"The Awful Grace of God"

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." --Aeschylus (Robert Kennedy's favorite poem--recited when he announced the assassination of MLK)

"Rage, Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ Son Achilles…hurling down to the House of Death so many souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion for the dogs and birds….(
from Bill Moyer's "The Poetry of War"

Jimmy Carter Speaks Truth to Power: Israel and Palestine

Iraqi Sunnis: "Desperate, fearful and impoverished"

Ban on procreative freedom...And America 20 years from now...if the Republican Right gets back in Power.

Tribute To A Pubic Servant

Olbermann Does George on Vietnam

Ship of Fools: Jumpin Ship

"Few of the original promoters of the war have grown as disenchanted as Adelman. The chief of Reagan's arms control agency, Adelman has been close to Cheney and Rumsfeld for decades and even worked for Rumsfeld at one point. As a member of the Defense Policy Board, he wrote in The Washington Post before the Iraq war that it would be "a cakewalk."

But in interviews with Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and The Post, Adelman said he became unhappy about the conduct of the war soon after his ebullient night at Cheney's residence in 2003. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction disturbed him. He said he was disgusted by the failure to stop the looting that followed Hussein's fall and by Rumsfeld's casual dismissal of it with the phrase "stuff happens." The breaking point, he said, was Bush's decision to award Medals of Freedom to occupation chief L. Paul Bremer, Gen. Tommy R. Franks and then-CIA Director George J. Tenet.

"The three individuals who got the highest civilian medals the president can give were responsible for a lot of the debacle that was Iraq," Adelman said. All told, he said, the Bush national security team has proved to be "the most incompetent" of the past half-century. But, he added, 'Obviously, the president is ultimately responsible.'"

What We Now Know: One of the Trinity is Gone: Two More To Go!

MORE PROOF THAT MOST EVANGELICALS LACK BOTH MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY.

“It looks like the white evangelical base of the Republican Party pretty much held firm,” said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said. “The white evangelicals did show up, and they did vote Republican.”

oops! Who's Covering My Ass?

An amazing quote from Rumsfeld:

"Rumsfeld's account yesterday in the Oval Office of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan might also stand as his defense of his record: "The first war of the 21st century . . . is not well known, it was not well understood. It is complex for people to comprehend."

_______Really means: "The first war of the 21st century . . . I don't understand, it was not well understood. It is complex for me to comprehend."

Another great Rumsfeldian quote:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me," Rumsfeld said, "because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

He said, "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
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LET THE CANNABALISM BEGIN! from The Raw Story

"Conservative activist Richard Viguerie has released a statement that blasts the GOP's Congressional leadership in the wake of the loss of both the House and Senate.

"Every single member of the Republican leadership in the House should be replaced," says Viguerie. "They have failed the conservatives who put them in office, and they have failed the people of this country."

Viguerie attacks what he desribes as "the Big Business wing of the Republican Party" and urges GOP leaders to "get out of the way, and let a new generation of young, principled conservatives take their place," according to the release.

"Congressional Republicans should move as fast as they can to distance themselves from the Bush White House," says Viguerie. "That's the only way to come back from this disaster."

Excerpts from the press release follow...

"Yesterday's mid-term elections were a referendum on George W. Bush and his war on Iraq. Voters couldn't vote to fire Bush, so they did the next best thing -- they fired his party, in the House, in the Senate, in the statehouses around the Nation."

...

"This election," Viguerie said, "was also a referendum on the so-called 'neoconservatives' -- the Big Government Republicans who took us into a nation-building war while they busted the budget and enriched Big Business and its K Street lobbyists."

Viguerie said, "The only thing Denny Hastert & Company cared about was holding onto power. That's what led them to become Kings of Pork. That's what led them to protect the likes of Mark Foley."

MAJORITIES FAVOR SMALLER GOVERNMENT, TRADITIONAL VALUES: "One thing this election was NOT is a repudiation of conservatism. The twin pillars of conservatism -- smaller government and traditional values -- have the support of the same voters who threw out the Republican Congress.""
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Civil War

Civil War: in Iraq and America

If the government does not change on Nov. 7, it means it cannot change by peaceful, democratic means. The scary solution: Revolution.

Neo-Con Culpa and "the medicine"

Neo-Cons are jumping the ship of fools--Vanity Fair

SHIP OF FOOLS! A Magazine of Christian Unrest.

Review: "Naked Republicans: A Full Frontal Exposure of Right-wing Hypocrisy and Greed..."

“Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” — Tom Delay

“I don’t think people understand quite what motivates political giving anyway. Believe it or not, the main thing that motivates it is friendships, I think.” —Rep. John Doolittle, on taking money from Jack Abramoff

"Gay marriage should be between a man and a woman." — Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

“I did everything but drink the bong water.” — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, on Politically Incorrect

“Nobody likes beheadings.” — President George W. Bush on TV images of Iraq War, March 20th 2006

“I’ve been to Europe once. I don’t have to go again.” — Rep. Dick Armey

“It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.”
— Rick Santorum, author, It Takes a Family

Ouch! Jon, the Price of Oil, God is Gay!

Oil Price Manipulation and the Elections:

I wondered why no news outlets had picked this up in Woodward's book:

"Something Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said two years ago while prices were going higher sends chills: "They could go down very quickly. That's the Saudis' pledge." According to Woodward, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, "told President Bush that the Saudis would cut oil prices to ensure a strong economy for Election Day." This prediction has come to fruition."
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CHECK OUT THESE ENVIRONMENTAL RECORDS FOR REP. CONGRESSMAN:

"Committee chairs often have 'horrific' records on science, matters they oversee."
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...MORE SCARY STUFF FROM SCIENCE...OUR CANNIBALISM CATCHING UP WITH US: "Report Warns of ‘Global Collapse’ of Fishing"..BY 2048!!
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WHAT WOULD IT REALLY TAKE TO HARPOON THIS WHALE?

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MORE STATE OF DENIAL!
Evangelical leader quits after gay sex allegation
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...and more Bushiting...
Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office

"Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation."