WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
Like bin Laden, Zarqawi got his start toward radicalism in the 1980s as one of the CIA-supported Islamic Jihad guerrillas who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. After returning to Jordan, he served seven years in prison on charges that he conspired to overthrow King Hussein.
In 1999, he fled Jordan, ending up, like bin Laden, in Afghanistan. He lost a leg there in the fall of 2001 when U.S. forces bombed the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that al-Zarqawi traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for treatment of a leg injury but, contrary to previous reports, appears not to have had a leg amputated. The official would not discuss the reason for the change in assessment.Dudes, this is serious shit. Any person, or group of, that can grow legs is a threat that should be taken more seriously than previously thought.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister discussed the possibility of creating a "Muslim force" to help bring stability to Iraq during a visit to Saudi Arabia last week, two senior officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.Okay, take a step back, over onto the reality side of things.
The officials, one at Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain's office and the other at the Foreign Ministry, said the Saudi leadership was reviewing the proposal and was expected to convey its decision to Islamabad this week. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They are discussing this proposal," said the Foreign Ministry official, adding that no decision had yet been reached.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was in the Saudi kingdom on Wednesday to discuss creating such a force to supplement the U.S.-led coalition, U.S. officials said. Powell and Musharraf also spoke this week, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said, though it said the talks centered on conflict in Sudan, not Iraq.
President Bush traveled to Youngstown, Ohio, a few weeks ago to talk about health care, and before long he was reprising his complaint about "junk and frivolous" malpractice suits, which he said are discouraging good doctors from practicing medicine.Read on. It's the HEIGHT OF ABSURDITY.
As he often does, the president called for reforms to make it more difficult for patients to seek compensation and to restrict the amount of damages that could be paid to those who prove they have been harmed.
To bolster his argument Mr. Bush introduced a local doctor, Compton Girdharry, to an audience at Youngstown State University. Dr. Girdharry, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said he had been driven from a practice of 21 years by the high cost of malpractice insurance.
The president praised Dr. Girdharry and thanked him for his "compassion."
If Mr. Bush was looking for an example of a doctor who was victimized by frivolous lawsuits, Dr. Girdharry was not a great choice. Since the early 1990's, he has settled lawsuits and agreed to the payment of damages in a number of malpractice cases in which patients suffered horrible injuries.
"It's been four years since my son passed away, and I don't feel any stronger or any happier than the day I lost him," said Lisa Vitale, whose suit against Dr. Girdharry and a hospital was settled out of court.
BAQUBA, Iraq, July 28 — As many as 70 people were killed today when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-packed sedan on a busy street here. The attack was apparently aimed at new police recruits but took the lives of scores of ordinary Iraqis shopping or waiting in morning traffic.So, Kamal, how's the sovereignty thing going? We told you, democracy ain't easy! Btw, you'll be happy to know that Saddam was on the verge of having a STROKE ANYWAY!
Fifty-six other people were wounded, the Iraqi ministry of health reported.
It was one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq and by far the worst since Iraqis took back sovereignty from the American occupation on June 28, exactly one month ago. Earlier, the American military put the bombing's toll lower, saying 45 died and 98 were wounded.
Al Jazeera television reported that the militant group holding two Pakistani contractors said today that it had killed them, according to The Associated Press.The really bad news is our president didn't have a stroke. One can hope, right? It's called optimism! I mean, the V.P. has to have had like 3 since 9/11.
Violence, meanwhile, flared elsewhere in Iraq today: At least 35 insurgents — and 7 Iraqi soldiers — were killed in a joint raid involving Iraqi and foreign troops south of Baghdad, the military reported. In Ramadi, to the west, insurgents attacked several American bases, possibly hitting two United States aircraft and killing two American soldiers, the military reported.
Two other American soldiers were also reported killed, one by another car bomb today, the other by a roadside bomb the day before
SADDAM HUSSEIN has suffered a minor stroke, his lawyers claimed today.And by stroke, they mean, 'stroked repeatedly with a club.'
And they said the former Iraqi dictator could die before he stands trial.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fewer people believe the overall threat of AIDS is very serious these days, but a majority of Americans say they worry about the impact of the sexually transmitted disease on the nation's children, an Associated Press poll found.You tell me. I have my thoughts.
That decline in fears about AIDS comes at a time the disease is showing signs of making a comeback in the United States.
About six in 10, 61 percent, said they feel AIDS is a "very serious" problem, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. When people were asked in 1987 how serious AIDS was as a national health problem, almost nine in 10 said it was "very serious."
The United States provides financial help to developing countries that support President Bush's insistence that abstinence -- rather than condoms -- should be the main way to prevent the disease.How about a bit of both? Unreal.
Americans say they support the $15 billion the United States has pledged to help fight AIDS in developing countries overseas. But when asked whether the money should go abroad or be used to fight the epidemic at home, they choose keeping the money here by a 2-1 margin.
Singer Courtney Love has been sentenced to 18 months in drug rehabilitation after she admitted being under the influence of cocaine and opiates.She finally admitted it! For so long I was in the dark.
The star is now banned from taking non-prescription drugs, drinking alcohol or being in places that serve alcohol.
Mr. Chodorow testified that he had rented an apartment above the restaurant for her (Mama) so she would not have to commute. Although Mr. DiSpirito is barred from the restaurant, his mother is still working there. Mr. Chodorow said he would continue to employ her if she wanted to continue working.The whole show ended up being centered around her fuggin meatballs! Please, they're MEATBALLS! And I'll bet you $500 that Linda Dubya's meatballs are as good, if not better!
"I like her meatballs,'' he said.
Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.Fear not, the FEC is making sure that election can be postponed in case of a terror attack!
The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets.This is not some crackpot story, or refernce. This is a fact:
COPS FUNDING (HR 4754): Voting 212-206, the House refused to shift $107 million from the Census Bureau budget to the COPS program, which provides grants to help police departments add officers and equipment. The amendment sought to keep COPS funding at its 2004 level of $219 million. COPS was begun in the Clinton administration to put 100,000 additional officers on the streets. A yes vote was to increase funding.The GOP is "OUTRAGED!" Well, it's true. Sorry, you voted. It's right there, black and white.
BAGHDAD, July 28 - An apparent suicide bomber plowed a vehicle into a crowd outside a police station Wednesday morning killing and injuring scores of people in the city of Baqubah, according to initial reports provided by Iraqi officials.Who needs pictures of such things? I mean, really!
The Iraqi Ministry of Interior put the number of dead at 51 and said the number of injured was at least 40 and perhaps 70...
In recent weeks, insurgents have also killed half a dozen senior Iraqi officials in targeted assassinations...
Reuters television showed pictures of at least a dozen dead bodies scattered across a street, some of them still on fire. A severely wounded man, his clothes burnt and torn and his body covered in blood, sat amongst smoldering ruins with several dead, some of whom looked like children, lying near him...
Also Wednesday, Reuters reported that a rocket hit a busy Baghdad street, wounding several people, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.Something's happening here, what it is, is pretty clear...
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
Alan - they're not gonna let us win. go felons! and go clintons - brought a tear to my eye. i'm starting to think that my aversion to hillary may be some latent anti-woman thing. she's pretty good.I'd love to hear from a Republican on this, especially one whose wife does something other than drive the SUV down the left lane of highways with cell in hand.
Me - that's EXACTLY what it is because she's fucking great, and deep down, sitting on the couch with their republicans husbands, a lot of women love her, same as they do martha.
Alan - but would they vote for her...
Me - yes. but they won't admit it. women hate war.
and i'm talking winnable states, not Jesus-ets from the unwinnable zones.
Jeff - Your anti-woman tendencies are not latent. Hillary is pretty good now, but your anti-HC feelings have legitimate grounding in history when she was really kind of politically disastrous, if right-hearted: she's learned a ton... one good thing that came out of the Lewinsky scandal, I suppose...
Me - she honored the vows of marriage in the worst situation ever, and she's hated for it. yet republicans are trying to "defend marriage." comedy.
It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.READ ON. It's so sad that so many republicans don't care about democracy. Not caring about blacks, that I expect. But you'd think democracy mattered.
When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.
This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.
Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide the presidential race, is not among those states, and last month state officials rejected a request to allow independent audits of the machines' integrity. A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to "undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections."
In order to keep solvent, however, California will have to borrow heavily...Maybe I'm crazy, but it was the Republican machine that attacked Davis for borrowing, at a time when Enron was ROBBING the state as well.
The deal is a triumph for Mr Schwarzenegger, whose hopes of relying on borrowing had come under severe pressure.
The budget still needs to be signed off by both houses of the legislature, but this final approval is expected to be a foregone conclusion.
Mr Schwarzenegger was desperate to avoid either raising taxes or reining in spending. He has already secured a popular mandate for a $15bn bond issue.
Some economists and politicians have warned that the policy will only postpone - and possibly exacerbate - the state's mammoth fiscal woes.
While Bustamante's kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration is simultaneously demanding that George Bush's energy regulators order the $9 billion refund. Don't hold your breath: Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by … Ken Lay.Liberal Media?
But Bush's boys on the commission have a problem. The evidence against the electricity barons is rock solid: fraudulent reporting of sales transactions, megawatt "laundering," fake power delivery scheduling and straight out conspiracy (including meetings in hotel rooms).
So the Bush commissioners cook up a terrific scheme: charge the companies with conspiracy but offer them, behind closed doors, deals in which they have to pay only two cents on each dollar they filched.
Problem: the slap-on-the-wrist refunds won't sail if the Governor of California won't play along. Solution: Re-call the Governor.
"We're not going to ask John Kerry to lead with his chin," said Josh Friedes, the advocacy director for the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts.Even the director of a group for gay marriage can see that it's more important to get elected, than publicly advocate something that gets your candidate axed.
Delgado, a perennial All-Star, has called the Iraq conflict "the stupidest war ever."Yankee Fan said:
A Yankee fan was quoted in the papers saying this was a slap in the face to every New Yorker and American.Another reason to hate Yankees fans:)
And if we just have the courage to act on our conviction, we will, by an overwhelming majority, send John Kerry and John Edwards to do their duty for us in the White House starting next year!I agree. I may be wrong, it's happened once or twice, but I think an overwhelming majority will elect John Kerry.
In comments published in a little-known 1975 book about political wives called ``The Power Lovers: An Intimate Look at Politicians and Their Marriages,'' Heinz Kerry lashed out at the senator she'll share the primetime convention stage with tonight.Apparently, this is a woman with a mind of her own, and she speaks it. That's a good thing. However, it's remarkable that Republicans are attacking the next First Lady already! I mean, what happened to "the issues?"
``I know some couples who stay together only for politics,'' Heinz Kerry said at the time. ``If Ted Kennedy holds on to that marriage (to ex-wife Joan) just for the Catholic vote, as some people say he does, then I think he's a perfect bastard.''
Heinz Kerry, then married to Republican Sen. H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania, said she ``didn't trust'' President Richard M. Nixon but added, ``Ted Kennedy I don't trust either.''
The combustible and ever-quotable Heinz Kerry said of Democrats, ``The Democratic machine in this country is putrid.'' Excerpts of the comments appeared in The Boston Herald American in January 1976.
The president said he was reading the report and found it ''interesting."What can we say to all this? Hmmm. I'm gonna go with, read 5 pages, and then falls back on "you're still not safe...vote for me."
''It reads like a mystery, a novel. It's well written," Bush said in a brief interview outside his home in Crawford.
''We've got work to do," he said, adding that the nation is ''safe but not safe enough."
My friends, we are constantly being told that America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom and faith and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world. (Cheers, applause.) We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment.
We all want our children to grow up in a secure America, leading the world toward a peaceful and prosperous future.
Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring to the American people this year a positive campaign, arguing not who's a good or a bad person, but what is the best way to build the safe and prosperous world our children deserve. (Cheers, applause.)
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems, from AIDS to global warming to the continuing turmoil in the Middle East. But it also full of amazing opportunities to create millions of new jobs, and clean energy, and biotechnology, to restore our manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards for people all across the world. (Cheers, applause.) And to create a world where we can celebrate our religious, our racial, our ethnic, our tribal differences because our common humanity matters most of all. (Cheers, applause.)
To build that kind of world, we must make the right choices, and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and deeply felt ideas about what choices we should make. They're rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world.
We Democrats want to build a world and an America of shared responsibilities and shared benefits. We want a world with more global cooperation, where we act alone only when we absolutely have to. (Applause.) We think the role of government should give -- should be to give people the tools and to create the conditions to make the most of their own lives, and we think everybody should have that chance. (Cheers, applause.)
On the other hand, the Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the "right" people -- their people -- in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can and cooperates when we have to. They believe the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their economic, political and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on important matters like health care and retirement security. Now since most Americans aren't that far to the right, our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values; in other words, they need a divided America. But we don't. (Cheers, applause.)
Americans -- Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on September the 12th, 2001 cared who won the next presidential election. All we wanted to do was to be one country, strong in the fight against terror, helping to heal those who were wounded and the families of those who lost their loved ones, reaching out to the rest of the world so we could meet these new challenges and go on with our democratic way of life.
The president had an amazing opportunity to bring the country together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism, and to unite the world in the struggle against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice. They chose to move that -- to use that moment of unity to try to push the country too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking in Iraq before the weapons inspectors had finished their work --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah!
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- but in withdrawing American support for the climate change treaty --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right! (Applause.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- and for the international court on war criminals and from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
(Cheers, applause.) Now -- now, at a time when we're trying to get other people to give up nuclear and biological and chemical weapons, they are trying to develop two new nuclear weapons, which they say we might use first.
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!
PRESIDENT CLINTON: At home, at home, the president and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices, which they also deeply believe in. For the first time when America was on a war footing in our whole history, they gave two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top 1 percent of us.
(Chuckles.) Now I'm in that group for the first time in my life. (Applause.) And you might remember that when I was in office, on occasion, the Republicans were kind of mean to me. (Laughter.) But soon as I got out and made money, I began part of the most important group in the world to them. It was amazing. I never thought I'd be so well cared for by the president and the Republicans in Congress. (Cheers, applause.)
I almost sent them a thank-you note for my tax cuts -- (laughter) -- until I realized that the rest of you were paying for the bill for it, and then I thought better of it. (Cheers, applause.)
Now, look at the choices they made, choices they believed in. They chose to protect my tax cut at all costs, while withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving 2.1 million children behind. (Cheers, applause.) They chose to protect my tax cut while cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of their job- training programs, 100,000 working families out of their child-care assistance, and worst of all, while cutting 300,000 poor children out of their after-school programs when we know it keeps them off the streets, out of trouble, in school learning, going to college and having a good life! (Cheers, applause.)
They chose, they chose to protect my tax cut while dramatically raising the out-of-pocket costs of health care to our veterans, and while weakening or reversing very important environmental measures that Al Gore and I put into place, everything from clean air to the protection of our forests.
Now, in this time, everyone in America had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans. And most of us, all most all of us, from Republicans to Independents and Democrats, we wanted to be asked to do our part too, but all they asked us to do was to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. (Applause.)
Now, if you like these choices and you agree with them, you should vote to return them to the White House and the Congress. (Boos.) If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats
...Yet for a party that believes it is the vanguard of history, Democrats seem awfully cautious about their ideas. To the extent that they're hawking any agenda at all this year, it is watered-down Clintonism. And late Clintonism at that, after welfare reform had passed and impeachment had reunited Bill Clinton with his party's liberals. Mr. Kerry has surrounded himself with familiar (and often capable) Clinton Administration faces, and his political calculus seems to be to campaign as someone who'd bring back the 1990s without the you-know-what.There's so much good stuff in the article one doesn't know where to end or begin. Simply, Republicans have proven that it's more ABK (Anyone But Kerry) than ABB (Anyone But Bush).
Democrats remain the party of government, with more spending for every perceived problem but a claim to "fiscal conservatism" because they would raise taxes to reduce the deficit. They are still the party of income redistribution, through taxing high-income wage earners, and increasingly through the promotion of lawsuits. Al Gore's 2000 theme of the "people versus the powerful" has returned in the guise of John Edwards's "two Americas." The party has become somewhat more protectionist on trade since the 1990s, and it remains firmly liberal on the culture.
If any new Big Idea lurks, it is probably national health care, though even this dares not speak its name. Mr. Kerry's proposal amounts to a huge new taxpayer obligation ($653 billion over 10 years, by the Kerry camp's own reckoning), but it is disguised in large part as a federal subsidy for business in return for covering all employees.
Some of you may have already seen this but the fact that they didn't see this coming amazes me...but then again, it doesn't:The ASS FUCKING STOPS NOW!!!!!
Earlier this month, the web site for the Bush-Cheney campaign (the real one) featured a "create your own banner" tool, where you could enter your own slogan and print out your own poster, with the Bush-Cheney logo, and a note at the bottom, "Paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc."
Democrats, of course, couldn't get enough of this.
The original sloganator accepted everything, then it started censoring profanity and words like "Hitler," "dictator" and "evil."
Nevertheless, many clever folks exploited the sloganator to their own ends before its sad demise only a couple of weeks after its birth, and its mourners assembled some of the best for a slideshow.
The SLOGANATOR!
Teresa Heinz Kerry urged her home-state delegates to the Democratic National Convention to restore a more civil tone to American politics, then minutes later told a newspaperman to "shove it..."First off, she didn't say anything about politics, or to another politician, so it doesn't have anything to do with her message. Second, if someone was lying about me consistently in the press over the years and I responded with, "Shove it!", well, I'd say I did a pretty good job controlling myself. Finally, the newspaper in question, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is owned by super-scumbag Richard Mellon Scaife, so it's not all surprising that his publication has done everything possible to shine a negative light on the future Mrs. President. He's a proven liar, so of course his paper lies.
Minutes later, Colin McNickle, the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, questioned her on what she meant by the term "un-American," according to a tape of the encounter recorded by Pittsburgh television station WTAE.
Heinz Kerry said, "I didn't say that" several times to McNickle. She then turned to confer with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others. When she faced McNickle again a short time later, he continued to question her, and she replied, "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it."
TIKRIT, Iraq -- Cash has become the U.S. military's first line of defense in some parts of Iraq, where U.S. soldiers are distributing money to encourage goodwill and to counter their enemies' offers of money to unemployed Iraqis willing to attack Americans, according to officers here.Not sure how I feel about this, but it's possible these people will do anything for cash, like...lie, "Yes, yes, I saw him, he went THAT WAY!"
What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers. These two facts may cause many people to conclude that the Bush administration focused on the wrong country. They would be right to think that...If only the Republicans could prove he cheated on his wife.
Even more important than any bureaucratic suggestions is the report's cogent discussion of who the enemy is and what strategies we need in the fight. The commission properly identified the threat not as terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle of ideas as well as in armed conflict.
We need to expose the Islamic world to values that are more attractive than those of the jihadists. This means aiding economic development and political openness in Muslim countries, and efforts to stabilize places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process is also vital.
Also, we can't do this alone. In addition to "hearts and minds" television and radio programming by the American government, we would be greatly helped by a pan-Islamic council of respected spiritual and secular leaders to coordinate (without United States involvement) the Islamic world's own ideological effort against the new Al Qaeda.
Unfortunately, because of America's low standing in the Islamic world, we are now at a great disadvantage in the battle of ideas. This is primarily because of the unnecessary and counterproductive invasion of Iraq. In pulling its bipartisan punches, the commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq war...
