Paying off the Sunni to undermine the Shiite government

Run by the U.S. chosen Shiite leader al-Maliki whose Parliament has just had the Sunnis walk out on it...

Do I have it right? We are paying bribe money to insurgents who are killing our soldiers who are trying to prop up a non-existent government to give it time to stand up so we can leave.

This must have been thought up by Georgie.



Update: We also can't find a um.. few .. you know... guns...

The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office.

According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."

The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid increasing attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

...Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, spokesman for the US-led military in Iraq, said the Americans were working hard with their Iraqi partners to improve accountability and increase the security of weapons.

You hear us knocking....

Will you let us in?

Washington, DC (AHN)-The number of Americans heading north of the border to Canada has reached a record-high last year, with some 10,942 Americans moving to Canada in 2006, compared to 9,262 in 2005, and almost double the 5,828 who moved in 2000.

The overall increase in the number of Americans migrating north to Canada also coincides with a decrease in the number of Canadians moving south to the U.S. According to the Association for Canadian Studies, which compiled the data, some 23,913 Canadians migrated to the U.S. in 2006, a significant drop from the 29,930 who moved the year before.

Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, attributed the recent surge of Americans flocking to Canada as both economically and politically motivated-not necessarily because they can't find jobs in the states.

"They're coming because many of them don't like the politics, the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer," Jedwab explained.

The latest trend of Americans moving north of the border is reminiscent of the early 1970's when anywhere between 22,000 and 26,000 U.S. citizens were relocating to Canada each year, many of them hoping to dodge the draft for the Vietnam War.

Do it because I say so

No longer seems to work for Georgie and his cabal.

Bryan of Why Now? explains:

In his Saturday liar-side chat™, the Shrubbery complained that the surveillance law needs to keep up with technology. What he was probably looking for was cover for some of the illegal activities that the cheney-bots have been up to for years.

He apparently thought that Congress was going to rubber-stamp a law to help him, but what he got was a response from a veteran of political battles, John Conyers: Committee demanding details of NSA data-mining.

Gee, you mean governing actually means being accountable and explaining yourself to people? I think they haven't yet gotten the memo.

Sorghum Crow of Sorghum Crow's General Store detects a pattern.

Russia claims North Pole for oil exploration

Santa is pissed:

V MOSCOW — An expedition aimed at strengthening Russia's claim to much of oil and gas wealth beneath the Arctic Ocean reached the North Pole on Wednesday, and preparations immediately began for two mini-submarines to drop a capsule containing a Russian flag to the sea floor.

The Rossiya icebreaker had plowed a path to the pole through an unbroken sheet of multiyear ice, clearing the way for the Akademik Fedorov research ship to follow, said Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic research institute that prepared the expedition.

"For the first time in history people will go down to the sea bed under the North Pole," Balyasnikov told The Associated Press. "It's like putting flag on the moon."

Well, they finally stood up

And walked out:

BAGHDAD - Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining efforts to seek reconciliation among the country's rival factions, and three bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 people.

[snip]

The White House on Wednesday downplayed the significance of the Accordance Front's leaving the government. Press secretary Tony Snow said that while it is important for all the political blocs to participate, reconciliation efforts are ongoing. He noted that Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and the minister of defense, both Sunnis, remain in place.

"We're keeping an eye on the situation, but let's keep in mind that it is not a complete withdrawal from the political process," Snow said.

The Accordance Front has 44 of parliament's 275 seats. Its withdrawal from the 14-month-old government is the second such action by a faction of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "national unity" coalition. Five Cabinet ministers loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government in April to protest al-Maliki's reluctance to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Accordance Front, said at a news conference Wednesday that the Sunni bloc's six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.

Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called al-Maliki's failure to respond to the Accordance Front. It gave him seven days to meet its demands, and the ultimatum expired Wednesday.

The ratcheting up of the war propaganda machine

Because it truly is all show and no substance.

Glenn Greenwald:

It was 24 hours of unadulterated, amazingly coordinated war propaganda that could not have been any further removed from the truth.

He is discussing the talkshow blitz of Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon:

It is difficult to remember a media spectacle to match yesterday's grand pageant where Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon were paraded across virtually every network and cable news show and radio program and heralded as "war opponents" and "Bush critics" who nonetheless returned from Iraq and were forced by The Truth to admit that we are Winning. For sheer deceit and propaganda, it is difficult to remember something quite this audacious and transparently false.

As was demonstrated yesterday, O'Hanlon and Pollack were among the most voracious cheerleaders for Bush's invasion and, as the war began to collapse, among its most deceitful defenders. But it goes so far beyond that.

Even through this year, they have remained loyal Bush supporters. They were not only advocates of the war, but cheerleaders for the Surge. They were, and continue to be, on the fringe of pro-war sentiment in this country. And yet all day yesterday, this country's media loudly hailed them as being exactly the opposite of what they really are.

Liberals aren't funny

Because Jonah Goldberg doesn't laugh when liberals make jokes. Which means that conservatives are actually funnier.

....

Sorry.

Had to catch my breath....

What real bloggers do

When journalists cease to be journalists.

Read the Freeway Blogger's tale.

I... I feel so ... powerful!

Update: Ripley challenges BillO to listen to the Right's hate speech.

He still has the tapes from the NSA warrantless wiretapping too...

Thers at Whiskey Fire decodes what Karl Rove was actually saying to Republicans when he talked about corruption:

Karl Rove, President Bush's political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party's defeat in the 2006 elections.

Thers explains:

So what's up? I've never thought Rove was quite the Wizard he was made out to be. His entire success, such as it is, is due to the fact that he is a total asshole who is willing to act like a total asshole. Period. But he's not stupid ... indeed, it was rather a clever insight that you could get quite far by acting like an absolute asshole. Too bad about the unforeseen "having to actually govern" difficulty, but still. Well done, man.

... So I'm going to go with, "here, Rove is being a total asshole, and not stupid." I don't think he expected any of these "insiders"to actually believe him about this "2008 will not be about the war" nonsense.

No. What he wanted them to do was not give an inch to the Democratic Congress.

Why?

Because the motherfucker has just been subpoenaed -- which everyone knew was coming.

What was he saying? About "corruption"?

He was saying, "I know where all the corruption is, and there's a lot of it, and if you value your phony-baloney jobs you will help us stonewall the Democratic Congress for the next year and a half."

Tell me I'm wrong.

When these guys are gone (if they go...) how many politicians will come forward to say they were being blackmailed? Anybody? Nobody?

It's all about power and hanging with the cool kids, isn't it?