"It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us."

"Nearly three-quarters of a million women work as 'sales associates' in Wal-Mart stores. On average these women earn $6.10 per hour, or $12,688 per year if they are permitted to work full-time. This wage puts many of their families below the poverty level -- half even qualify for federal assistance under the food stamp program."

Wal-Mart Customer Service
7000 Marina Blvd.
Brisbane, CA 94005

Is he serious? Do these guys really have the chutzpah to try and claim that Bush was genuinely unsure about Iraq and only decided on war after an agonizing session in which George Tenet convinced him he had to do it? There isn't a single soul in all of Washington DC who believes that.

A striking act of forgiveness for a gruesome murder earned Brandon Biggs a $10,000 college scholarship on Wednesday from an equally unlikely group of donors: prisoners on death row.

Jeffrey Woodard said Jupiter Christian School expelled him three days after his instructor pulled him out of Bible class on Aug. 15 and asked him in confidence if he is gay.

When Woodard answered "yes," a school official called his mother, Carol Gload, and told her Woodard could not attend an upcoming school retreat unless he and Gload met with the school to talk about Woodard's sexual orientation.

"We were basically given three choices -- to get counseling for his `problem,' to voluntarily withdraw him, or he would be expelled," said Gload, who has known for more than a year that her son is gay. "I didn't think Jeffrey needed therapy, ... so when I explained he doesn't need help for anything, he knows who he is, they ... expelled him."

[edit]

Gload, a mother of two, said she sent her son to the school because he is a devout Christian and the school is within walking distance of their home.

accuses Mr. Reagan not only of showing no interest in addressing the AIDS crisis, but of asserting that the patients of AIDS essentially deserved their disease. During a scene in which his wife pleads with him to help people battling AIDS, Mr. Reagan says resolutely, "They that live in sin shall die in sin" and refuses to discuss the issue further.

[Reagan] was capable of compassion for AIDS victims, and did not share the bigoted belief that the disease was a wrathful God's punishment for homosexual conduct.

This is historical distortion. Indeed, if uncorrected, it may well fit the very definition of libeling a public figure: reckless disregard for the truth.

[edit]

The historical record is plain: Ronald Reagan was not indifferent toward those who suffered with AIDS; rather, having taken an oath to "take care that the laws are faithfully executed," he did just that — even when it was of no discernible political benefit to him or his party, and reasonable minds could and did disagree. History should be retold, not rewritten.

Reagan's response to this epidemic was halting and ineffective. In the critical years of 1984 and 1985, according to his White House physician, Brigadier General John Hutton, Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was measles and it would go away."

[edit]

Even with his new knowledge, however, Reagan was slow to join the battle against AIDS. Two weeks earlier, when a reporter noted that AIDS researchers at the National Cancer Institute were calling for a huge increase in research money to combat the new epidemic, Reagan had said that AIDS research was "a top priority." But he did not mention AIDS in public again until February 5, 1986, when he told employees at the Department of Health and Human Services that "One of our highest public-health priorities is going to continue to be finding a cure for AIDS." That same day, however, the Reagan budget proposed spending levels that would have cut funds for AIDS research.

[edit]

Reagan's principle legacy in dealing with AIDS was one of missed opportunities.

[edit]

In July 1987, on the same day he visited the National Institutes of Health and held an AIDS-stricken baby in his arms, Reagan appointed an AIDS commission that included opponents of AIDS education and was devoid of physicians who had treated AIDS patients or scientists who had engaged in AIDS research. The commission appointments reflected the influence of conservatives who feared not only AIDS but homosexuals. In naming the body, Reagan sent the unfortunate message to the public that he did not care enough about the AIDS problem to muster the best scientific advice available.

[edit]

On an issue on which he might have demonstrated great leadership, Reagan was content to play the role of an exceptionally passive president.

A policywonk points out an additional point to add to Doug Kmiec's piece on NRO today: "Reagan appointed the first Presidential Commission on HIV. The Commission's report, released in 1988, provided a comprehensive blue print for dealing with the AIDS epidemic but was largely ignored by the Congress, the media and federal health agencies."

House Republican leaders are nearing agreement on a bill to give nearly $60 billion in additional tax breaks to corporations, brushing aside Democratic complaints that the measure would deepen the federal budget deficit.

According to a draft circulated among Republican lawyers, the bill, which is expected to come up for a vote next week at the House Ways and Means Committee, would gradually reduce the corporate tax rate for most companies from 35 to 32 percent.

It would also relax or abolish a number of longstanding tax regulations on foreign profits of American multinationals, a move that Congressional tax analysts say could save companies more than $40 billion in taxes over the next decade.

[edit]

But because Mr. Thomas incorporated the tax reductions for manufacturers in his own bill, aides to Mr. Crane said he was encouraged by the new proposal. Mr. Thomas also has support from Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, and he appears to be winning over other Republicans on the tax-writing committee who had favored the Crane-Rangel bill.

The American Center for Law & Justice
The American Center for Law & Justice for Alabama
The American Enterprise Institute
American Legislative Exchange Council
The Heritage Foundation
The Federalist Society
Family Research Council
Institute for Justice
Justice Fellowship
National Rifle Association
National Right to Life
Of the People
The Rutherford Institute
Washington Legal Foundation

Republican officials, though reluctant to criticize Mr. Rumsfeld publicly, said he and his staff, including Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, have been no less dismissive of their needs than they are toward Democratic lawmakers.

"The Pentagon is not exactly Capitol Hill's favorite department anymore," said one prominent Republican staff member. "Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz just give off this sense that they know better than thou, and that they don't have to answer our questions."

Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Allen (R-VA)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Breaux (D-LA)
Burns (R-MT)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Conrad (D-ND)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (D-FL)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hollings (D-SC)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-NE)
Nickles (R-OK)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

I remember that I settled back in my seat with some satisfaction as our plane left Africa. I felt that I had worked very had and had come up with a mission plan that could work. I had taken into account all the major political, military and humanitarian concerns and had gotten positive feedback from all the major players of the Arusha process. Real peace and contentment washed over me. I truly did not realize that the devil was already afoot.

I did not understand that I had just met men in Rwanda who would become genocidaires. While I thought I was the one who had been doing the assessing, I was the one who had been carefully measured. I still thought that for the most part people said what they meant; I had no reason to think otherwise. But the hard-liners I had met on my reconnaissance of Rwanda had attended the same schools that we do in the West; they read the same books; they watched the same news; and they had already concluded that the developing world, as represented by the OAU [Organization of African Unity], would not have the resources or the means to deploy in force to Rwanda. They had judged that the West was too obsessed with the former Yugoslavia and with its peace-dividend reductions of its military forces to get overly involved in central Africa. Were they in fact already betting that white Western nations had too much on their hands to attempt another foray into black Africa? Were the hard-liners playing us, and me, for fools? I think so. I believe they had already concluded that the West did not have the will, as it had already demonstrated in Bosnia, Croatia and Somalia, to police the world, to expend the resources or to take the necessary casualties. They had calculated that the West would deploy a token force and when threatened would duck or run. They knew us better than we knew ourselves.

Prolife groups agree that the Partial-birth abortion Ban Act of 2003, which President Bush has promised to sign into law, may not save a single life. While it bans one form of abortion, doctors who want to get around the ban will merely begin to use another late-term procedure. Additionally, a long legal battle awaits, which may prohibit enforcement of the ban for years to come. But prolifers still believe it is a big step forward.
...
"Is [the ban] significant in its own right?" said Richard Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals president of governmental affairs. "Of course, for the simple reason that evangelicals have learned over the years that we have to win this incrementally."

* * * * * *

Editor:

Since March of 2001, the United States has: passed substantial tax cuts, which have stimulated the economy; defeated two of the world’s most evil regimes; begun to establish democracies in a region of the world where many have said it was impossible; improved national security with the formation of the Department of Homeland Security; and improved the accountability of schools with No Child Left Behind Act. Amazingly, all of this (and much more) has been accomplished in only three years.

Soon, President Bush intends to present a bill allowing small business owners to band together and purchase group health insurance, potentially saving thousands or tens of thousands annually for some, while making an employee health insurance benefit possible for others.

Things have changed in Washington — in my opinion, for the better.

Brian Murray,
Chairman,
Republican Party of Outagamie County

To the Editor:

This is to any reader that will listen out there. I also love to ride bikes, but they are just like cars. What happened to Joey (Shinton) should happen to no one if they are careful.

I loved Joey! He lived with my girl Amesty Chowning and son Stephen for awhile. My son was very sick and had trouble hearing. I spent many nights awake. But when I had enough, Joey would come and get Stephen and play with him so I could sleep.

... Joey saw me and Stephen here a few days before (his fatal accident). First thing he asked was "Is there anything you need or help with?" He talked and played with Stephen. He was a different kind of boy, but still good hearted. Still, I don't know if my girl will make it through this (tragedy) .... This family just had too much bad luck for whatever reason God has for them to learn by.

.... I believe there is a fund set up at Bank of America. Everyone please, even if it is a dollar, that helps. It could have been your family.

Velvet Renee Malugen
Greenbrier

To the Editor:

I was a victim of theft on Oct. 14. Someone parked in front of my home with our living room lights and front porch light on and helped themselves to some fall decorations and an expensive and very sentimental wind chime ..... Just because something is not nailed or glued down does not mean it is free for the taking as many people like the one who stole this thinks!

I am offering a reward for the wind chime that was stolen and for information as to who stole it. It is made of steel with five large pipes and a heart centerpiece .... It was custom made and there is not another one like it. Contact me day or night or the Springfield Police Department if you can help.

Chrishina Hart
Springfield

Pregnant North Korean refugees repatriated after being rounded up in China have their babies forcibly aborted or killed after birth, according to a report that adds more horror to what is known of the Stalinist state's gulags.

Evidence from a number of women who have escaped from the prison camps of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, reveals a pattern of infanticide, principally due to concern that babies conceived outside the country might not be "ethnically pure".

The report, by the United States Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a cross-party monitoring group, cites evidence from eight former inmates.

One described how a guard took a baby away from a woman married to a Chinese and put him in a box nearby. A doctor then explained that since the country was short of food, it should not have to feed the children of foreign fathers. When the box was full of babies, it was taken away and buried, she said. It was not clear whether they were alive or dead at the time.

As part of an international consortium, Texaco drilled 323 oil wells and dug 627 pits for use in the drilling or production process during the period in question. Most of the pits were unlined, both sides agree, and the plaintiffs allege that toxic waste leeched into the streams and rivers that most of the 500,000 people who live in the region rely on for household water.

At the time, Ecuador had no environmental protection law specifically governing its oil industry, which today accounts for 20 percent of its economy and generates most of its foreign exchange. The national legislature passed a measure in 1999 that holds oil companies responsible for cleaning up pollution from past operations; the company says it intends to challenge the retroactive application of the law.

In 1992, Texaco sold its stake in the enterprise to a fellow member of the consortium, Petroecuador, the state oil company. In 1995, Texaco paid out $40 million to clean up 207 pits holding toxic wastewater. That work was later certified by the Ecuadoran government, which the company holds up as proof that it fulfilled its obligations here. The company is also arguing that the plaintiffs cannot sue a company that ceased to exist after its merger with Chevron.

Environmental Protection Agency rule changes could lead to almost 1.4 million tons more air pollution in 12 states and jeopardize Clinton-era lawsuits against power plants, two studies concluded yesterday, contradicting Bush administration claims.

EPA studies in 2002 found that about 160 million tons of pollution were emitted into U.S. skies. About 146 million people lived in counties where air monitored in 2002 was periodically unhealthy from at least one of the six principal air pollutants, the EPA said.

The General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, said EPA rule revisions could lead to reduced fines and pollution controls in some of the clean air lawsuits against utilities that were begun during the Clinton administration.

A separate study by a Rockefeller Family Fund project and Council of State Governments said changes in the way industrial plants are allowed to count emissions would increase outputs of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and soot.

The following is my story of what happened in Rwanda in 1994. It's a story of betrayal, failure, naiveté, indifference, hatred, genocide, war, inhumanity and evil. Although strong relationships were built and moral, ethical and courageous behaviour was often displayed, they were overshadowed by one of the fastest, most efficient, most evident genocides in recent history. In just one hundred days over 800,000 innocent Rwandan men, women and children were brutally murdered while the developed world, impassive and apparently unperturbed, sat back and watched the unfolding apocalypse or simply changed channels. Almost fifty years to the day that my father and father-in-law helped to liberate Europe - when the extermination camps were uncovered and when, in one voice, humanity said, "Never again" - we once again sat back and permitted this unspeakable horror to occur. We could not find the political will nor the resources to stop it. Since then, much has been written, discussed, debated, argued and filmed on the subject of Rwanda, yet it is my feeling that this recent catastrophe is being forgotten and its lessons submerged in ignorance and apathy. The genocide in Rwanda was a failure of humanity that could easily happen again.

After one of my many presentations following my return from Rwanda, a Canadian Forces padre asked me how, after all I had seen and experienced, I could still believe in God. I answered that I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists, and therefore I know there is a God. Peux ce que veux. Allons-y. [Where there is a will, there is a way. Let's go.]

"From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed .... does that mean you couldn't go in [an Iraqi city] and take a television camera or get a still photographer and take a picture of something that was imperfect, untidy? I could do that in any city in America .... [The troops] know what they're doing, and they're doing a terrific job."

Defense Sec. Rumsfeld, April 11, 2003 press briefing

* The Pentagon may not be currently "organized, trained and equipped ... to successfully fight the global war on terror ..."

* "We are having mixed results with Al Qaeda, although we have put considerable pressure on them -- nonetheless, a great many remain at large."

* "My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?"

* "The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions."

* While Rumsfeld says it's "pretty clear" that U.S. forces will prevail in Afghanistan and Iraq "in one way or another ... it will be a long, hard slog."

The letter also noted new information released by the corps that most of the money to buy the fuel had come from a fund established by the United Nations meant to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq. The fund is under American control.

"Although it initially appeared that Halliburton was gouging only American taxpayers," the lawmakers said in the letter to Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, head of the Corps of Engineers, "it now seems that the company is overcharging the humanitarian Oil for Food program and the Iraqi people as well. This significantly compounds the implications of Halliburton's actions."

[edit]

The Corps of Engineers has shown on its Web site that most of the money paid to Halliburton to import the petroleum products has until now come from the Development Fund for Iraq, established by the United Nations Security Council to give the American-led occupying authority control over money Iraq had earned under the Oil for Food program.

"Based on the entire picture," Ms. Hall of Halliburton wrote in her e-mail message, "to allege that KBR is overcharging for this needed service insults the KBR employees who are performing this dangerous mission to help bring fuel to the people of Iraq. The drivers transporting the fuel face the real risk of being killed or wounded, and vehicles and contents being destroyed.''

But the problem is not only one for immediate neighbors. In fact, if any of the democratic participants -- the United States, South Korea, Japan -- were to absorb fully the information the images convey, the knowledge would make it impossible for that country to conduct any policy toward North Korea that did not make regime change its central tenet. The more that is known about terrible human rights violations, the harder it is to do nothing about it. Yet at the moment, few of the countries involved in the debate about North Korea feel able to do much about it. As a result, we all probably prefer not to know.

Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. This incredibly lifelike action figure looks just like the beautiful Ann Coulter, and best of all . . . it sounds like Ann, too! Ann recorded these classic Coulter sayings especially for this action figure.

Push the button on the figure, and you'll hear such "Coulterisms" as:


"Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race."

"At least when right-wingers rant, there's a point."

"Swing voters are more appropriately known as the 'idiot voters' because they have no set of philosophical principals. By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster."

"Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"

"Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like Liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."

The House Republican leadership has endorsed an effort by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), an appropriations cardinal, to punish Democrats en masse for their blanket opposition to the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending package.

Regula’s plan to redirect all potential Democratic earmarks to vulnerable Republicans would breathe new life into a principle that Republican leaders have long wanted their more accommodating appropriators to enforce: If Democrats vote against appropriations bills, they shouldn’t expect special projects earmarked for their districts.

[edit]

The $470 billion bill, currently before a House-Senate conference, has roughly $1 billion set aside for special earmarked projects in lawmakers’ districts, said Jim Dyer, staff director of the House Appropriations Committee.

Hastert’s words of encouragement were delivered at the Republican conference, said a GOP leadership aide. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-WBA) also is supportive of the strategy, said his spokesman, Stuart Roy.

“I pointed out to leadership that not one Democrat voted for this bill, in subcommittee, in committee and on the House floor,” Regula told The Hill.

“So I gather they didn’t like it much and wouldn’t want any part of it,” he said.

Regula said that, currently, no money is set aside for Democratic projects and that the structure of the bill is unlikely to change.

Hastert’s endorsement, and the support of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-WBA), are strong indicators that Regula’s final bill will not include any money for Democratic projects, said GOP leadership aides.

"Addiction is defined by addictive behaviors," Seppala said. These include taking more pills than prescribed, shopping for doctors who will prescribe medication, filling prescriptions at multiple pharmacies, and clandestine or compulsive use of medication. Cindy McCain has described locking herself in the bathroom to gobble five or six pills so no one could see how many she was taking.

Despite the popular notion that there is an "addictive personality," experts dismiss the concept as a myth. Researchers simply do not know why some people can take OxyContin for years to treat severe chronic pain without becoming hooked, while others become addicted in a matter of weeks. The reasons, Morgenstern speculated, probably include a complex mix of poorly understood factors, among them a genetic predisposition to addiction, an inability to handle stress and impulsivity.

[edit]

Compton and other experts say that prescription drug addicts face a hurdle not shared by alcoholics or people who take street drugs. Many pill addicts delude themselves into thinking that they don't really have a problem because the drug they are taking is legal and has been prescribed by a physician for a medical problem.

A few years back, one of my closest friends bass battled addiction to prescription drugs. He had spent his teenage years struggling with alcohol, X, acid and even heroin. But he checked himself into rehab and he got clean. Soon after that, he started suffering excruciating foot pain. And because he was a diabetic, surgery was out of the question.

BLOOM: Should Rush Limbaugh go to prison, Ann Coulter, for violating the drugs laws, if in fact he did that?

[edit]

BLOOM: Joe, are you protecting your friend Ann Coulter, who doesn’t want to answer the question. She’s been asked five times. She just said on air people who violate drug laws should be punished and go to prison. Why doesn’t Ann Coulter answer that question for herself?

COULTER: Because you’re all talking.

SCARBOROUGH: We’re not going to get there.

(CROSSTALK)

BLOOM: Not going to get there, huh?

COULTER: I’ll answer. You’re all talking.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Ann, go ahead. Ann, answer please.

COULTER: I can’t believe this. You won’t let me answer the question and then claim I’m demurring from it. Look, if my mother committed murder, I wouldn’t want her to go to jail. It’s a stupid question for what I think the law should be vs. what I think a friend or

(CROSSTALK)

BLOOM: Should Rush Limbaugh go to prison, Ann Coulter, for violating the drugs laws, if in fact he did that?

[edit]

BLOOM: You don’t think the law should apply to your friend?

COULTER: Anyway, as I was saying. Now, don’t accuse me of not answering when you interrupt me.

SCARBOROUGH: Lisa, let her finish.

Finish it, Ann. Then let’s move on.

COULTER: It’s a stupid question to ask of what you think laws should be, based on what happens to someone I support, I admire, I am a fan of. That’s just a stupid question to ask.

BLOOM: So you’re not going to answer it.

(CROSSTALK)

COULTER: No, I told you. If my mother committed murder, I wouldn’t want her to go to jail.

BLOOM: So you don’t think Rush Limbaugh should go to jail if he

[edit]

COULTER: I don’t want murder laws applied to my friends.

We still don’t know if Saddam simply hid his WMD’s or if he dismantled his programs (while maintaining the capacity to quickly reconstitute them). In the latter case, Saddam was either attempting to achieve deterrence by making the U.S. (and the entire international community) believe that he had active WMD’s, or Saddam himself had been fooled by his own scientists into believing he had working WMD’s when he didn’t. In none of these cases are we talking about “lies” by the Bush administration. Whether he had them or not, Saddam was encouraging the world to believe he had WMD’s. If anyone was lying, it was Saddam.

Part of the answer lies in decisions made early in the Bush Administration, before the events of September 11, 2001. In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government’s customary procedures for vetting intelligence.

A retired C.I.A. officer described for me some of the questions that would normally arise in vetting: “Does dramatic information turned up by an overseas spy square with his access, or does it exceed his plausible reach? How does the agent behave? Is he on time for meetings?” The vetting process is especially important when one is dealing with foreign-agent reports—sensitive intelligence that can trigger profound policy decisions. In theory, no request for action should be taken directly to higher authorities—a process known as “stovepiping”—without the information on which it is based having been subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic—and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book “The Threatening Storm” generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership.

The other day on talk radio, I heard a guy tell an incredulous Lars Larson that he wouldn't believe Rush Limbaugh was a drug addict involved in a drug ring even if Limbaugh himself admitted it. If you're that guy, don't bother reading Franken's book. You will really just drive yourself even more crazy.

The leaders we conservatives have trusted have taken advantage of our trust to line the pockets of the wealthy and powerful, and it's time we rose up and drove out these greedy liars. They've hijacked and distorted our belief system for their own gain, and in doing so are destroying our credibility.

And if we decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue conservatives of this country neglect the duty we have to our children and grandchildren, we will never be able to work with those decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue liberal Americans that these lying creeps have taught us to despise. We will never be safe to debate them or, when warranted, to listen to them and maybe even agree with them. We will never be safe to work out our differences or to work together. And we will never be able to build on the all-American sense of unity that burst forth following 9/11, only to disappear shortly thereafter in a cloud of lying, greedy partisan politics.

Communist Vietnam said Tuesday it wanted to move forward from its war past with America, following a U.S. newspaper report that an army unit known as Tiger Force may have committed war crimes.

OK, now that you have been fully prepped on this deal, I give you the Outrage Moment. One Jonathan Grella, spokesman for Tom DeLay, when asked about all this, said, "It's wrong and unethical to link legislative activities to campaign contributions."

Let's make sure we all understand what is being said here. Grella asserts that there is no conflict of interest between a public official using his power to change the law in exchange for a hefty campaign contribution -- the immorality occurs when the press and/or public interest groups point out this connection. That's when I went slack-jawed.

I watch none. He sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don't take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that. And watch him suffer.

In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military-wide policy actually dates from about November 2000 -- the last days of the Clinton administration -- but it apparently went unheeded and unenforced, as images of caskets returning from the Afghanistan war appeared on television broadcasts and in newspapers until early this year. Though Dover Air Force Base, which has the military's largest mortuary, has had restrictions for 12 years, others "may not have been familiar with the policy," the spokeswoman said. This year, "we've really tried to enforce it."

GOP's GOOD NEWS: House Republicans are doing their best to tout good news in Iraq. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is announcing a new Web site, which will capture the "real stories and provide one-stop shopping for the media, people interested in what is really happening in Iraq and military groups," said DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy.

The site (tomdelay.house.gov/IRAQ/ iraqindex.htm) includes pictures of lawmakers standing by newly minted schools, visiting Iraqis in new hospitals and posing with military personnel from their home states.

The site has the headline "Victory in Iraq" and includes sections such as "How Media Deceive You About Iraq" and "Reconstruction in Iraq Vital in Winning War on Terror."

These books have become so popular that every pastor in America is now confronted with the task of gently, pastorally explaining to their congregation why the theology of these books is misguided and misguiding.

I'm not a pastor, so I won't be pastoral here. These books are evil, anti-Christian crap.

"So far, they are a pretty sorry group if you want to know my opinion."

"Absent new and compelling evidence, there are no plans to reopen the case. The case is more than 30 years old."

"Though the Army substantiated 20 war crimes by 18 Tiger Force soldiers committed in 1967 -- with numerous eyewitnesses -- no charges were filed .... Instead, the case was hidden in the Army’s archives, and key suspects were allowed to continue their military careers .... Soldiers went to Army commanders in 1967 to complain about the killing of civilians, but their pleas were ignored."

"Women and children were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers and were practically buried alive in mass graves ... Prisoners were tortured and executed while their ears and scalps were severed for souvenirs ... One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings. 'We would go into villages and just shoot everybody,' a former Tiger Force medic, Harold Fischer, is quoted as saying. 'We didn't need an excuse. If they were there, they were dead. It just made me sick.' "

Before the Iraq war, the negativity brigade warned darkly that our troops would be subject to poison gas or chemical attack (yes, the same people who are now loudly proclaiming that Iraq never possessed those weapons)

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.

We got a unanimous U.N. resolution this week. There were some nations who had reservations about that resolution but nevertheless voted for it. And we now have the entire international community aligned with our policy of gradually but as fast as we can, nevertheless in a gradual way, restoring sovereignty to the people of Iraq and coming home as fast as we can.

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The real achievement of the resolution was to bring the power of the Security Council, and in turn the United Nations, behind the strategy that we are following, and the creation of a multinational force, the transfer of sovereignty back to Iraq in a measured way, as Iraqi institutions are prepared to accept authority, and not in some arbitrary way -- on the 1st of January, we're out of here, and you've got your country back, and we won't have anything else to do with it.

We are going about this in the right way. And I'm pleased that the Security Council, after a great deal of debate, has voted unanimously to support the approach that we are taking.

[After 9/11] We needed to kick someone's butt (other than Afghanistan) and Iraq was by far the best candidate.

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Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is to beat the tar out of a bad guy — even if that bad guy was "innocent" of the specific offense that ticked you off.

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I doubt Saddam had anything to do with planning 9/11 and frankly I don't give a damn. The lesson of the 3,000 dead was that we're going to take our responsibilities seriously again.

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The United States is taking care of business and we've got nothing to apologize for.