another one bites the dust.



Ex-city worker accused of taking bribes

November 19, 2005

BY TIM NOVAK AND STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter
Advertisement


Mayor Daley's reforms of the Hired Truck Program didn't stop a high-ranking Streets and Sanitation supervisor from allegedly taking payoffs from Hired Truck companies.

Neither, apparently, did the arrests of 10 people charged in the investigation.

Robert Ricciarelli just kept on taking and taking, prosecutors alleged Friday, charging him with one count of mail fraud.

Ricciarelli, a one-time adult bookstore manager, finally stopped last December nearly a year into the federal investigation after taking more than $30,000 in bribes over five years, according to charges in the case.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-hired19.html

Murtha's proposal, Rose, was that US troops now in Iraq be withdrawn to "just over the horizon"--that is, back to Qatar and the other bases from which the invasion of Iraq was launched--and held ready to return, both as quick-reaction forces to put down small-scale problems, or to re-invade and secure the country (for real, this time) if the Iraq government collapses.

His rationale for this proposal is the obvious one: The Iraqis themselves are not serious about getting their act together, getting their own army trained, or reaching a political settlement. It serves their purposes to hide behind American skirts (almost literally--hiding in the Green Zone and going out only with American bodyguards because they can't trust Iraqi bodyguards) while they seek personal and factional advantages from the disorder.

We have set up a situation where it benefits the power elites of Iraq to prolong the instability rather than to stabilized it, and they are unlikely to make any serious efforts to become a functioning country until they seriously believe we're leaving, and that the time they must resolve their problems is at hand.

However long we stay is however long they will stall for. They are NOT going to create those conditions we have specified as being the conditions under which we "can" leave. Why would they? They've got a free army doing their bidding right now, and a huge influx of American cash, a corruption-riddled "government" from which they can siphon off personal fortunes, and an unlimited time to jockey for power.

There is NO incentive for them to put their own house in order, and every reason for them to stall, and they're unlikely to change until they see and believe signs that American patience has limits, and time is running out.

Thanks you FriendJudy,
Pithy summation. I did neglect to note his "over the horizon" remarks.
That would be vote 3.

Nov. 21, 2005, 5:52AM
Crucial hearing set for DeLay
Congressman's lawyer to argue this week actions in question were not crimes in 2002

By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay returns to court this week for a pivotal hearing that could lead to the dismissal of the case against him on felony charges of violating state election and money-laundering laws.

The core issue before visiting Judge Pat Priest on Tuesday will be whether the crimes DeLay is accused of committing were actually crimes in 2002 when they allegedly occurred. DeLay and his co-defendants — Jim Ellis and John Colyandro — have proclaimed their innocence and are asking Priest to throw out the case.

"This could be the end of the case. Frankly, there's no crime charged and the law is on our side," said DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin of Houston.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle did not respond to a request for an interview. His office defended his case repeatedly in court filings last week.

A speedy conclusion to the case is important to DeLay's efforts to regain his position as House majority leader, a role the Sugar Land Republican had to relinquish when he was indicted in September.

Among the three defendants, there are almost 20 motions to quash the indictments. Several claim the indictments do not adequately describe a crime or that state law is misapplied to the crime alleged.

There are also motions that say the men's actions were not a crime at the time they occurred. They say criminal conspiracy did not apply to the election code until 2003 and that checks were not covered by the state's money-laundering laws until this year. All the activities in this case occurred in 2002.

Earle's case focuses on the activities of the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority, TRMPAC. Colyandro ran it, and it was advised by Ellis, who runs DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority.

TRMPAC's goal was to help the GOP capture control of the Texas House — to set the stage for DeLay's effort to redraw the state's congressional districts to guarantee Republican gains in the 2004 elections.

The committee in the 2002 elections raised about $600,000 in corporate money, which state law restricts from being used in elective politics.

A check for $190,000

TRMPAC used the money to pay the expenses of consultants who were collecting cash to donate to candidates, as well as for polling and telephone banks.

And in its most controversial action, TRMPAC gave a $190,000 check in corporate money to the Republican National Committee.

Shortly after that, the national committee gave $190,000 in money raised from individuals to seven Texas House candidates.

That exchange originally was cited in money laundering indictments returned against Ellis and Colyandro last year.

Then, on Sept. 28, Earle's office got a grand jury indictment against DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro for conspiracy to violate the state's election laws.

Earle could not have indicted DeLay directly under the election code because that law gave jurisdiction to DeLay's hometown district attorney in Fort Bend County.

1907 law cited

DeGuerin immediately raised questions about whether the indictment was valid because the conspiracy statute was not amended to include the election code until 2003.

Without specifically mentioning DeGuerin's argument, Earle has admitted in court filings that he sought a new indictment of DeLay on money-laundering charges because he realized there may have been "technical" problems with the first indictment on conspiracy to violate the election code.

But Earle also argued that the conspiracy statute applied to any felony in 2002, including those of the election code. Earle said the original conspiracy law was written when there was no separate election code and election law violations were included in the penal code.

"Clearly, as of 1907, the offense of criminal conspiracy covered a conspiracy to commit the felony offense of unlawfully making a corporate political contribution," Earle's brief said.

A second grand jury declined to indict DeLay on money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. But a third grand jury did, on Oct. 3.

DeGuerin said a big problem for Earle in that indictment is that the definition of money laundering did not include checks until Sept. 1 of this year.

The penal code

The provision was added to the money laundering statute unanimously by the House and Senate earlier this year at the request of the Texas District Attorney's Association. A House analysis of the bill said the language was needed because cases of money laundering could not be prosecuted when the funds involved a check instead of cash.

Earle has not yet responded on that issue. But the same point was raised by Ellis and Colyandro when they were first indicted in the case last year.

At that time, Earle said in the indictment that the money laundering involved "funds." He said the funds were the corporate money that was raised with the intent of spending it illegally on candidates.

Additionally, he said the fact that the penal code did not include checks in the definition of money laundering did not mean the code excluded money laundering by check.

The first judge in the case, state District Judge Bob Perkins of Austin, agreed with Earle and let the indictment stand. That is one of the reasons it was important for DeGuerin to have Perkins removed from hearing DeLay's case.

One of DeGuerin's first actions for DeLay was to get Perkins taken off the case on grounds that there would be a perceived political bias by the Democratic jurist against DeLay because Perkins had made political donations to national Democratic-leaning organizations.

After a flurry of judicial activity, the case landed with Priest, a senior Democratic judge.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3474238.html

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

try being loyal to the majority

ie the American public

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_r..._immigrants.htm

Of course, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has the quote on his website, but with the incorrect date attribution.

http://tancredo.house.gov/irc/welcome.htm

DeLay Lawyers Wants Indictments Dismissed

By APRIL CASTRO, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 58 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Texas - Attorneys for Rep.
Tom DeLay are hoping a judge will dismiss the conspiracy and money laundering charges against the former House majority leader so he can regain the powerful seat.

DeLay was to appear in court Tuesday before a judge who will decide whether the criminal case should continue to trial.

DeLay had to relinquish his leadership post in Congress after he was indicted in September. His attorneys are pushing for a December trial in hopes that DeLay is cleared so he can regain his title before Congress returns to session in January. Otherwise, lawmakers could elect a new majority leader.

Tuesday's hearing is DeLay's first before Senior Judge Pat Priest, who was appointed to the case after DeLay's attorneys succeeded in having the first judge removed because of his campaign contributions to Democratic candidates and causes.

DeLay is accused of funneling $190,000 in restricted corporate money from his Texas political action committee to an arm of the
Republican National Committee, which then gave the same amount of money to Texas legislative candidates in 2002. The direct use of corporate money for political purposes is illegal in Texas.

DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, has filed multiple legal briefs detailing why he believes the charges against the lawmaker should be dismissed.

The defense contends, for example, that DeLay shouldn't be charged with conspiracy to violate the election code because the law wasn't on the books until 2003, a year after DeLay's alleged offenses occurred.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has said state law has long defined conspiracy as an agreement to commit any felony, including a violation of the election code.

DeLay's attorneys also want to have the trial moved from liberal-leaning Austin, where they say he cannot get a fair trial, to his home county of Fort Bend. But that issue likely won't be decided until a later hearing.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_...elay_indictment

I HOPE and PRAY the charges stick like glue and this scumbag is sidelined for the rest of his worthless life. Not that he wouldn't become a 10 figure lobbyist tomorrow. I'd rather he got hit by a train but jail or even political neutering would make me very, very happy. Little nazi.

Prosecutors ask judge to gag Ryan

Seek to head off anymore outbursts before TV cameras



Tuesday, November 22, 2005

By MIKE ROBINSON

OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO - Prosecutors asked a federal judge Monday to curb any more out-of-court statements from George Ryan like the one last Thursday when a government witness' wisecrack about political "prostitution" touched off an angry outburst from the former governor.

Prosecutors also said the trial is dragging so badly that they've only managed to put 16 of 70 projected witnesses on the stand. Meanwhile, two former state contractors testified Monday they feared they had to pay $5,000 a month to Ryan co-defendant Larry Warner or lose the business.

Lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins launched Week No. 9 by urging U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer to head off any recurrence of Ryan's angry remarks before TV cameras on Thursday.

Prosecutors maintain that Ryan's decision to endorse former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm for president in 1996 had something to do with $11,000 Ryan received from the Gramm campaign.

The payment is part of a 22-count indictment charging Ryan, 71, and Warner, 67, with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. Ryan says the money was a "consulting fee" and both he and Warner have denied doing anything illegal.

Gramm testified Thursday that he would never pay for an endorsement. Asked why not, he drew gasps and laughter by saying: "It's sort of like the difference between love and prostitution."

The former governor, plainly stung by his old ally's tone, suggested to reporters hours later that Gramm and his wife, Wendy, may have had something to do with the collapse of Enron Corp.

Neither Gramm has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the financial debacle at the Texas-based energy trading company. Although as federal officials, both of them made decisions affecting the company and Mrs. Gramm later was a member of Enron's board of directors.

"If Senator Gramm wants to use the word prostitute perhaps he should look within," Ryan told reporters before he left the courthouse Thursday night.

Collins said allowing Ryan to make such remarks could make future witnesses believe that their families could be criticized if they testified.

"He attacked his wife, judge," Collins said.

Defense attorney Dan K. Webb said Ryan had been understandably angry about Gramm's "gratuitous, cutesy, Texas analogy about prostitutes."

Pallmeyer said she would consider proposals designed to prevent the parties from prejudicial out-of-court statements.

On the witness stand Monday, two former executives of American Decal and Manufacturing Co. of Chicago testified that they believed they would have to keep paying Warner to be their lobbyist or lose a $1 million contract to produce stickers that motorists attach to their license plates.

The stickers are proof motorists have paid their annual registration fee. American Decal had the contract to manufacture the stickers.

But American Decal owner Aristotelis Mpoughs and company executive John Reed said they were concerned about losing the contract if they failed to meet Warner's demand for $5,000 a month.

"I got the message that we either play ball with this man and pay him more money or he would go away and the contract would go with him," Reed testified.

On another front, both sides bickered over how much jurors should be told about Ryan's effort to win the gay vote in 1998 when he was secretary of state and running for governor.

Prosecutors are planning to call one of Ryan's employees in the secretary of state's office who operated the pro-Ryan, liberal group Progressives in Politics. They say the group was formed to campaign for Ryan in the gay community without setting off a conservative backlash.

Ryan attorney Bradley E. Lerman objected, saying it would make jurors think Ryan was an enemy of gay rights when in fact his record was supportive of gay people. He said if prosecutors tell jurors about the liberal group, he should be able to tell them about Ryan's record.

Prosecutors have been trying to stay away from political issues.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel R. Levin said the government doesn't want to focus on the gay rights issue, but is trying to show that when Progressives in Politics was more than $2000 in debt after the election, a Ryan aide told them Warner would reimburse them.

Attorneys said the activists refused to take the money and paid the debt on their own.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/112205/TRI_B86SLRR4.050.shtml

[center]

A Letter of Apology from Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman,
US Marine Corps, Retired[/center]
"For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will harbor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day massacre.

I humbly offer my opinion here:

I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Kuwait, etc.).

I am sorry that no such call for an apology upon the extremists came after 9/11.

I am sorry that all of the murderers on 9/11 were Islamic Arabs.

I am sorry that most Arabs and Muslims have to live in squalor under savage dictatorships.

I am sorry that their leaders squander their wealth.

I am sorry that their governments breed hate for the US in their religious schools, mosques, and government-controlled media.

I am sorry that Yasir Arafat was kicked out of every Arab country and high-jacked the Palestinian "cause."

I am sorry that no other Arab country will take in or offer more than a token amount of financial help to those same Palestinians.

I am sorry that the USA has to step in and be the biggest financial supporter of poverty stricken Arabs while the insanely wealthy Arabs blame the USA for all their problems.

I am sorry that our own left wing, our media, and our own brainwashed masses do not understand any of this (from the misleading vocal elements of our society, like radical professors, CNN and the NY TIMES).

I am sorry the United Nations scammed the poor people of Iraq out of the "food for oil" money so they could get rich while the common folk suffered.

I am sorry that some Arab governments pay the families of homicide bombers upon their death.

I am sorry that those same bombers are brainwashed thinking they will receive 72 virgins in "paradise."

I am sorry that the homicide bombers think pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and other non-combatant civilians are legitimate targets.

I am sorry that our troops die to free more Arabs from the gang rape rooms and the filling of mass graves of dissidents of their own making.

I am sorry that Muslim extremists have killed more Arabs than any other group.

I am sorry that foreign trained terrorists are trying to seize control of Iraq and return it to a terrorist state.

I am sorry we don't drop a few dozen Daisy cutters on Fallujah.

I am sorry every time terrorists hide they find a convenient "Holy Site."

I am sorry they didn't apologize for driving a jet into the World Trade Center that collapsed and severely damaged Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church -- one of our Holy Sites.

I am sorry they didn't apologize for flight 93 and 175, the USS Cole, the embassy bombings, the murders and beheadings of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, etc...etc!

I am sorry Michael Moore is American; he could feed a medium sized viallage in Africa.

America will get past this latest absurdity. We will punish those responsible because that is what we do.

We hang out our dirty laundry for the entire world to see. We move on. That's one of the reasons we are hated so much. We don't hide this stuff like all those Arab countries that are now demanding an apology.

Deep down inside, when most Americans saw this reported in the news, we were like--so what? We lost hundreds and made fun of a few prisoners. Sure, it was wrong! Sure, it dramatically hurts our cause, but until captured, we were trying to kill those same prisoners. Now we're supposed to wring our hands because a few were humiliated?

Our compassion is tempered with the vivid memories of our own people killed, mutilated and burned among a joyous crowd of celebrating Fallujahans.

If you want an apology from this American, you're going to have a long wait!

You have a better chance of finding those seventy-two virgins!

Chuck Pitman, Lt. Gen., US Marine Corps (Ret.)

Semper Fi

Federalist Patriot

Comments: Theodore Roosevelt indeed wrote these words, but not in 1907 while he was still president. The passages were culled from a letter he wrote to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919, three days before Roosevelt died.

"Americanization" was a favorite theme of Roosevelt's during his later years, when he railed repeatedly against "hyphenated Americans" and the prospect of a nation "brought to ruins" by a "tangle of squabbling nationalities."
He advocated the compulsory learning of English by every naturalized citizen. "Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country," he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. "English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools."

He also insisted, on more than one occasion, that America has no room for what he called "fifty-fifty allegiance." In a speech made in 1917 he said, "It is our boast that we admit the immigrant to full fellowship and equality with the native-born. In return we demand that he shall share our undivided allegiance to the one flag which floats over all of us."

I thought you said elsewhere part of the problem is we weren't holding territory and providing security. We were cleaning out pockets and then withdrawing.

Doesn't this plan just leave us waiting to do the same thing on a bigger scale? Or is the idea we don't actually react to small scale problems or reinvade, just sit around like we did during the Shia revolt?

Nooooo, I did not think "so what?" I don't think that was the general reaction. And that's a good thing. When we aren't disgusted by what we saw ... we may need to re-evaluate the meaning of morals and values. Personally, I was horrified. I saw the United States reputation flushed down the toilet. We had become more like the Soviet Union. Made fun of a few prisoners? Humiliated? Oh, is that all it was? Sure, it dramatically hurt our cause? Boy, you kind of skimmed over that. Light speed there buddy. Are you a dittohead or an evangelical? It's like .... yeeeeah sure, it lost us any credibility in the region .... probably cost us any cooperation, maybe even lost the war ... but hey... so what? Boys will be boys.


Is there some kind of disconnect with this guy or what?


Made fun of a few prisoners.

How about murdered? Sodomized? Does the word torture mean anything? Do you have any clue at all what's been done in the name of the United States? Do you have any knowledge of Islam AT ALL? Do you have any clue of the social taboo against sexual humiliation in that culture? You may as well have been doing that to a fundamentalist evangelical preacher and his family in the deep south of the good old USA. Do you know that disgusting behavior, edorsed by DC has not only dramatically hurt our cause, it set us back DECADES. We may NEVER regain our stature in the world. The damage is horrendous. We were there to SAVE IRAQIS, remember?

So, you know... it may be inconvenient, but... I don't know... maybe, uhhh... maybe. Yeah, maybe you should wring your hands ....for a while .... if it's not too ... uh... inconvenient.

I wonder about that myself.

If only davis were an enraged over the treatment of Americans by the terrorists.

I have no control or voice as to how terrorists treat their prisoners. I can address our own soldier's behavior.

Irony alert!!

Gee, does this apply to Israel as well?

I'm afraid some people see the time remaining to retreat and call the whole thing a loss is dwindling. If we get out and it collapses some people benefit politically. If we wait a bit and can even just claim a victory they lose. It's too bad EVERYONE doesn't see the goal as winning, instead of hoping to make political points.

Like Reagan said, you can get a lot done if you don't worry about who gets the credit.

Damned Jews.

Signature worth ripping at FederalistPatriot site...

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" --Samuel Adams

Republicans have been using this war for political points since day one, regardless of the consequences.

That alone makes your post juuuust a bit dishonest.

Would you like to explain?

So were democrats, but on day one they were on the side of the US. Since then they've staked out their own partisan position. Harry Reid says he was lied to, but also admits he didn't even read the intelligence briefing.

But on day one they were on the side of the US



Lying phony assed super patriots seizing control of the governemnt using 9/11 and Iraq doesn't bother you. Undermining every constitutionally guartanteed right along they way for their own political purposes DOESN'T BOTHER YOU.

That wasn't a question, it was a statement.

Republicans were always on their OWN side, certainly not the country as a whole. They saw the war as a vehicle to power. That's it.

If it gets them power? ANYTHING GOES. Even a war based on politcal bullshit.

So go on and whine about Democrats. Give the Republicans a pass. Let Republicans do whatever the fuck they want. Laws? They don't need no steenkin laws. Laws are for chumps who can't be pardoned.

Don't worry, I will. You had your shot, and will again someday. Then you can go back to giving democrats a pass.

PS, the election was BEFORE 9-11. Which was mostly planned on your watch. If democrats had done something when they had the chance, we might not be where we are.

And if Republican assholes had been concentrating on the country's business instead of a semen stained dress and had done something when they had the chance, we might not be where we are.

tell that bs to the weapons inspectors

Trying to say Bill's dick did all the thinking for 8 years? Doesn't wash with me. Bill had his shots, so did his administration. They CHOSE not to take Bin Laden, CHOSE not to fight terror, CHOSE to attack Iraq only at night.

Bill's impeachment, no matter how appropriate, wasn't the cause of terror or 9-11. Just a hindrance from doing anything about it.

You're just full of shit.

Democrat!! Democrat!! Democrat!!


My friends.... democrats are sooooo...

"Since then they've staked out their own partisan position. "






Even with the great uniter in power?

divided we fall

bush has fallen and he can't get up

DeLay watch.



DeLay's Attorneys Want Charges Dismissed

By LIZ AUSTIN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 22, 2005; 1:22 PM

AUSTIN, Texas -- Rep. Tom DeLay will have to wait for a decision on whether conspiracy charges against him will be dropped without a trial, a judge said Tuesday.

At a hearing, Senior Judge Pat Priest said he wanted to read written responses from both sides before making his ruling, and didn't say how long it might take. The hearing on various motions was continuing Tuesday.




DeLay, fighting to regain his post as House majority leader, appeared in court before Priest for the first time as his legal team tried to get the charges accusing him of violating state campaign finance law dropped. Among other things, he is arguing that the conspiracy charges were based on a law that wasn't even on the books when the alleged conspiracy happened.

"There's no such thing in 2002 as conspiracy to violate the election code," lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued Tuesday.

Prosecutor Rick Reed disputed that argument, saying the Legislature was just clarifying the law in 2003 and that state law has long defined conspiracy as an agreement to commit any felony.

Priest was appointed to the case after DeLay's attorneys succeeded in having the first judge removed because of his campaign contributions to Democratic candidates and causes.

He and Republican fundraisers John Colyandro and Jim Ellis are accused of operating a 2002 campaign finance scheme that prosecutors say funneled $190,000 in restricted corporate money to seven Texas House candidates in violation of state law.

DeLay is accused of sending the money to an arm of the Republican National Committee, which then gave the same amount of money to Texas legislative candidates. The direct use of corporate money for political purposes is illegal in Texas.

"It was basically a negotiated swap," Reed said in court. "It was done in this manner in order to disguise the fact that this ... had been negotiated."

DeLay would not talk to reporters as he entered the courtroom with his wife.

DeLay wants the charges dismissed or resolved in his favor by January. Under House rules, he was forced to give up his leadership post after he was charged in September with a felon. But he could regain it if he is cleared before Congress returns to session early next year.

Ellis' attorney, Mark Stevens, argued that the state's money laundering statute applies only to cash. The campaign contributions in question were checks, he said.

Among other things, DeLay's attorneys also want to have the trial moved from liberal-leaning Austin, where they say he cannot get a fair trial, to his home county of Fort Bend.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5112200318.html


Why his home county? How can he get a fair trial there?

Special justice for special people.

Let 'em move the trial to Midland if they want.

Padilla gets a break.

DeLay don't deserve one.

He can take care of hisself.

yeah delay should have been in jail like padilla this whole time.

Yes, and no.

"Withdrawing over the horizon" with the possibility of re-entering, even the possibility of re-entering on a larger scale than our original invasion, does indeed mean facing up to the question of "what is our mission, what is our goal, and for what American foreign policy purpose are we undertaking this effort?" It will be a hard decision to make, but it's also the decision we SHOULD have made before we went into Iraq in the first place.

Bush and his nutsy minions went in, in the first place, with the assumption that we would simply knock over Saddam, and then the Iraqis would spontaneously generate a fervent and effective desire to hatch themselves a democratic government which they themselves would shape and organize and fund, and we'd be out in a year, maybe two.

Well, that didn't happen, now did it?

So, the entire point of a "beyond-the-horizon" withdrawal is to secure a do-over, a second chance. We get our asses out, and let the Iraqis handle it, and if they don't, we re-enter with clear goals, clear missions, and clear expectations of what and why we're re-entering, and how and why those goals are to be accomplished.

We went in the first time on the (I said, and I was right that "we" were wrong) assumption that the Iraqis were going to greet us as liberators and take charge of their own futures, in a middle east version of the "Prague Spring".

Well, they didn't. And we had no plan B.

So, departing to "over the hill", allowing them to succeed or fail, and then returning if they fail with a clear idea of what we plan to shove down their throats at gunpoint isn't all that silly.

Our original invasion was based on an estimate of the Iraqi national character, and expectations of how Iraqis would react to being "liberated", that were inaccurate. There is nothing "stupid" at all about proposing that we depart a few hundred miles, allow the Iraqis to clarify for us all, including themselves, the extent to which they are willing and able to self-organize, and then, if they show themselves to be as incapable of self-organizing as seems to be the case, re-entering with a firm and demonstrated assumption that since they cannot self-organize, we'll fucking well "organize" them our way, whether they like it or not.

Nice? No. Bloody? Yes. Very.

But worse than the blood now being shed, the costs now being paid, while we dither around in slow motion? No, I don't think so.

Bottom line for me is that the Iraqis are capable of self-government, or they aren't. I'm flatly unwilling to spend 10 years of American money and American lives for no better reason than to stall and buy Iraq 10 years to figure out if it's capable of governing itself or not.

And growing more unwilling by the month, as it becomes more and more apparent that even if we keep this up for 10 years, that after 10 years we're STILL going to discover that the answer is "not".

If "not" is the answer, better we find that out in the next 2 years, before we destroy ourselves buying them time to accomplish something they probably CAN'T accomplish, in 2 years or 5 years or 10 years.

Time to change the facts on the ground, as Sharon would say.

Maybe instead of ranting constantly on your version of the impossible...you could give us a hint of a plan, a smidgen, a nuance.

I have stated it here several times before. It's pretty similar to what Murtha is proposing. (You DID find out what he was proposing before you started trashing him, right?) I would leave a somewhat longer window for withdrawal, and rather than publically announcing it, would communicate it directly to the Iraqi government.

You and your fellow wingnuts keep ignoring the central issue: The Iraqis are not satisfactorily performing their own role in this mess, and may be incapable of doing so. At a minimum, they are strikingly unmotivated.

That was the trouble all along with turning over our fate the Iraqis. When you make the success or failure of a war primarily contingent on the conduct of third parties over whom you have little control, you lose your ability to direct the process, and have no bargaining power beyond a threat to leave.

I very much resent Bush having put our military at the disposal of a corrupt ME regime, but that's nothing new at all.

There's a delicious irony to that. DeLay's hardball tactics cost him what he most wants--his majority leader seat!

There's some real poetic justice there, no?

Well, reading between the assumptions, I tend to agree with you on at least one point...that the Iraqis should provide a high degree of participation.

The reality is that:
We can't be sure of the degree of that participation. ( rants and biased news)
We really don't have inner circle familiarity of situations.
We have no realistic balance sheet of accomplishments vs failures.
We've overly politicized the reasons for going and the reasons for staying.

We actually fuel debates on sleight of hand, innuendo, and random logical fallacies.
IE...Bush put the military at the disposal of a corrupt regime.
or
I trashed Murtha before understanding his position ( I've not posted word one on Murtha btw).

Common sense and hard evaluation should not be that difficult to maintain...even in such a rant intensive board as this.

Eloquently succinct.

Good to see the criminals all together. It makes them easier to arrest. Don Cheney requests donations for Godfather DeLay.

Cheney to Headline DeLay GOP Fundraiser

HOUSTON, Nov. 23, 2005
(AP) A hurricane-postponed GOP fundraiser for embattled Congressman Tom DeLay will be held Dec. 5 and feature Vice President Dick Cheney.

The event in Houston had been scheduled for September, until Hurricane Rita struck. The Houston Chronicle reports top-dollar tickets are $4,200.

That price will get those people a spot in a VIP reception and a photo with the vice president.

For half that amount, donors get to attend a reception and have their picture taken with the Sugar Land Republican.

Those just wanting to get into the event must pay $500.

DeLay this year was indicted in Austin on conspiracy and money laundering charges related to donations for 2002 Texas House races.

DeLay says he's innocent.

Former Congressman Nick Lampson is seeking the Democrat nomination to run against DeLay in 2006.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/23/...D8E1S1S89.shtml

et al,

Does anyone understand what "Mike Scanlon" is doing (singing about)?

Who are the players and how do they fit together?

Regards,
R

Bart Katz, et al,

I think this is just a crafty legal play on the part of the Government which has a weak case.


(COMMENT)

While I believe there is probably cause to charge Padilla, I am opposed to the idea that the Government can indefinitely hold a US Citizen without due process.

We are not that kind of government.

Most Respectfully,

We don't know yet. Scanlon is a former Delay staffer and Abramoff partner - he plead quilty to conspiring to defraud the indian tribes of 20 million, and has agreed to testify in all related trials. The presumtion is that he was far enough inside the loops to be a key node.

We'll see.