Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others.

They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime who want to restore the old order.

They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake.

George W. Bush at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Based on the first paragraph, their hateful ideology is alive and well in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and others. Is he going to invade those countries as well?

Unless Karl Rove wants to apologize for his despicable smear, he should resign. Like many liberal Americans, I supported military action in Afghanistan in pursuit of Bin Laden (still traipsing about, by the way) and Al Qaeda — they were actually involved in the attacks on this country.

The Washington Republicans have set a record time reaching Corruptopia, which was a multi-decade process for the Democrats that led to the loss of their House majority in 1994 because of Jim Wright et al. With the private sector efficiency they so laud, the Republicans have reached an equal or greater level of institutionalized corruption in a mere 10 years.

Sen. Ted Stevens

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) made $822,000 last year from the sale of a controversial real estate investment with an Anchorage developer who had obtained a huge federal contract with his help, records show.

In 1997, Stevens invested $50,000 with developer Jonathan B. Rubini. Last year, at Stevens’ request, Rubini and his partner bought back the senator’s interests in their deals for $872,000, according to Senate financial disclosure forms made public Tuesday.

LA Times: Scrutinized Investment Made Senator $822,000

Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham

Cunningham has elicited sharp public criticism since Copley News Service, in an article published Sunday in The San Diego Union-Tribune, disclosed that he sold his Del Mar house in November 2003 to Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market shortly after buying it, where it remained unsold and vacant for more than eight months. It eventually sold for $700,000 less than what Wade had paid Cunningham.

Property records don’t list Wade or his company MZM Inc. as the buyer of Cunningham’s house. Instead, the records state that Cunningham sold the house to 1523 New Hampshire Avenue LLC. Nevada state business records show that Wade owns that company, too. It is the address of his Washington, D.C., office.

The congressman, a member of the influential House defense appropriations subcommittee, said in an interview last week that he has supported Wade’s efforts to win tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts.

San Diego Union-Tribune: Cunningham’s Realtor a longtime contributor

Rep. Bob Ney

Ney’s ties to gambling industry lobbyist Jack Abramoff were revealed last year at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing, where witnesses and e-mails described Ney’s agreement to back gambling legislation for an Indian tribe that Abramoff represented.

The tribe gave Ney hefty campaign donations and was asked to pay for a Scottish golf trip for Ney.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ads point out Ney ties to gaming industry lobbyist

Rep. Tom “Sleazy T.” DeLay

Last, but certainly not least!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay owns stock worth more than $50,000 in ExxonMobil, according to financial disclosure reports, while at the same time he is one of the driving forces behind legislation that would shield that company and other manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE from lawsuits that could cost them millions.

NewsDay: A possible conflict for DeLay?

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

The Sunday Times of London: The secret Downing Street memo

Terrorism and WMD. Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction and hadn’t since 1993 or so. Not having any WMD, they couldn’t very well give them to terrorists, now could they?

Michael Smith of the Sunday Times of London addressed the semantic games some are playing with the term “fixed” and the supposedly different meanings in American and British English:

Michael Smith: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there.

WaPo: The Downing Street Memo

There is additional anecdotal evidence that the chickenhawk Bush administration was dead set on invading Iraq:

I would go back to an earlier conversation, and this happened on the 20th of September, 2001, so nine days after 9/11. This involved Tony Blair, who was in Washington having dinner with the president. How do we know about this? We know this because Christopher Meyer, the UK ambassador, was there at the dinner, and he’s written his memoirs.

And what does he say? The conversation went like this. President Bush: Tony we’re going to Afghanistan in a week or two, but that won’t take long and we get out of there and go right into Iraq, are you with me Tony? Are you with me? And Christopher Meyer says my goodness, it was really, that Tony was sort of nonplused but he said yes sir, I’m with you, Mr. President.

The NewsHour: Ray McGovern, former CIA intelligence analyst

The Guardian’s “Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war” has more details.

If impeachment proceedings can be started over lies about sex between consenting adults, lying about the justification for war definitely qualifies.

In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.

The Nation: Justice Sunday Preachers

The current Republican strategy for gaining black American votes: “Don’t let our relationships with arch-racists get in the way of your concern that your cousin might have ’sugar in his tank’!”

My father has a theory as to why the Republicans didn’t win the gubernatorial election here in Washington: they, as Republicans tend to do, focused on minimizing the votes counted for their Democratic opponent rather than on maximizing those for their candidate. He discussed this theory with Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed, who agreed that the GOP made a big mistake pursuing the strategy that they did.

If the Republicans had scoured the counties they won (which was most of them) for votes for Dino “Damaged Goods” Rossi, they probably could have turned up enough to change the outcome, but they were dead set on lowering the vote total in heavily Democratic King County (which contains Seattle and many dirty America-hating liberals like myself).

It is apparent that Bush and his handlers are afraid to allow even an inkling of dissent in the audience. By avoiding legitimate questions, sticking with those that are staged and scripted, and filtering out anyone who isn’t willing to cheer the the president, the administration creates the illusion that the American people are fully behind the president.

St. Petersburg Times: Bush’s believers-only speeches

The office of President of the United States of America is held by a coward with Orwellian tendencies.

This is the first time that a President of the United States has declared that we, the United States Government, will not put the full faith and credit of the federal government behind the Social Security trust fund. What this President is saying is, we have two kinds of debt. Let’s see how we get the debt first. It is in deficit spending, so we have to go borrow in order to keep the government going.

So where does he borrow? He borrows from the Chinese. He borrows from the Japanese. He borrows from the trust fund. And what he is saying now to the American worker: “We will honor our debt to the Chinese and the Japanese, but we are treating you differently. We are not honoring our debt to you.” These are funds that workers and their employers put in the account to have a trust fund to cover any shortfall that would be there to cover their retirement benefits. And this President is openly declaring that he has no intention of paying the trust fund back what he has taken from it.

The Stakeholder :: Tough Talk

I recall seeing Tucker Carlson state in no uncertain terms on The Chris Matthews Show that the Terri Schiavo talking points memo was a forgery put forth by the Democrats. Also, “the blogs” were saying it, so it was well sourced.

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

WaPo: Author Of Schiavo Memo Steps Forward

I’m confused — does this mean Tucker Carlson is full of shit? But it was written on blogs! On the Internet!

The controversy over Terri Schiavo has raised concerns among many Americans about the moral agenda of the Republican Party and the political power of conservative Christians, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds.

…

Some old stereotypes about the two parties have been reversed:

• By 55%-40%, respondents say Republicans, traditionally the party of limited government, are “trying to use the federal government to interfere with the private lives of most Americans” on moral values.
• By 53%-40%, they say Democrats, who sharply expanded government since the Depression, aren’t trying to interfere on moral issues.

USA Today: GOP’s moral agenda doubted

Theocracy is on the march!