLESS EVERYONE
(No exceptions)


BUSH SPENT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY ON HIS WAR


PRO AMERICA, ANTI BUSH


WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?


IF YOU SUPPORT BUSH'S WAR, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? SHUT UP AND SHIP OUT


FEEL SAFER NOW?


I'D RATHER HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO SCREWED HIS INTERN THAN ONE WHO SCREWED HIS COUNTRY


JESUS WAS A SOCIAL ACTIVIST - THAT IS A LIBERAL


MY VALUES? FREE SPEECH. EQUALITY. LIBERTY. EDUCATION. TOLERANCE


IS IT 2008 YET?


DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM -- Thomas Jefferson


DON'T BLAME ME. I VOTED AGAINST BUSH -- TWICE!


ANNOY A CONSERVATIVE; THINK FOR YOURSELF


VISUALIZE IMPEACHMENT


HEY BUSH! WHERE'S BIN LADEN?


CORPORATE MEDIA = MASS MIND CONTROL


STOP MAD COWBOY DISEASE


GEORGE W. BUSH: MAKING TERRORISTS FASTER THAN HE CAN KILL THEM


KEEP YOUR THEOCRACY OFF MY DEMOCRACY


DEMOCRATS ARE SEXY. WHOEVER HEARD OF A GOOD PIECE OF ELEPHANT?


ASPIRING CANADIAN


CORPORATE MEDIA: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION


DON'T CONFUSE DYING FOR OIL WITH FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM


STEM CELL RESEARCH IS PRO LIFE


HATE, GREED, IGNORANCE: WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION


HONOR OUR TROOPS; DEMAND THE TRUTH


REBUILD IRAQ? WHY NOT SPEND 87 BILLION ON AMERICA?


FACT: BUSH OIL
1999 - $19 BARREL
2006 - $70 BARREL


THE LAST TIME RELIGION CONTROLLED POLITICS, PEOPLE GOT BURNED AT THE STAKE


I'LL GIVE UP MY CHOICE WHEN JOHN ROBERTS GETS PREGNANT


SUPPORT OUR TROOPS; IMPEACH BUSH


HOW ON EARTH CAN 59,411,287 PEOPLE BE SO DUMB?

Deleted Again

Last night when I got in, I read about the NYTimes hatchet job on Hillary & Bill Clinton. Sex lives of the rich and famous, front page news.

For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives

Someone pointed out that there's a blog on the Times called "The Empire Zone", where you could leave comments about the article.

Now, if the Clinton's sex lives are front page news because she's a policymaker and likely presidential candidate, aren't there other important and influential people who should get this treatment? One came to my mind immediately.

So I left this comment on the Empire Zone:

Thanks for the update on the Clinton marriage. It's important to know how public figures lead their private lives, and how that influences their decision making process.

In that vein, I would ask that the Times report on the following questions:

What were Judith Miller and Scooter Libby doing at the St. Regis? Each other?

What was Judith Miller doing with her officer in Iraq?

Did Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi have any sexual quid-pro-quo for the WMD lies he fed her?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Thank you to the New York Times for making clear the corporate media's downward slide to the sewer.

Now, I knew this would get deleted. Especially when I wrote "Each other?". Never speculate about a fellow journamalist like Judy the Mattress and her active sex life. Anonymously sourced speculating about relationships is only appropriate where Democrats are involved.

My comment had to be deleted, but this helpful poster, telling readers how to get around the $50 a year TimesSelect wall, made the no-need-to-delete cut.

#

If you are worried that you will miss Krugman, you can get his articles online 99% of the time simply by copying the first line of his article, and then pasting it into the search box at technorati.com.

Comment by You won't miss Krugman — May 24, 2006 @ 12:05 am

Sheesh.

You Go, Girl

The student speaker at the New School graduation in New York City yesterday gave keynote speaker John McCain, fresh off his speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a piece of her mind. I don't think he enjoyed it too much. Support wars based on lies, pay the price. The first link is to her piece on Huffington Post, the second is to MoDo's column today (sorry, Times Wall)

Jean Rohe, Huffington Post: Why I Spoke Up

Maureen Dowd, NYTimes: Make Poetry, Not War (full article, Ed Strong)

NYTimes: Graduates at New School Heckle Speech by McCain

The first student speaker, Jean Sara Rohe, 21, said she had discarded her original remarks to talk about Mr. McCain.

"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all."

Noting that Mr. McCain had promised to give the same speech at all of his graduation appearances, Ms. Rohe, who was one of two students selected to speak by university deans, attacked his remarks even before he delivered them.

"Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."

She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions."

"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.

She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."

Must See TV

Pay no attention to that little man in the corner
Stephen Colbert put George Bush on the spit, with a side of pompous Washington journalists, grilled to perfection, at the Correspondents Dinner last night.

I saw the replay after midnight and was afraid I was going to wake up my upstairs neighbor with my peals of laughter.

It was a little tense in the room, as almost no one seemed to enjoy being the main dish of the barbecue. George and Laura had real sourpusses.

I say 'almost' because Injustice Scalia (Colbert addressed him with a "Vaffunculo", and some other hand gestures, "I'm just saying hi to my Sicilian paisan") grinned broadly and went to the podium after it was over to shake Colbert's hand. George Bush put on a fake smile to shake his hand, then it disappeared as he turned away. Laura didn't even extend her hand. She and Colbert just nodded at each other. Helen Thomas (star of Colbert's video when she pursued him trying to ask why we went to war in Iraq) got a big hug and kiss.

The corporate media seems to be trying to pretend it didn't happen. CNN is running a piece on Bush's schtick with his fake Bush sidekick, with no mention of Colbert. C-Span doesn't have it on the schedule today. Hmmmmm.

Guess you'll have to watch it on the internet. Crooks & Liars has the video, and several other links.

Editor & Publisher: Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner-- President Does Not Seem Amused

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, just three tables away from Karl Rove, and that he had brought " Valerie Plame." Then, worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean... he brought Joseph Wilson's wife." He might have "dodged the bullet," he said, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't there.

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, melting glaciers and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face. He advised the crowd, "if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly on into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail. "

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides of the story — the president’s side and the vice president’s side." He also reflected on the alleged good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know-- fiction."

He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new press secretary is "Snow Job." Colbert closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special “Gannon” button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.

As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and handshakes, and left immediately.

Youtube video of Colbert's video piece: his application for White House Press Secretary.

The Democratic Daily has a rough transcript.

A high quality bittorrent file of Colbert's appearance. (I saw this at Boing Boing)

AOL Poll on who was funniest at Correspondents dinner; Bush imitator Bridges holds a slim lead.

Add Another Bold-Faced Lie to Bush's Giant Stack of Lies

The Pentagon sends a blue-ribbon panel of experts -- scientists and engineers -- to Baghdad to analyze some trailers captured in the invasion of Iraq. Their unanimous conclusion: These trailers were not mobile weapons labs. So what does Bush do? Stamps the report secret, throws it in a drawer somewhere, and goes on TV to say, in those serious tones we now know he reserves for the big lies, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." His lips were moving. I guess we should have known he was lying. The boy who cried wolf, no one with a brain should ever believe anything he says. Ever again.

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.

None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.

Incompetent Idiot Liar

Even presstitute Jim VandeHei is questioning Der Leader. However, because he is Jim VandeHei, he manages to do so without using the words incompetent, idiot or liar. ("Incompetent" from the Pew Research poll becomes "skeptical [of] administrative competency"). Of course, he does manage to throw in the old RNC talking point that Bush is a strong and trustworthy leader. Even when describing Bush's lies, he does so gently, using the passive voice. The stuff in brackets is all mine:

WaPo: Old Forecasts Come Back to Haunt Bush
Erosion in Confidence Will Be Hard To Reverse, Say Pollsters, Strategists

Three years of upbeat White House assessments about Iraq that turned out to be premature, incomplete or plain wrong.... [INCOMPETENT IDIOT LIAR]

....House optimism that skeptics contend is at odds with the facts on the ground in Iraq..... [LIAR]

.......the administration's sunny-side-up appraisals,... [LIAR, IDIOT]

.......Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) said in an interview that Cheney was wrong about the insurgency being in its last throes......."I am always cautious about always seeing things in the best light because war is not like that" and the public knows it........ [LIAR, IDIOT]

...Michael Dimock, associate director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said a recent survey by his group showed the public skeptical toward Bush, about both his administrative competency and his personal credibility. Only 40 percent of respondents said Bush was trustworthy, a 22-point drop from September of 2003, six months after the invasion of Iraq.....[INCOMPETENT, IDIOT, LIAR]

.....Bush is waging the wrong argument.....[LIAR, IDIOT]

......The erosion in the public's support for Bush at a personal level is a striking reversal for a president who for most of his first term was described by the public as a strong and trustworthy leader, especially on national security measures.....[LIAR, IDIOT, INCOMPETENT]

....In recent months, Bush has moved to talk more candidly about the problems in Iraq and yesterday said repeatedly that he understood the public's concerns.....[LIAR]

....There were the famous claims by Cheney and others that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators after the invasion.....[LIAR, IDIOT, INCOMPETENT]

Other statements were proved wrong. The weapons of mass destruction the administration said Saddam Hussein possessed before the war have never been found -- and many experts believe never existed. White House officials hammered then-chief economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey for claiming the war could cost as little as $100 billion, saying the estimate was too high. The actual tally is fast approaching four times that amount, according to the Congressional Research Service, which estimates a $360 billion price tag to date.[LIAR, IDIOT, INCOMPETENT]

Perhaps the most famous rosy statement came nearly three years ago when Bush proclaimed: "We have seen the turning of the tide" under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." Since then, more than 2,300 Americans have died in Iraq. [LIAR, IDIOT, INCOMPETENT, WORST PRESIDENT EVER]

Everybody Hates the Port Deal; Was It Bought and Paid For?

Tom Kean (former head of the 9/11 Commission, former governor of New Jersey):
Former Sept. 11 commission chairman blasts ports deal

WASHINGTON -- The former chairman of the Sept. 11 commission blasted the offer by a United Arab Emirates company to run operations at six major U.S. seaports, saying it should never have been brokered in the first place.

"It shouldn't have happened, it never should have happened," Thomas Kean said Friday during a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Kean, who also is a past governor of New Jersey, said the quicker the Bush administration can get out of the deal, the better. He also criticized the administration, saying "somebody has a tin ear over there."

"We're in a no-win situation," Kean said, referring to the United Arab Emirates. "There's no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there."

Clark Kent Ervin, the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department from 2003 to 2004 (and a great name!):

NYTimes: Strangers at the Door

WHO could have imagined that, in the post-9/11 world, the United States government would approve a deal giving control over six major American ports to a country with ties to terrorism? But this is exactly what the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has done.

Since 1999, the ports of New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities have been operated by a British concern, P & O Ports, which has now been bought by Dubai Ports World, a company controlled by the government of the United Arab Emirates. Defenders of the deal are claiming that critics, including the Republican and Democratic leaderships in Congress, are acting reflexively out of some bias against Arabs.

This is simply not true. While the United Arab Emirates is deemed by the Bush administration to be an ally in the war on terrorism, we should all have deep concerns about its links to terrorists. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of the emirates, and some of the money for the attacks came from there. It was one of only three countries in the world that recognized the Taliban regime. And Dubai was an important transshipment point for the smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment for making nuclear weapons.

Most terrorism experts agree that the likeliest way for a weapon of mass destruction to be smuggled into our country would be through a port. After all, some 95 percent of all goods from abroad arrive in the United States by sea, and yet only about 6 percent of incoming cargo containers are inspected for security threats.

It is true that at the ports run by the Dubai company, Customs officers would continue to do any inspection of cargo containers and the Coast Guard would remain "in charge" of port security. But, again, very few cargo inspections are conducted. And the Coast Guard merely sets standards that ports are to follow and reviews their security plans. Meeting those standards each day is the job of the port operators: they are responsible for hiring security officers, guarding the cargo and overseeing its unloading.

The Port Authority of New York has filed a lawsuit against the deal. A US company at the Port of Miami, Eller & Co., has filed lawsuits in Miami and in the High Court of London claiming that the deal will make it an 'involuntary partner' of the UAE:

Lawsuits Filed to Stop Ports Takeover, Deal on Hold

The UAE gave $100 billion to the US for Katrina aid, weeks before the port deal. Coincidence? Right:

UAE gave $100 million for Katrina relief

The administration said the request for U.S. approval of the $6.8 billion ports deal and the UAE contribution were not related.

"There was no connection between the two events," said Adam Ereli, the deputy State Department spokesman.

The U.S. government the money it received from the United Arab Emirates was nearly four times as much as it received from all other countries combined. Other nations, including some in the Middle East, also pledged large contributions but have not yet sent the money.

Previous posts:
UAE Company to Run Six Ports? Try Twenty-One Ports.

Bush's Blink

What's The Big Secret?

Why Take That Chance?

Bush Prepares for Blink on UAE/Port Deal

UAE Port Security Takeover Update

So Who Did Review the UAE/Ports Deal?

Terrorist Funders Would Control US Military Equipment Shipments As Well As US Ports

If Terrorist Funders Run Our Ports, Terrorists Win

Privatization Gone Wild - Bushco Puts Terrorist Funders in Charge

Coretta Scott King's Funeral

Had some great eulogies. Hope to link to transcripts eventually. For now:

VIDEO: Rev. Lowery’s Standing Ovation

We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. [Standing Ovation] But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor.

Whither Journalism?

From the Smirking Chimp:

Stephen Pizzo: 'The endangered scoop'

Let's play the blame game. Whose fault is it, anyway. Seriously. Whose fault is that:

# We still don't know who met with VP Dick Cheney five years ago to formulate the national energy policies that have now brought us record high energy prices.

# We didn't know in time that the Iraq/Niger/Yellow cake business was a scam - and three years later we still don't know who cooked it up,

# We didn't know in time that there were no WMD in Iraq, and there hadn't been for years,

# We didn't know soon enough that US troops were "mistreating" Iraq prisoners, even though reporters were "embedded" with those troops,

# We didn't learn for almost four years that the NSA was breaking the law listening in on Americans and reading our email.

# Why did it take so long to find out what Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay were up to when the evidence has been laying around since at least 2002 just waiting for someone it all together.

Who's to blame for that dismal list of disgrace?

Simple. My former profession, journalism, is to blame - hands down. Journalists are supposed to be in the "show and tell" business. But over the past five years they have done neither very well -- if at all.

I Just Want a Little Frogmarching for Christmas

Byron York in National Review today:

Will Rove be Indicted?
As rumors fly, here is what is known at this point.

This part is hilarious:

Still, it's possible Fitzgerald will forge ahead, in part because his much-publicized, two-year investigation has so far produced relatively meager results. After intense probing, and working with virtually unlimited power and discretion, the hard-charging prosecutor has succeeded in indicting one person, Libby, although not for an underlying offense, and disrupting or marring the careers of journalists Judith Miller, Cooper, Woodward, and, most recently, Time's Viveca Novak. Some Fitzgerald watchers find it difficult to believe that he will close up shop and go home with a record like that.

Now, how exactly has Fitzgerald "disrupt[ed] or marr[ed]" the careers of Judith Miller (who went to jail to protect a source she ... couldn't remember, after royally screwing up the WMD/Iraq story), Cooper (what, it screwed up his life to get subpoenaed?), Woodward (revealed for the Bushco court stenographer he is) or Novak (revealed confidential information to a source then lied to her editors about it).

Oh, that's right, he hasn't.

And Byron? When a prosecutor indicts someone for obstruction of justice, it's because they've obstructed investigation into the underlying offenses. If there hadn't been obstruction, the prosecutor would have been able to indict on the underlying offenses. Duh.

Frogmarching, soon, I think.

1000 Days of War in Iraq

From the Independent (UK):

The war in numbers: From WMD to the victims

$204.4billion The cost to the US of the war so far. The UK's bill up until March 2005 was £3.1 billion

2,339 Allied troops killed

98 UK troops killed

30,000 Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths

0 Number of WMDs found

8 per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition

$35,819m World Bank estimated cost of reconstruction

53,470 Iraqi insurgents killed

67 per cent Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation

$343 Average monthly salary for an Iraqi soldier. Average monthly salary for an American soldier in Iraq: $4,160.75

66 journalists killed in Iraq. Journalists killed during Vietnam war: 63

5 foreign civilians kidnapped per month

47 per cent Iraqis who never have enough electricity

20 casualties per month from unexploded mines

20 per cent Inflation rate 2005

25-40 per cent Estimated unemployment rate, Nov 2005

251 Foreigners kidnapped

70 per cent of Iraqi's whose sewage system rarely works

183,000 British and American troops are still in action in Iraq. There are 162,000 US troops and 8,000 British with 13,000 from other nations

90 Daily attacks by insurgents in Nov '05. In Jun '03: 8

82 per centIraqis who are "strongly opposed" to presence of coalition troops

15,955 US troops wounded in action