I hate to admit it, but there is this malevolent part of me that dreams up stuff like this. What if Cindy McCain was tired of John's boorish behavior and was just waiting for the right opportunity to get revenge?

This is her chance. And it could be a double header.

First, in mid-October she would file for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Ouch! Then, just a week before the election she would reveal that she has started seeing Bill Clinton.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! OK, back to reality now (for those who prefer it).

Do the Dems (Pelosi/Reid/Obama) secretly fear that Bush could allow another 9/11 to happen, yes, I said "allow", just like how BushCo allowed the first 9/11 to happen via their "benign neglect" of tons of credible advance warnings.

I don't want to debate here now how the first 9/11 happened. I want to debate here now why the Dems are folding on FISA (and folding on other progressive stuff that we want) like acordions, and by "Dems" I am also including the oh-so-holy Obama who can do no wrong (I support him, so back off, and don't give me any grief.)

McCain's candidacy is a dead duck, everybody knows that.

I think that Pelosi/Reid/Obama thinks that the only thing that can POSSIBLY save McCain's candidacy is for another 9/11 to occur in America, anytime from now until election day.

Please allow me elaborate

Hillary and her supporters are out there pushing the idea that they're worried about an "October surprise" with respects to Barack Obama's campaign.  This is ridiculous.  

Barack Obama or John McCain could drop dead tomorrow; does that mean we choose new candidates based on what 'could' happen?  Heck, even Hillary could drop dead tomorrow; does that mean we ‘shouldn’t' vote for her because of that possibility?

Scott Ritter hasn't been wrong about too many things regarding U.S. intentions in the Middle East.  He was one of the few who called "bullsh*t" on Bushco's claims of WMD's in Iraq.  A former Marine and former Republican, he's not exactly a partisan player, he seems to be a guy who just doesn't like being lied to.  And now he's telling us there's a "virtual guarantee" of a strike against Iran:

Ritter: US will target Iran next

We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command. And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets.

.

This time... the whining excuses of neocon enablers and how the next wave of "reforms" may set us up for the next big ripoff...

...but first...

’A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt U.S. government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets....  Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.  Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.... She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents."

.....more...
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I don't know how well known Canadian reporter Gwynne Dyer is known in the U.S, but in Canada, he is one of the most highly respected voices on foreign affairs.

He predicts the success of the surge could end around September 2008:

I had a very scary thought last night, as I was reading a pretty good diary attempting to debunk the whole Rezko-Obama situation.
We know Patrick Fitzgerald is a good guy.
And we know that so far, he hasn't said anything to cast guilt on Barack Obama.

So why am I worried?
Take the jump, please...

I've got no crystal ball, but the Republican's strategy is pretty easy to see.  They've been telegraphing their punches for a long time on the National Association of Manufacturing, Chamber of Commerce, and other big supporters of the Republicans.  And the Democratic Candidates aren't seeing the punch coming, aren't preparing to defend themselves, so they could be KO'd by the GOP's right hook.

I'm talking of course about playing the Democracy card.  

The Republicans and their corporate cronies have been claiming the Democrats support an "undemocratic" and "Orwellian-named" bill in almost daily blogs, press releases, and news articles.  This is great rhetoric, and most Americans won't need to hear anymore than that to vote for a Republican President who will stand up for Democracy.  

The bill in question is the Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House, but is blocked in the Senate by a threatened filibuster.  For any action this year, Democrats would have to compromise on the EFCA in the Senate, something that Republicans feared, saying Democrats may re-insert card-check during the House-Senate Conference.

A lot of folks seem to think that a Hillary presidency would be a continuation of the Bill Clinton presidency, a notion that Hillary has encouraged. While there are a number of good things that Bill Clinton did, there are some other things that need to never happen again - especially his policies of regime change and military intervention (remember Operation Desert Fox?) in Iraq, which Dubya continued.

Further, Bill Clinton (with the agreement of the craven Democratic leadership in Congress) swept the crimes of the Bush administration under the rug. They did this in order to "get along" with Republicans in Congress. Clinton's decision to let Bush the elder off the hook has had disasterous consequences; Hillary has given no indication that she will not do the very same thing and the Democratic "leadership" in Congress appears to be following that very path now.

Sherman, set the time machine for the 1990's...

There seems to have been none and that's surprising. Unless you count the surprise Rev. Haggard's wife received. Sweet Jesus.

There is convincing evidence that Robert Gates was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, and the ensuing "cover up." Over the years, his name has also surfaced in discussions regarding the Iran hostages.

Long story short: while researching for this diary, I found a jewel of a diary that contains 90% of what I wanted to say - and then some. The diary by Paul Rosenberg, "Gates Gate? -- Is Rummy's Replacement Even More Scandalous?" was rescued, but still got only 35 recommends and 32 comments. As described in the Diary Rescue, "Paul Rosenberg's must-read Gates Gate? -- Is Rummy's Replacement Even More Scandalous? is a fascinating deconstruction of Bush's nominee for Secretary of Defense." Everyone should read Paul Rosenberg's diary.

Republished from Random Lengths News

Is Bush’s nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld another scandal just waiting to happen? And why don’t the Democrats seem to care?

Over two decades before the Bush Administration first thought about politicizing intelligence to build a phony case for war against Iraq, Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey, played a trailblazing role in politicizing intelligence within the CIA, vastly inflating the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and blaming it for a wide range of terrorism it had nothing to do with. His right hand man was Robert Gates, President Bush’s appointee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

But Gates did more than politicize intelligence.  His involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, selling weapons to the terrorist-supporting Iranian government to illegally fund the terrorist Nicaraguan Contras—came close to getting him indicted.

President Bush yesterday fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a last-ditch attempt to rally his base and stave off a GOP disaster in the midterm elections.

When told that the election had already taken place, and that his party had suffered a bloodbath worthy of "Fight Club of Fallujah," Bush explained that he must've been relying on the official GOP Calendar, which is based on the 19th Century.

However, when informed of the GOP's disastrous loss of both houses of Congress, Bush admitted that he had been somewhat distracted by a contest he had entered into with Karl Rove: "Maybe if I had been more of a  delegator, and less of a masturbator, things woulda' turned out differently."

Rep. Duncan Hunter slipped into the recent military spending bill a provision to eliminate the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The deed had to be done  with stealth, because everybody of sense opposes this loss of oversight in Iraq. Several members of Congress say they plan to reverse the provision. Hunter tried to portray it as a "return to a non-wartime footing in which inspectors general in the State Department, the Pentagon and elsewhere would investigate American programs overseas."

But in Congress, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, there have long been accusations that agencies controlled by the Bush administration are not inclined to unearth their own shortcomings in the first place.

And there is the rub.

In 2004, the October surprise was the videotape of someone said to be bin Ladin, the Friday just before the election...and....it seems to have had the desired effect for GOP (polls flipped that weekend).  This year, it seems to be another muslim figure, Saddam Hussein, whose death verdict has just been announced.  It remains to be seen whether this may give the GOP the boost Rove et al. have sought.  Perhaps the somewhat sketchy evidence of a GOP surge (faulty polling--repub overrepresentation, perhaps?) is more than just regression to the mean.  Maybe the Hussein verdict is giving the GOP a bit of a bounce, maybe 1 or 2%.  Maybe not, but it seems likely that the Hussein verdict was engineered to help the GOP this November.

Most of us have known it was coming, and can be assured that George Walker Bush and his unelected government in Washington have been preparing for this day for a long time: the not-so-well-kept-secret of: The Saddam Hussein verdict.

Here's a link to an article by Anthony Wade in "opednews.com": http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_anthony__061103_the_dawning_of_karl_.htm http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_anthony__061103_the_dawning_of_karl_.htm What the article doesn't address: (see below)

Saddam is expected to be found guilty this Sunday (I thought that they were considering postponing the verdict...can someone update me one that?) Assuming it goes forward, we have to be prepared for any temporary bounce that could help Bush and Republican Congressional candidates.