- Think you could have gotten to this two or three years sooner, Senate Intelligence Committee? After promising for nearly three years that you were going to release the second phase of a report on whether or not the W. administration repeatedly and blatantly lied to the American public in order to justify and promote the war in Iraq, the committee finally released the long-awaited report last Thursday and not surprisingly, it alleges that claims by W. and other top administration officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq regarding Baghdad's ties to al Qaeda and its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs were generally not supported by the evidence that the U.S. intelligence community had at the time. The report, the last in a series published over the past several years by the committee, found that W. and Vice Tool/President Dick Cheney, in particular, regularly made false claims in the run-up to the war that key intelligence agencies could not substantiate or about which there was substantial disagreement within the intelligence community. “In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent,” the Committee chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said on releasing the 172-page report. “As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.” Wha-….wait a minute…..you mean to tell me that W. and his cadre of ass-hatted advisors lied to and misled the American people to justify their own devious agenda? Who would have thought this was possible? Who could have predicted this revelation? Other than myself and every other American who has an IQ above 45 and hasn’t spend the past five years drinking the W. Kool-Aid. But wait, Sen. Rockefeller wasn’t done, not yet. “There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence," he added. “But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.” The report was signed by 10 members of the Committee, including two Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel. Five members -- all Republicans -- issued a strong dissent, arguing that the minority had been “entirely cut out of the process” and charging that the Democrats had “twisted policy makers” statements and cherry-picked the intelligence in order to reach their misleading conclusions.” No, Republican senators, I think you’re misunderstanding this. Your fellow committee members aren't the ones who twisted facts, manipulated intelligence and misled people. That would be your president, a man who has consistently and deliberately misled the American people for the duration of his time in office. This report definitely won't be a help to Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who, as honorary chairman of the Committee to Liberate Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, not only endorsed the claims that were being made by Bush and Cheney at the time, but also helped to propagate them. Add to it that the new report mostly backs up the charges made in a new book by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan, a long-time Bush aide who was considered part of the president's inner circle during the same period, and there’s a fresh set of reasons to revisit oft-deranged Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s plea to impeach W. while there’s still time. What sucks about this story is that most of the major news outlets were so reluctant to report it, with many of them all but ignoring it. We need to be screaming the contents of this report from the highest rooftop in every community in America, because we now know that our Idiot in Chief did lie, trick and dupe us into a war that never should have happened and he needs to be punished for it.
- This can't be what the Detroit Tigers had in mind when they traded for Dontrelle Willis over the winter and subsequently signed him to a 3-year, $29 million contract. Yes, Willis’ stats have degenerated over the past two years, ever since his 22-10 record and 2.63 E.R.A. in 2005, a season that seemed to mark him as one of baseball’s great young arms. In the two seasons following that banner year, Willis struggled to break .500 and his E.R.A. drifted up, up, up. The Marlins decided that he was no longer untradable and included him in a blockbuster deal that also sent star third baseman Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers this past offseason. Certainly the Tigers knew they would have some major work on their hands in order to turn Willis’ flagging career around, but no way do they give him that new contract if they knew that his first season with them was going to go down the crapper so quickly and in such spectacular fashion. For the first third of the season, Willis has either been injured or ineffective, posting an 0-1 record with a 10.32 E.R.A. and spending several weeks on the disabled list and a subsequent rehab assignment. After bottoming out Monday night against Cleveland in a home start (1 1/3 IP, 5 BB, 8 ER), the D-Train has now been demoted, all the way down to the Class A Lakeland Tigers, the franchise’s lowest level of rookie ball. For baseball fans, it has to be unsettling to see a guy who just three years ago was being promoted as one of the new faces of Major League Baseball and whose quirky delivery and ever-present smile made him a fan favorite, now being demoted to the bottom of the baseball barrel. The Tigers have set no timetable for his return, with general manager Dave Dombrowski saying only that the team wants him to take his time, get right and then come back up to the majors. The search for answers could be a tough one, because while Willis has lost significant velocity on his fastball, he is not injured (not that we know of) and so the problem could be something harder to discern. I wish the best for the D-Train, because he’s still early in his career and watching him at his best was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had as a baseball fan the past few years. Get right and make it back to the show, Dontrelle, your team really (REALLY) needs you.
- Riot watch! Riot Watch! And what else is likely to provoke a national outburst of protests and social dissidence nowadays besides gas prices? They’re not just pissing off people here in the United States, that’s for sure. While Americans b*tch about paying $4 a gallon for gas, soaring fuel prices in Spain have prompted angry truckers to do what Americans either don’t have the kahones or the heart to do; take it to the streets. All across Spain, angry truckers blocked roads and highways Tuesday, disrupting delivery of vital supplies such as food, auto parts, gasoline and more. The truckers used the tools of their trade to set up roadblocks all around the country, throwing the nation into gridlock and calling more attention to a topic that is already the focus of an unrelenting media storm around the globe. The protests actually turned deadly when one protestor was struck and killed by a van that was attempting to break through a roadblock. Yet another super-positive development that is happening in large part because of greedy, unscrupulous, sleazy oil companies and oil-producing countries, looking to extort every possible dollar out of those who buy their product. Keep it up, big oil, because sooner or later these angry social dissidents are going to be coming after you….
- Nice non-apology apology by CNN talking head E.D. Hill when it came time for her to do the requisite double-back on her idiotic comments criticizing the fist bump exchanged by Barack Obama and his wife Michelle after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination last week. When talking about Michelle Obama giving her husband some dap, Hill ignorantly asked, “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist job?” Aside from the unintended, humorous sexual connotations to the last of those questions, Hill came out looking like an a-hole because she took a simple gesture that a lot of people do every day without any deep, terroristic meaning and because she is apparently way, way out of touch with American culture, tried to spin it as some salute to terrorism. Right, because who hasn’t seen Osama bin Laden on one of those tapes he sends out to Al Jazeera and other Middle Eastern media, giving dap to his fellow terrorist homeys? I believe that’s their universal signal for, “What’s up, my Arabic bro-ham.” Hill tried to backpedal once the backlash came in against her, offering a generic, bland apology that said virtually nothing. “I mentioned various ways the Obamas’ fist pump in St. Paul had been characterized in the media,” she stated. Oh, so you were just relaying what other people said….sure, E.D. “I apologize because unfortunately, some thought I had characterized it inappropriately.” Ah, so you’re apologizing because the rest of us just didn’t understand what you were really saying and we caused a crap storm ripping you for what you said, I see. Thanks for apologizing by blaming everyone else for misunderstanding you, E.D. Very genuine, very sincere. Maybe you should just keep your mouth shut until you take some time to acquaint yourself with American culture here in 2008…..
- Druggies beware, the price of your illegal narcotic of choice may be going up in the same way that gas prices are now shooting through the roof. You can thank police in Afghanistan for that, as they seized a massive stash of hash and opium earlier this week, with the quantity of hash registering around 261 tons and the smaller supply of opium weighing in at 5.6 tons. Some loose-lipped traitor tipped off the cops about the stash of hash and they found it buried in several trenches in the Spin Buldak area of the Kandahar province, about 25 miles from the Pakistani border. Authorities estimate the seized drugs to have a wholesale value of $400 million, approximately $14 million of that amount they believe would have gone to the Taliban to help the group purchase weapons to continue its acts of terrorism on the country. All of that is well and good, keeping money out of the hands of terrorists and all, but can I ask who is looking out for the best interests of the stoners, the crack addicts, etc.? Who’s making sure that these people have affordable illegal drugs in their neighborhood? If The Man insists on seizing the stockpiles of those who produce these products, the supply is going to dwindle and the demand is going to stay the same, which any good economist will tell you is bound to distort the supply-and-demand ratio and send the cost of illegal drugs soaring. Let’s consider the consequences of our actions and not be so hasty here, Afghani police…..
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