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December 26, 2006

Pelosi: No Link Between Iraq and 9/11 Body Counts

(2006-12-26) — As news broke that the 2,974th member of the U.S. military had died in Iraq this week, pushing the U.S. death toll beyond the number who died in the 9/11 terror attacks, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, rejected theories of a connection between the Iraq and 9/11 death tolls.

“It makes no sense to compare the body counts,” said Rep. Pelosi. “Saddam Hussein did not knock down the World Trade Center or hit the Pentagon. So, anyone who touts a link between what al Qaeda did on our soil in 2001 and what al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists are doing now on Iraqi soil is a conspiracy theorist and fraud. There is no relevant connection.”

The lawmaker noted that “while U.S. troops are dying in Iraq because President George Bush has placed them in harm’s way for an ultimately meaningless and impossible cause, the 9/11 victims perished because of President Bush’s failure to reach out to radical Muslims, understand their grievances and find common ground during his first nine months in the White House.”

She encouraged all Americans to ignore the “body-count comparison stories” because, “as everyone knows, there’s no linkage between Iraq and 9/11 — other than they’re both Bush’s fault.”

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December 22, 2006

Marines ‘Massacre’ Trial Inspires Qaeda, Sadr

(2006-12-22) — A day after eight U.S. Marines were charged in connection with the killing of 20 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, al Qaeda and Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr announced they would begin prosecuting their own fighters who “inadvertently cause civilian deaths” in a series of “jihadi atrocity trials.”

On the morning of November 19, 2005, Marines in a convoy responded to an ambush that killed a member of their unit by conducting a house-to-house search for enemy fighters, who often hide among women and children, and always dress as civilians. If convicted by a military tribunal of unpremeditated murder, four of the Marines charged could face life in prison.

In a joint statement, Mr. al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda in Iraq said, “If the Great Satan can bring its troops to justice for violating rules of engagement, then so can we. It’s against our rules and our religion to inadvertently kill innocent civilians in war time.”

“We will prosecute any suicide bomber who accidentally, rather than intentionally, kills civilians,” the statement said. “We have sent them to commit premeditated atrocity and massacre and we expect them to operate according to those rules of engagement.”

The terror groups acknowledged they may have to conduct some of the trials posthumously, “but if any of our martyrs are found guilty, we can always execute justice on their surviving relatives.”

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December 21, 2006

Berger: Archive Docs May Have Gone Up in Smoke

(2006-12-21) — Clinton administration National Security Adviser Samuel ‘Sandy’ Berger today said he “still can’t say for sure” what happened to several classified documents he removed from the National Archives in October 2003, but that they may have gone up in smoke.

Mr. Berger, who was convicted of the crime, fined $50,000, sentenced to 100 hours of community service and barred from the Archives for three years, allegedly smuggled out some of the documents in his socks.

Today his attorney released a statement from Mr. Berger in response to this week’s report on the Inspector General’s probe of the case.

According to Mr. Berger’s own account: “Twas nigh upon Christmas, and down in my socks I secretly stuffed those archival docs. My stockings I hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that the FBI wouldn’t look there.”

Later in his testimony he admits the documents may have fallen from his stockings into the fireplace: “As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; so up through the chimney in ashes they flew. Thus my secrets were safe, and Bill Clinton’s were too.”

A spokesman from the Inspector General’s office expressed skepticism about Mr. Berger’s new story, but said “it has a ring of familiarity.”

In unrelated news, the New York Historical Society announced today it would launch an investigation into the disappearance of its copy of Clement Clark Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.

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December 20, 2006

Al Qaeda No. 2 Releases Christmas Video

(2006-12-20) — Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command, today released his Christmas video through Al Jazeera TV.

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December 19, 2006

Bush to Solve Iraq with ‘Way-Forward Machine’

(2006-12-19) — As President George Bush continued to seek suggestions for how to deal with the situation in Iraq, an unnamed White House official today indicated the president had already made up his mind and would soon have “major announcement.”

Mr. Bush will not increase troop levels, withdrawal troops, talk with Iran and Syria or ask Israel to give Jerusalem to Hamas, the source said, but rather he plans to unveil a top-secret device dubbed “the Way-Forward Machine.”

“We’ve come to a juncture in Iraq’s history,” the official said, “where there are just no good alternatives. The president has said he’s looking for a way forward, and it’s finally here.”

The Way-Forward Machine, developed by defense contractor Peabody-Sherman, will allow Mr. Bush to skip the present, move into the future and then alter the outcome of events, thereby forcing the present to re-align itself with the new future.

“Essentially,” the source said, “this will allow Bush to write his own legacy by simply visiting his presidential library and replacing a few documents.”

While Mr. Bush would not comment directly on the leak about the Way-Forward Machine, he simply said, “I reckon it makes as much sense as any of the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group.”

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Laura Bush Cites Roe v. Wade in Cancer Cover-Up

(2006-12-19) — First Lady Laura Bush, implicated in a scheme to cover-up news about surgery to remove a cancerous lesion from her shin, today cited the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling as legal precedent for her covert activities.

Mrs. Bush, under increasing pressure from reporters to explain why she didn’t hold a news conference to announce her impending medical procedure, said, “The Constitution, as interpreted in Roe v. Wade, guarantees a woman’s right to privacy regarding her own health.”

“It’s my body,” she added, “and I have the legal right to do with it as I please without notifying any authority.”

On a personal level, the First Lady said she had no regrets about removing and disposing of the squamous cell carcinoma.

“It was a parasitic bundle of cells,” said Mrs. Bush, “and allowing it to continue to grow would have interfered with my lifestyle.”

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December 18, 2006

Congress to Rescue Air America, Merge with NPR

(2006-12-18) — House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said today that one of the first acts of the new Democrat-majority Congress would be to rescue the bankrupt progressive radio network, Air America, and merge it with NPR.

Air America insiders told The New York Times that the network was “top-heavy with management, inept at selling ads, unwilling to make program compromises that veered from the liberal message and overstaffed with more than 100 employees when two dozen would have sufficed.

“In other words,” Rep. Pelosi said, “Air America represents the heart and soul of our great Democrat strategy for transforming government. It’s a model that deserves, in fact requires, preservation by the taxpayers.”

The new, government-funded Air America would be merged with National Public Radio, operate as NP Air, and resolve any staff redundancies by creating additional positions with identical responsibilities.

Air America talk host Al Franken will retain his show on the network, Rep. Pelosi said, “unless he decides to return to his career as a comedian, run for the U.S. Senate, or both.”

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If Obama Won’t Run, Dems Fear Dearth of Unknowns

(2006-12-18) — Democrat political strategists worry about the party’s 2008 White House prospects if freshman Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, refuses to seek the presidency.

“Where will we find another charismatic unknown into whom we can pour our hopes and dreams of a positive, progressive future?” said one unnamed Democrat consultant. “Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Al Gore are too well known to be appealing, and former Sen. John Edwards already had his debutante ball in 2004.”

Many blame Democrat National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean for failing to groom more charming, anonymous, inexperienced Democrats for the national stage. But others acknowledge that the party’s platform makes it a daunting task for a rookie to hold onto hope and present a positive vision.

“There’s about a five-year window outside of Washington,” said another strategist. “Inside the beltway, typically a hero like Obama turns into a whining obstructionist with a fanny-pack full of ethical baggage in less than three years. Then he’s just another attorney looking for a taxpayer-funded lifetime pension deal.”

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New Road Map to Bring Peace Among Palestinians

(2006-12-18) — As the advocates of Hamas and Fatah, the armed political parties of the Palestinian Authority, shot at each other this weekend, President Mahmoud Abbas announced a new “Road Map for Peace” in the troubled region.

“First, we will build a protective fence around each Palestinian,” said Mr. Abbas in a written statement from his hidden bunker. “The fence must resist fire from AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades as well as the blast of car bombs and suicide vests.”

The new personal fences would provide “an atmosphere of trust” for negotiations to produce a region with two political parties living peacefully side-by-side, the Palestinian leader said.

An unnamed spokesman for Hamas offered an alternative plan calling for “the destruction of the Zionist regime so that Hamas and Fatah partisans could live on opposite sides of the fence that now separates us from so-called Israeli territory.”

“This plan is cheaper,” the Hamas source said, “and has the added benefit of getting rid of the Jews who cause all of this violence.”

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December 17, 2006

Powell: U.S. Losing Iraq, Should Try Winners’ Ways

(2006-12-17) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.S. military is “losing” in Iraq but that there is still time to win if President George Bush would simply adopt “winning methods.”

“Right now, we’re losing,” said General Powell, “Therefore, by definition, the enemy is winning. If we want to win, we have to do what winners do.”

General Powell said the U.S. should withdrawal most combat units, and only leave troops who are willing to drive into crowded marketplaces and blow themselves up, or to kidnap civilians and produce videos of themselves sawing the heads off their captives.

“The president has defined victory in old-fashioned ways,” the general said. “In modern warfare, victory is not measured in terms of liberty won, or an enemy’s surrender.”

Paraphrasing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he added, “You go to war with the definitions the pundits and politicians give you, not the definitions you might want, or wish to have at a later time.”

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