Do what I say, not what I do?

Bush astounds activists, supports human rights:

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, the president called for renewed efforts to enforce the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a striking point of emphasis for a leader who's widely accused of violating human rights in waging war against terrorism.

Bush didn't mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA's "rendition" kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.

"At first read, it's little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. His words about human rights ring hollow because his credibility is nonexistent," said Curt Goering, the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. "The gap between the rhetoric and the actual record is stunning. I can't help but believe many people in the audience were thinking, 'What was this man thinking?' "

McClatchy is one of the few remaining press outfits that still has what outfits such as the NY Times, Washington Post and even the Wall Street Journal and TV/Radio outfits such as CBS, NBC and CNN once had.

I'm just surprised that the audience didn't laugh him off the stage, the way that the students at Columbia did when President Ahmonajihad proclaimed that there were no homosexuals in Iran.

Burying the Lede

Buried deep in this WaPo article (emphasis mine):

While both Petraeus and the recent Pentagon report emphasized improved statistics over the past three months, the intelligence community generally declines to declare trends based on data measured in periods shorter than six months to a year. Several senior intelligence officials said last week that most numerical indicators appear to be moving in a uniformly positive direction in the nearly two months since the intelligence estimate's data cutoff -- although they said it is too early to determine definitive trends.

Got that?

First off, there's sure to be outrage from the Republicans, that the Washington Post had the temerity to question the veracity of The General Who's Patriotism Shall Not Be Questioned (despite the fact that he is a Bush administration shill who cares only about getting his next star).

But, probably most importantly, the article is stating as a matter of normal practice that the intelligence agencies don't declare trends based on only 2-3 months data. Why you ask? Because rather than a trend, it might just be that even terrorists don't like to work in 120 degree temperatures, and this could simply be an abberation, not a trend, that's why.

I'm surprised that no Senate staffer primed his/her boss with that tidbit, but then again, all of the Senators were busy pontificating rather than asking questions of the General.

Webb strikes back at Darth Vader

Why isn't this guy running for President?

Once again... the Bushco administration is

breaking the law:

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

...

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged.

...

The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.

No, it's worse than that. The Preznit has decreed himself the authority to declare anyone an "enemy combatant" and that gives him the "right" to detain that person without according them the protections that most of us, I suspect, believe we have under the constitution such as access to a lawyer, to be told why you are being held against your will, and of the right to a speedy trial before a jury of your peers.

He said that travel records are among the most potentially invasive of records because they can suggest links: They show who a traveler sat next to, where they stayed, when they left. "It's that lifetime log of everywhere you go that can be correlated with other people's movements that's most dangerous," he said. "If you sat next to someone once, that's a coincidence. If you sat next to them twice, that's a relationship."

So, if by mere coincidence, you happen to get seated next to Osama Bin Terrorist, say because you happen to be a frequent flyer on a typical commuter route, you could be flagged as a potential terrorist, and there is nothing you can do to clear your name, or defend against false charges, because the preznit doesn't have to charge you with a crime... he can just lock you up and throw away the key, like Josef K, caught in a constantly unfolding nightmare.

Supporting our troops?

This certainly doesn't seem to me to be very supportive (emphasis mine):

Despite overwhelming bipartisan Congressional support, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., stood his ground Wednesday, vowing to continue his hold on the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention bill introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, before the August recess. Coburn called the bill insulting to veterans and warned that its mandatory mental health screening could harm their future job options. "I'm going to continue to hold this bill until we work on the issues to guarantee freedoms of the veterans in terms of the tracking," Coburn said on the Senate floor.

...

The aim of the bill is to reduce the shocking rate of suicide among our men and women retuning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The VA estimates that more than 5,000 veterans take their lives each year. Suicide rates are 35 percent higher for Iraq veterans than for the general population. And the Department of Defense recently reported that the Army is now seeing the highest rate of suicide since the Vietnam War.

Sen. Coburn's reasoning? You'll love this one... :

"Out of the blue, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma objected to the unanimous consent request," Harkin said. "And his principal reason for doing so is completely baseless. He speculates that if we have mandatory screening of all veterans for suicide risk, the resulting medical data might be used to deny a veteran the right to purchase handguns."

So, basically, Sen. Coburn wants to make sure that these deeply troubled heroes, returning from the clusterfuck that is the Iraqi civil war can purchase a handgun, despite the fact that they might well use it to take their own lives. How sick is that?!

Texas-T

Who woulda thunk it: Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security

Critics of the administration have often argued that while Bush cited Hussein's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and despotic rule as reasons for the invasion, he was also motivated by a desire to gain access to Iraq's vast oil reserves. Publicly, little evidence has emerged to support that view, although a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive, titled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy" and signed by Bush in August 2002 -- seven months before the invasion -- listed as one of many objectives "to minimize disruption in international oil markets."

Of course it has always been about oil. They just felt that they couldn't say that in public (emphasis mine):

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."

The fact that Ray L Hunt, one of Bush's cronies from the oil biz just signed a deal with the Kurds (and not Bagdad, you will note) should tell you everything you need to know, including the fact that the "Surge" has failed, miserably, and that the Iraqi government, not the insurgency, is in its last throes.

Be.Very.Afraid.

Apparently, Larry Johnson thinks there's more to the loose nukes story than meets the eye. Given the fact that Dear Leader and Darth Cheney are both clearly insane, makes this angle even more believable.

Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That’s like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.

He continues (emphasis mine):

Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?

His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.

Frankly, when the story was playing non-stop on CNN, I too thought it rather bizarre. Isn't this an everyday occurance? Why all the breathless coverage from the likes of Barbara Starr (longtime CNN Pentagon reporter)? Makes you wonder. Seems to me that maybe they were scared shitless at the prospect of nuclear war, but stopped short of actually saying that on the tee vee so that they didn't panic the nation.

Be.Very.Afraid.

Impeach these war-mongers NOW. PLEASE!