Former Deputy Director of FEMA, Michael Brown, of post-Katrina "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" fame in a recent interview... "I recall telling Secretary Chertoff back in 2004 and 2005 that this country was not ready for a catastrophic event. I had been to the tsunami in southeast Asia, and I came back and I told the president and I told Chertoff that we're not ready. We don't have the plans, the processes in place to do this. "...right now, they're trying to redo the natural response plan. This is the fifth rewrite of this thing since DHS was created. We're in the middle of hurricane season, they put one out without even talking to state and local governments. It shows that DHS is just completely dysfunctional."
And speaking of Obama: http://www.thedemocrat.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1867&dept_id=124331&newsid=18697308&PAG=461&rfi=9 That democrat was referring to this statement where Obama says he wants to surrender to the terrorists in Iraq, and invade our ally Pakistan: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101233.html Apparently, he figures we are too busy bombing civilians in Afghanistan:
In a serious break with the White House Republican Rep. Jim Walsh (Wa), who last visited Iraq four years ago, returned from another trip on 9/10/07 and said, "Before I went, I was not prepared to say it's time to start bringing our troops home. I am prepared to say that now. It's time."
Recent U.S. intelligence estimates put Al Qaeda's share of attacks in Iraq at about 15%. That didn't stop Fox New's Brit Hume from asking Gen. David Patraeus... "Has this, in an ultimate sense, turned out to be, more than anything else, a war with Al Qaeda?"
Mexican President Felipe Calderon... "Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico." (uh oh)
Love or hate his economic policies Alan Greenspan has been involved in the upper echelons of power for close to 40 years, starting with Nixon, on through his appointment by Reagan in '87 to be Federal Reserve Chairman (a post he held for 18 years). He was in Ayn Rand's inner circle and always described himself as a Libertarian Republican. During those four decades he knew all the movers 'n shakers in Washington and in his new book "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World" (which comes out Monday) he makes a few surprising comments about Clinton, Bush, and Iraq. "The hard truth was that Reagan had borrowed from Clinton, and Clinton was having to pay it back. I was impressed that he did not seem to be trying to fudge reality to the extent politicians ordinarily do. He was forcing himself to live in the real world." "[Clinton] was a fellow information hound... We both read books and were curious and thoughtful about the world... I never ceased to be surprised by his fascination with economic detail... He had an eye for the big picture too." "My biggest frustration remained the president's [George W. Bush] unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending. Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency." "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
If this pink flyer from 2002 turns out to be legitimate (when Romney was running for governor with Kerry Healey as his running mate) then it doesn't bode well for Mitt winning over the conservative base... <img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1608806">
This just in from one of ET's very own moonbats who considers Americans who support the Iraq war effort to be fanatics no better than the descendants of Al-Zarqawi. Not only that, the moonbat expresses skepticism that "a significant quantity" of those killed by US forces want to behead Americans:
With the U.S. Dollar (USDX) at its alltime historical low Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had this to say (again) on Sept 21, 2007... "I feel very strongly that a strong dollar is in our nation's interest and we believe currency values should be set in a competitive marketplace based on underlying economic fundamentals." (uh oh... serious disconnect...)