Tickets to [tonight's Denver Hillary Clinton fundraiser] event range from $250 to $4,200.

I'm always surprised at how little it costs to get access to top politicians.

"Hansen may assert at trial that he and his business had performed services for GOP Marketplace in the past and, based on its name and the type of work the business had been contracted to perform, he reasonably assumed that GOP Marketplace was a governmental entity or at least that the activities that his business was being asked to perform had been approved in advance by the national Republican party."

It should be noted, in support of this possible defense, that in November 2002, the party in control of the Executive and Legislative branches of government was the Republican Party (aka the Grand Old Party or "GOP"). It should also be noted that a convicted co-conspirator, James Tobin, is alleged to have had telephone contact with the White House during the time period that the phonejamming scheme was unfolding. Larry Margasak, Phone Jamming Records Point to White House, Assoc. Press, April 11, 2006. It appears that Mr. Tobin may have had telephone contact with Ken Mehlman and Alicia Davis in the White House Office of Political Affairs, during the time that the alleged scheme was unfolding. It is not known, however, what involvement, if any, anyone at the White House may have had concerning the alleged scheme to "jam" phones on Election Day in 2002.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has embarked on a multistate fundraising swing to raise some of the estimated $50 million his advisers say he'll need to wage an all-but-certain special election campaign.

Okay, I'm suspicious.

Think it's time to compare the number of announced terrorism cases in pre-election 2004t, post-election 2005, and, now, pre-election 2006?

...for Bush to call us "a peaceful nation" means forgetting an enormous amount of history. Now, maybe that history is too much for Bush to take in, but even a small part of it would be enough to suggest that we have not been a peaceful nation. In fact, it is safe to say that since World War II, there has not been a more warlike nation in the world than the United States. The New York Times had a headline on September 23, 2001, that read "Forget the Past: It's a War Unlike Any Other." What would happen if we followed this advice? They want us to act as if we were born yesterday. They want us to forget the history of our government. Because if you forget history, if you were born yesterday, then you'll believe anything. ... If we don't know that history, we won't understand how much animosity we have engendered elsewhere in the world--not just in the Middle East but all over the world. In its foreign policy, the United States has consigned several million people to their deaths and supported terrorist governments in various parts of the world, especially in Latin America and the Middle East.

Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti ... While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN's mandate included countering the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some Haitian military and political leaders.18

¹⁸ New York Times, Nov. 14, 1993; The Nation, Oct. 3, 1994, p. 346.

June 12, On the day that President Bush called Jose Padilla a "bad guy" and a "would-be killer," Puerto Rican community leaders in Chicago said they felt uneasy about the arrest of their former neighbor, on suspicion that he was linked to an Al Qaeda terror plot. ... Still others worried that the stream of government invective against Padilla, emphasizing his life as a street gang member in Chicago, could put all Puerto Ricans in an uncomfortable spotlight--a glare also felt keenly by Chicago's tiny group of Hispanic Muslims. ... Though they make up only a fraction of all Latinos, converts to Islam are not unheard of. Once traced to the Moorish influence in medieval Spain, Hispanic converts now are more likely to come from the streets of the U.S., where their traditional Catholic faith competes with Islam, evangelical Christianity and other options.

Dad: Sears Tower suspect under spell of man "I heard these brothers were using our name," said Bey, who wore a medallion bearing the word "Justice" and a red star and crescent on his neck. "I have no idea who these people are. We are law-abiders, not lawbreakers. This is home. We are not fighting against the U.S.A." ... In the past, others have identified themselves as members of the Moorish Science Temple of America when they did not share the group's ideals, Bey said. ... For instance, in the late 1970s, Jeff Fort, the head of the El Rukn street gang in Chicago, reportedly founded the Moorish Science Temple of America, El Rukn Tribe, hoping such an affiliation would deter law enforcement. Fort is now serving a 75-year sentence for murder. - - - - - - - Claim to Fame: First American convicted of terrorism-for-hire, Friend of Richard Nixon BY THE STANDARDS of the era - the 1980s, that doughy Sobaka Dossier time when terrorist targets were limited to Marine barracks in unpronounceable countries - the story was sensational. A Chicago street gang was accused of planning to bomb police stations, government buildings - even down an airliner - on behalf of their "Muslim brother," Libyan dictator Moammar Kaddafi. ... A little digging and the plot thickened. The gang - a would-be Islamic sect called the El Rukns - was led by none other than Jeff Fort, a legend on Chicago's South Side, whose career as an urban warlord stretched back to the early 1960s. In the relatively brief period he spent out of jail in the ensuing decades, Fort had built the most powerful street gang in Chicago and possibly the entire United States. ... That wasn't all. Fort had rubbed shoulders with notables ranging from Jesse Jackson to Sammy Davis, Jr. to jazz guru Oscar Brown, Jr. Before went to war against the United States for Kaddafi, Fort went to war for the Feds against the Black Panthers. His status in the community was such that he'd even been invited to Richard Nixon's inauguration, though he graciously passed his comp tickets to two of his subordinates.

Rice is lying. Was SHE there? Her word means jack.

Note that I am PST. Try to find a lime at this hour.

GWBush is the biggest terrorist in the world. I stand with at least 70% of the world, not that I need to be with the majority of thinking people.

FBI captures 7 terrorists in Miami before anyone is hurt.... bad.

At least he's not praciticing his terrorism against US citizens

Are there any right wing blogs that let the readers engage in discussion as talk left does?

I am more aware than any UN official that Iraq has set up covert procurement funds to violate sanctions. This was true in 1997-1998, and I'm sure its true today.

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.

In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence - hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use - are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts

With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.)

That Saddam was thought to have WMD's is understood by all reasonable people, including Demos, plus:

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.