BartCop.com Volume 1935 - Rats and mold In Today's Tequila Treehouse...

	'No' to Iran Attack
	Does anybody care?
	W to wounded: Shut up!
	Doomed to failure
	Bush aiding Al Qaeda
	CIA Torture Prisons
	Losing Afghanistan
	Vanessa Marcil TV

The Pentagon has said they won't support the buildout of facilities for a $100M+ courtroom on Gitmo:

"...'We'll be handed our hat if we go up to the Hill for 100 million dollars for these courthouses.'...Gates said trials of 'non-high-value individuals' were likely to begin in July."

Setting aside the issue of how they determine the "value" of defendants and what they assume the return on investment is for these types of trials, the article also states:

"The plan also called for building housing for the hundreds of lawyers, witnesses, clerks, translators, journalists and other observers expected to descend on the spartan base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. -snip- "I don't know that we see it as impacting on the schedule," he said. "It certainly impacts on the conditions and the environment if you don't have to build a brick and mortar type facility, if you're going to go with something more expeditionary."

Hey public defenders!! Want to take an "expedition" to Cuba to defend some terraists?!? Notice they're planning on starting the trials in July...

So..some clever reporter (Nedra Pickler), who's obviously hurting for headline stories to submit to her Editor comes up with this opening paragraph:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to change the government's formula for giving states money for homeland security, with the early voting states getting a little extra."

Of course, if you read on, the article later states:

"...Obama doesn't determine which states have higher risk and therefore would get more money. Those calculations are made by the Department of Homeland Security, which won't reveal its methods or say just what makes Iowa more vulnerable than, say, New Hampshire."

So, if he doesn't determine higher risk, why imply that he has some political agenda??? Who has time to sit around calculating all that crap state-by-state anyway if they're only going to turn around and state that the decision isn't made based on that criteria? Heaven forbid we would actually do something that makes sense from a security/risk standpoint! The Whore Press might try to make us look bad! Kudos to Obama for doing it anyway. Thoughts? 

 Link In America, the selling seemed to add to worries that a decline in the housing market, and problems in particular with loans to risky borrowers, could spill over. And a report yesterday indicating that orders for durable goods — items like washing machines and computers — were surprisingly weak in January revived doubts about the strength of the American economy.

 Link The room contained a wooden box, about 3 feet by 3 feet in size, which his interrogators called the "dog box." "They said that KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] had spent some time in the dog box and then he talked," said Jabour. "They kept threatening me: 'We could do this to you.'" As far as Jabour could tell, his interrogators could do whatever they wanted: there were no rules, no laws, and no protections.

 Link

After a shaky start, the major indexes showed some resolve as the market sought to regain its footing after plummeting amid growing concerns about slowing economies in the U.S. and China. Investors were trying to digest a batch of economic data that came out in the opening minutes of trading.

 Link  The chilling Oliver Stone film Salvador got a rare airing on television this week. It was a reminder of a time when, for those on the left, little victories were increasingly dwarfed by big defeats - not least in a Latin America which became synonymous with death squads and juntas. How different things seem now. Yesterday US Vice-President Dick Cheney came uncomfortably close to the reality of Afghan resistance to foreign occupation. On the same day Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez delivered a mightier blow to the neocon dream of US domination, announcing an extension of public ownership of his country's oil fields - the richest outside the Middle East.   

 Link Doggone socialists have all of the choices while the free market US economy has only two options. Sounds a lot like the old Soviet days when the Lada offered either with or without a radio. So where are all of the so-called free market Republicans? Oh that's right, they've been on the "let industry dictate policy" bandwagon and made sure they were lending a helping hand with the Soviet-ization of Big Auto, ridding them of any need to offer fuel efficiency. Who could ever forget Reagan starting the removal of fuel efficiency standards and then the Gingrich Congress implementing the final blow to any hope of minimum standards? Once again, witness Republican economics at work and try hard to figure out how it differs with Soviet style economics.

I look for three things from my presidential candidates. 1) I want a candidate to show leadership, 2) I want a candidate who understands that he/she represents PEOPLE and not dead presidents, and 3) I want a candidate who is capable of reacting to real time facts, and not constrained by imaginary precedents. By leadership, I'm talking about a candidate who understands that politicians are not elected to command, but to serve. However, political leadership understands that the best policy is not necessarily the policy that people currently think they want. When a politician is confronted with segregated schools, and Jim Crow laws, said politician must understand what it will take to turn the public perceptions around. I don't want a politician who will accept those evil standards because doing otherwise will risk re-election and financial contributions. Hillary has failed the leadership test by voting to authorize Bush's reckless adventurism in the face of a legitimate enterprise to scrub Afghanistan of Al Qeada killers. Whether or not she believed the basics of Bush's false intelligence, she risked the failure of measures required to extinguish the more immediate threat. Even if Saddam had WMD, he did not have the capability, espoused by Condi Rice, to send us all up in a mushroom cloud in 15 minutes. As the head of a nation (albeit a despotic head), Saddam was constrained by his own place in the world. An attack on the US would have meant Saddam's immediate and unquestioned destruction (not "mutually assured destruction" which was the Cold War standard). Osama was not, is not, so constrained by geography. Between Saddam and Osama, Osama always was the greater threat, and the waste of lives, money and manpower in Iraq severely curtails our ability to meet that threat. Both John Kerry and John Edwards acknowledged this after their failed bid for the White House. I don't want an apology from Hillary Clinton. I want an acknowledgement that she miscalculated and will not do so again. Whether or not Saddam had WMD, Hillary made the wrong and deadly choice. She cannot blame 9/11 for her vote. It was not Saddam who attacked her New York constituents, it was Osama. While Hillary argues that her conclusion was the only one possible if what was being presented was true (and certainly the majority of the congress acted in order to appear patriotic at the expense of reason), there are others who ignored the chance to look patriotic, preferring to protect America and Americans. One such person was Al Gore (recipient, as former Vice President, of the same intelligence that Hillary was getting), who wisely had this to say at the time. (see link - http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-09gore-speech.html)So, again, I don't want an apology from Hillary. I want an acknowledgement that she made a political calculation which was not in the best interests of the American people. I just want to know that she understands that, and that she won't make that calculation again. If she won't do that, then I won't vote for her in the primaries. I'll vote for someone who sees that folly for what it was. Should she fail to do so, it doesn't mean that I won't vote for here should she win the nomination, because the alternative will likely be someone who helped create the political climate in which unreasonable decisions are proclaimed reasonable.