Abortions

Do your own (not really)or somebody else's or just gather the necessary equipment to keep your neighbor's uterus from ruining her favorite coat hanger because they are rapidly losing their right to healthcare.

Digby discusses some Utah Republicans speaking candidly about what rights they decide women do have

"Abortion isn't about women's rights. The rights they had were when they made the decision to have sex,"

Except that sometimes they don't consent to having sex, but he said she did and he has a videotape of her inebriatedbody laying there while people spit on her and wrote vulgar things on her legs so the presiding judge gives the young woman the choice to watch her own humiliation on videotape or to be arrested for contempt of court.

update-granny foolishly forgot to include the first link of this story but I fixed it a day or so later so it is better, new and improved!

Jay Leno Said It!

He agrees that we should let the UAE take over security for the President because he trusts them.

Every Picture Tells A Story Don't It

Zencomix sketched it out firedoglake fills it in and grannyinsanity wonders what bargain basement opportunities these guys were looking for (of course I had to look at the English page to see what it was).

I want you to know that I love my state enough to love on poverty wages decade after decade. I do not recall ever thinking that we had too much open space or wishing that somebody would buy it all up so that I couldn't go there anymore.

It has occurred to me that Dick Cheney would one day claim the Lower Falls for his very own, but a foreign government? Even grannyinsanity could not be that paranoid without reason.

Meanwhile the Dead American Soldier count has climbed to 2296. What can I do today other than leave you with this quote that I wholeheartedly agree

I've been thinking about this, and you know, I just don't love the president as much as a citizen of his country should love his president. I don't think that's my fault.

Logging Yellowstone

What nefarious little snippets have passed my ears today. I know , let's outsource it at a loss.

Why is Bush running this country like a closeout liquidation sale. Why is Congress letting him?

CARLYLE

And I would bet that the law firm Baker Botts, of which James A. Baker III is a major partner, had a hand in this. James A. Baker III is also affiliated with the CARLYLE Group.

Why do we care about the Carlyle Group? I'll answer that by telling you who some of the investors are? Among the firm's multi-million-dollar investors were

-- members of the family of Osama bin Laden
-- George Bush Sr
-- former British prime minister John Major
-- Frank Carlucci - Ronald Reagan's defense secretary
-- James A. Baker III

I think Carlyle grabbed up one of the major nuclear programs, I put up a large post about it somewhere in the archives.

American Business Mentality

I found this when I stopped over at Lilly's to see what everybody was covering for Corporation Appreciation Week.

In anticipation of the forthcoming corporation appreciation week, I thought I would post this anecdote. From Ryan at Flickertail.com-

A Japanese company and an American company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile.

Afterward, the American team became very discouraged and depressed. The American company decided the reason for their crushing defeat had to be found. A management team made up of senior executives was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. They discovered that the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had eight people steering and one person rowing.

The American management team hired a consulting firm to assist in analyzing this data, happily paying their considerable fee. After six months of hard work, the consulting firm concluded that too many people were steering the Americans’ boat, while not enough people were rowing. So the American team acted:

To prevent losing to the Japanese again the following year, the team’s management structure was totally reorganized, to include four steering supervisors, three area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder.

It was called the Rowing Team Quality First Program, with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower. In an all-out attempt to further provide empowerment and enrichment’s to the rower, new paddles and medical benefit incentives were promised in exchange for a victory in the next competition.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management team laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

The money saved was distributed to the senior executives as bonuses for a job well done.

Patriot Act Call In Day!

Sununnu is sneaky, trying to make the Patriot Act even more draconian. This must not stand.

Dear Friends,

The PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill contains terrible new provisions that your senators and representative may not be aware of, and the Sununu amendments (S. 2271) contain superficial changes that do not protect our civil liberties.

On Tuesday 2/28 at 2:30 p.m. EST, the Senate will vote on the question of cloture on the reauthorization bill which, if passed, would close off further debate or filibuster on the bill. It is CRUCIAL that you call both of your senators and demand that they keep the debate open (click here to find contact information and expanded talking points). Ask them to stop the reauthorization process and vote against cloture. Make sure they know about the new provisions that:

* Establish a new uniformed police force for "special events of national significance," and expands the authority of the Secret Service by allowing them to arrest demonstrators at such events if they believe there has been a breach of a security perimeter. Demonstrators can be charged with a felony, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison. (This amendment was added to the conference report without any hearings or discussion.)
* Establish new death penalty crimes.

Today the Senate is debating S. 2271 (the Sununu amendments), negotiated with the White House, which make no substantive fixes to the reauthorization bill. The House will consider S. 2271 as early as this Thursday.

Call both of your senators and your representative and tell them that S. 2271 falls short of protecting civil liberties. After waiting more than four years, we demand and deserve real reform, not cosmetics. For example, this amendment:

* Requires businesses, medical professionals, and libraries that are served National Security Letters (NSLs) to wait 1 year before appealing the automatic, permanent "gag order."
* Does not fix the problem of penalties imposed on businesses that do not cooperate with requests, or the impossible hurdle on those who appeal NSLs to prove that the government acted in bad faith.
* Does not exempt libraries from National Security Letters if they act as Internet service providers. It exempts only libraries who simply give people access to the Internet.

Urge your senators and representative to support the following amendments offered by Senators Russ Feingold, Jeff Bingaman, and Patrick Leahy. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has so far refused to allow these amendments to come before the Senate for votes.

* Senate Amendment (SA) 2891 would add a four-year sunset on PATRIOT Act section 505, National Security Letters.
* SA 2892 would prevent the FBI from using section 215 for "fishing expeditions" by requiring a connection between records sought and a foreign terrorist or spy.
* SA 2893 would allow businesses and libraries to pose a meaningful challenge to a FISA Court order or a National Security Letter demanding customer records.
* SA 2894 would reduce initial notification deadline in section 213, "sneak and peek" searches, from 30 days to 7 days, while preserving the ability to go to court for extensions if needed.
* SA 2897 would make third-parties' ability to challenge gag orders more meaningful.

In summary, we want our senators and representatives to:

* Keep the debate going on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act by voting against cloture (Senate only);
* Take out the new provisions of the PATRIOT Act;
* Vote against the Sununu amendments;
* Vote for (and urge their colleagues to vote for) the Feingold, Bingaman, Leahy amendments.

Thanks for all you do!

Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Contribute: The Bill of Rights Defense Committee needs your support to continue expanding the grassroots movement to defend the Bill of Rights. Contribute here.

Political Haiku

Highcoupshaiku

My first smile all day.

Montana Censored

Last week Touchstone noticed that a Civil liberties' group was barred from showing film in Montana State library.

Complaints made it too controversial. I could not find an email address to express my complaint about this censorship.

Then Touchstone wrote about a Kelly Wood (what would Kelly wood do?)expressed her first ammendment rights at the Bozeman Chronicle telling everybody that Brokeback Mountain is "Agenda Driven Marketing".

I don't like her opinion one bit, but she has the right to express it.

So I'm having this conversation with a friend and she tells me that Brokeback Mountain was showing at the Whitefish Theater, that it was pulled down after a single day because of complaints.

I don't have any verification that that is what happened. My world gets pretty small sometimes. One week I might speak with three people who only spoke to a hand full of people themselves and the next week I might speak with a couple of hundred people. That's the way the tides and grannyinsanity go from one day to the next.

Update, I got my grubs on the letter:

Oh, come on xxxxxx. You could choose not to take your children to "Brokeback Mountain" (Saturday forum, Feb.18). Viewing the film was not "forced" on you. It was merely made available to any of the public who chose to attend.

And thank goodness it was, so for at least it's brief (two week) showing there was a choice of something besides child, teen, and "light" family offerings. The film, the director, and an actor may recieve an academy award. Are we in Northwestern Montana to be left out of mainstream accolades because you are "disgusted"?

Well, wake up xxxxxx. There are homosexuals in America, even in Whitefish. The strength of the film the story of regular folks smitten by nothing more harmful than love.

Families are not the only people living in Whitefish and attending films. Give others a break: many were thrilled that "Brokeback Mountain" came to Whitefish. I am one who wants some "true grit" real life drama, some independent and wishfully some foreign films.

At least we got "Brokeback Mountain".-xxxxxxx

1929 Up Ahead

Buckle up!

I sure as hell hope they're wrong, too, but Bush/Cheney are in the drivers seat and you know how they are with money.

via Time Goes By who also tells that Ken Lay is down to his last $650,000.00!

I hope he ends up flinging burgers at McBurger while he lives in his six hundred dollar car that he parks at Wal Mart so he doesn't get mugged.

Untidy's Just Another Word For

Flinging the gates of Hell wide open!

Hell has soccerfields?

The Niger Forger

Is it Michael Ledeen? eriposte is determined to solve that crime.

Meanwhile Steve Soto finds another three reasons why the UAE should't be entrusted with our ports of entry including this one:

Al Qaeda warned the government of the United Arab Emirates more than three years ago that it "infiltrated" key government agencies, according to a disturbing document released by the U.S. military.

They have documentation so go find out what they know.

Hammerblogging

I have a lot to say about what MC Hammer said in his blog but exhaustion and an occular migraine won't let me so I'll exerpt

Anyone can funk and go to war, we all got soldiers but it takes real men to make peace. Peace may not sell these squares' magazines but it can save a community and bring prosperity to our people.

Hey MC, drop in anytime. Say hi if you want, I'm huge on Hall and Oates and Patty LaBelle and The Commodores myself. The kids listen to an awful lot of hip hop and rap so I know some of that, too.

I am curious about why this lovely young woman thinks that she would stand on the Republican side of the aisle because she's a Christian?

If I knew how to say it without being antagonistic, I would tell her that the Republican party does not own God no matter what they think. granny is a Christian but I'm too darn cantankerous to convert or converse with most anybody so I would suggest that she took a likkle time to meet Jeanne and Melanie or stop over at the Street Prophets or at Robert Jeffers place so that she could see that we are not all Joe Biden and the whiny nasal guy on this side of the aisle.

I would say a lot more, but my eyes are giving out and I have chores to do.

I Hate To Interrupt Your Fundraisers Sir

I expect you to gloss over the melting polar caps and mass extinctions in progress, Mr. President Sir, but I would be much obliged if you took the time to weigh in on this report America For Sale: The Cost Of Republican Corruption?

If you don't have time to read it between all those fundraisers we keep paying to fly you to, maybe you could just give us your opinion of Rep. Slaughter's statement that

Tom DeLay is on trial for money laundering so House Republicans place him on the committee in charge of handing out money.

It would be very kind of you to tell us what you really think because your poor Scotty speaks as if he is juggling a mouth full of rocks.

241.3 Billion Dollars Over Budget And Counting!

Boiling Mad notices the cost vs the promises of George Bush's war on Iraq and he reminds us there are casualties.

Lots of casualties.

A lot of these guys will not get help for one reason or another. They may suffer from their lost productivity, they may turn their anger inward, or at someone else with tragic consequences. Broken hearts, shattered bodies, scarred psyches.

How much can a bankrupt nation with 37.5 million food insecure and 45 million uninsured citizens absorb?

When David Adams came back from Iraq, the war followed him home. Adams is from Joliet, Illinois. He was a specialist in the 101st Airborne from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, destined to be in the military.

"My father had served in the Marines. My mother's father served in World War Two in Patton's army. All my uncles and cousins, they've all served," said Adams.

Adams was serving when the US went to war with Iraq in 2003. "We were told this thing about winning the hearts and minds of the people and one of the way we can win the hearts and minds is to give them a bottle of water and throw candy to the kids," said Adams.

Their orders were to keep the convoys moving through every village. Do not stop for any reason. That included one April morning. "Out of the left corner of my eye, I can see a child start to run across the street," remembered Adams.

Adams continued, "She was a little girl, probably about 5 or 6 years old, and as she is running across the street, she's not looking where she's going. She's just a kid and she gets run over by a truck. I would say there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her."

When Adams came home five months later, he enrolled at SIU-Carbondale and tried to plan for the future. Then came the nightmares, anxiety and violent temper. One day he just started screaming at his mother and sister.

"My dad comes out into the driveway and he says,
'What's wrong? What's the matter with you?' And so I put my fists up like I'm going to fight him," recalled Adams. "And I'm yelling at him and told him to go back in the house or I'll kill you in the driveway right now."

A short time later, Adams was diagnosed with PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. "As the name implies, it's a disorder that happens in the wake of violence and a threat to one's life," said Dr. David Klein, a clinical psychologist for the St. Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Studies show as many as 30 percent of soldiers returning from the Middle East could have PTSD, but less than a quarter of those will seek help.

"A lot of people get hung up on this being a psychiatric diagnosis. What they don't realize is this is the brain's attempt to adopt to an extraordinarily stressful situation, and it's an effort in self protection" said Klein.

Critics of the Bush administration say the government shouldn't wait for veterans to ask for help. They need to be proactive. "The veterans affairs budget, especially for health care every year is discretionary funding, which means it's there initially and the President can say I gave 12 million dollars for this and that" said G. David Curry a professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. "But it doesn't stay there. So more and more veterans are being denied more and more healthcare."

Curry is a veteran still living with the psychological scars of Vietnam. He says veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan often wait months just to get a doctor's appointment, and if something doesn't change soon the war will continue to cost America long after it's over.

"It doesn't matter whether you're against the war or in favor of the war, we've got to repay these veterans by treating them well," said Curry.

As for Adams, now 25, he's back in school studying administrative justice. He says he still has nightmares and probably drinks too much. But his best therapy has been talking to other veterans.

Still he worries about all his brothers, as he calls them, who've yet to get help. "When we signed that contract, we swore to God we were going to take care of this country and defend it and America was going to do the same for us," said Adams. "And I feel like a lot of us are being left behind."

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/facts/general/fs_what_is_ptsd.html- from U.S Dept. of Veteran's Affairs

http://www.nmha.org/reassurance/ptsd.cfm- from the National Mental Health Association

republished in full, fair use and all because these stories disappear so quickly.

The Daily Interlake

My local paper is the worst, except for The Bozeman Chronicle, really. I have been saving an editorial where the editor made the strongest insinuation that John Kerry and John Murtha are cowards because, well, they expressed opinions contrary to that of George Bush. I'm going to fire this old keyboard off on him one of these days if I can manage to keep my blood pressure from skyrocketing, I swear I will if I could remain calm about it.

In the meantime, this one's for you, Frank Meile.

..."That, furthermore, while they behaved openly and recklessly as sociopaths and psychopaths we treated them on our TV shows and in our editorial pages and even in our supposed news stories as if they were all great statesmen acting always in the Nation's best interests with no thought for the main chance for themselves.

"And that, even as we neglected our duty to our readers and viewers to tell them the truth, ..."

Lance is a heck of a nice guy, if I had my way, they would all be standing trial for their complicity in war crimes.

via The heretik

Clap Harder!

BAGHDAD (AP) - A car bomb exploded in a Shiite holy city and 13 members of one Shiite family were gunned down northeast of the capital Saturday in a surge of attacks that killed at least 30 people despite heightened security aimed at curbing sectarian violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

At least one more Sunni mosque was attacked in Baghdad on Saturday after two rockets were fired at a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khormato, north of the capital, the previous night. Shooting also broke out near the home of a prominent Sunni cleric as the funeral procession for an Al-Arabiya TV correspondent slain in sectarian violence was passing by. Police believed the procession was the target.

The violence occurred despite an extraordinary daytime curfew in Baghdad and three surrounding provinces. The stretched security forces could not be everywhere to contain attacks that have killed more than 150 people since Wednesday's shrine bombing and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

BAGHDAD - Fourteen bodies of police commandos were found near one of the mosques attacked in southern Baghdad where clashes occurred overnight, police said. Gunmen attacked the Qubaisy mosque and the Sunnis' revered Abu Hanifa shrine.

Thr President paused between into action and made some phone calls pleading with Iraqi leaders to play nice, but trainwrecks don't

Two police constables posted at the Iraq embassy in south Delhi were found dead after one of them allegedly shot the other and then killed himself, police said Saturday.

"He thought I was dead, and when he asked if I was all right, ," he said.I started screaming

Wayne Moore remembers almost every detail of the day almost two years ago when a roadside bomb in Iraq nearly took his life.

The 28-year-old Clatskanie resident still doesn't have full mobility of his left arm. Two pink scars snake up and down nearly the full length of the limb.

But he's regaining movement little by little, day by day, and he's healing his mental wounds by working on a hot new car --- and remembering that he shouldn't have survived.

It was dusk on May 31, 2004, and Moore was an Army gunner riding atop a Humvee in Iraq. As he scanned the road to the right and left, he noticed a 10-gallon fuel can on one side of the road. In the few seconds it took for him to realize it might be a roadside bomb, it blew.

The Humvee was just a stone's throw away. Although he wore the required protection -- a vest, helmet and protective eyeglasses -- his arms and face were unprotected.

The remotely-detonated bomb nearly blew off his left arm above the elbow, severely injured his right arm and also injured the sergeant sitting below him. When he regained consciousness, his sergeant was talking to him.

"He thought I was dead, and when he asked if I was all right, ," he said.I started screaming

He was taken to the outpost where doctors stabilized him. Then he was shipped to Baghdad where he had the first of eight surgeries.

After a short recuperation, he was sent to Germany, then to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. After more surgeries, he was transferred to San Antonio where he recuperated for four months. He's been home in Clatskanie since October 2004, though he's still undergoing physical therapy.

Now retired with a medical disability, he still is undergoing physical therapy. The mobility and sensitivity of his arm is improving.

"My arm is very sensitive," he said. "Everything feels like sandpaper against my skin, and if I run a fingernail along my scars, it feels like a razor blade cutting into my skin."

He's also recuperating from psychological injuries. He said he had flashbacks for about a month and even considered suicide.

"I had reactions, but now it's just a memory," he said.

Bright Happy Whitewash

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA puts the cheeriest neon colored spin on the original neocon's ideas with the disclaimer that they worked, they saved the world, but the second generation are a bunch of good hearted boobs who could and did screw up their wet dreams.

granny asserts that they really haven't screwed up because the dollars and the power all went exactly where they wanted it to go.

Fukuyama then tells us that the American people are too happy, the neocons were too gentle for this scheme to work before he offers us a way out of this mess.

Whitewash in bright neon colors! Condolieza Rice paints a lovely lovely landscape about "transformational diplomacy" so the answer is clear. We need more trickery and deception with smaller non military forces to go in and bust strategic heads until they get what they want.

if we are serious about the good governance agenda, we have to shift our focus to the reform, reorganization and proper financing of those institutions of the United States government that actually promote democracy, development and the rule of law around the world, organizations like the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National Endowment for Democracy and the like.

[em]

granny asserts that Fukuyama is Fu^^ed in the head and that we could give him a good laxative and contain him in a thimble for the rest of his days.

Privatize The Secret Service

We get it now; George Bush's America needs a cheap fix, no more trying to be the best or invest in people who have a stake in the outcome. If George Bush truly believed that selling our assets off to the lowest highest bidder he should start with the Secret Service.

This sounds like the best idea I've heard in a long time.

Freedom's Just Another Word For

Untidy

lockdown day after day after day after day in an endless civil war

The good news is that, yes there is good news is that

Mr Dulaimi called for calm and said reports had exaggerated the death toll, which he put at 119 since the bloodless bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra at dawn on Wednesday. Baghdad police say over 200 have been killed in and around the city.

[em]

Carbombings add spark to random and mass killings


BAGHDAD - A series of bombings, including a car bomb attack in the Shiite holy city of Karabala, and shootings across Iraq Saturday have killed at least 24 people and left dozens wounded, officials said.

Rebels attempted to keep sectarian tensions burning in Iraq on Saturday when they blew up a car bomb on a busy shopping street in Karbala killing five people and wounding 52.

The sectarian-fueled bloodshed raged on Saturday as 12 farm labourers were found shot dead in an orchard in the confessionally mixed province of Diyala Saturday

.

Then there are the kidnappings, the asassinations, the raids.