Archive for the 'Iran' Category

GEORGE BUSH IS GETTING NUTTIN’ FOR CHRISTMAS, CAUSE HE’S DONE BEEN CAUGHT IN A LIE, YOUTUBE VIDEO.

Jim Pence December 6th, 2007

Bush turning away from Britain, with its significant military force, and embracing France and Germany

Matt Gunterman October 3rd, 2007

Circumstances are so bad for the administration of Pres. George W. Bush these days that the White House is trying to spin into good news the fact that the UK under Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pulling its troop presence out of Iraq by saying, essentially, ‘that’s fine, now we have France and Germany on our side to replace them.’

Yes, indeed. All that moral support that France and Germany can offer us is surely a worthy replacement for the thousands of troops and billions of dollars that the UK invested in Bush’s militaristic whims.

From the British right-wing rag the Daily Telegraph:

Britain ‘no longer closest Bush ally’

By Toby Harnden in Washington

The White House no longer views Britain as its most loyal ally in Europe since Gordon Brown took office and is instead increasingly turning towards France and Germany, according to Bush administration sources.

“There’s concern about Brown,” a senior White House foreign policy official told The Daily Telegraph. “But this is compensated by the fact that Paris and Berlin are much less of a headache. The need to hinge everything on London as the guarantor of European security has gone.”

[...]

The White House official added that Britain would always be “the cornerstone” of US policy towards Europe but there was “a lot of unhappiness” about how British forces had performed in Basra and an acceptance that Mr Brown would pull the remaining 4,500 troops out of Iraq next year.

“Operationally, British forces have performed poorly in Basra,” said the official. “Maybe it’s best that they leave. Now we will have a clear field in southern Iraq.” Another White House official described Mr Brown as “challenging” and far less close to the US than Mr Blair.

[...]

A British diplomatic source said: “In the White House there’s a sense of enormous change from Blair. They used to be on the phone to Blair all the time and that’s no longer the case because Brown clearly wants to be the unBlair.

“At the Pentagon, there’s a feeling that Britain is letting the side down on Iraq. The new best friend is Sarkozy and that means Brown taking a step back doesn’t matter as much. In White House eyes, Sarkozy is taking up the slack from Blair. “When things get tough, however, they’re likely to turn to Britain again.”

Hawpe: Is this a little selective outrage from the McConnell Corner?

Matt Gunterman September 26th, 2007

The Courier-Journal’s David Hawpe throws Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) to the mat this morning. The national spotlight of being Minority Leader is revealing McConnell’s fecklessness and his utter disregard for the people he was elected to serve. McConnell sold the peoples’ government to the corporations all to get his name in the history books. In a bit of cosmic justice, he will inherit in those history books the legacy he deserves: as an influence-monger, money-grubber, and hyper-partisan who corrupted and paralyzed the nation’s government.

Is this a little selective outrage from the McConnell Corner?

What utter hypocrisy.

Where were the Republicans in the U.S. Senate when a 2002 GOP television ad trashed Democrat Max Cleland, who lost both arms and a leg in a Vietnam grenade blast?

Those ads, aired by then-Rep. Saxby Chambliss, used photos of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to bolster false claims that Cleland was soft on homeland security.

Where was the GOP outcry against that smear?

Where, in particular, was Sen. Mitch McConnell, who this week orchestrated a Senate vote condemning the stupid and unfair MoveOn.Org newspaper ad that asked, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

McConnell and his GOP caucus filibustered a Democratic alternative that also denounced the disgusting GOP attacks on triple-amputee Cleland and the 2004 Swift-boating of Sen. John Kerry.

When MoveOn.Org published its ad in The New York Times, the Republican stampede to grab the public relations opportunity was thunderous.

Most Democrats and virtually all Republicans have denounced the ad. The public relations firm that worked with MoveOn.Org on it, Fenton Communications, should give back any fee it charged.

A Senate vote quickly was scheduled, for the purpose of putting Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton on record defending the ad.

The New York Times, not content with having harbored reporter Judith Miller and having published her botched journalism, which helped supply false justification for the Bush-Cheney war-of-choice in Iraq, also botched the MoveOn.org ad placement request. Ombudsman Clark Hoyt said the copy violated the Times’ own standards. A spokesman conceded the Times gave MoveOn.org an undeserved price break.

The American right must be giddy with glee.

I’m sure our senior senator, Minority Leader McConnell, is.

Never mind that he is supposed to be a champion of free speech.

I’ve consistently defended McConnell from the attacks of those who don’t like his opposition to a constitutional amendment that would ban flag burning. He says even speech that hateful should be permitted, and I agree with him.

Yet he presides over the condemnation of MoveOn.org’s effort to speak out against the war.

Oh, you say MoveOn.org’s “Petraeus/Betray Us?” ad was too personal. It attacked a fine man with a fine record.

Need I recall McConnell’s “hound dog” campaign commercials, which viciously attacked a fine man, Dee Huddleston, with a fine public record, who was serving honorably in the U.S. Senate? Yes, the ads were funny — very funny — but only because they mocked Huddleston and reduced him to a figure of fun.

I consistently have defended McConnell’s right to use those commercials, because I think they got at a real issue — Huddleston’s lack of visibility. I won’t defend false and outrageous TV spots, but it’s true, as the senator says, that when mud thrown in a campaign sticks, it usually sticks for a reason.

What really bothers me about the MoveOn.org resolution is the double standard.

It’s OK for the Republicans to savage the reputation of Max Cleland, a veteran who gave two arms and a leg in Vietnam, and won the Silver Star, but it’s not OK for MoveOn.org to attack David Petraeus?

Hillary Clinton voted against the politically inspired resolution condemning MoveOn.org. Good for her.

She understands that the “values” we’re supposed to be installing at the point of a gun in Iraq include freedom of speech — the right to engage in pointed political protest.

Her colleague Barack Obama called the Senate resolution “empty politics,” but when it came time to vote he took a walk.

Shame on him.

As for McConnell, it’s too bad he and other Senate leaders, who set the priorities and oversee the progress of legislation, have time for political stunts like this, but can’t find time, for example, to fix a broken American health care system.

McConnell should listen to Ahmadinejad; they speak the same language of hate and delusion

Matt Gunterman September 25th, 2007

Our Senator Mitch McConnell (R) always has his finger on the pulse of the nation. After all, why — on a day when Kentucky GM workers went on nationwide strike for the first time in over a generation to decry loss of job security and benefits, and GM bosses insisted that the government needs to do something about the health care crisis in the nation (health care cost GM $5.2 billion in 2005) — why worry about that health care crisis [and McConnell certainly doesn't as he's busy obstructing expanded health care to American children] when you’ve got a premier American university to criticize.

McConnell lashed out yesterday at Columbia University’s decision to allow Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R?) to speak to the student body. Of course, in introducing Ahmadinejad, the president of the university called him a “petty and cruel dictator,” and the audience laughed at his ludicrous claims.

However, Ahmadinejad had a lot to say to American conservatives. After all, the Iranian leader repeated no fewer than three times that his country didn’t suffer from the twin plagues of homosexuals and homosexuality.

Isn’t homosexuality one of the chief threats to the United States in the eyes of Republicans? Isn’t this lifestyle choice a sign of moral decay and the rot of empire? Didn’t the Roman empire fall because its soldiers were too busy engaged in homosexual acts to defend themselves from invading hordes?

If Iran has eliminated homosexuality from its borders, then perhaps Mitch McConnell and other Republicans should approach what Ahmadinejad has to say with an open mind. Perhaps they should think harder about what true theocracy is and whether their preferred Christian faith is simply inferior to Islam.

Think long and hard, Mitch.

Hell, Hast Thou Frozen Over?

Terri Whitehouse June 27th, 2007

Laurie Kellman of the AP reports:

The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush’s warrant-free eavesdropping program.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.

The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.

Oy! Executive immunity, anyone?

Addendum: Nope, that didn’t take long at all!

Deep Breaths. Deep Breaths.

Terri Whitehouse May 24th, 2007

Congress is not issuing a blank check to continue funding the Iraq War, we are totally not going to war with Iran, and I am not cynical.