Bush gives new reason for Iraq war - OIL

''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks," Bush said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition."
Bush gives new reason for Iraq war - The Boston Globe

Hurricane Katrina-The Human Catastrophe in Louisiana and Mississippi

 

The Human Catastrophe
in Louisiana and Mississippi

The human catastrophe and widespread devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi, and elsewhere, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, is eliciting the sympathy and action of people all over the country. The extent of the suffering is almost beyond imagination. Many people in the antiwar movement, in the South, and elsewhere are volunteering and showing other expressions of support for those in need. The possible outbreak of disease caused by sewage contamination of drinking water is just one of the myriad problems facing the population.

While the Pentagon is seeking to occupy the position of coordinator for the relief efforts, it is worth noting where the government, and the Pentagon specifically, has really distributed its resources. Large numbers of the National Guard from Louisiana and Mississippi have been sent to occupy Iraq, and are unable to help in the needed rescue operations. 6,000 members of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard are watching the catastrophe unfold from 7,000 miles away. 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard force, and 35 percent of Louisiana's is in Iraq. Conditions are likely to worsen in the next few days as rainfall from the hurricane flows into Lake Pontchartrain. Due to collapsed levees, the water is expected to continue to increase in the city of New Orleans until it reaches the same level as the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

It's impossible to ignore the class issues associated with this natural disaster. Before the hurricane struck, the government issued a mandatory evacuation order with a "free-market approach." In other words, people were ordered to leave, but the means for evacuation were not provided. More than 300,000 people in the New Orleans metropolitan area could not leave. Who were they? It is the working class and in particular, the African American community in the region that is enduring the worst of the storm. Governor Haley Barbour declared martial law, and announced that looters would be dealt with "ruthlessly." What are poor people stranded in New Orleans supposed to do - wait without food, clothing, or shelter until stores reopen? Again, the Bush administration is spending $200 million a day to occupy, bomb, and wreak havoc on Iraq. It is not only the National Guard members who are in Iraq, but much of the needed emergency equipment for natural disasters. Likewise, the war and occupation is imposing a human catastrophe on the Iraqi people that few in the United States can fathom, given that the big business media largely conceals the depth of suffering caused by U.S. government actions there.

Pat Buchanan says "Impeach bush".

Twice, Bush has taken an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Article IV, Section 4 of that Constitution reads, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.”

Well, we are being invaded, and the president of the United States is not doing his duty to protect the states against that invasion.

Some courageous Republican, to get the attention of this White House, should drop into the hopper a bill of impeachment, charging Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against “invasion.”

2005-08-29-buchanan:

Mark Green: We Owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter a Big Thank you

The Blog | Mark Green: We Owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter a Big Thank You | The Huffington Post: "We owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter a big thank you. These two American mullahs of the far (f)right are helping to expose how The Bush Team is in the extreme and we who question this war most prominently Cindy Sheehan � are in the mainstream. "

A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed - Los Angeles Times

Peace Action

An open letter to members of Congress.
Peace Action: "We have waited too long. Peace talks now. Bring them home safely and soon.
A People's Petition for an Iraq Peace Process"

The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan -Frank Rich

The American public is finally seeing Iraq as that cancer that is draining our military forces and the nations economy and resources. Only when the public demands that the cash flow to this ill conceived adventure will it finally be over. I think that time is drawing near. As always, Frank Rich hits the nail on the head with his articles.
The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan - New York Times: "THIS summer in Crawford, the White House went to this playbook once too often. When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war's critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq."

Blood Runs Red, Not Blue - Bob Herbert

If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home.
If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying.
Blood Runs Red, Not Blue - New York Times:

Justice Sunday Reloaded - New York Times

When these motherfuckers start paying their share of taxes they wont have near so much time to wail against judges.
Justice Sunday Reloaded - New York Times: "As if the first Justice Sunday weren't disturbing enough, the extreme right produced an angry sequel last Sunday - another church-based rally railing against judges. It was offensive on many levels, from the inflammatory and inaccurate attacks on 'activist' judges to the fact that it was held in a tax-exempt church. If the event's speakers ever got control of the legal system, the nation would be in real trouble."

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over - Frank Rich

The next step? Bring the troops home so bush can claim "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"! After all, how many nations can one president destroy in 8 years.
Someone Tell the President the War Is Over - New York Times: "LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. 'We will stay the course,' he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man? "

21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

Bigger than Watergate. The cast of characters according to Think Progress.
Think Progress - 21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak

TomPaine.com - The Birthday Bush Wants To Ignore

Happy Birthday to Social Security which becomes 70 on Sunday August 14th.
TomPaine.com - The Birthday Bush Wants To Ignore

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Bush Is No Nixon

"No mother who lost her son to this Iraq war should be made to stand in a ditch, and yet that is exactly where Cindy Sheehan stands today, by the side of the road in Crawford, Texas. She has been standing there since she heard about the 20 Marines who were killed in Iraq last week, since she heard George W. Bush describe from his vacation home the noble cause for which those Marines died."
t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Bush Is No Nixon
As always, William Rivers Pitt makes more sense than all the cable TV pundits combined. All they seem to consider as news is Aruba and other murder mysteries and reruns of the Michael Jackson trial and its greedy jurors.

Americans Have a Right to Know Where John Roberts Stands on Critical Issues

John Roberts’ record raises serious concerns about whether he will be fair, independent and will protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans. The American people must know the whole truth before the Senate decides whether Judge Roberts should sit on our nation’s highest court for life.
http://independentcourt.org/Kind.wmv
Independent Court.org

TomPaine.com - More Hackett Jobs

Rural America is not sold on the socially extremist agenda of Republicans to outlaw abortion, intimidate the teaching of science and allow the government to intrude into the personal lives of its citizens. If they were, then the president of the Greater Cincinnati "Right to Life" group, Republican Jean Schmidt, would have swept these rural Ohio counties. Rural America is ready to become Democratic again. For Democrats, going after this weakest link of the Republican majority is the path to the congressional majority in 2006 and the presidency in 2008.


TomPaine.com - More Hackett Jobs

Think Progress VIDEO: Bush I Calls Leakers "Most Insidious of Traitors"

Think Progress VIDEO: Bush I Calls Leakers "Most Insidious of Traitors": "GEORGE H.W. BUSH: "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.[Speech at CIA, 4/26/99]"
(Exceptions of course, if you're a republican).