idrankwhat

Just for argument, has anyone considered that the US is stretched so far militarily and that China finances so much of our debt (I think we hit another record last month) and is so important to the bottom line of so many retailers here in the US that they might be looking at this as an opportunity to say "give us Taiwan and we'll deal with NK for you"? Just a thought.

Thanks for posting this. But don't expect many people to reply. They're happy enough that they can use the headline today and maybe throw it into an argument later regardless of the fact that its has little to no "teeth". I was listening to the report about this on the way home today and I still wasn't sure what he did that was so wrong. I guess this is strike four or five for Solomon. Not bad for one year.

When it comes to lowered expectations I keep thinking of a group of people who rally around a person who can't speak in complete sentences in his native language and who has a record of repeated failures, insisting that this is something that we should emulate and use as an example for leadership around the world

Yeah, let's give people like Berger a pass... he couldn't possibly have been doing anything THAT wrong... besides... he paid a fine. It's all good now. Didn't he steal copies? If we want to know what he took then we just look at the originals. But my point is that this Congress, which basically sucked at it's job and didn't even bother to show up 40% of the time should be handling issues that mean something instead of just trying to paint the other side of the aisle as naughty. Basically this last congress voted for more money for themselves and padded a transportation bill with enough pork to feed an entire hemisphere, voted for an expensive fence, and voted to let the President be king with regard to detention and torture. That's about it. The didn't finish the immigration issue, they didn't touch the Abramhoff sparked lobbying reform that they promised, they didn't do anything about social security or medicare, they left a crapload of annual appropriations issues untouched, and ignored the warrantless wiretapping issue and they ignored the poor grades that the US is getting in implementing the 9/11 commission recommendations. (Yea, these are the folks who are such badasses on national security. Gay marriage is sooooo much more important). But top of MY list is the second part of the 9/11 investigation that was PROMISED us. I don't know about you folks but I think knowing whether or not Bush's gang manipulated intelligence to get us into a trillion dollar quagmire of a nation building and terrorist cultivation project is more important that whether someone stole some copies. This is just more wagon circling and "yea but Clinton....." crap.

You're kidding right? Pork?!?!? Do you really want to start with a Dem vs. Con earmark comparison? It's a very depressing game and no matter how you look at it, the taxpayer loses. Yup... Reid in another land deal to develop an area so dry that surveyors thought it's best use was as a weapons range... sounds like a pork barrel project to me... You just described southern Kaalaaforneeeea. A place that catches fire every year and is so desperate for water that they once entertained the concept of hauling ice bergs down from the arctic. That aside, c'mon man. Answer the question, do you really want to trade hits in the earmark game? I don't, but I will if you insist. It should be easy to do considering the record number that have been signed in recent years.

That's what I expect from this three day work week, do nothing congress. I guess that the upside of this will be that if they investigate this then they'll have less time for earmarking their personal projects.

Nah, we need to keep Frist. I heard he saw a video tape on how to be an effective Senate majority leader

You're kidding right? Pork?!?!? Do you really want to start with a Dem vs. Con earmark comparison? It's a very depressing game and no matter how you look at it, the taxpayer loses.

Well it's an easy thing to do. Prarie Parkway? Now that's a nice one. Hastert buying land in the boonies and then using his influence to get federal funds (that's your money by the way) to build a highway to his property netting him about $2 million. How about Barbara Bush and her recent charitible giving to the Katrina victims? Nice, give them a millon or so but tag it with a condition that it be used solely for the purchase of some software..........that's owned by her son Neil. Ooooo, and let's not forget about Rove's WH aid, Susan Ralston who resigned in a Friday afternoon news dump last week. In case you missed she's pled guilty to ties with Abramhoff and the pimping of the President. That aside, I can see how some might get upset about Reid paying market value for his property and then making a profit off of it. Maybe there's something more there, we'll see. But the author of the piece apparently has a history of ommitting important information in the pieces that he writes about Democrats, at least three in the last year that he's been busted on. And for the record, no...I'm not defending anything that he might have done. As far as I'm concerned almost all politicians are crooks who tweak the system for their benefit at the expense of others. And the reason that I say "almost all" is that I'd like to hope that there's at least a couple who are honorable.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHaaaa!!!!!!!! Good one!!!!!!! Made me shoot coffee out of my nose with that one!

Hey, my Rottie hasn't made half the bad decisions that this administration has. That's why I trust him more (see attached).

Everyone wanted him out of there. There's no argument on that. But the military leadership knew, as did the Clinton administration, as did Bush the elder, that it has to be done right or we're screwed. Bush came in, installed his civilian military leadership, ignored the advice of the regular military leadership and the plans that they had been working on for 10 years, ignored his secretary of state, ignored the wishes of the world community and ignored the wishes of Iraq's neighbors (except Israel of course) and barged in. Now we have what we thought were going to have if we did what we ended up doing.

True, and they had people working on the al qaeda threat. The didn't get them but they were at least trying to. The difference is that when it was handed over to the next administration al qaeda was put on the far back burner and Iraq and missile defense were moved to the front.

The reality of the situation is that one group spoke based on what they thought but couldn't verify. The other group was able to verify the actual nature of the threat, and did, but threw that information out because it didn't fit the plan. That's what they meant when they said (repeatedly) that the intelligence was being fixed around the policy.

Hey, when Bush comes out and makes speeches about thwarting the will of the international community, you'd better pay attention. He knows what he's talking about

Or a meteorite....or a burning bush.....or a.....

You're right. That shit was so far out there that no one would ever believe it. I mean c'mon. There's no way that that hoop was regulation! The notion that Kim Jong-il could get that much air is an insult to our sensibilities!

And how many of those quotes were based on the cherry picked intelligence that was provided to Congress as routed through the office of special plans via Cheney's office? It's a pretty safe bet that at least seven of them were not. You're right. I forgot to qualify those quotes which were made before we had the "unfettered" access to any and all of Iraq. Bush waved his big stick and helped to get the UN in there. I'll give him that much. Too bad he blew it after that. And again I should probably make note that Bush was pretty much just the enabler to those neo-cons who had been driving this war for nearly a decade. So in retrospect, I don't know if you can impeach someone for being a chump.

And how many of those quotes were based on the cherry picked intelligence that was provided to Congress as routed through the office of special plans via Cheney's office? And how many of those quotes were made after the UN inspectors (who said they only needed six more months) were in Iraq with the "unfettered" access that they requested? Didn't matter did it? The "imminent" threat of a nooookular cloud demanded immediate action. Bush Sr knew it was a bad idea but George had to, as he put it "defer to a higher father". Maybe the boy blunder should have listened to his "lower" father. Here's Bush (41) on the issue. "Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, ..... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. ....... Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome."

Sorry, this is the best I can do on short notice and still do my work today. Aug. 26, 2002 Dick Cheney, Vice President "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Sep. 12, 2002 George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." Oct. 5, 2002 George W. Bush, Radio Address "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons." Oct. 7, 2002 George W. Bush "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." Jan. 28, 2003 George W. Bush "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" and "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents... " May 30, 2003 Bush cites 2 trailers found as evidence of " the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war. "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly 9/12/2002 "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." George W. Bush, Radio Address 10/5/2002 "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002 "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002 "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." George W. Bush, State of the Union Address 1/28/2003 “The best way for peace is for Mr. Saddam Hussein to disarm,” he insists. “It's up to him to make his decision.” [White House, 12/4/02] Bush says. “He's the person who gets to decide war and peace.” [White House, 2/7/03] Sep. 18, 2002 Donald Rumsfeld His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons—including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. His regime has an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons.

I'll definitely agree with you there! I agree there too. Really it all comes down to, as I said, getting the better pussy. Better attitudes begets better pussy. Most Americans haven't realized that and think bigger wallets begetts better pussy and that's the essential problem. You are right. Arrogance combined with a sense of infallibility and invincibility will get you into a war AND get you laid. But that doesn't mean that the pussy is necessarily better. It just means that you THINK it's better If you really want to feel better about yourself then challenge yourself. There's nothing like leaving last call with "whatshername" and walking past some lonely loser in a corvette on your way to your '83 Corolla diesel. By the way, I'm diggin' your philosophy these days. What's up? Find a key to the communion wine cabinet

Hey Goofy, I'm still waiting for you to provide a link for that quote. Or is you claim that Bush said those exact words... Does Rummy count? March 2003: STEPHANOPOULOS: [I]s it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction? RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think — let me take that, both pieces — the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

I'll definitely agree with you there!

We (US) are a nation of consumers who get our politicians, news, entertainment, and consumer products all from the same small group of corporations. We don't care what our government does so long as we get cheap gas, cheap fatty, salty foods, cheap clothes (made with indentured prostitute, child labor in US territories off the coast of China) and still have enough money left over to buy a bunch of useless plastic shit (that the kids play with for a week until we take it to the overflowing landfill) at Walmart. We don't care if our government rewards energy companies for poisoning us with mercury or waters our veggies with sewage waste water while simultaneously spreading human and industrial sludge in our agricultural fields. We don't care if we have to leave our children in the custody of other people to raise because both parents have to work to maintain the lifestyle that out media paints as "normal". So we work long hours so that we can afford our gas guzzling, overpriced SUV's and the creation of the illusion of ownership of our overpriced housing. We also don't care about living a lifestyle that is sustainable for our children or grandchildren, just so long as we can get whatever we can....NOW. Hopefully that will be enough to elevate us over the poor schmucks who were too stupid or lazy to get off their asses and get a 5$/hr job (which is 821 times less than the average CEO salary) to pay for their overpriced health care and $160,000 four year education. Our government can do whatever it wants, kill whoever it wants, enslave, spy on us, torture, poison, destroy entire ecosystems, dumb us down and do it with money borrowed from our children (and our "enemies") so long as the reality TV programming keeps coming and we are told that we're better than everyone else. There, that ought to get things started

yes, they gave him a blank check, and with the exception of Barbara Lee gave their support to flattening Iraq. While we don't call these declarations of war anymore, that's as close as we get. . That blank check was issued with conditions attached for cashing it. Conditions that we were told were satisfied prior to the invasion, but in fact were not satisfied at all. Actually I think that there are also some conditions that have be satisfied after the fact. I may be mistaken here but I think that there is supposed to be some sort of review given to Congress every 60 days.