When are we going to get out of here?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather? ......

Then Lieberman walked in, wearing a pair of sunglasses newly purchased from an Iraqi market that the military had taken him to in southeast Baghdad. He'd been equipped with a helmet and flak vest when he toured the market, which he described as bustling.

Earlier, Lieberman had met briefly with Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police at a Joint Security Station; there are 31 throughout the city now. The senator, who's steadfastly supported the Iraq war along with the current surge of more than 28,000 additional American troops, said things were better.

"I think it's important we don't lose our will," he said. "To pull out would be a disaster."

The soldiers smiled and greeted him, stood with him for pictures and sat down to a lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches. It was unclear if they ever asked their questions.

As Lieberman walked out, he said that congressionally mandated withdrawal would be a "victory for al-Qaida and a victory for Iran."

"They're not Pollyannaish about this," he said referring to the young soldiers he ate lunch with. "They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."

It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.

"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.


McClatchy papers link

Mass funerals for soldiers at Ft. Lewis

This is tragic, and why in the world would they consolidate funerals? If it was my family member, I be really pissed that I could not have a private funeral.

---snip----

Too many Iraq deaths, so Fort Lewis consolidates memorial services


Associated Press - May 30, 2007 1:35 PM ET

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) - So many Fort Lewis soldiers are being killed in Iraq the Army base will no longer hold individual memorial services.

Starting next month Fort Lewis says it will hold one memorial a month for all the dead soldiers.

Nineteen Fort Lewis soldiers have been killed this month -- the most of the war, so far.

The Fort Lewis acting commander, Brigadier General William Troy, told staff last week that the number of soldiers in harm's way will preclude individual services.

About 10,000 Fort Lewis troops, including two Stryker brigades, are now in Iraq, the most since the 2003 invasion.

Some other Army posts have already consolidated services.

A memorial service planned for tomorrow for one soldier will go on as scheduled at Fort Lewis, and the first consolidated service for four soldiers will be held on June fifth.

A total of 127 Fort Lewis soldiers have died in overseas deployments since Nine Eleven.

An article about Cindy Sheehan's farewell

Second weekend in Crawford Aug. 2005 {apologies, I can't find the photos from the week before with the Veterans for Peace bus, and the survivor of Hiroshima. If I find them I will add them.

I will always thank Cindy for being active and getting the peace movement noticed. I had found it so disheartening to march with 12 people or less in various spots in Texas, without media coverage, and with people yelling rude things, like "traitor" to us. Why peace is so frightening I will never understand. So it was with great pleasure that I drove to Crawford that first day when Cindy brought her lawn chair to sit outside Georgies ranchette. I will miss her, but I think some breathing and healing room will be excellent for her.



This was a nice article about Cindy's work.....

Cindy Sheehan's Farewell
by JOHN NICHOLS

[from the June 18, 2007 Nation Magazine issue]

Cindy Sheehan never set out to be the face of the antiwar movement. She was a mom thrust by an ugly circumstance and a lovely faith to the forefront of a movement that was struggling to find its voice. She gave it that voice as an honest player who spoke her mind--sometimes intemperately, often imperfectly, always sincerely--and backed up her words with actions. Her unscripted activism allowed her to succeed where others had failed in touching hearts and calling the disengaged, the disenchanted and the downright angry to believe once more in the prospect that citizens can make real the promise of the American experiment.
full article

Thoughts on Memorial Day

I remember my Dad, my Uncles, my sister, and all the others who have given their lives in service to our nation. Some wars justified, some not. Vietnam killed my sister psychologically, she never got over it.

So, here is what we need to do. March, write, work for peace. Get on the peace train.

ViDEO: Greg Palast Finds 'Lost E-Mails' Revealing Karl Rove and New US Attorney Griffin Integrally Involved

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4551
Says New Information Exposes Criminal Intent Behind US Attorney Scandal...

It was all about vote caging in order to win the 2008 elections. Iglesias even notes that he was asked to arrest voters for voter fraud in the last election, and was told he could just let them go later. The publicity of voters arrested for voter fraud was what the ReThugs wanted.

Believe it? I don't Bush lies and I am not afraid

"Buying the War," Part II - Now It's Iran
By Will Bunch
The New York Daily News

Monday 21 May 2007

You would think that after after all the official and unofficial lies that came out of the Washington spin machine during the 2002-03 run-up to the war in Iraq, newspapers would be a little more skeptical about similarly unsupported, high-level but anonymous and bellicose allegations about Iran (or anyone else).

And you would doubly think that about a newspaper that, day in and day out, is one of the best in the world: Britain's Guardian.

You'd think...but you would be wrong:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."

The story does have another source - another anonymous U.S. official, but in Washington:

"Tehran is behaving like a racecourse gambler. They're betting on all the horses in the race, even on people they fundamentally don't trust," a senior administration official in Washington said. "They don't know what the outcome will be in Iraq. So they're hedging their bets."
Boo! Scared yet?

Look, I think that reporting of the Iraq crisis should be as aggressive as possible, and that obviously includes talking to American officials in Washington and in Baghdad. And, the situation in the region has become quite volatile since our decision to invade it, and no doubt Iran is a player, but...

I can also tell you as a journalist with 26 years of experience behind me that this story is the biggest load of crap - and that's not a phrase I would use loosely - I've ever seen in my life. Two unnamed government officials as sources, and a perfunctary denial from an Iranian officials in the last paragraph - and that's it?

This is a stunning allegation - so stunning because it really makes no sense. Iran's government does have close ties with some of Iraq's Shiite leaders that we also seem to be propping up these days, but it is the bitter enemy of the Sunni forces that these unnamed Bush spinmeisters now claim they are also supporting. If such a bizarre reversal had taken place, and I were to write a story about it, I would be sure to talk to outside experts on the region and to non-U.S. government sources - and quite them by name - to prove such an unlikely premise was in fact true.

That did not happen. And in fact, the story is so "out there" that it would be best ignored - except that you can't ignore it. For one thing, it's highlighted on the Drudge Report, and since Matt Drudge rules the world of Beltway media, it's going to become part of the public discourse. Also, in spite of its lack of even truthiness, let alone truth, it does prove - just like the top-selling "Christian book" calling for an American jihad against Tehran - the lengths that some of our leaders are still willing to go in formenting Armageddon.

But the fact that one of the world's better newspapers was willing to play along - or that my own colleagues in the mainstream media seem to never learn - is the saddest development of all. Didn't anyone watch "Buying the War"?

Iglesias speaks out

Iglesias says a whole lot in these few sentences. If only the TV put on all the real nformation instead of celebrity crap!
Here it is from truthout:


Loyalty is a virtue with limits. That was one of the many hard lessons from Watergate. In that scandal, some of President Nixon's staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to federal prison.

All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.

Somehow Goodling did not understand this keystone concept. She appears to have placed her loyalty to the Bush administration and the Republican Party above any allegiance to the Constitution - which may have led her to believe that Bush acolytes would make the best federal prosecutors. Paradoxically, she knew enough of the Constitution to claim the protections afforded by the 5th Amendment - the right against self-incrimination.

I trust she now understands what is at stake in the U.S. attorney scandal: the rule of law, the independence of the prosecutor and the apolitical calculus of who should be prosecuted. Now, her immunity deal secured, she needs to seek redemption by clearly testifying about how my colleagues and I came to be placed on the to-fire list. It will demand moral courage, but she must name the political operatives regardless of where they sit in the West Wing of the White House. She needs, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, to "maintain justice and do what is right."

And what of the embattled attorney general? Will Gonzales stay on to be the only Cabinet officer to receive a no-confidence vote? I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.

Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico - that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?

The new Monica

Oh. My. God. Did You Hear Monica Goodling's Voice?

She's a Valley Girl; who could
Have forseen a
Thing like this? Gag me with
A subpoena.

Tell Dems get a spine and stop Iraq funding

Grieving Moms vs. Washington Pols
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/052207.html#When:01:15PM

By Robert Parry
May 22, 2007

Every other month, Gold Star mother Teresa Arciola drives from her home in Westchester County, New York, to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia, sits on her son’s grave and reads aloud from “Corduroy,” his favorite baby book. Another mother spent winter afternoons in a sleeping bag stretched across her son’s final resting place.

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The unspeakable suffering of these parents of dead soldiers stands in marked contrast to the maneuvering over the Iraq War now underway across the river in Washington. There, George W. Bush appears quietly planning another escalation of the Iraq War – possibly doubling U.S. combat troops by Christmas – and many members of Congress are frightened of the political repercussions if they stand up to him.

A possible compromise could come from a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House granting Bush only two months of the additional war spending that he wants, rather than the full amount through the end of September.

At least requiring a second vote sometime in the summer might force serious thinking about alternatives to continuing the war indefinitely and creating many more fresh graves at Arlington Cemetery.

But Senate Democrats – faced with a near-solid phalanx of Republicans standing behind the President – appear eager to run up the white flag, give Bush pretty much whatever he wants, and break for the Memorial Day recess.

The Democrats didn’t help themselves when they started their “negotiations” with the White House by announcing that they would eventually give Bush a bill that was acceptable to him. That’s a bit like going into a car dealership, declaring that you intend to pay the full sticker price and then trying to bargain.

Knowing that the Democrats planned to fold – to avoid accusations that they weren't supporting the troops – Bush could confidently veto the first war spending bill, which had timelines for withdrawing U.S. combat forces, and threaten to veto any other bill that sought to limit his options.

Bush also has pleased some Democrats by dangling suggestions that he is taking a second look at the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s recommendations from last December. The ISG, which was headed by Bush family lawyer James Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, urged a drawdown in U.S. troops, a focus on training Iraqis and more regional diplomacy.

Annoyed at the implied criticism of his work as “war president,” Bush shelved the report and declared that U.S. troops would “stay in Iraq to get the job done.” He added, “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”

Bush chose a different course. On Jan. 10, he announced a “surge” in U.S. forces, raising troop levels to 160,000 from 140,000. Since then, the administration appears to be inching the numbers even higher while hoping that the creeping escalation doesn’t get much attention.

Second Surge?

But the Hearst newspapers disclosed on May 22 that “the Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year,” to 98,000 from 52,500, boosting the total U.S. military presence to 200,000, according to an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders.

“The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there,” the Hearst newspapers wrote.

With this quiet escalation on the one hand and hints about an ISG-like Plan B on the other, the Bush administration appears to be playing a double game with the goal of securing about $100 billion more in war spending before Congress catches on to the expanded combat plans.

Helping to lull Official Washington into a pre-Memorial Day daydream, administration officials briefed pro-war Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on more peaceful plans for the “post-surge” period.

“The post-surge policy would, in many ways, track the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report, which senior administration officials say the President now supports,” Ignatius wrote. [Washington Post, May 22, 2007]

This notion of Bush finally entertaining the ISG recommendations is music to the ears of hopeful Democrats, such as Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman. They seem content with having sent Bush a message about Iraq rather than forcing him to accept an exit strategy.

In the House, however, other Democrats, such as Rep. John Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have resisted pressure to simply cave in to Bush. They favor, at minimum, putting some strings on the spending bill or keeping its time frame short so Congress would get a second shot at assessing the situation in July or August.

Since the Democrats have set the upcoming Memorial Day recess as the deadline for getting Bush a spending bill that he will sign, the odds favor an impending capitulation rather than an extended impasse. But the Democrats have to worry that they may discover, as they head back home, that Bush is set on escalating the war and that they've been hoodwinked again.

There are some certainties, however, If the Democrats do run up the white flag: Bush and his advisers will enjoy one more high-fiving celebration at the White House; the anti-war Democratic base will be furious; and more mothers can expect to be spending time at Arlington Cemetery.

[For more on the new graves and new grief at Arlington Cemetery, see the Washington Post, May 20, 2007.]

It is all about the OIL stupid!

√Pentagon Making Preparations To Keep Tens Of Thousands Of Troops In Iraq For ‘Decades’
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a “carefully worded” statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:

PACE: Sir, we have published no orders directing the planning for the overall withdrawal of forces. We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down, but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown.

NPR investigated Pace’s statements and found one scenario being considered within the Pentagon would maintain a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq for several decades into the future.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/21/iraq-decades/

Bush gets testy with reporters

Link
All I can do is groan. This is our President? holy cow.

The true meaning of Mother's Day

Mother's Day History
From Jone Johnson Lewis,
Your Guide to Women's History.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup

As a Nebraskan, who grew up in tornado alley, I know how much we depended upon our National Guard troops. Now these poor folks in Kansas, can't depend on the National Guard. I feel so sorry for the folks in Greensburg, what a trauma to lose an entire town. When Xenia, Ohio was wiped off the face of the map several years ago, they had all the help they needed. Sadly, the folks in Greensburg won't get the help they need. At least the Red Cross showed up, so they can have food and water. Just think, no tents, no nothing. How horrible.


Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup

GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) -- The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.
Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.

The Greensburg administrator estimated that 95 percent of the town of 1500 was destroyed by Friday's tornado.

The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.

Wal-Mart labels Boerne nuns a security threat

Believe it or not, our nuns are a "security threat" to Wal-Mart. Ridiculous. Their work for social justice should be applauded by all of us.

Wal-Mart labels Boerne nuns a security threat

Web Posted: 05/05/2007 01:41 AM CDT

Nydia Lopez
KENS 5 Eyewitness News
It's a David versus Goliath battle heating up in the Hill Country — a group of nuns from Boerne is taking a stand against Wal-Mart.

The corporate giant reportedly labeled the nuns a security threat after they raised questions about Wal-Mart's business practices.

Sister Susan Mika is part of the Benedectine Sisters, which is part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The center has been questioning Wal-Mart's business practices for years.

"We've been raising questions with them for about 17 years, so it's not like they don't know it," Sister Mika said.

Now, the sisters find themselves on Wal-Mart's security threat list. Sister Mika said the group has been wrongly labeled.

"In no way have we ever been a threat to the company in that sense. We might be a threat in the kind of question that we're asking, but not a security threat," Sister Mika said.

The sisters have raised questions on wages, human rights, health care and the pay disparity between CEOs and workers. They believe that's why Wal-Mart has launched a surveillance operation on the small church group.

"We wanted to find out more about what was actually happening, and did they do any surveillance on us, either personally or as a community, and to let us know what that would be, and to apologize to us," Sister Mika said.

Calls from KENS 5 to a Wal-Mart spokesperson went unreturned.

The nuns say they want an apology and will continue to raise concerns and issues until someone launches an investigation into thousands of allegations against Wal-Mart.

fascist America

I have been saying this for years, and this eloquent article lays out the facts beautifully.

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps
By Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green Publishing
Posted on April 28, 2007, Printed on April 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/51150/

Editor's note: This is adapted from Wolf's forthcoming book "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down -- the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy, but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree, domestically, as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government -- the task of being aware of the Constitution has been outsourced from citizens to professionals such as lawyers and professors -- we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security -- remember who else was keen on the word "homeland"? -- didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable -- as the author and political journalist Joe Conason has put it -- that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of Euro

A horrible case of "CRS"

Gonzalez' has "Can't remember shit disease." That is CRS.

As noted in this article:
Will Durst: The Curious Case Of The Amnesiac Attorney General
I'm afraid it is my duty to impart some bad news, and I advise you all to sit down before you fall down. The Attorney General of the United States apparently is suffering from a horrible disease. Best case scenario is we're talking a tertiary case of situational amnesia. For a lawyer, that can't be good. In his recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alberto Gonzales was unable to recall anything...45 times, and that was before lunch. Maybe it's simply a case of hypoglycemia, since after lunch, he only couldn't recollect 29 times. I don't mean to minimize the critical nature of this crisis but the solution seems obvious to me: between meal snacks...
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/durst/048

Culture of Fear: Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect

On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle, carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.
A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car, which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.

Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don't have the heart to take off these days, says, "Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America."...

One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd, trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description -- a Middle Eastern man driving a white Beetle with out of state plates -- and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on the faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, "What country is he from?"

What country is he from?!" she yelled, indignant.

"Ma'am, you are associated with the suspect. You need to step away and lower your voice," he told her.

At some length, several of my faculty colleagues were able to get through to the police and get me on a cell phone where I explained to the university president and then to the state police that the box contained old poetry manuscripts that needed to be recycled. The police officer told me that in the current climate I needed to be more careful about how I behaved. "When I recycle?" I asked.

link to article

Yeah, our culture of fear is working just great. Everyone is afraid of "brown" people, or hates "brown people" and they all want guns. WTF! This is not my country anymore.

watch the leather back turtles, root for Stephanie Colburtle

Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race

Controversial Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's

Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in the richest country in the world -- where the most money is spent on health care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people are without health insurance.

In a recent AlterNet article, attorney Guy Saperstein explained,

"The World Health Organization ranks health care systems based on objective measures of medical outcomes: The United States' health care system currently ranks 37th in the world, behind Colombia and Portugal; the United States ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality, behind many impoverished Latin American countries. While infant mortality in the United States is skewed toward poor people, who have rates double the wealthy, the top quintile of the U.S. population has infant mortality rates higher than Canadians in the lowest quintile of wealth.

"The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds than most developed nations. In the United States, 28 percent say it is "difficult to get care"; in most European countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, 15 percent say that. In terms of continuity of care (i.e., five-plus years with the same doctor), the United States is the worst of all developed nations. By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health care system."

_____________________
As a healthcare professional I can say for sure that our healthcare system stinks, and it's sinking quickly. My recent experience with my mother horrible care in the hospital brought it right home to me. We need to get our healthcare up to the standards of other industrialized nations. In the constitution it states...provide for the common welfare...doesn't that mean healthcare???

Gonzalez and the Mayberry Machiavellis

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

Friday 20 April 2007

"Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush's government.

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," said DiIulio, who had run Bush's office of faith-based initiatives. "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

The American people are finally waking up to the consequences of what DiIulio observed during his one-year stint on the inside. Everything is about the building and maintenance of power, not via sound policies but through political tactics - ranging from the conduct of the Iraq War to the handling of federal prosecutors. [For more on DiIulio's comments, see Ron Suskind's Esquire, January 2003, article.]"

For more head over to Truthout. Also, try to watch part of the testimony on Cspan, it is so worth watching Gonzo's convoluted testimony. Obviously it is harder to lie than to tell the truth.

oops!

Bush Almost Blows Himself Up
from The Huffington Post | Full News Feed

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

Easter News, good grief!

From Think Progress » ThinkFast: February 8, 2007

Lieberman Says Pelosi Syria Visit Was ‘Bad For America,’ Suggests Syria Was Behind 9/11 Today on CNN, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said he “strongly disagrees” with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) bipartisan delegation ...

Gingrich: Gonzales needs to go. “The public would be much better served to have another attorney general,” said Newt Gingrich. “I cannot imagine how he’s ...

Kristol: Proper Response To Iran’s Kidnapping Of Soldiers Would Have Been Military Strikes Fox News pundit Bill Kristol has been an unceasing proponent of war with Iran. In the past year, Kristol has repeatedly beat ...

Robert F. Kennedy 1968

Read and contemplate this, and if you have time, go to the link and read the posted comments. I was so moved by them. I was a high school junior when RFK was murdered and I was involved in minor political actions, and very aware of his campaign. My Dad was counseling CO's (conscientious objectors) and I worked at the local hospital with Quakers and others who were performing alternative service. So I was quite aware of the war. This speech surely applies today.

Robert F. Kennedy (147 comments )
READ MORE: Robert F. Kennedy, United States, Vietnam, White House
In 1968, my father, running for President, addressed in a speech, the White House's proposal for a troop surge in Vietnam. Robert Kennedy had initially supported the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Forty years later, as Congress and the White House debate the further escalation of yet another war that has already claimed the lives of an astounding 640,000 Iraqis, killed 3,256 U.S. soldiers and wounded another 50,000, his words should have special resonance to those of our political leaders who are still searching for the right course in Iraq:


"I do not want--as I believe most Americans do not want--to sell out American interests, to simply withdraw, to raise the white flag of surrender. That would be unacceptable to us as a country and as a people. But I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that the course we are following at the present time is deeply wrong. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that we are acting as if no other nations existed, against the judgment and desires of neutrals and our historic allies alike. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that our present course will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world. I am concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed; more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitterness and hatred on every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of [civilians] slaughtered; so they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "They made a desert, and called it peace." . . .
"The reversals of the last several months have led our military to ask for more troops. This weekend, it was announced that some of them--a "moderate" increase, it was said--would soon be sent. But isn't this exactly what we have always done in the past? If we examine the history of this conflict, we find the dismal story repeated time after time. Every time--at every crisis--we have denied that anything was wrong; sent more troops; and issued more confident communiques. Every time, we have been assured that this one last step would bring victory. And every time, the predictions and promises have failed and been forgotten, and the demand has been made again for just one more step up the ladder. But all the escalations, all the last steps, have brought us no closer to success than we were before. . . . And once again the President tells us, as we have been told for twenty years, that "we are going to win"; "victory" is coming. . . . It becoming more evident with every passing day that the victories we achieve will only come at the cost of the destruction for the nation we once hoped to help. . . .

"Let us have no misunderstanding. [They] are a brutal enemy indeed. Time and time again, they have shown their willingness to sacrifice innocent civilians, to engage in torture and murder and despicable terror to achieve their ends. This is a war almost without rules or quarter. There can be no easy moral answer to this war, no one-sided condemnation of American actions. What we must ask ourselves is whether we have a right to bring so much destruction to another land, without clear and convincing evidence that this is what its people want. But that is precisely the evidence we do not have. . . .

"The war, far from being the last critical test for the United States, is in fact weakening our position in Asia and around the world, and eroding the structure of international cooperation which has directly supported our security for the past three decades. . . . All this bears directly and heavily on the question of whether more troops should now be sent--and, if more are sent, what their mission will be. We are entitled to ask--we are required to ask--how many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into this bottomless pit of our dreams? But this question the administration does not and cannot answer. It has no answer--none but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything yet. . . .

"But the costs of the war's present course far outweigh anything we can reasonably hope to gain by it, for ourselves or for the people of Vietnam. It must be ended, and it can be ended, in a peace of brave men who have fought each other with a terrible fury, each believing he and he alone was in the right. We have prayed to different gods, and the prayers of neither have been answered fully. Now, while there is still time for some of them to be partly answered, now is the time to stop. . . .

"You are the people, as President Kennedy said, who have "the least ties to the present and the greatest ties to the future." I urge you to learn the harsh facts that lurk behind the mask of official illusion with which we have concealed our true circumstances, even from ourselves. Our country is in danger: not just from foreign enemies; but above all, from our misguided policies--and what they can do to the nation that Thomas Jefferson once told us was the last, best hope of man. There is a contest on, not for the rule of America, but for the heart of America. . . . I ask you to go forth and work for new policies--work to change our direction--and thus restore our place at the point of moral leadership, in our country, in our hearts, and all around the world."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/robert-f-kennedy_b_45025.html

Vermont where will they go?

Will Vermont succeed? You go Vermont!
http://www.alternet.org/story/50056/

Trillions in Debt, Can the Middle Class Hang On?

How do we stop the credit industry's predatory business model and get Americans out of debt when incomes aren't rising as fast as the costs of healthcare and housing?

Interesting reading, go forth and read: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/49777/

Think about it.....

Bush buys property in Paraguay

The United States alleges that they have no plans for establishing military bases in Paraguay. Of course, they said they had no plans to establish military bases in Iraq. Not only are the locals concerned about the military taking up residence, there are substantial rumors that the Bush family has purchased land in Paraguay. News of George W. Bush purchasing 98,840 acres of land in the Chaco area of Paraguay was reported in Prensa Latino, the Latin American News Agency on October 18, 2006.

more about Paraguay

more from Wonkette

And more from Argentine newspaper which you can translate using babelfish. Basically, what it says is that the land the Bush family bought contains the largest water resource on the planet, is next to the Bolivian border and strategically located militarily.

Nothing like retiring to South America like the Nazis. Wonder what the extradition treaties are like? Hmmmmm. Guess they don't want him in Dubai, which has no extradition treaties with the US.

From Consortiumnews.com, supporting the Gulf of Tonkin incident fears of many

Intel Vets Question the Iraq-UK Crisis

March 30, 2007

Editor’s Note: Below is an assessment by a group of former U.S. intelligence analysts about the crisis between Iran and the United Kingdom over the seizure of 15 British naval personnel for allegedly crossing into Iranian territorial waters:


From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters

The frenzy in America’s corporate media over Iran’s detainment of 15 British Marines who may, or may not, have violated Iranian-claimed territorial waters is a flashback to the unrestrained support given the administration’s war-mongering against Iraq shortly before the attack.

The British are refusing to concede the possibility that its Marines may have crossed into ill-charted, Iranian-claimed waters and are ratcheting up the confrontation. At this point, the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads on each side—and particularly the British—decide to exploit the event in the coming days.

There is real danger that this incident, and the way it plays out, may turn out to be outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s last gesture of fealty to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and “neo-conservative” advisers who, this time, are looking for a casus belli to “justify” air strikes on Iran.

Bush and Cheney no doubt find encouragement in the fact that the Democrats last week refused to include in the current House bill on Iraq war funding proposed language forbidding the White House from launching war on Iran without explicit congressional approval.

If the Senate omits similar language, or if the prohibition disappears in conference, chances increase for a “pre-emptive” US and/or Israeli strike on Iran and a major war that will make the one in Iraq seem like a minor skirmish. The impression, cultivated by the White House and our domesticated media, that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority states might favor a military strike on Iran is a myth.

But the implications go far beyond the Middle East. With the Russians and Chinese, the US has long since forfeited the ability, exploited with considerable agility in the 70s and 80s, to play one off against the other. In fact, US policies have helped drive the two giants together. They know well that it’s about oil and strategic positioning and will not stand idly by if Washington strikes Iran.

Lying Poodle

Intelligence analysts place great store in sources’ record for reliability and the historical record. We would be forced to classify Tony Blair as a known prevaricator who, for reasons still not entirely clear, has a five-year record of acting as man’s best friend for Bush. If the President needs a casus belli, Blair will probably fetch it.....

_________________
What do the BUshies have on Blair, et. al that makes them lapdogs to the Bush admin?

Sen Judiciary committee hearings today on C-span

Randi is so right. It's amazing, frustrating and IMHO, too nice. I think I would have ripped a new ***hole for Samson. His testimony....I don't remember, blah blah...or my favorite, I did not keep notes. B.S. Oh and not a very good file, as he stated.
B.S. I work as a low level employee, and I keep files on EVERYTHING! I think I could get better information when grilling my 8 year old on homework!
Why are the members of the judiciary so lax? I think Samson and the others need to be interviewed by well informed mothers of young children and/or grandmothers. We take no B.S. and we will get to the heart of the problem. And....we don't take "I don't remember" as an excuse!
We pay these idiots to do their jobs? Jeeez.
Oh wait...I don't remember, to the best of my recollection....I don't remember.
I don't remember. It was based on an assumption. I don't remember. Not to my knowledge. I don't remember.

OMG....more guns ok in Texas. So, should I get a gun to defend my daughter from the wierd guy in the gold Buick LeSabre who has followed her home on 3 occasions? I dunno. I could, but I am against gun ownership. I could, I qualified on the military firing range as a sharp shooter on the M16 and the 45. Hmm....I still think I would call the police first.

DALLAS (Reuters) - Criminals in Texas beware: if you threaten someone in their car or office, the citizens of this state where guns are ubiquitous have the right to shoot you dead.

Governor Rick Perry's office said on Tuesday that he had signed a new law that expands Texans' existing right to use deadly force to defend themselves "without retreat" in their homes, cars and workplaces.

"The right to defend oneself from an imminent act of harm should not only be clearly defined in Texas law, but is intuitive to human nature," Perry said on his Web site.

Reuters Pictures

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow
The new law, which takes affect on September 1, extends an exception to a statute that required a person to retreat in the face of a criminal attack. The exception was in the case of an intruder unlawfully entering a person's home.

war games in the gulf...bad juju

Can you say "Gulf of Tonkin?" This exercise has some bad potential...

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS IN THE GULF (AP) — U.S. warplanes screamed off the deck of two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf Tuesday in a massive show of force that military officials said was intended to send a message to Iran.
U.S. military commanders would not say when the operation, the largest in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had been planned. They specified that the war games had not been organized as a direct response to Iran's capture of 15 British sailors on Friday, but made clear they intended to send Iran a warning.

"If there is strong presence, then it sends a clear message that you better be careful about trying to intimidate others," said Captain Bradley Johanson, commanding officer of the USS John C. Stennis.

"Iran has adopted a very escalatory posture with the things that they have done," Johanson said, adding that the U.S. Navy was mitigating that posture.

The maneuvers, involving 15 American ships and more than 100 aircraft, were sure to exacerbate tensions, as Iran has frequently condemned the U.S. military presence off its coastline.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-03-27-us-persian-gulf_N.htm?csp=34

terrorized by "War on Terror"

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'
How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, March 25, 2007;

an excerpt:

The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.

That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301613.html

Don't give in to the fear mongering, and laugh at the absurdity of airport security whenever you fly. It's the major eyewash of the century.

Disgusting, shows Bush Admin is careless

While helping my daughter with a power point presentation, and checking the very late news I found this....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Debris that may have contained bits of bone from victims of the World Trade Center attacks was used to fill potholes and pave city roads, according to court papers filed on Friday.

The charge was made in an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court in an ongoing case filed in 2005 by family members of those killed in the attacks against the city. They say the city did not do enough to search for remains, denying victims a proper burial.

Eric Beck, a construction worker employed at the Fresh Kills landfill in the borough of Staten Island, where the rubble was taken after the Twin Towers fell, said in his affidavit that the process of sifting through the debris was rushed.

Doesn't it make you wonder why they were in such a hurry to get rid of the evidence?

Attorneys General scandal

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was a research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the four U.S. attorneys weren't chosen only because of their backgrounds in election issues, but "we would expect any U.S. attorney to prosecute voting fraud."

Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.

The Bush administration's emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush administration's dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud.

link

If only we could get the TV to cover this properly. And why are they letting Tom DeLay, who is under indictment, speak on this issue on various networks? Makes no sense to me. The bug man is an idiot.

Power Women

 
 
 
 

The Flying L Ranch "slumber party" for the power women of Bexar and Kendall counties.

What is FUBIJAR?

As a former reservist, I love this acronym.
It means.......F'd up but I'm just a reservist.
How true. Reservists get the dregs of everything, so how appropriate.

Veterans related videos; please take a moment and watch

Thanks to a fellow veteran at TomSongs.


and more....



IMPEACH



Veterans for Peace, if you are a veteran consider joining now.

Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit

Well aren't the Mayans really smart! I just loved this.

Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit
JUAN CARLOS LLORCA | AP | March 9, 2007 12:20 AM EST


GUATEMALA CITY — Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.
"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization...

Gen. Wesley Clark

Home on the Range by The Freedom Toast

FDR's 4 Freedom's speech to Congress

This was delivered on Jan 6, 1941.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.

full transcript

I learned about this from King Abdullah's speech before Congress this morning. Basically King Abdullah spoke on the need for peace in the middle east, and the need for the US to be a leader in this effort, working to obtain peace during the current year, and making it a priority. It was an excellent speech and can be watched in re-runs on C-span.

More crap in the news today

Today's news:

FLASHBACK: In 2005, Kiley Covered Up Abuse At Military Detention Centers
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley commanded Walter Reed from 2002-2004. Recent reports show that Kiley knew about the neglect and deplorable conditions there for years. In one stunning case, Kiley took no action when personally informed that a soldier was sleeping in his own urine. He continues to skirt responsibility for the neglect, calling the Washington Post’s Walter Reed investigation “yellow journalism at its worst.”

But this scandal isn’t the first time Kiley has tried to play down “allegations of concerns with the Army medical community.” In 2005, his office conducted a review of medical personnel overseas, after multiple reports alleging their roles in detainee abuse.

– A report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that “U.S. Army doctors violated the Geneva Conventions by helping intelligence officers carry out abusive interrogations at military detention centers, perhaps participating in torture.”

– A 2004 study in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, found that medical personnel “collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards and failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings.” http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/05/kiley-abuse/

And more.....a former Halliburton offiical slashed the budget for Walter Reed

Lawmakers questioned the policy under which maintenance and operations functions at Walter Reed were outsourced to IAP Worldwide Services, a Florida firm run by a former Halliburton official who reduced Walter Reed's staff from 300 to 100.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.walterreed06mar06,0,7854356.story

And 9 more troops were killed today.

For a full list of the most important news of the day that you won't see on your TV go here: http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/

Newt blames victims of Katrina

Someone should take Newt out behind the woodshed, and give him a good talking to. Or, maybe he needs anti-psychotic medication since he is apparently completely delusional. Well, neocons, conservatives and repugnants do what they do best....blame the victim.


Newt Blames The Victims of Katrina
By: Nicole Belle @ 11:07 AM - PST
Blog for our Future:

(Newt Gingrich, speaking at CPAC) blamed the residents of New Orleans' 9th Ward for a "failure of citizenship," by being "so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."

And he called for a "deep investigation" into this "failure of citizenship."

Here's the full quote:

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane. (emphasis original)

It's not just Walter Reed...

There is a bigger underlying problem, the way we treat all our vets. The red tape, the crumbling buildings and the way we sweep our vets under the carpet, has been going on for years. Will we finally do something positive? I am hopeful, but skeptical.
Here is a film trailer that depicts part of hte problem, the homelessness and hopelessness of vets.
www.whenicamehome.com

Bill would reform treatment of wounded vets

Bill would reform treatment of wounded vets

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Mar 1, 2007 17:00:08 EST
In the wake of the continuing scandal over the housing and medical evaluation process for wounded service members at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, House and Senate Democrats have unveiled a sweeping bill promising comprehensive reforms of how combat veterans and their families are treated.

Called the Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act, the bill would mandate housing standards for the wounded, overhaul disability review boards, require one caseworker for every 20 recovering service members, extend job protections for service members to include family members who are at their side during recovery, demand that an ombudsmen be available around the clock by phone and in any hospital with more than 100 patients, and create a new independent oversight board to monitor how recovering service members are treated.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democratic presidential candidate and a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee member who is the chief sponsor of the bill, said it is designed to “not only fix problems at Walter Reed but improve conditions at other hospitals.”

“We think this is a comprehensive bill,” he said.

“This is not window dressing,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., one of the co-sponsors. “This is not a new coat of paint.”

Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., one of the House co-sponsors, said, “It is appalling and absolutely unacceptable for our wounded troops to return from the front lines and receive this kind of treatment. We are going to investigate this and do everything we can to make sure this never happens to our brave men and women again."

The bill, introduced in the House and Senate, breaks down into six parts.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/TNSobamabill070301/

US Army Secretary quits over the treatment of US wounded soldiers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The surprise move came one day after Harvey fired the two-star general in charge of the medical center in response to disclosures of problems at the hospital compound.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Harvey had resigned. But senior defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Gates had asked Harvey to leave. Gates was displeased that Harvey, after firing Maj. Gen. George Weightman as the head of Walter Reed, chose to name as Weightman's temporary replacement another general whose role in the controversy was still in question.

"I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates said in the Pentagon briefing room. He took no questions from reporters.

Hooorah! Wonder what the back story is dontcha? I do.

Well, this works?

How totally stupid is this statement?

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Army spokesman Paul Boyce insisted that the Army Times report is inaccurate, and that injured vets are “free to exercise their First Amendment right” and speak with the media. But upon further questioning, Boyce acknowledged that if patients at Walter Reed wanted to speak to reporters inside the hospital, they must first receive approval from the hospital’s press relations office.

What if reporters want to speak to a reporter without getting approval from a PR office? “They can go to Starbucks,” Boyce said. Asked whether this was a reasonable solution for patients recuperating from physical and mental trauma, Boyce said yes. “It’s just a short trip, and many of them want to get out [of the hospital] anyway.”

Ok troops gather your medical equipment and haul yourself to the nearest Starbucks...good grief!

Gen. George Weightman, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley Expected to Appear at Walter Reed Field Hearing

Gen. George Weightman, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley Expected to Appear at Walter Reed Field Hearing
March 2nd, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Just out from the Army Times:

Ex-Walter Reed chief to face Congress Monday
Rick Maze, Army Times - March 2, 2007

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal involving the living conditions, medical treatment and retirement process of wounded combat veterans will be the subject of five congressional hearings next week, including one on Monday that is expected to include testimony from the hospital commander who was relieved Thursday.

Army Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who since August had been the hospital commander and also head of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command, is one of the witnesses scheduled to appear Monday before the House subcommittee as it holds a hearing in the Walter Reed auditorium.

The House Oversight and Government Reform national security subcommittee, long known for its investigative hearings into defense-related matters, has scheduled a first panel of witnesses that includes Army Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, a 43-year-old wounded soldier, and Annette McLeod, the wife of Army Cpl. Wendell McLeod, another wounded soldier. Both have been quoted in the media about problems at the hospital.

Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, whom the Army has asked to step in as Walter Reed commander, also will testify. Kiley has become a lightning rod for congressional criticism because he was the Walter Reed commander from 2002 to 2004 and was responsible for the outpatient program that is now the center of attention.

I only wish that Cspan would cover this hearing so that I could listen to it. I want to hear all the rhetoric that will be spewed by this Commander. No excuses buddy. Of course, this type of problem is not new, ask a Vietnam Vet. We have been shortchanging Vets for years and years. It is time to STOP.

What Does America Owe to Those who Serve?

This is a comment that I read on either Huffington Post or Truthout...my apologies to the author, for forgetting to add his name.

What does America owe to those who serve?

Walter Reed has caused quite a stir here in Washington.

Hearings have been announced, people are starting to get fired, ceilings are being patched, members of congress are taking tours and soldiers are being told to shut up.

Everyone seems to be very upset.


I'm not --

I am outraged.

The conditions at Walter Reed come as no surprise to most of us in the Veterans community. The failure of our government to follow through on their obligation to heal those injured in battle is not a new phenomenon in this country.

These problems didn't happen over night -- we just want to think they did.

As the Washington Post reported this morning, our own Director of veterans affairs, Steve Robinson told Army Surgeon General, Gen. Kiley, point blank in 2003 while he was commander of Walter Reed, that the conditions were appalling and that soldiers were drinking themselves to death, sharing drugs and not getting the care that they needed.

Sadly, this is the way we have always treated injured service members and veterans in this country -- like disposable commodities.

38 years ago, while serving in Vietnam, a bullet severed my spine and left me paralyzed from the chest down. The hospital I recovered at -- Kingsbridge VA Hospital in the Bronx -- was the subject of a shocking cover story in LIFE magazine about the horrible conditions we were forced to endure.

The issue was the second-biggest selling LIFE issue ever. The cover story included a photograph of Mark Dumpert, one of the quadriplegics in my spinal chord injury unit, who had been left dripping wet in his chair after being showered.

Similar to the Walter Reed story, the nation was up in arms to learn about our conditions at Kingsbridge. And similar to Walter Reed, there were congressional visits, hearing and pledges galore that justice would be realized for those wounded in wartime service in Vietnam.

It never happened.

My best friend in that spinal chord injury ward, John Macari, gunned down by machine gun fire at age 19, committed suicide out of despair. Many others followed suit.

It was then that I decided to fight for my care so that the system would not ruin me.

Being an advocate, first for my own survival, put me on a path that led to founding a national organization for Vietnam veterans (VVA). I remained its president for nine years. I was intimately involved in the efforts to attain justice for Vietnam veterans. We led congressional hearings on PTSD, vet centers, an improved GI Bill, Agent Orange compensation, judicial review of VA decisions, etc.

Nothing we achieved came without a fight.

Round two is different. In many ways it's harder - it's deeper now.

As the media has demonstrated over the past several weeks, this country is failing its service members and veterans across-the-board.

The system is beyond broken. It is completely shattered.

The root of this problem is much, much deeper than any current political debate. It goes deeper than decrepit facilities, convoluted claims processes, long waiting lines, interminable budget hearings, inaccurate casualty numbers and ridiculous gag orders on soldiers.

The social contract between this country and those it sends to war is broken. Every problem facing our service members and veterans stems from the fact that as a country, we have never been able to answer one fundamental question - What does America owe to those who serve?

We have NEVER had a guiding philosophy for the healthcare and rehabilitative needs of service members and veterans. And as a result, the system in place today is an erratic hodgepodge of programs that has failed over and over again.

We are at a critical juncture in this country. We must come to an understanding about what is owed to those who serve, and we must find a way to engage the America people in this issue so that treatment of service members and veterans becomes a national issue and national commitment.

Anything less is unacceptable. We need an overhaul; we need a moratorium on band-aid solutions that do nothing more than perpetuate the failing status quo.

Enough.

What does America owe to those who serve?

Walter Reed Hospital's flaws are indefensible.

Walter Reed Hospital's flaws are indefensible.
Washington - A day at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is an eye-opener - about our soldiers, our government generally and the Bush administration.

I visited the renowned hospital after The Washington Post exposed serious problems at the center, where as many as one-fourth of our injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated.

The Post reported that soldiers are housed in deteriorated conditions of mold, mice infestations and disrepair. Facilities for amputees are inadequate. Depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome are often overlooked. Nightmarish paperwork stymies even the most aggressive.

What I saw was not a lack of caring or quality medical care. But I found a soldier without his legs sent in four different directions for four forms over the course of a day. His exhausted wife, near tears, was pushing him in a wheelchair through ice.

I talked with a woman whose husband has been in and out of Walter Reed for nearly two years after losing his face in war. His wife had nothing but praise for his plastic surgeons. But she said Walter Reed's bureaucratic morass is unbelievable.

I saw the family of a soldier whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. He has badly broken legs, a cracked pelvis, a broken jaw, a collapsed lung and a punctured eardrum. Six of his teammates hovered near him, caring for his family, who had flown across the country, including his disabled father.

His fellow soldiers said he described the pain as "intolerable" after his first surgery, but that he was more concerned about the fate of his friends. Eight did not survive. Eager to help, one of his comrades went looking for a video-game console. "At least his hands are OK," he said.

In recent days, the commander at Walter Reed, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, and the Army's surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, have been all over TV, saying the problems at the facility are being fixed and that they are "extremely proud" of the work their staffs are doing.

But the point is that crumbling infrastructure, inhumane bureaucracy and inadequate treatment for mental disorders have been known about for years and have been permitted to continue.

The month before The Post's series ran, a conference on "quality of life" problems faced by soldiers, their families and civilian staff at Walter Reed found a long list of "issues." They included: soldiers not getting benefits to travel as scheduled; lack of direction for emergency family care; unequal benefits based on the locale where a soldier is injured and not on the extent of injuries; and no overall plan to help wounded warriors through their convalescence.

When former defense chief Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush were planning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, did they never think to determine how the wounded would be helped? Did they not know that today's injured soldiers are dealing with far more horrific injuries than in the past because battlefield medicine keeps more of them alive?

Walter Reed is supposed to close in 2011. But facilities to handle its patients have not been built, renovated or expanded. Funds may not be scarce for cool new weapons, but they are exceedingly scarce for real soldiers.

If the Army is broken, as many believe, Rumsfeld and Bush broke it. And fixing it is proving more difficult than fixing the courageous soldiers the administration sent to war and who came back broken.

link

My anger knows no bounds when it comes to this subject! Donations built the Center for the Intrepid, not federal funds. There have been negligible funds put forward to help our vets, and disability ratings are denied, denied and denied. Here in San Antonio, a disabled Iraq Vet could not even get the funds to make his home accessible, something that has been done in the past. Or at least I knew about it in 1981 when working at the VA. Did that disappear? We don't do that anymore? There is no justification for asking people to sacrifice their lives, and then leave the survivors and their families in the lurch.

Bob Woodruff's report, Back from Iraq

Mr. Woodruff was named co-anchor of “World News Tonight” less than a month before he went to Iraq. His injury was a huge story and a milestone in the public’s perception of the war; it was already all too obvious that soldiers, American and Iraqi, were wounded and killed by roadside bombs and ambushes every day. But the explosion that injured Mr. Woodruff and, to a lesser extent, Doug Vogt, a cameraman, dramatically brought home how vulnerable all Americans, even visiting anchors, are over there.

Like celebrities who battle cancer, H.I.V. or Parkinson’s disease, Mr. Woodruff decided to put his fame and experience to public use. And like so many people fueled by a sense of mission, he seeks government accountability.

The film notes that the Department of Defense puts the number of men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan at about 23,000, while the Department of Veterans Affairs has recorded treating more than 200,000 veterans of those two wars. Paul Sullivan, the director of programs at the advocacy group Veterans for America, says, “What you have are two sets of books.”

Mr. Woodruff politely asks the secretary of veterans affairs, R. James Nicholson, to explain the discrepancy. Citing department reports that list 73,000 mental disorders, 61,000 diseases of the nervous system and others, Mr. Woodruff says, “These are huge numbers beyond the 23,000.”

Mr. Nicholson, a Vietnam veteran and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, replies, “A lot of them come in for, for dental problems.”

Mr. Woodruff illustrates quite graphically that some veterans are sent home to recuperate in smaller cities that do not have veterans’ hospitals equipped to handle the growing number of those returning with severe traumatic injuries. He interviews a young soldier who is slowly but steadily recovering at a state-of-the-art veterans’ polytrauma rehabilitation center in Tampa, Fla., then checks in on him weeks later in his hometown in Texas, where he has noticeably regressed.

The Bush Administration in One Sentence

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 28 February 2007

History is bunk.
- Henry Ford

Just because the Supreme Court set that poison precedent and anointed Bush, who brought in a crowd of neocon yahoos which earned no attention before the 2000 campaign, just because we 'Muricans vote for the man and not the mob, which in this case turned into the mob that ruined the country, you know, Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Perle and Feith and Ledeen and Negroponte ...

... just because unreasonably massive tax cuts were combined in 2001 with the economic depth-charge that was the Enron/Arthur Andersen/inflated revenues/overstated tax earnings scandal, which was umbilically connected to the White House, just because the economy (not to mention our whole psyche) absorbed another blow when four commercial airplanes somehow managed to pierce the most impenetrable air defense system in the history of the universe, fooling the entire intelligence community as well, if you believe what you hear...

... just because this happened despite a blizzard of warnings delivered in the weeks and months beforehand, along with a raft of information gathered by the previous administration, just because a bunch of anthrax got mailed to Democrats by the Ashcroft wing of the Republican Party in what were obvious assassination attempts and yet nothing but nothing has been done about it, just because the 9/11 attack was immediately - and I mean the day after immediately - grasped as an excuse to invade Iraq, just because virtually everyone in the administration lied with their bare faces hanging out about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, terrorism ties in Iraq, so break out the plastic sheeting and duct tape because we're all gonna die ...

... just because they did this in no small part to win the 2002 midterms by any means necessary, just because they have used that day against us with deliberation and intent, just because 3,160 American soldiers have been killed looking for 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is one million pounds) of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, aerial drones to spray the aforementioned stuff, and let's not forget the uranium from Niger for use in Iraq's robust "nukular" program, all of which was described to the letter by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, claims that still remain today on the White House web site, on a page titled 'Disarm Saddam Hussein' ...

... just because the medical journal Lancet estimated that as many as 198,000 Iraqi citizens have been killed as well in the war to get at this stuff, and that was a while ago and a whole slew of bombings ago, just because none of the stuff was there, and by the way none of the stuff was there, and did I mention that none of the stuff was there, just because the idea that Hussein was allied with bin Laden was laughable because Osama has wanted Saddam's head on his battle standard for decades, just because the true source of world terrorism, which is Sunni Wahabbist extremism out of Saudi Arabia, goes completely unaddressed because the Houses of Bush and Saud have been partnered for decades ...

... just because the lie that says the GOP is strong on national defense still permeates everything, though the loss of those 3,160 soldiers combined with the grievous wounding of between 47,000 and 53,000 other soldiers amounts to the evisceration of between a fourth and a third of our entire active fighting force, which makes us safer in no way that can be fathomed, and never mind the soldiers living in filth and among rats and roaches because they have been deliberately shafted so the Bush boys can squeeze a few more pennies into the coffers of folks like Halliburton and Exxon...

... just because so much of 9/11 and this 'War on Terra' has to do with business arrangements going awry between these two Houses, just because a deep-cover CIA agent who was working to track any person or nation or group that would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists got her cover and her network blown by administration officials who wanted to shut her husband and any other potential whistleblowers the hell up, just because the front company she was working out of called Brewster Jennings and Associates was likewise blown, thus torpedoing other agents and their networks, just because absolutely all of this went virtually unreported by the mainstream media until it was too late, if it was reported at all ...

... just because dangerous spies like Ahmad Chalabi used Judy Miller and the New York Times to disseminate the lie that Iraq was riddled with weapons, thus opening the floodgates for the rest of the media to repeat the lie, because once the Times says it, it must be true, just because this lack of reporting combined with an astounding level of cheerleading from the aforementioned media combined with some good old-fashioned vote fraud in places like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico gave the aforementioned group of yahoos four more years in 2004 ...

... just because this means the Iraq war will continue and Iran will probably be next, despite the fact that we basically gave the Iraqi government to Iran when we invaded and handed the Shi'ite majority control over the place, a majority that is ideologically and religiously allied with Iran, a majority controlled by two Shi'ite factions called Dawa and SCIRI, which have been creatures of Iran since the early 1980s, which were centrally involved in the 1983 Beirut bombing that killed more than 200 American Marines, just because we knew this going in but it happened anyway, and even though we know Iran is running Iraq, we still have to hear all this blather about Iran "interfering" in Iraq ...

... just because our phones are tapped and our homes are no longer protected from unreasonable searches, just because we torture at will, just because we detain forever and use habeas corpus like so much toilet paper, just because signing statements have dismantled the separation of powers one brick at a time, just because no page is safe in a Republican Congress, just because no bribe is too small in a Republican Congress, just because a Democratic resurgence in 2006 is only a tiny beginning and not any kind of an end, because these Bush boys have no intention of slowing down or backing off ...

... just because our national reputation is ravaged and our future has been sold out from under us, just because Truman's wartime economic footing has morphed into a machine that Eisenhower would recognize in horror as the very thing he warned us about before he left, just because the whole system now requires us to manufacture wars if none are available because the system itself has been wired to feed the beast no matter the consequences, just because television tells you not to worry, look at these breasts or this shaved starlet's head, or this shiny thing, look here, shhh, be silent, be still, sleep ...

... doesn't mean We The People are finished, because all of this is why "We The People" was written down in the first place, and though the day is late and the road is long and the chances for success are slim, We The People are here to stay, so strap in and look out, because we are just getting started, and the next sentence will be ours to write.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.

Link

This says it all in a nutshell. Thank you Mr. Pitt for putting this down so clearly and concisely.

Eisenhower's Worst Nightmare Now Harsh Reality For U.S.A

By John Hanchette

02/20/0 "Niagara Falls Reporter " - -- OLEAN -- I have come to believe Dwight David Eisenhower, our 34th president, is one of the most underrated and unappreciated men ever to hold that office.

Until recently, Eisenhower was generally regarded as a terrific general (commander of all Allied Forces in World War II) but mediocre president. Now, he is proving to be one of the most prescient visionaries of our modern age.

All of my high school years occurred during Ike's second term. Think "Happy Days" of TV fame, with Fonzi and the malt shop. To most parents, the biggest crisis seemed to be this terrible rock 'n' roll music that was sweeping the nation and corrupting our youth. The new dance sensation the Twist (in which partners never even touched each other) was banned at my high school, despite being downright puritanical by today's standards.

The White House coverage was pretty boring, and so was Ike. The American public loved him because not much all that bad was happening and he'd gotten us out of the Korean War, but he was viewed by most commentators as an unimaginative avuncular type.

Young people paid so little attention to him that my birth cohort was dubbed the Apathetic Generation. (We dispelled that unfair tag when Vietnam came along.)

Eisenhower, however, in January of 1961, in his last speech before vacating the White House to make room for the just-elected John F. Kennedy, warned America of a "disastrous rise of misplaced power" if we continued allowing the germination of a new historical entity he called "the military-industrial complex."

link

And then, my generation, who were taught "duck and cover" and didn't buy into the hysteria. Heck, I remember being issued dog tags and an Army blanket during the Cuban missile crisis and being told we would be sent to Seattle directly from school, without our parents. (From Alaska). We all thought it would be one big adventure, but dutifully memorized the air raid siren information. Now the war machine tries to keep us all scared on a daily basis. I think I am too jaded. I was not afraid of the bomb and I am not afraid of terrorists. What I am afraid of is the Bush crime family and the neocons, like Darth Cheney, and the military industrial complex. They will bring us to rack and ruin, while they line their pockets. Eisenhower was oh so right.

Bush and Co. silence Walter Reed patients

The dictator has spoken....Bush and Co. will no longer allow the free flow of information on the treatment of our soldiers, sailors and airmen at Walter Reed. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Just think, if the press had not covered this, our military personnel would still be left in the stinking hell hole of Bldg 18. The Bush criminals just want to keep hiding everything they can, at the expense of those who have sacrificed so much. What a bunch of assholes.

Here is the article from Army Times



Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 28, 2007 10:42:37 EST
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

US funds being secretly funneled....

Hersh: U.S. Funds Being Secretly Funneled To Violent Al Qaeda-Linked Groups
"New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the “single most explosive” element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.

Hersh says the U.S. has been “pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight” for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to “stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.” Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of “three Sunni jihadist groups” who are “connected to al Qaeda” but “want to take on Hezbollah.”

Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: “We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11."

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/

So, our dictator agains ignores the constitution. Our nation is going to hell.

Amazing Grace

Trailer
One of the songs that has always been one of my favorites, is Amazing Grace. Until now, I did not know the story behind the song. It's amazing.

From Consortium news:
The story really begins in Britain, where an unlikely Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, courageously took up the cause of human emancipation, despite virtually universal opposition.

The son of a wealthy merchant, young Wilberforce led the hedonistic lifestyle of a college student at Cambridge. Bored with his father’s business, he entered Parliament at age 21 and made friends easily.

Five years later, he had a conversion experience leading him to devote his life to freeing those in bondage. In 1791, his bill to abolish the slave trade failed by a wide margin but he persisted. In 1807, Wilberforce released A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade on the eve of Parliament’s overwhelming vote to end the trade in human beings—a remarkable change in fifteen years.

In 1823, “God’s politician” began a ten-year campaign to end slavery entirely, releasing his Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies, in which he claimed that total and unqualified emancipation was a moral and ethical “duty before God."

Wilberforce died in 1833 just as Parliament abolished slavery...Slavery, of course, never fully disappeared. Sadly, millions remain enslaved in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.

Inspired by Wilberforce’s example, the producers of "Amazing Grace" hope to stir public opinion against the slave trade through a web site, www.amazinggracemovie.com, which sponsors “The Amazing Change” to launch “a campaign to abolish modern day slavery and allow children and adults around the world to live in freedom.”

Find a theater near you, and watch this movie. I know I'll be watching this one.