While President Bush, Laura, Jenna, and Barbara dined safely on thier Thanksgiving dinner on the Crawford Ranch, the war protesting continued.  The UP reported this on November 24, 2005:

Antiwar protesters remain camped near President Bush’s Texas ranch on land belonging to one of his neighbors.

The encampment features a large white tent and a banner that reads "No Pardon for Crawford’s Turkey." The group plans to mark Thanksgiving by serving an Iraqi meal, the Washington Post reported.

On Wednesday, a group challenged a new Crawford ordinance that bans roadside camping within 7 miles of the Bush ranch. Those arrested included Daniel Ellsberg, the former government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War.

Cindy Sheehan, who spent several weeks in Crawford last summer, was expected to join the protesters Friday, after being delayed by a family emergency. Sheehan’s son was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Bush and his family are spending Thanksgiving at the ranch. According to the White House the menu includes roasted free-range turkey with herbed stuffing, chipotle-maple whipped sweet potatoes and Texas pecan pie.

Today on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer show, Seymour Hersh, reporter for the New Yorker Magazine once called a terrorist by Richard Perle, stated he felt that President Bush is incapeable to responding to reality regarding issues of the war.  Hersh alluded to Bush’s previous conversation with God telling him this war was his destiny, and Hersh doubts that the President can face a change in God’s policy.  He notes Bush is unreceptive to reality reports regarding the progress of the US troops in Iraq.

Hersh also reported that some of his confidential sources are telling him that the Bush administration is planning to pull out some of the ground troops in Iraq and replace them with Iraqi troops.  Hersh revealed his military contacts are concerned about this, citing that the US air troops will be directed to tagets by the Iraqi ground troops.  Targets would be completely out of control of the US Military.

Check the transcripts on cnn.com for further comments by Hersh.

Cheney has come out of his hole to enguage in a little old fashioned damage control after the stunt the Republican pulled in the house last friday backfired.  He’s making the rounds on the speech circuit, but about 100 anti-war protesters got a hold of him last Tuesday at the University of Tennesee in Knoxville.

Others who attended the groundbreaking and birthday included Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Jim Haslam II, a member of the UT Board of Trustees.

UT President John Petersen hosted the ceremony, which about 500 people attended at the Thompson-Boling Assembly Center and Arena.

 About three minutes into Cheney’s speech, a woman shouted, "War, what is it good for?"

Another pair of protesters answered from a different part of the arena. UT police hustled both groups outside.

A few moments later, three protesters of the Iraq conflict raised a green and white sign demanding "Peace Now."

"Stop the war!" they shouted.

They, too, were escorted outside. Police took the names of the protesters but did not arrest them……….

…A group of Cheney supporters were upset by the disruptions inside the arena and confronted the protesters on the street corner. One of the Cheney supporters, dressed in a suit and tie, taunted the protesters with vulgarities.

There were over a hundred students there to protest the event.  It was even reported by the BBC, but sadly nobody in this country got a look.   Take a look at some pictures here

According to CNN , the number of Americans needlessly killed in Iraq top 1,979 Americans, 2,176 coalition troops total.

According to the Osama Clock on BuzzFlash, as of today it has been 1,491 days since Bush vowed to capture Osama Bin Laden dead or alive for killing 2,752 innocent Americans in the World Trade Center.

Is Osama’s life worth more than 1,979 of our own? Aparently Bush thinks so. Refresh yourself with the Bin Laden/Bush ties and you will understand money, not liberty, is the motive.

Republicans value money above all else. Their actions (and inactions) prove it.

According to an AP report today:

CRAWFORD, Texas - A determined mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who has pledged to hold a roadside peace protest near President Bush’s ranch until he talks to her said Sunday that she met with the president shortly after her son died.

Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., said she was among several relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq who were invited to meet with Bush in June 2004 at Fort Lewis near Seattle, Wash.

She said her meeting with Bush occurred two months after her son, Casey, was killed in Sadr City, Irag, on April 4, 2004. Since then, she said, various government and independent commission reports have disputed the Bush administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein had mass-killing chemical and biological weapons — a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.

“I was still in shock then,” Sheehan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It takes about eight or nine months for the shock to subside. Now, I’m angry. I want the troops home.

“All of those reports prove my son died needlessly. This proved that every reason George Bush gave us for going to war was wrong.”

Sheehan has not seen Bush, but she did talk for about 45 minutes on Saturday with Steve Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, and Joe Hagin, deputy White House chief of staff, who went out to hear her concerns.

Appreciative of their attention, yet undaunted, Sheehan said she planned to continue her roadside vigil, except for a few breaks, until she gets to talk to Bush. Sheehan, who formed a group called Gold Star Families For Peace, has spoken out against the war across the nation.

She alleged that Secret Service agents in Crawford were trying to coerce her into leaving. She said the agents have told protesters that if they stay along the road, about five miles from Bush’s ranch, they may be hit by Secret Service vehicles.

The Secret Service in Washington said it was unaware of any such incidents.

“We respect the right of the public to demonstrate to express their views,” said Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry. “Our goal is to have a safe environment for our protectees — in this case — the president — and the demonstrators who want to express their views.”

End AP:

Let me print this again: Secret Service agents in Crawford were trying to coerce her into leaving. She said the agents have told protesters that if they stay along the road, about five miles from Bush’s ranch, they may be hit by Secret Service vehicles.

Obviously the Republicans think they are above having to abide by the free speech mandated in the constitution. Ever since they have been in power, they have abused it and they are getting more arrogant about it every day.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. The Bush Administration has changed it’s vocabulary in order to cast the current war in Iraq as a long-term. In a recent speech Rumsfeld dubbed the war “a global struggle against violent extremism” instead of the old-hat, “war on terror”.

The minions are out in force to justify the change. Administration and Pentagon officials say the revamped campaign has grown out of an evolution in Mr. Bush’s own thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke in the new terms on Friday when he addressed an audience in Annapolis, Md., for the retirement ceremony of Adm. Vern Clark as chief of naval operations. Mr. Rumsfeld described America’s efforts as it “wages the global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization.” Oddly enough the word “war” tickled his tongue during his speech in the place “struggle” should be

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had “objected to the use of the term ‘war on terrorism’ before”. That would be before Bush changed the spin. Myers also stated that future efforts require “all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities’ national power.” The solution is “more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military,” he concluded.

Judging from Myers’ remarks, the Bush administration is in a position to beg the support of the world to help clean up the mess it made. In light of this, Bush sends a hardass like Bolton to represent the US to the United Nations. Another shrewd Bush maneuver, but I digress.

Perhaps this is just a typical knee-jerk reaction to new opinion polls that show Americans are increasing pessimistic about the expensive mission in Iraq. Rumors of disersion in the US forces put the dodgers at about 5,000. Those in the military have began complaining that only member of the armed forces are begin asked to sacrifice for the effort. The wealthy class of American has given nothing to the cause – even reaped tax breaks that could have been used to bullet-proof vests and life-saving truck armor.

Americans are also beginning to wake up to the fact that Iraq was not as closely linked to 9/11 as the Bush administration liked to imply. They are starting to realize with the London Bombings, that we need to get our troops home to guard our own soil. Sadly, the recent announcement that pullout will begin in the spring is just a political tactic to lock down the Senate as Republican this 2006 election.

The Bushies don’t give a damn about their country or it’s people, only their power.

American historical filmmaker, Cyrus Kar, got into the wrong taxi outside his hotel in Bagdad and ended up being imprisoned by the US Military for over 50 days. It took a civil lawsuit filed by his family and the ACLU to get the attention of the Department of Defence to let him go.

According to DOD officials, Kar, a veteran of the US Navy and Navy reserves, got into a cab that was later searched by Iraqi security forces and found to contain dozens of washing-machine timers of a type sometimes used by Iraqi insurgents to make improvised explosive devices.

Their only real information about his case, family members said, came from a relatively low-level F.B.I. agent who, after searching Kar’s Los Angeles apartment and investigating his background, told them the circumstances of his arrest. The agent also had told the family Kar had been cleared, but he is still being detained.

“I’m thrilled that Cyrus and Farshid will be released soon, but the question is why it didn’t happen 50 days ago,” said the lead lawyer for Mr. Kar, Mark D. Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “It shouldn’t take a lawsuit to free an innocent man whose only crime was to get in the wrong cab.”

Pentagon officials stated Kar was never mistreated and was kept in the same prison as Saddam Hussein. This was little consolation for the fact he was detained illegally from the beginning.

According to the embassy consular official, although he still has not been released, Mr. Kar still does want to go home until he was able to complete his filming.

Blair has supported Bush since the beginning. He has stood behind him even when he knew Bush was leading his country into an unjustified war. When a Bus exploded in London yesterday killing over 50 people, Blair was officially initiated into the nebulous “war on terror”. A war, you will recall, that even our cowboy president thinks cannot be won.

You can’t protect yourself from terrorism by fighting a war in another country. Iraq is siphoning off a large amount of money and resources we could be using here to protect ourselves. Bush and the Neo Con’s have put the entire country at risk, choosing to pass silly laws on flag buring rather than figuring out how to get us out of this messsy war.

Send our troops home to protect the USA. Leave the oil fantasy for another day.

In a sad attempt to shore up American support for a meaningless war, Bush, addressing the American People on Tuesday, said that the only strategy to tackle militants was to “defeat them abroad before they attack us at home”.

He said he would not send any more US troops to Iraq - and nor would he set a timetable for withdrawing those there. He said setting such a timetable would simply enable the insurgents to wait for a US departure.

He has not more troops. He can’t dupe 16-year-olds fast enough. Nobody believes in this War anymore, and nobody wants to go get killed for no reason.

Bush said, “The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11,”. So why the hell don’t you get Osama? You know where he is…why don’t you avenge the American People and the thousands dead in 9/11?

Bush is such a liar. He lies to line the pockets of Halliburton and his vice-president Dick Cheney. He lies and has innocent Americans killed. He lies so he can continue his Rich-Man Oil Man Fantasy. He is a true sick puppy.

Impeach Bush now. If not now (while the crooked Republicans block the truth), vote Democrat in ‘06 and impeach the bastard then.

The new Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity is reporting to the BBC News that there is massive corruption in most of the new Iraqi government departments. So much so that arrest warrants on fraud charges have been issued for two former department heads in the US-appointed Iraqi interim government and warrants against 44 Iraqi government employees have been issued.

Among the abuses he cited were employees awarding contracts to relatives, mismanagement and waste of public funds, and using their position for public gain. The Commission on Public Integrity is also going to suggest the setting up of a public integrity academy.

The US needs a Comission on Public Integrity to procecute War Criminals…oh wait, we have the House Judiciary Committee. Well so much for that…the head of the comittee, Sensenbrenner, refuses to hear the Democrates. Guess King George is safe for now.