Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is blaming war opponents for low Army recruitment. There is some interesting text at the end of the bio on his official Senate web site:

"They have four grown children and twelve grandchildren."

As far as I know, none of his progeny are in the military. Sounds like there is an issue for the taking if anyone prominent enough who has a research staff wants to go for it.

Meanwhile, the corporate media are acting as stenographers for the Bush Administration’s claims that the Army met its recruitment goal for June, while conveniently neglecting to mention that this was only the case because the goal had been lowered drastically.

The overwrought corporate media coverage of the death of Wal-Mart clan member John Walton is disturbing if you think about it. Consider how many Wal-Mart employees have died because that company refuses to provide most of its workers with health insurance. Why haven’t the corporate media lavished the same attention of these senseless deaths of people who worked at Wal-Mart?

This is typical of a corporate media that censors news stories that make its advertisers look bad. It also reflects the lack of value the “mainstream” media place on the lives of people who are poor.

We are seeing another parallel between the Bush regime and the Nixon Administration. Just as the Nixon Administration talked about “Vietnamization” and started negotiating with the Vietnamese nationalists, the Bush regime has started the process of a spun surrender.

The Bush regime is training an “Iraqi military” that has no interest in fighting for the occupation. The skills they are receiving will come in handy when the Shiites and Sunnis begin their battle for who will rule in post-occupation Iraq. This reminds history buffs of how the Nixon administration trained Vietnamese who had no interest in defending the puppet regime in South Vietnam.

Now, we have learned that the Bush regime has started secret talks with the rebels. For over a year, it has been no secret that Bush has lost the war. Now, even they are starting to face their failure.

This is a common refrain online these days. Some may think this overly personalizes the politics of Iraq, but I disagree. Iraq is highly personal to the families of US troops killed there. It is just as personal to the thousands of US fighting people maimed in a crusade for Halliburton, Big Oil, and the Religious Right.

The Bush regime tries to do everything it can to hide the fact that our young people are dying in Iraq. They still refuse to let the media photograph the body bags that give testimony to the sacrifices of the dead. GOP shills in the media attack any news outlet that honors our fallen.

The sad reality is that the only conceivable way to get Bush to take the dying seriously is for members of his own family to be on the line in Iraq. Bush treats the dying of US troops as something of little or no consequence. For him, dying in wars is for the little people.

On the Yahoo Message Boards, you get a look into what the rightists are really thinking, without the spin doctors to clean things up. Here are some quotes that let you know the far right’s unsanitized perspective:

To allow freaks and degenerate homos to adopt or receive children thru foster care is only inviting the sexual abuse and attempted homosexual conversion of thousands of innocent children at the hands of these sick animals!!

Democrats hate democracy, they lose to often.

The Muslim religion should be equivocated to the Nazi regieme of the last century.

HEY MIKEY...
did you really think we would forget or forgive the murder of Terri??

The wide spread pedophilia phenomenon is a homosexual dilemma.
It is a dilemma that gay-marriage will not overcome. This is why we know that the Party of Treason will soon lobby to decriminalize pedophilia. The Jackson trial may have been a channel by which the issue is introduced to the public. It is a normal progression once homosexuality becomes part of the culture.

You can dress it up all you want but the fact is a so called husband is murdering his wife by starving her to death, while he enjoys the comforts of wife #2 waiting in the wings.
And the so called justice system is helping him.
Her blood is on all those who are helping him to do this.
All of you are guilty of her murder.

Phuck you, loser......you epitomize the LIBTURD losers who will cost the Democrat Party dearly for at least a generation....perhaps even longer...
You are incapable of holding a civil discussion.....bye, bye loser......

WHITES NEED TO FORM A HIT SQUAD
To take out Muslims. And I don't mean to lunch.

Note: I do not condone the statements above. They are being posted for purposes of illustration only.

For over a year now, it has been obvious that Bush has lost the war in Iraq. The insurgency grows in strength; international opposition to the war stays strong; and the few corrupt governments that have sent their troops to help Bush in his war are gradually withdrawing their forces.

The biggest winners of this war have been Osama bin Laden and Al Queda. This war had toppled their time enemy, Saddam Hussein, while helping Al Queda recruit terrorists. Adding to the magnitude of the disaster, the war in Iraq has caused a dramatic increase in bin Laden’s popularity in the Muslim world.

A phony “election,” where the results were rigged to keep the government from representing the large majority of Iraqi voters who chose Shia parties, has done nothing to stabilize the situation. In a Kurdish area of the country, Christians were not even allowed to vote.

Four more US troops were killed today, leaving the official total at 1682 killed. The corporate media generally don’t bother to report on the troops that are maimed in this nutty war.

The Iraqis we are training to serve in that country’s military are merely seeking skills they can use for the insurgency. As of last summer, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the war. Who knows how many more have been slaughtered since then?

Yet, the corporate-owned media refuse to report the fact that Bush has lost this war. They even avoid reporting on the deaths of American soldiers now. The pro-war, pro-GOP, pro-Bush bias of these corporate “news” outlets gets more blatant as time goes by. Is it any wonder so many people are seeking uncorrupted sources of news and information?

The Washington Post’s usual habit is to propagandize in favor of corporate interests and the GOP in its “news pages” while running moderate to liberal editorials. This lets them promote their right-wing agenda while giving their knuckle-walking rightist subscribers the proper impression that they are part of the “liberal media.” Every once in a while, they slip up big time as was the case in their recent editorial trying to put a positive spin on Bush’s gulags.

The Post actually had the audacity to write about Amnesty International’s use of the term “gulags” in the following manner:

But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States.

This is laughable when you remember that George W. Bush is illegally occupying the White House due to not one, but two stolen elections. Thus far, the Post has refused to report that either election has been stolen. This claim also is deceptive because condemning the actions of the Bush regime is not condemning the United States. The Bush regime in no way represents the United States.

The Post also falsely claimed that “Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants during wartime.” In fact, the gulag at Guantanamo Bay is part of the Bush regime’s broader desire to torture and imprison Muslims. So far, none of the American citizens illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay has been charged or tried in a legitimate court of law.

The Post goes on to say:

Abuses there -- including new evidence of desecrating the Koran -- have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military.

These “investigations” have been mere coverups. There has yet to be any Special Prosecutor appointed to determine the Bush regime’s roll in the mass torture, rape, and murder of prisoners in their gulags. If legitimate criminal investigations had been taken place, senior Bush administration officials already would have been indicted for war crimes. If the press in the US were truly independent of corporate corruption and the Bush regime’s political influence, every major daily paper in this country already would have called for Bush’s and Cheney’s impeachments. There would be equally strong calls in the nation’s daily newspapers for Bush Administration officials to be tried for crimes against humanity.

The Post also engages in homophobic rhetoric in its editorial.

Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies.

The Washington Post’s use of the terms “Bush-basing” and “America-bashing” is outrageous. Equating completely fair, accurate, and legitimate criticism of brutal policies with violent assaults and murders of people on the basis of their sexual orientations and gender identities is viciously heterosexist. The Post owes all of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender readers an immediate apology for this bigoted rhetoric.

The use of the second term adds additional insult given the fact that every patriotic American is outraged at the Bush regime and its gulags.

The Post has abandoned the pretense of any kind of journalistic professionalism or editorial judgement. The Post is nothing more than a propaganda device for corporate interests, the GOP, and the Religious Right. There is no point in even buying the paper. It is a complete joke.