General Says Army Will Need to Grow

General Says Army Will Need to Grow

Iraq and Afghanistan Are Straining the Force, Chief of Staff Warns
Warning that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations, the nation's top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation's main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today's Pentagon policies is "not right."

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READ THE FULL STORY...

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I am banging my hand on the table, saying this is “not right”.

The Iraqi (not a war any longer) occupation.

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“GET OUT”

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Issues...You Want issues…

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House to Vote on Senate's Offshore Drilling Plan

[House Democratic leaders have decided not to take a position on the bill in order to avoid having to choose between different constituencies within the party's own ranks. Environmental groups oppose the drilling measure; the Sierra Club issued a statement saying that "it's time for Congress to stop appeasing Big Oil" and that "drilling is a bad deal for Americans."]

[House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) opposes offshore drilling and is concerned about the loss of federal royalties, said spokeswoman Jennifer Crider. But Pelosi will not try to rally the Democratic caucus against the Senate bill.]

[Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said, "As the Republican Party prepares to relinquish control of the House and Senate, they are attempting a last-minute giveaway of public lands as an early Christmas present to the big oil companies."]

Read the full story…
By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writers
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Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of you spineless (lacking in willpower, courage, or strength of character) Democrats going to do something right? If you oppose this bill, do something about it. Voters oppose it. Big oil companies indorse it.

Sounds to me like big oil companies money found its way into the Democratic Party.

Nancy Pelosi will not try to rally the Democratic caucus against the offshore drilling bill, but she will rally the Democratic caucus for John Murtha.

She needs to find a different job!

Read more… WestTexasBliss

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House Postpones Offshore Drilling Bill

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House leaders pulled an offshore drilling measure off the calendar today, an apparent signal that the bill did not have the two-thirds majority of votes needed for it to be adopted.
Foes of offshore drilling hoped that today's move spelled the end of efforts to get the bill passed. "Let's hope this is the end of Congress' fling with Big Oil and that we can make a fresh start to achieving true energy security with the new year and the new Congress," Athan Manuel of the Sierra Club said in a statement.

By Steven Mufson

US Patriot

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT?

Hillary Clinton Actively Considers 2008 Bid For Presidency

We Don't Know When She'll Make Decision

Hillary Rodham Clinton., has begun active consideration of a 2008 run for president and has personally asked some fellow top New York Democrats for their support in the event she goes ahead with such a campaign, a top adviser said Sunday.
"As Senator Clinton said, she was going to begin actively considering a presidential run after the election. That process has begun," said Howard Wolfson.
"She is reaching out to her colleagues in the New York delegation and asking for their advice and counsel, and their support if she decides to make a run," the Clinton adviser told The Associated Press. Wolfson said he did not know when she might make a decision.

WNBC

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT?

Bill Clinton got $12 million for his memoirs. Hillary got $8 million for hers. That's $20 million for memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything.

If these three ladies were running for President, who would you vote for?

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It's high time for politicians to be paying attention.

Nancy Pelosi, you just don’t get it do you. Neither did the Republicans and look what happen to them.

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I want government transparency and accountability!

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I am fad up with the corruption in Washington.

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Get corporations out of Washington.

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FIRING ALL members of Congress (regardless of party) who are corrupt,
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Nancy Pelosi Wants Total Crap

House Speaker Pelosi's choice for Majority Leader, Draft Loving John Murtha, has this to say about the anti-corruption bill being pushed by Madame Speaker:

Even though I think its total crap, I’ll vote for it and pass it because that’s what Nancy wants.

I think he's brain-damaged but that gives Murtha too much credit. He's just corrupt.

Questions Surround Speaker Pelosi's Choice For House Majority Leader

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning watchdog group, accused Pelosi of compromising her ethical standards by endorsing Murtha.

Murtha has fought charges for years of using his senior status on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee to award favors to campaign contributors. He voted against a Democratic package of ethics reforms earlier this year

CBS News reporter Allison Davis

Representative Hoyer's supporters are reviving accounts of Murtha's less-than-decisive rejection of a bribe in the 1980 Abscam FBI sting operation. More recently, Murtha has battled allegations that he may have accepted favors from defense contractors.

Most immediately, Murtha's opposition to ethics reform, including past brushes with ethics issues, open Pelosi to charges that she hasn't heard voters on the importance of cleaning up the culture of corruption in Washington.

"Future House Speaker Pelosi's endorsement of Representative Murtha, one of the most unethical members of Congress, shows that she may have prioritized ethics reform merely to win votes, with no real commitment to changing the culture of corruption," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group that took a lead in criticizing former GOP majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas over corruption charges.

By Gail Russell Chaddock

First, Ethics Reform

The 'culture of corruption' helped Democrats win. Now they need to fix the mess!

ONE OF THE loudest messages from Tuesday's elections was disgust with the way Washington does business. In exit polls, 42 percent of voters said corruption and scandals in government were extremely important in their decisions -- a greater share than for the war in Iraq, terrorism or the economy. House Democrats have vowed to quickly adopt new ethics rules; their package is good but could be improved. Senate Democrats, who, after yesterday's gracious concession by Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), will control the chamber, say they too have heard the voters' demand for change.

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Read The Full Story: Washington Post

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[My Reply: “Good, but not good enough”.]

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The GOP lost control of Capitol Hill for a number of reasons, the war (the televised pictures of growing casualties were hard to shake off) and the scandals involving Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley (all of which were broken by news organizations). At times it seemed journalists and administration officials were offering two different versions of reality. But in the end the polls accurately forecast the thumping to come.
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Now the question is whether a press corps that has been openly at odds with the president will hold the newly empowered Democrats to the same tough standards.
Read The Full Story:
By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

Issues...You Want issues?

Political Junkie

Issues...You Want issues?

The biggest issue, for me, would be government transparency and accountability. If we, as the voters, cannot trust our elected officials, democracy has failed. We need to rid ourselves of corrupt politicians.

I have seen corruption ruin my state's reputation and, with America's reputation already at risk, we cannot afford to sit and watch our country fall into the perils of corruption.

Global warming. The National Academy of Sciences, among other people, said that growing heat waves are a result of climate change. Crops are dying of thirst in the Midwest. 40% of the polar ice cap is gone.

And this is just the beginning. Sorry to sound so doom-dayish ... believe me, I'm sick of it.

The bottom line is that it's high time for politicians to be paying attention, and I think that some of them finally are, because more and more people are deeply concerned about this problem.

Immigration, i.e., illegal aliens, is top-of-mind. Enforce the borders, no amnesty. Be a nation of laws, enforced laws.

Also, the ballooning deficit and out-of-control spending.

Iraq.

Issues...You Want issues?

Karl rove told us last year what the election was going to be about. We're not going to be allowed to have a discussion about anything except naked FEAR.

There is nothing they won't do to win. It's going to be a sickening spectacle. I don't know if I have the stomach to stay around for it.

Issues...You Want issues?

In the past few years we have had:
01. Destructive foreign policy
02. Destructive environmental policy
03. Destructive attacks on our constitution and civil rights
04. Destructive congress that is controlled by lobbyists and big corporate money
05. A do-nothing congress that just sits back and lets it all happen.

So what is my biggest issue?
FIRING ALL Members of Congress (regardless of party) who sat by and did nothing. They do not represent what is in the public's best interests, so why should we continue their employment?

I hope this election is a HUGE wake-up call for our government. The American People are their bosses, not special interests and big corporate money. We want our country back.

To restore checks and balances. If Congress did any kind of oversight of the executive branch, we probably would not have gone into Iraq and be facing the chaos of the Middle East.
01. Leadership for a viable energy policy.
02. National health care policy for all Americans.
03. Leadership to reevaluate trade agreements that not only are destroying the American middle class, but are enslaving people of other countries, making corporations pay their fair share.
04. Leadership for campaign finance reform, get corporations out of the voting process.
05. The Iraqi (not a war any longer) occupation.
06. Incompetence in Congress & the executive.

People will want a President who does more than speak of "family values",religious faith and morality but demonstrates them by living them. People will want a person unlikely to be tempted by corporate greed and political corruption. Integrity will emerge as a necessary requirem

Placing the competency issue front and center is a no-brainer given the last six years of a President whose intelligence and competency were judged absent by many Americans.

Sadly, while the issues that will get the most press will be the inane ones that provide warm comfort to the President's conservative base, the real issue that seems to pervade most of the postings is lack of credibility in the standing government in general, and in the chief executive in particular.

Too many people feel they have been misled or manipulated too often and immediately view this through a cynical prism.

Leadership that has the respect of the populace must be a priority.

I mean, really, Karl Rove did come out and say this a year ago. They have no shame, they admit to manipulation. They have published numerous talking points, position papers and treatises that all discuss how to frame the issue, how to talk about it, how to constantly remind people of 9/11, how to push people's buttons, how to scare them. Do you think bush's photo op with the fireman and the bullhorn was spontaneous? Do you think anything they do is?

It's all calculated to do one thing--frighten you. And it has worked. The question is, are we smart enough to see through it? Or are we going to let our fear alllow us to be manipulated--again?

In B-school, they always said Fear was the most affective strategy next to sex.

I guess GWB actually was awake in one of his classes.

Fear works. Big time--you can track it. It directly affects the primitive lizard brain, the limbic system. It works on us unconciously, even when our higher, reasoning brain is not aware of it.

Every dictator, every tyrant, has used it effectively throughout history to maintain control of populations.

Karl Rove is a great student of Machiavelli and Goebbels. He speaks admiringly of them often when he talks privately to 'conservative' foundations and such. It isn't Bush. He just does what Rove and Cheney tell him to.

Washington Post

Ohio Rep. Files Guilty Plea In Abramoff Scandal

U.S. Rep. Bob Ney will plead guilty to federal criminal charges he made false statements and conspired to commit fraud and violate federal lobbying laws in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Ney, R-Ohio, had defiantly denied the charges for months. Now he faces up to 10 years in prison. The Justice Department said prosecutors will recommend that he serve 27 months based on federal sentencing guidelines. Ney became the first lawmaker to admit wrongdoing in the election-year investigation.

Ney agreed to plead guilty to making false statements and conspiracy to commit "wire and mail fraud," make false statements and violate post-employment restrictions for former congressional staff members.

Ney faces up to ten years in prison, but the Justice Department said prosecutors will recommend he serve 27 months based on federal sentencing guidelines.

Ney signed the plea agreement Wednesday, but it was not approved by the Justice Department or filed in court until Friday.

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Don’t forget to take your golf clubs with you Anus Hole.

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Images By

Novak vs. Armitage

Novak vs. Armitage:

Bull, I’ve got a bridge in Florida I want talk to you about.

The Sin of Silence

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."

~ Abraham Lincoln

France Honors American Soldiers

Located on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach, the World War II Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France honors American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II. Shown here is the grave marker of Jimmie W. Monteith, a United States Army officer who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions and sacrifice of life on D-Day.

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Photo credit: Nilington - Read the Full Story at Wikipedia

Beat Swords into Plowshares

When I was 8 years old a hornet's nest began to take shape in the back of our yard. I went out and watched with a combination of fascination and fear as it grew day by day.

Finally, unable to stand the suspense, I took a big brick and threw it at the nest, breaking off the bottom half and sending the hornets into a swarming frenzy. I ran away as fast as I could as the angry bees swirled behind.

When I think of the relationship of the United States to the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, my experience as an 8-year-old comes to mind. "Why do they hate us?" Americans ask. Well, we've thrown a brick at their hive.

Forget the rhetoric about World War III. Choose the rhetoric of the Middle Eastern prophet Isaiah: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Frank O'Hara is vice president of Planning Decisions in Hallowell.

By Frank O'Hara

READ THE FULL STORY...

FAIR VERSUS FREE

The Federal Communications Commission seeks to enforce a "fairness doctrine" on radio and TV stations. We suffered numerous "fair trade" laws, until they were declared unenforceable. One businessman vies with another in proclaiming his faith in competition — provided that it is "fair."

Yet, scrutinize word for word the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and you will not find the word "fair." The First Amendment does not protect the "fair" exercise of religion, but the "free" exercise thereof; it does not restrain Congress from abridging the "fairness" of speech or of the press, but the "freedom" of speech or of the press.

The modern tendency to substitute "fair" for "free" reveals how far we have moved from the initial conception of the Founding Fathers. They viewed government as policeman and umpire. They sought to establish a framework within which individuals could pursue their own objectives in their own way, separately or through voluntary cooperation, provided only that they did not interfere with the freedom of others to do likewise.

The modern conception is very different. Government has become Big Brother. Its function has become to protect the citizen, not merely from his fellows, but from himself, whether he wants to be protected or not. Government is not simply an umpire but an active participant, entering into every nook and cranny of social and economic activity. All this, in order to promote the high-minded goals of "fairness," "justice," "equality."

Does this not constitute progress? A move toward a more humane society? Quite the contrary. When "fairness" replaces "freedom," all our liberties are in danger. In Walden, Thoreau says: "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." That is the way I feel when I hear my "servants" in Washington assuring me of the "fairness" of their edicts.

There is no objective standard of "fairness." "Fairness" is strictly in the eye of the beholder. If speech must be fair, then it cannot also be free; someone must decide what is fair. A radio station is not free to transmit unfair speech — as judged by the bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission. If the printed press were subject to a comparable "fairness doctrine," it would have to be controlled by a government bureau and our vaunted free press would soon become a historical curiosity.

What is true for speech — where the conflict is perhaps clearest — is equally true for every other area. To a producer or seller, a "fair" price is a high price. To the buyer or consumer, a "fair" price is a low price. How is the conflict to be adjudicated? By competition in a free market? Or by government bureaucrats in a "fair" market?

Businessmen who sing the glories of free enterprise and then demand "fair" competition are enemies, not friends, of free markets. To them, "fair" competition is a euphemism for a price-fixing agreement. They are exemplifying Adam Smith's remark that "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." For consumers, the more "unfair" the competition, the better. That assures lowest prices and highest quality.

Is then the search for "fairness" all a mistake? Not at all. There is a real role for fairness, but that role is in constructing general rules and adjudicating disputes about the rules, not in determining the outcome of our separate activities. That is the sense in which we speak of a "fair" game and "fair" umpire. If we applied the present doctrine of "fairness" to a football game, the referee would be required after each play to move the ball backward or forward enough to make sure that the game ended in a draw!

Our Founding Fathers designed a fair Constitution to protect human freedom. In Thomas Jefferson's ringing phrases from the Declaration of Independence, "Governments are instituted among Men ... to secure ... certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Milton Friedman, the winner of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is the author of Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose . This piece originally appeared in the July 4, 1977 issue of Newsweek and was reprinted in Bright Promises, Dismal Performances: An Economist's Protest, a collection of his articles. Copyright 1983 by Thomas Horton and Daughters, 26662 South New Town Drive, Sun Lakes, AZ 85224.

By Milton Friedman

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