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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (10487)	4/16/2004 4:15:46 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 173976

That's a lie. Go to the DPDB and find it.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (10487)	4/16/2004 4:25:51 PM
From: microhoogle!	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 173976

The truck drivers hired by Haliburton are paid 100k/year tax free. Understandable since it is a high risk job. I am curious about HOW MUCH DOES halliburton, Brown Kellog and Root et al. charge the taxpayers for it and how much they end up keeping.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (10487)	4/16/2004 5:44:53 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

an update from Michael Moore...fyi... _________________________ Personal Voices: Setting the Record Straight By Michael Moore AlterNet April 15, 2004 alternet.org I have never seen a head so far up a Presidential ass (pardon my Fallujah) than the one I saw at the "news conference" given by George W. Bush. He's still talking about finding "weapons of mass destruction" – this time on Saddam's "turkey farm." Turkey indeed. Clearly the White House believes there are enough idiots in the country who will buy this. I've been holed up for weeks in the editing room finishing my film ("Fahrenheit 911"). That's why you haven't heard from me lately. But after Tuesday night's Lyndon Johnson impersonation from the East Room – essentially promising to send even more troops into the Iraq sinkhole – I had to write you all a note. First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not "contractors" in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it. Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested – or worse. The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? You closed down a friggin' weekly newspaper, you great giver of freedom and democracy! Then all hell broke loose. The paper only had 10,000 readers! Why are you smirking? One year after we wiped the face of the Saddam statue with our American flag before yanking him down, it is now too dangerous for a single media person to go to that square in Baghdad and file a report on the wonderful one-year anniversary celebration. Of course, there is no celebration, and those brave blow-dried "embeds" can't even leave the safety of the fort in downtown Baghdad. They never actually SEE what is taking place across Iraq (most of the pictures we see on TV are shot by Arab media and some Europeans). When you watch a report "from Iraq" what you are getting is the press release handed out by the U.S. occupation force and repeated to you as "news." I currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army). They are talking to soldiers and gathering the true sentiment about what is really going on. They Fed Ex the footage back to me each week. That's right, Fed Ex. Who said we haven't brought freedom to Iraq! The funniest story my guys tell me is how when they fly into Baghdad, they don't have to show a passport or go through immigration. Why not? Because they have not traveled from a foreign country – they're coming from America TO America, a place that is ours, a new American territory called Iraq. There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe – just maybe – God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end. Until then, enjoy the "pacification" of Falluja, the "containment" of Sadr City, and the next Tet Offensive – oops, I mean, "terrorist attack by a small group of Baathist loyalists" (Hahaha! I love writing those words, Baathist loyalists, it makes me sound so Peter Jennings!) – followed by a "news conference" where we will be told that we must "stay the course" because we are "winning the hearts and minds of the people." I'll write again soon. Don't despair. Remember, the American people are not that stupid. Sure, we can be frightened into a war, but we always come around sooner or later – and the one way this is NOT like Vietnam is that it hasn't taken the public four long years to figure out they were lied to. Now if Bush would just quit speaking in public and giving me more free material for my movie, I can get back to work and get it done. I've got four weeks left 'til completion.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (10487)	4/16/2004 6:20:33 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Respond to of 173976

THE AMERICANS AND ISRAELIS ON THE RAMPAGE "He is the most dangerous man in the world. A warmonger. A crackpot fundamentalist. A fanatic and a fool... His name is George W Bush and his main battle plan is to set the world on fire." "In Israel, Bush has blazed a purposeless trail of destruction and multiplied the dangers of terrorism a thousand-fold... Bush has overnight primed the entire region for a new cycle of slaughter by backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's illegal land-grab of Palestinian territory..." The Daily Mirror in London today www.MiddleEast.Org - MER - Washington - 16 April 2004: The Brits have lost their Empire, and their own P.M. has so tragically aligned himself quite completely with the Americans unlike any other world leader. But the Brits still have their journalistic traditions even if the now fearful BBC has been a little watered-down and dumbed-up for American consumption. This from the Daily Mirror in London today. Gee...if only PBS 'News Hour' would invite Mr. Toolis for a little chat. We'd especially like to know what he thinks of Ariel Sharon and the Pentagon's top Jewish neocons! A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE WORLD By Kevin Toolis The Daily Mirror - UK - 16 April 2004: HE is the most dangerous man in the world. A warmonger. A crackpot fundamentalist. A fanatic and a fool who has only the barest grasp of the killing power of the forces under his command. His name is George W Bush and his main battle plan is to set the world on fire. September 11 was a crime against humanity but from Afghanistan to Iraq, and now in Israel, Bush has blazed a purposeless trail of destruction and multiplied the dangers of terrorism a thousand-fold. The War Against Terror has turned into a war of terror in Iraq as American troops butcher their way through the civilian population in pursuit of an enemy that grows stronger daily with each dead Iraqi civilian. And in Israel Bush has overnight primed the entire region for a new cycle of slaughter by backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's illegal land-grab of Palestinian territory and offering the Arabs nothing in return only despair. Bush seems determined to unite the entire Arab world against the West. Already the mass murderer Osama bin Laden has gleefully vowed to avenge the Israeli assassination of Palestinian Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin. After September 11 Bush promised to fight terror. But the only promise Bush has kept is the promise of more terror, more terrorist atrocities, like the Madrid bombings, to come. As the American President Bush is supposed to protect democracy and make the world a safer place. Bush is supposed to be the leader of the free world, a man who directly follows in the footsteps of such great statesmen as John F Kennedy, who saved the world from nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban missile crisis. But airhead Bush is no Kennedy. WATCHING Bush stumble through a live press conference, even when he knows the questions, is like watching a stranded goldfish gasping for air. Bush is not just out of his depth, he is out of his element. If it was not so truly frightening you could almost feel sorry for him. If I was an American I would be ashamed. Ashamed that the greatest nation on earth is so badly led. Ashamed that their commander-in-chief is without purpose squandering the lives of his men, and Iraqi civilians. And ashamed too of a President who sends men to their death but does not have the courage to attend one single funeral of the 700 US soldiers killed in Iraq. Iraq and Israel might seem far away but every time you fill up your car you are taking part in the politics of the Middle East. The world economy still runs on petrol and that oil still largely comes from the Arab world. If anything should ever happen to that flow of oil - civil war in Saudi Arabia or meltdown in Iraq - we would all know about it very quickly by the US$100 a barrel price tag and the three-hour queue down at your local petrol station. The war against Islamic fundamentalism, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is a battle for the future of the world. It is a war the West cannot afford to lose. And it is a war in which the clueless Bush is blindly leading us all towards disaster. As if the quagmire in Iraq was not bad enough, Bush has turned his destructive attention to the other regional hot-spot, Israel. At the White House Bush summarily dismissed 50 years of Palestinian claims for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, all illegal under international law, were the "new realities" that the Palestinians would just have to accept, he said. A couple of months ago I was standing next to one of those realities, an eight-foot high concrete wall, on the outskirts of Jerusalem in the small Arab village of Abu Dis. Abu Dis is seven miles from the centre of Jerusalem and straddles the 3000-year-old pilgrim road to Jericho. Jesus Christ himself probably walked along the same road on his way into Jerusalem. But last summer Ariel Sharon decided Abu Dis was no longer part of East Jerusalem and erected an eight-foot high concrete barrier across the middle of the road, cutting the residents off from their homes, their jobs, and their city. ON the roof of a local garage the Israeli army erected an observation post and threatened to shoot anyone who climbed the wall. The Palestinians ignored the soldiers and round the corner climbed the wall anyway. I was standing on the "Arab" side of the wall chatting to Ahmed Bahar, a street falafel seller, when without warning an Israeli soldier lobbied a tear-gas grenade. There was no shouting. No mob screaming threats. Ahmed saw the hissing gas canister, which landed about 10 feet away, and took off in the opposite direction. I ran after him but not before getting a choking whiff of the stinging gas in my eyes and lungs. After 10 minutes the wind blew the gas away and Ahmed went back to his falafel stall. The other Palestinians quietly got back in line to queue for a taxi. And life started up again. Ahmed said he had been gassed hundreds of times. He was past being angry about it. The real thing that bothered him was the disruption to his trade. He wasn't making enough money to support his family. Getting tear gassed in Abu Dis for no reason is just one of the new realities that George W Bush wants the Palestinians to live with, along with hundreds of other daily humiliations of Israeli occupation. But is not a sustainable reality. Sooner or later some Palestinian will angrily strike back. There will be more suicide bombings, more killings, more despair. To save the world from terror you have to have vision, intelligence and the ability to unlock the complex political problems. But the only ability George Bush has is an unerring capacity to make a grim situation worse. George W Bush is a clear and present danger to the world. And we are all under threat until this bumbling oaf is removed from office and confined to a remote Texas cow ranch where he truly belongs. * -Kevin Toolis is an expert on terrorism