zedmeister????

Ho Ho Ho, Joe’s gotta go!

zed?

Whatta we got, five more years of this asshole?
If the Dems get the Whitehouse and Clinton wins.you have to know that Lieberman will continue his two faced ways with Hillary’s blessings.
That.just.pisses.me.off..

Iran was dangerous, is dangerous, & will be dangerous…. now and ever shall be, world without end (unless Bush starts WWIII), amen. This story gets more & more interesting. And you have Joe Klein on TV sayiong what a great job the president did handling it. And this is… what???? …. a week after the world called bullshit on the guy over his FISA statements that were spoon fed to him by a loony Republican?

If they pick up a couple Senate seats can the Dems just tell the guy to piss off? I mean it.

Oops. Meant my 6 as a reply to Busted @ 4. Not talking to myself here.

That would seem logical, but then you have to consider who holds the leadership positions, so it’ll never happen no matter what the seat counts become.

Well, Jeebus, we already HAVE nukes and our leaders are obviously crazier than theirs — already having destroyed at least one innocent country for nothing.

I want to know who’s gonna be watching US.

The NYT has another in its series of neocon op-eds: In Iran we Trust?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12…..ollin.html

Sometimes I think that the only thing that is necessary for a neocon to get an op-ed published in the NYT is a pulse, and sometimes I have my doubts about that. The op-ed repeats the developing right wing talking points countering the NIE findings. Iran has a heavy water facility at Arak. It is still working on centrifuge cascades. It is working on missiles. It doesn’t need nuclear power. Etc.

The Times notes about the authors: “Valerie Lincy is the editor of Iranwatch.org. Gary Milhollin is the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.”

This makes it sound like that two groups are involved in writing the op-ed. What it doesn’t tell you is that Iran Watch is a website published by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. (Yes, I used the google.) According to the WPNAC site, the Wisconsin bit comes in because it was created “under the auspices” of the University of Wisconsin. (Its founder Gary Milhollin taught at the law school there.)

There is something oddball about the WPNAC. It portrays itself as against nuclear proliferation in general but it is clear that it has drunk the Bush Administration koolaid on both Iraq and Iran. So even if at some point in its past it was a legit organization, it is not now. This is, of course, of no importance to the NYT.

In my dreams Iran declares Joe Lieberman a terrorist.

What would make you think she wouldn’t put him in her cabinet?

Hillary has to make a very public break with Lieberman, or her Lieberman-Kyl vote is going to take her down with Bush.

Not that Iran is some sort of democratic paradise, but we ourselves are clearly in the running to be considered a “rogue nation” (with nukes as you note)

Hugh at 10

According to the WPNAC site, the Wisconsin bit comes in because it was created “under the auspices” of the University of Wisconsin. (Its founder Gary Milhollin taught at the law school there.)

Anybody got time for a phone call to the UW Madison press office to clarify?

petracca had this link of Joe Klein praising Bush’s reaction to the NIE:

He didn’t try to spin it to our advantage. This is an amazing moment of candor by the United States.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/06/klein-candor/

So I get up to this from Mork Romney:

“Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone,” he said.

WTF? Freedom requires religion?

Nahnoo, nahnoo.

Glad I missed that speech.

Iran was dangerous, is dangerous, & will be dangerous…. now and ever shall be, world without end (unless Bush starts WWIII), amen. This story gets more & more interesting. And you have Joe Klein on TV sayiong what a great job the president did handling it. And this is… what???? …. a week after the world called bullshit on the guy over his FISA statements that were spoon fed to him by a loony Republican?

Why doesn’t somebody call him on this shit! “Since the first bomb dropped on Iran could just as easily ignite WWIII, what are you saying? That you prefer to start WWIII now, before they get nuclear weapons?” And if so, “Whose to say other Muslim nations with nukes won’t come to their assistance as a way of telling us to stay the hell out of the ME? Then they will not be responsible for starting the war, we will! Again, the first dropped bomb on Iran could be the trigger for the Muslims of the ME, the ones whose countries we have been trying to control (what else would you call “regime change”,)to send us a “present” and bring the war to our own shores.

Sorry for the multiple posts, I kept getting a “database error, please try again” msg.

The only thing that throws people off is that our terrorists have suits and haircuts.

I have felt for a while that Lieberman was supporting Israel’s interests a little too much for our country’s good. With that in mind here is Pat Lang from his blog.

It is time for plain talk, time to call a spade a “f—–g shovel” as one of my old sergeants would have said.

The chimera of Iran as deadly menace is a product of Israeli paranoia and debilitating fear of the “other.” This fear saturates Israeli strategic thinking making impossible for them a rational contemplation of the odds against Iranian suicide attacks against Israel. Israel rejects the concept of deterrence of nuclear attack through creation of MAD (mutual assured destruction). I have described their reasoning elsewhere in these pages. Given the awful nature of Jewish history, such overwhelming fear of the return of the final “golem,” or perhaps Azrael himself is comprehensible.

What is not comprehensible is that their fear somehow captured the “minds” of the present population of of the White House, the NSC staff and the office of the Vice President. The tail has truly been wagging the dog. The interests and attitudes of a small client state have been allowed to seize control of the policy of an ecumenical empire. Was not this surrender and acceptance of capture an abandonment of the sacred oath sworn to the Constitution of the United States? “Protect and Defend….”

Here’s Joe Klein’s reaction to the NIE release. He was on Joe Scar this morning. I was amazed by it. He’s gone so far off the cliff that he sounds like Rush or Hannity.

The Bush reaction to this — he didn’t try to block it. He didn’t try to postpone it. He didn’t spend weeks, he didn’t ask the intelligence community ‘give me a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can figure out some kind of negotiating initiative or some way to respond to this.’ He didn’t try to spin it to our advantage. This is an amazing moment of candor by the United States.

I now keep getting a “database error, please try again” Grrrrrhhh…

What makes this push to bomb Iran especially evil is that it’s been said that traditional bombs won’t be enough to destroy the underground labs. So, we weren’t just going to bomb them. We were going to nuke ‘em.

So perhaps it was just a happy coincidence, but it would appear that Lieberman played a critical role in re-directing the anti-Iranian narrative away from WMDs to the fact that they’re a bunch of foreign terrorists.

as much as i’d like to blame lieberman for the redirection, i think michael gordon at the nyt should get first billing and the supporting role of the house leadership should not be forgotten. hugh has an excellent time line on this too (see item 280)… here’s a bit to tempt you:

On February 10, 2007, Michael Gordon came out with the first of several pieces at the New York Times which were notable for their anonymous sourcing and unsubstantiated claims. These articles were heavily criticized in the blogosphere but it didn’t stop Gordon from revisiting the subject on March 27, 2007 and April 8, 2007 and recycling many of the previous charges.

In Gordon’s original piece the accusation was made that the smuggling of EFPs into Iraq was “approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force.” This claim quickly fell apart but it did not stop Bush without any additional evidence from asserting in a February 14, 2007 Valentine’s Day presser:

I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D.’s that have harmed our troops . . . And I’d like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the government. But my point is, what’s worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and its happening?

Blaming the Iranians for American deaths in Iraq provided a useful excuse for Bush’s failures there and helped gin up the case for a future conflict with Iran.

Bush’s bellicosity toward Iran worried some in Congress. Representative Peter Defazio (D-OR) on January 16, 2007 sponsored a resolution (H. Con. Res. 33) calling for an explicit Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) before any attack on Iran. The Democratic leadership essentially killed it by referring it to committee.

On March 12, 2007, Pelosi stripped out similar language requiring Congressional authorization for an attack on Iran from the Iraq supplemental bill (HR 2206). The next day she addressed AIPAC’s annual conference. A coincidence I’m sure.

On May 16, 2007, Defazio brought up the issue of an AUMF again in H. Amdt. 187, an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill HR 1585. It was defeated 136-288.

On June 20, 2007, H. Con. Res. 21 a resolution sponsored by Steven Rothman (D-NJ) called for the UN to take action against Iran for its nuclear program and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for violating the UN Convention on Genocide for his remarks (which Middle East expert Juan Cole said were mistranslated and misconstrued) calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. It passed 411-2.

On July 11, 2007, the Senate passed a resolution (S.Amdt 2073) introduced by Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) 97-0. It repeated most of the charges made in the press against Iran but actually only required reports on Iran’s activities.

Back in the House HR1400 the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 sponsored by Tom Lantos (D-CA) passed 397-16. It increased nuclear and financial sanctions and sought to “place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRG] on the list of specially designated global terrorists, and place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and their supporters.”

OT: Forgive me, trying to catch up during lunch. Anything on the contempt issue?

Close the window and reopen it. That fixed it for me.

What makes this push to bomb Iran especially evil is that it’s been said that traditional bombs won’t be enough to destroy the underground labs. So, we weren’t just going to bomb them. We were going to nuke ‘em.

Yes but you make that sound so bad. It was just going to be teeny tiny little precision tactical strikes. Honest.

Joe Klein’s interviewers are worse than Joe Klein. They’re either too partisan, too ignorant, too fearful or too stupid to question a particular dumbfuck properly.

I keep getting the same thing. So far, just attributing it to growing pains. I’m sure the techs will get it under control soon.

OK Steve. Thanks. Done. lessee….

Anyone see this?

US Vice President Dick Cheney admits that there is no reason to question the NIE report which confirms that Iran is not a nuclear threat.

“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said in an interview with three former Washington Post reporters Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei and John Harris…

Playing “Good Cop”?

(”Reply” doesn’t work)

reply to Hugh @10.

I like how ”PNAC” is in there. D’oh!

BobbyG @32

That’s just prefatory to a bold-faced lie about what the NIE says.

Long past time to break out the white jacket with long sleeves…I’ll volunteer to stitch one up if someone can provide a size estimate.

I’d listen to Cheney like I’d listen to any psychotic. True, false, sane, insane — who the hell knows? So I never listen to him.

Congratulations fdl: 46,000,000 site visits!

—Geeks R Us

Meanwhile, W is out there blowing in the wind as an obvious bald-faced liar…Cheney trying to appear rational…

Impeach both of these mofos.

Dana Peroxide briefing up on CSPAN-3. “Was the President completely candid about when he knew the contents of the NIE?”
“Yes. The President was not told the details. He could’ve been more precise in his language.”

Martha Raddatz hammering Dana on the NIE.

It looks like a ruse intended to have everyone see how “reasonable” Cheney the putative warmonger is, and relax.

Then one day we wake up to BOOM!

A Tonkin incident perhaps awaits.

What makes this push to bomb Iran especially evil is that it’s been said that traditional bombs won’t be enough to destroy the underground labs. So, we weren’t just going to bomb them. We were going to nuke ‘em.

Yes but you make that sound so bad. It was just going to be teeny tiny little precision tactical strikes. Honest.

Targets to be named later, no doubt…. Sheesh. Anyone who thinks it’s just Muslim states we need to worry about retaliating for a pre-emptive strike by the US oughta look a little further north. Maybe this is what Bush meant when he talked about looking into Putin’s eyes. What’s a little Armageddon among friends….

Sometimes I think that the only thing that is necessary for a neocon to get an op-ed published in the NYT is a pulse, and sometimes I have my doubts about that. The op-ed repeats the developing right wing talking points countering the NIE findings. Iran has a heavy water facility at Arak. It is still working on centrifuge cascades. It is working on missiles. It doesn’t need nuclear power. Etc.

Heck,

I’d kinda like to know what gives the US the “right” to determine whether a country “needs” nuclear power or not?

Lying is part of Dana’s job. It’s either that or she’d better start updating her resume.

She lies, the press types.

Maybe she’ll come clean when her book comes out.

I am amazed at just how brazen these criminals are

here we are, mired in Iraq because these very same people refused to allow our intelligence agencies report the truth

so it worked with Iraq as far as they are concerned and they think they can do it again?

it’s as if they live in a vacuum, it’s as is they don’t know that we know they lied us into war

how friggin brazen and how detached ARE these people?

Are you saying that Mitch McConnell briefed the President every day, and Bush never asked him for an update?
Dana: Let me clarify..

OT Specter blocks contempt vote.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..empt-vote/

The President was not told the details

does the president not ever ask any questions?

I still wonder about those Minot nukes…that may have been a failed attempt at something…it also may have something to do with NIE getting leaked. The “Admirals” don’t like the fake Iran policy either.. ‘Tis a puzzlement.

This whole timeline stinks of poorly hatched plans. Does Cheney have the same influence shaping Pentagon directives since Rumsfelds been fired?

And Asgari’s role in this is very important. Top general of Iranian Revolutionary Guard? Did he defect, was he kidnapped, or assassinated outright?

response to RonD @ 39

The President was not told the details

does the president not ever ask any questions?

Implausible deniability.

They open their mouths = they lie.

My rant to the Las Vegas Sun yesterday, which will probably be in tomorrow (they called me):

With the release of the new NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) regarding the “nucular” status of Iran, we once again face the ineradicable, troublesome question “What didn’t the President know, and when didn’t he know it?”

Which is worse? A president who repeatedly lies to the nation with respect to matters of grave importance, or one who is simply so egregiously incompetent as to not require that his subordinates keep him in the loop on a daily basis?

Upon further brief reflection, it occurs that perhaps the questions are not mutually exclusive.

Scottish Haggis is at it again? I really wish Leahy would tell him to go Cheney himself.

That dude is seriously harshing my buzz.
He never fails to haul water for these criminals.

Dana: I don’t think the rhetoric has been heating up.
If he was told there was new information, why didn’t Bush back off the rhetoric.
Dana: the NIE confirms what we’ve been saying-Iran has a covert weapons program. They’re still enriching uranium-we think they’re passing info to a new covert-eapons program that we don’t know about.

Dana’s Dumb as Dogshit

Need I be more precise?

congratulations on publishing your oped bobby g…many more

Keep an eye on holy joe, he is the key to reading what the mossad
katzas have in store for anyone on the hill that breaks with the
consensus in re Iran.

OT Specter blocks contempt vote.

Scottish Haggis strikes again!

Speaking of Hugh Hewitt, the Mitt-Love is strong today (as in everyday)…The ol’ albino has a “ragin’ Mitt-On”

Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst.

you know, you are right, joe can be a barometer for what the administration is planning

all we have to do is follow what he says and we know what their agenda will be

good call

Good job. Congratulations!

There they go again, the Emperor’s new clothes…imaginary nuclear programs that must be stopped….this administration exhibits zero actionable “intelligence”….

Senior officials who briefed the press said Iran wants to build a nuke. Does the President agree?
Dana: we’re concerned, and must keep the pressure on, or they might re-start a weapons program in the future.

All I want for Christmas is my edit button back, well, that and a very naked Marissa Tomei.

Yeah, Dana, and I still might hammer-dunk a basketball one day.

On Iraq: Does the President believe that Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office?
Dana: we have one more year under the UN mandate, and then we can move forward. Violence is down, and that’s what Maliki wants.

hey, got this from think progress, huckabee smacks the president around a bit and doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s done

check out this quote in defense of himself for not knowing about the nie;

It is a situation where a report was released at 10:00 in the morning, the president hadn’t seen it in four years and I’m supposed to see it four hours later.

joe-lying-bastard is playing with the lives of our soldiers with his dishonest macho posturing.

and ghouliani time is worse,

In October, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Mr. Giuliani said: “As we all know, Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and they’re threatening to use them. If I’m president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they’re not going to get nuclear weapons.”

Whatta we got, five more years of this asshole?
If the Dems get the White House and Clinton wins.you have to know that Lieberman will continue his two faced ways with Hillary’s blessings.
That.just.pisses.me.off..

Joe’s performing a very useful function for progressives. He’s showing us just what side our so-called Democratic leaders are on.

Clinton…she luvs her some Bush and intends to continue his policies in Iraq and Iran. This is the only explanation for her vote here.

Obama…exposed as a tool of the Lieberman wing of the ‘Democrat’ Party. His support here very telling.

Slowly the progressive blogosphere is coming to the realization that something is indeed rotten in Denmark. The Democratic Party leadership and much of the caucus are no different in their policy positions than the ‘Rubber Stamp’ ReThugs.

They’ve all gotta go. Yes, it will take more than one cycle and be a very big job to rid the party of Pelosi, DiFi, Boxer, Reid, Schumer, Rahmbo and the rest of the Bush Dogs and Bitches but I ask you….

Ya got something more important to do than take back our country from these bought and paid for scumbag war-profiteers?

They’ve become so arrogant that DiFi doesn’t even try to hide her votes to enrich her husbands war-profiteer company….

That arrogance will prove to be their undoing.

Speaking of books, Rover is asking $3M for his “Sweet Memoirs of a Turd Blussom”?

the right wing will buy them up at 10 cents a copy thus insurang a second edition

The surge was there to create space for political reconciliation-is that happening?
Dana: they’ve accomplished a lot. They’re moving forward. Oil exports are up. More to be done-what WE need to do here is fund our troops. Petraeus and Crocker know what they need, and Congress needs to give it to them.

Speaking of books, Rover is asking $3M for his “Sweet Memoirs of a Turd Blussom”?

I don’t think he’ll sell many copies at that price.

I haven’t checked everything in the timeline, but the claim about July 2007 is quite wrong: “intelligence community intercepts communications that verify claim Iran’s nuclear program remains suspended; Senior Administration Officials briefed.” If you go read the Washington Post article linked to that item, it reads “briefing senior members of the Bush administration on the intercepts, beginning in July,” which would suggest rather strongly that the intercepts themselves occurred long before July. Indeed, it is likely that they occurred at least as much as a year before, considering that Seymour Hersh was revealing the essence of this NIE at that time.

But actually, the most egregious error of all is the simple acceptance of that statement as true. I ask you to remember Colin Powell’s presentation of “intercepts” in his famous speech at the U.N. before the invasion of Iraq. Those intercepts, portrayed as a smoking gun, were laughable in their lack of actual content (and we had no reason to believe they were even legitimate to begin with). Likewise here, the belief that the intelligence services haven’t completely fabricated these intercepts is touching, but entirely unwarranted.

And why might they do that? Look around. The world, including this post, has now accepted as fact something which most definitely is not fact (see this post and its link to a FAIR article for more on that) - that Iran had a “nuclear weapons program.”

Does anybody else find the coincidence of Iran suspending its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and Iran trying to initiate no precondition diplomacy with the US in 2003 interesting? There really seems to be something worth exploring here. Did Iran make a unilateral decision in 2003 that nuclear weapons were not in its interest? What else was happening besides Iraq in 2003?

And hand this steaming pile off to the next president.

Just as Bu’ush gonna today take public credit for “fixing” the subprime mortgage mess. Kick that can down the road as well.

WOW. Dana just totally smacked down a reporter who tried to ask about HIV statistics. “inappropriate.”

i have seen no convincing evidence that iran has had a nuclear weapons program at any time during the last decade. in my mind that is very much an open question.

recommend bernhard’s post on this issue, “The NIE is a Ruse“

WH presser over. That little freak-out over the AIDS question was the strangest thing I’ve seen at a presser in quite a while.

OT..Speaking of books..The Sec. of Commerce supports radical Islam:

I’m not sure if Secretary of the Commerce Carlos Gutierrez is cheap or cuckoo, but it comes as something of a shock to learn that the controversial book The Atlas of Creation is prominently displayed in the waiting room to his office. Written by the Turkish writer Adnan Oktar (under the pen name of Harun Yahya), the Atlas offers an Islamic version of creationism and blames Charles Darwin for modern terrorism–including the 9/11 attacks. A recent visitor to the office tells me that the Atlas is impossible to miss, both because of its huge size–it weighs in at 12 pounds and has nearly 800 pages–and because it is prominently displayed on a stand at the entrance to the room.

(snip)

Harper’s

“A Republican official close to Karl Rove, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to disclose information, confirmed that his book will be pure fuckery.”

BTW- It bears repeating:

“Freedom Requires Religion.”

- Mork Romney

After 11/08, Joe’s influence will drop big time. Then I trust he’ll be humored as simply that strange guy down the block who was the product of the marriage of cousins.

“A Republican official close to Karl Rove, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to disclose information, confirmed that his book will be pure fuckery.”

Deserves to be an amazon review. Go for it.

That timeline should also include the January Herzliya speech by Edwards and well-attended by Z*oni*ts and the Bush Administration officials, and his later AlPACA speech (full of Guano-co, that one). Edwards is right up there calling Iran “the World’s Greatest Sponsor of Terrorism”. And supplying and training Hezbollah, Hamas, the Syrians, etc. I don’t think that he was suggesting that Iran’s Department of Parks was behind this. He was calling the Military “terrorists”…right in front of the Bush Administration.

That’s a big “Green Light” in “Red Rover, Red Rover”.

And just to be fair there were lots of so-called progressives that swallowed the Nuclear-Iran Kool Aid…and “they’re terrorists”.

Take a look at the S.970 co-sponsorship list…it’s not just Obama and Clinton. Besidesthe Republicans and a large number of Blue Dogs, we’ve got Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Christopher Dodd, Richard Durbin, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Amy Klobuchar, Debbie Ann Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse. A lot of these folks voted against the Iraq War Authorization Resolution. That’s also true of the Kyl-Lieberman Act, which has the same text in their declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization as S.970.

hey, lefti - is this you? if so, great blog… and a request: please update your profile with your blog link so everyone can easily link to it from your name when you comment. thx!

There was a major earthquake, and I believe that we actually sent some aid.

Perhaps relevant?

Uh, oh, we now have grave national peril:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Kiefer Sutherland was sentenced Wednesday to 48 days in jail for racking up a second drunken-driving arrest in three years and immediately reported to a city lockup…

yes. it’s human nature to want to blame our enemies and make excuses for our friends (at least i feel the urge all the time)…. something to struggle against in our quest to be a reality based community.

Thanks for the tip about the profile. Done.

What would make you think she wouldn’t put him in heris cabinet?

Recall that Edwards said he has Republicans and Independents on his list of potential cabinet members…those who will strongly disagree with him!

Hmmmm! Just who is the only Independant in the Senate likely to argue with President Edwards? I fear for the Department that would be run by this idiot.

U.S. airlifts disaster aid into Iran

The location is Bat, in the far northern part of Iran near the Turkmenistan border. My first thought was that the CIA might be sending spooks in to check out the area, but it looks as though it’s in the middle of nowhere. Who knows?

I just read some quotations from Romney’s speech - couildn’t find the whole thing. And I read JFK’s from 1960. Unless the qoutes of Romney i’ve seen have been chosen for fluff value, he didn’t really address his faith. Kennedy did so repeatedly andspecifically addressed “pamphlets” with (undoubtedly looney)”quotations” from Catholics from other countries in other centuries. It just seems JFK was more head-on in addressing the issue. Romney more “religion is good.” Some intetresting things JFK said:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds. . . .”
-and -
where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its official.
-and-
where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source

My emphases, obviously. Again, I haven’t seen the whole speech, but I’ll bet Mitt’s position doesn’t come close. Separation of church and state “absolute”? No use of public funds ? “Directly or indirectly”?
“Or any other ecclesiastical source”? Far more reassuring, and less pedestrian, than what I’ve seen of Romney’s. So I just don’t get the people who are already calling Romney’s speech superb or whatever they’re calling it.

Good link to Moon of Alabama on the non-existence (or non-proof of existence, in any case) of any Iranian nuclear weapons program, thanks. I’ve been writing the same thing since the day the report appeared, as well as noting other problems with it.

Very astute, and very possible, LeCarre always warned about field agents
banking on knowing what they do not know… trojan horse anyone?

Dana=D.A.D.

Earthquake happened well after the Swiss fax of the Iranian’s offer for comprehensive diplomacy Dec 30,2003 for the earthquake, Swiss fax was May 4, 2003. Swiss fax

WH presser over. That little freak-out over the AIDS question was the strangest thing I’ve seen at a presser in quite a while.

RonD, you’ve got me intensely curious now. What was asked and what was the nature of Peroxide’s freak-out?

But don’t you get it? The “neoconservative” desire to attack Iran is as much or more about Hezbollah than it ever was about speculative nuclear weapons. That’s what “sponsor of terrorism” means and always meant.

By way of comparison to the ugly compound of bellicosity and wormish obsequiousness demonstrated by Edwards and the rest at Herzliyah I’m including a link to Shimon Peres speech there:

http://www.herzliyaconference&.....goryID=223

I believe in his entire speech he didn’t mention mormon once, kennedy mentioned his religion a number of times

Well, Jeebus, we already HAVE nukes and our leaders are obviously crazier than theirs — already having destroyed at least one innocent country for nothing.

I want to know who’s gonna be watching US.

Probably that would be Putin, who has been jumping around waving his arms — figuratively and ballistically — trying to semaphore that it won’t take much more to convinced him to MIRV the continental U.S.. (I strongly object to using nouns as verbs; I will never write such a sentence again. Not much, I won’t.)

A reporter tried to ask about some HIV statistics coming out of the CDC, and she chopped him off right now. He then tried to follow up, and she cut him off, told him his question was “inappropriate”, and moved on to someone else. He’s asking in the background, “inappropriate?”, and she totally ignored him and went on to other people. It was just…very strange. Why would she react so strongly to a question about CDC stats on HIV? Hmm.

Let’s push this information out there, spotlight this post and digg it

I can’t agree with this “ruse” idea. It completely ignores the context and impact of this NIE, which was a palace coup against Cheney.

I agree that, just as with Iraq 1991-2003, there was a bipartisan policy of destroying Iran economically, if not yet military. But the the two “parties” (I’m talking about Baker/Gates and the “neoconservative”, not Democrats and Republicans) have diverged significantly on Iran since 2003.

trying to semaphore that it won’t take much more to convinced him to MIRV the continental U.S.

Out of the question, and irresponsible to suggest.

Oh, how I miss ‘Preview’ and ‘Edit’. And no, I don’t care if they work on Macs; XP/(Opera,FF) may not be classy, but it’s what I have and I don’t think I’m alone.

Thanks, RonD. No, I don’t understand that either. Was the Presser supposed to be subject-constrained somehow? That’s the only thing I can think of. Bizarre.

Sorry, the idea that Putin is going to attack the US is out of the question, as egregious says..Why would he? The US is in the throes of destroying itself…why would any Russian leader risk nuclear retaliation, when all they have to do is nothing but watch?

In response to behindthefall @ 102

trying to semaphore that it won’t take much more to convinced him to MIRV the continental U.S.

Out of the question, and irresponsible to suggest.

Huh??? Irresponsible of me to suggest that that’s why Putin has pointed out that Russia’s new generation of missles can defeat any ABM system out there or under development?? Don’t you think that the possibility even bears thinking about??

Tula upstairs.

Latta Hot Air: Keep an Eye on Ohio 5

No subject matter constraints-they were all over the map on other questions.

So I get up to this from Mork Romney:

“Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone,” he said.

WTF? Freedom requires religion?

Given the fact that there is no correlation between Freedom and Religion throughout Cultures or History one would think that it would be obvious that he is full o’crap. The Aztecs had religion…did they have Freedom? There was plenty of religion during the Inquisition…Freedom not so much. The Taliban love theology…the 100 Years War (and the 30 Years War) was fought over religion. But plenty of religions prospered without Freedom. In fact, they thrived AFTER that Freedom was eliminated. The Orthodox church developed at a time when the Roman empire accepted almost all religions…but Judaism and Christianity posed a threat because they were so antagonistic to the Freedom of others to worship their Gods. Romans or Greeks couldn’t put up a temple to practice their religion in Israel (sounds a bit like Saudi Arabia) without it being attacked or vandalized.

And the orthodox Christian church basically shut out every other religion and even the most marginally different interpretations of Scripture. The Nicene Council was all about whether Jesus was “three in one” (Homoousias or “one in three” Homoiousias
and even the believers in these two branches stumbled over the concepts. But it resulted in heated wars between the “Romans” and the Athanasian-following Goths (Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths). Two factions of Christians at each others throats.

And his whole attitude about restricting “choice” is an attack on the fundamental freedom that one can have…the right to decide what will happen to oneself. And he doesn’t see (or want to admit) that this shift is certainly due to reasons that have less to do with “freedom” and more to do with pandering to a religious minority.

WH presser over. That little freak-out over the AIDS question was the strangest thing I’ve seen at a presser in quite a while.

I think that was Les Kinsolving. He is a wingnut among wingnuts. Even the likes of Tony Snow and Dana Perino find him an embarrassment.

Yeah. I just read it. Zillions. Seriously. All over the place. Look, putting asisde that i think Romneys is a jerk, I can’t be satisfied that it was a great or even good speech when he didn’t address his own religion at all. he blew it off. JFK seemed to be doing the same thing in the beginning. It was like “my faith is my business” but then was like “well, you guys don’t get it, so lemme explain ….” Romney didn’t ’splain.

I think even the Hezbollah reason is trumped up. To me it is simply the fear of compromise. Isr@al/neocons can not even accept Iran with nuclear power plants, even if they were assured they were for electicity genearation only. That would simply make Iran a 20th century (nevermind 21st) power, and to be reckoned with. They don’t want that. It’s not about terrorism, it’s not about “nukes”, although they love to conflate the issue with that term.

The neocons reveal this when they say “Iran doesn’t need nuclear power plants…” How absurd is that?

Substitute tactic for ruse, weigh the difference between the “parties”
again, wait for it awhile and you might modify your take, or not.

Sorry, the idea that Putin is going to attack the US is out of the question, as egregious says..Why would he? The US is in the throes of destroying itself…why would any Russian leader risk nuclear retaliation, when all they have to do is nothing but watch?

I read Putin as trying to remind the U.S. that Mutually Assured Destruction was still operative. PNAC and the neocons seemed to have been proceeding under the assumption that the days of MAD were over, that Russia was not the USSR and was not capable of posing a genuine Cold War era threat to the U.S.. Whether either side in the Cold War would ever have pulled the trigger first is something we never had to fnd out, thankfully.

As to the original question — Who is watching the U.S. as it embarks on more foreign adventures?: If the MAD mechanism is back in operation, and if one side acts without restraint, attacking, for instance, a nation which the other side regards as in its interest to protect, then the other side might regard the situation as being intolerable and initiate MAD. Of course MAD is insane. Of course it is illogical. And of course it was irresponsible on the part of a lot of people and nations to get us into this pickle.

the dlcers continue to protect him. recently we even heard dodd protect this freak on air america radio. when ned kicked his ass they surrounded him like a mother bear protecting her cubs. i think what the dlcers have done protect this joker is more troubling than the joker himself.

In response to behindthefall @ 102

trying to semaphore that it won’t take much more to convinced him to MIRV the continental U.S.

Out of the question, and irresponsible to suggest.

certainly not out of the question that there may be threats? not saying it would happen, but lord knows we’ve made enough threats in our time… certainly not irresponsible to suggest that putin would do the same.

The unproven assertion that Iran has a program has been the consensus of our parties and media (shared by Valerie Plame, among others) for a long time already. I don’t think they needed a new “tactic” to reinforce that consensus.

And, as I said, the context is too clear. Ahmedinejad’s taunting reaction is as good a take as anyone’s, as is our collective, intuitive sigh of relief.

So far as I can see, the real aim of the Lieberman/Crystal/Podhoretz cheerleading team is to advocate a maximum of chaos bloodshed and confusion throughout the Middle East. In other words, they ‘win’ regardless of how bad appear. There is a quaint odor of Trotskyism that hangs over this. Fruit of the dialectical tree? Really it’s a horrible and depraved political outlook.

A caption from the book, below a photograph of one of the planes striking the World Trade Center, reports: “No matter what ideology they may espouse, those who perpetrate terror over the world are, in reality, Darwinists. Darwinism is the only philosophy that places a value on–and thus encourages–conflict.”

Actually, Darwin himself noted lots of cases of symbiotic, commensual, and cooperative behaviors in “Origin of Species”. And Darwin never said that people had to act in the comic-book Darwinian fashion…he argued that civilizations should try and transcend the evolutionary handcuffs that natural selection sometimes encourages in species. He noted that the fact that humans were part of an Order than had tens of millions of years of life in cooperative social units would likely suggest that we are generally overtly cooperative, but subtly selfish within our own groups.

But Darwin was a scientist- he described what he saw in Nature. It wasn’t an ideology of action.

Ironically, the Secretary happens to be working in a Department Commerce) and Administration that IS largely based on an ideology…”The Chicago School” of manipulated, state-sponsored class capitalism. He’s not a purely descriptive or theoretical economist…he’s the one that is putting these notions into practice, with devastating effects.

Or not. What stopped that brought the intuitive sigh of relief?

Thanks for the Shimon Peres speech…wonder if he got booed, or walked out on. He and Rabin are the real heros in Israeli politics (at least at the top levels…there are lots of people much more courageous in the shadows). Yet Edwards views as his “hero” some belligerent thug called Sharon? Yuck!

Come on upstairs for the new thread:

Latta Hot Air: Keep An Eye On Ohio-5

Volunteers urgently needed for the December 11 special election. Republicans are throwing money into this district, one they thought to be safely theirs.

I read Putin as trying to remind the U.S. that Mutually Assured Destruction was still operative.

That I will agree with. He may even, in a strange way, be trying to do us a favor.

Yeah, it’s about Israel pressing their advantages in pursuing their perceived national interest in all arenas with the ruthlessness and sense of impunity that comes from the knowledge they have the world’s hyperpower unconditionally supporting them, when not outright goading them on.

True enough. No one knows the future. And the immediate prospect of an attack on Iran won’t definitively recede until Cheney is actually out of office.

Thanks. At least here on this blog interested, informed people can
talk these matters through. Thanks for the colloquy and keep digging!

It’s not that their expectations about the intelligence were not met, but that their expectations about the intelligence community were not met. The latter failed to deliver the product sought or more likely refused to cooperate with the chickenhawk warmongers against all evidence.

Blue Texan upstairs on Romney’s speech The Wingnut Reaction

I really hope Edwards meant Bernie Sanders!

Thanks for that, selise, will try to add that to my now-burgeoning spreadsheet.

After Jane’s additions, I’m tempted to add a column for Liebermonster’s efforts alone — sandwiched between Iran and Israel.

InRe: cinnamonape #86

Does cinnamonape have a greenish complexion? Live under a bridge? Feature prominently in children’s books as The Ugly One?

I avoid cinnamonape posts now; but every time I stumble into one unwittingly, it’s always the same contrarian crap. If people “represented” by Hillary Clinton — who know too much to be happy about that or her blind ambition for the White House — post anything negative about Hilly Billy … THERE’S cinnamonape trash talking the Hilly Disser, trashing any opinion polls that don’t put the tiara on Hilly’s bed head.

Now, on Republican zombies and Democratic panderers trying to outdo each other to bash Iran, cinnamonape lies in wait - till someone lists pander votes by Clinton and Obama — then cinnamonape farts out the mighty wind below.

Specifically: What about Edwards? He sucks too. Little cinnamonape cites a January speech, followed by what John Edwards said “right in front of the Bush Administration” … as if we’re supposed to be outraged by anything said in front of Bush asses.

Then cinnamonape is off and running on fairness and balance (ha ha ha, how Foxy, “just to be fair” sez the red scimian) with a looong list of progressive Dems sure to piss off any good Republican.

Or put a hair up the arse of any self-respecting troll.

So, fess up, cinnamonape. Feeling a bit green these days? Like to eat eye ball jelly on toast. Or is that only for ogres? Not trolls?

cinnamonape #86:

That timeline should also include the January Herzliya speech by Edwards and well-attended by Z*oni*ts and the Bush Administration officials, and his later AlPACA speech (full of Guano-co, that one). Edwards is right up there calling Iran “the World’s Greatest Sponsor of Terrorism”. And supplying and training Hezbollah, Hamas, the Syrians, etc. I don’t think that he was suggesting that Iran’s Department of Parks was behind this. He was calling the Military “terrorists”…right in front of the Bush Administration.

That’s a big “Green Light” in “Red Rover, Red Rover”.

And just to be fair there were lots of so-called progressives that swallowed the Nuclear-Iran Kool Aid…and “they’re terrorists”.

Take a look at the S.970 co-sponsorship list…it’s not just Obama and Clinton. Besides the Republicans and a large number of Blue Dogs, we’ve got Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Christopher Dodd, Richard Durbin, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Amy Klobuchar, Debbie Ann Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse. A lot of these folks voted against the Iraq War Authorization Resolution. That’s also true of the Kyl-Lieberman Act, which has the same text in their declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization as S.970.

Disagree all you like, but let’s stay away from casting aspersions about other commenters.

Thanks.

Re; the top Iranian guy. If they have had him since feb, was he one of the Iranians who was ‘picked up’ when we grabbed the diplomats who were visiting Iraq? Sorry can’t really remember all the details, but the Iraq government was not happy with us..

Dear President Bush and Vice-President Cheney:

1) Next monday,December 10,2007, the White House is celebrating a big religious dinner for the Orthodox Israeli Community with 500+ israeli-american,israeli nationals and other members of AIPAC,Army of Israel ,Embassy members and Congress members among others, and my question is ,since most of them israelis have never worked or paid taxes in the USA while getting billions of dollars from USA taxpayers , could you ask them to stop using American Weapons,American Helicopters ,American Humvees, American radios,American Caterpillar trucks and earthmovers, American F-16’s , American build Cluster Bombs and American Identification gear while building luxury homes in occupied arab territories ? American soldiers and civilians ,human beens from everywhere are dying from it …..

could you ask them to stop lying ? they promised change in Annapolis and yesterday they announced they are going to build another 300 new homes in East Jerusalem ,the arab section occupied since 1967 ? this is Palestine capital also and an insult to arabs and will fuel more hate and violence around the world AGAINST USA CITIZENS AND INTERESTS, because they have succeeded in fixing the war between Americans and Muslims, while they relax in TelAviv with USA taxpayers money or ,next monday,inside the White House cooking their foods in your kitchen and planting bugs in your home, so could you ask them to stop using USA symbols while they steal the arabs lands ? this is the root of the Muslim-Christian Problem…

its not too much to ask,no? after all, the Israeli Orthodox Community ,mostly tax exempt, controls the Diamond,Gold,Insurance,Real Estate and Hedge Fund markets,they make billions through their Hedge Funds and Private Equity investing in the Iraq War Military and Security Contractors while claiming organized religious condition,their homes are worship-tax -exempt and while their firms ,like Goldman Sachs sell billions in subprime packages ,now their Lobby is asking for a bail-out from the USA Taxpayers with the Hedge Fund Defense Team of S.Schumer, Summer-Snow and others crying the well polished : ” BAIL US OUT OR RECESSION ” SONG THAT GETS FAST RESULTS IN WASHINGTON, as usual ! , they even got npr ,c-span and most Media and Networks under their control,and now R.Harman is pushing an anti-Free Speech Bill disguised as anti-terror , H.R.1955 ,to the Senate to make sure we can’t even complain or talk about it , everything will be illegal !

2) dear President and Vice President, we know since 9/11/01 that we got to stop funding the terrorists by not buying more Middle East Oil ,but these extreme sunnie-wahabis as well as the israelis are the ones more interested in the USA staying addicted to Middle East Oil,as long as we are hooked on it,we got to be in the area, and Saudis and Israelis can do as they please, the USA soldiers and missiles are there watching over their abuse,so why not do the patriotic thing and launch a massive Energy Independence Plan ? right now ? like real patriots do first what’s good for America instead of doing first what’s good for Israel and Saudi Arabia ? how about it ? stand up for America first ?

we all know that Joshua Bolten,Katz,Kellner,Kaplan,Braunstein ,etc. in the White House as well as Schumer,Lieberman,Feinstein,Coleman,Specter,Bloomberg,Harman and the rest of the Oil Lobby will not accept this and we know who really runs this country, so the lies and waste will go on, but they are running the country to the ground, the junk food is making people not only sick but weak and stupid, the Dumb TV is turning our Mental National Level into 3rd World Country and the Middle Class and the Old Age is suffering a lot, aldo of course from the warm and cozy White House you can’t see anything of this,but believe me,America is suffering and is getting weaker and weaker, and this must stop right now ! Why don’t you stand up for America and be real great men ?

and please answer me one question : The Neocon Media is blaming only George Bush and Dick Cheney for the Iraq War, the Contracting abuses and waste, the dead civilians and dead USA SOLDIERS,they never mention Wolfowitz,Zakheim,Perle,Wurmser,Abrams,Fleischer,Libby,Schumer,Mehlman,Ullman , Emanuel, Coleman,Cohen,Chertoff,Mukasey and Podhoretz,Zuckerman,Kristol,Kagan and Lieberman and Harman and Lantos all day in 2002 and 2003 on TV ,Newspapers and Radio asking to start bombing Iraq, pushing to attack,with Sulzberger and Safire,with Murdoch and Karmezin, Kudlow , the Lehrer-Miller-Warner npr-c-span-NYT-NYPost neocon machine as well as the Feinstein/DNI,Edelman/Pentagon and Kramer-Goldberg/State team of agitators,all the neocons pushing to bomb Iraq, and yet the Media only mentions the 2 of you, why ? they give you the advice and now they blame only you for everything ?