"How I Spent the Last Six Years," A brief list that might easily have been written by George W. Bush.

Regarding the attacks:

• Ignored persistent warnings of an imminent terrorist attack.
• Continued reading The Pet Goat ...
• Went up in Air Force One after having been informed it was a likely target.
• Spent the day in a panicky runaround, leaving it to others to reassure and inform a shocked nation.
• Later sold photographs of self on same day for purposes of Republican fundraising.
• Purposely misled rescue workers and volunteers about the safety of the air quality around Ground Zero.
• Declared, like Wyatt Earp, that he would capture Bin Laden "dead or alive."
• Told the rest of the world either they were "with us or against us," like Superman or something ...
• Ignored the fact that most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia; pretended they were from Iraq.

Regarding Afghanistan:

• Refused the help of NATO.
• Squandered numerous opportunities to capture bin Laden, allowing him to escape at Tora Bora and elsewhere.
• Rejected a more effective strategy of police work and targeting killings for mass bombings that helped alienate the population.
• Allowed the Taliban to regroup and rebuild.
• Allowed Al Qaeda to regroup and rebuild.
• Allowed heroin production and exports to increase.
• Allowed country to lapse back into chaos and threaten nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Regarding America:

• Insisted on the right to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without right to habeas corpus, thereby invalidating virtually the entire Constitution.
• Kidnapped individuals for the purpose of "rendition" and certain torture, violating national laws at will.
• Opened secret torture prisons in former police states and lied about it.
• Wiretapped American citizens without warrant or lawful authority.
• Monitored the actions of loyal patriotic organizations without warrant or lawful authority.
• Attacked patriotism of everyone who questioned mindless path to self-destruction and attacked media sources who informed Americans of the actions of their government as having "blood on their hands."
• Set up ineffective, scandal-plagued Department of Homeland Security.
• Failed to protect obvious targets like nuclear and chemical power plants, ports, and the like.
• Hyped phony arrests of unserious nutcases as victories in war on terrorism.
• Refused New York City sufficient funds to protect itself from future attack.

Regarding Iraq:

• Lied about evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
• Lied about ties to Al Qaeda.
• Lied about Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
• Lied about infamous "Prague meeting."
• Lied about lying about all of it.
• Attempted to destroy reputation of loyal government servant, Joe Wilson.
• Lied about willingness to fire anyone involved with doing so.
• Failed to provide troops with sufficient body armor, vehicular protection.
• Insisted on repeated stop-loss orders.
• Cut medical spending for wounded veterans, resulting in substandard care for the wounded.
• Refused to allow photographs of honored war dead.
• Refused to attend funerals of killed soldiers.
• Refused to give a military recruitment speech.
• Told Americans to go shopping; offered further tax breaks to the wealthy, asking sacrifices of no one but soldiers and their families.
• Opened and maintained a prison at Guantánamo that violated U.S. and international law, branding the United States as a rogue nation.
• Misled Congress for purposes of securing war authority.
• Failed to send sufficient troops for post-invasion occupation.
• Failed to heed any postwar planning recommendations.
• Failed to ensure restoration of order, post-invasion.
• Failed to secure weapons sites, post invasion.
• Failed to reach out to population.
• Refused to count numbers of civilian dead and wounded.
• Failed to set up functional government, police force, etc.
• Arrested innocent individuals for the purpose of torture.
• Lied, once again, about ties to Al Qaeda.
• Failed to re-assess failed strategy, refused to replace incompetent subordinates.
• Failed to heed message of 2006 congressional elections to draw down war, escalated it instead.
• Failed to heed both Iraqi and U.S. population's repeatedly polled preference for withdrawal.
• Squandered sympathy of entire world, drastically sinking global opinion of the United States.
• Squandered hundreds of billions -- and, ultimately, trillions -- of dollars, destroying a functioning nation.
• Strengthened Iran.
• Strengthened Syria.
• Strengthened Libya.
• Weakened Israel.
• Weakened Jordan.
• Weakened Egypt.
• Killed more than 3,000 Americans.
• Wounded nearly 30,000 Americans.
• Killed and wounded untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
• Provided recruitment material for terrorists the world over.
• Continually attacked the patriotism of those who suggested alternatives that might have avoided much of the above.
• Redoubled "determination," "strength," "grit," etc., every time any of the previous disasters was discovered.

And perhaps most amazingly of all: Got most of the mainstream media to go along with almost all of it ...

O’Hanlon pushes Iraq line in right wing press tour.

This morning, Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon published a column on National Review Online pre-emptively defending Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony to Congress about Iraq. He followed it up with an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s conservative radio show. As Matthew Yglesias points out, O’Hanlon appears to now be casting “himself out of the broad left-of-center community in favor of becoming a conservative movement propagandist whose salary just happens to be paid by Brookings.”

Deadline arrives for missing White House emails.

Today marks a key deadline set by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for the White House to “turn over a report first requested three months ago about the White House’s problems with lost e-mail,” which was “generated by the still-unknown private contractor who claims to have ‘lost’ those 5 million White House e-mails.”

America- Home Of The Afraid

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." - Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The above statement has been said by our current political leaders at one time or another. Most recently in regard to the case of Lane Mikaloff. Lane Mikaloff served 16 years in prison for rape. In November of 2002 He was paroled by the State of Ohio and has been living in a house his family has owned for half a century. He finished serving his parole in 2004.In 2005, the State of Ohio sent him a letter telling him he had to vacate his house because he was violating a law that was effective in 2003 that prohibits sex offenders from living within a 1000 feet of a school The law, declared our leaders, such as Summit County Prosecutor Sheri Bevan Walsh protects our children. On September 5, 2007 Judge James Gwin of the U.S. District Court found the 1,000-foot restriction to be an unconstitutional punishment. Gwin wrote the state can't block sex offenders from living near schools if they committed their crime before legislators enacted the ban in 2003.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh plans to appeal the ruling.

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann argued that the decision does not affect anyone but Mikaloff. "This ruling is based on the unique set of facts and circumstances presented to the court by this plaintiff, and affects him alone," Dann said in a statement.

But David Singleton, executive director of the Cincinnati-based Ohio Justice and Policy Center, disagreed.

"That's like saying that Brown versus Board of Education only applied to the Brown plaintiff," he said, referring to the landmark case that barred segregation in public schools.

The case is a small victory for civil liberties as we approach the 6 year anniversary of 9/11/2001. A day that is so commonly used by our leaders to stir up fear. A day invoked when We the People so willingly gave up the rights with a little law called the Patriot Act. The very same rights our troops died for fighting Hitler in World War II.

It seems this day and age our elected officials rule through fear. If they can keep us scared, they can more easily control us. And it is so easy to pick a minority group to target. History is riddled with groups that our officials held up to be feared. People who look Arab are targeted because a group of God Fearing Saudi Arabians attacked us 6 years ago this week. Senator Joseph McCarthy had the talent of grabbing power through fear down to an art form through labeling people a Communist. Right now, our leaders use sex offenders as the chosen people to be the Face to Fear. They are a easy group to target because someone just out of prison does not have the resources to stand up to the power of the state. (Unless you are Cynthia George.)

We the People have the government we deserve. We decided long ago to give up holding our elected officials accountable. We chose to have sports command our attention more than the laws that are being passed, that we later complain about. We the people decide it is not necessary to fund public schools. We the people decided to give up our parenting rights and responsibility of keeping our children safe and gave them to our Fearless Leaders like Sheri Bevan Walsh, Alex Arshinkoff, Bob Ney, Bob Taft, George W Bush, Dick Cheney. So rally around the American Flag and put a new Support Our Troops bumper sticker on the SUV that were all made in China in preparation of Remembering 9/11. And be afraid...

Federal Election Commission Fines 527s Left And Right

In going after the issue-advocacy groups known as 527 committees, the Federal Election Commission is bipartisan. Two of these committees -- one Republican, one Democratic -- are facing fines from the FEC, perhaps meant to send a message to similar groups about how they should conduct themselves in the 2008 election cycle. Both the progressive America Coming Together and conservative Citizens Club for Growth went beyond their scope as 527 committees during recent elections, the FEC said, spending money beyond just "generic" activities, such as voter drives, and instead targeting individual candidates. America Coming Together, a group backed by major Democratic supporter George Soros, agreed to pay a $775,000 fine last week for spending money in 2004 on political ads and telemarketing. Although this is the FEC's third-largest fine in its history, it's just a drop in the bucket for ACT, which raised $79.8 million in 2004 -- more than any other group that cycle. Citizens Club for Growth agreed to a $350,000 penalty for failing to register as a political committee between 2000 and 2004, when the FEC claims the group spent at least $1.28 million to support or oppose the election of specific candidates for federal office. Club for Growth spent $7.2 million in the 2006 election cycle.

*Announcement of the FEC's settlement with America Coming Together: www.fec.gov/press/press2007/20070829act.shtml

*Profile of America Coming Together's 2004 activity: www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtes2.asp?ein=&cycle=2004&format=&tname=America+Coming+Together

*Announcement of the FEC's settlement with Citizens Club for Growth: www.fec.gov/press/press2007/20070905cfg.shtml

* Profile of Citizens Club for Growth's 2006 activity: www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtes2.asp?ein=&cycle=2006&format=&tname=Club+for+Growth

Special Election To Be Held To Fill Vacancy

Rep. Paul Gillmor, who represented northwest Ohio, died suddenly this week, creating a vacancy in the Buckeye State's 5th House District. First elected to Congress in 1988, Gillmor was considered a moderate Republican who pushed for enacting financial service reforms, establishing a national database for sex offenders and using energy bill funds to clean up commercially contaminated sites. He raised $3.5 million during his time in Congress, with commercial banks, insurance companies and electric utilities as his top donors. In his 2006 race, Gillmor raised nearly five times more money than his Democratic challenger. Re-elected with ease, he nevertheless drew criticism back home for living mostly outside of his district, in a $1 million house near his wife's job in suburban Columbus. Gillmor's body was found Wednesday at his townhouse outside Washington. A special election will fill the seat in the solidly Republican district.
*Rep. Paul Gillmor's Career Profile: www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allsummary.asp?CID=N00003660

Fred Finally Makes It Official

It's (finally) official. After months of raising money and talking like a bona fide presidential hopeful, lawyer turned lobbyist, senator turned actor, and current InfoCision client, Fred Thompson announced this week that he is officially in the race to add president to his resume. For months Thompson has been raising money through a 527 committee, "Friends of Fred Thompson," which some analysts said was his attempt to dodge federal campaign finance rules by not filing reports with the Federal Election Commission. Although Thompson's campaign had hoped to raise about $5 million this way, the committee had brought in about $2 million by the end of July, with law firms, retirees and the real estate industry contributing most. More than half of his haul came from his home state of Tennessee. Some of his top donors include employees of the investment adviser INS Capital Management, the Missouri-based holding company Gannon International and the Washington law and lobbying firm Akin, Gump. Individual supporters include Howard Baker, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee; Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, who played for the University of Tennessee in college; and William Haslam, mayor of Knoxville.

*Read more about Fred Thompson's donors:
www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=297