Vote Yes On No

By Edgar J. Steele
October 16th, 2006

My name is Edgar J. Steele. This is a Nickel Rant.

Mid-term elections are coming. Just say “No” to politics as usual. Vote against all incumbents. Vote against all spending bills. Vote against immigration. Or … just stay home and don’t vote. Vote yes on No.

Choosing Evil Doesn’t Work

Don’t try to choose among several bad choices, thinking it smart to choose the lesser of two or more evils. Choosing the lesser of two evils still means choosing evil. In fact, George W. Bush has taught us that choosing the lesser of two evils can mean choosing evil beyond comprehension.

It isn’t just Bush, of course. The other two branches of government are equally complicit. The judiciary sits with its arms folded and, when forced, supports the Administration. Congress does nothing but rubber stamp the actions of an Administration that now has gone to an unprecedented level of evil, beyond even the capacity of words to convey.

We don’t get to vote on a new President for two years, if ever again. If you think I suggest that possibility lightly, you really have not been paying attention. We never really get to vote on judges at any level. Congress is a different story, however, and we vote on them in just a few days.

Let me remind you of just a handful of the travesties that this Congress has allowed under George W. Bush: (…. Full Article Here)

 
Bonus link:

Edgar J. Steele Takes A Dive Into The Political Cesspool! (Interview 11/3/06)

Neo Culpa

As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war’s neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

By David Rose
November 3, 2006

I remember sitting with Richard Perle in his suite at London’s Grosvenor House hotel and receiving a private lecture on the importance of securing victory in Iraq. “Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform,” he said. “It won’t be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world didn’t achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance of succeeding.” Perle seemed to exude the scent of liberation, as well as a whiff of gunpowder. It was February 2003, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the culmination of his long campaign on behalf of regime change in Iraq, was less than a month away.

Three years later, Perle and I meet again at his home outside Washington, D.C. It is October, the worst month for U.S. casualties in Iraq in almost two years, and Republicans are bracing for losses in the upcoming midterm elections. As he looks into my eyes, speaking slowly and with obvious deliberation, Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. “The levels of brutality that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic “failed state”—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. “And then,” says Perle, “you’ll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating.” (…. Full Article Here)

Will Kerry’s Flub Outweigh Neocon Blunders?

By Jeff Davis
Noveber 4, 2006

In the last week before the 2006 election, the neocons have found a last straw to grab onto thanks to the blundering of John F. Kerry. Will Kerry’s insensitive flub about uneducated Americans winding up in Iraq make any real difference or will a continuing chain of neocon blunders be remembered by voters on election day?

We have endured a pointless war with thousands of dead and tens of thousands of maimed Americans, a military strained to the breaking point and an economy that has outsourced millions of manufacturing jobs and seen Ford and GM spiral toward bankruptcy. Real unemployment in “uncooked” figures is around ten per cent. We have badly maintained freeways and massive power outages every summer. Hundreds of thousands of black New Orleans refugees have spread crime in every city foolish enough to accept them. New Orleans is still not rebuilt over a year later. An attack on Iran the day after the election is an alarming possibility. Our government has given itself the authority to spy on us without warrants (even though previous presidents during world wars did not need this much power). Our government now can torture people and the president can declare any one of us an “enemy combatant” who could be dragged out of his home in the middle of the night and “disappeared” into one of those foreign prisons, where torture is commonplace. (more…)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 civilians, including 12-year-old girl, among the dead
27 Palestinians killed in IDF Gaza raids over weekend
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and News Agencies
November 5th, 2006

A 12-year-old girl was killed Saturday evening by Israel Defense Forces sniper fire in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, bringing to 27 the Palestinian death toll in Gaza since the start of the weekend.

The IDF said that Isra Nasser, who died of head wounds, had been shot by a sniper targeting an armed militant, and expressed regret at the killing. At least 11 of the dead were civilians, and include two members of rescue crews.

IDF troops have been in Beit Hanun since Wednesday morning, in an operation aimed at halting Qassam rocket attacks on southern Israel. Nevertheless, Palestinian militants have continued to fire the homemade rockets, and seven hit the western Negev on Saturday evening. No injuries were reported, although a building in one of the local kibbutzim was lightly damaged.

Also Saturday, an IDF officer was seriously wounded in clashes with militants in the town, another soldier was lightly hurt.

Across the Strip, five Hamas militants and three civilians were killed Saturday, bringing to 42 the Palestinian death toll there since the start of the operation. The dead militants include a top Hamas rocket-maker, Louay al-Borno, who was killed in an Israel Air Force strike in his vehicle in Gaza City. (…. Full Article Here)