So?

It isn’t worth the time or energy to tune into anything Preznit Whatmeworry? has to say. Good pic but I’ve seen the version that looks very much like himself merged with the mad man. So apt.

cringe? naw. i’ll just go clear out the rest our compost pile fence. been meaning to do that for awhile.

“At least since mid-2006, the US has been expanding its air capabilities in Iraq. Air bases have been enlarged and more planes and helicopters added to the arsenal. The build-up has led to a dramatic increase in air strikes within Iraq. . . . These missions have led to a five-fold increase in the amount of ordinance dropped in 2007. The tonnage of munitions dropped by aircraft increased to 222,000 pounds in the first half of 2007, compared to 61,500 during all of 2006.”

This passage is from a report called “U.S. War Crimes in the ‘Surge’ 2007: Petraeus Manual and Tactics Flout International Law,” written by Karen Parker, president of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, and policy analyst Bill Rau, for the organization ConsumersforPeace.org.

David,

I’m so glad you’re beginning to post regularly here. The quality of your writing is exceeded only by the importance of the issues of racism, and prejudicial treatment of “the others” in our society, subjects that you deal with better than anyone else I’ve read lately.

EPU’ed but I wished to mention this.

ot - Buchanan on msnbc: “the table is being set for air strikes on Iran”

I was actually researching this last night. There is a site:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php

where you can feed in latitude and longitude and find out sunrise and sunset and moonrise and moonset times for anywhere in the world.

Looking at these for Natanz, for example, indicates that there is a marginal window for attack on the nights of April 11th and 12th and numerous dates from April 29th to about May 12 with the best dates being May 3rd-7th.

here we go…

Thanks, Edward — very kind of you. Over here I’ll be doing politics a lot more, though my Thursday 6pm posts on race, immigration, etc., will continue. And of course, Orcinus will still carry the usual fare (though for some reason it’s been tough to post there this week …)

I can’t watch.

note to bush: remove marbles from mouth before speech.

The only time I will listen to that sociopath’s voice is when he gives testimony at the Hague.

Is the lying over yet?

Jew-lie. (His wersion of July.)

My niece’s mid-twenties step-son is in Iraq. Recently he was home for an 18 day leave. I asked if he wouldn’t get stop-lossed; he said he shouldn’t. I was sorry to hear that, although they are expected to announce that they will be going back to 12 month tours, down from 15 months, that will not be likely to affect anyone already there.

He says they hear explosions virtually twenty four hours a day. He’s told his family he has no intentions of re-upping. Sad, and I hate to sound insentient, but what were these soldiers thinking when they volunteered?

We’re back to “capturing & killing AQ leaders every night.”

i’ll not watch - i just can’t stand to hear him say anything …. just gooooo already!!

That speech I will listen to all the way through.

Watching shrub. I can’t do that to myself. The P&C act has been bad enough but mindless shrub is asking too much. Maybe he should just leave for the ranch sooner and by afternoon he can be wacking the enemy brush. Get those enemies. They’s everywhere.

With better sex education, we will have fewer teen preznitcies. If a woman becomes preznit, will she have the right to choose?

potus: we’re on the right track.

murkin is my fave fwiw, eCAHN

oops, was also going to say thank you for the link.

(pay no attention to the 18 US Troops killed since Sunday)

Excellent post, David.

More and more when I contemplate what BushCo has done to Iraqn and the destruction of foundations of this country he’ll leave in his wake, I think of Mad Max and Beyond Thunderdome… total destruction, mindless, and no heroes left, just the tellin’.

Maybe Bushie will plan his big attack on Iraqn for Jenna’s wedding day? So Corleone of a criminal syndicate….

Prairie Today: Hungry…for Food, for Truth, for Life

keep watch dawgies. i gotta go tackle that rotten compost fence in the yard.

appropriate enuf work for the circumstances, no?

I think chimpy just threatened Iran again…

headin’ to poop patrol on the recently thawed backyard m’self…

W’s like the drunk at the party who thinks if se says it one more time and a little bit louder, surely everyone will understand.

….and threatening to veto war spending bill…

watching joy behar on the view asking pointed questions to mcinsane instead

so here’s where we are;

“the surge has not worked and we are loosing, therefore the surge must continue untill we win”

and then there is this;

“the surge has worked and we are winning, we will loose if we discontinue this succesfull strategy”

now, as far as I can tell, petraus used both of these lines?

In Bush’s circle of hell there will be a brush labyrinth. It will be a mixture of the worst kinds of sticker brush from every known corner of the earth. Every time he wacks at a clump, he’ll get stung and cut. The harder he tries to cut, the more the branches will fight back. As soon as he gets so tired he can’t lift his puny arms, and tries to sit, he’ll be greeted by giant thorns in his backside, as he gets stung even more, trying to rise back up.

The brush will make it so dark around him, that he’ll seldom get enough glimpses of the light beyond him to realize it isn’t the sun he sees through the brambly mess, it is the flames…

except that it almost always works when it comes to congress.

I can’t do it, I can’t stand listening to the inarticulate jackass anymore.
Anything he says is going to be bullshit anyway.

bottoms up

What is wrong with his voice? Listen to a speech from several years back — he didn’t used to slur like that.

The courtesan class of supposed “journalists” are no doubt all a twitter waiting for Bush’s blatherings. Not only will the nation be better when Bush just fades away but it will also be better off if the courtesans fade into obscurity with him.

he ’massacreeed’ the word ’proliferation’ at nato, but can’t remember what word he made up instead.

Hi Ann - I know your nephew volunteered with the best intensions. Youth is a period in which we search out all kinds of experimentations, finding our own way. It leads down some strange paths. May he be safe and return well.

I firmly believe that war should be something only people over 30 should be allowed to go. Also, policy makers who approve war should be in the farfront of the battle and stay there until the job is done. If Fred Kagan had to get his disgusting self in a uniform and head to the front for years on end, I’ll bet his policies would never include war. Simply stated, policy makers need to put their body where their mouth is!

anyone know where the 4% number comes from (military expenditures as a percent of the economy)?

oh promise me that,please

In many small towns and inner cities around the country, the military, even today, even after the craziness and lies of the last seven years, is still considered an honorable and acceptable means of upward mobility. And the National Guard and Reserves are still considered an acceptable means of income supplement and giving back to the community.

Unfortunately, those ideals and beliefs have been corrupted badly in BushCo land.

W gets A+ on propaganda. And the media will treat it as though it were accurate.

Why are you clapping???? Argh …

Hell, the kid I know that did one tour is going to sign up for flight school. That is essentially becoming a lifer and this guy graduated from the University of Minnesota. Damn kids!

Sounds about right, but not sure if it includes costs of war supplementals. I’ll see if I can dig up the data.

What’s amazing is that we can spend so much on military & have it be such a small part of economy yet bigger than all the rest of the world combined.

Funny you should say this. I was just thinking (as a colleague left her TV on as she went to a meeting and I’m stuck listening to the Bushwacker, getting angrier by the second) that my sole consolation listening to these lies is that I am extremely confident this man will spend eternity in a particularly gruesome hell.

they are financed by the same individuals..MIC

It occurs to me that since impeachment is off Pelosi’s table, that leaves a place on it for Iran. Apples and oranges? Not really.

He’s drinking again.

That would be Dallas. :) :)

pls, excuse my ignorance - but what is size of our economy?

You are waaaaay too kind.

The percentage surely doesn’t come from reality.

what makes you think he ever stopped? greek myth

wait, wait I turned to the speech (thinking it was over) and before flippin away once again, I think I heard something in the order of:

Iran will be emboldened if we loose in Iraq

Tell me I heard wrong.

At least it was mercifully brief. Overall it was just a repetition of the standard lies. It’s all he has left.

We’re being told this not only by a man who couldn’t finish his cushy Guard duty but who also seems to think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are romantic.

I will ask ’til the day I die: why have he and the others who perpetrated this disaster gotten away with it?

why are our troops,and our money,in the middle of these 2 countries?

Yes, it’s another day in the The 100 Years War (brought to you in easy-to-swallow six-month segments).

Got to “catapult the propaganda” while we still “have a chance to move beyond the broken egg.”

Nope.

Shorter Bush: “I painted us into a corner by going into Iraq, and if we leave now, Al Qaida will claim a propaganda victory and Iran will be emboldened for a military adventure.”

Heckuva job, King George! I’m sure those pesky colonies will fall into line shortly.

and still do….NOBODY in thte media has exposed his nakedness

well mebbe KO will have a special comment

Maybe, but if I were to sit in on W’s judgement, I would not be a merciful judge. I would quote John Yoo to him a lot. My three friends who died in the USAF over Thailand, Los and Vietnam while young Lt. Bush was partying in te south on coke and Mexican hookers, would be on the judgement panel.

I calculate federal defense spending as 4.8% of GDP, from the national income accounts. ($678 billion at an annual rate in Q4, out of a $14074 billion GDP) I think (though it’s been some time since I was into the weeds on these data) that measure, unlike the budget figures, includes all the spending on wars. It’s still a pretty low percentage by past wartime comparisons. But then, there aren’t very many terrorits in the world. So if you take it as a per-enemy figure, it’d be pretty high!

As he furiously yanks on the handle of the Power Vacuum machine.
What a dolt.

when perhaps 5 corporations own the media - you expect them to give us “news”? they support bushco in his madness - making money only counts

At risk of being (more) tedious, remind me again, please, why impeachment has been deep-sixed. Yes, I know the vote itself would be iffy, but why in the name of all that’s holy is a 24/7 spotlight not being focused on Bush and Cheney? Make me smart (and good luck with that!).

See my 65. Here’s all the tables. I did the caluculation from Table 3.
http://www.bea.gov/newsrelease.....dp407f.pdf

sigh,you are correct

David, please, could we show a bit more respect here?

for..
Alfred E.Newman!

The poor dolt from the cover of MAD is getting a bad rap, I would guess his IQ surpasses W’s by more than a few points.

Nope, you’re right, and emboldened right along with AQ. So we want the war spending bill; we’ve got to keep ‘merica safe. This is like the coldwar, and opponents don’t get it. Anything new here?

That was frickin beautiful man… …beautiful…

Impeachment would be too much of a distraction from not accomplishing other important things.

Why is IMPEACHMENT off the table??????

Who the hell took it off and were they thinking of the U.S. at the time????

lose, that is

Oh, I get it … didn’t realize he was speaking in front of veterans groups, Condi and Dick and other friendly faces.

i for one would look foward to the interrogatories….put them into the history books WE DID IT FOR A BLOWJOB,after all

Not complicated, it’s time.

That’s just one circle in the entire wing of hell reserved for the Bush family and their cronies.

To which I can only say, Thank God for CSPAN and the internet. Otherwise we would be deep into Orwell territory.

What we need to know is what Darth is holding over Nancy’s head. They we will know why impeachment is off the table.

touche!! c-span and nets is whats up!!

Already. There.

Democracy Now! today:

Telecom Whistleblower Discovers Circuit that Allows Access to All Systems on Wireless Carrier — Phone Calls, Text Messages, Emails and More

http://www.democracynow.org/

anyone know where the 4% number comes from (military expenditures as a percent of the economy)?

That would be from Total Information Awareness-Economic Macaca Department.

This is a new arguement that this is actually a frugal war that does not cost very much. Remember Insane McCain said the Fossil Fuel, we would steal from Iraq would pay for our occupation and genocide.

If we bug out then, we will pay much more, such as all the war profits, smuggled Iraq Oil, and no-bid contracts. The new revisionist history is the withdrawals from Vietnam and Somalia cost much more than if we would have stayed and killed the indigenous population. I do not hear the Corporate Teevee journalists disagreeing with Kommander Guy and they know everything.

‘Tis a blessed tale you weave.

*g* That’s what I was afraid of. Am afraid of. Work with me on this. Don’t criminals keep committing crimes because they believe they won’t get caught? Or, worse yet, because they get a massive high from living on the edge? For seven years — count ‘em, seven! — we have let BushCo run roughshod over everyone. Everyone! All of us. Congress. The DOD. The DOJ. Our allies. Our enemies. Our former allies. Urk!

I love the image. Only one small correction. Technically a labyrinth has a clear path to walk that goes in and goes out again as long as you follow it. I would rather choose a maze where he would be stressed to figure out how to get out of it—if he could figure it out at all.

See my 65 and 69.

The media refuse to go back and look at what the surge was actually supposed to do. The surge strategy was to secure Baghdad, write off Anbar, and conduct sweeps in the areas around Baghdad. This was supposed to lead to improved conditions in Baghdad sufficient to allow for Iraqis politicians to agree on a political settlement. None of this happened.

What did happen was that pre-surge Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar rebelled against the jihadist movement which P&C deceptively keep calling al Qaeda in Iraq. The tribes indicated they were willing to be bought off and this was done because Petraeus had his hands full with Baghdad and its environs. He was conducting big sweeps that were getting a lot of Americans killed and violence in Baghdad was increasing not decreasing because Shi’ites were conducting a very effective campaign of ethnic cleansing in the capital.

The Sunni tribal buyout began to spread outside of Anbar and conditions started to calm down in these areas. Petraeus and especially his Number 2 Odierno made noises about going after the Mahdi Army. About this time the JAM had a public relations setback in one of the Shia holy cities and Sadr declared a truce. Baghdad had become a predominately Shia city. The ethnic cleansing had been successful. With the Sunnis making deals with the Americans there was no need to become a target. Sadr’s truce made sense just as the Sunni truce made sense. Why should either side weaken themselves in a pointless conflict with the Americans when they could be building up their strength for the battle that would take place after the Americans left. Both sides knew that the surge could not be sustained. As time passed they also saw that Bush was a lame duck, the war was unpopular in the US, and the next US President would end the occupation and remove the American forces. So it did not serve their purposes to engage in a fight with us.

Meanwhile back to Petraeus and the surge, he had been conducting these big sweeps which sent US casualties through the roof. This was creating a lot of blowback in the US. As conditions changed on the ground under him and despite him, Petraeus moved away from pushing in American troops into well prepared areas where they could be shot or blown up. Instead he relied more on air power and bombing. Sweeps became fewer and bombing increased.

With the Sunni buyout and the JAM truce, with the decrease in terrorist bombings as tribes moved against jihadists, with the success of ethnic cleansing, with the decrease in large scale US sweeps, violence in Iraq was abated but not eliminated.

Yet during all ths time no progress was made on the political front. Yes, there has been claimed movement but most of this consists of promises rather than actions or as with the reform of the de-Baathification law it promises one thing but does the opposite. Provincial elections which were seen as a major step forward resulted not in political progress but the clumsy, hamfisted, and ineffective move of Maliki in Basra to take militarily what he could not gain politically. This not only nearly set the whole Shia South on fire but has dumped security responsibilities for the South on us, a burden we are in no position to bear.

I know this is a long way around responding to your comment but I wanted to put it in some kind of context.

As

We’re going to have troops in Iraq for years- no matter who wins. No one listens to Clusterfuck anymore- and few think that anything significant will happen within the next two years…once Obama wins the White House, he will start thinking about how to avoid being a prez who lost a war- and everything will change a little

the repuke SENATORS and J.Liarman …were given those TALKING points on Iran for the hearing yesterday…Now chimp REITERATES his intentions!!

Orwell territory

We would be rounded up and deprogrammed, then reprogrammed until we became good little mindless repugs, “Yasem, yasem! Ahs knows ma place!” Or we would be banded to a remote island if the de and re didn’t work.

It is very ironic, isn’t it, that it’s Republicans, who’ve repeatedly declared themselves the “real Americans”, the “patriotic ones”, the ones who put America first, love the country, wave the flag and adorn the pins (as though that’s evidence of patriotism) who are the ones protecting a president and vice president (and others, including the most corrupt AG in US history) from being held accountable for bringing this country to its knees!

As opposed to “where” in Orwell territory? I thought we were “deep in Orwell territory” when the FBI gunned down Black Panthers all around the country in ambushes that were called anything but that. We are SO DEEP into Orwell territory, we’ll need guides who speak another language and have GPS’s yet uninvented to find our way out. We’re inventing that language and that GPS here, not at C-SPAN.

That being said, I love C-SPAN too…

Here is the bottom line on the Presidents’ lack of a plan for Iraq- He has given another nation (Iraq)the power to decide how many American children to kill (our soldiers) and the ability to spend as much American money as it wishes, until it decides to stop. It could be tomorrow or twenty years from now or never. The only end to this nightmare, according to this no-plan is entirely up to the Iraqi government and it’s people to decide when to quit. We can quit arguing about it now, it is out of our hands.

they try with B,Spears,Paris Hilton and endless NUTRASYSTEM commercials”g”

i agree with you

in re: my 38

found it, from an old comment…..

”and a clip of bush speaking–talking about russia, said ’ployferation’ for ’proliferation’ i think this is the winner of bushisms. cuz that’s what it is. ploy.

he is just painful to watch. ”

reid up on msnbc with response to chimp

finally said ENDLESS war

I was figuring that was why he wanted to go to the Moon and Mars: handy one-way trips for all us dissidents.

thanks - that gives me a good number for the GDP, but i wonder about other military costs - are costs such as va, doe, interest, etc included? i’ll look them up later, but you’ve given me a good place to start. thanks.

Pelosi up now…

IANAL, but I think you will find that for the most part there IS no requirement for a warrant on cell phone calls and such because they are radio waves sent out into the ether. Same with tapping into battery phones. I may be mistaken but unless there have been some laws passed of which I am unfamiliar, the courts ruled years ago that intercepting the radio signals by LE was far more lax than hitting a land-line.

reid and pelosi up now to counter bush’s speech.

come on Nancy….throw us a bone!!!!

are we safer?…go NANCY!!

Let me say that since the blossoming of the Internet, we have decompressed a little bit. The total lock on information has eased somewhat. Alternate views are no longer unheard.

NO WE dont need answers…we need action

blergh. reid and pelosi suck.

we are in the majority…tell him Nancy

70% of AMERICANS THINK THE WAR IS A MISTAKE

oyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,manage this war better……………oy

My husband just met a 17 year old in a bad, bad family situation. She has no money, is trying to gather some skills, and is looking at the Air Force for when she turns 18. Another student just joined as he knew he needed discipline, looked around at his partying classmates, and decided that the military gave him what he was afraid he couldn’t supply for himself so he joined ROTC. He told me that any time he is tempted to blow something off, he reminds himself that it is a fast track to Iraq and he sits himself down and gets it done. It offers structure and boundaries in a world that looks frightenly chaotic to many young people, especially those who cannot find that, or see nothing but continued poverty in their present situation.

My fellow pacifist Mennonites are uncomfortable with my sympathy towards the kids. I ask them, “What are you offering them?”

We are looking into ways to help the 17 year old I mentioned.

David, please, could we show a bit more respect here?

for..
Alfred E.Newman!

The poor dolt from the cover of MAD is getting a bad rap, I would guess his IQ surpasses W’s by more than a few points.

Not to mention he’s been popular far longer!

Hey Pelosi and Reid, stop complaining, you are the only one’s that can stop this.

70% wanted the damn thing too.

Aargh.

she do sukketh

no leadership FROM the dem leadership GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

she does own a WHINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNERY ,no?