Jeb & Schiavo

Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he thought the governor's latest move was "a product of his own personal beliefs" but also, possibly, an attempt to win political points.

"Were he interested in running for president or being put on the 2008 ticket as vice president, this would pay dividends," Mr. Sabato said.

Gitmo & Halliburton

A Halliburton Co. unit will build a new $30 million detention facility and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay

Under the deal with the Norfolk, Virginia-based U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, the work is to be wrapped up by July 2006. It is part of a larger contract that could be worth up to $500 million if all options are exercised, the Defense Department said.
The project is to be carried out by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Services of Arlington, Virginia. It includes site work, heating ventilation and air conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, the pentagon said.

Rumsfeld said on Tuesday U.S. taxpayers had spend more than $100 million on construction costs and no other facility could replace it.

read the article

Schiavo Quotes

Dr. Bill Frist, March 17: "I close this evening speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. senator."
Senator Bill Frist, June 16: "I never, never, on the floor of the Senate, made a diagnosis, nor would I ever do that,"
Senator Bill Frist, June 16: "I think it is now time to move on."

Senator Tom DeLay, March 20: "Schiavo's condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media. Terri
Schiavo is not brain dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort."

NBC verifies 7 more "Downing Street Memos"

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8207731

The Path of War Timeline

From January 26, 1998 - The Project for a New American Century urges President Clinton to oust Saddam Hussein. Among the eighteen signers are Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton. (New American Century)

To May-July 2003 - The British Ministry of Defense's most senior biological weapons expert and adviser to intelligence agencies on Iraq, Dr Kelly was the anonymous source for BBC reports in May 2003 that a dossier used by the Blair Government to justify invading Iraq had been "sexed up." After being revealed as the BBC's source and grilled before a parliamentary inquiry, Dr Kelly was found dead in July 2003. (The Age)

See the whole thing here

Lobbying From Within

An editorial about the revolving Whitehouse door.

Racist Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter loves to hate Arabs. In her new column she says:

There are Arabs locked up at Guantanamo, no? Admittedly, not enough. (And not under what any frequent flier would describe as "harsh conditions.") Still and all, Arabs are locked up there. That is what we call a "purpose."


What happens is this: There are thousands of Muslim extremists literally dying to slaughter Americans, and only three proven ways to stop them: (1) Kill them (the recommended method), (2) capture them and keep them locked up, or (3) convince them that their cause is lost. Guantanamo is useless for No. 1, but really pulls ahead on No. 2 and No. 3 (i.e. a "purpose").

Preacher of Hate

BOISE, Idaho -- A Kansas preacher and gay rights foe whose congregation is protesting military funerals around the country said he's coming to Idaho tomorrow to picket the memorial for an Idaho National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.
A flier on the Web site of Pastor Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church claims God killed Cpl. Carrie French with an improvised explosive device in retaliation against the United States for a bombing at Phelps' church six years ago.

Westboro Baptist either has protested or is planning protests of other public funerals of soldiers from Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, Virginia and Colorado. A protest is planned for July 11 at Dover Air Force Base, the military base where war dead are transported before being sent on to their home states.
Phelps gained national notoriety in 1998 when he picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student beaten to death in Wyoming.

Phelps' church has picketed the funerals of AIDS victims for more than a decade.
French, 19, was a Caldwell High School graduate and varsity cheerleader. She was killed June 5 in the northern city of Kirkuk. French served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion.

"Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime," Phelps said.

Here is a link to his website: God Hates Fags

House votes to repeal part of USA Patriot Act

Vote may signal that Bush campaign to renew and extend Act isn't winning over Congress.

Rush Rages about European Toilets

From the June 9 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: You think they had toilets in Europe before we came along? They didn't. They still don't have toilets in Europe that make any sense. Even after we're here. You ever been to Europe? Use some of their toilets, even in some of the finest hotels, it's amazing!

The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets reports that precursors to the modern toilet date back to western India, circa 2,500 B.C., when "people had water borne toilets in each house ... linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks."
Closer antecedents to the modern toilet evolved in Britain and France before the United States even existed as an independent nation. In 1596, "J.D. Harrington, a relative of Queen Elizabeth I, invented the water closet -- a toilet with a chain," according to the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram. In the years that followed, "Harrington's toilet under the name Angrez was being used in France, though not introduced on a large scale in England," according to the Sulabh Museum.
Englishmen also invented the most direct forerunners to the modern toilet. "The first valve-type flush toilet was introduced in 1738 by a man named J.F. Brondel," an English architect, according to Yahoo.com, which cited the Sulabh Museum. Other Englishmen -- Alexander Cummings, Joseph Bramah, and Albert Giblin -- made subsequent improvements to the toilet between 1775 and 1819, according to the Star-Telegram.
Even the man often falsely credited with inventing the toilet -- Thomas Crapper -- was an English plumber who held nine patents for plumbing products during the late 1800s.

From Media Matters. Listen to the audio clip of Rush.

Cheney making friends

Vice President Cheney was the keynote speaker at the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Awards for distinguished coverage of the presidency and national defense.

When asked how this administration defines "excellence in journalism," Cheney quipped, "I'll know it when I see it."

One more on Gannon

He blogged:
Liberal PBS may need to get more private funding
Newsmax is reporting that the free lunch for liberals on the airwaves may be over soon or at least will be dished out in much smaller portions. The taxpayer funded programming may have to compete for viewer dollars by actually offering something people want to watch.

Guess what? They all have several pledge drives a year and they are very successful. That wouldn't happen if they didn't offer "something people want to watch." And though the Right claims PBS is liberal, making it more "conservative" sounds like politicizing it to me.

And by the way...Newsmaz isn't really "fair and balanced."

Jeff Gannon (again)

I need to stop picking on poor Jeff, because it's like picking on the elderly or handicapped.

He wrote in his blog:
"Human rights" group silent on China crackdown
Amnesty International is so busy threatening American officials about terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay that it is ignoring (or worse, supporting) the persecution of Christians in China, where they actually do have gulags.

He wrote that on 6/11, and as of 6/13 news is still coming out of that part of the World. Standby to see Amnesty's response. Here is their China link. They still talk about Tiananmen, the massacre that happened while Bush I did nothing.

And when AI approaches the topic, it won't be because of Gannon's prodding.

Jeff "Divorced from Reality" Gannon

In his blog, Jeff Gannon says:
Hard Left claiming 9/11 was "inside job"
I love to read things like this: STORY
Anyone paying attention would know why the Democrats are the minority party in this country since much of its base believes nonsense like this.

But if you go to his link and check the website's links, you'll find a link to the The Populist American. And when you read "about us" on the site, you'll read that the author rant against:
"a bunch of liberal, socialists, communist, and every other stupid ism that comes along tearing down our Republic with their lies in our class rooms, brainwashing our children."

Another link is the the American Free Press, which has links to:
Gun Owners of America
YourChristianPresiden.com
and many other Right Wing groups.

I'm sorry, Jeff. You're upset at something the HARD RIGHT wrote, not the HARD LEFT.

Deepthroat's Daughter

The Right Wing attack machine is now focusing on Mark Felt's daughter. The revelation is that she was in a cult. What this has to do with Nixon breaking into Watergate...I have no idea.