A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

THAN THIS ONE SPEAKS VOLUMES!

CLICK ON THE PIC!

Cutting Military Benefits to Pay for Katrina?

It seems that this is exactly what the bush admin. and the republicans in congress would like to do.

Who do the bush admin. and republicans that love them want to screw more than anyone else on this earth? (Well, other than the people living in the lands with the oil neocons think they should own...)

Who else but the military that they send off to die in a war for oil.

Sirotablog:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush and Republicans in Congress have refused to consider rolling back the $336 billion in new tax cuts that the richest 1 percent are slated to get over the next five years. They say we need to pay for reconstruction not by asking the wealthiest to sacrifice just a little bit, but by massive cuts to spending. And now we see what that means: The Navy Times today reports that those cuts "include trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care." This, while troops are in battle.

The Republicans have put their cutting efforts in military terms, calling it "Operation Offset" - a further insult to the men and women in uniform they are now trying to screw over. The specifics are ugly. They are, for instance, asking troops to "accept reduced health care benefits for their families." Additionally, "the stateside system of elementary and secondary schools for military family members could be closed." In the past, this idea "has faced strong opposition from parents of children attending the schools because public schools [in and around bases] are seen as offering lower-quality education."

How can an honest republican that has any sense of morality look at what bush does everyday without gagging from what they see?

Booman Tribune ~ Debunking Katrina: With the Consent of the Governed

Here is the truth:

Debunking Katrina: With the Consent of the Governed

by DuctapeFatwa
Fri Sep 9th, 2005 at 09:31:11 PM EDT

We must be fair and balanced. The first debunking efforts were undertaken under the most inauspicious conditions. Officials were only accorded one side of a TV screen to explain to Americans that the live feeds taking place on the other side of the screen showed not truth but rumors, reports unconfirmed by authorities.

We must understand that at this time, the only news coming from the theatre came from people on the ground in scratchy breaky phone calls, a handful of bloggers, and reporters operating without benefit of embedding or vetting.

So if there were those who may have believed those rumors regarding conditions and crimes in the shelter pits into which crowded those New Orleanians politically naive enough to believe that they and their families would be safer than on the roof, if there were those who may have lent credence to rumors of slow responses from various government agencies, before they are denounced as un American consider the difficulties under which their leaders were operating at the moment.

Things have turned the corner now, and only a handful of dead enders and the people who survived the experience believe these rumors now.

Loyal Americans understand that while conditions in dome and center may not have been luxurious, nor on the expressway, things were not all that bad, and of course there were no crimes, no one was prevented from escape, people were not really dying of heat stroke or thirst or lack of medicine. Those are just rumors. Like the rumors of the 1927 replay of the canal strategy that flooded the city's poor area to save the fine homes in the Garden District and the historic French Quarter, both seen as keepers by those who are already hard at work planning the new and improved New Orleans. All the old world charm without the pesky poor.

And after a few territorial squabbles, federal, state and local officials are at last on the same page, and working together to craft a reasonable death toll that while tragic, will not prove too disturbing to more sensitive viewers.

One of the most comforting steps taken in recent days is the President's vow to personally oversee an investigation into any possible glitches that may have taken place in the response to the disaster.

His advisors, including the formidable Mr. Rove, wasted no time in developing a strategy to reassure the more skittish segment of the American public that their government had things firmly in hand, and would keep it that way.

That, coming on the heels of not one, but two Presidential flyovers of the area, and even one touchdown visit to console local politicians.

The egalitarian nature of the nation, and the President's concern for the humblest of his subjects cannot be more clearly illustrated than these flyovers. The Presidential aircraft could be seen by those fortunate enough to have successfully made an opening in their roofs, those on the expressways, those outside the shelterpits, and we can only imagine how much the sight must have meant to them, as they sat there, gasping. For many it will have been the last sight they saw.

Is it any wonder that not even Kim Jung Il enjoys deeper affection from his people?

So the corner is turned, but there is still much hard work ahead. Popular pundit Michelle Malkin, thoughtful as usual, expressed the hope that potentially troublesome eyewitnesses would be excluded from any investigation, which should, she declared, be a private affair, unburdened by any media who might not have recovered completely from the rumors and unconfirmed reports they thought they saw.

The survivor diaspora will be most helpful in avoiding such an eventuality, as well as the tragic but inevitable passing of many of them, if not from effects of the original rumors, from the second wave of rumors of West Nile, hepatitis, and the kinder gentler cholera promised by corporate charity mavens.

After having written checks to the Red Cross to help their executives maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, and thus proving their compassion to their poor brethren in need, and a few hours of volunteer work down at the shelter, where too often, Lord and Lady Bountiful are horrified and repulsed to learn that the less fortunate are not sufficiently schooled in the soft skills to demonstrate appropriate gratitude for having been allowed to escape with their lives, if not their health, or all their family members, right thinking Americans will soon be free to return their focus on the positive:

US gunmen continue to occupy and reduce the population in two countries openly, and the public can rest assured that covert operations are also taking place elsewhere, and on the storm front, now that the rumors have been debunked, yes, there was a hurricane, and quite a bit of property damage, but the good news is that both Halliburton and Bechtel, among others, will be putting their expertise to work to make it right, and Halliburton will be raising all its prices in October, good news for investors!

And God, speaking as he does, through Bush, as revealed by Bush himself, has issued an executive order empowering these fine wealth builders to shake off the burden of oppressive laws requiring the paying of prevailing wages, meaning that survivors who are still at large in the area will be able to obtain work which will provide them with dignity, and possibly up to a dollar or two above the minimum wage.

So all in all, yes there was a little wind, and sadly, a few lost their lives. But rumors of devastation and catastrophe, of genocide and slaveship hells, of rape and murder and mutilation, of thousands gasping their last on the asphalt of I-10, were just that- rumors, probably started by a certain element with an agenda.

Just a little wind, but everything is being made right now, with the consent of the governed.

Sad... But true.

Booman Tribune ~ Boo!

OK... So Roberts has a few problems... And, of course, those people, the kind that are rabid about ruining the Constitution by inserting religion into politics, are running around New Milford now with TWO FLAGS on their car because ONE FLAG hasn't been patriotic enough to gloss over their lies, corruption, and flat out anti-patriotic stupidity as they do idiotic things like run over memorials to fallen soldiers at Camp Casey.

Thank God there are many soldiers that are supporting the efforts of Cindy Sheehan! Count me as one, and my brother in-law, who leaves for Iraq in a month or so for his second tour, would be two.

Cindy had this to say about their move to a piece of property that will be a little bit safer than the ditch bush's secret service originally forced them into.

We are moving to a place that doesn't have much shade and I put out an appeal for tarps and a soldier from Ft. Hood brought some to us that he "borrowed" from Ft. Hood for us to use. I have had a lot of soldiers from Ft. Hood come out and tell me to keep it up and that I am doing a good thing. We are doing this to honor Casey and the other fallen heroes in their memories. But we are doing it FOR the people of Iraq and the other soldiers who are in harm's way right now. Right after we heard about the crosses last night, a Camp Casey volunteer found out that a pen pal she had in Iraq was KIA on August 12th. This has to stop, now. We will stop it.

As noble as Cindy Sheehan's cause is, that isn't what this blog is about. Susanhu has a little info on Roberts that might be worth knowing:

Why Didn't Judge Roberts Recuse Himself?

by susanhu
Thu Aug 18th, 2005 at 10:30:27 PM EDT

"Roberts was part of a three-judge panel that handed President Bush an important victory the week before he announced Roberts' nomination to the bench," reports Democracy Now!.

"The appeals court ruled in the Hamdan V. Rumsfeld case that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions." Said Georgetown law professor David Luban today in today's DN! interview:

[Roberts] knew that he was on the three-judge panel as early as last December. The case was argued, the oral argument was April 7. Six days before ... he had an interview with Att'y Gen. Gonzales. [W]hile the case was deliberated, there's a gap between April 7, when the oral argument took place, and July 15, when the court issued the decision. He had numerous other interviews for the Supreme Court judgeship. [T]hat's the period of time in which he is deliberating and presumably discussing with the other judges on the panel what the ruling should be in the case.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (see the blogroll on the left), said:

[M]y reaction [is] utter amazement ... [O]n April 1, a week before the argument, [Roberts met] with Gonzales, the Attorney General who was the architect of the entire policy that the Geneva Conventions shouldn't apply to [Guantanamo detainees], that they should use military commissions, and he’s meeting with this guy at the same time that he is sitting on a case that's going to determine whether or not the Geneva Conventions apply.

[A]t a minimum, as David's article clearly says in Slate, his impartiality might reasonably have been questioned [and Judge Roberts] should have disqualified himself. There's not any issue about it.

I would go further. It reminds me of a case when Ellsberg [Pentagon Papers] was on trial for espionage. During the trial President Nixon, briefly, but other people in his office, Ehrlichman and others, met with the trial judge to offer him to be the head of the F.B.I. [T]he outcry [was] huge. ...

Listen/watch/read all. Goodman also asks both men about the missing documents. Emphases mine.

I know this has to be just a bit of a conflict of interest here... But I have morals and values, so I don't count political CYA by bush as a good thing when it comes to crimes against humanity. If bush really wanted to cover his ass all he had to do was ask the White House GOP prostitute Jeff Gannon, or if he was in this town he could ask Jay Lewyn... Same diff...

I really ought to go and see what "4 on the floor 4 bush" Jay and all of his "GOP talking point brigade" have to say about all of this at "Jay Lewyn - For the love of God CENSOR ME!"... But I have already read the GOP talking points, so why waste my time, huh?

Nevermind the fact that if Jay isn't feeling gay enough about what he says in this town, well, he just goes back and tries to change the wording of the town records... Can't afford to look too stupid...

How many flags for you and your GOP buddies Jay?
One or two?
DOH!

Another Hypocritical Crackpot Republican

You have all seen what Larry Northern did to the crosses and flags honoring the military set up at Camp Casey...

Crosses vandalized at antiwar mom's campsite - Politics - MSNBC.com: "CRAWFORD, Texas - A pickup truck ran over wooden crosses erected at antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's campsite on Monday night in the latest sign of tension over the peace vigil outside vacationing President Bush's Texas ranch.

Larry Northern, 46, of nearby Waco, Texas, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore said."

Some people might have even thought he looks like an upstanding citizen at first glance...

[Waco Businesses http://wacobusiness.com/Business.cfm?ID=671]

Northern, Realtors
Full Service Real Estate Sales. Buyers Representation is Available. Relocation Sales and Buying.

For more information contact:
Northern, Realtors
Larry Northern
303 Crossroads West
Waco, Texas 76712
254-772-8200
254-751-0449 fax
Lnorth8980@aol.com

[Google search http://www.google.com/search?sa=X&oi=fwp&pb=f&q=%22Larry+Northern%22+texas]

Larry Northern - (254) 848-9828 - 204 Arrowhead Pt, Woodway, TX 76712 -

But Larry Northern is really just your typical hypocritical bush/GOP supporter.

[The Lariet http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=15803]

Lynch takes the lead for sheriff
Nov. 8, 2000
By B.J. GOERGEN

In the hotly contested race for McLennan County sheriff, Republican Larry Lynch was leading Democrat Robert Harold with 62 percent of the vote, with 72 percent of the county's 98 precincts reporting.

...snip...

'I am blessed to have the support of so many friends,' Lynch said at his victory party. 'I have worked in the sheriff's office for 22 years. This is my background.'

Baylor parent and Woodway resident Larry Northern said he decided to support Lynch because he was 'honest, straight-shooting and moral.' Northern said Lynch's favorite saying was, 'Don't do crime because you're going to do the time.'

Unless, of course, he really is willing to do the time?

Anybody wonder just how "honest, straight-shooting and moral" the Republican Lynch must be with friends like this?

Needless to say, the word of a common criminal doesn't mean much these days... Just look at bush.