I love your post and I, too, am a "traitor" Dem, I am not happy.....sm
with the whole stimulus package, WAYYYYY to much pork in it, but I am happy to have a president who truly wants to get the country moving in the right direction and wants to take action, we had 8 years of war rhetoric and "stay the course" as we sunk. But I will confess here that I was never an Obama supporter, I actively stomped for Hillary and was even chosen to caucus. I felt she was strong, experienced, and would truly be able to lead domestically AND internationally, but oh well, I then listened intently to Mr. McCain, whom I respect, but could not find anything of worth in his platform. As you said, we can all be Americans first, sometimes my opinions lead a bit to the right (not as often!), and sometimes to the left, but more often actually in the middle. I love this country and its people, and just want whatever is best, I feel we have been lied to and led astray, while politicians ON BOTH SIDES looked the other way while corporate raiders lined their pockets. I am so glad to read this post by you, gives me hope!!!
I love your post and I, too, am a "traitor" Dem, I am not happy.....sm
with the whole stimulus package, WAYYYYY to much pork in it, but I am happy to have a president who truly wants to get the country moving in the right direction and wants to take action, we had 8 years of war rhetoric and "stay the course" as we sunk. But I will confess here that I was never an Obama supporter, I actively stomped for Hillary and was even chosen to caucus. I felt she was strong, experienced, and would truly be able to lead domestically AND internationally, but oh well, I then listened intently to Mr. McCain, whom I respect, but could not find anything of worth in his platform. As you said, we can all be Americans first, sometimes my opinions lead a bit to the right (not as often!), and sometimes to the left, but more often actually in the middle. I love this country and its people, and just want whatever is best, I feel we have been lied to and led astray, while politicians ON BOTH SIDES looked the other way while corporate raiders lined their pockets. I am so glad to read this post by you, gives me hope!!!
Liar liar pants on fire. Liar Liar Pants On Fire
Alleged link between 9/11 and Iraq
Examination of pre-war intelligence claims by Bush administration
Just days after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Cheney, on “Meet The Press,” said the response should be aimed at Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror organization not Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
When asked if any evidence connected the Iraqis to the operation, Cheney said, no.
But during that same time period, according to Bob Woodward's book, Bush At War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for military strikes on Iraq and during cabinet meetings Cheney, expressed deep concern about Saddam and wouldn't rule out going after Iraq at some point.
That point started to come 11 months later, just before the first anniversary of 9/11.
The president and vice president had decided to redirect their war on terror to Baghdad. So, with the help of the newly-formed White House Iraq group, which consisted of top officials and strategists, the selling of a war on Iraq began and the administration's rhetoric about Saddam changed.
On September 8, 2002, not only did White House hawks tell The New York Times for a front page exclusive that Saddam was building a nuclear weapon, five administration officials also went on the Sunday television shows that day to repeat the charge.
He is, in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, Cheney told Tim Russert on “Meet The Press.
But the White House started claiming that Iraq and the group responsible for 9/11 were one in the same.
The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror, said Bush on September 25, 2002.
We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases, said Bush a few days later on October 7. He's a threat because he is dealing with Al-Qaeda.
In pushing the Saddam-Iraq-9/11 connection, both the president and the vice president made two crucial claims. First, they alleged there had been a 1994 meeting in the Sudan between Osama bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence official.
After the Iraq war began, however, the 9/11 Commission was formed and reported that while Osama bin Laden may have requested Iraqi help, Iraq apparently never responded.
The other crucial pre-war White House claim was that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech republic in April 2001.
Cheney stated, It's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a Senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.
Confirmed or unconfirmed by Vice President Cheney the 9/11 Commission said, We do not believe such a meeting occurred. Why? Because cell phone records from the time show Atta in the United States.
None the less, the White House strategy worked. In March of 2003, one poll found 45 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11.
On the eve of the Iraq war, the White House sent a letter to Congress telling lawmakers that force was authorized against those who, aided the 9/11 attacks.
Yet the Bush administration continues to say it never claimed Iraq was linked to 9/11.
I think I made it very clear that we have never made that claim, White House Press Secretary McClellan repeated on Sept. 17, 2003.
The brutal irony is that while implications, innuendo, or false claims if you will about a 9/11 connection helped take us into Iraq. The Iraqi war itself has created a real al-Qaeda/Iraq link that may keep us from getting out.
Wouldnt outing a CIA operative be classified as treason, especially in war time? What are the penalties? Wasnt it at one time death? Rove..tsk..tsk..karma is catching up to you..what goes around comes around..
Michelle Malkin, neocon blogger and concentration camp advocate, has posted a spate of converted WWII posters on her site, taking the New York Times to task for reporting the news, albeit a year late.
According to Malkin and New York representative Peter King, the New York Times stands accused of treason “for reporting last week about a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace alleged terrorists” and disclosing “a secret domestic wiretapping program,” according to CBC News, never mind both programs violate the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. “No one elected The New York Times to do anything,” King told the New York Daily News. “They’re breaking the law to satisfy their own arrogant, liberal agenda.”
In Bushzarro world, newspapers are “elected” to report the news. If newspapers report the trashing of the Constitution, this is treason. In Malkin’s world, it follows that traitors should be thrown in concentration camps, especially if they resemble in any way Arabs or Muslims.
It would seem Mr. King and Malkin suffer from memory loss. It was Judith Miller’s “arrogant, liberal agenda” that brought us the neocon lies about illusory Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. As Antony Loewenstein writes for the Sydney Morning Herald, the “vast majority of [Miller’s] WMD claims came through Ahmed Chalabi, an indicted fraudster and one of the leading figures in the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the group keen to militarily overthrow Saddam. Miller relied on untested defectors’ testimonies (usually provided by Chalabi) to write several front-page stories on this information,” stories that did not pass the smell test at the time and have found the memory hole since.
Ahmed Chalabi, convicted bank fraudster installed as a deputy prime minister in Iraq, was a neocon darling. His Iraqi National Congress, created by the CIA, was the primary source of Judith Miller’s “journalism.” In short, Judith Miller was a hack for the neocons, thus making the New York Times a neocon conduit for lies and propaganda.
Even though the New York Times serves as a shameless shill for the “arrogant, liberal agenda” of the neocons, this does not change the fact the newspaper is protected under both the First Amendment and statutory procedure (see the Supreme Court case, Bartnicki v. Vopper). In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled in a per curiam decision that prior restraint (censorship) was not warranted in a government effort to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. “There’s a tone of gleeful relish in the way they [the Bush neocons] talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors,” Bill Keller, New York Times Executive Editor, told the Washington Post.
King and Malkin, of course, have nothing but contempt for Supreme Court rulings. It is irrelevant that NSA whistleblower Russell Tice (the source behind revelations published in the New York Times) is protected by federal law. King and Malkin believe the unitary decider and his Machiavellian operatives have the right to look through your financial, medical, and library records, listen in on your telephone calls, read your email, and sneak and peek your computer hard drive and while they’re at it rifle through your underwear drawer because “we are at war” with an enemy never sufficiently documented or designated, an enemy who worked for the CIA in Afghanistan and is not specifically “wanted in connection” with the nine eleven attacks, as his FBI wanted poster reveals.
Obviously, King and Malkin, and the whole of the neocon choir, believe the phony “war on terror,” rechristened the “long war”—i.e., it will last a century or more, or long enough to provide obscene profits for the death merchants—gives the “permanent revolution” Jacobins the right to trash the Constitution.
Quite naturally, this brings to mind Hitler’s Ermächtigungsgesetz, or Enabling Act, an element of the Reichstag Fire Decree nullifying the civil liberties of German citizens after the Reichstag was torched (a fire planned by Goebbels and executed by Göring, according to SA man Karl Ernst).
Bush, not unlike Hitler, feels he has the authority to by-pass Congress (mostly corporate purchased whores, so this is a moot point) and use the Constitution as a doormat where the unitary decider wipes off his shoes, mucky with the blood a few hundred thousand Iraqis.
President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918: To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Senator Robert A. Taft (also known as Mr. Republican), 1941 (after Pearl Harbor): I believe that there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government..... Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy.... If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.
Treason!!! Get behind our President, you Judas!
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Treason? You have a real problem. It is STILL a
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Unpatriotic, Treason, Republican...
And the Answer is: What 3 words are synonyms? Well you can *know* what ever about terrorist, but you can't
preach about and demand change in the corruption in other countries and then not even be interested in the corruption in your own country.
no, not a lie. He is not a terrorist
but he certainly has ties to, and support from, some very very questionable people, and yes from terrorists. That makes him lacking in judgment at best, and certainly of questionable motives and character.
They don't care how terrorist's think...
They'd have to read what Middle Eastern experts - you know, people who have lived in or are from the Middle East would have to say. That would involve critical THINKING. Bush flaunted repeatedly the fact that he never consulted anyone about the situation in the Middle East before going to war. The only folks he consulted were...you guessed it - Rummy, Wolfy and the gang.
Terrorist Bush Bush Told Blair of 'Going beyond Iraq' By Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian UK
Saturday 15 October 2005
George Bush told Tony Blair shortly before the invasion of Iraq that he intended to target other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which, he implied, planned to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Bush said he wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, according to a note of a telephone conversation between the two men on January 30 2003.
The note is quoted in the US edition, published next week, of Lawless World, America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules, by the British international lawyer Philippe Sands. The memo was drawn up by one of the prime minister's foreign policy advisers in Downing Street and passed to the Foreign Office, according to Mr Sands.
It is not surprising that Mr Bush referred to Iran and North Korea, or even Pakistan - at the time suspected of spreading nuclear know-how, but now one of America's closest allies in the war on terror. What is significant is the mention of Saudi Arabia.
In Washington, the neo-cons in particular were hostile to the Saudi royal family and did not think they were doing enough to quell Islamist extremists - 15 of the 19 September 11 attackers were Saudis. But the Bush administration did not in public express concern about any Saudi nuclear ambitions.
In September 2003, the Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia had embarked on a strategic review that included acquiring nuclear weapons. Until then, the assumption in Washington was that Saudi Arabia was content to remain under the US nuclear umbrella despite the worsening relationship between Riyadh and Washington.
It is not clear how Mr Blair responded to Mr Bush's remarks during the telephone conversation, which took place on the eve of a trip to Washington for talks with the US president.
In his book, Blair's Wars, John Kampfner says that at the meeting the two leaders agreed to concentrate not just on Iraq ... but also the Middle East. But that was taken to be a reference to Palestine. Mr Blair wanted Mr Bush to express concern about the plight of the Palestinians to appease the Labour party.
Mr Blair at the time was careful to avoid any suggestion that the Bush administration intended to target other countries after the invasion of Iraq. However, for the first time he suggested there were links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
After the invasion, Washington adopted a calmer approach towards Iran, leaving it to Britain, France, and Germany to pursue a diplomatic course.
Despite hard evidence that Pakistan was deeply involved in exporting nuclear technology, the Bush administration embraced President Pervez Musharraf as an ally against al-Qaida. Washington's relations with Saudi Arabia remain cool. Mr Sands does not shed further light on the issue.
Bush the terrorist
I see the world and the majority of America realizing, finally, that Bush is incompetent, a fool, not to be trusted and as much a terrorist as Osama..OMG, even conservative republicans are speaking out against Bush..Time to stop defending a fool, if you ask me..these next months/years will show the reasons for war were all lies, this whole administration is corrupt..These are great times for honest law abiding hard working Americans who did not drink the Kool-Aid..
They obviously believe there's only one terrorist in the world
I just don't understand why they think Bin Laden is the only terrorists. There are several major terror cells in the world all bent on destroying Western culture and Israel. I personally think Bin Laden is dead anyway.
Terrorist links
Can you PROVE beyond a shadow of DOUBT that this is TRUE?? sheesh!!
How exactly is it that a terrorist dresses? n/m
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Don't forget a son of a terrorist.
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You must mean a terrorIST attack, because sm
We are attacked by people who call themselves terrorists. Unless of course, you have terror attacks like some people have panic attacks.
The terrorist's best friend.
Is the Taliban on your Christmas card list as well?
You seem to have swallowed the leftist lies hook, line, and sinker.
Let's not forget to honor those hard-working, industrious Nazis while we're at it.
And the Sudanese guerrilas.
And the lonely, struggling serial killers and child molesters and suicide bombers.
We have had plenty of terrorist
AND after 9/11.
- USS Cole.
- 2000 New Year attack attempt at Los Angeles Airport, but stopped at Port Angeles, WA ferry terminal during Clinton.
- New York Bomb Subway in 1997 with Clinton in office.
The government considers you a terrorist threat if you oppose abortion, own a gun or are a returning war veteran.
That's what House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Wednesday in response to a Department of Homeland Security report warning of the rise of right-wing extremist groups.
Smith, who said the report on "right-wing extremism" amounts to "political profiling," said that DHS is "using people's political views to assess an individual's susceptibility to terror recruitment." He joins a growing chorus of protest from irate conservative groups that are protesting the report's findings.
The report, titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," released last week by DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis, said while there is no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are planning acts of violence, it suggests acts of violence could come from unnamed "rightwing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, abortion, increasing federal power and restrictions on firearms -- and it singles out returning war veterans as susceptible to recruitment.
A senior Republican Judiciary Committee aide tells FOX News that the Obama administration "should immediately retract the report and apologize," saying that according to the report, pro-lifers, anyone who lost their jobs or are one of the thousands of military veterans who have fought to prevent another 9/11 could be suspect.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the report Wednesday, saying it is part of an ongoing series of assessments to provide information to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on "violent radicalization" in the United States.
"Let me be clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States," Napolitano said in a statement. "We don't have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence."
The report follows a similar report released in January by DHS that detailed left-wing threats, focusing on cyberattacks and radical "eco-terrorist" groups like Earth Liberation Front, accused of firebombing construction sites, logging companies, car dealerships and food science labs. The report notes that left-wing extremists prefer economic damage on businesses to get the message across.
"Their leftwing assessment identifies actual terrorist organizations, like the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. The rightwing report uses broad generalizations about veterans, pro-life groups, federalists and supporters of gun rights," said Smith. "That's like saying if you love puppies you might be susceptible to recruitment by the Animal Liberation Front. It is ridiculous and deeply offensive to millions of Americans."
U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-FL, told FOX News he was "offended" by the report's suggestion that returning troops could be potential targets for extremist groups.
"I am very offended and really disturbed that they would even say our military veterans, our returning war heroes would be capable of committing any terrorist acts," he said. "Where do they get off doing that? I demand an apology from [Napolitano] and even the President of the United States."
Veterans' groups are also taking issue with the report, which says disgruntled vets are considered coveted recruits for groups looking for "combat skills and experience."
"Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists," the report reads. "[DHS] is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities."
Pete Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom, said the report represents a "gross misunderstanding and oversimplification" of the country's service members.
"It's amazing they would single out veterans as a threat to this country," said Hegseth, an Army veteran who served in Iraq. "It underscores a pervasive belief that some are trying to spread that veterans are victims and we're coming home as damaged goods that need to be coddled instead of celebrated."
The report prompted a harsh and swift reaction for the American Legion on Tuesday. In a letter to Napolitano, American Legion National Commander David Rehbein blasted the report as incomplete and politically-biased.
"The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime," Rehbein wrote. "To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical 'disgruntled military veteran' is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam."
Napolitano said in her statement on Wednesday that she was aware of the letter, and plans to meet with Rehbein sometime next week.
"I will tell him face-to-face that we honor veterans at DHS and employ thousands across the department, up to and including the Deputy Secretary."
"We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not nor will we ever monitor ideology or political beliefs," read Napolitano's statement. "We take seriously our responsibility to protect civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources."
Herb London, president of the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said DHS' latest report "clearly appears to censor right-wing opinion," while its earlier assessment of left-wing extremists does not.
"I must say it's chilling, it worries me a great deal," London said. "I never have encountered a time in American life when condemnation of a president is not permitted. This really did strike me as odd, indeed."
London called on President Obama to repudiate the right-wing report.
"What is the message here? That conservative organizations are not permitted to engage in any language that might be described as unfavorable to the president," London said. "Keep in mind this is entirely subjective to begin with."
Occupation is the ultimate terrorist act.
Let's get something straight here. Israel is the occupier and Palestine is the occupied. Steal their land, blockade their supplies, invade them, kill and maim them, impose a police state, sabotage their economy and THEN call them the terrorists...self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one. You have not one leg to stand on here. Terrorism breeds terrorism. Israel has not only cornered the marked on chaos in Palestine, but throughout the region as well. Bloodshed is their middle name. They wrote the book on savagery.
No dear. Perhaps massacres turn you on, but they certainly do not make me giddy. Nobody twisted my arm when I formulated my opinions on this issue, since it is based on my own life experiences, just like yours are. Wanna talk monsters? From where I sit, those would be the Israeli population who sits idly by in their complicity and turn a blind eye to the moral outrage on which they base their nationalism. That's the only thing that burns me.
Israel kicks the holy heck out of itself every time it goes on another one of its bloody rampages. The whole rest of the world, with the exception of the US (whose motives are none too clean either) abhors this behavior and no amount of self-righteous indignation is going to change that fact. My other post already addressed the sheer folly of your suicide bomber reference.
This may come as a surprise to you, but the objective of Hamas missile fire is to bring attention of the world back to Palestine, the long forgotten and ignored, but as long as they are occupied, it is not that difficult to understand why they would like to blow Israel off the face of the earth. Since you are not in charge of Hamas militia, you hardly can pretend to be able to predict their future operations, except to parrot the endless propaganda you hear on US mainstream media.
As far as the Stone Age is concerned, Israel would like to think of itself as being all modern and civilized, but they can never join those ranks as long as they remain the occupying war criminals they have been since day one. HAMAS is a terrorist group
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Santa protecting children from a terrorist
what's wrong with that?
and just where is the terrorist going to put that TNT--in the manager?
I guess if you were Santa you'd just try to give the terrorist a big ole hug...
You know it's pretty darn sad that Christmas is so darn political this year. This is a neutral statement because it's happening on both sides, liberal and conservative
Iraqi terrorist training camps?
Links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, as claimed by the Bush Administration (which formed a crucial part of the WMD justification for the Iraq invasion), were non-existent or exaggerated, according to the report of both the United States Government's 9/11 Commissionand the Pentagon. There was never any real proof of training camps in Iraq. As far as terrorists having been in Iraq at one time or another....it's a middle eastern country.....they were way down toward the bottom of the list of terrorist hang-outs.
In my opinion, McCain is just as bad as the terrorist people because he obviously just wants to get
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Towel-headed terrorist? Is that how you see ALL Moslems
a young man visiting his Kenyan relatives in search of his roots who is paying respect to his family and his host nation by donning traditional Dashiki and head gear. I also see a sense of pride in his expression...something that he is entitled to have. When in Rome...
McCain? A soldier who served his country with honor, came home and dumped his crippled wife and mother of his children, traded her in for a younger model, then turned around years later and exploited his POW status for political gain.
Where do you see this domestic terrorist stuff? I'd be interested in sm
viewing your list of what "they" (and who are "they"?) are classifying as dom terrorists?
http://yorkdispatch.inyork.com/yd/sections/politics/ci_10655363
October 9 after Palin and McCain called him a terrorist
someone yelled out 'kill him' but of course McCain's people say they cannot be sure if it was towards Ayers (spelling?)or Obama. And you think that terrorist attack was planned in just a few months during his presidency?
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You are a liar. SM
I'm glad to say it and it is true. As far as Iraq, of course, you twisted that all out of context. Lurker asked if I would go to Iraq to help rebuild and I said yes, if I could I would, but please don't tell the truth and continue to twist because you are twisted. Now, that felt good to FINALLY call you a liar. You have used that word with every conservative poster and we are all pretty darn sick of it. Liar. Liar?
A conservative calling someone a liar? Pot-kettle-black
Once a liar, always a liar!!!!
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