Posts from — November 2006

Voting isn’t just a right, it’s a duty. Going to the polls is the small price everyone should be willing to pay for living in the United States.

Right now about 150,000 American service men and women are doing their duty in Iraq. They have earned the right to expect that their fellow citizens will go to the polls and provide them with the best government possible. You would be hard pressed to find one of them who didn’t wish they were able to go to their local polling station tomorrow.

While I certainly do care who and what you vote for, those on the front lines deserve to know what you think about the current state of the country.

Voting is the most important thing an American can do to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

At the bottom of this post Dr. Cole delivers a dose of reality:

Elizabeth Dole, who used to be a nice person, accused Democrats of wanting to lose in Iraq on Meet the Press. I’d reply that in the real world that isn’t as bad as actually losing, which the Bush administration has done.

In addition to being seen with the Shrubbery this afternoon, the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Cruella de Harris will also be on the stage with Jeff Miller. I’m not sure even Pensacola is red enough for that.

The word is that Charlie Crist has to resurface his driveway or something, so he’ll be forced to miss this opportunity.

No word as to whether John Ellis will be on stage with his brother, or helping Charlie with the blacktop. I would assume he’ll be on stage, or Thanksgiving dinner could get really tense.

I expect in her book Cruella will cite this appearance with the unpopular pResident as the reason she lost, but she was forced to do it by her incompetent campaign staff and the Republican party.

If you have high-speed access, you should go to Watertiger’s lair, skippy’s place, or the original at First Draft and watch Scout-Prime’s Katrina ad.

This is the cost of the Shrubbery’s regime – American deaths through his actions and inaction. The Republicans in Congress have provided no oversight and no regulation on his radical agenda.

This “problem” in Colorado may really affect the Republican GOTV. This was the last sermon before the election and the buzz was not about the election, but the sins of Pastor Ted.

While most people have never heard of the guy, among the Reich he was a name, and, at a minimum, there had to be prayer circles set up to help him rid himself of “demons”.

I would note that unsolicited suggestions that they dunk him and then burn him at the stake if he floats are not received with Christian charity in the frozen food aisle of the Winn-Dixie. They get really snippy if you suggest calling in a Catholic priest for an exorcism.

“Okay, Sherman, it’s time to set the Wayback Machine for 1998.” [For some reason when it comes to neocons, I think of Peabody’s Improbable History.]

On January 26, 1998 the Project for the New American Century sent a letter to “The Honorable William J. Clinton, President of the United States” concerning Saddam Hussein and Iraq. In that letter they wrote: “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.”

The letter was signed by Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, and Robert B. Zoellick

Unlike the Shrubbery, the Clinton administration actually had a functioning National Security Council, and while there is no readily available evidence that the letter was taken seriously, it is known that Operation Desert Fox was launched in mid-December 1998 to degrade Iraqi WMD capabilities. We now know that the raids pretty much eliminated WMD production in Iraq.

[Read more →]

Laura Rozen at War and Piece wonders:

Put on the web at the request specifically of people like — oh yeah: Hoekstra, Santorum, Pat Roberts and Curt Weldon. So Hoekstra is content to let Negroponte take it on the ear on this one, not for the first time. What’s the word for going on national television to blame others for what he specifically is most responsible for in all of Washington? It seems to be becoming an epidemic.

Why don’t we call it “neoconning”. It does seem to be the current fashion among the Gee-Oops.

The Pensacola News Journal, a Gannett purveyor of conventional wisdom and the status quo has endorsed a Democrat for governor.

Citing Charlie Crist’s studied silence over the Terry Schaivo matter while attorney general, and the Republican support for the interests of the insurance companies over policy holders, the PNJ editorial board has endorsed Jim Davis in one of the most blood red parts of the state.

[Note, I alluded to the Bible in a political statement; I didn’t quote it. Okay, so there’s not a penny’s worth of difference between the two methods, but that’s my excuse and sticking with it.]

A new post up at Baghdad Burning regarding the Saddam sentence: When All Else Fails…

… Execute the dictator. It’s that simple. When American troops are being killed by the dozen, when the country you are occupying is threatening to break up into smaller countries, when you have militias and death squads roaming the streets and you’ve put a group of Mullahs in power- execute the dictator.

She gets it, even if too many Americans don’t:

I’m more than a little worried. This is Bush’s final card. The elections came and went and a group of extremists and thieves were put into power (no, no- I meant in Baghdad, not Washington). The constitution which seems to have drowned in the river of Iraqi blood since its elections has been forgotten. It is only dug up when one of the Puppets wants to break apart the country. Reconstruction is an aspiration from another lifetime: I swear we no longer want buildings and bridges, security and an undivided Iraq are more than enough. Things must be deteriorating beyond imagination if Bush needs to use the ‘Execute the Dictator’ card.

She sums up with clarity:

Once again… The timing of all of this is impeccable- two days before congressional elections. And if you don’t see it, then I’m sorry, you’re stupid. Let’s see how many times Bush milks this as a ‘success’ in his coming speeches.

A final note. I just read somewhere that some of the families of dead American soldiers are visiting the Iraqi north to see ‘what their sons and daughters died for’. If that’s the goal of the visit, then, “Ladies and gentlemen- to your right is the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, to your left is the Dawry refinery… Each of you get this, a gift bag containing a 3 by 3 color poster of Al Sayid Muqtada Al Sadr (Long May He Live And Prosper), an Ayatollah Sistani t-shirt and a map of Iran, to scale, redrawn with the Islamic Republic of South Iraq. Also… Hey you! You- the female in the back- is that a lock of hair I see? Cover it up or stay home.”

And that is what they died for.

And is what you are voting for if you “stay the course”. This is the Republican legacy of the last six years. The death of Saddam Hussein by hanging is not much to show for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans.

If you vote for Republicans this is on your head.

Yes, folks, I get to use my tag line for the latest campaign move by the Shrubbery.

The Pensacola Beach Blog alerted me to this development yesterday with his post, Protesting Bush’s Visit.

I went looking for the Pensacola News Journal articles and found the Friday announcement of the visit:

“This is a God-fearing, flag-waving, military-loving congressional district,” said U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, who faces opposition from Democratic challenger Joe Roberts. “The president obviously wants to show the Republican base is not depressed as the national media would portray it.”

Bush is expected to stump for Miller and gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who is running against Democrat Jim Davis. Crist and Davis are battling to replace Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, who will be ousted by term limits.

Gov. Bush likely will attend, as will Crist, Miller said. There was no indication whether U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who is battling for Democrat Bill Nelson’s U.S. Senate seat, would attend.

[Read more →]

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.

The British are celebrating the anniversary of the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot.

A group of English Catholic conspirators including an explosives expert, Guy Fawkes, stashed 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Parliament building with the intent of blowing up the members of Parliament and King James I during the official opening of Parliament on November 5^th, 1605.

Bonfire Night is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Effigies of Guy Fawkes, and occasionally the Pope, are traditionally thrown on the fires. Effigies of modern politicians have made their appearances at the celebration.

As Robert Cecil was involved, I doubt anyone will ever know the truth about the plot.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

[Editor: Okay, I cheated. This is not the next plate in order, but I was not going to put that plate up the Sunday before an election. Come back next week to see why.]

The Military Times are four weekly newspapers that cater specifically to the military with the unimaginative names of the Air Force Times, Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times. While they share content under the Military Times name, each is tailored to the specific service on the masthead.

On Monday there will be an editorial calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

As Charles of The Fulcrum says in his article, Why Don’t the Troops Support the Troops?, this is devastating.

Billmon of The Whiskey Bar worked for the group that published the Military Times before Gannett bought them out. He is troubled in his article, Unfriendly Fire, about the seeming attempt by the uniformed leaders to put all of the blame on Rumsfeld.

I share both views and have additional dread over the meaning of this.

[Read more →]

Billmon reviews his thinking on the conflicts surrounding the conflicts between Israel and both the Palestinians and the Lebanese in his article, God Wept.

Billmon gets it. The world isn’t a manicheaen construct. There is almost never an obviously right answer and there are too many “did you stop eating kittens” questions awaiting you.

There is an approach to the world I call the Jane Fonda Syndrome. That is when someone discovers that one of two entities involved in a conflict has lied. People with JFS automatically assume that the other entity is telling the truth. It doesn’t occur to a JFS sufferer that both may be lying, as is usually the case when the entities are nations.

Abraham Lincoln got it in his statement that both sides claim that G-d is on their side: “One must be, and both may be, wrong.”

Another case is when you discover that an entity has been generally truthful, but you know of at least one incident of lying. You can’t just put them in the box labeled “Truth Teller”, but do they deserve to be in the box labeled “Liar”?

There were some cold hard facts in the old days. Once upon a time no one was slightly dead. Today we have had to resort to “clinically dead”, because there isn’t even a definite line between life and death anymore.

There is still one hard fact in this world: Dick Cheney is evil. Anyone who can shoot a lawyer in the face and not only, not get sued, but receive an apology from the lawyer, has to be evil.