Open Thread

7 Comments

1. 

   on August 12, 2007 at 6:36 pm

   And in typical “trickle down” insanity is a mortgage brokerage firm allowing a self employed union rate carpenter to co-sign a half million dollar mortgage.
   Yes, true story, I’m living it as we speak.

2. 

   hass on August 12, 2007 at 8:56 pm

   This is simply a version of:
   
   Lets Put the Blame on the Iraqis

3. 

   Zandar1 on August 12, 2007 at 9:11 pm

   Just spotted interesting story over at the News Hole, the AP is reporting tonight on a busted Mafia arms deal in Italy…and the buyer is Iraq.

   Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

   As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

   For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

   Blowback is a bitch, eh?  But it gets worse:

   Some guns the U.S. bought for Iraq’s police and army are unaccounted for, possibly fallen into the hands of insurgents or sectarian militias. Meanwhile, the planned replacement of the army’s AK-47s with U.S.-made M-16s may throw more assault rifles onto the black market. And the weapons free-for-all apparently is spilling over borders: Turkey and Iran complain U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil.

   Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.

   On top of everything else crooked, illegal, immoral and unethical the Bushies are running in Iraq, it looks like they’ve gone back to the well and pulled out the Iran-Contra playbook.

   This just keeps getting better.

   • 

     BooMan on August 12, 2007 at 9:57 pm

     neat stuff.  The Enterprise is back in business.

4. 

   Oscar In Dallas on August 12, 2007 at 11:41 pm

   Apparently, Tommy Thompson didn’t realize that he met his criteria for staying in the GOP race with his 5-way tie for second…

5. 

   enigma4ever on August 13, 2007 at 8:06 am

   7:42 am Rove is RESIGNING…..yup end of the month- before Bush even gets back from vacation….I came here to see if Anyone has thoughts….

6. 

   gp on August 13, 2007 at 10:53 am

   You’re assessment is not correct. They may be pathological but crazy no. It’s the Repubs and Neocons that are so good at staying on target. The target is and always has been OIL. They will do and say anything to attain this goal no matter how crazy it appears to observers. Invading the next oil rich country is crazy, but it’s also a goal in the long term plan.