LowerCaseRepublican

God, thanks Koch. 3 run lead and all you need is 3 outs and you f***ing blow it. What an assmuppet.

I apologize for taking so long to get back to this. Had an eventful weekend that took up a lot of my time. Anyway, back to the post. Firstly, building schools, giving them health care etc. When that's done in Iraq it's seen as good policy. When national health care and better schools and the like are suggested for America, it's shouted down by most neo-conservatives as outright socialism. I fear the slippery slope of "they're gonna attack so we must attack first" can be used for disasterous purposes. Take, for example the problems with India and Pakistan. They've both got itchy trigger finger and have actually come out saying that they would use the doctrine of pre-emptive war to attack each other. The doctrine has created a slippery slope in the world political arena. A lot of high ranking troops said that US troops simply did not have enough troops to adequately perform in Iraq. They're simply undermanned there. Some Iraqi security forces put in place have said that they did not sign up to fight their own people. Not to mention that as of October the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be bankrupt until after the election here. If, and that's a very strong if, we rebuild Iraq then we do not rebuild Iraq. Iraqis cannot get jobs since all the major contracting jobs and even the grunt work in Iraq goes to Americans. So, US companies are getting a lot of money to rebuild Iraq yet most Iraqis are unemployed. There was a good article in the Nation on this recently but I don't have the time currently (going to dinner with a friend relatively soon) to get it but just do a little search and you can find it if you want to read it. I also don't know if you saw the recent pending legislation... Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services. Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their cur-rent semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year. If this all happens, the draft beings in spring 2005. We have a president who said in 2000 that we would not "nation build". And if we're really promoting the American way of life, then why silence freedom of speech by closing al-Sadr's newspaper just because he said stuff we didn't like? And as to your point that America is safer, http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=2181 It's a libertarian paleo-conservative site that is totally about not wanting to use our military in offensive wars.

Crosby 3 run HR. 4-3 Yankees

Willie with a very nice double. Damn good hustle.

Base hit by Sheffield. 3-1 Sox with runners at the corners for the Yankees.

If you say the UN is not the answer then please explain to me how the first thing that the United States must do is enforce United Nations resolutions against Iraq? Either the UN is there for us to enforce its resolutions otherwise you undercut your reasoning for the war. Even the neo-conservatives like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz said that WMD were just a reason for an invasion of Iraq that they knew the American public would get behind, not anything based in reality if Iraq had WMD or not. The Kurds don't trust us at all. Firstly, it was the US who gave Saddam the weapons that were used to slaughter the Kurds in the 1980s. Secondly, we give lots of military aid to Turkey who does its own mass slaughtering of Kurds (In fact, the UN resolution condemning the treatment of the Kurds, Turkey only voted for it if the US guaranteed there would be no resolution condemning the Turkish slaughtering of the Kurds.) American companies are not going to leave, you say. Gee, that may be a reason as to why the Iraqi people just might be a tad bit pissed. They lived under oppression of Saddam, we "liberate" them and have American companies moving in taking jobs away from Iraqis (yeah, the Nation had an interesting article about how almost all the good jobs are going to Americans and all the s*** jobs get to go to the Iraqis) So, they might be just a tad bit angry about that. Or maybe there is a lot of uprising in Fallujah after we massacred a bunch of civilians there in a market (accidental bomb drop) and opened fire on unarmed protesters in 2003? As for your Vietnam comment, I am in close contact with Joe Miller. He served in the Navy and was in Vietnam in 1964 until 1968. After getting back, he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He said the casualties for Vietnam and this Iraq war are pretty much even for the first year that we were in Vietnam.

They are trying to build a second Wal-Mart here in Urbana which has caused quite an uproar. Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and now political writer, wrote in his book "Thieves in High Places" the following things about Wal-Mart that boiled my blood. The owners of one of America's premiere retail corporations is comprised of five of the ten richest people in the world, all from the same family. Their personal wealth eclipses $100 BILLION dollars. Last year the companies CEO was paid a cool $11.5 million, more than the annual salaries of 765 of his employees combined! The company's profits are over $7 BILLION annually. In these difficult economic times how do they do it? - This company runs ads featuring the United States flag and proclaims "We Buy American". In 2001 they moved their worldwide purchasing headquarters to China and are the largest importer of Chinese goods in the US, purchasing over $10 BILLION of Chinese-made products annually. Products made mostly by women and children working in the labor hell-holes China is famous for. - Their average employee working in the US makes $15,000 a year, $7.22 per hour! - These employees gross under $11,000 a year. - The company brags that 70% of their employees are full time, but fails to disclose that they count anyone working 28 hours a week or more as full time. - There are no health care benefits unless you have worked for the company for two years. - With a turnover rate averaging above 50% per year, only 38% of their 1.3 million employees have health care coverage. -In California alone it's estimated that the taxpayers pay over $20 million annually to subsidize health care benefits for these employees who get none from this behemoth corporation. - According to a report by PBS's "Now" with Bill Moyer, their managers are trained in what government social programs are available for these "employees" to take advantage of so that the company can pass on those costs to you and me. It allows them to not only keep their $7 BILLION in annual profits, but to do so by substituting benefits they refuse to provide with benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars. - This company holds the record for the most suits filed against it by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawyer from "Business Week" (not exactly the bastion for supporting Labor) said, "I have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for the law." They had to pay $750,000.00 in Arizona for blatant discrimination against the disabled! The judge was so incensed that he also order them to run commercials admitting their guilt. - The National Labor Relations Board has issued over 40 formal complaints against the corporation in 25 different states in just the past five years. The NLRB's top lawyer believed that their labor violations, such as illegal spying on employees, fraudulent record keeping, falsifying time cards to avoid paying overtime, threats, illegal firings for union organizing etc., were so widespread that he was looking into filing a very rare national complaint against the company. - Nearly 1 MILLION women are involved in the largest class-action suit every filed against a corporation. Although women make up over 65% of this corporations work force only 10% of them are managers. The women who have become store managers make $16,400 a year LESS then the men. - The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this." - They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30 million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25 states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the building and of forcing unpaid overtime. - With 4,400 stores they practice "predatory pricing." They come into a community and sell their goods at below cost until they drive local businesses under. Once they have captured the market the prices go up and they can charge whatever they want. - Locally owned and operated businesses put virtually all of their money back into the community which helps keep the local economies vibrant. This corporation sucks the money out of the local community, decreases wages and benefits and ships the profits out of state. - This company doesn't buy locally or bank locally. They replace three decent paying jobs in a community with two poorly paid "part- timers". - In Kirksville, Missouri when this company came to town, four clothing stores, four grocery stores, a stationary store, a fabric store and a lawn-and-garden store all went under. Eleven businesses are now gone. http://www.anti-walmart.com/badwalmart/index.html also has a link to a lot of different government and reports etc.

You can blame a lot of the Congressmen who got tons of PAC money to let companies move their base of operations (in name only) to Bermuda. It's sickening. Then they get millions in corporate welfare from the US taxpayers.

Here's another great one that I personally like for a campaign slogan for Bush.

I got a couple made on actual Bush signs (you could make Bush campaign slogan signs on his site for a while until they took it down since so many people were making anti-Bush signs )

Where's your beloved Blue Devils now, eh? /Chief Wiggum

Read some Thoreau about Thoreau's story of not paying the poll tax. And breaking laws for something they thought was right and getting their way? Yeah I think some guys did that to England a few hundred years ago.

The O'Franken Factor is hilarious

It wasn't appeasing due to 3/11. Before March 20 when the war originally began, most polls in Spain showed 97% of Spaniards were against the Iraq war. That's why Aznar lost. As for "knuckling under to terror" Spain doubled their amount of troops in Afghanistan to actually help search where terrorists that attacked them and us are. [Edit: this was the work of the new socialist government]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world...ofthefallen.htm Has it separated by date and you can read the cause of death so you can find out.

Not saying that these are 100% factual but it definitely throws a new perspective into the debate.

HRW: No Evidence of Iraqi Gunfire at al-Fallujah Massacre 6/17: An 18-page report released by Human Rights Watch clearly states that "they did not find conclusive evidence of bullet damage" on the school where soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were allegedly fire upon by Iraqi protestors. U.S. soldiers killed 20 protestors and wounded 90 during demonstrations in al-Fallujah on 4/28 and 4/30. On 6/18, U.S. troops shot and killed several rock-throwing Iraqi protestors in Baghdad. US Army Captain Scott Nauman who was involved in the Fallujah event said that no Iraqis fired any firearms at them but then Centcom said that there were weapons fired by Iraqis. (Did CentCom talk to the troops that were on the scene?) http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluja/ http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraqfalluj...uja.htm#P50_591 http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620414.php

I was listening to Air America Radio and found some interesting stuff in a Google search. Reading this it's easy to see why children and the such could and would have such a big anti-America/anti-"Coalition" sentiment in Fallujah. Just Google Fallujah Massacre and you can get a ton of articles on this topic. A bunch of dead unarmed civilians might give them the anger and stuff needed to piss them off enough to do what they did. Iraqi rage grows after Fallujah massacre By Phil Reeves in Fallujah -- The Independent 04 May 2003 Nearly a week after troops from the 82nd Airborne Division randomly opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators here, prompting the US military to announce an inquiry, commanders have yet to speak to the doctors who counted the bodies. Nor, by late yesterday, had US commanders been to the home of a 13-year-old boy who was among the dead, even though it is located less than a mile from the main American base in Fallujah, a conservative Sunni town 35 miles west of Baghdad. The Americans' conduct over the Fallujah affair – and their highly implausible version of events – has compounded the anger in Iraq over the killings, in which 13 people died after being hit by a hail of US bullets outside a school which the troops were occupying. It combines all the worst elements of the occupation: panicky troops firing at Iraqis instead of seeking to engage with them or understand their circumstances, then insisting that local people have no cause for anger. The US military's case was enshrined in a 290-word statement issued by its Central Command (Centcom) in Qatar the day afterwards, Tuesday, issued when the interest of the world's media was at its height. This stated that the "parachuters" from the 82nd Airborne Division opened fire in self-defence after being shot at by around 25 armed civilians interspersed among 200 demonstrators and positioned on the neighbouring rooftops. It spoke of a "fire-fight". Witnesses interviewed by The Independent on Sunday stated that there was some shooting in the air in the general vicinity, but it was nowhere near the crowd, which comprised mostly boys and young men who descended on the school at around 9pm to call for the US troops to leave the premises. Gunfire in the air is commonplace – and the Fallujah demonstration coincided with Saddam Hussein's birthday. But there is a consensus among Iraqi witnesses on two issues. There was no fire-fight nor any shooting at the school. And the crowd – although it had one poster of Saddam and may have thrown some stones – had no guns. The evidence at the scene overwhelmingly supports this. Al-Ka'at primary and secondary school is a yellow concrete building about the length and height of seven terraced houses located in a walled compound. The soldiers fired at people gathered below them. There are no bullet marks on the façade of the school or the perimeter wall in front of it. The top floors of the houses directly opposite, from where the troops say they were fired on, also appear unmarked. Their upper windows are intact. The day after the bloodbath, US soldiers displayed three guns which they said they had recovered from a home opposite, but this proved nothing. Every other Iraqi home has at least one firearm. Centcom also refused to confirm that the soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who raked the crowd had killed or injured unarmed civilians. Although it conceded that this was possible, it described the deaths of unarmed people as "allegations" and estimated the toll at seven injuries, all people who were armed. Yet a mile from the US army's base is the home of 13-year-old Abdul Khader al-Jumaili. The boy had tagged along with the demonstration as it passed by his home, having spotted some of his friends. He was shot in the chest, and died in hospital a few hours later. His house – No 3 Al-Monjazat Street – is easy to find. Dozens of relatives gathered there for three days of mourning amid an atmosphere of quiet anger, grief and indignation. "The Americans are just lying," said his father, Abdul Latif al-Jumaili, a clerk. "You can see it for yourself," he added, showing a photograph of his son. "He was just a boy." The affair has angered British Army officials who believe that the US troops lack the vital experience which the British acquired – painfully at first – in Northern Ireland. "Don't talk to me about the US army," said one British military source. "Let's just say that they face a very steep leaning curve." The Americans will be hoping that the damage will be repaired once they establish stability and the economy gets going. But they will find no consolation from the signals being sent to them in Fallujah. On Wednesday night, someone fired two grenades into their compound, a former Baath party building, injuring seven soldiers. A banner was hanging from the front gate of the mayor's office next door: "Sooner or later, US killers, we'll kick you out." This is by Bill Vann from the World Socialist Web Site (May 1 2003) For the second time in barely 48 hours, US Army paratroopers opened fire Wednesday on unarmed demonstrators in the Iraqi town of Fallujah, killing three people and wounding approximately 16, several of them critically. The carnage erupted during a march by thousands of the town’s residents who were protesting the killing of at least 13 demonstrators on Monday night, when a crowd of students and youth had assembled outside a school occupied by the US troops, demanding that they leave so classes could resume. The soldiers opened fire at close range. Among the dead were three children under the age of 10. Witnesses to Wednesday’s shootings, including town officials, insisted that the American soldiers opened fire after children in the crowd threw stones and shoes at them. Among the many protest signs carried by the crowd, one banner read: “Sooner or later, US killers, we will kick you out.” The first shots reportedly came from a convoy of jeeps and armored vehicles. Other soldiers guarding the headquarters of a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division fired from the rooftop of the compound that the unit has occupied, the local headquarters of the Baathists, the former ruling party. Attack helicopters then swooped low over the city, dispersing the crowd with the threat of even deadlier violence. As with the Monday night shootings, the US Central Command claimed that the American troops “returned fire” after being shot at by demonstrators. But, also as with the earlier massacre, not a single American soldier suffered the slightest injury and there was no physical evidence of bullets having struck the compound or the convoy. “This was a peaceful demonstration. Religious leaders told us not to be armed. There was no exchange of fire,” one witness, Safra Rusli, told reporters. “I saw three people killed before my own eyes.” Prominent figures in the town were clearly taken aback by the repressive violence. “Why? The demonstrators didn’t use guns, so why should the soldiers start attacking them,” asked the imam of the Grand Fallujah Mosque, Jamal Shaquir Mahmood. “There is no (Iraqi) military presence here. Why is there an American military presence?” One could possibly see the first massacre as a terrible, if inevitable, tragedy arising from the conditions of colonial occupation, with young soldiers panicking in the face of a hostile population. The second attack on unarmed demonstrators in the same city, coming on the heels of this massacre, however, points to a deliberate policy of lethal violence aimed at breaking the will of the Iraqi people. Massacre was “within the rules” “Everything was within the rules of engagement,’ ” Capt. Jeff Wilbur, an 82nd Airborne civil affairs officer told the media. “There’ll be no formal investigation.” The question of what US troops are doing in Fallujah, a town of about a quarter of a million people located 35 miles west of Baghdad, is a good one. According to local leaders, there are no military objectives there, given that the Iraqi army and police fled the town on the day Baghdad fell. The local population elected a new mayor, while Muslim clerics succeeded in curtailing looting and even returning property that had been taken. The hostility of the town to foreign occupation has deep roots. In 1991, it was the scene of one of the worst atrocities of the first Persian Gulf War, when a British warplane dropped bombs on a crowded market, killing 150 civilians.

It might be in reaction to this: http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FC31Ak01.html The paper was critical of the US, so we closed the paper and banned it. But I guess we're giving them freedom and democracy? And to quote Jon Stewart: "I guess the rocket propelled grenade is the Iraqi version of 'Aloha'."

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ This is a really interesting test. You answer the questions and it plots you on a coordinate plane telling your political leanings. Economic left/right -7.88 Social Libertarian/authoritarian -8.00 So, I'm a left libertarian. This is cool because it shows that even though people might disagree on one aspect (economics or personal freedoms) they could possibly agree a lot on the other.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal...the 4th Amendment takes another hit. Some U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday appeared to scoff at a Nevada man's claim that he should not be required to give his name to police. "I cannot imagine any responsible citizen objecting to giving his name," said law-and-order Justice Antonin Scalia. "The exercise of a constitutional right should not be incriminating," replied Robert Dolan, a deputy state public defender from Winnemucca. In 2000, Northern Nevada cattle rancher Larry Hiibel, standing beside his parked truck, was approached by a Humboldt County deputy. The officer asked Mr. Hiibel for proof of identification 11 separate times; in each instance Mr. Hiibel refused, saying he'd done nothing wrong. Finally, Mr. Hiibel was arrested and convicted of resisting and obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties. By a 4-3 vote, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected Mr. Hiibel's appeal, ruling any privacy right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is "outweighed by the benefits to officers and community safety" by allowing police to force people to provide ID, anywhere. But under that logic, what right could not be trumped by "police convenience"? Using his patrol car computer terminal, the modern American police officer can learn more about a citizen from today's government-issued photo ID than was contained in the infamous "travel papers" required of any citizen of the Third Reich. Mr. Hiibel was not even in his motor vehicle. He was jailed for no more than stubbornness and silence. If police can demand our ID by the side of a public road, what about in our backyards ... or in our bedrooms?

That actually may be a homemade sign. Not entirely sure but when I've been to the SOA protests in Georgia, there were different groups with signs a lot more elaborate than that with PVC poles instead of metal. I'm not saying that I'm 100% positive that it's a homemade sign or not, just my personal experience of being at a lot of rallies/protests and seeing a lot of signs and stuff.

::Takes a bow::

Hell yeah! Did you hear about PATRIOT II or the VICTORY Act that they're trying to push through now? http://www.infowars.com/print_patriotact2_analysis.htm Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was seizing dictatorial control. Patriot II and the VICTORY Act are Patriot I on steroids. USA PATRIOT Act: Unneeded Safeguard Abolition Preparing Americans To Readily Ignore Overt Totalitarianism Those who would give up essential liberty to attain temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security. -- Benjamin Franklin

SS2K4, it all depends about what your definition of the word "is" is.