Why are we taking this?

Take a hard look at this photo from the April demonstrations.......and consider the implications!

Monday, May 1, 2006 will be a defining day for the United States of America.

Illegal immigrants and their supporters are organizing "A Day Without Latinos" and a "National Day Without Immigrants," a May Day boycott in an attempt to negatively impact the U.S. economy.

Are we to remain a nation of laws....

Or are we to become a nation held hostage by outlaws and anarchy?

Are we going to hand our hard-won country over to Mexican illegal immigrants who march to demand rights and privileges to which they are not entitled...rights and privileges they are not demanding and working for in their native Mexico....

Or will we maintain the rights and privileges accorded to legal U.S. citizens?

The protestors and their supporters are going to try to close our major cities by not showing up for work, skipping school and marching in mass in city centers.

They are going to close businesses.....many greedy and exploitive employers are only too eager to encourage the demonstrations so they can continue to take advantage of their illegal immigrant employees with substandard wages and no benefits. We, the taxpayers pick up the bill for their health care, education and other social services.

Our Congress, vote hungry Democrats and corporate-loving Republicans, pander to the illlegals, they show up at their pro-Latino protest rallies, as Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) did in April. The Senate in California this week voted to support the May 1 protest!

The "tax exempt" Catholic church helped organize the protests.....priests in Chicago, for example, are sending information to all 375 parishes in the archdiocese.

And, our so-called President, George "U.S. Taxpayers Last" Bush, seeks to grant amnesty to illegals.

Even the people in Mexico and Central America are mounting a campaign for a 24-hour boycott Monday for all things "gringo".....McDonald's, Starbucks, Sears, Wal-Mart......you get the idea.

The LA Times reports "Many Mexicans are closely following the immigration debate in the United States. There is a growing sense among Mexicans that proposals being debated by the U. S. Congress could hurt millions of compatriots who crossed over illegally."...and, we should add, who send their wages back to Mexico.

In Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, the Chamber of Commerce announced that its 5,000 members would neither buy nor sell U.S. products on Monday.

And the final in-your-face....on Monday we will be hearing the Star Spangled Banner sung in Spanish!

If you aren't mad enough by now to contact your elected representatives, then you must be an illegal immigrant, or a corporate CEO benefiting from cheap labor.

Or the President of Mexico, Vincente Fox, who is taking over a superpower without firing a shot!

Snow Jobs

Yesterday, in a televised briefing to the press, President Bush introduced the new White House press secretary, former conservative FOX "fair and balanced" network commentator, Tony Snow.

After both Bush and Snow assured the press that they want to be less insular, and to work more closely with them, they took their leave ignoring the questions asked by NBC White House correspondent David Gregory and others....the new WH press secretary and Bush the Communicator took no questions!

Another "snow job"....as usual, don't depend on what the Bushies say, watch what they do.

More bad news for the White House yesterday, Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove, appeared for the fifth time before the grand jury investigating the CIA leak case. That's a lot of appearances for someone who was just in the back seat singing. Bush and Cheney had better keep moving, the wave of scrutiny is lapping at their heels.

More news yesterday..... port security legislation is being watered down thanks to corporate lobbying pressure...... and, the GOP House is sneaking through a timid ethics bill that won't deprive our august Representatives of their meals and gifts from this army of lobbyists.

I don't envy Snow his new explainer-in-chief job, he'll need a very big broom to keep things tidy behind this reckless GOP elephant.

Bush Feels our Gas Pains

As our gas prices gush upward....President "Oilman" Bush tries to cap the country's gas pains.

Bush idea #1: Suspend shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

NEVER MIND THAT THIS IS THE SAME STEP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY SUGGESTED TWO YEARS AGO DURING HIS CAMPAIGN AND BUSH RESPONDED: "We will not play politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,"...which is for "major disruptions of energy supplies."

SO MUCH FOR NOT PLAYING POLITICS...oh well, it'll only increase domestic supply by 1 percent anyway, and shave the price at the pumps by pennies.

Bush idea #2: Ease environmental regulations that require the use of clean-burning fuel additives to cut down on summer pollution.

OH GREAT, THAT'S ALL WE NEED, MORE POLLUTION FROM FOSSIL FUELS....ISN'T GLOBAL WARMING A PROBLEM TOO? ....."BIG TIME".

Bush Idea #3: Tell his profit-glutted oil company buddies he is going to get tough....wink, wink.

BUT, THE WHITE HOUSE REJECTED A MEASURE BACKED BY DEMOCRATS TO TAX OIL COMPANY PROFITS...THE DEPARTING WH PRESS SECRETARY McCLELLEN CALLED IT A "failed command-and-control approach of the past." HUH? WHERE'S TONY SNOW?

How about tougher federally mandated fuel-economy standards for cars, trucks and SUVs?

Nope. Bush instead called for greater domestic oil production, new U.S. refineries (this should help by 2016) and tax breaks for 60,000 Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles....a drop in the gas bucket of new cars sales for the rest of the year.

Thanks to the Bush-Cheney "behind closed doors" energy policy, the country is running on fumes....very expensive fumes.

Back to the Democrats' suggested quick relief for high gas prices..... "Democrats proposed suspending for 60 days the tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and the tax of 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel. The plan would cost at least $6 billion, which Democrats said should be covered by increasing taxes on oil companies."

Sounds like a start. Too bad the oil industry-loving GOP is in charge of things.

Contempt From the Tax Exempt

More chicanery under the guise of religion.

In Ohio, complaints were filed in April with the Internal Revenue Service by 56 clergy members against two "tax exempt" churches in the Columbus area who were active in President Bush's narrow Ohio win in 2004.

"Spiritual warfare," spouts Rev. Russell Johnson, pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church, one of the two offending institutions. "There's still freedom of speech in this country and it should apply to Christians, as well. People need to get out of their pews, out from behind stained-glass windows, and shine a light for what is good and right...." as the Reverend sees it, that is.

We couldn't agree more, Reverend. Get out the vote! Support your candidate. But, don't do it from the pulpit, the church or church-related activities and expect to retain your tax exempt status.

Rev. Johnson is the chairman of the Ohio Restoration Project. Among the project's objectives is to recruit "Patriot Pastors" to become politically active and ready to register voters "able to shine a light for Godly candidates in the 2006 election cycle," according to their Web site.

The IRS rules specify that charities that are granted a tax exemption because they serve the public may not "participate in or intervene in...any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

The role of the clergy and churches in elective politics reflects the growing activism and influence of religious conservatives in recent years. The GOP and the Bush White House encouraged and profited from this activism. Can we look to them to pursue the enforcement of the tax exempt status?

Our country still is a nation of laws, not of religious dogma, or notions of which candidate is deemed "Godly" and which isn't....we're not an Iran with an Ayatollah (although Pat Robertson tried his best).

We're expecting the IRS to do its job and crack down on ALL institutions who don't pay taxes, yet want to exert a lion's share of influence over our electoral process.

Make May 1 "Pay Day"

When you don't have a leg to stand on in an argument, change and skew the focus so the argument is about something else....something much more general and accepted.

Those spearheading the illegal immigration debate understand this concept very well.

Next Monday, May 1 (that's the Communist nations traditional day for parading their military) has been declared a "National Day Without Immigrants." As reported in The Des Moines Register, the United for Dignity and Safety of Immigrants coalition are among those sponsoring this day.

Let's state right now up front....NO ONE IS AGAINST IMMIGRANTS OR IMMIGRATION!

What we are against is illegal immigration. This is a vastly different matter, and the sponsors of NDWI know that very well. But they are selling, so don't bother them with facts.

Just who are the sponsors? One is the "tax exempt" Catholic Charities and Ministries. Shame on them. But their agenda is obvious. Most of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico and are Catholic. The more Catholics the church can turn into voting U.S. citizens, the more clout they will have with our laws.....a bigger footprint in our rich nation. Oh yes...this is about $$ and power.

Not to be outdone in misleading arguments, President Bush also weighs in with his distortions on the subject. He loudly declares, "Massive deportation of the [illegal] people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work."

Well....duh. No one with common sense is suggesting this. What the legal, voting, taxpaying citizens are suggesting, actually demanding, is:

1. We secure our borders and ports to stop the flood of illegal immigrants and goods. This must happen first, and soon!

2. We impose heavy fines on employers who hire illegals to make it unprofitable to do so.

3. We stop providing medical care, education and other social services to illegal immigrants.

4. Fund all of the above and maintain tight oversight controls.

Only after all of these steps have been successfully implemented, put into place a system for aliens who want to come to this country to work to be able to do so legally, entering the country on an as-needed basis for short, but renewable, periods of time.

Why should we continue to allow the work of decades of U.S. legal citizens and immigrants to be sacrificed to illegals who want to crowd into line, demanding full rights and benefits they have not earned.

Some even have as their agenda taking over portions of our country to reclaim it for Mexico. This is nothing short of a virtual invasion by a foreign country!

It is up to us, the citizens, to make sure we preserve our national heritage and treasure. That our government enforces our laws and lives up to the oath to protect and defend our great nation.

What can we do?

First, call and/or email your Congressional representatives (see the left side of this page for contacts) and let them know you vote, and what you expect of them on the issue of illegals.

Second, on May 1 turn the tables and make it "Pay Day." Spend money. Make it a very profitable day for business and the U.S. economy. Money talks.

Third, any business that closes on May 1 to support or participate in NDWI will no longer have your business. Make that clear before and after May 1.

This is the time for action. We need to take our country back! Don't let the twisted rhetoric of those with anti-U.S. agendas prevail.

We're on to them....and we're mad!

Thousand Bush Days Left

This week the countdown clock tracking the number of days remaining in President Bush's "compassionate conservative" administration (see the left side of this page) will be 1,000 days and falling.

Don't celebrate yet.

We are entering dangerous waters. Bush the Unready's poll ratings are plunging lower than Anna Nicole Smith's neckline. Bush knows that this is his last chance to save his administration from the loser-bin of history and to fulfill his messianic vision for the Middle East.

And April 28 of this week is another benchmark. It's the date set for Iran to comply with the U.N. demand that they stop their uranium enrichment program.

As reported in the Washington Post, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said, "Iran's uranium enrichment and nuclear research and development activities are irreversible."

Iran, far from complying, is ramping up its efforts by "pressing ahead with research and development on advanced P-2 centrifuges, which can enrich uranium faster than its existing P-1 units."

And, Iran's President Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric about "wiping Israel off of the face of the earth" is keeping tensions at a boil.

Since Bush needs a history-making move, and a focus away from his failed policies, a "preventive" war in Iran may fit his agenda.

A very dangerous thousand days......

Another Osama Rant

In an audiotaped message broadcast on Al-Jezeera today, the Washington Post reported that Osama bin Laden issued "ominous new threats" and urged his followers to go to Sudan to fight the proposed U.N. peacekeeping force in that bloody 180,000 deaths-war.

THANKS OSAMA......THIS SHOULD GALVANIZE AND SOLIDIFY U.N. RESOLVE.

He also said the West's decision to cut off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinians proved the U.S. and Europe were conducting "a Zionist crusader war on Islam."

IT'S THE "CRUSADER" THING AGAIN.....HE MUST BE LOSING THE P.R. WAR TO IRAN'S MAD HATTER PRESIDENT.

Bin Laden also demanded the Danish artists who drew the offending cartoons of Muslim Prophet Muhammad be handed over to him for trial and punishment, and urged a boycott of American goods similar to the recent boycott of Danish products.

THREATS, DEMANDS, TRIALS, BOYCOTTS......FROM A CAVE?

WHY CAN'T WE FIND THIS GUY?

Say Good Night Dick.....

Vice President Cheney said he was not sleeping, but looking at his notes during China President Hu Jintao's recent visit....can't the White House level with us about anything?

Energy: Bush Dithers, We Pay

We're paying over $3.00 a gallon for gas in some areas of the U.S. and running out of gas in other places "while the gas is reformulated."

The Bush administration continues to whine about not being able to drill in a Alaska wildlife habitat for what admittedly would be a limited supply of oil. They are allowing the oil companies obscene profits without demanding the vital expansion of refinery capability (they get tax breaks instead).

Is the Bush administration's idea of an energy program a costly war in Iraq?

Even though the GOP controls the executive and legislative branches, the Bush administration and "do nothing" Congress are unable move forward on our energy problems with real (not political) analysis, planning and execution.

The country is no longer mesmerized by good ol' Bush and his oil buddies.

We want action!

Who Offended Hu?

The White House Hillbillies outdid themselves for Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit. According to the Washington Post, the "protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities."

WELCOME TO OUR WORLD, HU.

For the arrival ceremony the official announcer boomed that the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China"....that is Taiwan. OOPS!

After President Bush had delivered his remarks where he timidly suggested China allow its people more freedoms, Hu's following remarks were interrupted for a full three minutes by Wenyi Wang, a pathologist of New York, beseeching "President Bush" Stop him from killing" and "President Hu, your days are numbered!" before ironically being manhandled away by uniformed Secret Service.


Meanwhile, as this sorry circus was whimpering to its hee-haw conclusion, the world was becoming a scarier place....Russia and Iran were dancing cheek-to-cheek.

Russia's Army General Yury Baluyevsky confirmed Wednesday they would "honor its commitments on supplying military equipment to Iran" as reported in RIA Novosti.

At the end of 2005, Russia concluded a $700-million contract for the delivery of 29 Tor-M1 air defense systems to Iran. "The Tor-M1 is a fifth-generation integrated mobile air defense system designed for operation at medium low and very low altitudes against fixed/rotary wing aircraft, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle), guided missiles and other high-precision weapons."

HELLOOOO....WEAPONS, MILITARY EQUIPMENT....IRAN.

Meanwhile....Russia helped organize a meeting Wednesday between Iranian representatives and the European Union who sent delegations from Britain, France and Germany. A senior British diplomat said today that while no breakthrough had been achieved, "the meetings had been a useful opportunity to hear the Iranian position."

OUR RUSSIA EXPERT......CONDI .......HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.

Meanwhile....Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that only the "UN Security Council is authorized to make binding decisions on suspending cooperation with a state in any sphere....the Security Council has made no decisions on suspending nuclear cooperation with Iran," referring to our protest over the nuclear plant in Bushehr, Iran, that is being built with Russian help. Russia has UN Security Council veto power along with China.

ISN'T THIS SOME SORT OF CATCH-22.

Meanwhile....Russia reconfirmed on Thursday that their offer to enrich uranium on its soil for Iran's nuclear program is still on the table. Russia's top nuclear power official, Sergei Kiryenko, told reporters during an official visit to Kyrgyzstan that "all countries have the right to a nuclear program." IS PALESTINE A COUNTRY?

These are dangerous times. Is that why our former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft met privately with China's Hu in Washington D.C. on Wednesday and Kissinger hosted the formal dinner for Hu on Thursday evening.

And where was current Secretary of State Rice on Wednesday? In Chicago giving a speech in which she states in her opening remarks:

"Thanks for giving me the opportunity to get out of Washington, if only for one day or so. ...."

Bush....this is no time for amateur hour. This country is teetering on the brink thanks to the incompetence of your administration. For starters you need to send packing your failed Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Rice the Clueless.

Our very existence depends on it.

Hu Applies Lipstick

Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Washington state on Tuesday for a visit to the U.S. He met there for two days with industry leaders before jetting off to the other Washington....D.C. While in Washington state Hu did his best to soften the image of China's unfair free-trade policies.

On Tuesday night Microsoft poo bah Bill Gates wined and dined Hu at a lavish dinner at his lakeside mansion. According to the Washington Post, Microsoft just signed a $1.2 billion agreement with Lenovo Group, Ltd. (remember them, this Chinese government-owned company bought IBM's personal computer assets in 2005) to pre-install Windows on computers made in China.

On Hu's second day he visited Boeing in Seattle and made rosy predictions about the future of trade between our two countries but announced no new proposals for cutting his country's huge trade surplus with the U.S....some $202 billion in 2005.

But China did pledge last week to buy 80 Boeing airplanes for $5.2 billion.

These deals show a lot about our countries.... they buy our computer software and airplanes, while we buy their rubber duckies and flip flops.

Will all of this making nice help resolve the problems of the devastating U.S. trade deficit with China, the undervalued Chinese yuan which in part fuels this deficit, and China's growing appetite for oil to fuel their booming economy....now the fourth largest in the world.

While China is on a growth fast-track, the Bush administration is allowing our vital industries to die or be moved abroad with tax-break encouragement; and our workers to be idled or underemployed as jobs are outsourced and wages undercut by illegal aliens pouring across our borders.

Can all of this Chinese lipstick really mask the real trade situation.

China is eating our lunch while we are rushing headlong toward third-world status.

Bolten Swings Hammer

A teary-eyed White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, announced his resignation today alongside his rat-laugh boss, Pres. George Bush (wonder what Bush found so funny just before Scotty fell on his sword).

Scotty had to go.....yet in many ways he perfectly reflected the Bush arena.

We give Scotty credit for being very earnest, but he just wasn't up to the job. The press secretary is supposed to articulate the policy of the Bush White House. Scotty had a limited range of expession. He wasn't fast on his feet. He didn't lie very well......

The new GOP Hammer, WH Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolten, also ripped the revered policy portfolio from WH Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's sweaty grasp....Karl is leaving the policy post to "spend more time on politics as the mid-term elections approach" according to the Washington Post.

Sure.

Karl, Karl, Karl....we tried to tell you the country isn't happy......Bush's poll ratings are lower than a Texas rattlesnake's slither.

But, will the new Deputy Chief of Staff for policy, Joel Kaplan, be any different? He was the number two man under Bolten at Budget.

Or is Bolten just hammering the same bent nails into different holes?

Bush the Determinator

Move over Ahrnold.....you may be the Terminator, but there is a new tough in town.

It's Bush the Determinator!

Eyes ablaze, Bush fired all barrels in response to a reporter's query about White House staffing. Bush defended his decision to stick with his Generally beleaguered Sec. of Defense, Donald "The Long Screwdriver" Rumsfeld as he is known by his micro-managed commanders.

Bush set straight the gathered reporters telling them, with forward-thrust chin, what a fine job Screwy is doing and that,......"I am the decider" and he will decide who stays and who goes.

And with that, he turned his back on those who dared to question him, and marched off in full snit.

Well.......there is just one little point Bush the Determinator forgot.

Actually, we, the electorate, make the final decision about who stays and who goes........

The evictions start in November!

Mighty Myers

"Here he comes to save the day--Mighty Myers is on the way........"

Whenever the Bush administration or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld need to deflect the critics of their "We've done so much with so little for so long, we can now do everything with nothing" defense policy, they wheel out General Richard Myers to flash his stars and defend the indefensible.

Over the last few weeks several highly-respected retired generals have been calling for the resignation of Rumsfeld (see blog "Rumsfeld Takes Flak")....so Mighty Myers was once again rolled out to lead the charge in Rummy's defense.

Mighty Myers, who retired as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2005 was President Bush and Rumsfeld's primary military advisor since one month after 9/11. The media gives him lots of air time to make the Bush administration excu....er case.

Maybe some reminders are in order.

Mighty Myers and the Bush administration's most often used defense of Rumsfeld is...."why didn't the Generals speak up when they were serving?"

Well....one General did. Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Eric Shensiki, testified to Congress in 2004 that a minimum of 200,000 troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.

This sober, and correct, assessment caused Rumsfeld to jump up and down defending his "slimmed down" force approach..... and Shensiki's career was ended shortly thereafter when Rumsfeld named Shensiki's replacement a year early.

They used Mighty Myers to defend VP Cheney after he said on CNN's "Larry King Live" in June of 2005 about the violence in Iraq, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Cheney made this statement even though in the previous month there were 76 U.S. military casualties in Iraq. In defense of this deadliest month total in many months Mighty Myers said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that "overall, numbers are down....Lethality, as you mentioned, is up....I think what's causing it is a realization that Iraq is marching inevitably toward democracy."

Please hum........."the truth is marching on."

Mighty Myers even swam into the Katrina FEMA-made-worse-disaster in a press conference with Rumsfeld on the Defense Department's response. He repeated Home Security Secretary Chertoff's debunked claim that newspapers on the Tuesday after the hurricane declared "New Orleans Dodged a Bullet" and, that their the Defense Department's response was developed with "those words in our minds."

What minds? Tell your response team next time to turn on the TV!

By the way, that Tuesday's New Orleans Times-Picayune carried the banner headline: "CATASTROPHIC: Storm Surge Swamps 9th Ward, St. Bernard; Lakeview Levee Breach Threatens to Inundate City."

When all is said and done, however, the Rumsfeld buck stops with Bush the Lesser.

Which means the buck doesn't stop at all, but is reduced to a dime and outsourced. But that's another story.......

Stop the Madness!

If you think we were misled into war in Iraq......our budget deficit and Congressional spending is fiscally suicidal......our borders and ports desperately need to be secured......greedy corporations have seduced government......our water, air and planet need immediate TLC......Medicare and Social Security are off track......the current "No Child Left Behind" program is leaving children behind.......that government must have "checks and balances," and our current leadership isn't listening to the electorate......

Then, your voice and vote must count in November!

And, you must insure that your vote counts!

Support the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R.550) which will mandate an effective and meaningful voter-verified paper record and independent audit requirements for counting election results.

This bipartisan legislation has been endorsed by voting integrity experts as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation.

Representative democracy lives or dies based on the integrity of its elections.

Please contact your Representatives and urge them to support this crucial legislation (H.R.550) in time to protect the 2006 November elections.

It's time to take back our government!

Enriched Uranium Bush Soul Food

President Bush, the Starry-eyed, gushed after his first date in 2001 with Russian President Putin, the Steely-eyed, "I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

This "soul" pronouncement planted a deep if vague seed of uneasiness in the pit of the U.S. consciousness.

And this perhaps is why. It has surfaced this month as reported in the Washington Post that possibly "the Russians aided Saddam Hussein's government around the time of the U.S.-led invasion" of Iraq.

A newly released study clearly cites Iraqi documents from March 2003 that contain information allegedly provided to Hussein by Russian diplomats and intelligence officers.

It includes a three-page handwritten description of U.S. force deployments based on information allegedly provided by Russian Ambassador Titorenko along with a typed-eight page description of U. S. war plans dated March 25, 2003, also attributed to Titorenko.

The Russian soul in action.

Secretary of State Rice said she "will seek clarification from the Russian government."

That's it?

So now let's turn our attention to the new hot spot, Iran. They have crashed the "nuclear club" and announced a uranium enrichment program..

Rice the Clueless reassures a slumbering nation not to worry, diplomatic pressure will defuse the crisis.

Well....according to the China Daily, this is, or at least was, the plan....."China has expressed support for a plan to have Iran's uranium enriched in Russia as a way to end the global impasses over the republic's nuclear program." ....and that the European Union and the United States have previously given backing to the plan.

Well, of course that's the solution....we have looked into their soul, shared our battle plans and now we'll just let them supply Iran with enriched uranium.

So just what is the plan?....Iran's nuclear chief Aghazadeh just announced that Iran is prepared to give the West a share of Iran's enrichment facility management.

So will the U.S. be a partner in this management?.....when pigs fly!

Russia? Oh yes.

Let's keep an eye on this one.

Rumsfeld Takes Flak

The Washington Post reports that another retired military commander has called for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to step down.

Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, said he believes that the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles.

Marine Lt. Gen Gregory Newbold, the director of operations on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002 in an essay in TIME this week called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach [to the Iraq war]."

Last month, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton wrote in the New York Times that Rumsfeld was "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically......Rumsfeld must step down."

Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was chief of the U.S. Central Command for Iraq and the Middle East in the late 1990s, in his new book, "The Battle for Peace," says that we have wasted three years in Iraq and "absolutely" thinks Rumsfeld should step down.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs says his sense is "everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out."

So......do you think Rumsfeld will leave his job for "family reasons" and then receive from President Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Just like Bush awarded Gen. Tommy "Don't Bother Me About Post-War Iraq" Franks who received the PMF in 2004........ along with Paul "Boots" Bremer who failed as Iraq administrator.......along with CIA Director George "WMD a Slam Dunk" Tenet.

Speaking of Tenent and the CIA, there was another story in the Washington Post about a secret Pentagon fact-finding mission to Iraq in 2003, just now made public, that concluded the infamous "biological laboratories" trailers actually had nothing to do with Iraq bioweapons.

They became known among experts as "the biggest sand toilets in the world."

Remember how Bush proclaimed that the two captured small trailers were "biological laboratories" declaring: "We have found the weapons of mass destruction!"

The debunking report had reached Washington two days before the president's statement.

Administration and intelligence officials continued to assert the trailers were weapons factories for nearly a year.

Bush Drug Industry Shill

A recent article in The Washington Post revealed that in pharmaceutical drug industry-funded trials for antipsychotic medications, "nine in 10 showed that the best drug was the one made by the company funding the study."

"..... it appears that whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug," according to psychiatrist John Davis and other experts reporting in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Doctors rely on these studies to determine what drugs to use. And, reliance on industry-sponsored studies is not limited to psychiatry but other areas of medicine as well.

The better the results of the study, the more justification for a costlier drug or treatment.

So why not non-industry funded studies in order to assure that patients receive the best low-cost medications and treatments?

Uwe Reinhardt, a political economist at Princeton, said support for publicly-funded studies runs into resistance, however, as "drug companies, device manufacturers and even physicians are reluctant to delve into questions of cost-effectiveness because such inquiries may find that the latest, most expensive treatment is not worth the cost."

Reinhardt further says...."I have come to believe a lot of inefficiency is quite deliberate and supported by Congress. One person's inefficiency is another person's income."

Instead of working to fix these problems, President Bush is blitzing the country yet again, shilling for the budget-busting multi-billion dollar seniors drug program.

The profit-bloated drug industry wins, the taxpayers lose. Yet again.

Bush Spins on "Axis of Evil"

On Monday both President George Bush and White House press secretary Scott McClellan tried to reassure the country and the world that the report of using force against "Axis of Evil" Iran was just "wild speculation." (See my previous blog "Iran War Abyss Looms.")

After being caught in numerous exaggerations, misstatements and fairy tales, their denials sound scripted (McClellan used "wild speculation" eight times) and hollow.

As the Washington Post points out, Bush's new National Security Strategy, which was released just last month, cited Iran as the "most serious challenge to the United States of any country" and reaffirmed the doctrine of preemption.

However, in Monday's comments Bush used the phrase "doctrine of prevention" rather than "preemption."

Some scholars say this actually raises the probability of an attack on Iran as they view "preemptive war" as striking when an enemy threat is an imminent danger, whereas a "preventive war" suggests attacking an adversary even without an urgent threat.

But with the Bush administration, as always, words don't mean much anyway.....just watch what they do, not what they say they will do cloaked in whatever clever language they think will justify their actions.

Iran War Abyss Looms

There is a growing fear the Bush Administration is hurtling toward a preemptive strike on Iran and considering using a nuclear option.

The United Kingdom's Telegraph reports that Seymour Hersh in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker magazine writes that the "Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran to prevent it from acquiring its own atomic warheads." U.S. combat troops have already been ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data.

The British government "is unlikely to participate directly in any attacks" against Iran and, as their Foreign Secretary Jack Straw puts it, a nuclear attack on Iran would be "completely nuts!"

Our only hope to not expand the ill-conceived and costly Iraq war into Iran may be........the U.S. military. Beside their concern at being spread too thin by the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.....

the option of using a nuclear tactical weapons has created "serious misgivings among the [U.S.] joint chiefs of staff, and some officers have talked about resigning," Hersh has been told. "The military chiefs sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran, without success, a former senior intelligence officer said."

Publicly the Bush administration insists it remains committed to diplomacy to solve the Iran crisis. However, with China and Russia unwilling to take any punitive stand against Iran, diplomacy seems to be the same empty gesture made in the U.N. before the Iraq war.

And here is the really scary quote from a senior Pentagon consultant who said that Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."

A messianic leader pursuing his legacy....Bin Laden......or.......

Ship of State Leaks at the Top

July 6, 2003 - Joseph Wilson wrote an Op Ed piece in which he stated "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Wilson had been hired by the CIA to travel to Niger to evaluate whether Iraq sought nuclear material there.

July 8, 2003 - Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, talked that morning to reporter Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C. The first of many furtive talks with reporters about the Wilson trip.

Subsequent to these Libby meetings with reporters, articles appeared trying to discredit Wilson, painting his trip to Niger as a "junket" arranged by his CIA wife Valerie Plame.....thus "outing" Plame, a covert CIA agent.

September 2003 - President Bush said of the leak regarding Plame: "I don't know of anybody in my Administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

December 2003 - Federal prosecutor Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald starts his investigation of the Plame leak case.

October 28, 2005 - The investigation by a federal grand jury results in a five-count indictment of Libby...obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal investigators about his leaks to reporters of classified information regarding the employment of Plame.

April 5, 2006 - Fitzgerald files a legal document relating to the ongoing leak investigation. On pages 19 and 20 of that filing it states that Libby testified that his "participation in a critical conversation with Judith Miller on July 8 occurred only after the Vice President advised defendant [Libby] that the President specifically had authorized the defendant [Libby] to disclose certain information in the NIE [classified National Intelligence Estimate]. "

So........President Bush, through Vice President Cheney, authorized Libby to leak classified information in an effort to discredit Wilson, an Iraq war whistle-blower, and exposing Wilson's wife as a CIA operative.

The White House defense, Bush has the power to declassify intelligence material as he deems appropriate.

Hail Caesar!

Here Comes the Pork!

Really, you can't make this stuff up.

The Citizens Against Government Waste has issued their 14th Congressional Pig Book. This federal budget tell-all has appeared annually since 1991. CWGW's latest compilation of pork-barrel projects is taken from 11 appropriations bills that are included in the fiscal 2006 federal budget and total a wallet-busting $29 billion, an increase of 6.2 per cent over last year's pork!

And just what did the hard work and sweat of the U.S. taxpayers fund?

Let's get to the best first.....$13,500,000 for the International Fund for Ireland, which includes an appropriation for the World Toilet Summit. (I'm not kidding.)

Actually we might not have objected if the Summit was to be held in the b.s. mega-center, Washington D.C. Not to worry, the U.S. got in the toilet sweepstakes with $1 million allocated for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative ......don't ask.

The Teapot Dome scandal may belong to the dustbin of history, but not the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, NC, bagged at $500,000.

We'll blow $550,000 for the Tacoma Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA.

In the "wonder what he has on them" category, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) pulled down the most pork for his state.....$325,106,000.....or nearly $500 for every man, woman, caribou and child in Alaska. (Although he did better in 2005, snagging $985 per capita.)

And where does our anti-lobbying, straight-talking, presidential hopeful, John McCain's (R-AZ) state of Arizona place at the trough.....last, right? Wrong. Arizona came in 20th with an oinking $228, 076,000 in pork.

In February the Washington Post published the proposed Bush administration budget for 2006 and guess where the cuts are to come from.

Not from the Department of Defense which was slated for $419.3 billion, plus another $80 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cuts are to come from the Department of Education budget, for instance, which was reduced by $500,000, the first overall cut in federal spending for education in a decade. While funds were increased in the DOE budget for the misconceived "No Child Left Behind" testing program, the Perkins college loan program for low- and middle-income students was eliminated.

The $500,000 to spend on the Teapot Museum was offset by an equal cut in the Environmental Protection Agency budget, including $170,000 for water quality protection. Don't you think the tea would taste better if the water........

This pork represents a historic lack of spending restraint by the Bush administration and Congress and creates a projected $371 billion budget deficit (not including the "off budget" $80 billion for the war) and a national debt of almost $9 trillion in fiscal 2006.

The usual taunt of the GOP toward the Democrats is that they are the tax and spend party.

Well pour my tea and flush my toilet, but isn't that better than the GOP cutting taxes and increasing spending!

Will Bush or Iran Torpedo U.S.?

While the nation was being distracted by the push toward a Mexi-merica; and a tarnished Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) got the "Here's your hat and hammer...what's the rush?" from Pres. Bush; and the Deputy Press Secretary for Homeland Security got busted for being an Internet little-girl-stalking security risk; and a swan died from bird flu in Scotland........tensions are reaching a tipping point with Iran.

According to the American Forces Press Service, Iran "feasibly" has been busy developing a new sonar-dodging, hyper-speed underwater "missile torpedo" which they tested during recent military exercises in the Persian Gulf area accompanied by lots of saber rattling.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that U.S. Intelligence and terrorism experts say Iran might respond to a U.S. strike against them by deploying operatives and Hezbollah teams to inflict worldwide death and destruction.

Substitute "weapons of mass destruction" for "missile torpedoes" and "Saddam is cooperating with al Queda" for "Iran would deploy Hezbollah teams" .........sound familiar?

If the U.S. ship goes down, it likely won't be from a Star Wars Iranian torpedo, but from the policy holes the Bush administration has shot into every part of our country's superstructure.

Delay: Good News, Bad News

The Washington Post today confirmed that ethics-impaired Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), former GOP agenda "Hammer"-ing majority whip, will not run for reelection this November......don't celebrate yet.

He is thinking about moving to the Virginia-D.C. area to keep hammering us. It is reported that high on his agenda will be the furthering of religious influence in government. Note to DeLay: "Heal thyself!"

Some pure (so far) good news is the pending announcement by Rep. Katherine "Hanging Chad" Harris (R-FL) that she will not be running for Senate this fall. The GOP has abandoned her (bad reminder of 2000 election), three of her campaign managers resigned over the weekend.......her pledged personal $10 million fortune propping up her campaign war chest isn't enought to buy her a win. What did she expect.....more respect than she gave the voters of Florida?

By the way, on the subject of national polling data and illegal immigration (see "Polls and Lemmings" below), Tony Blankley reported in The Washington Times that the Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. Just so you know.

Polls and Lemmings

An article by Nancy Benac of the Associated Press about a recent poll on attitudes toward illegal immigration was printed in national newspapers today as the U.S. Senate debates and votes on the hot-potato illegal immigration bill.

President Bush wants a corporate-friendly guest worker program for illegal immigrants in order to allow them to stay in the country virtually without penalty even though in violation of our immigration laws......they crashed our gates.

The lead paragraph in the article states......"Americans are divided about whether illegal immigrants hurt the country, an AP-Ipsos poll has found. More than one-half of those questioned said they were open to allowing undocumented workers to obtain some temporary legal status so they can stay in the United States."

This survey sampled 1,003 adults and was conducted last Tuesday through Thursday.

Observation......1,003 seems a very small sample for such an important and influential poll released in the teeth of the Senate debate on illegal immigration and picked up by vast numbers of newspapers throughout the country.

To the poll question "Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian, or not?" nearly 40 per cent answered "Yes." Seems like quite a high number of Bush-leaning respondents.

To the question "Would you favor or oppose allowing immigrants with jobs who are in the United States illegally to apply for legal, temporary worker status?" there were 28 per cent who strongly opposed and 26 per cent who strongly favored.

The "somewhat favored" was 30 per cent but they were placed in the favored category thereby greatly increasing the "favorable" poll result. The other tricky part of this leading question is "immigrants with jobs".....many must not have jobs otherwise how could 700,000 of them have shown up to march "for their rights" last month in Los Angeles.

Polls influence public opinion. Our legislators are influenced by the results of these polls.

Does a 1,003 respondent survey really represent an adequate sampling and valid poll?

Are we being led like lemmings over the immigration amnesty cliff?

Enough is Enough

Upon sober reflection on why there is so much outrage over the illegal alien problem, I think this issue may just be the tipping point for the citizens of the U.S. who are fed up with the policies of the White House and the spineless pandering Congress.....their corruption and arrogant attitudes toward the will of the electorate.

The majority of U.S. taxpayers didn't want the drug-company bonanza drug program which brought more national debt, certainly didn't want bloated budgets and skyrocketing deficits, feel lied to about the reasons for the disasterous war of choice, think "No Child Left Behind" is not an effective education program (just ask the educators), want to keep religion out of government, don't want to sell our ports and other vital security assets to foreign entities, want to secure our borders and to stop illegal immigration...just to name a few things.

We want to keep our national identity and put the needs and security of our citizens first.

Watching hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens march carrying Mexican flags and demanding rights they are not entitled to by law while bankrupting our medical and educational systems is just too much.

We feel our laws are being trampled and our national pride challenged.

Now what?

November is just a first step.

We can make our voices heard........BIG time!