You nailed it right on the head. Most, not all on this site are just silly little people playing at revolution, like this was still the 60's.

GOD BLESS
JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU.

Trillion dollars to the top one percent in a "so called" bailout.
12 billion a month in no bid contracts to American companies in Iraq (still no new roads or electricity, or running water, or...)
Bush giving out 363 TONS of 100 dollar bills of American taxpayer money in Iraq.
Tax breaks to oil companies as well as the largest companies in America.
Billions thrown at companies in no bid contracts after Katrina.
Secret illegal meetings with oil companies to decide America's energy policy (we see the results)

This has been the greatest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top 1% in world history.

Then, you have these toothless Republicans who don't even live a "double-wide", who have no job, live on welfare and have no health insurance complaining that their imaginary "wealth" is being redistributed? Can this be happening?

These are the same people that believe "Noah's Ark" is a historical event and man lived with dinosaurs a la "Flintstones".

And then, they have the nerve to mock those that see the truth? As they sit there, pointing fingers, laughing, drooling, and complaining about the AFLCIO as executives get hundreds of millions for running American companies into the ground and shipping jobs overseas to toothless people that can't afford health insurance, and can't afford to live in a "double-wide".

They can't see the "irony" because they don't know what that means.

Good luck.

Don't get hit by a bus or anything.
On second thought...

I'm so thankful for the groups that are assisting people like Shepherd.

Given that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, the commander in chief has violated the constitution, and that the military is now using stop loss measures to keep soldiers in the military for multiple tours of duty in war zones; I have plenty of respect for any soldier who decides enough is enough.

The Bush strategy to iignore Bin Laden, after chasing him half-heartedly , has jeopardized the overall world security, as let Laden's organization grow exponentially.

Bin Laden has beaten Bush by outlasting him, and interupting his last days as limp-dick president, with fresh attacks in new territory. Skillet-head Bush leaves office, completely handled by Laden, his tail between his legs.

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'"
- G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI

"...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...."
- Bush, in remarks in a Press Availablity with the Press Travel Pool,
The Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford TX, 12/28/01, as reported on
official White House site

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

Next question...

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. ~~~John Kenneth Galbraith

Bush went after Saddam because if he actually caught Bin Laden, he wouldn't have a boogeyman to hold over our heads, to start his War for Profit.

Remember when we were the land of the free and the home of the brave? The Bush administration has taught us to duct tape ourselves in our homes, to be scared of anyone who isn't a white-bread ignoramus who doesn't know flag-waving from patriotism. He attempted to change the mindset to the land of the surveilled and the home of the frightened, and I'm glad to see that the American people are better than that, they rejected his philosophy of avarice and cowardice.

Anyone happen to know the most recent example of a sitting Vice President being indicted?
Mmmmm. Juicy. Lookin' forward to the next update from News Channel 5. Keep me posted...
____________________
"Don't be a Dick."

Transcript of Event: "The Jihadists' Revolt Against Al Qaeda"
By Andrew Cochran

On September 23, the Counterterrorism Foundation and New America Foundation held a live panel discussion on Capitol Hill with Peter Bergen, CTB Contributing Experts Evan Kohlmann and Paul Cruickshank, and guest commentator Maajid Nawaz to discuss "The Jihadists' Revolt Against Al Qaeda: Why Some of Al Qaeda’s Old Allies Have Turned Against It." You can view New America's video of that panel, and you can download a transcript, thanks to Assistant Newslink Editor Brett Wallace. Here are excerpts from the panel:

Peter Bergen: "There are two central fronts in the war on terror, Iraq and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. What happened with Al Qaeda in Iraq, it was an assisted suicide, we helped their suicide and so did the Sunni awakening. They had five problems. First they have terrible leadership. Al Masri who runs AQI is not Zarqawi, Zawahiri or Osama Bin Laden, he is a bad leader. Second is organization. Third is ideological problems, they can’t make compromises. They also have made a lot of enemies such as the 1920’s Brigade. Many of the recruits that have come to Iraq are gone because they commit suicide. The fact that we have seen female suicide attacks is a sign of weakness, not strength.

We know what these groups are against but what are they for? There is no al Qaeda minister of employment, Al Qaeda school, or Al Qaeda social welfare organization. There is not a category of government they have said they are not against, Russia, China, the West, Israel, Shiites and so on. Because of this problem they can’t turn themselves into political movements."

Even Kohlmann: "Arguably over any other issue, the predominant topic of discussion, controversy—and often schism—within the Salafi-Jihadi discourse has revolved around the justifications for deliberately killing other Sunni Muslims, including both innocent civilians and competing mujahideen fighters.

Nowhere else has that debate become more evident and problematic for Salafi-Jihadi leaders than in Iraq, where the insurgency has recently undergone a series of fundamental shifts. First, a wide array of prominent Sunni insurgent factions—including the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Iraqi Hamas, and Asaeb al-Iraq al-Jihadiya (to name just a few)—have become embroiled in bitter public feuds with Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) over the latter’s aggressive insistence that all Sunni insurgent groups join together under the banner of the ISI. The combined impact of this has undeniably had a debilitating impact on the long-term political viability of Al-Qaida and the ISI."

Paul Cruickshank: "But what we have seen recently emerge in the UK is a backlash against Al Qaeda. While a small group of people have been energized by Al Qaeda’s escalating violence, this group of hardcore extremists is becoming more isolated. The July 7 London bombings and the carnage that Al Qaeda has produced in Iraq and other Muslim countries has made a significant number of British Muslims, who were once on the fence when it came to Al Qaeda, turn firmly against them. I think that one can now say that the Muslim community in Britain is finally waking up to the threat of Al Qaeda terrorism. Moreover, the fact that Jihadists are now taking on Al Qaeda has made it considerably easier for moderates to criticize the terrorist organization.

In the UK there are signs that the radicals are on the back foot. Just anecdotally, I can tell you that attendance seems to be down at events organized by groups supportive of Al Qaeda compared to a few years ago. I asked a leading pro-Al Qaeda militant in the UK about the many empty chairs at one such event this summer and he conceded that it was becoming more difficult to attract young Muslims to such meetings. British authorities have taken advantage of the emerging Jihadist critique of Al Qaeda by pragmatically engaging with Jihadists and Salafists critical of Al Qaeda, while cracking down on the real problem groups. The British government’s approach is to try to isolate the violent extremists."

Maajid Nawaz: "All terrorist jihadist organizations, not meaning Hamas here, but the international global Islamists, they are all Wahhabi in nature and share that creed. Whether you look at North Africa or Lashkar-e-Taiba, they are Wahabi in creed and Islamist in politics. By embracing former terrorists who are still Islamists, there is a danger of a short term tactical gain and a long term ideological loss. By empowering former jihadists, who are yet to recant Islamism itself, are we reinforcing the same ideology that produced terrorism, and if it doesn’t produce it again there is a danger at the very least that they could obtain power and establish a totalitarian state that does not believe in national borders and will conquer neighbors."
October 2, 2008 12:50 PM Print

Police Treatment of Journalist Prompts Outcry in France

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 30, 2008; A21

PARIS, Nov. 29 -- The knocks on his door came at 6:40 a.m., Vittorio de Filippis recalled, when Paris was still dark and he was fast asleep. Three police officers -- a pair of men and a woman, all wearing armbands -- had come to take him in.

By the time his ordeal ended five hours later, about 11:30 a.m. Friday, the journalist wrote, he had been manhandled, handcuffed, humiliated in front of his sons, twice forced to strip and submit to body cavity searches and interrogated without lawyers by an investigating magistrate -- all over a two-year-old libel case.

The treatment meted out to Filippis, an executive and former editor in chief of the Paris newspaper Liberation, prompted an outcry Saturday from his colleagues, lawyers and other supporters, who said the tactics were out of place in a country with long and cherished traditions of rule of law and freedom of expression.

The case created a perfect media storm in a country whose citizens love nothing better than a good argument over grand principles. Liberation, a reliably left-wing daily that got its start during the youth uprising of 1968, was well cast for the role of victim. And the police, who have wide latitude in handling suspects under French law, were a natural target for opponents of President Nicolas Sarkozy's law-and-order approach to government.

"In 30 years, this is the first time I have heard of or seen such a thing," said Jean-Paul Levy, one of the newspaper's attorneys. "I am scandalized that this kind of treatment would be inflicted on him over an offense that is only punishable by a fine and not by prison."

Reporters Without Borders, a media advocacy group, condemned what it called "coercive methods" and said they were a sign of "deterioration in press freedom in France." In a statement, the group said: "We are outraged by the unacceptable methods used against Vittorio de Filippis and their humiliating nature. Such a thing has never before been heard of in France. To treat a journalist like a criminal and resort to practices such as body searches is not only shocking but unworthy of French justice."

The Socialist Party's parliamentary spokeswoman, Aurélie Filippetti, denounced what she called "the scandalous conditions" of Filippis's interrogation. She portrayed his treatment as part of an effort, "yet again, to put limits on freedom of the press," suggesting that Sarkozy's government was trying to clamp down on its critics, among whom Liberation would have to rank near the top.

The investigating magistrate, Muriel Josie, refused requests from French journalists for an explanation of what happened. The police issued no formal comment. But Agence France-Presse, the country's main news agency, quoted anonymous police officials as saying that Filippis was hauled in because he had not responded to mailed summons and received rough treatment because he talked back to the "irreproachable" officers who had come to his door.

Filippis, in a detailed account published Saturday by Liberation, said Josie questioned him about a lawsuit brought against the newspaper last year. The suit concerned an opinion article contributed by an Internet commentator and published by Liberation's Web site that described past legal troubles of Xavier Niel, founder of a French Internet access company called Free.

Filippis led the newspaper from May to December 2006, when the article appeared, and thus was responsible under French law. But Josie's main complaint, he wrote, was that he had ignored her mailed summons, forcing her to resort to the arrest warrant. He replied, he said, that he routinely relayed to his attorneys all communications related to the case and that their names and telephone numbers, as well as his own, were in the directory.

Aside from the legal case, the uproar focused mainly on how Filippis was treated by police on his way to the interrogation. In what Filippis acknowledged was a heated exchange, the officers who showed up at his home barred him from calling his attorneys and ordered him to get dressed and go with them.

"Awaked by the noise, my elder son, who is 14, witnessed the whole scene," he wrote in Liberation. "His brother, who is 10, did not come out of his room, but I learned afterward that he was awakened and took this moment very badly."

He continued: "I told the cops that there was perhaps another way to conduct themselves. The response in front of my son: 'You, you are worse than scum.' "

After a stop at the suburban Raincy police station, near his home, Filippis said, he was handcuffed with his arms behind his back and driven to the main Paris courthouse beside the Seine River in the center of the city. After taking all his personal effects, police ordered him to strip and bend over for a body search, he said, before locking him in a cell.

"The room had a table, a roll of toilet paper, a concrete sleeping platform with two blankets," Filippis said. "I saw a toilet in a corner. I sat on the table to avoid the cockroaches and moths."

About 10 a.m., two officers escorted him down a long corridor and ordered him to undress for another search. When he protested, Filippis said, he was told that the investigating magistrate had insisted on following procedure, and so he submitted a second time before being taken into Josie's office.

Josie said she had summoned him numerous times without success, he said, and asked him to identify his attorneys from a list of names. She refused his request to call the lawyers, he added, and so, in a testy exchange, he declined to respond further to her questions. After formally notifying him that he was being investigated in the libel case, she ordered him released, he said, and he found himself on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse.