 |
October, 2006
|
|
October 30, 2006 - The Bush Administration is bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. No, the policy has not changed and the Texan Commander-in-Chief has not decided to cut and run. Instead he is steadily withdrawing troops from the combat zones and redeploying them. 3,152 have been withdrawn and redeployed to Arlington National and other cemeteries across the US. At least 22, 265 have been withdrawn and redeployed to Walter Reed and other military hospitals across the United States. These soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines did not cut and run. They left the ability to run on the bloody Iraqi sands. But they have come home from the war. October 24, 2006 - Alberto Fernandez committed a cardinal sin this weekend. He spoke the truth. That is something that just isn’t done in the Bush Administration. He spoke straight out without applying a twist to his words. To compound his misdeed he did so in an interview he granted to the Administration’s bete noir, the widely watched Arabic language channel Al Jazeera. Responding to a question he said that “undoubtedly there was arrogance and stupidity from the United States in Iraq.”
Yesterday and again this morning the Bush State Department applied the spin to “correct” the record. It was a “mistranslation” State Department spokesmen said. Fernandez’ point was, they said, “lost in translation” but the department did not offer a corrected translation though they presumably had an accurate translation of the Arabic language interview on the Secretary’s desk immediately after the words were spoken...click here for entire October 13, 2006 - When one witness says that a conversation with another person took place and that person denies that it did the conclusion that one of them is lying is self-evident. That is the case presented by Kirk Fordham’s testimony in the secret hearings being held by the House Ethics Committee. Presumably Fordham’s testimony was consistent with his prior public statements. Indeed his attorney says that it was and an “anonymous source close to the investigation” has confirmed to reporters that the testimony was as the attorney described. According to the source Fordham was told by House Clerk Jeff Trandahl of a nocturnal visit by a drunken Foley to the male pages’ dormitory and that decided Fordham that he had to act in the hope that Foley could be pressed to modify his risky behavior. Fordham discretely spoke with Scott Palmer, Speaker Hastert’s Chief of Staff. Later in 2004 Fordham resigned from Foley’s staff and took a position as Chief of Staff to Congressman Tom Reynolds, Chair of the House Republican Campaign Committee....click here for entire October 9, 2006 - North Korea has successfully conducted a test of a nuclear devise joining the exclusive nuclear club. This triumph of the Bush Administration foreign policy follows on the heels of the spectacular cleansing of Iraq of its massive storehouse of weapons of mass destruction. That one achievement has accomplished that which Denis Hastert and the Republican Congressional leadership has been unable to do – knock Mark Foley off the page. Nearly 150,000 allied troops led by the American commander and an almost equal number of newly trained Iraqi army troops have been making steady progress in creating a stable, peaceful, and democratic Iraq with an implicit admonition to the American people to “stay the course”. At least that is the view espoused last week by Condolezza Rice during her surprise visit to Baghdad. Senator John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee does not share that view. On his return from a fact finding expedition to Iraq in the company of Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has seen things differently. If things do not improve within a short two months Senator Warner calls upon the Bush Administration to review the situation and revise its police toward Iraq. Former Secretary of State James Baker III, who headed the Bush legal team in the Florida re-count controversy, is calling for a revision of the Administration’s policy and calls for a tri-partite partition of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite States....click here for entire October 5, 2006 - The scandal gripping the US House of Representatives is not about Mark Foley anymore. Mark Foley is yesterday’s story. He is no longer able to use his position as a Member of Congress to fill his need for relationships with young pubescent boys. Day by day the scandal is growing but it is not about homosexuality or pedophilia. The homosexual pedophile resigned and is out of the picture while he is rehabilitated from alcoholism and the effects of having been an abused altar boy. This scandal is about a vast left wing conspiracy financed by George Soros and conducted by Clinton operatives in an underhanded effort to elect Democrats to Congress and end the period of benign Republican neglect....click here for entire
October 4, 2006 - “Mark Foley wants you to know that he is a gay man”, his lawyer said. With that the closet door that has been ajar since 1994 was swung wide open. Representative Foley’s sexuality was an open secret in the intimate halls of Congress. As early as 1995 House pages were warned not to let Foley get too close to them. Congress is a close community and the Republican leadership of which Foley was a part is closer yet. It is hard to imagine that over slightly more than a decade nobody noticed as the 52 year old single Congressman struck up acquaintances with teen aged page boys taking them out for ice cream and the like.
Well, it now appears that some one did notice and pass discrete warnings around the inner circle of the page program. The leadership was too busy to notice it appearst...click here for entire
October 3, 2006 - Senator Howard Baker posed that rhetorical question at the opening of the Senate Watergate investigation in 1973. Ultimately that question was answered and the answer brought down a Presidency. That same rhetorical question can be posed today in any number of forums and when the answer is found it may have equally devastating effects on the futures of several political figures. First there is Illinois’ own Speaker Hastert and Representative John Shimkus. What did they know of Foley’s unseemly internet grooming of the house pages and when did they know it? Did they learn only of e-mails and instant messages when ABC broke the story last weekend or did they first learn of the “naughty e-mails” in December 2005 and content themselves with Foley’s lame explanation and permit him to continue to pursue the boys? At best the answer to the rhetorical question may demonstrate shocking incompetence at the highest levels of Congressional leadership; at worst it may come so close to crossing the line into criminal malfeasance as to require them to respond side by side with the former Congressman from Florida. What did they know and when did they know it?...click here for entire |
Agree? Disagree? Just want to add your .02 worth? Click here to send your comments to Ming Return to Home Page © Copyright Keith Hays All Rights Reserved |