As they do what they are noted for, but accuse others of in their growth of the spin, whining!

Gen-Nexters are feeling left out of the party.

Poor babies!

.... Ron Paul is a short-sighted, small minded, idiot .....

Regarding Ron Paul, my rant ....

Remember the millennium threat in 1999?  We didn't know just what was planned against us, but there was enough "chatter" picked up by our intelligence to tell us something could well be coming.

So what did the Clinton/Gore White House do?  They set up a special situation rooom to deal with this threat, with DAILY calls to all agencies for any information they may have picked up, and reminders to be alert.

(Continued below the fold)

As they Rubber Stamped Two Major Conflicts!

Signing off on Conflict Budgets with No Oversite and No Questions!

Whatever this administration wanted They Got, and are Still getting even though the People Want the Complete Opposite and Spoke out for last election!

Well we have now been watching the Results of Their 'Tough On National Defense and Supporting The Troops'!

They sent our Military into these Wars of Choice, and showed a Total lack of Concern about our returning Military Personal. Speaking hollow words of 'Support'!

Their Choice, to follow the Failed Policies and Incompetent Corrupt Leadership!!

Instead of imagining some of the dire possibilities that could intervene between now and then, let's imagine something more cheerful: the 2008 election goes forward as planned and we win! Imagine you're the new Democratic President taking office in 2009. Now the next question is, who should be in the new cabinet?

In the UK, with its parliamentary system, the parties out of power each have a "Shadow Cabinet" that consists of the people who would most likely get each ministry portfolio if their party took over the government. I've often thought it would be an excellent idea for Presidential nominees to announce their shadow cabinets once they won their party's nomination, since this would give the voters a lot better idea of what to expect from the candidate's administration--realizing that some of them might not ultimately get the job if scandal or health problems or some other factor made them bow out or fail to get Congressional approval. Knowing at least who the candidate preferred for some of the major posts like Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense would help voters gauge how the candidate's government might shape up.

Another dream last night. Again, this one riled me so much I couldn't get back to sleep and this blog is the result of that dream. I dreamt I was riding in a mini-van with an unnamed failed presidential candidate. He asked what his platform should be. I said the answers were obvious and rattled off several, ranging from education to national defense. Although I consider some of these solutions to be radical, in the end I believe, as a whole, they are acceptable to a large majority of the population. This is the first installment on a series detailing platform positions that could ensure a Democratic candidate could win the White House and make the world a better place. This installment: Health Care, National Defense and Iraq / Iran.

Why are we allowing the Neo-Conservative war machine to start another unnecessary war with another Middle Eastern Country? Is the current war in Iraq not killing enough of our brave servicemen/women? Has there not been enough innocent civilians killed? Has the war in Iraq not done enough to villianize us in the Muslim world? Has it not done enough as a recruiting poster for Al-Qaeda? Everyone except for the Neo-Conservative war machine seem to believe that sanctions and direct hard line diplomacy from the U.S. would be more than enough to dissuade the Iranian’s from continuing with their nuclear ambitions. the New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

While the United States demands that other countries end their nuclear programs, the Bush administration is busy planning a new generation of nuclear weapons. Nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, the United States is allocating more funding, on average, to nuclear weapons -- than during the Cold War.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, the above statement is stunning, although it really shouldn’t have fazed me at all. The Bush administration is stockpiling nukes. Not the imaginary kind like Iraq had before the invasion or the hyped-up perception of Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program, but rather, the kind that are actually lethal; brand spankin’ new, state-of-the-art WMDs. After all, our federal government is presently in the hands of madmen, a cabal of criminals hell-bent on spreading hegemony across the world through intimidation, and the barrel of a very big, very dangerous gun.

Update - Changed title for relevancy

When it comes to a governmental policy, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is one of the lamest policies ever thought up by actual adults, although labeling them adults may be strictly interpreted by the physical requirements of adulthood, depending on who you talk to.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is the common term for the U.S. military policy which implements Pub.L. 103-160 (10 U.S.C. § 654). Unless one of the numerous exceptions from 10 U.S.C. 654(b) applies, the policy prohibits anyone who has sexual bodily or romantic contact with a person of the same sex from serving in the armed forces of the United States, and prohibits any homosexual or bisexual from disclosing his or her sexual orientation, or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. The policy also requires that as long as gay or bisexual men and women in the military hide their sexual orientation, commanders are not allowed to investigate their sexuality. - (Source)

...The sad truth is no one will be held accountable, and there will be no trials or prosecutions for the countless innocents that have been killed in America's foreign wars. The result is that the politicians are further emboldened to wage even more wars in the future...

      I do not know what weapons World War III will be fought with. World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. - Albert Einstein

Humankind has become an endangered species. Perhaps due to natural forces in a barbarous cosmos and unstable volcanic planet, both of which are beyond our control. Perhaps and even more plausible cause of human extinction is by the threat of strategic weapons of mass destruction.

This is a transcript from Bartcop Entertainment.  I sent this to Marty 5 years ago for her September 15th post.
I lived it all.  Reading it now it seems a bit corny but I felt every bit of it as I wrote it.  And stood within walking distance of my home, in a neighborhood I loved and saw the distruction.

I have since learned that more people died in the Pentagon from Prince William County, where I live now and grew up, about 30 miles south, than actually lived in Arlington County.  I don't think that is widely known.  

This was a response of mine to a commentator on another one of my diaries, "The New Dovish Imperial Grand Strategy." As is my understanding, the commentator was attempting to assert that the plans of PNAC and PNM, these neoliberal/neoconservative imperial grand strategies, were justified on the basis of the threats posed by population growth. If this were true then the criticisms I level at the high-level planners in most of my diaries and comments would be myopic. However, I believe that this response concisely explains the reasons why that rationale is preposterous.

Oh nooooooo!  Terrorists are plotting to kill us!  With airplanes and bombs and suiciders homiciders!  And that goes to prove that only President Bush and his faithful minions the Republicans in Congress can save us from those soft on terrorism, cut and running Democrats.

Well, as the saying goes, NOT EXACTLY.

It seems every time some terror plot is revealed, and the threat levels are raised, we hear the same old story from the Republicans spinmeisters and their stenographers in the corporate media.  And we get the same cowardly lackluster response from Democratic officials: Bupkus.  Terror alerts always seems to terrorize the Dems, and put them on the defensive.  But it doesn't have to be that way.

What Democrats should be doing is going on the counterattack, and it really isn't that difficult, if Democrats would simply repeat a few of the following, easy to understand, talking points every time the get face time before a microphone or television camera:

(cont.)

In response to this near tragedy, Democrats have a good opportunity to totally reframe the issue of national defense. We need to get away from the "strong or weak" frame which they have used so effectively. We have to say that that accusation is silly, we all want to have a strong defense for our nation.

The question that we need to ask is, who's making the right decisions. and who's wreally screwing up? Who's smart and who's, um, stupid? Which party has made a long string of wrong decisions on defense the last 5 years that has left us weaker than we were under Clinton? (a list can be made ad nauseam)

This is not a left or right frame. It's a common sense frame. Who's made the best decisions on defense the last 10 or more years?

Let's get out of this strong or weak box and recast the entire debate on another ground that makes more sense and that benefits us.

I've got to stop, I'm having a dizzy spell and can hardly see what I'm doing.

Here is a repost of a January 2005 k9disc Invisible Man Special:

Truman's National Security Act of 1947 gave us a new cabinet level official: The Secretary of Defense.

Given the fact that the Administration keeps comparing our situation in this new milennium to WWII, and that we have a cabinet level Homeland Security Department, I propose that we bring back the War Department, and the title of Secretary of War, and let the Department of Homeland Security take over the necessary job of National Defense.

After all, can anyone doubt that Rumsfeld is a Secretary of War?

More....

Okay, so I go to school every day and attend class and meet with my friends and eat lunch and, just, do my thing.  And, every day two bullies push me around and humiliate me in front of my classmates.  They punch me.  They throw food at me.  They administer wedgies and indian burns on my wrist.  They berate me for not belonging in their school.  Every day I fear what new torture and attack they will come up with next.

Okay, so I need to do something because this just cannot continue forever.  Sometimes I try to defend myself.  When they bloody my nose, I spit on their shoe.  When the blacken my eye, I pinch their arm.  This does not seem to work.  What to do next?

The story of conservative failure in America dates back to the 1770s when they sided with the British and to the 1860s when they supported slavery but for expedience purposes we will pick up the narrative in the 20th Century.

After Democrats won World War I, three corrupt conservative Presidents (KKK Harding, KKK Coolidge, and Hitler lover Hoover) managed to destroy our economy and our military.  Throughout the 1930s, prominent conservatives like Prescott Bush and Henry Ford funded Adolf Hitler while liberals were aghast.  When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, it was FDR and Democrats who won World War Two.