The War President - New York Times: "On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its 'last throes,' says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism. The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that 'fringe' now comprises much if not most of the population."

U.S. General Sees No Ebb in Fight - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, June 23 - The top American commander for the Middle East said Thursday that the insurgency in Iraq had not diminished, seeming to contradict statements by Vice President Dick Cheney in recent days that the insurgents were in their 'last throes.'
Though he declined during his Congressional testimony to comment directly on Mr. Cheney's statements, the commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, said that more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq and that the insurgency's 'overall strength is about the same' as it was six months ago. 'There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency,' he added."

The White House spin cycle - Hardball with Chris Matthews - MSNBC.com: "The White House spin cycle (David Shuster)I don't know if things are getting better or worse in Iraq.%uFFFD But I do know the Bush administration is now in total panic mode over the erosion of public support for the occupation.%uFFFD%uFFFD How else could one explain the President's bizarre radio address this past Saturday or the even more surreal comments recently from other administration officials? First, the president's radio address:%uFFFD On Saturday President Bush defended the war in Iraq saying, 'We went to war because we were attacked.'%uFFFD Huh?%uFFFD In September 2003, the President himself stated, 'We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks.'%uFFFD%uFFFD (For the record, the 9/11 Commission is on the side of the Sept. 2003 President Bush %u2014 The commission found there was 'no collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.')"

A coverup for a cause of Autism?
RFK JR. EXPLAINS HOW INGREDIENTS IN VACCINES MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED SPREAD
Scarborough: "My son, born in 1991, has a slight form of autism called Asperger`s.
RFK Jr. When I was practicing law and also when I was in Congress, parents would constantly come to me and they would bring me videotapes of their children, and they were all around the age of my son or younger.
Scarborough: So, something happened in 1989.
KENNEDY: Exactly. What happened was the vaccine schedule was increased. We went up from receiving about 10 vaccines in our generation to these kids receive 24 vaccines. And they all had this Thimerosal in them, this mercury. And nobody bothered to do an analysis of what the cumulative impact of all that mercury was doing to kids. As it turns out, we are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe. A child on his first day that he is born is injected with a Hepatitis B shot. Under EPA guidelines, he would have to be 275 pounds to safely absorb that shot.
SCARBOROUGH: And yet, we are just constantly pumping our kids with these vaccines. Where is the federal government in all of this?
KENNEDY: What happened was that, in 1988, one in every 2,500 American children had autism. Today, one in every 166 children has autism. And, plus, one in six have other kinds of learning disorders, other kinds of neurological disorders, speech delay, language disorders, ADD, hyperactivity, that all seem to be connected, that are all connected, the science shows are all connected to autism to Thimerosal."

Bloomberg.com:
Bloomberg Columnists: "Bush Says `What, Me Worry?' on Global Warming: Margaret Carlson


June 16 (Bloomberg) -- I always wonder if the president
really doesn't know things or if he's found ignorance so useful
he's made it his strategy of choice.
Here's a Yale University graduate with better grades than Mr.
Know It All, John Kerry, yet George W. Bush entertains a theory of
intelligent design that says the earth isn't 4.5 billion years old
but was, in geological terms, born yesterday, suggests that cures
from embryonic stem cells are a cruel hoax of those unconcerned
about life in a petri dish, and believes that record-setting heat
is good for baseball.
When his vice president says the insurgency in Iraq is in its
last throes, who is Bush going to believe: Dick Cheney or his own
eyes? The president is smart. He's just not curious, especially
when acknowledging the facts would require him to do something.
Bush's most stunning lack of curiosity concerns global
warming. The heat wave this spring, prairie droughts, melting
glaciers -- all flukes to him.
Bush is always awaiting yet another study to prove a link
between greenhouse gases and global warming because the one in his
hands isn't good enough. To make sure he didn't get a study that
would force him to act, Bush hired Philip Cooney, the former
lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute."