My sentiments exactly. Feel free to

• Sam busy w/damage control this a,m. - Just like the party will be this week at RNC. nm
  • Yeah.....right. Same back at ya...You have all hit my posts 2-3 times.... - sam
  • You remind me why I stopped voting democrat....(nm) - ms
    • Sam and you other right-wing wackos solidfy my support for the democrats! - Sam I am Not
      • My sentiments exactly. Feel free to - Jump me with the cheerleader slur like before. nm
        • Nope...but I would like your opinion who... - sam
      • Well, at least there are members in that party... - sam
        • We can all see how much your party cares - About the people of New Orleans. nm
      • above is that example of "hatred" - making Dems looks mean and nasty. nm
        • yeah, you would rather call people "wackos" - instead of debating.. extreme leftist? nm
    • Me too. Am so tired of their hatred. - Go McCain and Palin!! nm
      • We're the peace party, but will bash with the best - Of 'em in self defense. Give respect, get it b
        • The peace party...... - sam
          • You'd rather root for nuclear war than to see - Obama wage peace. Pathetic.
            • Not what i said at all...please do not put words in my mouth... - sam
              • You put it out there. - We'll draw out own conclusions w/o your help.
                • Of course you will. It's called spin. lol...sheesh. - sam
      • This is all they know - EyesWideOpen
        • Can't take anyone seriously if they have such - Blatent adversion to 2 sides of story.
          • You are joking, right? lol - sam
        • Great post..."EyesWideOpen" - so true! nm

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you want to believe -- Wall Street Journal versus "websites".  As the McC campaign stated ' this election will not be based on facts.  They are going personality whole-hog.  OMG.  I just offended someone somewhere.

When Democrats accuse George W. Bush of being a liar, Republicans -- and until recently, the media -- have responded that Bush is a man of integrity whom you can trust at his word. It was the evil Bill Clinton who lied. Remember him wagging his finger at us? That bastard!

Well, yes, Bill Clinton did indeed lie to us. He lied to us about oral sex. It sure is good that we spent nearly $100 million to find out how semen reacts on a cotton blue dress from the Gap. Of course, it turned out that he was telling the truth to us about Whitewater and filegate and travelgate and campaign finance-gate and gate-gate and more. I'm sure we could find better uses for that money today. But, Clinton certainly did lie about that hummer. Imagine that, a man lying about sex. In America no less.

Of course, unlike another president, Clinton's lies didn't kill anyone.

Anyway, I decided to put just a short list together of lies by George W. Bush. These are not banal lies about one's sex life, these are big lies, whoppers and tall tales about his own record, who he is, what he's done and what he stands for.

1. The Iraq War.

We could really start and end with this one, since this lie has killed and wounded thousands of American soldiers and countless Iraqi men women and children. But this one certainly does not stand alone.

Let's break this out into subcategories as well, such as:

a) The smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud. Iraq didn't even have shitake mushrooms.

b) Saddam would not let the inspectors in. Bush has now made this claim twice. It came as quite a surprise to the hundreds of U.N. inspectors that were in Iraq in 2003 and were told by the U.S. to get out or get bombed.

c) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. All right, I cut them some slack on this one as EVERYONE thought that he still possessed some WMD capability. The difference is that no one else felt that Hussein was any sort of credible military threat to the rest of the region, much less the United States. And, by no one else, I mean C.I.A., the U.N. and anyone else not named Wolfowitz, Rice, Libby, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Pearle.

d) We know exactly where they are. So said Rumsfeld shortly after the war ended. I wonder if he's shared that bit of information with his boss yet?

e) The laundry list. Both Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech and Colin Powell at the United Nations read through a laundry list of horrors that was quantified down to the milliliter. Powell called these charges facts that were unassailable. Yet we have still not found a drop.

f) We believe that, in fact, Saddam Hussein has reconstituted nuclear weapons. Dick Cheney said this on Meet the Press in 2003. Even as Bush and others were careful of going overboard, Dick Goebbels Cheney kept going for not just the Big Lie, but the Grandaddy of them all.

g) Drones that could attack the United States. True, if they were launched from Padre Island. The truth is that little Timmy down the block has a more sophisticated remote control airplane than Saddam did.

h) Yellow cake uranium. The Italian press thought those documents were fake. Let me repeat that: the ITALIAN PRESS thought they were forgeries!

i) We will be welcomed as liberators. Those are bullets, roadside bombs and RPGs, not roses fellas.

j) Imminent? Who said imminent? Well, Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld and others. But, apparently Bush never said the words himself. He just used every other phrase he could think of to scare the crap out of us. And, as a point of order, isn't it the Bush Administration? When someone is speaking for the administration, don't they speak for Bush?

k) Al Qaeda and Saddam had close ties. Well, both he and bin Laden are Sunni Muslims, they both have moustaches and, to quote Cliff Clavin, neither of them have ever been in my kitchen. They must be like brothers.

l) We have found WMDs in Iraq. Bush and others have made this claim regarding an ever so dangerous weather tracking truck.

m) They could have been destroyed by Saddam. Or moved out of the country. I know Bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, but does he even listen to his own staff? David Kay, his hand-picked inspector, said there obviously weren't any weapons in the first place. But, what if Bush is right and they were moved, shipped out of the country? Well, then the whole purpose of the war -- to keep Hussein from giving his WMDs to terrorists -- was a failure. Well, George, which one is it?

I could go on and on, but we've got even more real hardcore, honest to goodness, Grade A lies to address.

2. Taxes (part 1)

Bush has consistently claimed that he is against tax increases. Yet, as Governor, his 1997 tax plan would have forced tens of thousands of business to pay franchise taxes that previously did not have to pay. According to the GOP School of Taxes playbook, that's a tax increase, no if ands or buts about it.

3. Taxes (part 2)

Throughout the 2000 campaign and through 2001, Bush claimed that his mega tax cut for the mega rich was actually a tax cut for the working folks. In fact, he said the vast majority would go to the bottom. As Al Franken has so ably pointed out, by far the vast majority usually means more than 14.7 percent that the bottom 60 percent received. Consider that fuzzy math.

4. Taxes (part 3)

In 2003, Bush claimed his latest sop to the uber-wealthy would create jobs. In fact, the special interest, Rockefeller tax cut was -- in true Orwellian fashion -- named the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. Someone wake me when those 2.6 million jobs Bush promised in 2004 start being created. He needs to create around 300,000 jobs a month through Election Day to reach his pledge.

5. Taxes (part 4)

Bush, who tried to extend taxes to thousands of businesses and not call it a tax increase, now claims that if his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not made permanent, that is a tax increase. Now, remember, the law as written says those taxes automatically phase out if nothing is changed. Bush now says if the law as written -- the law he signed -- is not changed, that is a tax increase.

6. I fulfilled my duty.

He didn't take his flight physical because his doctor was in Houston. The entire National Guard spin is falling apart before our eyes. The facts of the issue have remained the same, but the Bush Team's laughable responses become inoperable by the day. Despite their ever-angrier denials, the issue won't go away. Last Friday night's document dump and run still hasn't answered the key question: where were you during the war, George? At least 1972. You can say it's trolling for trash all you want, but you can't make the issue go away without some proof.

7. I'm a uniter not a divider

Bush's 2000 mantra -- bought hook, line and sinker by much of the media -- was that only he could come to Washington and end the partisan bickering. Within weeks, this proved to be completely untrue. His heavy-handed partisanship even cost him control of the U.S. Senate for a time, as Republican Jim Jeffords bolted the party.

In 2002, Bush showed his unifying skills by saying that Democrats who disagreed with his behemoth vision for the Department of Homeland Security -- a plan he had opposed for nearly a year -- didn't care about the security of the country. You know, guys like Senator Tom Daschle, who was actually a terrorist target. He then thanked Max Cleland and Mary Landrieu for their steadfast support by targeting them and backing opponents who questioned their patriotism and, in Louisiana, sent out mailers to black neighborhoods with the wrong election date.

Well, Bush is a uniter in one way: He has united the Democratic Party like never before, and is driving independents back to the Democratic Party in droves. Please, keep uniting us.

8. The 2004 budget.

From front to back, the latest Bush budget is one of the most fraudulent documents ever created by the U.S. government. Well, at least since the last budget. Like 2003, Bush doesn't count the cost of Iraq or Afghanistan into his fantasy land accounting. He also counts in billions of spending cuts that are flat out pipe dreams that even the GOP won't support. According to the White House, the deficit -- which has gone from hundreds of billions in the black to $518 billon in the red in just three short years -- will be cut in half. This from an administration that has overestimated growth and underestimated projected deficits each year. But, according to George, prosperity truly is just around the corner.

9. I won't run a deficit.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush responded to those who -- quite correctly -- said his voodoo economic plan would drive us right back into the gutter that he would not operate a deficit. He said that he was a governor. I believe in balanced budgets. Yes, the same way kids believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny.

10. I hit the trifecta.

Following our steady plummet back into deficit land, Bush used the handy excuse of the trifecta: war, national emergency and recession. He explained away his past statements that he wouldn't run a deficit by claiming he had made an exception for those three things. Of course, he never actually said that. Paul Begala, Al Franken, Paul Krugman, Joe Conason and others have all reviewed every statement printed during the 2000 campaign and Bush never made any such qualification. Of course, why should we hold them to what he actually said? As Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan's press secretary once said, No it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good.

11. I released all my National Guard records in 2000.

On Meet the Press, Bush once again fell back to his standard behavior when confronted with an uncomfortable subject: he lied his ass off. Four years after reporters first asked him to release his records -- and a nearly a week after he promised to -- Bush finally followed in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy, John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey and Wes Clark and released his full military record.

12. I'm spending less than Bill Clinton.

On Meet the Press, an interview that will go down in history as one of the stupidest decisions Karl Rove has ever made, Bush claimed that government spending has actually dropped under his tenure. Even GOP stalwarts ran away from this one faster than Rush Limbaugh runs to a bowlful of Oxycontins. The truth of the matter is that federal spending has exploded under George W., just as spending exploded in Texas while he was governor. This fella just ain't your daddy's fiscal conservative.

Here is a great quote on Bush's spending:

His dramatic increase in the size and spending of the federal government with a record deficit. With his $2.23 trillion budget, his administration will complete the biggest increase in government spending since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The budget deficit predicted by the House Budget Office will hit a record $306 billion. Spending on government programs increased 22% from 1999 to 2003. A Washington Post report said, The era of big government, if it ever went away, has returned full-throttle under President Bush. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey commented that under President Bush, the federal government is out of control. The source? Liberal media publication Intellectual Conservative in an article entitled Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush, February 15, 2004.

13. Free Trade.

George W. Bush supports free trade. That's why he slapped tariffs on imported steel. Of course, had the potentially affected steel mills been located in New York instead of Pennsylvania -- a state he hopes to win in 2004 -- Bush would still be a pure free trader.

14. Outsourcing.

Last week, the Bush Administration claimed that the outsourcing of high-paying U.S. jobs to other countries is a good thing. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote a report saying exactly that. He then reiterated his belief in the wonderful attributes of Americans losing their jobs at a press briefing on the report. Once again, Republicans are fleeing from this statement as fast as they can. So is George Bush, who immediately ran to Pennsylvania to promise 2.6 million jobs by the end of the year. Unfortunately, Mankiw is Bush's hand-picked employee -- and the president has already signed the report.

As Senator Tom Harkin said: Under George Bush, America has a new #1 export: jobs.

15. No one could have imagined them hijacking airplanes.

Of all the lies, this one might be the most annoying. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice made this claim repeatedly during the summer of 2002. Nevermind that Ramsey Yousef, one of the masterminds of the original attack on the World Trade Center, had his plot to hijack and crash 12 airplanes foiled by U.S. and foreign intelligence agents...in 1995. It was big news then, but apparently didn't make it all the way out to Stanford University. Rice's deceit was completely exposed in 2002 when details of the President's Daily Intelligence Briefing in August 2001 revealed that CIA and other sources warned the administration of just such hijackings. But she is never called on this or other lies when she makes her media rounds.

16. Air Force One was a target.

While everyone remembers and praises Bush's appearance with firefighters in New York City, the White House -- and the press -- conveniently ignore the actual timeline of events. That meeting took place on September 14, 2001. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, the entire New York congressional delegation and, of course, Rudy Gulliani, had been on the scene for days, Rudy and Bill since almost minute one. On September 11, 2001, after he was notified of both the first and second plane crashes, it took nearly an hour for Bush to depart Florida. But, he did not go to Washington, or even make a statement in Florida. No, first he flew to an Air Force Base in Louisiana; then, to the safety of a bunker in Nebraska. He told Americans it was safe, while he was entombed.

Many criticized his absence, most notably Peter Jennings who asked Where is the President. To combat such criticism, the Bush White House claimed that they zig-zagged across the country because of a credible threat against Air Force One. Nearly a year later, they were forced to admit that they had, in fact, received no such threat.

Now, I am not necessarily criticizing Bush's flight itinerary on 9/11/01. Keeping the President safe was the top priority and they rightly took steps to ensure his safety. So why not just say that and be done with it? Why did the White House have to put out another lie to try to make themselves look heroic? Because that's what they do.

17. Bill Clinton pillaged the White House as he walked out the door.

Well, according to the General Accounting Office in yet another investigation that spent our tax dollars, the allegations of looting just weren't true. Was there some damage and pranks? Of course, just as there are in every transition. But widespread damage? No, it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good.

18. Leave No Child Behind.

The president's key education initiative is a well-intentioned attempt to change education in the United States. It could lead to real changes, if Bush had actually funded the plan rather than treat it as a nice photo op to show he really cared.

According to Senator Edward Kennedy, the author of the legislation and Bush's main prop in 2001, in the two years since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, the Bush Administration has cut its funding, reneged on promised resources for better teachers and smaller classes, and worked to divert millions of dollars to private school vouchers... President Bush's new budget for 2005 will leave over 4.6 million children behind. Still pending before Congress is President Bush's 2004 budget which provides schools with over $7.5 billion less than promised in the No Child Left Behind Act. And there is every expectation that the President will propose again not only to cut resources for public school reform, but to divert scarce public education dollars to private schools.

Enough said.

19. Cost of the Medicare Bill.

Oops! They must have forgot to carry the one...or they are just liars. In fall 2003, Bush sold his Medicare budget with some interesting numbers: it would only cost $400 billion over 10 years. Now keep in mind that passage of this plan was in extreme doubt, as Democrats opposed the plan as a joke that would cost too much and do too little, while Republicans complained that, well, it cost way too much. The Bush Team assured everyone that it would cost no more than $400 million and the plan passed the House by a razor thin margin.

Lo and behold, they snookered us again. Just a few months later, the plan now costs $540 billion, with more sure to be added as the plan actually begins the implementation process.

20. Ken Lay.

After the Enron scandal hit full force, Bush tried to downplay his relationship with Ken Lay by saying he gave money to my opponent Ann Richards. Suddenly Lay, whom Bush had previously called Kenny Boy, didn't' ring a bell. Despite the fact that Enron was Bush's #1 contributor from 94-00, the fact that Bush was flown around the campaign trail in 1998 on Lay's private plane, and Lay's status as a Pioneer (and serious contender for Commerce Secretary) Bush and he really weren't that close. Maybe that's why Martha Stewart is on trial and not Ken Lay.

(By the way, does it strike anyone as odd that Martha is being tried for almost exactly what George W. Bush did when he left Harken Energy?)

21. I'm against Nation Building.

Throughout the 2000 campaign, Bush assailed Clinton's successful military forays in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, saying he opposed nation building. Today, see Afghanistan; see Iraq. In fairness, when you look at the deteriorating situations in both countries, it is clear that Bush is not really doing any nation building right now. He has ignored the reconstruction of Afghanistan (famously forgetting to fund it in his 2003 budget. Sorry about that Mr. Karzai!) and he has, to put it diplomatically, completely screwed the pooch in Iraq by ignoring the possible resistance to a U.S. occupation, handing over the reconstruction to corporate cronies like Halliburton and the reigns of power to unpopular sycophants like Ahmed Chalabi. Disaster looms where we can least afford to fail.

22. I remember that sign from the Old West: Wanted Dead or Alive.

Following the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cowboy Bush repeatedly strapped on his star and gave us his best John Wayne impersonation, essentially guaranteeing that we would take out Osama bin Laden. Now, Bush says of capturing bin Laden: I have no idea (Meet the Press, February 8, 2004). What would John Wayne say?

23. We're safer now that Saddam is caught.

Howard Dean was ridiculed for questioning this platitude, but he is right. Hopefully we will be safer, but that outcome is certainly not assured. Not if Iran is stronger in the region and Iraq splits apart, divided into three warring factions, any of which could destabilize Turkey, Syria or Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, scores of Al Qaeda fighters have streamed into Iraq since the war began, an outcome we had sought to avoid by taking Hussein out.

For the present, I think we should ask the boys and girls being shot at if they feel more or less safe since December.

24. I was never arrested after 1972 -- unless you count that DWI. Err, those two DWIs.

Bush reportedly told the Dallas Morning News in 1999 that he was never arrested after 1972. Of course, as we all learned, he was arrested for drunk driving in 1978, with his younger sister and Australian tennis star John Newcombe, in the car. According to NBC News, Bush was also arrested for another DWI in Midland after 1972. Are his arrests the big deal? No, but his constant lying about them sure goes to character, don't you think?

25. I supported the Patient Protection Act.

During the 2000 presidential debates, Bush claimed he supported the Patient Protection Act and the Patient's Bill of Rights. I almost fell on the floor, especially since Al Gore, standing mere feet away, did not call him on one of the most obvious lies in campaign history. This one was actually well-explored by the media, but Gore let this meatball glide harmlessly over the plate without taking the bat off of his shoulder.

The truth is Bush vetoed the Patient Protection Act in 1995 and let the Patient's Bill of Rights -- landmark legislation that became the model for other states and the federal government --become law without his signature. So, if by support you mean opposed and tried to kill, then yes, you supported them.

26. I signed the hate crimes bill.

Another juicy whopper. Now Bush had won re-election mere months before with nearly 70 of the vote. If he wanted a bill passed, he got it. But, Bush ordered his legislative minions to kill the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, less than one year after the most gruesome hate murder of the post-Civil Rights era. The guy who was the leader in killing the bill? State Senator David Sibley (R-Waco), a man who had supported the same legislation just a few years earlier. You might recognize Sibley; he's the guy you see driving Bush's golf cart whenever Bush is back in Crawford playing golf.

27. I want to get to the bottom of the Plame leak.

Following the sliming of Ambassador Joseph Wilson for exposing the Nigerian yellow cake lie, and the outing of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, Bush said it was a very serious matter and that he wanted to get to the bottom of it. But he never ordered his staff to do anything about it. Since very few members of the White House would have had the clearance to even know that Plame was an operative, and even fewer are even allowed to make eye contact with, much less to talk to the media, it shouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to find the culprit here. Instead, he actually lamented that we may never know who did it because Washington is full of leakers. Thankfully, after cajoling from Democrats forced Attorney General John Inspector Clouseau Ashcroft to recuse himself from the investigation, it appears that we may actually discover who is behind this act of treason. Scooter Libby, your lawyer is on the line.

28. I will fight the war on terror.

This claim, unfortunately, is also debatable. Just when we had smoked them out of their holes and got them on the run our intelligence services and our military were forced to change their focus from fighting Al Qaeda to invading Iraq, letting bin Laden off the hook. In addition, despite numerous reports on the vulnerability of our ports, little has been done to make them more secure from terrorism. Also, despite a serious congressional study, media scrutiny and an on-going non-partisan investigation, little has changed regarding how our intelligence is gathered and analyzed to avoid making the same mistakes. In fact, little has changed beyond making several bureaucracies into one huge bureaucracy under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security. And, in perhaps the most bizarre example of sleeping at the wheel, the 2004 Bush budget offers no funding for biothreat detection at Post Offices. This after the White House said they foiled a mail attack to the White House last year and days before Ricin was mailed to Senator Bill Cat Murderer Frist's office.

Well, that's my list. Please add to it, as it is far from all-inclusive.

people can take anything out of context and do with it what they want; it still doesn't make it a McCain/Palin issue.

Some would see this as political from the get-go.  They would read this and dismiss it saying, oh those stupid Republicans.  It has not penetrated some of their conscious or subconscious thinking that there really is more to this than politics.  The stakes are more than high.  Historically, Muslims spread Islam barbarically and without mercy and were ony stopped from taking Europe by the Crusades.  They are ready to spread again, only this time, it is the United States they have their eyes on.  I found this article that I believe illustrates not only what will happen, but has a good understanding of what is happening now.

Preventing a Premature Exit From Iraq
By Ed Feulner
CNSNews.com Commentary
October 19, 2006

BAGHDAD (Jan. 21, 2009) -- Iraq's bloody civil war worsened today, when 10,000 heavily armed troops from the Shiite state of Shiastan pushed north from Najaf and Rumaythah. The attack threatened to trap three battalions of U.S.-backed Sunnis in the region.

The latest round of fighting has triggered a new wave of refugees into Kuwait and Jordan, the United Nations reported today. Millions of Iraqis have fled the country since American troops pulled out in 2006, a controversial withdrawal that al Qaeda celebrates as a watershed victory.

Word of today's offensive pushed crude oil prices to $210 per barrel, a new record, certain to cause problems for the newly inaugurated American president ...

All right, enough with the doom and gloom. The preceding paragraphs are fiction, but they reflect what's likely to happen if the United States pulls out of Iraq before the country is stabilized and able to function on its own. Unfortunately, some of our politicians want to do exactly that.

We believe that a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq should begin before the end of 2006, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter both signed in August. Even if our task there remains unfinished?

As President Bush put it on Oct. 11, when you pull out before the job is done, that's cut and run as far as I'm concerned. And that's cut and run as far as most Americans are concerned.

Heritage Foundation experts James Carafano and James Phillips explained in a recent paper what's likely to happen if we withdraw quickly. Such a shortsighted U.S. policy would be a severe blow to the Iraqi security situation, Iraqi oil exports, U.S. allies in the region, the global war against terrorism and the future of all Iraqis, they write.

If we leave now, we'd leave the Iraqi army (with all its heavy weapons) up for grabs. That's likely to spark a civil war, as soldiers align themselves into religious and regional militias.

Under that scenario, we can expect Iran -- already a regional power -- to support the Shiite Muslims in the south, a move that would give Tehran control of most of Iraq's oil. Not that this would necessarily keep the oil flowing; as the civil war escalated, guerrillas would cut pipelines and blow up oil wells.

Right now, Iraq produces 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, and the country's government aims to increase that to 2.7 MBD by year's end. If production is disrupted, though, worldwide prices would skyrocket.

If we cut and run, Iraqi civilians would be the biggest losers. Millions would flee the starvation, disease and destruction that civil war brings. Meanwhile, al Qaeda would tout its role in forcing the U.S. out, providing a huge recruiting boom for the terrorist group.

This doesn't mean we should stay indefinitely. As they say, there are only two exit strategies from any war: A country can win and go home, or it can lose and go home. Either way, all our troops eventually will exit Iraq. What really matters is what they leave behind.

We've made progress in Iraq, and we'll continue to do so. Many of al Qaeda's senior leaders have been killed or captured and the group's popularity among the Iraqis is low. We need to keep training Iraqi forces and preparing them to stand on their own.

In the long run, only Iraqis can assure the success of Iraq. But if, in the short run, we cut and run, we guarantee failure -- for them and for us. We can avoid the bleak future outlined above. But we must steel our resolve to get the job done right.

(Ed Feulner is the president of The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute.

* I don't know what *9/11 perps* you are talking about, but I don't think anyone has gone free.*

'Dr. Germ,' Others Released in Iraq

Monday, December 19, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq — About 24 top former officials in Saddam Hussein's regime, including a biological weapons expert known as Dr. Germ, have been released from jail, while a militant group released a video Monday of the purported killing of an American hostage.

The first results of Thursday's parliamentary election were released, with officials saying the Shiite religious bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, got about 58 percent of the votes from 89 percent of ballot boxes counted in Baghdad province.

Across Iraq, meanwhile, demonstrations broke out to protest a government decision to raise the price of gasoline, heating and cooking fuel, and the oil minister threatened to resign over the development.

An Iraqi lawyer said the 24 or 25 officials from Saddam's government were released from jail without charges, and some have already left the country.

The release was an American-Iraqi decision and in line with an Iraqi government ruling made in December 2004, but hasn't been enforced until after the elections in an attempt to ease the political pressure in Iraq, said the lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref.

Among them were Rihab Taha, a British-educated biological weapons expert, who was known as Dr. Germ for her role in making bio-weapons in the 1980s, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, known as Mrs. Anthrax, a former top Baath Party official and biotech researcher, Aref said.

Because of security reasons, some of them want to leave the country, he said. He declined to elaborate, but noted some have already left Iraq today.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, would say only that eight individuals formerly designated as high-value detainees were released Saturday after a board process found they were no longer a security threat and no charges would be filed against them.

Neither the U.S. military or Iraqi officials would disclose any of the names, but a legal official in Baghdad said Taha and Ammash were among those released.

The official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said those released also included Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of the weapons inspections directorate, and Aseel Tabra, an Iraqi Olympic Committee official under Odai Saddam Hussein, the former leader's son.

The video from the extremist group The Islamic Army of Iraq was posted on a Web site and showed a man purportedly being shot in the back of the head. Last week, the group had claimed it had killed civilian contractor Ronald Allen Schulz, a native of North Dakota.

The video did not show the victim's face, however, and it was impossible to identify him. The victim was kneeling with his back to the camera, with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded with an Arab headdress when he was purportedly shot. The video also showed Schulz's identity card.

A separate video, shown on a split screen, showed images of Schulz alive. The group had aired that video when he was first taken hostage earlier this month.

Schulz has been identified by the extremist group as a security consultant for the Iraqi Housing Ministry, although family and neighbors from his current home in Alaska, say he is an industrial electrician who has worked on contracts around the world.

Schulz served in the Marine Corps from 1984 to 1991. He moved to Alaska six years ago, and friends and family say he is divorced.

The German government, meanwhile, said kidnappers had freed a German aid worker and archaeologist taken hostage with her driver in northern Iraq more than three weeks ago. Susanne Osthoff, 43, was reported in good condition at the German Embassy in Baghdad. It was unclear whether Osthoff's Iraqi driver had also been freed.

The military said a U.S. Marine was killed by small arms fire Sunday in the town of Ramadi, in central Iraq. The death brought to 2,156 the number of U.S. service members killed since the start of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In other violence Monday, a suicide car bomb exploded outside a children's hospital in western Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 11, including seven police, officials said. Police believe the bomb had targeted a convoy carrying a police colonel, who was among the injured.

In western Baghdad, gunmen attacked the convoy of Deputy Baghdad Gov. Ziad Tariq, killing three civilians and wounding three of his bodyguards, police said. Tariq was not injured.

Iraqi soldiers on Monday began Operation Moonlight, which the U.S. military described as the first large-scale operation planned and executed by soldiers of the Iraqi 1st Brigade. The mission's aim is to disrupt insurgent activity along the Euphrates River near the border with Syria.

There are five Iraqi Army companies and one U.S. Marine company taking part in the operation, said Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool.

With 89 percent of the ballot boxes counted in Baghdad province — Iraq's largest district — preliminary results showed the United Iraqi Alliance received 1,403,901 votes, or about 58 percent, while the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance party got 451,782 votes, and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National List with 327,174 votes, the electoral commission said.

The commission did not say how many people voted in Baghdad province or provide further details. Baghdad is Iraq's biggest electoral district with 2,161 candidates running for 59 of the 275 seats in Iraq's parliament.

Results from southern Basra province, also mixed but predominantly Shiite, saw the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance significantly ahead, winning 612,206 votes with 98 percent of ballot boxes counted. The list headed by Allawi, a secular Shiite, was in second with 87,134 votes, while the Sunni accordance party trailed with 36,997 votes.

Kurdish parties were overwhelmingly ahead in their three northern provinces.

In a speech Sunday, President Bush praised the vote and warned against a pullout of U.S. forces. He said the election would not end violence but means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror. He also warned that a U.S. troop pullout would signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word.

The fuel prices were raised Sunday — some as much as nine times — to curb a growing black market, Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

A gallon of imported and super gasoline in Iraq was raised to about 68 cents, but Iraqis were upset by the fivefold increase. The price of locally produced gas was raised to about 48 cents per gallon, a sevenfold increase.

In Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, police fired into the air to disperse the hundreds of protesters who had gathered in front of the provincial government headquarters. The demonstrators, however, didn't leave, and scuffles broke out with police.

Drivers blocked roads and set tires on fire near fuel stations in the southern city of Basra, and hundreds demonstrated outside the governor's headquarters to protest the increases.

Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said when the Cabinet raised prices, it also decided that the extra money would be used to support more than 2 million low-income families. Some aid money was supposed to reach the families before the increases, but that didn't happen, he said.

Dr. Ibrahim will submit his resignation to the Iraqi government if the situation continues as is, he said, referring to himself. We should take in consideration the living conditions and the economic situation of the citizens.

Iraq's oil minister has previously said that cheap domestic fuel prices had encouraged smuggling to other countries. Iraq's government has continued Saddam's practice of heavily subsidizing fuel prices.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,179103,00.html

SLide show with music, worth watching.  The song is also one of my favorites.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8199.htm

for a $500,000 contribution to the RNC.

Do you really think the government will give us worse insurance than the for-profit insurers are doing now?   Really???

I'm sick of paying something for nothing - after all the deductibles, out of pocket charges, copays and disallowed claims - that's pretty much what we get.  I'd rather take the money I pay in premiums to a greedy corporation who will refuse to pay a cent when the time comes I need them - and pay it in taxes for a free healtchare plan.  At least everybody would be in the same boat, with no nasty surprises.

healthcare for myself.  I want free or more affordable cost healthcare for American children.  My children are already covered.  My husband has worked for the same company for over 12 years, and he has decent insurance.  You are impossible to argue with because you refuse to admit that we can afford $333 MILLION PER DAY FOR A WAR IN IRAQ, AND WE CAN AFFORD $19 MILLION PER DAY FOR CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE.  How are your taxes going to be raised to 70% of your income for the health care?  Have they been raised that high for the war?  NO, so your argument is not valid.

I discovered this web site a couple weeks ago and have been finding it rather humerous.  It's has a liberal slant, but seems to hang more on government watch.  Enjoy!

http://www.dailykos.com/