McCAIN FOR PRESIDENT! :)

• McCAIN FOR PRESIDENT! :) - Toni
  • i have to say this is probably - the MOST informative
  • I hope you get what you want - gourdpainter
    • not what to want to read....tough! - Toni
      • Huh? - gourdpainter
        • Okay...what are you trying to say? - Toni
          • The question is....s/m - gourdpainter
            • It's late...never mind nm - Toni

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Since Palin has come on the scene, she has been out front at every campaign stop.  It seems as if she is running for President while McCain remains in the background and just applauds her. I don't think I've seen him open a campaign speech since her appointment.  I wonder if this was intentional.  Did they need to get him out of the spotlight or did she just take over?  

    Wednesday 24 August 2005

    Memorandum for: The President

    From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

    Subject: Recommendation: Try a Circle of "Wise Women"

    By way of re-introduction, we begin with a brief reminder of the analyses we provided you before the attack on Iraq. On the afternoon of February 5, 2003, following Colin Powell's speech before the UN Security Council that morning, we sent you our critique of his attempt to make the case for war. (You may recall that we gave him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq and a "C-" for providing context and perspective.) Unlike Powell, we made no claim that our analysis was "irrefutable/undeniable." We did point out, though, that what he said fell far short of justification for war. We closed with these words: "We are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

    To jog your memory further, the thrust of our next two pre-war memoranda can be gleaned from their titles: "Cooking Intelligence for War" (March 12) and "Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" (March 18). When the war started, we reasoned at first that you might had been oblivious to our cautions. However, last spring's disclosures in the "Downing Street Memo" containing the official minutes of Tony Blair's briefing on July 23, 2002 - and the particularly the bald acknowledgement that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war on Iraq - show that the White House was well aware of how the intelligence was being cooked. We write you now in the hope that the sour results of the recipe - the current bedlam in Iraq - will incline you to seek and ponder wider opinion this time around.

    A Still Narrower Circle

    With the departure of Colin Powell, your circle of advisers has shrunk rather than widened. The amateur architects of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seem still to have your ear. At a similar stage of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson woke up to the fact that he had been poorly served by his principal advisers and quickly appointed an informal group of "wise men" to provide fresh insight and advice. It turned out to be one of the smartest things Johnson did. He was brought to realize that the US could not prevail in Vietnam; that he was finished politically; and that the US needed to move to negotiations with the Vietnamese "insurgents."

    It is clear to those of us who witnessed at first hand the gross miscalculations on Vietnam that a similar juncture has now been reached on Iraq. We are astonished at the advice you have been getting - the vice president's recent assurance that the Iraqi resistance is "in its last throes," for example. (Shades of his assurances that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators" in Iraq.) And Secretary Rumsfeld's unreassuring reminders that "some things are unknowable" and the familiar bromide that "time will tell" are wearing thin. By now it is probably becoming clear to you that you need outside counsel.

    The good news is that some help is on its way. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has taken the initiative to schedule a hearing on September 15, where knowledgeable specialists on various aspects of the situation in Iraq will present their views. Unfortunately, it appears that this opportunity to learn will fall short of the extremely informative bipartisan hearings led by Sen. William Fullbright on Vietnam. The refusal thus far of the House Republican leadership to make a suitable conference room available suggests that the Woolsey hearing, like the one led by Congressman John Conyers on June 16, will lack the kind of bipartisan support so necessary if one is to deal sensibly with the Iraq problem.

    Meanwhile, we respectfully suggest that you could profit from the insights of the informal group of "wise women" right there in Crawford. You could hardly do better than to ride your bike down to Camp Casey. There you will find Gold Star mothers, Iraq (and Vietnam) war veterans, and others eager to share reality-based perspectives of the kind you are unlikely to hear from your small circle of yes-men and the yes-woman in Washington, none of whom have had direct experience of war. As you know, Cindy Sheehan has been waiting to get on your calendar. She is now back in Crawford and has resumed her Lazarus-at-the-Gate vigil in front of your ranch. We strongly suggest that you take time out from your vacation to meet with her and the other Gold Star mothers when you get back to Crawford later this week. This would be a useful way for you to acquire insight into the many shades of gray between the blacks and whites of Iraq, and to become more sensitized to the indignities that so often confound and infuriate the mothers, fathers, wives, and other relatives of soldiers killed and wounded there.

    Names and Faces

    Here are the names, ages, and hometowns of the eight soldiers, including Casey Sheehan, killed in the ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004:

    Specialist Robert R. Arsiaga, 25, San Antonio, Texas
    Specialist Ahmed A. Cason, 24, McCalla, Alabama
    Sergeant Yihjyh L. Chen, 31, Saipan, Marianas
    Specialist Israel Garza, 25, Lubbock, Texas
    Specialist Stephen D. Hiller, 25, Opelika, Alabama
    Corporal Forest J. Jostes, 22, Albion, Illinois
    Sergeant Michael W. Mitchell, 25, Porterville, California
    Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, 24, Vacaville, California

    Mike Mitchell's father, Bill, has been camped out for two weeks with Cindy Sheehan and others a short bike ride from your place. They have a lot of questions - big and small. You are aware of the big ones: In what sense were the deaths of Casey, Mike Mitchell and the others "worth it?" In what sense is the continued occupation of Iraq a "noble cause?" No doubt you have been given talking points on those. But the time has passed for sound bites and rhetoric. We are suggesting something much more real - and private.

    Questions

    There are less ambitious - one might call them more tactical - questions that are also accompanied by a lot of pain and frustration. Those eight fine soldiers were killed by forces loyal to the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric with a militant following, particularly in Baghdad's impoverished suburbs. The ambush was part of a violent uprising resulting from US Ambassador Paul Bremer's decision to close down Al Hawza, al-Sadr's newspaper, on March 28, 2004.

    And not only that. A senior aide of al-Sadr was arrested by US forces on April 3. The following day al-Sadr ordered his followers to "terrorize" occupation forces and this sparked the deadly street battles, including the ambush. Also on April 4, Bremer branded al-Sadr an "outlaw" and coalition spokesman Dan Senior said coalition forces planned to arrest him as well. In sum, before one can begin to understand the grief of Cindy, Bill, and the relatives of the other six soldiers killed, you need to know - as they do - what else was going on April 4, 2004.

    You may wish to come prepared to answer specific questions like the following:

    1. Closing down newspapers and arresting key opposition figures seem a strange way to foster democracy. Please explain. And how could Ambassador Bremer possibly have thought that al-Sadr would simply acquiesce?

    2. Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have landed on his feet. At this point, he and other Shiite clerics appear on the verge of imposing an Islamic state with Shariah law and a very close relationship with Iran. With this kind of prospect, can you feel the frustration of Gold Star mothers when the extremist ultimately responsible for their sons' deaths assumes a leadership role in the new Iraq? Can you understand their strong wish to prevent the sacrifice of still more of our children for such dubious purpose?

    Perhaps you will have good answers to these and other such questions. Good answers or no, we believe a quiet, respectful session with the wise women and perhaps others at your doorstep would give you valuable new insights into the ironic conundrums and human dimensions of the war in Iraq.

    A member of our Steering Committee, Ann Wright, has been on site at Camp Casey from the outset and would be happy to facilitate such a session. A veteran Army colonel (and also a senior Foreign Service officer until she resigned in protest over the attack on Iraq), Ann has been keeping Camps Casey I and II running in a good-neighborly, orderly way. She is well known to your Secret Service agents, who can lead you to her. We strongly urge you not to miss this opportunity.

    /s/
    Gene Betit, Arlington, Virginia
    Sibel Edmonds, Alexandria, Virginia
    Larry Johnson, Bethesda, Maryland
    David MacMichael, Linden, Virginia
    Ray McGovern, Arlington, Virginia
    Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, Minnesota
    Ann Wright, Honolulu, Hawaii

    Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. President:

Are you proud of your accomplishments as president?  I have highlighted just a few for you below.  You and those you surround yourself with have:

• KILLED over 3600 AMERICAN TROOPS. 
• MAIMED over 25,000 AMERICAN TROOPS.
• KILLED nearly 70,000 IRAQI CIVILIANS and 650,000 IRAQIS TOTAL have died as a result of US INVASION. 
• Orchestrated WAR on IRAQ when the 9/11 TERRORISTS were MOSTLY SAUDI. 
• Allowed NO-BID CONTRACTS for IRAQ war reconstruction and MONEY UNACCOUNTED FOR.
• DESTABILIZED MIDDLE EAST, now wanting TO SELL WEAPONS to Arab “allies.”
• Incurred the LARGEST NATIONAL DEBT IN OUR HISTORY, nearing 9 TRILLION.
• Shown INCOMPETENCE and INEFFECTIVENESS in response to HURRICANE KATRINA.
• Shown DISRESPECT FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL, initially attempting to reduce veterans’ benefits for those who put their lives at risk for this country in the past and leaving those who serve in Iraq without needed supplies.
• Done nothing about NEARLY 50 MILLION AMERICANS UNINSURED.
• CUT EDUCATION LOANS and REDUCED PELL GRANTS.
• Shown DISREGARD for THE CONSTITUTION of the United States of America with the so-called Patriot Act. 
• Shown DISREGARD for the SAFETY and HEALTH of our ENVIRONMENT, for example, withdrawing the US from the Kyoto Protocol agreement and opening public land for oil drilling. 
• Shown HYPOCRISY and FAVORITISM by COMMUTING SCOOTER LIBBY’S SENTENCE.  July 19, 2005, Washington Post: “PRESIDENT BUSH SAID yesterday that he will fire anyone in the administration found to have committed a crime in the leaking of a CIA operative's name.”   
• ALLOWED Attorney General ROBERTO GONZALEZ, a representative of truth and justice, TO REMAIN in government office AFTER HE LIED about his presence at a meeting regarding the questionably-timed firings of eight US attorneys.

Past presidents during my lifetime have not always behaved admirably, but your behavior and record in office reveal a decidedly un-Christian lack of ethics and morality exceeding that of any except perhaps Richard Nixon. Where did you leave your oft-professed Christianity?  I pray the nation survives your destructive administration, and I pray you begin to live a truly honorable life from this day on.

Sincerely,

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Dear Friend, During his recent speech in Berlin, Barack Obama tried to ingratiate himself to the foreign crowd by claiming loudly that he was “a citizen of the world.” The problem is Obama’s self-proclaimed global “citizenship” appears to go well beyond just a rhetorical device to gain favor with a European throng full of pie-in-the-sky utopians. It seems the Democrats’ would-be president of the United States of America really believes that the rest of the world’s problems, and approval, trump the interests of Americans when it comes to how we live our lives and where our money is spent. While stumping for the support of his party’s leftist base, Obama proclaimed, "we can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." And now he’s putting your money where his mouth is. A bill he has sponsored in the U.S. Senate, the so-called Global Poverty Act (S. 2433), would raise the amount of American tax dollars allocated to United Nations’ redistribution efforts to $845 billion. That’s $2,500 from every American taxpayer, when many in our country already are struggling to make ends meet. And if you think taxes and energy costs are high now, wait until Obama’s global energy and production taxes are made law by the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid-run Democrat Congress. Is this what Pelosi meant when she said, “I’m trying to save the planet!  I’m trying to save the planet!”? Senator Obama and the Democrats don’t seem to understand that American prosperity is a result of the hard work of American citizens in a free market economy.  And that the American people already are the most generous in the world when it comes to global aid. Help us show Barack Obama that Americans don’t need foreign approval to lead their lives as they see fit, and that he ought to remember that he is running for president of the United States, not the United Nations. Please make a secure online contribution of $2,000, $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 today to provide Republican candidates with the resources they urgently need to tell voters about the Obama Democrats’ plans for America. The future of an America whose government makes its own citizens its first priority may depend on it. Sincerely, Robert M. "Mike" Duncan Chairman, Republican National Committee P.S. Friend, powerful leftist forces will spend whatever it takes to elect Barack Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket to impose their radical utopian agenda on America.  Help us make sure they don’t succeed by making a secure online campaign contribution of $2,000, $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to the RNC today.  Thank you. Contributions or gifts to the Republican National Committee are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.  Republican National Committee | 310 First Street, SE | Washington, D.C. 20003 p: 202.863.8500 | f: 202.863.8820 | e: info@gop.com Paid for by the Republican National Committee. 310 First Street, SE - Washington, D.C. 20003 - (202) 863-8500 www.gop.com Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Copyright 2008 Republican National Committee

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Dubya are making us socialist -- this is what you have harped on for years.  We even get to take over the debts of foreign banks thanks to Phil Gram, John McClain's right hand man.

Bill Ayers and Barrack Obama: Both Obama and Ayers were members of the board of an anti-poverty group, the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. In addition, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in April 2001. They lived within a few blocks of each other in the trendy Hyde Park section of Chicago, and moved in the same liberal-progressive circles.

THE AYERS/OBAMA TIMELINE:

1987 William Ayers meets Barack Obama

1988 Ayers solicits Khalid Al-Mansour to raise money for Obama's Harvard law School education

1989 Tom Ayers and William Ayers get Obama a summer job at Sidley & Austin (where he meets Michelle Obama); Ayers' wife Bernadine Dohrn also worked at Sidley at about the same time as Barack and Michelle.

1993 Ayers places Obama on Woods Foundation

1995 Ayers makes Obama Chairman of Annenberg Challenge

1995 Ayers hosts a coffee klatch for Obama's political debut (Obama falsely claims this is when he met Ayers)

Raila Odinga and Barrack Obama: Odinga claims to be Obama's 1st cousin although the Obama campaign denies this. Raila Odinga has, in his own words, a 'close personal friendship' with Barrack Hussein Obama Junior.When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi: Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's ‘stooge.’ When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of people were burned to death in a church set on fire

Clearly, Obama campaigned for someone who is corrupt, ruthless and has financial ties to terrorists. More importantly, Obama campaigned for a candidate who had the stated objective of dismantling US & Kenyan government efforts to root out AL Queda and other terrorist organizations. Organizations that had already caused the deaths of hundreds of Americans and Africans in embassy bombings. Senator Obama’s actions—intentional or not—were in direct conflict with the efforts and interests of US national security. I think this raises serious questions about the judgment, maturity and readiness of Senator Obama.

Reverend Wright and Barrack Obama: Obama met Wright when he moved to Chicago after college. Here is a quote from Obama, "And that's where I met Rev. Wright and started going to Trinity United Church of Christ and he helped me on another journey and introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. And I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things that I was too weak to accomplish myself, maybe he could accomplish them for me if I placed my trust in him. And I learned that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when they believe in him and they come together and are guided by him." And yet another quote from Obama...."And then I've got to give a special shout out to my Pastor. The guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader not just in Chicago but all across the country, so please everybody give an extraordinary welcome to my pastor Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., Trinity United Church of Christ." First of all, for all you people screaming about Sarah Palin being a nut job Christian and praying for our country......what do you have to say about Obama and finding Jesus Christ? Talk about a double standard there. Furthermore, this goes to show that Obama was close to Rev. Wright and his claim that he had no idea about Wright's views are just untrue. You cannot attend a church for 20 years and seek counsel from a man and not know what that man stands for.....pure hatred and racism. Barrack Obama also refused to denounce Rev. Wright stating that he could no sooner denounce a family member. However, as Rev. Wright continued to spew out hatred from his mouth.....in Obama's best political interest...he threw his mentor and pastor of 20 years under the bus to try and save his career.

These are just three associations of Barrack Obama. This doesn't include Rezko and the monies given to Obama's campaign and the help he received in buying his house at a substantial lower price. This doesn't include Obama's association with ACORN and the fact that Obama himself trained ACORN members in Chicago.

ARE YOU PEOPLE FRIGGIN BLIND? WAKE UP!

NOBAMA!!!!