Orange Glazed Herrings

.

"I sent down yesterday for the menu from Guantanamo so that the average American could understand how we're brutalizing people in Guantanamo."

"For Sunday, they're going to be having -- let me see -- orange glazed chicken, fresh fruit, steamed peas and mushrooms, rice pilaf -- another form of torture for the hijackers. We treat them very well."

"So we have the legend that end that there is so-called gulag-like treatment and the reality is honey glazed chicken on Sunday."

–– Representative Duncan Hunter


Do they do take out?


Yes! Duncan Hunter really is a Congressman.

You see what he did there? He took what no one is calling torture - what they may not be eating -- and debunked it. "Another form of torture for the hijackers."

Even assuming this idiotic line of thinking is based on fact -- and not, say, some menu he got from the Pentagon -- this line of argument is clever, if deceitful. It's the kind of thing Rush Limbaugh does all the time. (I know, because I was forced to listen for a couple of years. It's no wonder people start agreeing with Rush, after you've been listening for awhile.)


If a red herring is an irrelvant argument designed to serve as a distraction, then this is a orange herring.

Iraq Update - 23 Iraqi Soldiers Killed

Acoording to CNN, on Wednesday morning:

"A lunchtime suicide bombing today at a restaurant on an Iraqi military base killed 23 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 28 other people -- mostly soldiers, police said."

"Earlier, roadside bombs killed two U.S. Marines during combat operations in Anbar province west of Baghdad, a military statement said."

Iraq Update

According to Juan Cole, 21 people were killed and 40 wounded in separate multiple separate incidents in Iraq.

Just today.

Elmo Says: "People in the News Are Stupid"

.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"He's elected. I'm just sitting by here, sitting,
you know, as a bystander these days. And
the reason is, I don't want to say anything,
do anything, publicly sign anything, op-ed
anything that has one nuance of difference
between myself and the president, because
that would be the story."

"Rush down, the nutty father says this. Or
look what the stupid son did."

"I mean, we don't need to get into that."

-- George Herbert Walker Bush;
‘Larry King Live”, June 2, 2005


“Stupid son”?


Unresolved issues, anyone?

**********************************************************

IRAQ UPDATE


June 5: 5 U.S. soldiers killed

June 6: 3 U.S. soldiers killed

June 7: 4 U.S. soldiers killed.

June 8: 3 U.S. soldiers killed.

June 9: 5 U.S. Marines are killed after a bomb hit
their vehicle near Haqlaniya in Anbar province.

June 10: 9 Iraqi civilians are killed and 15 others
are wounded when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad.


*************************************************************

SO NOW MARK FELT IS A NAZI WAR CRIMINAL


Ben Stein is an actor known from the movie "Ferris
Bueller" and a game show on the Comedy Channel.

Evidently he was some kind researcher in the Nixon
Cosa Nostra – I mean, White House.

Also, apparently, Ben Stein has become a cruel, mean,
despicable, right wing lunatic.

Quotes this week from Ben Stein:

“Have you noticed how Mark Felt looks like
one of those old Nazi war criminals they
find in Bolivia or Paraguay? That same,
haunted, hunted look combined with a
glee at what he has managed to get
away with so far?”

“If he even knows what shame is, I
wonder if he felt a moment's shame as he
tortured the man who brought security and
salvation to the land of so many of his and
my fellow Jews. Somehow, as I look at his
demented face, I doubt it.”

–– Ben Stein, on Mark Felt.

###

Yes, by all means, let’s revisit Nixon’s love of the
Jewish People!!


"Now here's the point, Bob. Please
get the names of the Jews. You know,
the big Jewish contributors to the Democrats.
Could you please investigate some of
the ****suckers?"

-- President Richard M. Nixon to Bob
Haldeman, September 14, 1971.


###

NIXON:

“What about the rich Jews? The IRS is full of Jews,
Bob.”

HALDEMAN:

“What we ought to do is get a zealot who dislikes
those people.”

NIXON:

“Go after them like a son of a bitch.”

-- September 15, 1971.

###


"The Jews are irreligious, atheistic,
immoral bunch of bastards."

–– President Richard M. Nixon, to
Bob Haldeman, February 1, 1972.


***********************************************************

YOU’RE ONLY CHEATING YOURSELF

The Army has failed to meet its recruiting goals for
several months in row. How did it change its strategy
this quarter to meet its goals?

A) Raise soldier’s pay

B) Guarantee full college and graduate education

C) Increase safety for people serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan

D) Promise shorter tours of duty

E) First 100 new recruits get a photo with the
President

F) They lowered the goals

Answer: F. They army lowered its
goals by a full 25%.


And it still didn’t help.

Even after reducing its recruiting target for May, the
Army missed it by about 25 percent, Army officials
said on Tuesday. The shortfall would have been even
bigger had the Army stuck to its original goal for the
month.

"We typically reallocate monthly goals during the
course of the year," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an
Army spokesman, who said that the Army still expected
to meet its overall annual goal of shipping 80,000 new
recruits to boot camp. "The summer is relatively
easier for recruiting.

The Army has also:

* Added 1,000 recruiters since last September
* Starting a new advertising campaign
* Offered selected enlistment bonuses of more than
$20,000
* Paired returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan
with recruiters to attract soldiers.

The Army has NOT raised the quota for the summer
months, nor do they expect to do very well.

"The summer is supposed to be big, but I don't think
it's going to happen," said a recruiter. "I don't see
much interest among the high school seniors."


Want to guess why?

**************************************************************

FUN FACT OF THE WEEK

Bush approval ratings is now 20 points LOWER than it
was for Bill Clinton was on the day he was impeached.

**************************************************************

LATEST POLL NUMBERS

Bush is handling his job poorly: 52%
Iraq war has not made US safer: 52%
Iraq is becoming a new Vietnam: 40%
US military is bogged down in Iraq: 66%
US casualties in Iraq is unacceptable: 75%

Bush has done more to divide the
country than to unite it: 55%

Country is on the wrong track: 60%
-- Blame the President and Republicans: 67%
-- Blame Democrats: 13%

-- –– Washington Post-ABC News poll. June 8, 2005


**************************************************************

DEMOCRATS IN THE NEWS


No, it’s not all about praising Democrats here. Some
less admirable Democrats have been in the news this
week.

For example, in the Democratic city of Philadelphia,
the city put a halt to the planned Route 15 trolley -
an estimated $82 million public works project that was
ALREADY PAID FOR, and ready to resume its historic route
along the Girard Avenue corridor.

Why?

Because Carol Campbell, a ward leader who also happens
to be an officer in Philadelphia's Democratic City
Committee, didn't want to lose parking on one side of
a block in her neighborhood.

######



I got excited, though confused, when I heard that
Howard Dean say the Republican Party is "The White
Christmas Party."

Then I found out that he actually said the GOP is “a
white, Christian party."

He also recently was quoted as saying that some
Republicans "never made an honest living in their
lives."

And that “Tom Delay ought to go back to Houston where
he can serve his jail sentence.”

In fairness, what Dean actually said was that some
people had to stand in line to vote in Ohio for 8
hours, and maybe the Republicans support that because
they haven’t had to work all day and have “never made
an honest living in their lives.”

###

Then there’s once and future candidate John Kerry.
He’s back in the news, though the reason is a little
puzzling.

This week, Senator Kerry, ending at least two years of
refusal, waived privacy restrictions and authorized
the release of his full military and medical records.

One of the first actions of the group that came to be
known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was to call on
Kerry to sign a privacy waiver and release all of his
military and medical records. He wouldn't.

The records are mostly a duplication of what Kerry
released during his 2004 campaign for president.

The full record contains a number of reports lauding
his service.

The records included COMMENDATIONS from some of the
same Swift Boat veterans who were criticizing him.

As one blogger put it:

"Jesus, they had additional substantive
evidence that the Swift Boat Liars were liars
and refused to release it. The incompetent way
that matter was handled knows no bounds.
Unbelievable.”


Look, it is true that the reason Kerry lost was the
war and 9/11. And as someone else pointed this week,
AND as I’ve said, the one time Kerry went up against
Bush in front of the country he did everything right
and won all three debates. So Democrats probably need
to look elsewhere beside Kerry for their loss.

Having said that, I was involved briefly with the
campaign and it could have been run better.

And there was hesitancy to Kerry that people could
sense, as when he referenced the “global test,” I
believe in the third debate.

Finally, Kerry says now he didn’t want to release his
records because he shouldn’t have to because the
Swifties were obviously lying.

Which is precisely why he should have released the
records!

We’re not talking about negative advertising, for
pete’s sake.

This isn’t “sinking to anyone’s level.” You get out
in front of the story, you kill it, and you don’t let
up.

Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, all had images of
themselves as such nice guys that they refused to
fight back.

I don't know if Hillary Clinton, can be elected, but I
suspect she and her people really do know how to play
political hardball. And that’s what it takes.


************************************************************

ONCE YOU LET 'EM VOTE, IT'S ALL DOWNHILL


It’s not all about stupid Democrats, here, either.

A Republican state senator in Kansas who once said
that giving women the vote was a symptom of weakness
in the American family now wants to be Kansas' top
elections official.

Sen. Kay O'Connor announced Wednesday that she is
seeking the GOP nomination for secretary of state next
year.

In 2001, O'Connor received national attention for her
remarks about the 19th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, ratified in 1920, which gave women the
right to vote.

"I think the 19th Amendment, while it's not
an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of
something I don't approve of. The 19th
Amendment is around because men weren't
doing their jobs, and I think that's sad. I
believe the man should be the head of
the family. The woman should be the
heart of the family."


Hey, as long as I get the remote control.

*************************************************************

BARACK SPEAKS

“So I’m 99th in seniority, and the reporters
are all cramped into our tiny transition office
that was somewhere near the Janitor’s
closet in the basement of the Dirksen
Building. It’s my first day in the building,
I hadn’t taken one vote, I hadn’t introduced
one bill, I hadn’t even sat down at my desk,
and this very earnest reporter asks:

“Senator Obama, what’s your place in history?”

I laughed out loud. Place in history? I
thought he was kidding! At that point, I wasn’t
even sure the other Senators would save
me a place at the cool lunch table."

–– Barack Obama, Knox College
Commencement Speech.

That’s future President Obama, and, as far as I can
tell, the coolest U.S. Senator.


*********************************************************

DEMOCRACY INACTION

I’ve been warning forever that a pro-terror group
could win a legitimate election, and then where are
we?

In Lebanon's parliamentary elections, a pro-Syrian
coalition, led by the militant-terror group,
Hezbollah, won ALL 23 seats at stake in the southern
region where voting was held last

The group gained six unchallenged seats before the
polls opened on Sunday, and Minister Sabaa says the
final 17 seats for the region also went to the
pro-Syrian coalition.

Hezbollah’s been elected. Now what?

**********************************************************

WELL, THAT TOOK A WHILE

Speaking of elections, the race for Governor of
Washington, for voter cast ballots last November,
finally ended THIS WEEK.

And a Democrat won!

A Washington state judge upheld on Monday Democrat
Christine Gregoire's election as governor, tossing out
a Republican challenge that claimed she won by the
narrowest margin in state history.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges said
Republican Dino Rossi's supporters failed to show that
Gregoire unfairly benefited from the counting of
nearly 1,700 unreadable or invalid votes, who may or
may not have voted for Rossi, any way.

**********************************************************

IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Exactly 20 years ago, in 1985, NBC became
the first commercial television network to use
satellite interconnection for its stations.

As a result, it became the first station to
discontinue use of chime intonations at the beginning
of each telecast, to signal to the affiliates to start
airing the network feed.

I remember that . . . . “N – B – C !!”

NBC used to be "proud as peacock."

Now they’ve lost the Reality Show Wars AND the're
totally behind in the Post-Reality Show Era.


###


SPEAKING OF 1985

As the pop song goes, we're preoccupied with 1985.

Also in 1985, on August 19, David Letterman
interrupted The Today Show with a megaphone while both
shows were on the air.

Letterman leaned out the window of his building and,
holding his megaphone, yelled, "My name is Larry
Grossman I'm not wearing any pants!".

Larry Grossman was then the President of NBC News.

The Today Show was taping an interview on the plaza
right below Letterman.

I distinctly remember watching Letterman do that. It
was hilarious. But Bryant Gumbel never forgave him.
Later NBC cut him loose.

In other TV news in 1985, the "The Jeffersons,"
"Alice," and "The Dukes of Hazzard" went off the air,
while "Moonlighting", "MacGuyver" and "The Golden
Girls" premiered.

In addition, "Sabado Gigante" moved from Chile to the
Univision studios in Miami, Florida.

And last, but certainly not least, Elmo, a new
character for Sesame Street, was introduced.


So can I presume that next year a 21 year-old Elmo will be
hitting Sesame Street’s finer beverage establishments?


No doubt Oscar can show him around.

*************************************************************

PERSON OF THE WEEK


See below for CNN’s asinine poll asking who should be
Person of the Week: "Broadway Legend Bancroft"; "Pizza
Delivery Guy"; or "Ovary Transplant Recipient" ?

I have another suggestion.

How about Lieutenant Michael J. Fasnacht, 25 years old, from Columbus, Georgia.

He was killed 48 hours ago when a roadside bomb detonated near his Bradley fighting vehicle in Tikrit, Iraq, on June 8, 2005.

Then there's Colonel Theodore S. Westhusing, from Dallas, Texas. The Colonel is 44 years old, and assigned to the U.S. Military Academy.

He is serving now at the Multi-national Security Transition Command in Iraq

He died from injuries this week, in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2005.

Or my nominee, Carrie French, from Caldwell, Idaho.

Carrie is a member Idaho Army National Guard.

Carrie was killed four days ago.

A roadside bomb blew up her vehicle in Kirkuk, Iraq, on June 5, 2005.


Carrie was born in 1986.


Younger than Elmo.

*****************************************************************

Culture of What??

.

At this blog, of course, we're trying to create a national movement toward a Culture of Truth.

Meanwhile, a new book trying to scare people with the concept that Hillary Clinton is so even evil that she might -- get this -- actually run for President, has found a whole new Culture I was unaware of

The book, by Edward Klein, titled: "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," (there's a mouthful) states that Hillary Clinton was heavily influenced by a "Culture Of Lesbianism" when she was an undergrad at Wellesley College.

Ok, I added the capital letters. Still, that would be heck of a blog, wouldn't it?

Not only that, but a quater of a century later, at a reunion, Hillary Clinton may have met a woman who was a lesbian!!

(No, not Mary Cheney.)

According to the Murdoch-owned Post, this woman says now: "Yes, I am a lesbian, but I wasn't at Wellesley or for 20 years afterward."

Oh well.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

.

"He's elected. I'm just sitting by here, sitting, you know, as a bystander these days. And the reason is, I don't want to say anything, do anything, publicly sign anything, op-ed anything that has one nuance of difference between myself and the president, because that would be the story. Rush down, the nutty father says this. Or look what the stupid son did. I mean, we don't need to get into that."

-- George Herbert Walker Bush; 'Larry King Live," June 2. 2005.


He said "stupid."

I didn't.

Ken Mehlman's Parallel Reality

.

Watching Ken Mehlman on "Meet the Press," it seems as though he exists in a parallel dimension, a reality entirely of his own making.

Host Tim Russert asked about the Downing Street Memo, the British memo that confirms, as if there were any doubt, that, when Bush and his people were urging war, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Mehlman replied:

"Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 9-11 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all."

Russert only challenged Mehlman twice, once when he claimed they had cut the deficit in half, and this time. Russert said, correctly:

"I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited."

Mehlman then replied:

"I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed, have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."

The 9/11 Commission never looked at the Downing Street Memo, and neither has the Senate.

Ken has not yet bought into the Culture of Truth.

Nixon's Thugs

.

The political back and forth of the last few days has
been a big “reveal,” as they say in the entertainment
biz.

The events of Watergate were not a coup, or a liberal
conspiracy, or about the war, or communism, or the
media out to get Nixon. And no, not "everybody did
it". The conspirators were not “standing on
principle,” when they went to prison.

They were cheap thugs, muscle men in suits, wearing
black gloves, carrying burglary tools and brown bags
full of cash.

They were ordinary criminals, scurrying around in the
dark with flashlights, dreaming up every increasingly
violent scenarios and too dumb not to get caught.

And they turned on each other immediately. They were
cowards, greedy for money, for power, and in it for
cheap thrills.

They were a bunch of half crazy, delusional dreamers
and schemers, who in another day would have run
identity theft scams out of a basement, get rich quick
pyramid schemes, shady real estate deals, or simply
engaged in loan sharking and extortion.

Nixon and his bunch were intent on controlling every
part of the government and forcing them to work
exclusively for their political party. They would
consolidate power, silence opposition, and use the
machinery of government, including threats of prison,
to make it happen.

Nixon and his aides willingly hired brutes and crooks
who would use ultimately wiretapping, burglary, and
old fashioned threats of violence to render people too
frightened to speak out against them.

These are the tools of terrorists, dictators and
fascists everywhere, and they always have been.

.