January 31, 2004

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'A thinly veiled political decision'
CBS officials deny they are censoring the MoveOn ad as part of a political quid pro quo deal with the WH.

CBS's heavy-handed tactics are fueling an outpouring of grassroots anger over the dominance of communications in the United States by a handful of large media corporations. More than 400,000 Americans have contacted CBS to complain already, and the numbers are mounting hourly.

At the same time, the controversy surrounding the censorship of the MoveOn ad has heightened Congressional concern about lobbying by CBS's owner, Viacom, and other media conglomerates to lift limits on media consolidation and monopoly. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, says CBS should be seen as: "Exhibit A in the case against media concentration."

- - from the Online Beat, by John Nichols.


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Endangered white male
The Houston Chronicle reviews WH harem-boy and former comedian Dennis Miller's new tv hosting gig, Conservative Showcase of Smegma:

'Miller, a Sept. 11 convert to conservatism, evidently decided to contribute his comic talent to his latest cause. His main goal is not to amuse, and evidently, neither is it CNBC's. Like its sister cable news network, MSNBC, the business-oriented CNBC seems obsessed with outfoxing the Fox network, boosting its ratings by catering to conservative viewers who seek an alternative to what they regard as a widespread liberal conspiracy on television.'


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Wolf, you ignorant slut
The continuing saga of one man's descent into depraved whoredom.

We join CNN's Wolf Blitzer - who's starting to resemble a hirsute old man's posterior - interviewing hero/patriot Scott Ritter, who looks vaguely disgusted by the whole thing.

BLITZER: David Kay, as you well know, says that not the Bush administration, the political leadership, the president or the vice president. They didn't get it wrong, the career professionals in the intelligence community in the U.S. military, they were the ones who got it wrong, as a result, there should be an outside investigation into how they came up with apparently faulty intelligence, is that your assessment?

RITTER: This is where David Kay and I part ways. You know, I know what the intelligence community of the United States, Great Britain and indeed Israel felt about Iraq in late 1998. While there was concern about the unfinished business of disarmament, nobody maintains that Iraq had massive stockpiles of chemical, biological agents.

Nobody maintained that Iraq represented a clear and present risk of growing danger that needed to be confronted. Indeed this assessment was upheld until 2001. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice both maintained in 2001 that Iraq was a containable threat, that it didn't pose a threat. Something occurred between 2001 and 2003 that changed the way...

BLITZER: Let me interrupt you, Scott. What happened was 9/11.

RITTER, pouncing: 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq and now we come down to the crux of the matter here. This isn't an intelligence failure, this is a policy failure. This is policymakers like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice and others who used 9/11 to pursue their own agenda on Iraq when they knew there was neither substantive factually based information to sustain Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threat or links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

We have to go back to Harry Truman's old adage. The buck stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I agree, there has to be a full investigation but not just of the intelligence community but of the policymakers who made the decision to go to war based upon faulty (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BLITZER: Having said all that, you lived in Iraq, you were a U.N. inspect. You saw what life was like under Saddam Hussein's regime, when all is said and done, despite some apparently faulty intelligence, are the people are Iraq better off today?

RITTER: That's a question that has to be asked of the people of Iraq.

BLITZER: But what do you believe?

RITTER: I believe that the people of Iraq are going to -- they're suffering now, and they're going to suffer for years to come because of our unilateral actions, that there were ways to deal with Saddam Hussein that didn't involve unilateral invasion with the United States stepping away from international law, et cetera.

More importantly, though than the Iraqi people, I care about the American people. I care about the damage that's been done to democratic processes. The president of the United States misleading Congress, misleading the American people, the Congress abrogating the constitutional responsibilities regarding the declaration of war.

I think this country has been hurt tremendously by this war in Iraq, and we're going to continue to suffer. And that's why I think it's imperative that we complete the phase of democratic processes which is accountability. We hold those whom we elect to higher office accountable for what they do in our name. The president of the United States either lied or misled the American people and I think everybody in the United States has to look themselves in the mirror and say what are we going to do about it?


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Bring 'em on!
Two bombings in Iraq today killed 12 people, including three American soldiers, and wounded at least 44 others, according to the US military and news agency reports.

The US deaths bring to 522 the number of US forces killed in Iraq.

The number of weapons of mass destruction found: 0.




Happy Super Bowl Weekend.
I'm going to light a fire - and quite a few cigars - and try to stay warm. But first, coffee, and the nooze.




White House holding notes taken by 9/11 Commission
Panel may be forced to subpoena summaries of the pResident's Daily Brief (PDB)

The WaPo reports: The White House, already embroiled in a public fight over the deadline for an independent commission's investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is refusing to give the panel notes on presidential briefing papers taken by some of its own members, including the controversial August 2001 memo that discusses the possibility of airline hijackings by al Qaeda terrorists.


For someone who said he 'trusted the American people' he's sure being a close-minded little #uck.

January 30, 2004

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Cool

  • A "witch bottle" was discovered buried in old foundations in Lincolnshire. Containing bent pins, human hair and perhaps urine and dated to about 1830, the bottle was supposed to protect a household against evil spells.

  • A French-Egyptian archaeology team has retrieved more than 1000 artifacts, including statues and busts of gods and goddesses, from the Mediterranean Sea floor off Egypt's northern coast of Alexandria.

  • A boy’s angel sighting leads to rescue of injured snowmobiler half-buried in the snow.

  • The extended version of the final Lord of the Rings film will be released on DVD in November. Director Peter Jackson confirmed that the final cut of Return of the King had been completed, with a total running time of four hours and ten minutes.


  • _________________________________________________
    Bush's approval ratings in crapper
    The AWOL liar's job approval ratings have dropped to 47%, according to the latest survey by the American Research Group.


    _________________________________________________
    Bush declines to back call for intel probe
    From the "Imagine That!" department: Preznit Poopypants doesn't want an independent investigation into why he's a LYING ASSHAT.

    President Bush said Friday "I want to know the facts" about any intelligence failures concerning Saddam's alleged wmd, but he declined to endorse calls for an independent investigation.


    _________________________________________________
    Whitewash
    "An influential and growing body of opinion believes that Hutton's report is a 'whitewash' In fact, today's Independent newspaper dramatically left most of its front page blank to signal its view that Hutton has not been even-handed in apportioning blame.

    "The row is likely to grow, with many people openly questioning whether Hutton's report can be reconciled with the evidence that he has heard. One trenchant commentator, the novelist Frederick Forsyth, said today that he thought the Hutton report was 'garbage.'" - - editorial in the Telegraph (India).



    _________________________________________________

  • An ad writer thinks Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" would make a great Preparation H jingle.

  • The White House says the medicare bill will cost at least a third more than expected.

  • Dick 'dick' Cheney blames wife for calling the US an "empire" in their '03 Christmas card.


  • _________________________________________________
    The Bush administration: like gunmen in a pre-school

    Last week, the Regime's own duly-appointed, CIA-paid weapons hunter, David Kay, finally coughed up a dinosaur-sized bone and admitted, openly, publicly, what the sane world has long known: that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before the war -- and in fact hadn't had any since George Bush Senior stopped supplying Saddam Hussein with the money and material to make them many years ago. ...

    Thus we come to this unavoidable conclusion: The Bush Regime launched a war of aggression on the basis of evidence that had to be, by its very nature, insubstantial, insufficient, false. That's the only kind of evidence they could have had. What does this mean? It means they have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of children -- blown them to pieces, shot them, crushed them, terrorized them, rendered them into hunks of rotting meat -- in an act of moral insanity no different than that of a nutball in Lawrence, Kansas, shooting up a day-care center to "protect" himself from imaginary threats.

    - - Chris Floyd, the Moscow Times.


    _________________________________________________
    Hell, I'm positive
    The US military is "sure" it will catch Osama bin Laden this year, perhaps within months, a spokesman said. Just in time for the November election.



    _________________________________________________
    A 9/11 cover-up?
    Why won't Bush cooperate with investigators?

    The White House doesn't want to give the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the 60 more days that it says it needs to finish its report.
    Republicans are worried that a two-month extension would inject - shudder - politics into the Sept. 11 tragedy. The report would be released in July, in the middle of the presidential campaign.

    As a shocked, but unidentified Republican congressional aide told the New York Times, "The Democrats will spin and spin."

    Excuse us?

    It's already clear that the commission has found evidence to suggest that the terrorist attacks were not inevitable. Members of Congress who oppose extending the deadline need to explain why they don't want the whole story.
    Otherwise, you won't need Democrats to spin and spin the fact that the administration has something to hide, something big.

    - - from an editorial in the Philly Daily News.

    Does anyone have an icon for j*rking off?



    Tony Blair has been "sprayed with more whitewash than a Costa Brava timeshare" - - conservative legislator and Daily Telegraph columnist Boris Johnson.



    Where's the apology?
    'George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.'

    So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive WMD-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush - and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.

    Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup.

    Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?

    - - from Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times.

    Thank God someone's bullshit meter went off the charts: Senator John McCain Thursday called for an independent commission to take 'a sweeping look at recent intelligence failures.' Not surprisingly, though, the White House dismissed the proposal, arguing that they needed more time to plant the search wasn't complete.

    Factoid: The whores at CNN, learning of the possibility of an intel probe, were screaming "election-year politics!" last night until Senator Carl Levin reminded them that over 500 of our 'young men and women' had been killed and thousands more wounded. Then they finally STFU.

    Meanwhile, in Britain, opinion polls in newspapers Friday and accusations of a whitewash put a damper on the government's celebrations over the Hutton report, which had done its best to exonerate Bush leg-humper Tony 'Piddles' Blair.

    A poll taken after Hutton published his report showed Blair's trust rating down two points at minus 17.

    It also showed three times more people trusted the BBC over the government, and that support for the invasion of Iraq to counter the threat of unfound weapons had fallen.

    January 29, 2004

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    Quote of the night
    "Americans are now supposed to entrust Republican Sen. Pat Roberts with determining why we were misled to war. That would be easier if he weren't a pliable partisan hack whose tether to reality seems rather badly frayed. " - - Joe Conason


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    A New England primer
    'I keep hearing people on TV say that John Kerry is "aloof." Why? Because he doesn't walk around in a flightsuit and a cowboy hat? Up here we call that "not acting like a jackass."' - - 201k.

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    Too funny!
    "George W. Bush" posted a comment over at South Knox Bubba:

    My fellow Americans, there is time for retroflectionism. But there is time for war. And that time is now.

    (cheers from the Right side of the chamber)

    These unspeakable acts were the acts of vile, cowardly killers. And in submission to you, there's an old Texas saying, when you fall off your horse, you - you ride away.

    Today, Saddam Hussein won't be riding away. But there are some who think he should be back in the saddle, having a big ol' horsie ride and trying to plan for some of the most lethal weapons of mass destruction related program planning program-related activities ever devised. And there is no question that these people should not be questioning the acts of our heroes on September 11.

    So, tonight I am announcing the Truth about September 11th act. This act will eliminate partisan bickering and set a timetable for the truth to be announced to the American people by January 2005.

    (cheers from the Right side of the chamber)

    Thank you, good night, and may God continue to bless each and every one of us Americans.


    _________________________________________________
    Update
    Rightwing shill and morally-challenged hack Bob Novak savagely attacks onlooker at New Hampshire primaries, by witness Michael Stinson of Take Back the Media.com.


    _________________________________________________
    And, suddenly, it's a ballgame

    [T]he caucuses and primary both inspired record voter turnout and a surge among college-aged voters, a trend that, if continued into November, could mean bad news for the Republican Party. This is especially bad news for Bush. Not only did Democratic doings bury his State of the Union Address, but he lost his final chance to set the agenda going into the election. His recycled litany of tired cliches ("stay the course"), fraudulent policies (privatizing Social Security, tax givebacks to the rich), fear-mongering and broken dreams went over like ice cream in Antarctica.

    [T]he results are proof that the pundits -- none of whom came close to predicting them -- are, as I've long suspected, pulling stuff out of their asses on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis. I have this recurrent fantasy that all these people, from Tim Russert to Matt Drudge to Sean O'Hannity-reilly-coulter to even "respected" journalists like Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer are machines whose brains have been replaced with harmless mush wired directly to Karl Rove's red phone. Every time he rings them up, their brains scream: INCOMING! Their lips begin to move, and the words that come out of their mouths are market-tested White House fabrications.

    - - Alan Bisbort.

    _________________________________________________
    Yeah.
    Worthless national (in)security adviser Condo 'fried' Rice, forced to hit the tv nooze circuit in the wake of extremely embarrassing reports on prewar intelligence, was spinning so fast that the stability of Earth's gravitational field was in peril.

    She demurred that intelligence could have been flawed, but 'brushed aside' calls for launching an independent investigation.

    She also said that we may never learn the whole truth about Iraq's weapons because of looting, which US forces failed to stop immediately after the invasion.

    Okie-dokie...

    _________________________________________________
    WHAT "intelligence failure?"
    Neglecting intelligence, ignoring warnings: A chronology of how the Bush administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak.

    Examples:

    In 2001 and before, intelligence agencies noted that Saddam Hussein was effectively contained after the Gulf War.

    Throughout 2002, the CIA, DIA, Department of Energy and United Nations all warned the Bush Administration that its selective use of intelligence was painting a weak WMD case. Those warnings were repeatedly ignored.

    2003 - Instead of listening to the repeated warnings from the intelligence community, intelligence officials say the White House instead pressured them to conform their reports to fit a pre-determined policy. Meanwhile, more evidence from international institutions poured in that the White House’s claims were not well-grounded.

    Even the international intelligence on Iraq's programs was far from uniform. Jacques Chirac of France told CNN last March there was "no evidence" that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. And Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, when asked in October 2002 about the CIA's conclusions, said: "Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."


    _________________________________________________
    WMD: Bush's turn to face uncomfortable truths
    'Critics of the Bush administration claimed that intelligence was "cherry picked" and skewed to make the case for war and that caveats about the lack of solid intelligence about Saddam's capabilities were ignored for political reasons. They said putting the blame on the intelligence community amounted to a "whitewash."'


    Emperor Snippy points prehensile fingers,
    flings feces at intelligence community.

    _________________________________________________
    Quote of the day
    "Since when do plastic surgeons make diagnoses from Drudge Report photos?" - - John Kerry's press secretary.


    _________________________________________________
    Too stupid to be president
    Bush: he seemed disengaged during Paul O'Neill's briefings because he was "bored as hell"

    "Let me say something about that book. Paul said I was disengaged because he talked to me for 45 minutes and I didn't say a word. I wasn't disengaged. I was bored as hell and my mother told me never to interrupt."

    Jebus.



    _________________________________________________
    This is NOT a joke
    Republicans have asked the Supreme Court to block a congressional redistricting map that favors Democrats, saying the Colorado Supreme Court had no authority to throw out districts drawn up by GOP lawmakers. A stay would allow the state to use the GOP-drawn map for the November elections.




    The war hero vs the aWol preznit
    'If Karl Rove thinks he can take down John Kerry the way his mentor, Lee Atwater, took down Michael Dukakis, he's got another thing coming.'

    '[T]he Republicans' vulnerability runs even deeper than that. For the very real economic anxieties of the American people - diminishing health coverage, the inflation of college tuition and the disinclination of American corporations to do their hiring in America - the Bush administration has nothing whatsoever to offer.

    'The abject failure of Bush's State of the Union address last week - his popularity actually sank in its aftermath - hasn't drawn much attention, sandwiched as it was between Iowa and New Hampshire. But I suspect a large segment of the American public views the president's interest in Mars exploration and in steroids in baseball as a kind of admission of his cluelessness or indifference (or both) to the nation's genuine needs.'



    _________________________________________________
    Here, let me do your job for you...
    Captain Maureen Griswold, RN (ret) writes to the media about Bush's AWOL/deserter status during Vietnam war.
    The purpose of this communiqué is to furnish, free of charge, the attached research materials to ABC News and Mr. Peter Jennings because of Mr. Jennings' misinformed and unfortunate performance during the New Hampshire Democratic Debate this past Thursday evening. Mr. Jennings won't have to lift his multimillion dollar-salaried derriere even one inch out of his chair to complete the following homework assignments. The only effort necessary is clicking the links to bring up web pages and hitting the print command. Presto!



    _________________________________________________
    High court duck blind
    "Vacationing with the vice president under such circumstances, with both guests of an energy industry executive, represents a serious lapse in judgment, one that Mr. Scalia should now correct by recusing himself from further involvement in the case." - - from an editorial in the WaPo.



    _________________________________________________
    Bush to eliminate nuclear plant standards
    Plans to let contractors devise new rules

    The Bush misadministration is moving to replace government safety standards at federal nuclear facilities with requirements written by contractors - after Congress directed it to start fining the contractors for violations.

    Sorta like his plan to destroy the national forests in order to help prevent forest fires. Or waging a war on a country to prevent them from maybe planning some kind of weapons program.

    I need a drink.



    January 28, 2004

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    You'd think the Anti-Christ would be smarter

    According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."

    Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations.

    Maybe it's Karl?


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    Blatant liar and alleged war profiteer to get booted for 9/11 "hero"?
    pReznit Poopypants' handlers, seeing trouble on the horizon, may replace Dick 'Halliburton' Cheney with "America's mayor" Rudy Guiliani.

    'The issue of Cheney’s health will probably be given as the reason,' a "well-placed source" told MSNBC.




    "Is our children learning?"
    "The illiteracy level of our children are appalling." - - the Unspeakable Dumbass, speaking at the conference of mayors, January 23, 2004.


    _________________________________________________
    Mainstream papers raise issue that WH may have lied
    Editorials question Bush's role in 'cooking' up a war

    In the wake of the latest revelations from weapons inspector David Kay, many of the largest US newspapers are belatedly pressing the Bush administration for an explanation of how it could have gotten the question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so wrong in the march to war last year. A growing number are raising the possibility that Bush and his team may have "cooked" the intelligence to support their case for war.

    An E&P survey of the top 20 newspapers by circulation found that as of Wednesday, 13 had run editorials on Kay's resignation as chief US weapons inspector in Iraq last Friday, and his statement that no WMDs exist in Iraq, and likely did not exist in Iraq during the US run-up to war.

    Nearly all of those papers blamed intelligence failures for the miscalculation and called for a full probe. But eight of the 13 -- most of which supported the war -- also raised the issue of White House deceit and its possibly blind pursuit of intelligence that fit its plan for war.

    Only two the 13 papers that ran editorials expressed little concern that the Kay findings undercut their support for the war: The New York Post and New York Daily News. The Post warned readers not to "be taken in by all the hot air following David Kay's statements."


    The Post's banner.

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    9/11 panel faults Bush for letting hijackers in
    How the misadministration made us safer from terrizm

  • "The US government fumbled repeated opportunities to stop many of the men responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from entering the country, missing fraudulent passports and other warning signs that should have attracted greater scrutiny, according to a preliminary report released yesterday. The new findings by the independent commission investigating the terrorist strikes stand in marked contrast to the contentions of many senior US. officials, who for more than two years have portrayed the 19 hijackers as law-abiding travelers who did little to attract government suspicion and who, in nearly all cases, entered or resided in the country legally. Yesterday's report disclosed that as many as eight of the hijackers carried passports that 'showed evidence of fraudulent manipulation,' while as many as five of the passports had 'suspicious indicators.' The report did not identify the details missed by authorities." - - WaPo.

  • "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, plot, obtained a visa to come to the United States just weeks before the attacks despite being under a federal terrorism indictment, a report by the federal commission investigating the attacks revealed Monday. And as many as eight of the hijackers entered the country with doctored passports that contained 'clues to their association with Al Qaeda' that should have been caught by immigration authorities, commission investigators said. The newly disclosed findings challenge previous claims by top CIA and FBI officials that the hijackers' records and paperwork were so clean that they could not have aroused suspicion." - - the LA Times.


  • _________________________________________________
    Wolf, you ignorant slut
    The continuing story of a Rovebot's descent into total journalistic embarrassment and whoredom.

    Can you believe this guy??

    BLITZER: Terry McAuliffe, when Wesley Clark was on that stage with Michael Moore, one of his campaign supporters, and Moore called Bush a deserter and General Clark refused to distance himself from that comment right away, was that a huge blunder? You don't believe that Bush was a deserter, do you?

    MCAULIFFE: Well, Wolf, in order to be a deserter, you have to actually show up. Let's just deal with the facts. As you know, when Bush got out of college in 1968, it was at the height of the draft. It's well known that the president, former president, used some of his influence to get George Bush into the Texas National Guard. He then wanted to go to Alabama and work on a Senate campaign. So he went to Alabama for a year while he was in the National Guard, and he never showed up. I mean, I would call it AWOL.

    "If you would have done your job instead of spreading it for the GOP, you would've found this out for yourself a few years ago, you farking patsy," he should have said. "And if you were doing your job now, you'd be reporting on the fact that yes, he did go AWOL, you useless whore."


    _________________________________________________
    A message from MoveOn.com

    Over the last four days, something incredible has happened. CBS has received over 340,000 emails and phone calls asking it to stop its censorship. Clearly a huge number of us believe that CBS's refusal to run our Voter Fund ad, while allowing the Bush White House to run an advocacy ad of its own, is just plain wrong.

    Columnists and editorial pages are writing about it. And on Monday, FCC commissioner Michael Copps issued a statement on it. These folks understand that this issue isn't just about our Voter Fund's ad -- an ad by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was censored as well. At heart, it's about free speech. Huge companies like CBS that control access to the publicly owned airwaves have to air opposing points of view.

    CBS still refuses to run "Child's Pay." But together, we can increase the pressure on CBS. And through the power of the Internet, we can make sure that millions of people see the ad and learn about the controversy.


    Check out the ad here.

    Go here to send an email to CBS and to sign the petition.

    Next, consider taking a moment to call CBS and let them know why you believe their refusal to run ads like this one is wrong. If you call, please be calm and polite -- it's not the folks who answer the phones' fault that CBS made this decision. You can reach them at:

    CBS Comment Line
    212) 975-4321

    One other piece of great news: Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Wyden (D-OR) and over 20 members of the House of Representatives released letters today asking CBS to run ads like "Child's Pay." Congratulations: the ground swell that you started has reached our nation's capital.


    _________________________________________________
    Baghdad is Bush's blue dress
    Iraq deceptions must not go unpunished

    "In no previous instance of presidential malfeasance was so much at stake, both in preserving constitutional safeguards and national security."

    Now, can we talk of impeachment? The rueful admission by former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction or the means to create them at the time of the U.S. invasion confirms the fact that the Bush administration is complicit in arguably the greatest scandal in U.S. history. It's only because the Republicans control both houses of Congress that we hear no calls for a broad-ranging investigation of the type that led to the discovery of Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress...

    After all, the president misled Congress into approving his preemptive war on the grounds that our very survival as a nation was threatened by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. We were told that if we hesitated, allowing the U.N. inspectors who were in Iraq to keep working, a mushroom cloud over New York, to use Condoleezza Rice's imagery, might well be our dark reward.

    - - read more of Robert Scheer here.


    _________________________________________________
    Four killed in Baghdad hotel bombing
    Wednesday, January 28 - 'A car bomb exploded Wednesday in front of a hotel frequented by Westerners, killing at least four people, witnesses and coalition officials said. The blast occurred one day after six US soldiers were killed in a pair of roadside bombings. The attack occurred as a two-member U.N. team arrived in Baghdad to assess security for an electoral team.'





    Bushies say they never warned of "imminent" Iraq threat
    'Smarting from the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the White House denied it had ever warned that Saddam posed an "imminent" threat to the United States.'

    So there! Nyah! Phththththth!

    White House spokes-hamster Scott McClellan reiterated: "I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent.' Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat," he insisted.

    Whoa, yeah, that's much different.

    'But if Bush never called Saddam's Iraq an "imminent threat" in so many words, he said it was "urgent," Dick Cheney called it "mortal" and it was "immediate" to Donald Rumsfeld.'

    "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq," Rumsfeld lied in September 2002.

    It's funny, but they're all starting to sound a bit Clintonian, aren't they?

    Then there was worthless national insecurity advisor Condi 'fried' Rice's whole "smoking mushroom cloud" thing...

    Others in the WH didn't say the word outright, but continued to j*rk off their presstitutes in the whore media:

    On January 26, 2003, CNN asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett "is he (Saddam) an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"

    "Well, of course he is," Bartlett replied.

    On May 7, 2003, a reporter asked then WH spokes-tool Ari 'the liar' Fleischer: "We went to war, didn't we, to find these - because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?"

    "Absolutely," he replied.

    Well, there you are.


    January 27, 2004

    _________________________________________________
    Kerry wins NH primary
    With 27 percent of the precincts reporting, Kerry had 39 percent, Dean had 24 percent, Edwards 13 percent, Clark 12 percent, and Lieberman 10 percent (Yahoo News).

    _________________________________________________
    Wolf, you ignorant slut
    Certifiable loon and WH patsy Wolf Blitzer interviews Wesley Clark, has attack of the Clenis:

    CLARK: Here's what I believe in this country. I believe the presidency is a very high office and must be treated with respect and the people who hold it must be true patriots and they must protect this country. And my view of patriotism for a president is to do everything you can to keep the country safe.

    What we know, Wolf, is that, before 9/11, President Bush did not do everything he could to keep this country safe. And we can increasingly see that, after 9/11, he's taken us to a war that we didn't have to fight.

    BLITZER: Well, you could argue that President Clinton also for eight years didn't do everything he could to keep the country safe.

    CLARK: This is an election about how President Bush's performance in office has been. And it's an election about who has a better vision for the future of America.

    You #ucking idiot! he should've added.


    _________________________________________________
    Cheney takes a leak - all over the American people

    Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that a magazine article, based on leaked and unevaluated intelligence, definitively proved links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden has triggered a new round in the Bush administration's conflict with the intelligence community.

    "It's disgusting," said Vincent Cannistraro, the former CIA chief of counterterrorism.

    "It's bullshit," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who served in the agency's Near East division.



    _________________________________________________
    Shorter Bush press blowoff conference
    "Geez, guy, what's with the no wmd????" - - reporters.

    "Saddam hates freedom. He gassed his own people. September 11." - - the raving meatpuppet, Jan. 27, 2004.


    _________________________________________________
    Rightwing hack assaults patriot in NH
    Blah3 reports that ethically-challenged drooling shill Boob Novak attacked a man who called him a traitor for outing Valerie Plame.


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    Former comic/Rovian smegboy Dennis Miller's defense: ethics don't apply to him
    Spoken like a true republican!

    'In response to FAIR activists and other critics pointing out the extraordinary conflict of interest posed by the new Dennis Miller talkshow on CNBC, Miller and the network have put forth a variety of contradictory excuses.

    'Though from all descriptions {including Miller's own...Ed.} the show is intended to focus heavily on news and politics, Miller has suggested that rules against journalistic conflicts of interest don't apply to him. "I don't have the vaguest pretension to journalistic ethics, I'm a comedian," he told the Hollywood Reporter.'

    Got news for ya, pal - you're not a comedian, either.


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    VP Cheney auditions for new comedy show
    That's got to be the answer for this stupid quote:

    "We've found a couple of semitrailers... I would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, that he did have programs for weapons of mass destruction."

    Stop, you're killing me!