Skull / Bones

“One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.
That is our bottom line.”
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.
Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,
air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
programs.”
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin,
Tom Daschle,John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that
Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weap ons
stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has
also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members
.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will
continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare,
and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction
… So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real
…”
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

See… Every Goddamned Demon-crat worth his salt said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

It’s a simple matter now of locating them.

Iraq is the size of California, you know.

Maybe they were moved over to Syria… there were reports. I heard it on Rush Limbaugh, quoting DEBKa.

The choice in the upcoming election is crystal clear.

Elect Kerry and elect appeasement.

Elect Bush and elect steady leadership in a time of change.

After watching Clinton’s wimp-ize the military, acting like an ostrich with his head in the sand while Osama Bin Laden plotted 9/11 and pretending like Saddam Hussein was not amassing large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction…

After watching Carter’s enfeebled attempt to rescue the hostages…

It’s clear that the McGovern Appeasement wing of the Democratic Party rules the day. You just can’t trust Democrats with National Security!

Richard Clarke. With each passing minute, he’s turning himself into a bigger and bigger joke. He’s a partisan fool wiping the behind of that disgrace, Bill Clinton, the man who’s malfeasance failed to stop 9/11.

Supposedly the fact that he voted Republican in the 2000 primaries makes him nonpartisan here. Yeah. He voted for the big RINO of them all, John McCain.

It took the only really Fair and Balanced news network, Fox News, to show that his latest words do not match what he said about the Bush Administration back in 2002.

Bill O’Reilly had a great point on today’s “Talking Points”, and rightfully placed Clarke where he belongs: a mere footnote in our history.

Ann Coulter: Another ex-government official who was fired or demoted by Bush has written a book that … is critical of Bush! Eureka! The latest offering is Richard Clarke’s new CBS-Viacom book, “Against All Enemies,” which gets only a 35 on “rate a record” because the words don’t make sense and you can’t dance to it.

BINGO!

The Liberals need to quit playing politics with this thing. Saving this country comes before ideology.

Jeez. The Liberals have NPR, Pacifica, and Tom Leykis…

Now they want to pollute the radio waves with this propaganda?

Al Franken? Failed comedian… that’s the best they can do?

I listened in for a while. Boring. Franken’s a parasite, anyway, who sucks the blood off of successful RIGHT thinking individuals. The show is called “The O’Franken Factor”… get a clue from the one you worship, Mr. Franken… Bill O’Reilly.

More here.

The hostility toward the secret societies that sparked the formation of Diggers also led to teh establishment of a more threatening group. In 1866, a group of seniors, armed with the knowledge that since they had not been tapped for a secret society, they had no one left to try to impress, created a satirical society at first called Bowl and Stones and later changed to Bull and Stones. The object of the organization was to attack its skewed namesake, Skull and Bones, by roaming about the campus during and after senior society meetings. The Stones men blocked the senior socieor societies’ doorways, sang mocking songs (”Hauty Bones is fallen, and we gwine down to occupy the Skull”), and wrought general havoc. The Stones men also offered fake taps to the more naive undergraduates, often successfully persuading them that they had been elected to the real thing. In 1867, the Stones men shattered ink bottles on the front of the Skull and Bones tomb and ripped the chain from its fence. Class of 1870 members wore in public a gold pin portraying a bull standing on stones, as if it were an authentic secret-society badge. In 1870, the Stones men overtook the confectioner who was delivering food the Bones tomb for initiaion night and confiscated the ice cream that caught their fancy. (Eventually, Bones stationed a police officer in front of the tomb to discourage such behavior.) By that time, the group had become so well known that any student not elected to Bones or Keys was said to “belong to Stones.” Anti-society sentiment continued, with society members occasionally becoming the targets of violent attacks, particularly when they returned home from meetings. In 1878, a group of students painted graffiti in the tomb, [… etc etc blah blah blah …]

Alex Robbins, Secrets of the Tomb page 62

As far as I can tell, John Kerry has had two interesting moments in his more or less staid political career. No less; no more. His 1972 stint at the head of “Vietnam Vets Against the War”, and a prosecutorial stint getting the ball rolling on Iran-Contra.

This last weekend, C-SPAN aired a 1972 broadcast of with him debating the head spokesman for “Vietnam Veterans For A Just Peace” (euphemism for “Vietnam Veterans for the War”) on the Dick Cavett Show.

They’ll show it again. They’ve probably shown it before.

I suppose I might’ve gotten more out of the airing if it were not for the boorish friend of my roommate, who sat down saying “This is b-s”, “f#ing John Kerry, man!” and “This is stupid… they just keep saying the same sh## over and over again.”

But never mind — I disgress. I’m a little weird anyway. I’m boorish in my own way…

I’m not sure if I can say that I saw anything transferrable to our current political scene, even if it did feed a history-jonsing of sorts. Kerry either had an idealism that he’s since lost to career politics, or he was setting his political future. (Note that Gary Tradeau weighed in with his opinion.) Whichever one, the young Kerry was an impressive young speaker.

And the other figure managed to sneak in some “America Right or Wrong” “Support the Troops” rhetoric in his debate. Rhetoric that was easily enough smashed.

Maybe my roommate’s friend was right, and watching this was b-s… watching the same old sh$$ coming at us again and again…

John Kerry cited a Bible verse Sunday to criticize leaders who have “faith but has no deeds,” prompting President Bush’s spokesman to accuse Kerry of exploiting Scripture for a political attack.

I don’t know. Somehow I imagine there are plenty of mailings going around to the true-believers regarding Abortion…

At least John Kerry’s biblical quotations aren’t creepy as of yet… Remember Bush’s Inaugural Address?

After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”

This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.

Biblical References for you:

“I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

“The Lord” is slow to anger and great in power; “the Lord” will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3)

UPDATE: Okay. Google seaches tend to bring up interesting items…
For Your Illuminati Needs. Thank you very much, you’ve all been good.

Just about one year ago, Al Franken parlayed a Book Expo joustle with Bill O’Reilly (Molly Ivins was there; Tucker Carlson was absent) at a Book Expo panel broadcast on C-SPAN into a career advancement opportunity.

I don’t know. Prior to that event, I’d peg Al Franken as “Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, and Conan O’Brien’s easily-scheduled emergancy guest.”

Next week, he’ll be the anchor of the new “Air America Radio” network, broadcast in a small handful of markets… its New York City affiliate made sure to purchase the “WLIB” station.

Between the C-SPAN broadcast and the liberal radio network release, Bill O’Reilly convinced Fox News to sue Franken for the use of the phrase “Fair and Balanced”. A judge threw that out, saying that “there are easy cases and there are hard cases” and that “this case is wholly without merit.” Fox News declined to appeal.

This lawsuit propelled every blog that gave a damned to rename their blog “Fair and Balanced”, and shoved the release schedule of Franken’s book up…

Last December, Bill O’Reilly made the absurdly easily verifiably false claim that “his book is outselling Franken’s book and is almost catching up with Hillary Clinton’s book.

Al Franken has evidentally gotten under Bill O’Reilly’s skin…

And now Air America Radio…

Just what the nation needs. To combat the right-wing dominance of the talk radio airwaves, disseminating Republican talking points, a couple liberal radio programs to disseminate Democratic talking points…

I wonder if the Kerry administration will follow the Bush II administration’s lead and schedule “Talk Radio Day”, White House tours for synchoprantic hosts where they get to have soft-ball interviews with White House staff…