Cops Getting Surly in SF!

Times are as of right now!

US Pacific

3:30pm: The police are now rushing the rest of the crowd with riot gear.

3:20pm: According to reports, the breakaway march was stopped at 6th Street and Market by police, and after being surrounded, a handful of people have attempted to break through police lines and have escaped. The police have issued a warning that protesters will be "subject to batons" if they do not disperse, and around 20-30 protesters are now being arrested.

3:12pm The police have surrounded the protesters about 2 deep and have apparently surrounded an even smaller group of protesters about five deep. Protesters are chanting, "Let them go! Let them go!"

3:05pm: The breakaway march has begun to form a mass of over 500 people on Market Street between Nordstram's department store and Mason/Turk. The police are issuing an order to disperse.

2:52pm: According to reports, the breakaway march is heading east down Turk between Hyde and Leavenworth, complete with police escort.

2:50pm: Police officials are estimating that around 2,000 people have splintered away from the main mass in Civic Center Plaza and are taking off down Larkin Street.

2:35pm: While the crowd listens to Woody Harrelson speak, more people are still spilling into Civic Center Plaza.

2:20pm: The National Lawyers Guild has called into the radio station asking that people call their legal hotline for help with any legal problems stemming from actions at today's protest. The number is: 415-285-1011.

2:15pm: Police have formed a diagonal line through the crowd of thousands crowding into the intersection of Polk and Grove. It appears that they are trying to restrict anyone from the main march from splitting off and joining any breakaway marches.

2 pm: Photos Report of 6 different breakaway groups forming up.

1:15pm: March is at Van Ness and Market Street, with a confirmed report from ANSWER officials that the march is 50,000+ people, with both sides of Market Street completely shut down. About 200 police officers are marching at the front of the march, on the right side of the street, refusing to allow people to join the march from the right. They are creating a protective shield in front of the businesses lining the right side of the street, but don't seem too concerned about damage to any of the low-income housing units on the left side of Market. Call-outs are being made for people to break loose from the restrictive march and meet back up at 2pm for the breakaway march.

Link

Check out all the "M20" stuff happening.

Bad Rummy! Bad!

Clarke is expected to tesify on Tuesday before the 9/11 Commission.

"Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said. "We all said, 'But no, no, al-Qaida is in Afghanistan."

Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, said Rumsfeld complained in the meeting that "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq."

A spokesman for Rumsfeld said he couldn't comment immediately.

Clarke makes the assertion in a book, "Against All Enemies," that goes on sale Monday. He told CBS News he believes the administration sought to link Iraq with the attacks because of long-standing interest in overthrowing Saddam Hussein; Clarke appears Sunday night on the network's "60 Minutes" program.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection" between Iraq and the al-Qaida attacks in the United States, Clarke said in an interview segment that CBS broadcast Friday evening. "There's just no connection. There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaida."

Clarke also criticized President Bush for promoting the administration's efforts against terrorism, accusing top Bush advisers of turning a blind eye to terrorism during the first months of Bush's presidency.

The Associated Press first reported in June 2002 that Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.

The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

"Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke told CBS. "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."

Quick color key:

Basic Text:*****

Distortions and/or Fabrications:*****

Criminal Negligence:*****

Oh, I have to watch Clarke on 60 minutes tomorrow evening.

Bush. Tough on terror?

"Until 9/11, counterterrorism was a very secondary issue at the Bush White House," said a senior Clinton official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Remember those first months? The White House was focused on tax cuts, not terrorism. We saw the budgets for counterterrorism programs being cut."

This is going to get really ugly.

House of Bush, House of Saud!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:

Listen to This

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Or alternatively, download the 27MB Mp3 file of entire show here

And if you're interested in reading more, buy ↓ ↓..why yes, the book. :)



Yes, the image is a link.

Remember, a functioning democracy begins with you!

I finished a couple of hours ahead of schedule. YAY!

I'm trying to come up with a Bush quote form the last couple of days.

It was something like: 'Now we have to unite to keep Iraq free.'

I'd put double quotations marks around that, but I'm unsure as to his precise wording.

Could it be that Bush has seen the light? Does he now realize that he has divided the world, NATO, the U.S. ad infinitum?

Nah. But I can dream.

In 4:00 AM news..I'm off for the day. Until 5:00PM Eastern US time.

Open the discussion.

Cheers!

Okay...Ice cream and $20 dollar bills to the first ten respondents.*







* Void where prohibited :)

Feel the Love!

Read the 'review' from "A reader."

That folks, is a 21st century renaissance man.

As the 'review' is in danger of being overwhelmed by the others, I've ripped it to post here.

********************************************

A reader from USA

I cannot tell you how much I hated this book and urge you to boycott it. I am a lifelong Republican and activist. My party stands for those who are successful, Christian minded, and controlling those who want to hurt American business.

- First of all, how dare you oppose Bush in not supporting of the glorious war and Crusade against non-Christian infidels? What's all this bull about WMDs? Saddam killed, so we killed, might makes right in any sensible mind. So all those who are against Bush are going to hell.
- Democrats are all renegade swine, quite frankly, and it's a crying shame they are even allowed to vote. Jesus would have supported Bush in his war against muslim sheep and cutting funds for people who are disabled, crippled, retarded, old, etc. It's their own fault, Bush didn't make these losers the way they are.
- So Bush didn't win the popular election; God wanted him to be President, God didn't trust the 'popular majority' and God wanted a military hero like Bush in office. Thank God for our unbiased Supreme Court.
- Furthermore, how dare you show narrow-minded animosity at Bush when he is a self made man. Don't believe those who say the US doesn't have enough jobs. If the Mexicans can find jobs, so can you. Republicans get better jobs because we know the game, know how to take advantage of the system, and because of our Godly contacts.

You should buy Anne Coulter books instead. She is the leading spokeswoman for the Republican party because she knows and speaks our truth. Quotes from her:
• "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote...women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it....it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."-- Politically Incorrect, 2/26/01
• "...a cruise missile is more important than Head Start."-- Speech, 11/01, rebroadcast by C-Span in Jan. 2002
• "In his brief fiery ride across the landscape, Joe McCarthy bought America another thirty years. For this, he sacrificed his life, his reputation, his name. The left cut down a brave man, but not before the American people heard the truth."-- The Drudge Report, quoting from Coulter's new book, Treason, 6/19/03

• "We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell anger. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons will get our opposition out of the way."-- Column, 9/25/02
• "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."-- Column, 9/13/01
• "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."-- Speech to Conservative Political Action Conference, January 2002

• "Soldiers are just cowards with their backs against the wall. The lowest IQ men in our society, those incapable of normal careers enlist. Their choice in life; prison or the military. Some will have to die in the support of our cause."-- Intervention Magazine, 11/06/03
• "The only beef Enron employees have with top management is that management did not inform employees of the collapse in time to allow them to get in on the swindle."-- Column, 1/24/02
• "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."-- New York Observer interview, 8/20/02
• "Then there are the 39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security. The greatest generation rewarded itself with a pretty big meal."-- WorldNetDaily, 12/10/03

My hero is the Ex-House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, GOP presidential prospect, and architect of the Republican Party's failed impeachment of President Clinton. He only failed because Newt was having an affair. Who could blame Newt, his wife went and got sick with cancer. That was completely different from Clinton.
Unlike Clinton, Newt was smart enough to divorce his wife after she got sick and could no longer drag him down with her.

Lastly, how dare you stumblingly expose your miscreant incompetence with rantings against the Patriot Act. In my mind
Some Americans have too many Constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights should not even apply to the blue-collar middle classes who are too stupid to get involved. No Bush hating media or newspapers should have 'freedom of the press,' since they only have their rights and freedoms because the rich allow them to have them. Ever see some poor slob or middle class idiot who owned a newspaper company?

You defamatory libelous, uneducated swine should keep your comments to yourselves or we'll send your job overseas. Go out and burn this book now! I'll pray everyone who buys this book will burn in hell!

This has to be a tongue-in-cheek review. It's all that is wrong with the extreme right. No one -- I hope -- is this extreme.

On Edit: A commenter alerted me that the Intervention Magazine is almost certainly groundless. He/She knew that the quote was attributed to Ann Coulter. I did not know this. I still think that the 'review' is great satire.

Reuter's Headline: Bush says Iraq differences are in the past

The 'doctrine of change of course' was in full effect today, as I heard Bush ramble on...and on...and on...about the Iraq war without once mentioning WMD.

He muttered something about weapons of mass terror falling into the hands of terrorists.

There are two statements that would be appropriate for this day. They are as follows:

1) We have now secured Saddam Hussein's vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction

or

2) We were wrong about Iraq's weapons capabilities, and I as commander-in-chief assume all responsibility for all the damage done.

A real leader would have been able to have made one of those statements today. Instead, we get 'the doctrine.' All that WMD talk doesn't matter you know. It's stale. Old news. We've moved beyond that issue. It no longer matters.

Michael Gordon writing for the NYT attempts to get inside the head(s) of terrorists. An interesting hypothesis.

Does Mr. Gordon's notion have any basis in reality? I think that the honest answer is that no one outside of the terrorist community and possibly the intelligence communities can say with any level of certainty.

His simple idea has great appeal as a reason behind the Spanish bombings. However, that does not make it any more real.

Give it a read, and ponder.

I see that the White House is Denying any Role in the Medicare Cost 'Issue'

From Democracy Now! and this has since been picked up by other news sources:

.....Until now the Bush administration has rejected Foster's accusations. But the Wall Street Journal has obtained an email sent to Foster that explicitly said to share his findings only with his supervisor and quote "No one else." The message went on to say "The consequences for insubordination are extremely severe." Meanwhile in other news related to the Medicare vote, the House ethics committee announced Wednesday it will begin a formal inquiry into claims by Michigan Republican Congressman Nick Smith that Republican leaders tried to bribe him and threaten him in order to win his vote on Medicare. After hours of wrangling, Smith voted with the Republican leadership and the Medicare bill passed by one vote........[snip]

Lies, Lies and damned lies. How do they expect to explain this away? The WSJ is hardly a 'lefty' news outlet.

Kerry - McCain Pt. 3 Strange Bedfellows

There are Repugs that can tell the truth. They're just hard to find. Before you email me, yes, I know that McCain was one of the "Keating Five." :)

More Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Amid a spree of attacks on hotels, the U.S. Army commander of Baghdad on Thursday said while the coalition is winning the war, there's no end in sight to Iraq's reign of terror and that "there's not enough concrete in the hemisphere" to defend every hotel in the capital.

"We are putting in place the mechanisms to defeat terror," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, overall commander of U.S. operations in Baghdad, disclosing that nearly half of the 47,000 security forces in the capital are Iraqis who are equipped, trained and vetted by the coalition to someday police their own country.

Meantime, he said, both civilians and coalition forces must "be on the offensive. You cannot sit back and wait for a terrorist to pick the point of his choosing."

Dempsey said U.S. raids by his 1st Armored Division had just captured an unidentified Jordanian with links to Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, the man coalition officials frequently blame as the mastermind for murderous attacks on Iraqis designed to disrupt coalition cooperation.

But a car bomb blew up in broad daylight Thursday outside a hotel in the southern city of Basra, killing three bystanders near the building sometimes used by British coalition forces. Gunmen also opened fire on a minibus in Baquoba, northeast of Baghdad, killing three Iraqi television journalists and wounding nine others who work at a coalition-sponsored station.

Hours later, insurgents again mortared the Green Zone where coalition officials are managing the occupation, sending booms and sirens echoing through the night. Almost simultaneously, rockets or mortars rattled the Karrada district, near two hotels, one called the Sinbad Palace that has been popular with visiting Kurds. No casualties were immediately reported.

Lots more at link

In case you're wondering, all of this has taken place since the Lebanon Hotel bombing.

Also on the wires is the story that at least nine returned GIs have committed suicide since coming back from Iraq. If I can pull together enough information, I'll write up a bit. I'm sure you'll hear more about this in the coming days.

Suicide bombers. Unknown in Iraq until a year ago.

Compare and contrast.

Iraqi suicide bombings:

The cycle began nine days after fighting erupted, and has claimed at least 660 lives – far more than in 3½ years of Israel-Palestinian suicide attacks – according to U.S. military officials.

The majority of victims are Iraqis, the U.S. military said. Iraqi officials and police put the death toll higher by at least 100.

Israeli-Palestinian suicide bombings:

In comparison, since September 2000, 474 people -- the majority Israelis -- have been killed in 112 Palestinian suicide bombings.

Much more at link.

Hard to know what to say. We must never let another incident like Iraq happen again. Ever.

Tony recuse himself from a case involving his ol' huntin' buddy Dick? NEVER!

Tony spent 21 pages to say 'no.'

Democracy, it was fun while it lasted.

Slate political chief William Saletan sometimes very good, other times seemingly daft, has really done a fine job in framing the early election rhetoric.

Again, the best bits are towards the bottom. It's difficult to mine bits from the piece as it's a well woven one. Everything relies on all the other parts. If you can't read it, and you should, here is an excerpt that is a tongue-in-cheek condemnation of Kerry for his 'foreign(or is that 'more?') leaders' gaffe. There are few pieces I have read as of late that make me wish that I had written them. This is one of those:

You get the message. Kerry's been spending time with the wrong sort of people. What's good for them must be bad for you. This is the message segregationists delivered to white voters 50 years ago about white politicians who met with blacks. "Foreigners" were the subjects of a different message: McCarthyism. Cheney's speech combines the two: What is Kerry saying to our enemies that makes them so supportive of his candidacy?

"Of the many nations that have joined our coalition [in Iraq]—allies and friends of the United States—Sen. Kerry speaks with open contempt," Cheney went on. What was Cheney's evidence for this charge? "Sen. Kerry calls these countries, quote, 'window dressing,' " said the vice president. "Italy, which recently lost 19 citizens, killed by terrorists in Najaf—was Italy's contribution just window dressing?" Cheney concluded that Kerry "speaks as if only those who openly oppose America's objectives have a chance of earning his respect."

There you go. Kerry points out what everyone knows: The Iraq war was an American operation dressed up as a "coalition of the willing," in which Britain was the only other country to play a major role. Cheney calls this "contempt" for "friends of the United States." Nineteen Italians get killed in a war that Bush and Cheney started against the will of most Italians, but it's Kerry, not Bush, who has shown contempt for Italy and other "friends of the United States." Better yet, the foreign leaders with whom Kerry has consorted don't just oppose Bush's policy in Iraq; they "oppose America's objectives." If Jacques Chirac imagines that what he opposed in Iraq was Bush's method of achieving objectives shared by France, he fails to understand that Bush's policies, by definition, are America's objectives.

Indeed. Good show, Mr. Saletan.

The bombing tragedy in Iraq yesterday is a real mystery. There are at least four differing accounts of how many died. The U.S. seems to consistently have the highest numbers of dead.

I can speculate as to why I think that's the case, but I'll keep such thoughts to myself.

Another thing is the instant al-Qaeda link. There certainly may be a link, but until a positive link is established, the major news outlets are again acting as mouthpieces for the White House -- or maybe it's the IGC this time -- and we know how poorly they did their jobs over WMD.

It's not better to be first and inaccurate. If I did my job in the careless manner of our press corps, I'd be looking for a new one.

A Coalition of One?

Poland feels misled over Iraq WMD. So goes the headline from Reuters.

As always, we look toward the bottom of articles to see what's there. We find:

GROWING DOUBTS?

Poland, the biggest ex-communist country joining the European Union in May, is a staunch U.S. ally.

It has steadfastly defended NATO's role in European security and risked the wrath of France and Germany by backing the military campaign launched nearly a year ago that ousted Saddam.

Unlike in many other European countries, Polish public opinion was initially in favour of intervening in Iraq.

And many Poles were proud the United States picked the former Warsaw Pact stalwart to run one of the stabilisation zones there.

But continued violence in Iraq has dented support for the mission and some right-wing and populist parties have raised their voices in demanding that troops be pulled back.

Poland's discomfort also grew when the incoming Spanish government signalled it was going to adopt the French and German line on Iraq, leaving Poland more isolated ahead of a crucial EU summit next week.

These 'defections' by 'our allies' must be very troubling to Washington. Now that Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski has siad that he feels misled, there is no way of knowing how this is going to play out.

There must be long faces in the White House right now.

********************************************

pure bs Thanks! Thanks to everyone that has mailed me about the potential capture of Ayman al-Zawahiri. As it is all over the news, it's really not my beat. Once confirmed or refuted, I'll be sure to post something about it. Thanks Again!

An absolute must listen. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! interview Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud

A truly amazing interview. The book is now on my short list of must reads.

Racist? Xenophobe? Maybe we haven't evolved enough. Maybe.

Now that we may know why, it seems likely that we can ameliorate our impulses.

We must certainly try.

pure bs personal anecdote!

I just finished with my accountant...tax preparation.

I feel ill.

Quick links:

Zapatero on Wednesday described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as "a fiasco" and suggested American voters should follow the example set by Spain and change their leadership by supporting Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts for president in November.

Compare and contrast

Cheney on Kerry

Kerry on Kerry

Dick Cheney. Unabashed war profiteer. 5 Vietnam Deferments..at least 4. That's part of the record. Oh, that's crass. Sorry.

Deficit Pigeons Reads like something I might have written. Yes, Virginia. Deficits do matter.

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