James Taylor & Joe Walsh
Steamroller

A couple questions about King Georgie’s speech today:

It has now been 57 days since I requested that Congress pass emergency funds for our troops.

Why, after over 4 years, is he still requesting “emergency funds?” What happen to him budgeting for his war on terror??? Why has congress allowed him to keep this up? Because this way, there’s no accountability.

The only way the Democrats were able to pass their bill in the first place was to load the bill with pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war.

Has a single bill EVER passed that wasn’t full of pork??? I love the way he acts like pork has never been loaded in a bill prior to this one. The Republicans never did this, eh? Not that two wrongs make a right……..but give up the holier than thou shit already.

And now they have left Washington for spring recess without finishing the work.

Do we want to talk about what the Republicans didn’t finish before they left the 109th congress?

Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq.

Wait……was it the Democrats who went to war with the “army they had, not the army they wanted?” Was it the Democrats who have fucked our soldiers and veterans every step of the way and then all they have to say for it is……”my bad….mistakes made.”

If Democrat leaders in Congress are bent on making a political statement, then they need to send me this unacceptable bill as quickly as possible when they come back.

The statement they are making is one of the people you asshole. 70% of us. They are doing what we told them we wanted them to do. Next step…..NO funding for the war.

If Congress fails to act in the next few weeks it will have significant consequences for our men and women in the armed forces.

EVERYthing YOU have done, or failed to do, regarding Iraq has had significant NEGATIVE consequences for our men and women in uniform.

In a time of war

This is not a fucking war. War was never declared. The words “war on terror” don’t make this a war. They make it an occupation. Period. You want war, then vote on it and fucking declare it…..if you can.

Members of Congress say they support the troops. Now they need to show that support in deed as well as in word.

I believe he was talking to the Republican members of congress here. Don’t you?

Full text of speech here

We were lucky last year……..

From the Guardian:

DENVER (AP) - The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season should be “very active,” with nine hurricanes and a good chance that at least one major hurricane will hit the U.S. coast, a top researcher said Tuesday.

Forecaster William Gray said he expects 17 named storms in all this year, five of them major hurricanes with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater. The probability of a major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coast this year: 74 percent, compared with the average of 52 percent over the past century, he said.

Last year, Gray’s forecast and government forecasts were higher than what the Atlantic hurricane season produced.

There were 10 named Atlantic storms in 2006 and five hurricanes, two of them major, in what was considered a “near normal” season. None of those hurricanes hit the U.S. Atlantic coast - only the 11th time that has occurred since 1945. The National Hurricane Center in Miami originally reported nine storms, but upgraded one storm after a postseason review.

Rudy Giuliani wants people to lay off his wife. Ha! This guy wants decency? A little late for that isn’t it Rudy? Did you think this was the decent thing to do? Paaaalease. You know nothing of decency. You want to run…….. I say anything goes. You opened that door at this press conference:

Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with “groping in the window at Macy’s.” In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director.

And while we’re at it, how about McNutCase?

McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, “aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich.” McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife’s family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It’s possible that the age of the offense and McCain’s charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again.

And they have the balls to talk about Bill Clinton……… Bill Clinton looks like a choir boy compared to you two!

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News Alert:

WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not.

Let me fix this news alert:

WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush says Reps. Frank Wolf, Joe Pitts and Robert Aderhol’s trip to Syria signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not.

Afterall, they DID get there first!

Point A just got a little closer to point B… if you’ve got the balls. I’m not climbing onto it!

MSNBC.com:

France breaks world speed record for rail trains

Souped-up locomotive hits 354.1 mph but can’t top levitated train mark

ABOARD TRAIN V150, France - A high’speed French train with a souped-up engine and wheels broke the world speed record Tuesday for conventional rail trains, surpassing 354.1 mph.

The black and chrome train with three double-decker cars, named the V150, bettered the previous record of 320.2 mph but fell just short of the ultimate record set by Japan’s magnetically levitated train, which sped to 361 mph in 2003.

The TGV, short for “train a grande vitesse,” as France’s bullet trains are called, was equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing.

Saudi Arabia has dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s invitation to Arab leaders to attend a Middle East peace conference.

The Saudi Cabinet Monday said Israel first must end what it called constant violations and inhuman aggression against the Palestinian people.

In Paris, visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said Mr. Olmert’s proposal skips over necessary steps in the peace process.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that interaction between Israel and potential Arab partners would be positive.

On Sunday, Mr. Olmert invited all Arab leaders to a peace conference and called Saudi King Abdullah a “very important leader.”

Last week, the Arab League re-launched a 2002 plan calling for normal relations with Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders.

Mr. Olmert welcomed the decision, but said Israel does not accept all parts of the plan.

The plan calls for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes inside Israel.

Mr. Olmert said the plan, with some changes, could be a basis for dialogue.

Source

02-Apr-2007 5 | US: 4 | UK: 1 | Other: 0
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Fuhaylat - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Kirkuk - At-Ta’mim Hostile - hostile fire - car bomb
UK NAME NOT RELEASED YET Basra - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
01-Apr-2007 7 | US: 6 | UK: 1 | Other: 0
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (southwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (southwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (southwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (southwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Al Anbar Province Non-hostile
UK Kingsman (private) Danny John Wilson Basra - Basrah Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US Staff Sergeant Jason R. Arnette Baghdad (southwest of) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Source

Bush is scheduled to make a speech today around 10 am……no doubt to tell us how great the surge is going and how improved things are in Baghdad and how bad Democrats are for wanting to get us out of there. But hey…..29-30% of Americans will listen intently as they drink the kool aid in their padded cells.

This sounds awful bogus to me……..

From the Sun Sentinel:

Coral Springs — A retired FBI agent who has apparently gone missing while on a business trip in Iran is from Coral Springs, South Florida Sun-Sentinel news partner CW 39 reported late Monday.

The agent’s name and hometown have not been released by the U.S. State Department, which announced Monday that the retired agent had not contacted his family for weeks. The State Department said it would ask the Iranian government if it had any information on the case, which federal authorities said they are treating as a missing person and nothing more.

The retired agent, who specialized in the Mafia during his career that ended more than a decade ago, was in Iran to gather information for an unidentified author who was writing about a felon convicted in the United States who later was granted asylum by the Iranian government, according to CW 39.

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

The Washington Post’s Peter Eisner reports on the front page today (4/3/07):

It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous — later retracted — 16 words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush’s remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?

Burba felt uneasy because more than three months earlier, she had turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome documents about an alleged uranium sale by the central African nation of Niger. And she knew now that the documents were fraudulent and the 16 words wrong.

Nonetheless, the uranium claim would become a crucial justification for the invasion of Iraq that began less than two months later. When occupying troops found no nuclear program, the 16 words and how they came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war.

Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable.

Read more »

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

The Vagabond Scholar poetry category isn’t as large as I’d like, but I wrote a fairly extensive post for National Poetry Month last year. I’ve also added a few poetry sites to the VS blogroll since. They can be found on the bottom left. Get yer verse on!

If political poetry is your thing, it’s hard to keep up with the creative output over at Poetic Justice.

I will be adding a few more poetry posts this month, and please feel free to link or add any favorite poems. But to kick things off properly, here’s one of my favorites:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- William Carlos Williams