The Hollywood Liberal

U.S. ranks low, just above Iran on new peace index

AP
Excerpt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and
Iran, according to a new index released on Wednesday that evaluates 121 nations based on their peacefulness.

According to the Global Peace Index, created by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation in the world and
Iraq is the least, just after Russia,
Israel and Sudan.

“The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systemically exploring the texture of peace,” said Global Peace Index President Clyde McConaghy.

He said the inaugural effort proves “peace can and has and will continue to be measured.”

The index was compiled based on 24 indicators measuring peace inside and outside of a country. They included the number of wars a country was involved in the past five years, how many soldiers were killed overseas and how much money was made in arms sales.

Domestic indicators included the level of violent crimes, relations with neighboring countries and level of distrust in other citizens.

HL’s Take:
Second least peacefull nation in the world, behind only Iran, with Yemen, and Israel right behind us. Sounds about right to me, since the United States is the tool of Israel in their never ending problems with Arabs. How come no one ever invades Norway. How come “terrorists” don’t want to go to Norway and blow up buildings. Violence, begets violence. The more you screw with other people, the more they want to screw with you. Not because they hate freedom you stupid monkeys. If we took all the money we spend on war and used it to promote peace, and fair trade with other countries instead of using it to screw with them, we wouldn’t have any war. But the military industrial complex would not like that because they would no longer be making billions and billions of dollars. The many suffer so the few, like George Bush and his scumbag father, can party on yachts and buy 98,000 acre ranches in Paraguay

5 Americans among 7 dead in Afghan crash

AP
Excerpt
KABUL, Afghanistan -
NATO troops on Thursday secured the wreckage of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter apparently shot down by Taliban militants, an attack that killed everyone on board — five U.S. soldiers, a Canadian and a Briton, officials said

NATO said troops going to the crash site in southern Helmand province were ambushed by enemy fighters, and the unit called in an airstrike “to eliminate the enemy threat.” It did not say if the troops were from the U.S.-led coalition, NATO’s force or the Afghan army. One civilian was injured by gunfire.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said there would be a full investigation into Wednesday’s crash. “We will try to determine everything that happened and to fully investigate the site,” he said.

A U.S. military official, who insisted on speaking anonymously because the crash was still under investigation, said initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.

I was watching the news last night and there was a story about a relative of a fire fighter asking him why he didn’t warn the cops and firefighters that the World Trade Center was going to collapse when he knew in advance it would. Giuliani told a bald faced lie to her and said he had no such warning. Well here is the proof that Rudy was lying through his teeth. He was in on 9/11 Just like Bush, and his scumbag father who was in New York City that day watching it go down live with relatives of The Bin Laden family. Heres Rudy

In that video it seems the word collapse is edited out but here is another one where you can clearly hear him say it.

Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak

MSNBC
Excerpt
WASHINGTON - An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald’s memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

The nature of Plame’s CIA employment never came up in Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice trial….

‘I felt like I had been hit in the gut’
In March at a House of Representatives hearing, Plame testified saying, “My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White house and the State Department”

She described how it felt to see her true identity exposed in the morning paper, her career destroyed she said…

No leak charges
Several administration officials, including Libby, former State Department official Richard Armitage and Bush advisor Karl Rove, disclosed Plame’s identity to reporters.

No one was ever charged with the leak of Plame’s name itself, which would have been a crime only if someone knowingly gave our information about someone covered by a specific law protecting the identities of covert agents.

HL’s Take
That’s right, no one has ever been charged. Thanks to Patrick “Bulldog” Fitzgerald. He made sure his bosses stayed out of trouble in a democrat-like swindle of the American people. He made everyone believe that justice would be done, and of course it wasn’t, just like Democrats made everyone believe that they would do something about Iraq, and they didn’t. Politicians don’t give a rat’s ass about the people anymore for anything it seems

Rolling in on two wheels

Cron.com
Excerpt
Some of the world’s biggest gas peddlers are encouraging their workers to pump the pedal.

Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips are among the Houston-area employers trying to make it easier for employees to bike to work.

Workers already have enough excuses: potholes, impatient drivers and the Houston heat.

But some businesses are easing the commute for those who decide the exercise and reduced emissions make biking worthwhile. They’re giving them locker rooms, shower areas and safe places to park their bikes.

“I figure I save $3 a day every time I commute,” said Dave Ivy, a projects manager at Exxon Mobil, who’s been biking 14 miles from his home in Katy to Exxon Mobil offices in Westlake three to four times a week for the last few years.

HL’s Take
I guess the oil companies know that thanks to Bush and Cheney, they will be able to keep the prices up to a level that is so high that only rich people can afford it. Typical of Dick Cheney and his pet monkey to only cater to the rich. Cheney you remember held closed door meetings with the heads of the oil companies in which he allowed them to dictate policy, then refused to hand over the notes of those meetings. Since the prices will remain so high the oil companies are giving their less then rich employees to bike to work, like showers, and places to lock the bikes. Gee guys thanks, you guys are the best employers ever.

Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party
By CINDY SHEEHAN

Counterpunch
Excerpt
There is absolutely no sane or defensible reason for you to hand Bloody King George more money to condemn more of our brave, tired, and damaged soldiers and the people of Iraq to more death and carnage. You think giving him more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.

Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said after George signed the new weak as a newborn baby funding authorization bill: “Now, I think the president’s policy will begin to unravel.” Begin to unravel? How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? How many more crimes will BushCo be allowed to commit while their poll numbers are crumbling before you all gain the political “courage” to hold them accountable. If Iraq hasn’t unraveled in Ms. Pelosi’s mind, what will it take? With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit) how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity.

Military: 8 Memorial Day deaths in Iraq

AP
Excerpt
BAGHDAD - Eight American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash in a restive province north of Baghdad, the military reported Tuesday, making May the deadliest month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq.

In other violence, three German computer consultants were kidnapped Tuesday from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office in Baghdad, an Iraqi government official said, and two car bombings killed 40 people in the capital, police said.

The Americans — all from Task Force Lightning — were killed Monday in Diyala as the U.S. commemorated Memorial Day, bringing the number of U.S. forces killed this month to at least 110.

Hang in there, America: Competent leadership is just 600-plus days away

McClatchy
Excerpt
As of May 28th, there were 602 days left until Jan. 20, 2009, and the end of our long national nightmare as President George W. Bush and his Rasputin, Vice President Dick Cheney, shuffle off to their necessarily well-guarded retirement homes and onto the ash heap of history.

So much of what they talked about doing in a new century and a new and different world never came to pass. So much of what they did to grow the power of the presidency and prune the constitutional safeguards crafted by our Founding Fathers, they never talked about.

The American people have turned their backs on George Bush and his dreams of planting the seeds of democracy in Mesopotamia at the point of a gun and seeing them spread like kudzu across the Middle East.

He’s failed in his quest for victory in Iraq and for a world put in order by a new and stronger United States, and his brash blundering into a dangerous land has made us all much less safe.

The president’s approval ratings are below his knees, sinking to 28 percent in one recent poll, and he cannot recover short of the kind of miracle that parts seas and feeds the multitudes.

The war that was never ours to win by military means - the only button this president who never learned war ever learned how to push - is lost. Bush and Cheney and the rest of their cronies and co-conspirators are toast.

The question is: How did such ordinary-looking men - seemingly unable to carry out even the smallest non-political tasks of governing - succeed in doing such extraordinary and lasting damage to our country, our military and our body politic in so few years?

Disoriented Bush team in Inquisitor Waxman’s sights

Cron.com
Excerpt
On the day presidential senior adviser Karl Rove administered a tongue-lashing to a Republican congressman, disturbing news about his former executive assistant was spread on Capitol Hill. GOP House members learned that Susan Ralston is requesting immunity to testify before Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman’s investigating committee.

She was an assistant to Jack Abramoff, Washington superlobbyist and Republican fund-raiser, in 2001 when he recommended her for the top job with Rove as he entered the White House. As Rove’s gatekeeper, Susan Bonzon Ralston became special assistant to the president and the highest-ranking Filipino-American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between the disgraced, imprisoned Abramoff and Rove, a principal political target of the Democratic-controlled Congress.

As House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, Waxman is tirelessly making life miserable for a confused administration during George W. Bush’s last two years as president. Bringing down Rove ranks high on Grand Inquisitor Waxman’s agenda. But Ralston appears to be seeking immunity for self-protection rather than nailing her former boss, and she could be a blank fired by the fierce political marksman from Westside Los Angeles.

Rove, the hard-edged architect of two victorious presidential campaigns, was in the Democratic cross-hairs long before Republicans lost control of Congress. Democrats were bitterly disappointed when he was not indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case (when Ralston was among the grand jury witnesses). They have targeted Rove in investigating the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and the Waxman committee sought testimony from Ralston about Rove’s e-mails. She was deposed behind closed doors last month prior to her request for immunity.

Here’s how you get to worst President ever. Take Iraq War Freeway South, to the Katrina Causeway South, to the Guantanamo Expressway South, to the Gas Price Parkway South, to the ‘06 Election Highway South, to the 9/11 Truth Turnpike South, get off at the Where’s Osama? Offramp, make a right on Alberto Gonzalez Avenue, another right on Wolfie World Bank Boulevard, take that to Torture Trail South, and that will take you right to 30% Rating Road. You can’t miss it.

by H.L.
So the democrats have caved in once again and given a President with a 30% approval rating everything he wants for a war that he started based on lies. A war that 70% of Americans want over as soon as possible, as in now. They claim the reason that they let the retarded murder monkey continue his campaign of death is because they are afraid. Sounds right to me, they are afraid that they will take the blame for “losing” the war, the war that they were told in no uncertain terms by the electorate to end. Not only do I not believe this, I think it is an outright lie.
How can you be afraid of losing the war that Bush lost the day he started it? Not to mention the fact that fear once again rules the Democratic party. Or is it greed? How much money are they getting to pretend they want to end the war while being the very people who keep it going. The Democrat’s original bill which was vetoed by Bush called for a return of the troops. Thats all they had to do, once Bush refused the bill the democrats could have said “Hey George, it’s our way or the highway. They could have just sat back and waited. When the money for the troops ran out they could have submitted the exact same bill, and if Bush again refused to sign the war would be over. He would be forced to bring the troops home immediately. But the Democrats were afraid. Even if it is true that they would be blamed (which they wouldn’t) I guess they are more concerned with saving there jobs then with thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying for Bush’s lies, greed, and oil.
OK then lets take a look at how they voted. Not all the Democrats are spineless weasels, here are the ones that refuse to continue to whore for Bush.

Boxer (D-CA), Clinton (D-NY), Dodd (D-CT), Feingold (D-WI), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA). Leahy (D-VT), Obama (D-IL), Sanders (I-VT), Whitehouse (D-RI), Wyden (D-OR).

Clinton, Dodd, and Obama are running for the whitehouse next year. Of course my choice for The Democratic nomination is Kucinich, if he doesn’t get it I’m hoping one of the above does.
Surprisingly 3 Republicans also voted against the bill. Either they have seen the light and finally realize that Bush is an insane lunatic killing machine, or they unlike the most of the dems, are smart enough to realize they have more of a chance of getting voted out for being against Bush rather then for him. Here they are.

Burr (R-NC), Enzi (Wy.) and Coburn (OK)

I have always heard the Coburn from Oklahoma is a Republicans Republican, maybe he doesn’t think the bill goes far enough. Maybe he’s pissed that the bill doesn’t also include a rider to allow Bush to serve a third term. I’ll have to look into that, but in the meantime I’m glad some Republicans are starting to get the message. Will he have to have the Republicans to bail us out of this situation while the Democrats cower in fear? Here is the list of Dems. that need to be replaced by some Democrats with balls come next November.

Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DE), Bingaman (D-NM), Brown (D-OH), Byrd (D-WV), Cantwell (D-WA), Cardin (D-MD), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Conrad (D-ND), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), Feinstein (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), Inouye (D-HI), Klobuchar (D-MN), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Levin (D-MI), Lincoln (D-AR), McCaskill (D-MO), Menendez (D-NJ), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Salazar (D-CO), Stabenow (D-MI), Tester (D-MT), Webb (D-VA).

One of the Senators on this list is Dianne Feinstein from right here in California. Time to go back to extorting construction firms Dianne. I want her out she is sullying the name of the most progressive state in the union. Harry Reid is on the list. Harry, Harry, Harry, you were the one who claimed that the Democrats would never back down. You got no balls Harry, you’ve got to go too.

In the biggest slap in the face to the voters of all, Every new Democratic Senator that was voted in last November voted for Bush continued murder spree except Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Sherrod Brown of Ohio ran on an anti-war campaign. Well now Democrats have to deal with his turncoat ass for the next 5 1/2 years. The other new Democratic Senators that voted yea on the bill are Cardin, Klouchbar, Mc Caskill, Tester, Casey, and Webb. The last of which only got in because George Allen was stupid enough to make his Macacca comment.
Remember these names next time they are up for re-election. In the meantime the war will rage on. More of our soldiers will die, and you can blame all the people who voted for the bill for it, and no one else, well except the rest of the Republicans that voted yes, and of course the man who started it all George W. Bush. Democrats had a chance to change history yesterday. Congrats to the ones with balls, to the rest, shame on you yellow bellied weasel whores.

Saw this on Bartcop.com

Goodling Says She ‘Crossed the Line’

MSNBC
Excerpt
A former senior aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales leveled serious new accusations against him and his deputy yesterday, describing an “uncomfortable” attempt by Gonzales to discuss the firings of U.S. attorneys as Congress and the Justice Department were intensifying their investigations of the issue.

Monica M. Goodling, who resigned last month as Gonzales’s senior counselor and White House liaison, also told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday that she “crossed the line” by using political criteria in hiring a wide array of career professionals at Justice, including looking up political donations by some applicants.

“I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions,” Monica Goodling testified.

In a day-long hearing that afforded her immunity from prosecution, Goodling minimized her role in the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year and joined a long line of Justice officials who say they were not responsible for adding names to the lists of those to be dismissed.

House approves stiff gas-gouging penalties

MSNBC
Excerpt
WASHINGTON - The House, eager to do something about record high gasoline prices in advance of the Memorial Day weekend, voted narrowly Wednesday to approve stiff penalties for those found guilty of gasoline price gouging.

The bill directs the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to go after oil companies, traders or retail operators if they take “unfair advantage” or charge “unconscionably excessive” prices for gasoline and other fuels.

The White House called the measure a form of price controls that could result in fuel shortages. It said President Bush would be urged to veto the legislation should it pass Congress.

HLs Take
There is your proof that Bush is in the pockets of big oil, he has zero desire to help the people whatsoever. Our government is failing us at every level.

Four Senators With Balls

Bob Geiger.com
Excerpt
If I asked you to quickly name what four United States Senators are sticking to their guns and will vote against the ludicrous “compromise” Iraq supplemental bill — you know, the one where George W. Bush gets everything he wants — what would be your first few guesses?

If you said Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and John Kerry (D-MA) you would, of course, be right. And if you think about who was one of the fastest to sign on with the Feingold-Reid legislation to withdraw our troops from Iraq in less than a year, you probably would have also guessed Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont….

Chris Dodd, who is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, continues to display the guts and leadership he’s been showing on the war throughout the new Congress.

“I cannot and will not simply give this President another blank check,” said Dodd in a statement Wednesday. “Half-measures and equivocations are not going to change our course in Iraq. If we are serious about ending the war, Congress must stand up to this President’s failed policy now - with clarity and conviction.”

Here’s video of Dodd explaining how he will vote:

Meanwhile, John Edwards joins Dodd as only the second of the presidential candidates willing to go toe-to-toe with Bush on ending the war and responsibly redeploying U.S. forces out of the Iraqi civil war.

Here’s Edwards:

“The so-called compromise under discussion in Congress that would give the president another blank check to continue his failed war is a serious mistake. Full funding is full funding, no matter what you call it…..

How much are they being paid? How much money is enough for these god damn whores?

Hersh: Bush administration arranged support for militants attacking Lebanon

Raw Story
Excerpt
n an interview on CNN International’s Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.

Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.

A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah.

Hersh points out that the current situation is much like that during the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980’s – which gave rise to al Qaeda – with the same people involved in both the US and Saudi Arabia and the “same pattern” of the US using jihadists that the Saudis assure us they can control.

When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, “the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute.”

Former Rove aide pleads the Fifth on White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Abramoff

Raw Story
Excerpt
Susan Ralston, the former executive assistant to top White House adviser Karl Rove, invoked her rights against self-incrimination while she was being asked to answer questions by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Committee’s Chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, announced in a memo Tuesday. The deposition for which she sat concerned contacts between convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Rove, as well as the White House more broadly.

“The subjects this morning that she will be unable to testify to…are the subjects of the relationship between Jack Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, including Ms. Ralston, and the subject of the use by White House officials of political e-mail accounts at the RNC,” Ralston’s lawyer, Bradford Berenson said, during the May 10 deposition. “She has material, useful information about both of those subjects.”

According to Waxman’s memo, which was sent to Oversight Committee members, Ralston is seeking immunity from prosecution.

“She is more than willing to provide it to the committee. However, she will, as we have previously discussed, require a grant of immunity before she is comfortable going forward,” Berenson also said in the deposition.

The Game is Rigged

Progressive Daily Beacon
Excerpt
The sad truth of the matter is, whether people are willing to admit it or not, the game is rigged. Actually, the entire system has become every bit perverted as former Republican Congressman, Mark Foley’s needful desire for all things boy.

James Comey, deputy to former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, testified before Congress that then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Mister Bush’s onetime Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, likely at the behest of the President, were dispatched to the hospital bed of a very ill and barely coherent Ashcroft. Gonzales and Card’s mission, according to Mister Comey, was to try and convince the nation’s barely conscious top law enforcement officer to approve of Mister Bush’s domestic spy program. A task made necessary because the justice department had concluded the program to be unlawful.

When Mister Comey caught wind of the Gonzales-Card scheme for seeking to bypass the justice department’s findings, he and his security detail made a Tom Clancy-like high-speed dash through America’s capital and were able to beat Mister Bush’s men to the convalescing Attorney General’s bedside. As if the spectacle of a president dispatching his boys to the hospital bed of a barely coherent Attorney General in an effort to undermine the rule of law weren’t surreal enough, James Comey’s testimony caught Gonzales in a blatant lie. And Gonzales’s lie wasn’t a little trifling lie - it was a felonious lie to Congress and told while the current attorney general was under oath.

HLs Take
And the networks wonder why they are losing there asses in the news ratings to the blogs. Keep whoring for the administration guys. The more you do, the more viewers we get, the more money we make, and the more money you lose. Everyone know nows that network news is a bunch of Bush ass licking crap. Soon you will have no viewers at all, none if the important demographics you are looking for anyway