Stax

I wanna listen to stax all weekend!

Senator John Edwards on the South:

"'We've never elected a Democrat in the United States without winning at least five Southern states,' Edwards said. 'If Democrats across the country want to take a risk that for the first time in American history that's a possibility, then they can do that.'"

Edwards is making a quick $top in MS again this week.

Givers and Takers or WHAT A BUNCH OF DAMN HYPOCRITS!

Every few years i see this study telling where our tax dollars go. usually its in Time or Newsweek with this big map showing what each state pays in Federal Taxes and what the state yields in federal dollars spent there in return. We in Mississippi usually get $1.72 for ever dollar spent, which makes the 'get the guvmint outta our bidness' folks seem a little disingenuous (much like VP Cheney's claim that the Gov't. didn't have anything to do with his fortunes...um, so Haliburton HATES Gov't. contracts?).

Anyway this article sheds even more light on the nature of the "small government republican states" and the "big government democrat leaning states". basically, we dems subsidize the GOP'ers sense of independance with our federal dollars and we don't even get a thank you! see the giver vs. the taker states:

78 percent of Mr. Bush's electoral votes came from Taker states.

76 percent of Mr. Gore's electoral votes came from Giver states.

Of the 33 Taker states, Mr. Bush carried 25.

Of the 16 Giver states, Mr. Gore carried 12.

Republicans seem to have become the new welfare party — their constituents live off tax dollars paid by people who vote Democratic. Of course, not all federal spending is wasteful. But Republicans are having their pork and eating it too. Voters in red states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are some of the country's fiercest critics of government, yet they're also among the biggest recipients of federal largess. Meanwhile, Democratic voters in the coastal blue states — the ones who are often portrayed as shiftless moochers — are left to carry the load.


Question: how do you win over voters in states that are willing to tell themselves they don't need the government, but grab government dollars any way they can?

Answer: You vote for GOP'ers that rail against liberal "tax-and-spend" democrats yet somehow manage to bring in less revenue and spend more tax dollars (see Bush 1 & 2).

How do you win if you are a Democrat?

...lots of work my friend. lots of work.

The Dead Center

Great article on the Dems trouble getting the middle class:

It has a system for recruiting and electing officials nationwide who share the same world view and who will vote accordingly. And it has a coherent ideology uniting evangelical Christians, blue-collar whites in the South and West, and big business — an ideology in which foreign enemies, domestic poverty and crime, and homosexuality all must be met with strict punishment and religious orthodoxy.

In contrast, the Democratic Party has had no analogous movement to animate it. Instead, every four years party loyalists throw themselves behind a presidential candidate who they believe will deliver them from the rising conservative tide.

The biggest losses for Democrats since 1980 have not been among suburban voters but among America's giant middle and working classes — especially white workers without four-year college degrees, once part of the old Democratic base. Not incidentally, these are the same people who have lost the most economic ground over the last quarter-century.

Great comments from | span |

On dean this week:
Here’s a good idea of something NOT to do:

Admit you are very cash-strapped, pull every ad in states holding a primary next Tuesday, and then say you don’t need those states.

QUESTION

I was talking to Gorj last night, and he brought up a great point. Who the hell likes John Kerry?

Let me say right now that Gorj and I both prefer dean, clark, and edwards over kerry.

Now all bias aside, who LIKES this guy? Gorj is a democrat, former campaign manager and worker, and he has never met one person ANYWHERE that's a Kerry supporter. I haven't either. Now i realize we live in the South and that shapes things some, but how in the hell does he get to be the 'front runner' and i never meet one supporter? i've been in Democratic politics since my teens! hell, i can even name kucinich supporters!

Who are theses masses, and what the hell are they doing to my party?!

In Case You Missed It.

the White House's own chief detective searching for weapons of mass destruction has said that Iraq has no WMD and did not have them in the build up to our invasion. MANY CIA operatives have spoken out about the exclusive use of bad intelligence and the avoidance of contrary intelligence so that the White House could build the case for war. at least one of these agents has had their cover blown (Agent Valerie Plame anyone?).

Lately the White House's movement has been made to move the talk away from Weapons themselves to "weapons related program activites."

Have no doubt in your mind, this war was built on misleading the nation and the attempt to connect iraq to 9/11. if you are unsure, read below and tell me what you think:

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
- White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
- President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
- President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
- President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
- Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
- President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
- President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
- Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. They not only have weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction...That's why I say Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
- President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
- President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
- President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
- President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
- President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
- President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
- President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
- President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
- President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
- President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02
---------------------------------

So, when do we impeach him?

SPOILER!

OK, its over. Joe Lieberman is officially a 'spoiler'. a guy that has clearly no chance but stays in the race to take votes and money from other candidates that actually MAY have a chance at winning. come on joe. take your ball and go home.

Dean Slows Down (or starts doing what everyone else is doing).

Seems the Dean campaign is losing some steam and having to pinch pennies. Dean is now going against his previous pledge to 'be everywhere'...and that's fine. he's going to have a presence, but he will not campaign full strength everywhere, he will concentrate on large delegate states, which he HAS TO DO now to win.

Some have commented on how/why this 'DC outsider' dropped his famed campaign Mgr Joe Trippi in favor of Al Gore's Roy Neel. some are clearly upset with this--the idea of ditching Trippi who built him up or getting ANYBODY that was on w/ Gore involved--but i wonder if he had to do it. If the old Dean method is not working (get the masses of young voters and those left out of 'bush's america' to the polls), if that groundswell of angry liberals is not there....you have to chane it up. As i've mentioned here before, that seems to be the WHOLE idea from Joe Trippi.

The problem is that its been about connecting people over the net and talking about this idea, all of which has raised a lot of money. this ignores the fact that your supporters are spread out in states away from the primaries, unable to vote. sure they can stoke the fires but that's the PRESS and newspapers don't vote. i think this may be necessary, but i'm not certain getting some of that election winning, Al Gore magic is the angle to take. we'll see. the gig is likely up in 2 weeks anyway.

the wyeth wire

blog of southern (dem) politics.

New Hampshire

My take on New Hampshire....
NOTE: greatly cut from various things i wrote elsewhere today. i ramble here. forgive me.

Kerry--Looks good, but NH and IA have BARELY ever been indicators of the final winner, however they are important, especially in this year's compacted schedule.

i think the conventional wisdom is to believe its a virtual tie btw Edwards and Clark for 3rd. it will not be easy for them from this point, but i'm just not convinced its over yet for any of the top 4. Dean has the $$. Kerry has the momentum. Clark and Edwards are out of their home base, but coming back to it. they also have the money to make a fight when they get there.

look at the number of minority voters in these 2 states compared to what's coming up.
look at the success rate of NH winners since '72. then look at the IA winners since '76.
Hell, NH has picked the Dem Nominee correctly 3 times in the last 52 years. (not including times when a dem was in the white house already)
Personally, I don't mind if we aren't sewed up yet.

I should point out that I'm not a Kerry fan, so maybe i'm clinging to something here. i find him slightly more inspiring than Lieberman (whom i assume is dead--literally a corpse). that along with the track record of NH rarely predicting candidates (or winners for that matter) make me wanna say HOLD ON!

Dems have wanted SOMEONE outta the crowded field of 10 for a long time now. The MEDIA...my word! they have pretty much said it's all over for anyone that's not the flavor of the moment. they want to call it now, for somebody...anybody. they want this so badly that its beyond reality and has long shaped the coverage. Again, look at these 4. they can all withstand 3 more weeks. we get out of New England and we see who can keep it up. it may 2/10 before we really know for certain.

Clark is not out. everyone keeps talking about SC, which IS important to Clark and Edwards (And dean plays like crap there), BUT don’t forget about Missouri and Oklahoma. Both are neighboring states to Clark’s Native Ark. I say all 3 of those have to go down before we see the real race (and we will see clark fall, if he does not survive/succeed there).
also note that Clinton was the “comeback kid” after a THIRD in N.H., so…despite the compacted schedule, its not over yet…as well it shouldn’t be. I do not believe that IA and NH are good reads on who wins the general election.

CNN.com - Candidates trade jabs as New Hampshire votes - Jan. 27, 2004

Been looking at the NH stuff and i'm kinda shocked at the number of sites using John Edwards' picture for their general photos alongside the article. not a bad thing at all. The General gets some in there too, but Edwards has the most...

AGAIN, so good i had to post it all...

WEEKLY REVIEW

[Image: Silver-spangled Hamburgs, 1890.]

David Kay, the outgoing head of the Iraq Survey Group, said
that Iraq got rid of its illegal weapons programs years
before the United States invaded. Kay made it clear that the
United Nations weapons-inspection process had succeeded in
disarming Iraq and said the Iraqis had been reduced to
experimenting with ricin, a primitive but deadly poison
easily made from fermented castor beans; Kay also said that
the CIA had completely misread the situation in Iraq,
largely because the agency had no on-the-ground spies after
the U.N. inspectors were removed. More than 100,000 Iraqis
filled the streets of Baghdad in a march supporting the
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in his demand for direct
elections; thousands also marched in Basra, Najaf, and
Kerbala demanding that Saddam Hussein be turned over to the
Iraqi people to stand trial. Skepticism was growing that the
United States will succeed in handing power over to an Iraqi
client regime before the presidential election, and the head
of the occupying authority's Tribal Affairs Bureau admitted
that he had been relying on a 1918 British report in his
attempts to make sense of local politics. President George
W. Bush made his State of the Union address just one day
after the Iowa caucuses and appealed to voters to reelect
him so that he could continue to wage war on terror.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on the United States and its
allies to confess that the conquest of Iraq was wrong. Vice
President Dick Cheney defended Halliburton, which continues
to pay him a salary, from what he said were "desperate
attacks" by opponents of the Bush Administration. "They're
rendering great service," he said. "They do it because
they're good at it, because they won the contract to do it.
And frankly the company takes a certain amount of pride in
rendering this kind of service to U.S. military forces."
Halliburton, which received most of its Iraq contracts by
administrative fiat rather than through a competitive
bidding process, admitted that its employees in Iraq have
accepted $6.3 million in kickbacks. People at the
Conservative Political Action Conference were grumbling that
President Bush's fiscal policies, which have led to giant
budget deficits, have been anything but conservative; they
also denounced the USA Patriot Act and complained that
"big-government Republicans," who seem to think government
is the solution rather than the problem, have been too busy
"baby-sitting the nanny state."

Republican staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee
were still under investigation for improperly infiltrating
Democratic computers and reading strategy memos, which were
then leaked to the press. Several computers, including a
server from Senator Bill Frist's office, have been
confiscated by the Senate's Sergeant-at-Arms. An expert
panel that was asked to review a Pentagon-funded Internet
voting system declared that the system was fundamentally
flawed. "Using a voting system based on the Internet," said
one of the experts, "poses a serious and unacceptable risk
for election fraud." The Pentagon nonetheless said that it
"stands by" the program, which will be used in several
primaries this year. "We feel it's right on," said a
spokesman, "and we're going to use it." Newly released
documents revealed that the U.S. Census Bureau gave
information on millions of Americans to NASA for a study on
the feasibility of mining such data to look for potential
terrorists, and it was reported that American intelligence
officials have compiled a list of five million potential
terrorists worldwide. President Pervez Musharraf admitted
that some of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists had sold
nuclear technology to other countries but denied that the
government was involved; Musharraf was accused of
scapegoating the scientists to appease the United States.
Art Garfunkel got busted with pot. Russian soldiers rescued
10 tons of beer kegs that became trapped under the ice of a
frozen Siberian river; after divers from the Ministry of
Emergency Situations failed to dislodge the kegs, a T-72
tank saved the day. Senator John Kerry won the Iowa
caucuses. Howard Dean decided to tone down his campaign
persona after the media became alarmed at his "nutty" Iowa
concession speech. There was speculation that Israeli prime
minister Ariel Sharon might soon be indicted for taking
bribes. A Mexican man reportedly hacked open his father's
head with a machete, drank his blood, and then ate his
brains.

The European Mars Express mission made the first direct
measurement of ice on Mars; a second American Mars rover,
called Opportunity, landed on the planet; and new research
suggested that astronauts sent to Mars might be paralyzed by
the prolonged lack of gravity. Scientists found that the
Ebola virus can spread from dead animals such as gorillas to
human beings, and genetic analysis suggested that the five
recent outbreaks of the disease were caused by five distinct
strains of the virus, which is among the most contagious
known, rather than one strain that had mutated. "If Ebola is
popping up randomly," said one scientist, "then things are
pretty hopeless." Avian influenza was spreading across Asia;
the World Health Organization said it was the largest
outbreak in history. Indonesia said that millions of
chickens had died of the flu in recent weeks, and workers in
Thailand were bagging live chickens and burying them in
pits. Laksamana.net Indonesia's agriculture minister said
that his government can't afford to dispose of the dead
chickens. Women who have used dark hair dye for at least 24
years have a greater chance of developing cancer, a study
found, and frequent underarm shaving together with deodorant
use could increase the risk of breast cancer. Saudi Arabia's
highest-ranking cleric said that women's rights are
anti-Islamic, and an American diplomat in London declared
that referring to the American Jewish lobby is anti-Semitic.
The Salvation Army received a $1.5 billion donation, and an
Indian diamond seller who had hidden $900 worth of small
diamonds in a pile of hay was busy feeding laxatives to his
cow. There were new massacres in Congo, Rwanda's former
minister for higher education was given a life sentence for
genocide, and a sniper was still shooting cars in Ohio.
Captain Kangaroo died. Britain's naked rambler completed his
900-mile journey and put on some clothes. A Japanese
scientist created a belly-dancing robot.

--Roger D. Hodge

Al Franken BODYSLAM!!

This is great, plus i think the Larouche people are loons...

"I'm neutral in this race but I'm for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down."

The trouble started when several supporters of fringe presidential candidate Lyndon Larouche began shouting accusations at Dean.

Franken emerged from the crowd and charged one male protester, grabbing him with a bear hug from behind and slamming him onto the floor.


(thanks to gorj on this one)

THIS IS GREAT, from www.busybusybusy.com

Synchronicity.

In today's Washington Post, journalists David S. Broder and Mike Allen write:

The campaign strategists [at the Republican National Committee] said after creating that general picture of an ideological liberal, they will add specific attacks, such as tying Edwards -- a former trial lawyer who has won multimillion-dollar verdicts -- to the high cost of malpractice insurance, which has caused some obstetricians to stop practicing.

In today's New York Times, RNC operative William Safire writes (about John Edwards):

"Those Washington lobbyists are takin' your democracy away from you," says the Suthrin-talkin' former trial lawyer (avidly supported by the trial lawyers' lobby, which has driven up the price of health insurance).

These guys don't miss a beat.
-----------

My obvious complaint? why say edwards is 'Suthrin-talkin' when he IS Southern!

From the NYTimes, I thought this should be posted in its entirety.

Vice President Dick Cheney continued to insist last week that Iraq had been trying to make weapons of mass destruction, apparently oblivious to the findings of the administration's own chief weapons inspector that Iraq had possessed only rudimentary capabilities and unrealized intentions. The vice president's myopia suggests a breathtaking unwillingness to accept a reality that conflicts with the administration's preconceived notions. This kind of rigid thinking helped propel us into an invasion without broad international support and, if Mr. Cheney is as influential as many say, could propel us into further misadventures down the road.

Mr. Cheney has long been the administration's most alarmist proponent of the view that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons ready for use at any time and an active nuclear program. He gave little ground in an interview on National Public Radio on Thursday. He described two flatbed trailers found in Iraq months ago as mobile biological weapons labs and claimed they were "conclusive evidence" of Iraqi programs to make weapons of mass destruction. The very next day, David Kay, who had just stepped down as the top weapons inspector, told Reuters that he now thought the much-feared stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons had not existed on the eve of the war. They were eliminated in the mid-1990's by United Nations inspectors and by Iraq's own decisions, he said, and no significant efforts to make new ones followed.

As for those trailers cited by Mr. Cheney, the consensus view, Mr. Kay told The Times, is that they were intended to produce hydrogen or perhaps rocket fuel, not biological weapons. Mr. Kay had earlier called the trailer assertions an embarrassing fiasco. So, too, with Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Mr. Cheney once famously declared that it had been reconstituted, but Mr. Kay called it rudimentary — hardly capable of producing a bomb in a year or two, as the administration had implied.

Although administration officials cling to the hope of finding some evidence of terror weapons in a cubbyhole somewhere in Iraq, surely it is time to focus on how the intelligence could have been so wrong and perhaps avoid making the same mistakes with the next secretive dictator to come along. Mr. Kay largely exonerates President Bush and blames the global intelligence community. He believes the C.I.A. became so reliant on the much-maligned United Nations weapons inspectors that their withdrawal left it without spies of its own.

Mr. Kay also believes that intelligence analysts failed to realize that Mr. Hussein became increasingly isolated and fantasy-driven in the late 1990's, a condition that enabled scientists to hoodwink him into approving fanciful weapons plans that turned into corrupt moneymaking schemes. That seems hard to believe in a land where people supposedly lived in terror of a brutal dictator. But if it is true that Mr. Hussein wrote novels while the American-led force geared up for war, then perhaps both sides of this conflict were divorced from reality.

Conservative group quietly drops plans for poll

Well, the American Family Association (AFA) was gonna take their poll to congress to show just how much Americans HATE the idea of gay marriage! um, but...the poll shows Sixty percent favored same-sex marriage and 8 percent favored civil unions--32 percent opposed. OOPS! the AFA did have an explaination though:

AFA representative Buddy Smith complained to Wired News: "It just so happens that homosexual activist groups around the country got a hold of the poll -- it was forwarded to them -- and they decided to have a little fun, and turn their organizations around the country (on to) the poll to try to cause it to represent something other than what we wanted it to. And so far, they succeeded with that."

A leader of the (apparent) Gay Illuminati had this to say:

Matt Foreman, the Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce was dumbfounded. "The abject hypocrisy of these people never ceases to amaze me," he exclaimed. "They constantly manipulate facts, and when things don't work out as they want, they run to mama and whine."

Happy New Year!!

Mr. Mooch would also like to point out that this is the year of the monkey.

Pedro the Lion

Once i was on a CD buying spree (i had a gift certificate) and i had ONE left to get. do i get a NEW, untested CD? Do i get something i KNOW i'll like? I followed JasN's suggestion. I got this CD. Pedro the Lion's CONtroL. GOD it was awful, the worst of Christian Indie Rock (BELIEVE THAT!)

if only a used CD store would take this from me...

American Elf: The Sketchbook Diaries of James Kochalka

I'm adding this link to the side. this guy's work is GREAT. for about 3 or 4 years now he's been doing a sketch-diary of his life. often an unfiltered view into his day where he does not hold back, even if he's done something childlike or simple. best read over several days to get the real feel of it. i check it out every day. you can by each year's worth of comics and i recommend them all. I used to own them myself, but i keep giving them as gifts.

CHINGY.

Mr. Mooch won't quit singing "Holidae In" around the house. He keeps singing the Chorus and answering himself:

Whachu doin?
Nothing chillin at the Holidae In
Who you wit?
Me and my peeps won't you bring four of your friends
What we gon' do?
Feel on each other and sip on some Hen...
One thing leading to another let the party begin

he's pretty funny to watch tho.

MY 10 FAVORITE MOVES OF THE YEAR:
(in no particular order)

Big Fish
X-Men 2
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The Last Samurai
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Pirates of the Caribbean

Worth a Mention:
Lost in Translation
School of Rock
Old School

Still wanna see THIRTEEN, AMERICAN SPLENDOR and about a dozen others i missed.

Bill Frist has his very own watergate!

Turns out that Senator Frist's computers are being seized after it was found that several GOP Legislators were hacking into private Democratic computers. the investigation has revealed the invasion goes much deeper than previously thought.

Michael Jackson

It seem Michael Jackson is not actually the father of his 2 children, as the mother was artificially inseminated with anonymously donated sperm.

This would explain why the kids are white.

Iraq Illicit Arms Gone Before War, Departing Inspector States

This guy, David Kay, is the guy Bush sent over to get the goods. even he's saying there was no WMD risk.

JAILTIME FOR RUSH LIMBAUGH?

Seems the prosecutor has rejected our favorite junkie's request to cop a plea. I guess Rush will soon get the conservative 'get tough on crime' he's been dishing out for years. This gets better all the time.

MORE ON BUSH THE DESERTER!!

THIS is the story i never understood. bush gets accused of skipping a FULL YEAR of military service while we are in Vietnam and he responds with....NOTHING! no explaination or justification. They didn't even TRY and the press just dropped it four years ago. Hey, don't trust me and the Boston Globe, look at the Washington Post or The New Republic. Nobody has more than this guy. As much of a "to do" as there was about Clinton and Vietnam, i find it shocking that Bush goes AWOL for a year, THEN doesn't explain himself, and it gets no press.

Damn Liberal Media!

Howard Deans Iowa Problems

This article makes a number of great points as to why Dean did poorly in Iowa. Dean has been campaigning on the idea that this NEW style of campaign (that pushes new voters and unlikely voters) could catapult him into the nomination. The money he raised through the net has gotten him a great deal of media coverage. The hype has been self-inflicted by the media and I believe the Deanies have begun to believe their own press. As this article points out, there WERE many new Dems involved in Iowa, the problem with the dean equation was that virtually none were new young voters he expected to create his surge.

Some of the people quoted said they were put off by Deans adds. They claimed they were more about getting the people out to vote for him as opposed to actually selling himself as the one that should get their vote. This sort of hubris is what he’s having to eat for lunch because it made him look like he was campaigning wildly for people that aren’t really there. This gets rock bottom to the problem with measuring a ‘surge’ before the first vote is cast. The press is just as guilty as dean is, but the difference is the press isn’t trying to run for president. This is also the reason why I’m very dismissive of the Kerry “lead” at this point–that and the fact that I find him slightly more energizing than Lieberman...who I find slightly more energizing than a coma.

HALIBURTON KICKBACKS

Remember how Haliburton was overcharging the US Government for Gasoline supplied to troops in Iraq? Well, it seems war profiteering isn't enough over at Haliburton. The Execs were taking multi-million dollar kickbacks from the same Kuwaiti's that were lined up to bring in the overpriced oil. what sleaze.

DEAN SCREAMS!

A quick word on this. I'm not the biggest dean supporter, but this stuff about him losing it in his speech after Iowa is the WORST of the negative i've seen dean get from the media. finally i saw the film. ITS all HYPE! he was frustrated sure, but its clear that he's trying to whip up some excitment in his crowd of demoralized workers. even at the end he gives a yell and starts laughing. anyone that calls that some sort of fury is trying to fabricate.

walking to my car today i started to think. it was the media that cast him as front runner when no poll was truly consistent across america and before one vote was cast. he didn't meet THEIR expectations and now he's in a freefall? after that bizarre caucus? forget it. its a media incited feeding frenzy.

New Election

quick note. My district doesn't have a state senator. there was a clerical error in one precinct of a very close election in my district. there were no allegations of fraud. the WHOLE election has been tossed now and will have to be redone. "why not revote that one precinct?" you ask? because if they do, the Democrat will win (again). this gives the GOP the upperhand. it further goes to show how gutless our dems are in the senate. (there is a Dem MAJORITY). election feb. 12 between the same two candidates, all this set arbitrarily by the senate and all of this is unconstitutional. knowing this, it was passed anyway by almost a 2x margin. Its sleazey. a dem. senator went so far as to point out that the democrat would be favored to win in a revote of the problem precinct as an EXPLANATION of why the precinct shouldn't be the only place redone.

If you have the guts to stand in the floor of the senate and explain that disenfranchising more voters is ok if your result is an election skewed to the republican...well...you can just get the hell out of my party now.

MSNBC - Iowa Democrats prefer Kerry, Edwards

Here's your take from Polly and the Mooch:

OK, i'm writing this clean before the total results are in or before some talking head clouds my mind. A few days ago someone asked me where it would end up and i said top 3 would be Dean, Edwards, and Kerry. someone asked 'what about Gephardt?' to which i said '4th place'. i was half right. I told them that it really would come down to who had the most support on the second ticket, meaning who would they go with if their number ONE guy wasn't going to get it?

Gephardt was struggling and he just doesn't have it. sorry. i like him, but he's not gonna be the prez or the nominee.

Lieberman? he didn't beat Kucinich. CLARK beat him and he's not in the Iowa race! i've never liked him and he'll be gone by New Hampshire

Kerry? Its about organization there. this is a caucus, not a PRIMARY where people go vote for a guy they like. this is also why i don't like Iowa. it always seems unreal to me...sorta bought and paid for, as we say. either way, he pulls ahead, but i don't think it will last. it WILL be a boost, but i DO think he will run out of gas. I still see him as an Al Gore w/ a better service record. why? he's afraid to press on his strengths, and if you can't seem commanding on your strengths, how do you inspire? you don't.

Dean? Stumble. the press is DYING to pronounce him DOA, despite building the hype on him. the press giveth, the press taketh away. Dean's fate will be decided POST N.H. i still have faith in him over Kerry in the Primaries AND in the general election, but it will be tougher. he's not the titanic, but he's not invincible either.

Edwards? I started to believe in his organization after the Des Moines paper endorsed him--a suprise to many. I've ALWAYS liked Edwards, and i supported him after i met him...however, that was before General Clark got into the race. Edwards was the guy, the GOP feared most, to my mind, back in Fall 2002. a lot has changed. i think the guy can do it if he gets his message going and learns to fire up the troops. i've not seen him do that yet, but i believe he can. this keeps him in through the early post N.H. primaries...particularly South Carolina.

So where does this leave Gen. Clark? where everyone guessed. wondering if missing Iowa cost him anything. i tend to say no, but to be honest with myself, that is part of my distaste of Iowa talking. he's had some time to make some inroads with the VOTERS of N.H. in the time he's missing the Iowa press coverage. they vote, reporters do not. Also, he's been able to this free and clear while everyone else is away out of state. I still think he's the only guy that can inspire the voters AND cross the divide between republicans and democrats. the only ones that really bash him wouldn't EVER vote for a democrat anyway, and you cannot say that about any other candidate.

As for dean inspiring all these new voters...well, it makes me want to ask "How's that going for you there, Dean?" someone, somewhere made this point: we don't need the Blue states to get any more blue, meaning it doesn't matter one whit if you can charge up the voters in states we'll win anyway. that is part of his problem. this is not a national election. presidential races are state elections that are tallied up at the end of the day. ask Al Gore about what the popular vote will get you.

Democrats Wrestle With 'Electability' (washingtonpost.com)

From the article:

Dean is vowing that he would defeat Bush by energizing his party and drawing new voters with a bolder, brasher and less defensive alternative than Democrats have offered in recent years, including when Bill Clinton was president. Speaking here the other day, Dean expressly rejected the constant focus on moderate swing voters that was Clinton's hallmark.

"Our strategy is not to go to swing voters first and hope everybody else will come along," Dean explained to his audience. Of young people and other nonvoters, he said, "The reason they don't vote is because they can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans, and we're going to show them that there really is a difference."

Here it is. THIS is why i don't like dean (who, actually, i like). Dean wants to get the "new voters" motivated. get them out and they'll vote for him. the problem is this: they don't like him that much. In surveys i've seen (as quoted by Deans campaign mgr.) those that are not registered to vote prefer dean...but only by a small margin. so let me get this straight, Dean plans to win the race by ignoring the undecided middle and somehow be the ONE GUY to turn around FOUR DECADES of declining voter turnout, so that he can pull off a win. Somehow he's going to get these people that have marginal support for him AND have not even bothered to get registered to vote--these are the people he's going to pull together for victory.

All his eggs in THAT basket? GOD. the more i hear about this (and they talk about it constantly), the less i like it.

John Harwood writes about this in The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 16th--and i'm no fan of the wsj BUT it hits on the head...)

There's no doubt that rousing new enthusiasm in the country as a whole will prove more difficult for Mr. Dean than it has been in the nomination contest. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows greater Democratic sympathies for Mr. Dean among those who aren't registered to vote than among those who are. But among all unregistered voters, there isn't a greater propensity to vote for Mr. Dean -- either in the Democratic race or in the general election.
In fact, those not registered are slightly more supportive of the Iraq war than Americans as a whole. So are younger voters, whom Mr. Dean has been counting on but who have rarely turned out in large numbers. An exception was Mr. Ventura's third-party win. So far, "Dean is no Jesse Ventura" when it comes to drawing young voters, observes Robert Teeter, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with his Democratic counterpart Peter Hart.strong>

ok, so even those that aren't registered to vote are more likely to be IN FAVOR of the war? and dean is gonna pull THESE folks together to change the course of history?

I'd like to see it happen. that campaign can win but it needs a dose of reality. this isn't 5 monthis ago when being in the lead was all fantasy. until then...i say VOTE CLARK!

Democrats Wrestle With 'Electability' (washingtonpost.com)

From the article:

Dean is vowing that he would defeat Bush by energizing his party and drawing new voters with a bolder, brasher and less defensive alternative than Democrats have offered in recent years, including when Bill Clinton was president. Speaking here the other day, Dean expressly rejected the constant focus on moderate swing voters that was Clinton's hallmark.

"Our strategy is not to go to swing voters first and hope everybody else will come along," Dean explained to his audience. Of young people and other nonvoters, he said, "The reason they don't vote is because they can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans, and we're going to show them that there really is a difference."

Here it is. THIS is why i don't like dean (who, actually, i like). Dean wants to get the "new voters" motivated. get them out and they'll vote for him. the problem is this: they don't like him that much. In surveys i've seen (as quoted by Deans campaign mgr.) those that are not registered to vote prefer dean...but only by a small margin. so let me get this straight, Dean plans to win the race by ignoring the undecided middle and somehow be the ONE GUY to turn around FOUR DECADES of declining voter turnout, so that he can pull off a win. Somehow he's going to get these people that have marginal support for him AND have not even bothered to get registered to vote--these are the people he's going to pull together for victory.

All his eggs in THAT basket? GOD. the more i hear about this (and they talk about it constantly), the less i like it.

John Harwood writes about this in The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 16th--and i'm no fan of the wsj BUT it hits on the head...)

There's no doubt that rousing new enthusiasm in the country as a whole will prove more difficult for Mr. Dean than it has been in the nomination contest. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows greater Democratic sympathies for Mr. Dean among those who aren't registered to vote than among those who are. But among all unregistered voters, there isn't a greater propensity to vote for Mr. Dean -- either in the Democratic race or in the general election.
In fact, those not registered are slightly more supportive of the Iraq war than Americans as a whole. So are younger voters, whom Mr. Dean has been counting on but who have rarely turned out in large numbers. An exception was Mr. Ventura's third-party win. So far, "Dean is no Jesse Ventura" when it comes to drawing young voters, observes Robert Teeter, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with his Democratic counterpart Peter Hart.strong>

ok, so even those that aren't registered to vote are more likely to be IN FAVOR of the war? and dean is gonna pull THESE folks together to change the course of history?

I'd like to see it happen. that campaign can win but it needs a dose of reality. this isn't 5 monthis ago when being in the lead was all fantasy. until then...i say VOTE CLARK!

First Hand View

Of Bush at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. amazingly they arranged it so that Buses blocked his view of the protests. it is telling just how insulated Bush is from the world we live in. he cannot even be allowed (bothered?) to see it.

GOP college leaders pick fight with Joan Jett.

Yep, the College Republicans got wind of a rally in Iowa where Joan Jett and Janene Garafalo were in attendance. Some of the GOP'ers decided the best way to uphold our dear family values is to start a fight, so of course they shoved Joan Jett who (suprise) shoved back. campus police arrived to curtail any more 'values dispensing' by the Republicans.

Keep it up guys, you're winning the hearts and minds!

AFTER THE DANCE

That has to be my Favorite Marvin Gaye song. It's off the the I Want You album which has 2 versions, one instrumental. wish my oldies radio played this one.

Thirst for Justice � The Illuminati

oh, there's more out there. i'm going to bed now.

Salon.com Books | How Satan is propping up Bush's war on terror

Interesting topic. from the article:

Ellis also believes that the current belief in Satanic evil (and the Saddam-Osama linkage) is connected to 20th-century right-wing fantasies about the Illuminati, a Jewish-run conspiracy that aimed at taking over the world, often through the United Nations, an international banking consortium or some other nightmarish force. "You did not have to believe that the members of the Illuminati all belonged to the same ideology or ethnic group," he says. "Some would be communists, some would be alleged liberals, some would be terrorists. But they would all be working together in the same diabolically inspired plan."

I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences with this sort of thought. i have been exposed to this all my life. I do have to admit that some of these United Nations hating-afraid they'll take our guns-one world government-black helicopter people are newer to me in the last 10 years. of course, i'm older now and perhaps more exposed. My wife, i know has seen virtually none of this, but i wonder what other folks out there have seen in their lives.

OH MY GOD! LOOK AT THIS!!

I, no joke, found the plans, Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi had done for Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. This is part of the dangerous plot uncovered by President Bush as his pretext for war. ok, look at this. you can even zoom it in! THIS is our threat? this is DOODLING. i've made MUCH more threatening sketches in my 4th grade math class when i was bored.

it all gets more pathetic everyday.

Someone Finally Says It.

In Jackson Mississippi, we have Dunn Lampton as our local U.S. Attorney. See, Dunn ran for office and he got beat. well, the GOP don't forget anyone that might be crony material. President Shrub makes him the US Atty and guess what? The GOP gets someone to do their bogus indictments against political foes! yay for justice!!

just to leave out any doubts, we get indictments handed down to coincide with elections like the Democratic Primary or various big Democratic Press days. well, one of the accused (Paul Minor) is coming out with something to say about it. Joe Holloman, one of Minor's attorneys:

He was targeted because he is "an active Democrat, an active opponent of civil-justice reform, big business and the Republican Party."

"(That) led to Mr. Minor being singled out and hit with totally unprecedented federal charges for alleged state campaign (finance) law violations and to the U.S. attorney turning the other way from the same type of conduct by those who have ties to the Republican Party," (Notably the identical actions of Dickie Scruggs who is an in-law of Trent Lott and the state's largest soft money contributor to the GOP at $250,000).

further reported in the Sun Herald:

The motion also says that Scruggs paid off a $80,000 loan to Diaz and used intermediaries, or third parties, to pay off campaign loans. Minor's lawyers contend Scruggs' financial and personal connections to the Republican party influenced federal prosecutors.

Citing newspaper reports, the motion also says that Lott appeared to have talked to federal prosecutors about the case in the fall of 2002, nine months before the indictment was issued. Lott is quoted in an issue of Roll Call, a Washington political newspaper, as saying that he had spoken with state and federal authorities about whether Scruggs was involved in the judicial probe. Lott later told The Sun Herald that he had not spoken to authorities about his brother-in-law.

Minor is a Democrat supporter and is being procecuted along with sitting Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz. It just so happens that Diaz defeated Dunn Lampton's friend and chosen candidate Keith Starrett in that race. Now add to this the fact that Lampton replaced a more experience FBI agent on this case with a friend that was also a donor to Diaz's opponent Keith Starrett.

Want more? Minor successfully won multi-million dollar verdicts in cases involving companies owned by Lampton's relatives.

Lesson learned? the GOP doesn't need ethics as long as it has cronyism. one has to wonder if Republicans have ever heard of the word recusal

GREAT JOHN EDWARDS QUOTE (from his website)

Most creative argument: Edwards on tort reform. "What President Bush is proposing about this … shows his philosophy about everything. He doesn't believe in democracy. He hates the idea that six or 12 ordinary Americans sitting in a jury box are going to be able to decide a case. … He hates the idea that his friends and his supporters are going to walk into a courtroom and be treated exactly the same way as a child or a family who have been the victims of fraud or abuse."

AP Wire | 01/13/2004 | McLemore named Jackson City Council President

Funny that a Coast Newspaper covers Jackson city politics best. come ON Clarion Ledger! get your act together!

AP Wire | 01/13/2004 | McLemore named Jackson City Council President

Funny that a Coast Newspaper covers Jackson city politics best. come ON Clarion Ledger! get your act together!

NCAA Basketball - Kentucky nips Miss. St. at the buzzer

DAMN IT ALL! a great game. we'd trail and then have bursts of brilliance. it all kept me hanging on. the last seconds of the game, we go ahead. a few blunders including a turnover that is given back to Kentucky (since when does climbing on our guy who has the ball on the floor constitute a foul on US!?)....anyway, heart pounds and 2.5 seconds left in the game...

we lose at the buzzer. good game though. we'll still be a force for reconning and there is always the SEC tourney for a rematch! still may be MSU's best team ever.

"They didn't wait 24 hours in initiating an investigation on Paul O'Neill," Clark said. "They're not concerned about national security. But they're really concerned about political security. I think they've got their priorities upside down."

Presidential Nominee WES CLARK on the time it took the Bush White House to investigate the security issue related to Paul O'Neill (24 hours) compared to the GOP's alleged outing of CIA opperative this summer (that one took 74 days).

JungleScan.com

Since last week, THE PRICE OF LIBERTY (the book disclosing former Sec. of the Treasury O'Neill's take on bush) has leaped 1,559,060 places to #1 at Amazon.com. WOW.

VP Dick Cheney Interview

He says: "I can think of few times in our history where there has ever been so close a link between what our forces are asked to do overseas and our safety and security here at home."

I wonder if he ever got the message that it was all made up. somebody really should tell him! i feel bad for the guy, making a fool of himself like that.

Weekly Review (Harpers.org)

This is one of my favorites. i read this EVERY TUESDAY. you could know everything interesting that happened in the week by reading this...its also filled with bizarre tidbits. go! read!

Big Fish (2003)

I saw Big Fish tonite. i give it an A-. It was one of the best of 2003, but i don't know if it is THE best. i say it deserves the Art Direction Oscar and maybe Screenplay. i could see it getting bigger Oscar Nods for Best Picture and Maybe Best Actor, but i don't see it winning those (so far). i could be wrong though. need to see more of this year's crop.

Study Published by Army Criticizes War on Terror's Scope (washingtonpost.com)

More steeling from |span| while i'm busy with a big work week. this is from the Army War College in Alabama. I have to wonder if this is going to turn into a bad week for Bush. from the article:

A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat.

oh, but there is more...

Currently the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security."

Share prices fall on weak government jobs report

Remember that great upswing we were supposed to be feeling? you know, increased spending around the holidays. new jobs, even if short term, bringing in more money to every part of the community? the White House said we'd hit 150,000 new jobs in Dec. and were warned that it would be a modest growth.

Well it was. 1,000 new jobs. couple that with 300,000 unemployed (for the same month) that officially gave up actively seeking new work, and the picture is not so pretty. One has to wonder if even Bush believes he can dig us out of his hole.

Op-Ed Contributor: The Vital Republican Center

Christie Todd Whitman, one of the moderates that left the Bush White House earlier on writes about the alienation of the Republican Moderate in the GOP. one has to wonder if her new book on this subject along with O'Neil (see below) will have some effect on how the United States voter sees bush.

Is that SO, Condi?

OK, as you may recall, one of the ideas floated around about what ever happened to the WMDs was that they went to Syria and THAT must be why they are missing. well, now 9+ months later, Condosleazza Rice comes clean that there is no evidence that the WMDs were moved there. know why? because, as everyone on the planet now knows, there was no threat of WMDs. it was a lie. Bush made it up. that's it. sorry. no 'selective review of data' no big Hunches. it was made up so that bush could avenge daddy and look good in the polls.

That is why my fellow citizens continue to die now. My president didn't look past where he thought this would take him in the polls.

Am I going off the mark here to say this sounds like the "high crimes and misdemeanors" required for impeachment? More to the point, if this isn't an impeachable offense. all of this...then what is?

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2004-AGAIN!

INSPECTOR O'NEILL: THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF WMD
Sun Jan 11 2004 08:46:45 ET

New York – Discussing the case for the Iraq war in an interview with TIME’s White House correspondent John Dickerson, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who sat on the National Security Council, says the focus was on Saddam from the early days of the Administration. He offers the most skeptical view of the case for war ever put forward by a top Administration official. "In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told TIME. "There were allegations and assertions by people. But I’ve been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else. And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence." TIME’s new issue will be on newsstands Monday, Jan. 12th.

O’Neill spoke with TIME on the eve of publication of a new book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, The White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill, written by Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Ron Suskind which traces the former Alcoa CEO’s rise and fall through the Administration: from his return to Washington to work for his third President, whom he believed would govern from the sensible center, through O’Neill’s disillusionment, to his firing, executed in a surreal conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney, a man he once considered a fellow traveler.

In Suskind’s book, O’Neill’s assessment of Bush’s executive style is a harsh one: it is portrayed as a failure of leadership. Aides were left to play "blind man’s bluff," trying to divine Bush’s views on issues like tax policy, global warming and North Korea. Sometimes, O’Neill says, they had to float an idea in the press just to scare a reaction out of him. This led to public humiliation when the President contradicted his top officials, as he did with Secretary of State Colin Powell on North Korea and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman on global warming. O’Neill came to believe that this gang of three beleaguered souls—only Powell remains—who shared a more nonideological approach were used for window dressing. We "may have been there, in large part as cover," he tells Suskind.

When the corporate scandals rocked Wall Street O’Neill and Alan Greenspan devised a plan to make CEOs accountable. Bush went with a more modest plan because "the corporate crowd," as O’Neill calls it in the book, complained loudly and Bush could not buck that constituency. "The biggest difference between then and now," O’Neill tells Suskind about his two previous tours in Washington, "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It’s a huge distinction."

On the eve of the Iraq war, O’Neill tells Suskind that he marvels at the President’s conviction in light of what he considers paltry evidence. "With his level of experience, I would not be able to support his level of conviction." That conviction, he tells the book's author seemed to be present in the administration from the start: "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country," he tells Suskind. "And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, ‘Fine. Go find me a way to do this.'"

Developing...

You know, it doesn't feel better to be vindicated when there seems to be no consequence for this liar who likes to play dress up on aircraft carriers when our men and women are still dying.

EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON

THIS is from |span| and drudge, but i clip it here. read what's been revealed on last night's 60 minutes as well as this new book. i heard some, but never suspected all this:

FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL ONEILL SAYS INVASION OF IRAQ WAS PLANNED IN THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LONG BEFORE 9/11, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SUNDAY ON “60 MINUTES”

Sat Jan 10 2004 09:12:37 ET

The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq including the use of American troops within days of President Bush’s inauguration in January of 2001, not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported. That is what former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O’Neill talks to Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Jan. 11 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” he tells Stahl. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do is a really huge leap,” says O’Neill.

O’Neill, fired by the White House for his disagreement on tax cuts, is the main source for an upcoming book, “The Price of Loyalty,” authored by Ron Suskind. Suskind says O’Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam’s downfall, including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq’s oil. “There are memos,” Suskind tells Stahl, “One of them marked ‘secret’ says ‘Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.’” A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled “Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,” outlines areas of oil exploration. “It talks about contractors around the world from…30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq,” Suskind says.

In the book, O’Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. “It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’” says O’Neill in the book.

Suskind also writes about a White House meeting in which he says the president seems to be wavering about going forward with his second round of tax cuts. “Haven’t we already given money to rich people,” Suskind says the president uttered, according to a nearly verbatim transcript of an Economic Team meeting he says he obtained from someone at the meeting, “Shouldn’t we be giving money to the middle?”

O’Neill, who was asked to resign because of his opposition to the tax cut, says he doesn’t think his tell-all account in this book will be attacked by his former employers as sour grapes. “I will be really disappointed if [the White House] reacts that way,” he tells Stahl. “I can’t imagine that I am going to be attacked for telling the truth.”

THE BEST JUDGE IN TOWN

Widely regarded by vertebrates here in Miss. as one of our best judges. Justice Chuck McRae will be missed. one has to wonder who will keep 'the 5' from selling out the judiciary completely. it does not do my heart well to see such loathsome people run our courts into the ground.

Reading Shelby Foote

I'm now one of those people who read Shelby Foote. I'm not very knowledgeable of this sort of writing, but i do know how to name drop Shelby Foote. I also (knowing nothing prior to this week) have always said that name in reverence. didn't really know why, but i knew i should. Right now i'm reading Shiloh and i hear his voice. its pretty damn amazing. you see a very clear understanding that isn't all romaticized faux dignity. As i'm going through this thing i feel like i'm somehow doing something i'm supposed to do. like reading faulkner...or talk about Eudora Welty like she's the sweetest old aunt i ever had...and i do both of these things...and I like it. just like i like Elvis. i guess it makes me feel proud.

9 Soldiers Dead in Crash in Iraq

Anohter Chopper shot down. are we about to pass the 1 per day average since bush played dress-up soldier and said 'mission accomplished'. maybe he'll explain to the families. they deserve more than i do.

Saddam does Sinatra

interesting history on saddam set to a sinatra song. pretty dead on too. Thanks to Staci for sending this one.

Gephardt Aide Accuses Dean of Caucus Fraud Plan

This is exactly what the Dems need. good god. you know, i've been around the block a few times and i know that primaries can get nasty, but there are NINE of these guys out there and at least 6 or 7 should damn well have enough political experience to know its time to pack it in. sure there's not been one vote cast, but the season is so front-loaded we don't get the same luxury. i'm not fond of seeing this many dems pushing up the negatives of other dems. at some point you have to think of the fall. these things smell like a last ditch grasp. I am very glad to see the real "number 2" guy keeping his campaign level headed.

Vote Clark!

BUSH GIVES UP!

The Bush Administration has (quietly) removed the 400-some odd member WMD seach team from iraq. this is a big deal, right? a "face the music" where we finally see them give up on their charade for going to war? right? so where is this in the news? Brokaw? Rather? got any word on this? of course not. you know the Liberal Media! hell, i only hear about it because of DRUDGE--hardly liberal. is that where we have to get our news today?

SLEAZY DOCTOR!

Can you believe this? seems while he was on his deathbed, George Harrison was getting hassled by a doctor to sign autographs and forced to listen to the doc's 12 year old son play guitar in an impromptu 'show'. seems the doc was also giving interviews while the Beatle was dying and at the same time revealing priviledged info regarding George's health. He's being sued by the estate and i hope he gets cleaned out.

His name is Dr. Gilbert Lederman of Staten Island University Hospital...what sleaze. I hope he's humiliated out of practice.

Clark Cuts the Dean Lead Down to SIZE

Just a month ago Dean lead Clark in national polls but about 21 points. That lead has been cut to FOUR! It seems Clark and Kerry are fighting it out for 2nd place in New Hampshire too. Nationally, Clarks numbers are DOUBLE those of Lieberman and Kerry, which is very telling when you take a Southerner in the Army and do that well against hometown new englanders. I believe Clark stand a VERY good chance once the Democrats get out of the myopia of the New Hampshire/Iowa mindset. on the downside, the same poll put Bush beating Dean in a proposed general election against 59% to 37%. All the more reason i'm pulling for Clark.

Cocaine Blamed for Righteous Death

Word to Yahoo! News, that is an awful headline for the death of Bobby Hatfield, one of the Righteous Brothers. Seems Coke was a major cause, but i think i could have done without hearing about this being a "Righteous Death". I guess Yahoo! News is just some brutal, take no prisoners news outfit.

Bush-Spending

Bush spending by the numbers compared to recent years. keep in mind that while Clinton was spending, we were STILL killing the deficit and then making a surplus in addition to the extra spending. kinda dry but makes you think.

Bush-Spending

Bush spending by the numbers compared to recent years. keep in mind that while Clinton was spending, we were STILL killing the deficit and then making a surplus in addition to the extra spending. kinda dry but makes you think.

MSNBC - The Dean Dilemma

Howard Dean is on the cover of Newsweek and Time this week. Newsweek does a little piece on just how Dean's weaknesses might be exploited. of all of the concerns i've heard, and many i agree with, i have to say that his aggression is not one of them. We know where a lack of aggression got Gore! you just can't rest against the bush team or they will take that inch and make a yard.