Sunday Brunch + Open Thread

Okay, the score is now 3-3 with 6+ minutes left.

Say, I’m curious why the editors of Foreign Affairs would accept an article from a non-expert. Just asking …

Open thread.
I am writing this at 3:35 est.
Since starting at midnight est, the Ron Paul BostonTeaParty/Beethoven’s birthday Money bomb has pulled in $3.36 million in FRN contributions ( not pledges real FRNs) averaging
approx $123.00 each. Interesting eh? A contributor list of over 100,000 already. Quarterly goal was $12million ( quarter ends 12/31) as of 3:53 they were already at $15.0 million. OpenSecrets.org says that 99.4% of all his contributions come from individuals. Must be missprints and spambots with printing presses.
And after having weeping Mitt on today, that odious toad Russert is going to face Ron Paul next Sunday.
Should be interesting, might even be worth switching away from ESPN.
For myself, I am just waiting for that coprophagous backstabber Snufflelapugus to have to mouth the words: “President Paul”.

Who is his foreign affairs advisor? mmmm The weather outside is frightening! Increase the military to 6.x of the budget without lowering standards? Good luck with that.

PS My sane half and I were looking at real estate within 5 sq miles of us and there 40 foreclosed properties and more auctions than a midwest farm sales. They are starting to pop up like weeds and 20 percent below the ML values…

Did you read Krugman’s latest at the NYT? It’s scary — on the banks hit hard by the defaults.

By the way, if homeowners’ RE prices are, I think I heard, 20% inflated, do sales these days reflect that? I.e., have prices gone down enough to reflect that reality?

Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old Clayton Frady and 18 year old David litickabee, the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

Camp officials, who did not report the crime to law enforcement officials, have admitted that the act did occur and have fired the boys from their positions. However, no charges have been filed against the young men.

READ ALL.

–

Also: Huckabee apparently tried to cover this up. Hullabaloo also links to the Newsweek story — apparently Newsweek investigated this further, but I haven’t read it yet.

Welcome to Potterville.

Here is an artical by Robert Kennedy Jr. on Hillarys Haters and the Roosevelts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/hillary-haters-and-the-ro_b_76573.html

I can still remember the 2 gauge shotgun on display at the Sag Harbor residence…..

Open Thread

Reuters.com says:
“Iran says U.S. report a “declaration of surrender”

Whose side IS the CIA (and the rest) on?

Whenever your enemy sees weakness your life just got harder.
And anyone who does NOT think IRAN is our enemy is a complete and total fool.

Well, well, well! Huckabee has the solution to the Israel-Palestinian situation. It’s so simple! Just “transfer” the Palestinians who live there to another location. But wait! That fits the definition of – ummmmmmmmmmmm – ethnic cleansing? So, now Huckabee is all for ethnic cleansing – great. I guess he doesn’t care a whole lot for the Fourth Geneva Convention, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Oh, well, all that human rights stuff is quaint and antiquated anyway!

Oh yes, and he thinks Israel should keep the Golan Heights, too. Guess he doesn’t buy into the United Nations Charter, or any of that stuff about the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war that came out of the horrors of WW II either.

I sure hope I find a nice property in Syria when I visit there next year!

The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas’s state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor’s request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee’s Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer’s intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee’s office and fired. “I’ve lost confidence in your ability to do your job,” Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem,” according to Bailey. “Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son,” says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a “courageous” and “very solid” professional. …

READ ALL at Newsweek, which did a lot of digging into the entire story.

Shirin: just make sure it is not near any “targets”.
Like to ya stick around.

Support the fillibuster. Oppose any bill with telecom immunity: http://chrisdodd.com/filibuster/call

I see that you’re part of this bullshit.
Americans have been played like fools for long enough.

Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The Israeli delegation left for the U.S. last week and will wind up its visit this week, the officials said. It was not known what type of material the delegation — for the most part military intelligence officers — presented to U.S. officials.

The Israelis are also hoping to receive additional information from the U.S. report, which for the most part was classified, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters.

The U.S. and Israel will hold additional formal meetings on the matter in coming weeks, the Israeli officials said. Israel will use these forums to try to persuade the Americans that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and to present top secret Israeli intelligence material, the officials said.

On Dec. 3, the American intelligence community issued a report concluding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate reversed years of warnings that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon.

Israeli officials discounted the conclusion. For years, Israel has been urging the world community to act to stop Iran’s nuclear program, leading to speculation that Israel might attack the nuclear facilities.

At Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert indirectly rebuked Public Security Minister Avi Dichter for publicly criticizing the U.S. report as a “misconception” that could lead to a surprise regional war.

“Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat,” Dichter — a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency — said in a speech Saturday.

“The American misconception concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened,” Dichter said, referring to the 1973 war that started with a surprise Egyptian-Syrian attack on two fronts. Footage from the speech was screened on Channel 10 TV.

Without mentioning Dichter by name, Olmert instructed ministers to refrain from issuing personal opinions on the report, his office said.

“These utterances don’t advance the campaign against the Iranian nuclear program and don’t improve relations with the U.S.,” Olmert said.

Before the cabinet meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters that Israel was in contact with the U.S. on the report, “to try to better understand its intelligence content, and to examine the public and political implications.”

So US national interest have diverged from Israel to converge with Iran?

You seem to be part of the latest left-wing contempt for Israel.
How could any country that is a friend of the US be worth anything?

After all, the US is the “great satan” sayeth your Iranian friends.

graywolf, other then your obvious personality disorder; what in hell is wrong with you. you keep coming to this slightly left of center blog and invariably insult people while trying to influence the opinions of other readers and posters. i got to tell you boy, it isnt working … unless of course, you just want to act like a complete arsehole.

the next time you post, please try to base your utterance on verifiable facts rather then your idiotic opinions. until you accomplish this rather easy goal; you will continue to be our right wing nut job. so wipe the spittle off your chin and find some facts!

“Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles…”

Nonsense! Israel considers Iran a threat only to its (Israel’s) position as sole regional superpower, and neighborhood bully.
“and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map.’”

Rubbish! Ahmadi Najad has never even once called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Why, thanks! I didn’t know ya cared. ;o}

I DO hope Georgie-boy’s frustration over this whole Iran thing doesn’t prompt him to liberate Syria while I am there. And please tell Israel to hold off on bombing Lebanon at least until after the first week or so in April, ’cause I’m gonna be there for a few days, and plan to drive up the coast into Syria. If Israel ruins my plans there’s no telling what I might do!

As I said the last time one of you asked; I come for the entertainment.

I find it entertaining that you people are spitting out the same left-wing ranting that I heard in the 70′s.
Demanding “facts” to answer your vitriol and name-calling.

Never accuse the left of too many new ideas.

Here is a fact:
You (the hard-left) represent

Doubt Graywolf bothered to read the article. Because, if he had, he’d know that Ahmadinejad meant that the NIE report shows America is coming to its senses, since the NIE report states that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Further, Ahmadinejad says that hopefully the White House’s embrace of the NIE reports conclusions means that the US will negotiate and cooperate with Iran diplomatically. Ahmadinejad didn’t mean that the US had “surrendered” in a war that hasn’t happened.

This Nor’easter hasn’t been so bad–in NYC anyway. There was a little snow, but then it rained. So most of the snow is gone. But there was a real cold wind, which cut right through your coat and all the woolly layers underneath. Brrrr. Nice to be snuggly warm indoors.

“Ahmadinejad says that hopefully the White House’s embrace of the NIE reports conclusions means that the US will negotiate and cooperate with Iran diplomatically.”

Kinda makes you wonder which one is the crazy, irrational, dangerous one, doesn’t it?

Nah – come to think of it, we’ve known that for a long time!

Add Reuters to the list of irrational, dangerous ones with their hyperbolic, fear-inducing headlines, which sucker fools like Graywolf.

Don’t you get the feeling the White House doesn’t really want to negotiate with Iran?
Just going through the motions?

Like the 3 card Monte table’s on 5th ave.
“I really don’t spend much time on it.”
“Bring ‘em on”
“the Western White House” ???

Except for oil contracts, don’t you get the feeling they don’t know what negotiating is if it bit ‘em in the ass?

Empty Wheel and Christy Hardin Smith over at FDL focused on FISA and Dodd Fillibuster
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2007/12/17/senator-dodd-tries-to-save-the-co
nstitution/

C-spans coverage at Cspan 2
http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan2_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2

My friends are people who tell the truth. You aren’t one of them.

I have contempt for liars like you who put ALL of us in jeapordy!

Another example

Israel is working together with the United States administration and the British and French governments to counter the effect caused by the US National Intelligence Estimate report last week, which stated that Iran had stopped its military nuclear programme in 2003.

http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s19&SecId=19&AId=56976&ATypeId=1

Minor explosion in the FOX news building when someone moving a barrel full of chemicals dropped it, it was exposed to air and there was a small explosion:

NY1

Hoopster,
What diplomacy? They haven’t tried any diplomacy with Iran.

As Teakwoodkite says, The Bushies wouldn’t know diplomacy if it bit them in the ass.

With credit to Shirin (hope you don’t mind)

Shirin sent this to me.

It is a very powerful statement and reflects the truth about our illegal invasion, continued occupation and what will happen if we do not leave. I would have put a link but the original is in Arabic.

This is from the open letter of Harith al-Dhari the chairman of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group opposed to the occupation, to the tribes of Iraq, posted on the AMSI site Saturday December 1, interspersed with some comments by the translator.

“First of all the occupation has to leave in order that we can manage our own affairs, because it is the occupation that places barriers among us so that we can’t come together, talk, or agree among ourselves, and it is the occupation that sets off from time to time these outbursts of fitna among us, and sets up the many problems relating to sect, race, social groups, the economy, and so on. And regrettably they have some of our own flesh and blood to carry out their aims; and also very regrettably they have some neighboring [countries] who share their aims and assist in carrying out their policies, which come down to continuing in our country the state of violent upheaval, and [so as to foster a] feeling among us that we need the occupation, and that if it were to exit, then things would be worse, based on this argument: If problems aren’t solved with the presence of their hundreds of thousands of fighters, then how can they be solved if they leave?

“This they assert, and those who depend on them, and in fact many have fallen for this specious argument. For instance we now hear politicians who used to be for withdrawal, who are now for [having the foreign troops] staying, arguing that their staying will be a guarantee against the country sliding into internal war.

“But this is a fiction, because the occupation is the source of the problems, and under it the crises grew worse and new problems arose. In the period of the occupation we have seen fighting and crimes such as Iraqis have never before seen, of a kind that were unknown to Iraqi history. And do you know why? It is because the occupation itself is behind that [fighting and crimes], and do you not see that each time we have succeeded in solving a problem and been on the verge of plucking out the root of it, another has been put in our path, so as to keep us in this cycle of occupation and fitna. …But on the day that the occupation leaves, we will be able to isolate our problems, and solve them one after the other.

“We Iraqis do not have great problems, because our land is broad and can hold double our present numbers, and it is fertile by the grace of God from the north to the south, its water is plentiful, and its resources are sufficient for us and for tens of generations to come, and in fact that is the reason the enemy has designs on us. So let us agree to throw them out, and to thwart them in their ambitions and the ambitions of the others….”

More specifically in terms of the parallel history or “cycle” of occupation and sectarian troubles, Dhari notes among other things, first that already the initial acts of Bremer, in setting up an Interim Governing Council based on sectarian allocations (in addition to the dissolution of the army and the outlawing of the Baath party as a whole) laid the groundwork for a sectarian political system, and Dhari includes in this letter a lengthy explanation how the Lebanese system of sectarian allocations, which seems to have been the model for this, works to perpetuate and worsen the pattern of tit-for-tat antagonism in that country, and his point is that it is this same system that the occupation deliberately set up in Iraq.

Most recently–and this was the immediate motive for this letter–there has been a new manifestation of this same policy of sowing the seeds of fitna. Dhari puts it this way: Having accused the occupation of having set out to create a “second Lebanon”, via the sect-allocation system, federalism, Biden and the rest of it, he writes:

“And now the occupation is intent on a new technique in support of these plans, namely fragmentation–fragmenting of a single sect, of a single tribe, of a single region–and then the setting up of cantons, with armed regions fighting one another, and competing warlords, firing up in this way fitna in our beloved country in order to tear apart its limbs and leave the country weak, so that he [the occupier] will be the master, and those of the powers of evil who came with him, bringing the country in the final analysis to a civil war that will burn in every corner of the land.

“And there is no doubt that tribespeople will be an important [target], on which they will spend a lot of effort and money, in order to create centers of polarization within a single tribe, and they will nourish this polarization with their money and their weapons, and naturally with the money of Iraq also, so as to go on from there to create bloody internal battles. And in fact they have already begun with this type of thing in the center and south of Iraq.

“Beware, beware, you sons of our people, sons of our tribes, and all the sons of the two rivers, beware of these traps…which will turn the nation and its people into a pawn in the hands of the occupation. But our confidence in you is high, you Arab tribes and Kurdish tribes and Turkmen tribes and the tribes of all of Iraq, and the hopes of the ummah are focused on you and on your alertness and your efforts and on your jihad.”

huckabee has stumbled on to one of the solutions i have been propsoing for years albeit he has it backasswards. why not move the israelis out of the region? i suggest relocating them to south western texas and south eastern new mexico … when you examine this propsoal it makes sense in numerous ways.

first, the arab jewish conflict would mostly be resolved. any problems with religious shrines … easy, move them as well. secondly, america would benefit by having a buffer state with mexico. i think many of the harshest illegal immigration (read racist) crowd would welcome this solution until they figured out that many of the israelis have darker skins then mexicans.

ok this started out as a snark … about five years ago … but the more i think about it … the more i like it.

snark snark and more snark!

It is reported Clinton, Obama and Biden did not vote.

They (Israel) were also offered what is now known as Uganda originally.

They were also offered some land in Argentina.

Check out this article from Scott Ritter…

December 17, 2007
US Must Reevaluate Its Relationship With Israel

Here….

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=12064

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence are subject to public records request.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071217/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_secrecy

Judge Royce C. Lamberth Bio:

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/lamberth-bio.html

http://eggmann.blog.is/blog/eggmann/entry/389611/

^incredible story of an icelandic woman who was detained by themaniacs at DHS for 24 hours for having overstayed her visa for 3 weeks in 1995!!

I think you have to be in attendance to vote.
The issue is not important enough to require their attendance.

Even voting for Cloture in this case is important. I took lunch long enough to Hatch call the large majority of the US who do not want any immunity for Telco’s “a fringe political group.” Good thing I recorded the senate today…I am glad Hatch is taking such a wide stance on this…can’t wait to see the felonious monks at work…

I can’t friggin’ stand Mitch McConnell, he disgusts me (And his ‘let them eat cake’ wife) and I would love to see his sorry candy ass go – so I must admit when I read this, it really got my attention.
From Jon Soltz, at VoteVets…

As an Iraq war veteran, today is pretty exciting for me and all the other vets I talk with. Today, one of our own took the first step towards knocking off Senator Mitch McConnell in 2008. Iraq War Veteran Andrew Horne jumped into the race.

Andrew Horne, who had to step down as a Senior Advisor to VoteVets.org to run this race, not only has a good shot to beat McConnell, he has a tremendous shot. That’s got us Iraq veterans pumped because not only will we have a voice in the Senate that comes from our own ranks, but we’re also going to take down the guy who is the single most responsible person in Congress for the war in Iraq, as well as the defeat of pro-troop, pro-veteran legislation.

Let’s take just a small walk through the record of Mitch McConnell (Warning: Hold your nose):

• He led the filibuster of the Webb-Hagel “Dwell Time” amendment that would have given our exhausted troops as much time at home as in the field.

• He led the all-night filibuster of legislation that would have set us on a real change of course in Iraq, that would have allowed us to give Iraqis more responsibility, while freeing U.S. forces to take on the real threat to America — al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

• He consistently worked his side of the aisle against the same veterans he’s been fighting tooth and nail to keep in Iraq, beating back amendments to ensure a funding stream for veterans’ health care, increase Veterans’ medical services by closing corporate tax loopholes, and guarantee full-funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• And, most recently, he callously quipped that we ought not feel too bad about those who died in Iraq, because, afterall, “remember, these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.”

Andrew Horne is going to serve Kentucky well.

cont’d
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/one-of-our-own-is-going-t_b_76637.html?view=screen

http://www.AnrewHorne.org

We need to feature that race. He sounds like a great candidate. And I’m with you re McConnell — makes my skin crawl. And his views. Well, he’s just been Bush’s boy in the Senate, over and over and over again.

This is one of those “time travel” legislations. Normally, a time travel legislation makes something that was legal, illegal and then backdates the time when it became illegal. Those creative dems and repubs have instead taken something that was illegal when it was done and now propose legislation that makes it legal both going forward and going backward in time. It’s called an ex post facto law and is unconstitutional ( article 1 section 9 ) but that too is not relevant.

The US sent the Nazi’s to Argentina first.

So how does a regular citizen get standing to stop this unconstitutional behavior?

Watching the Senate floor today Dodd(?) ask all to read the senate report, firured I post the link here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=sr209&dbname=110&

The National Press Club had the US Comptroller speaking. He said that the war spending will be 1 trillion and that the US dept will be in Junk Bond status by 2020 by Standard and Poor…Mostly Poor

What chemical would when dropped and exposed to the air explodes? Did they say what the substance was? I did not see that detail reported.

Become a senator.
Become a Revolutionary.
There are 100 senators by my estimation maybe 3 should be retained.
435 reps maybe 15 deserve another 2 years.
The comptroller is too kind by 10 years.

Become a senator.

Got a 100 mil? I would run…oops I would have to take your phone call for the money right?

Become a Revolutionary.
Workin on it.

Throw the bums out? Can’t wait for the free agency season to start!!

All due respect to Harry Reid of Nevada, give it up or get some balls. He pulled the FISA bill because Dodd was going to fillibuster it.

Can we keep Jeff “kicked like a rented mule” Flake from the Arizona 6th?

Here’s the NYPost‘s version:

December 18, 2007 — A flash fire caused by a chemical spill during a safety inspection erupted in the News Corp. building in Midtown yesterday, injuring five people, including a firefighter.

The 10:39 a.m. blast at 1211 Sixth Ave., home of The Post and Fox News, forced the evacuation of 700 people.

City Department of Environmental Protection inspectors were on the 45th floor, which houses heating and cooling systems, when a chemical spilled, mixed with the residue of another and exploded, fire officials said.