Halliburton, the Media, the V.P., Questionable Food, and MORE

Before I get to my MAIN issues I want to say..

Senator Dorgan, as I watch you on C-Span today I agree with what you're saying but please
don't say that ANY soldier "won" his/her Bronze Medal. I realize that you mis-spoke and didn't mean to imply that war is some kind of game where a soldier can "win" medals.

I truly admire what you're doing but let's please choose our words carefully.

Aside from that, I think it's DISGUSTING and IRRESPONSIBLE that I haven't heard ANY of the examples of FRAUD (Halliburton's responsible for much of it) on the news !
My God! Feeding bad food to our soldiers! Feeding food to our troops that's been shot-up or blown up after picking out the shrapnel etc. from it, using outdated/expired food, etc..
How the HELL can ALL the major news outlets IGNORE this?

This is an OUTRAGE!

And to let the people who actually DEFEND this administration's sweeheart deals with Halliburton (by claiming that these things aren't true and only "political" attacks aimed at the Vice President) without INVESTIGATING, and then where appropriate, exposing and REPORTING to the American people THE TRUTH, is unconscionable!

By NOT reporting these types of things the media actually becomes part of a "cover-up".
It's not like [they] don't know about all of this...

I consider myself fairly well informed (much more so than the "average" American), and though I've heard about major fraud and abuses by Halliburton I wouldn't have known about the inconceiveable practice of feeding "questionable" food to our soldiers.

And now I have to wonder, who gets better food, prisoners at Guantanamo or our troops? I have to think that it's against any civilized code of conduct to feed potentially unsafe food to PRISONERS let alone OUR OWN TROOPS! As a veteran (and HUMAN BEING) it boils my blood!

Now on to ANOTHER fact that I only just learned while watching Air America Radio/The Al Franken Show (on Sundance Channel) last night.
The fact that all this time, this administration DID have a plan (the Future of Iraq Project*) ready to go for after we took over Iraq!
*This is a link to info I found via Google. It was NOT written by Al's guest, and I'm not sure that [this gentleman's] conclusion (that the State Dept. is equally responsible for the plan not being used) is true, but it does give some background information on the subject.

Now for the good (not really) part, this administration CHOSE NOT TO USE IT......(excuse me while I bang my head against the wall for a minute...)

HUH? Wha...? This is the first time I'd ever heard about any "plan", although I wasn't surprised that the administration chose to ignore something like this just like they chose to ignore the lack of evidence of WMD, and the fact that Ahmed Chalabi is a "less than truthful" person (to put it kindly).

That's right folks, our State Department spent 2 years (approximately) planning for a "possible" invasion of Iraq.

Could someone in the press pool at the White House PLEASE ask Scotty WHY this admistration chose not to implement this plan (over and OVER until he crys)? Not that there's a CHANCE that he'd actually give an HONEST answer.... (Boy, talk about a person lacking in MORALS, HONESTY, and INTEGRITY.)

And where's the news FOLLOW-UP about Tom Delay's unbelieveable remarks to the business people in the Marianas Islands and how he's "protecting" the owners of SWEAT SHOPS there?


Finally (for the moment), where's the coverage of the Saudi Aribian connection that has been written about so eloquently by Gerald Posner in "The Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the US-Saudi Connection"?

It seems as though the people responsible for choosing what news the American people see and hear (all the major networks, newscorps, etc.) about would rather play advertisements from the Saudis saying what wonderful friends they are to us. If it wasn't such a discrace, it would almost be funny watching the Saudi ambassador dispute the facts with such a "innocent" (not to mention STRAIGHT)
face.

What in the world is happening to our country?

What in the world has happened to our MEDIA? Didn't we USED to rely on them to dig into stories that the powers that be didn't want anyone to know about?

It seems that all anyone in this administration has to do is claim that "it's political" (or the like) and the (mainstream) media blindly accepts it.
Is that serving the public?
Does that help America in any way?

Sometimes I think that the only way to make a point that will be paid attention to is what we (those old enough to remember) saw during the Vietnam era. The image of a monk setting himself on fire in Saigon is one that I'll NEVER forget. ***CAUTION this links to a GRAPHIC photograph!

And this is only one of the HUNDREDS of cases of self-immolation during that era.

It's a sorry state of affairs when ANYONE feels that the only way to get through to their government is by publicly commiting suicide! And please don't anyone get me wrong... I'm NOT advocating that ANYONE do this, and [I] certainly don't plan to, but to even think about that says something about MY frustration with the (main stream) media NOT DOING IT'S JOB.

And the APATHY of a large portion of Americans just makes the job of covering up/ignoring the truth that much easier for those whose goal is just that....Keeping those Americans IGNORANT!

I say thank goodness for the INTERNET! Where I can read, watch video, and listen to podcasts that help fill in the HUGE gaps of ignored/unreported news, and in the case of "Media Matters for America", showing us exactly who's feeding us BS (they're VERY busy these days).

My top favorites are listed in my "Links" (Think Progress - Media Matters for America - Common Cause - The Huffington Post - FAIR - Daily Kos - and SO many others).

Also many thanks to all the authors who have done (and those continuing to do) the difficult research, and then written about the little-known and/or unreported stories that the scoundrels want to keep from US.