Login Here
The greed of profiteers know no bounds. Rather than just limit themselves to raking in the millions (and in some cases, billions) on death, destruction and misery in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of the same companies are doing the same thing right here at home and elsewhere in the world. Here are a few news bits that have come up in recent weeks.
Guess who's collected on the Hurricane Katrina mess and will continue to do so in the future --
The four giant construction firms that received controversial no-bid contracts to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees last September will be earning up to $250 million apiece to do similar work after future disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said yesterday. Unlike the Katrina deals, the contracts announced yesterday were awarded after a bidding process. But most of them went to the same four firms: Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Cos., Fluor Corp. and Shaw Group Inc. Two new consortia of companies were also chosen for a share of the work. Together, the six winners will receive up to $1.5 billion for hauling and installing temporary trailers to house evacuees during future emergencies. [links added]
Five days ago, the San Francisco Business Times reported, Bechtel received a FEMA contract worth $250 million. The Washington Business Journal added that the contract is for two years. (On a related note, FEMA contracts to house Katrina victims has "ballooned from $400 million to $3.4 billion," reported the Washington Post on August 9.)
Iraq
If you have been watching cable news, Iraq has become an after thought in light of the Israeli-Lebanon crisis. (Afghanistan, yeah, we're still there, too, is nowhere to be seen.) But keeping focus on Iraq, Jeremy Scahill, writing for The Nation, has a great piece on the dirty dealings of the private security profiteer, Blackwater USA.
As I noted last week, proponents of a privatized military say outsourcing the war machine is cheaper. A government audit says...
... that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.
Saving money by getting rid of more faster. Sounds like what has become of "conservative" spending in recent years.
Fashion Faux Pas
From the Raleigh Chronicle, check out the latest fashion that is all the rage in Paris:
PARIS -- According to an account from a reader who recently visited Paris, the secretive Blackwater security firm and private armed force now has invaded the boutiques of fashion-conscious Paris.
Blackwater gear? I have a feeling that the people who buy would buy this crap are the same who buy the Factor gear. Might as well buy a t-shirt that says "Jackass." The message is the same.
KBR Pay to Play?
In Nigeria -- no, no, I am not asking you to transfer a million dollars for me -- Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is under investigation "whether a subsidiary used payments to secure contracts at a gas plant in Nigeria." No, U.S. officials are not taking a harder line against Vice President Dick Cheney's former (current?) employer. It is British officials undertaking the probe. [ed. note: You know, like how it was the British who foiled the recent terror plot, not Bush and his illegal domestic surveillance program. Thanks, Glenn.]
More from Reuters, as reported on August 8:
The SFO declined to confirm it was investigating KBR but said in an email: "The SFO is investigating allegations of illegal payments made to secure contracts in Nigeria. Searches were carried out in conjunction with City of London Police on 20 July 2006. The investigation continues." [...] Halliburton said in a regulatory filing in March it had reason to believe that payments may have been made to Nigerian officials in relation to work on a liquefied natural gas terminal in Nigeria. Halliburton said potential consequences of a criminal indictment arising out of these matters could include it being barred from U.S. government contracts. During 2005, KBR and its affiliates had revenue of approximately $6.6 billion from government contracts. The allegations relate to activities that started in 1995 or earlier. [emphasis added]
God, I hope it was in 1995. [ed. note, 4:28pm: August 11, 1995 article in the Wall Street Journal: "US energy-services giant Halliburton Co appoints former US Defense Sec Dick Cheney chairman, president and chief executive officer to succeed 12-year veteran Tom Cruikshank." The activities mentioned in the Reuters article were most likely sooner than that.]
Share This 
Spotlight
MATT O.!
Exploding Breast Milk!
I’m gonna go buy some steamed crabs and then come savor Matt’s thinking and prose properly.
Dupont de Nemours !
Fitz…we need you. Please…
Matt O.–
Carry on with this, the work of the angels.
Warprofiteering hearings!!! A girl’s gotta dream…
Will Halliburton be given a no-bid contract to clean up the expanding oil spill creeping up from Beirut toward Turkey? How much liability does Israel incur under international treaties by the damage this spill is creating? Estimates of 5 million gallons now!
There are so many horror stories out of Lebanon which aren’t even being covered!
On an FDL thread yesterday, there was discussion about really pushing hard against these law-breakers, threatening them with dissolution, bankrupty, and nationalization, with any funds left over to be remaindered to the USTreasury. I think national Democratic leaders need to start talking seriously about the penalties for this kind of war-profiteering activity.
Not sure the activist judges would allow it to pass muster in the 21st century, but some trust-busting and giant-slaying talk might be just the thing to aim at Mr. and Mrs. Small Business America. At least America would know where Democrats stood on this, if the talk was loud and pro-patriot. Only traitors profit from wars like these have.
Mr. Cheney, your glass defendant’s box in the Hague awaits you….
I’m reminded of the movie “Die Hard” in which “terrorists” take over an office building and proclaim lofty principles, all the while trying to create a huge diversion so they can rob the place.
Sound familiar?
I think we are gonna need a truth and reconciliation committee like the South Africans had in order to clean up this mess.
Teddy @ 4:22
I’m a big fan of threatening the Repugs and their corporate enablers with all manner of financial mayhem. If it actually passed muster and got through the courts, well that would be lagniappe hehe. I’m a broken record on this by now, but there is only one winning strategy…attack attack, attaaaaaaack! Hell, threaten to strip corporations of corporate personhood if that’s what it takes. It’s time to take the kid gloves off, and play hardball with these jerks.
21st century trustbusting, monopoly destruction, and more stringent regulation of corporate behavior would solve a lot of the current problems, and would make it harder for fascism to come back in the future.
Take you pick of which is more correct: “Das Kapital” or “Wealth of Nations”. Which is compassionate and which is not? Which philosophy is evil and which is not? Or is it that simple?
I couldn’t agree more-government oversight and regulation is needed to reign in the worst impulses of a corporation.
While too much regulation is not good, we are sooo far the other way right now it isn’t funny. Think about it, the fine for saying fuck on TV is $500K, the fine for killing someone in a mining accident, about $5K.
Talk about priorities!
T.M. @ 13 –
Well said.
Twisted Martini @ 9
Have you been reading my blog? or from 2005?
It would make an easy meme: “These guys are a bunch of Hans Grubers.”
And “Hans Gruber” is so wonderful — it reminds the sorting brain of “hands grabber” for instance.
Oklahoma kiddo @
12
Believe it or not, I cried while reading “Capital”. The pages describing how Scottish small farmers were displaced for the sheep “enclosures” made profitable by rising capitalism hit home with me since that’s why my ancestors were forced over to America.
Fucking sheep and their enablers!
I’m no great writer or blogger for that matter
but I’m known for some interesting landscapes.
I love this blog.It may be liberal but I really think it should be mainstream.
Opinions are written well and with humor.
four letter expletives are rarely used unless they fit.
I think profiteering will always be with us.
Personally I feel they are real bottom feeders
fran –
What do you mean by “It may be liberal but I really think it should be mainstream”?
egregious @
6
And that is exactly why we need to win both houses. Imagine the hearings! One nasty little cockroach after another spouting quotable (and actionable) gems in front of Congress and the country, for a year and a half, leading right up to the great anti-corruption general election of 2008! Oh, man, what a movie, what a dream!
Just remember, the same folks who brought you all that Katrina mismanagement and corruption are also in charge of security at the nation’s airports. That’s one reason inquiring minds want to know:
How far would all the liquids and gels confiscated by TSA during the recent security crackdown at the nations airports reach if the individual containers had been laid end-to-end?
A. From Earth to the moon and halfway back again
B. From New York City to Omaha
C. From New York City to Washington, D.C.
Take Today’s Quiz and find out the answer at Where did all the stuff go?
A couple of weeks back, NPR’s “Marketplace” show had a “Business Week” writer on to talk about how outsourcing was a good buy for the military. But when I checked out the article the writer wrote for BW, it said almost exactly the opposite.
Babysitter’s here. Off to dinner and a movie. Consume while we can, right? See you on Late Night…
And you thought it was just democracy building: http://getintheirface.blogspot.....teers.html
Madison Guy @ 20
P and Gs gotta love it.
War profiteers…just ask The Halliboys!
recycled from last night:
punaise @
251
Outsourcing is usually more expensive. I’m not talking about bangalore call centers, but taking an internal corporate or government function and giving it to an outside supplier. Usually what happens is that function is so poorly managed internally and becomes so cost prohibitive to update that outsourcing is the only alternative.
In the case of the military, I think it just comes down to old fashioned patronage politics. I’m mean seriously, outsourcing the supply chain for active military units, are you kidding me?
Mix that in with nonexistant oversight and Voila, instant clusterfuck. I’m sorry, I meant Iraq.
Matt O. @ 18
Hi Matt,
Well perhaps I should use the word moderate.
A little OT, but detail on fact that BushCo, and Congress, knew about danger from liquid explosives, danger of mixing and blowing up on board, and did nothing about it.
Bottom Line:
“At the same time, a mere six million dollar program to detect the kinds of explosives planned for use in the alleged U.K. terrorism plot, as well as past known terrorist plots, was cut by the Bush administration.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....173810/788
*ilson46201 @ 16
Yes.
Twisted Martini — I just re-read my comment to you and it looks snarky in a bad way. Didn’t mean it like that!! I was agreeing with you, joking because nobody reads my blog, ha.
Let’s try again.A blog with positions supported
by middle America as we once were! Thanks
LindR #31 -If you are going after Doolittle regularly in your blog, you have a reader now! I like the Doolittle posts.
No worries Linda, I’m a salesman, I take shit from people every day! And I didn’t take it that way.
No need to worry, there is still plenty to
stealspend in Iraq:http://getintheirface.blogspot.....me-of.html
wesgpc @
34
I loathe Doolittle! Yes, I will be doing that a lot in the next many weeks!
Hmmmm boy, does this article look good. Since Katrina is mentioned (as it always should be henceforth when graft is discussed) I’ll link to some info from the end of Christy’s Katrina article, for those who want to track recovery data:
Comment on Katrina Index
fran @ 33
And how are we not?
**** — I was off busy deleting a bunch of stuff with the mighty FDL servers being pokey … hold your horses !
LindaR #39: I like your blog. Lots of dirt on Doolittle. You have a reader.
Also a little OT, but keep an eye on developing story on British plane bomber plot raid. Looks like more filthy meddling from BushCo. BushCo put pressure on Brits to rush the raid. No bombing imminent, say Brits.
Questions: more sinister behavior from BushCo to counter Lamont win? How much of news in US on this is propaganda? Follow TPM, they are keeping an eye on it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c.....009408.php
Matt, I *think* Fran is saying that we *are* supported by Middle america, despite the opinions of the pundits. But I may be misinterpreting.
Way too good to be left in EPUland.
NZ Expat @ 191
For me, Matthew 25–feed the hungry, help the sick–was a to-do list. “Let’s get started!”
My parents took in: a pregnant Rwandan war refugee and her toddler; a mentally ill woman who had no relatives; a teenager who had been expelled by his parents; a foreign exchange student who was rejected by her host family. A tough act to follow!
wesgpc 43 - I had heard brief reference to this the day it happened. there were hints such as: the brits were tipped off by the US and told there was a lot of ‘chatter’ so better go in and get ‘em.
there is little doubt in my mind that, while there was a developing plot, it was not nearly as close to the operational phase as we have been mislead to believe.
Very nice egregious.
****, it was taken care of a few minutes ago. Refresh using your browser button up top or use the F5 key, the “Refresh Comments” button only refreshes the latest added comments not the whole page or ‘changes’. Hope this helps!
*ilson46201 @ 16
I am descended [not only from hothead Welsh but also from] Scottish folk displaced by the Clearances…I don’t blame the sheep. They are innocent.
OT Haaretz is reporting that the US has told Israel that will not have to withdraw from the Shaba Farms even if Kofi Annan who is tasked with making that determination so finds. This may be yet more posturing much like Israel’s pointless push to the Litani. However, Israel is making more than a few moves in this end phase that clearly seem to undercut any hope for a long term peace. Secretary Rice has said again and again that it is important to address the underlying causes of the current crisis. Israel seems determined that this will not happen. If they get their way, in a few months or a few years we can expect another blowup in this area. If you think our leadership is incompetent and capable only of screwing up any situation, you should see what passes for leadership in Israel.
Matt [On T], this subject is so important. What these Hans Grubers are doing to this country is outrageous. And their looting of the treasury is going to cause so much pain! That, more than anything else, will cut through the fog to people.
Having to pay $4 for a gallon of gas (it’s coming) is a fog-cutter.
Having the real estate market crash is a fog-cutter.
But the real fog-cutter is going to come when all the things we’re supposedly buying with these billions of dollars crumble to pieces, the US of A is revealed as bankrupt, and we the people are left with nothing. Not even the ability to re-make something.
Talk about fear as motivator! If voters could only understand what truly awaits if Republicans keep getting elected, they’d really be afraid.
Matt O.
JMO, I think what fran is saying is that FDL and your post are “mainstream,” “moderate” positions.
In other words, the extremists are in the WH and Congress.
Sorry beard5, you already made this point upthread, thanks.
More Matthew 25 stuff. Grandmother’s sister took in 22 foster children. Brother worked with autistic teenagers for 2 years. Sister helps mentally retarded and mentally ill people with difficulties adjusting to their employment. My father would give you the grocery money, literally, if you needed it. I feel inadequate even with the Russian stuff.
I’m not saying AT ALL that only people of faith can do stuff like this, just that it is the motivation of our family. Just data, for your contemplation. One cannot force another to believe anything, I only offer our experience.
Hugh — lest it be forgotten: Israel is still hanging on to the Syrian territory “Golan Heights” conquered in 1967. This is to protect “The Golan” which in the 1948 partition was to be Palestinian but annexed by Israel nevertheless…
Before leaving office Eisenhower warned about the power of the military industrial complex. During his presidency the defense budget was about $45 billion annually. In 2005, under Bush, the Defense budget is something like $450 billion, a rise of about 1,000%.
In 2005, Halliburton had revenues of $21 billion. I don’t know how much of that is from Pentagon contracts, but it has to be huge.
Cheney owns unexercised options in Halliburton worth some $10 million. He has publicly claimed that he exercises no influence in the contracts that Halliburton receives from the Pentagon, which of course, is run by his old friend and colleague Don Rumsfeld.
Nothing to see here, move on now.
Warmaking is VERY BIG BUSINESS in the USA
with known and concealed yearly spending
ranging out to the $700 billion line year in
and year out. Militarism and it’s handmaiden
of war industrialism have pretty much shaped
American government spending priority and
focus continually since the end of WW2. The
post Cold War “peace dividend” was spoken of
for a couple of years then slid off the page.
The neo-cons have since the mid 1990’s been
agitating for ever greater American Imperialism
around the world. 9/11 was for this bunch the
perfect opening for ramping up American fear
levels to feed American militarism and its
need for more and more “security force and
presence”.Iraq is as good as it gets for this
bunch. Billions of $$${and in some cases it
has been literally multi-millions in paper
currency}being shoveled in and about Iraq.
The waste,fraud and very poor funding oversight
and review have been a staple of the Bush
Regime in Iraq. The American MSM sort of dances
around all this as seems its preference these
days. In an election year one would have hopes
that maybe 2-5 first tier American media shops
would have dived into this fiscal cesspool with
energy and tenacity. Just as with the pre-war
ramping up that the American MSM embraced for
the Bush WH we see the same pattern with the
shallow,la-de-da coverage of the Bush WH’s
dismal fiscal record in Iraq. Lots of money in
American militarism and war industrialism. Oh,
by the way,Americans should expect cuts in SS,
Medicare and any number of other “social” kinds
of spending.Why we ask? Just not affordable.
The GOP gets away with this crap continually.
Where is the MSM? Making sure it’s leash is
tight enough it would seem.Lapdogs indeed.
Twisted Martini @ 47
agreed
Does anybody have any idea how much in campaign funds Joe Lieberman has received from defense contractors?
Does anybody know a source where this information could be found?
egregious @ 53
egregious, I am a total atheist, and I liked these stories. I love the line at the end of Woody Allen’s Manhattan where his girlfriend says “You’ve gotta have faith in people.” Stories like these give me faith in people. They’re wonderful.
Matt O. —
Once again you prove yourself a National Treasure! (I wish the U.S. conferred upon especially-righteous citizens that designation, as Japan does. Except it would have to be determined by a distinguished select committee, NOT by
Chimpythe President or any other pol.)Teddy –
TeddySanFran @ 8
I’m down, TSF!
fran —
I just checked back a couple of threads and caught your hopeful update on your bro — made me happy, that did. I catch your point about “liberal/mainstream” too. To think: these days, even Britain’s Tories are rawthah to the left of U.S. Dems! Grrrrr.
Harry Reid is pushing a little harder on our old friend Neocon Joe.
Getting Republicans and their enablers like Joe out of the picture can only have a positive effect on stopping the crass war profiteering going on.
Oh. P.S. to fran –
Who could object to cussing of such brio, eh? Amen!
God, egreg 42 - so beautiful
LindaR, 48: “Talk about fear as motivator! If voters could only understand what truly awaits if Republicans keep getting elected, they’d really be afraid.”
The Republicans under Hoover gave us the first Great Depression. It is only fitting that the same party under Bush will give us the second Great Depression.
The border between the French Mandate of Syria and the British Mandate in Palestine was delineated in 1923. In 1948-49 a ceasefire line was established. In 1967, the Israelis occupied the Heights. In the 1973 war, Syria captured part of the Southern Golan before being pushed back. In 1983, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law which extended Israeli law to the area and offered its inhabitants citizenship. This was called annexation but has not been recognized as such and the term is not used in the text of the law. Return of the Golan is seen as the major stumbling block in peace talks between Israel and Syria. It is part of Israel’s land for peace policy. They take the land and blame the other side if there is no peace.
OT - Holy Shit! - just now reporting that the Brits and US disagreed when to go after the terrorists. No airline tickets had been purchased, and some didn’t have passports. The Brits wanted to wait to do more surveillance. Bushies insisted to go in now. In short, for US political expediancy (to counter the anti-war Dems and Lamont’s momentum) they make have gone in too early and messed this up worse than it already is. Maybe that is the reason that the airlines are still all screwed up - the key preliminary work to get everything in place was not done. Great job!
neurophius @ 55
Doesn’t look like anything unless it’s hidden under “Misc” or something. Big chunk from “Pro Isreal”
http://www.opensecrets.org/rac.....;special=N
I stand corrected.
Defense $234,450
http://www.opensecrets.org/rac.....;special=N
It’s time we elect some Fighting Dems to Congress so we don’t have to deal with the chickenhawks much longer. [/blogwhoring]
Richmond @ 63
Is there a linky-poo to the story about this stinky-poo?
Matt’s post reminds me of the most horrific war profiteering exposition I read a few days ago - either Smirking Chimp or Huffpo, can’t find it now. God we are in total deep shit with this crap. Ike could never have imagined how entrenched this evil would become. Like Randi Rhodes says, war and mayhem is all we do anymore, all we export.
Oops I should have said that the Golan Heights Law was passed in 1981. Syria was able to hold on to a narrow strip after the 1973 War but most of the Heights remain under what is internationally recognized as Israeli occupation.
Btw I stopped by Blockbuster today. They had at least fifty copies of V for Vendetta, not one available, all checked out.
Ooh, gotta go. I’ve got dinner and movie night with the goylfriends. We’re going to see the 2nd Pirates of the Carribean movie — I hear it sux!
But I love a bunch of the actors in it. New faves: Bill Nighy (of Love Actually fame) and Tom Hollander, who nobody’s heard of but I think is adorable.
God, this modern life! The world is falling apart, and I’m going to see a bad expensive pirate movie. I have no idea why I’m optimistic. Must be the afterglow of Tuesday in Connecticut.
Is there a linky-poo to the story about this stinky-poo?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/
Fini -
The NBC link is up now at TPM. I don’t know if they’re reporting it on-air or just on their website but I’m stunned it’s getting some mainstream coverage.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001331.php
*Oh, Lou Costello’s link is more direct.
Richmond, thanks. I googled and found some links, but I’m not familiar with them. I don’t want to link until I am.
Did you see this on teevee or do you have links?
Why do the brits continue to be bullied by the U.S.???? I’m mystified.
Sorry - I don’t know how to link yet. It is on Raw Story. Seems legit.
I want to see Johnny Depp’s beautiful face doing something besides this pirate stuff. Think I’ll put Gilbert Grape on my netflix queue.
Or, Sharkie, there’s always Chocolat.
Egregious….thanks for the kind reprint…I too don’t think that any concept of God is required. God is love reads the other direction, if that love is the kind that sees the other person, not the idea of what the other person should be. That love is “god” - the divine.
On a different note, I want every American to have to sit down at a dinner party in another country and either explain in a rational way why they support this administration or else offer their own condemnation of it. The separation of American citizens from their government may be coming to an end in the minds of others. So many in other countries want to believe the best of Americans, but are finding it increasingly difficult in view of the news.
Still, yesterday I watched five Saudi young men tearfully say goodbye to their “new brothers”, who happen to be from Japan and China. “Teacher, please, help me say in right English that we are as family,” Mohammad asked me as he and I worked on his farewell speech.
Small bits of hope here and there.
Just put V on my netflix list, should be here next week.
when bush took office the nasdaq bubble had burst, thus closing off a crucial source of domestic financing for our country — under the regime of fiat currency that has operated worldwide since 1971, it’s mathematically necessary to keep creating more & more money [through more & more bubbles] just to pay interest on existing money, since each unit of fiat currency created is a liability that grows at compound interest [this is independent of both adam smith & karl marx]
bush had two ways of creating the money our country needed: either federal domestic spending or defense spending — once he chose defense spending & took us into iraq he had to abandon federal domestic spending because in going to war he set afoot a series of multiplying spending needs — but domestically he has enjoyed outstanding luck in that the housing bubble has replaced the nasdaq bubble as a source of domestic financing: it’s been possible during the bubble for americans to treat their houses as atm machines, thus making up for bush’s lack of federal domestic spending
bush & his fellow republicans will do all right as long as the economy holds up — everybody’s talking about how the housing bubble’s bursting, but received opinion’s always wrong, so the odds are that we’re only seeing a mild correction — the only way the democrats will do well in november is if the stock market & the housing market both undergo corrections this fall — the chances of that happening are about 50/50
the collapse of the fiat currency regime will take several more years to play out — once it does, we’re going to have a different country, if we still have our country as it is today
JennyftB, thanks. I trust TPM on this.
I don’t know anything about the Scotsman. The first few graphs are the usual Pravda. Later, however, they have some detail which is approximate to TPM.
“…..At the time the arrests were ordered, officials did not believe the plotters had gone as far as booking themselves on flights.”
That graph contradicts the title of this article in the Scotsman and “unconfirmed” reports that are higher up.
“The apparent contradiction between US and British sources over the operation is not the first. There is also a difference over American claims that five more suspects are being sought, something that British sources dismiss.
Privately, British security officials are growing exasperated at the flow of leaked information from the US.
In particular, the ABC television network yesterday reported that MI5 had actually penetrated the UK terror cell, placing an undercover agent inside the plot as part of work known as Operation Overt…..”
thanks, lotus, I forget about tons o’ cool stuff I haven’t gotten around to seeing - that puppy’s on the queue too!
NZ-fly me to Middle Earth and I’ll be happy to attend as many dinner parties as you can line up!
Sharkbabe @ 76
Watch The Ninth Gate if you haven’t seen it Sharkbabe. Awesome occult thriller. Depp is terrific in it.
best 404 page ever:
http://tubes404.ytmnd.com/
Matt O., please excuse this constant OT’ing of mine, but we’ve been waiting for this one.
My dears, I’m dropping in after a workday on a borrowed computer again to say yahoo and hooray for Ned and all the great FDL folks who worked so damned hard for him. I haven’t been on since then, this no computer thing sucks the big one. Is everyone hanging in there in spite of the big explosions I can almost see across the Atlantic? My disgust with the warmongers is so deep I have to wear hipwaders 24/7. I am relatively unshockable, but I am shocked at the hate and selfishness of those who can justify murdering hundreds of civilians. My heart just aches and aches for all of the Lebanese mothers who have lost their babies, and the loss of an entire country for such stupid, stupid reasons.
/rant
I really have to buy a cheap computer, I can’t take much more of this blogging inside my own head.
Yes let’s hope this is what fran meant. I mean us proud Liberals here whom do absolutely pride ourselves on being open minded, intelligent, informed, tolerant, far seeing, loving, tough as nails, historically mainstream, sensible, and just plain some of the best people on the planet wouldn’t want to be insulted or anything with bad manners of an implied sneer if none was there, … right?
Jesus was a Liberal, the most shining example of true compassion and love, just like us, unlike those dangerous extremists in the WH, Congress, and the corrupt Republican Party that just don’t get it, or have it.
Matt O.
Do you feel the need to shower with a big can of ajax about halfway through researching this filth?
This stuff about the tiff twixt Georgie and Tony about the timing of the arrests of the would be airplane bomb suspects doesn’t surprise. Business as usual. Bush wields the whip and Blair gets the whippin’. The Bush crowd knows no low. And as for Blair, what a world class wuss. I can’t decide which of these two “world leaders” sickens more.
John - Did you see this? Lisa Myers is one of the reporters. I wonder how long this story will stay up at MSNBC.com.
NZ Expat and greegy, your stories give me an overwhelming need to hug both you and your four parents. Please consider it virtually done.
If we had a real media doing real reporting we could impeach Bush and have war crimes tribunals within the next 6 months. Seriously.
zennurse - good to see ya!
new thread
roger, 80:
Is it reasonable to project a political outcome based solely on market moves (the only way Democrats can do well is with downside market and housing correction)? How do you factor in the growing disaffection of the public over the Iraq war, katrina, and corruption, gasoline prices, and personal income? Are you saying market moves discount all of those psychological factors?
Jenny from the Blog @ 93
…or they would have already happened.
OT disturbing - Ethiopia is considering military intervention against the Islamic Courts in Somalia. I didn’t know anything about this.
and, sharkbabe, I second Kurt’s Ninth Gate rec. Perez-Reverte’s “Club Dumas” without the Dumas, and with Depp.
roger 80
I’ll never forget talking to my ex-neighbor about 04 election - he said I got my kids to think about/protect, thus why I’m voting Bush.
I am too kind and genteel to speed-slap such brainwashery and say MY GOD MAN, PRESIDENT CHENEY IS ABOUT NOTHING BUT UTTERLY ASS-RAPING YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN, YOU ARE VOTING FOR THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION OF ALL PROSPERITY OF OUR NATION AND THE FUTURE OF YOUR CHILDREN, MY GOD HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS…
lotus, thanks for the link to Calame and the NYT’s. It’s rivetingly timely in light of the way the TM ran so negligently with Joe’s pathetic lie about his website.