Mood:  chatty

Comedian: "I Miss Bill Clinton"

It doesn't matter what party you belong to - this is hilarious. From a show on Canadian TV. there was a black comedian who said he misses Bill Clinton.

"Yep, that's right - I miss Bill Clinton! He was the closest thing we ever  got to having a black man as President. Number 1 - He played the sax. Number 2 - He smoked weed. Number 3 - He had his way with ugly white women. Even now? Look at him... his wife works, and he don't!  And, he gets a check from the government every month. Manufacturers announced today that they will be stocking America's shelves this week with "Clinton Soup," in honor of one of the nations' most distinguished men. It consists primarily of a weenie in hot water.

Chrysler Corporation is adding a new car to its line to honor Bill Clinton.  The Dodge Drafter will be built in Canada.

When asked what he thought about foreign affairs,  Clinton replied, "I don't know, I never had one."

The Clinton revised judicial oath: "I solemnly swear to tell the truth as I know it, the whole truth as I believe it to be, and nothing but what I think you need to know."

Clinton will be recorded in history as the only President to do Hanky Panky between the Bushes."

--- ya gotta love it!

"Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged."  Ronald Reagan

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 11:51 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 21 September 2006 12:03 AM EDT

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House GOP Has $36 Million for Elections

The Republican committee working to retain GOP control of the House has $36 million in the bank going into the final stretch of the congressional campaign.

Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said his organization raised $8.5 million last month in a concerted effort to gain a financial edge over its Democratic counterpart.

The money in hand puts the committee $10 million ahead compared to the same period prior to the 2004 election. At a news conference with reporters, Reynolds said the fundraising places his committee ahead of a pace he had set at the start of the campaign.

Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House on Nov. 7 to take control after a dozen years of Republican rule.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** House GOP Has $36 Million for Elections

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 2:44 AM EDT

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Mood:  sharp

Dennis Miller Schools Bill Maher on Free Speech and Fox News

By Noel Sheppard

Well sports fans, the plot is still thickening. TVNewser reported on Monday that a fellow comedian has responded to Bill Maher’s “free speech” rant reported by NewsBusters here and here.

To refresh memories, Maher said on his Friday evening “Real Time” program “if CBS News doesn’t understand what free speech is, what am I supposed to expect of Fox News?” Deliciously, someone who has worked for both HBO and FNC had an answer for Maher:

This morning, comedian and FNC contributor Dennis Miller called TVNewser to respond. "Maher wants to know what to expect of Fox? I can tell him what to expect," he said. "Roger Ailes has never asked me once what I'm going to talk about, or how he'd like me to talk about it. It's completely up to me. Nobody has ever stipulated anything."

It seems that between the executive producer of the CBS “Evening News” denying that Maher was asked not to speak about religion, and Miller’s comments, Mr. Real Time has a bit of egg on his face.

News Busters ~ Noel Sheppard ** Dennis Miller Schools Bill Maher on Free Speech and Fox News
Noel Sheppard's blog | login or register to post comments
Categories: Bill Maher | CBS | CBS Evening News

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 5:37 AM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

E. Coli Outbreak Bush’s Fault: dailyKos Tin Hat Alert

By Vox Populi, Will Malven

Well, the looney Left is at it again.  Now they are blaming President Bush for the E. Coli outbreak.  I have to admit that I am running out of vocabulary in an effort to describe the distance these people have traveled from the universe the rest of us inhabit.  Pathologically paranoid?  Delusional enough to be dangerous to society?  Loopy?  Insane?  Around the bend?  Dangerously deranged? Permanent residents of the Ha-ha Hotel?  Lost in the Twilight Zone?  I am at a loss for a sufficiently descriptive term and it’s not even October.  Looks like we are in for a real departure from reality over the next couple of months.

Perhaps I should just let this post from dailyKos.com speak for itself:

Bush Caused Spinach E. Coli. Expect More of this!!!

By Maccabee
September 17, 2006 at 06:16:51 AM PDT

He did. Bush Administration officials planted ineffectual political operatives in high level positions as a reward for campaigning for the Republicans.

Bush administration officials cut the budget and the staff for the FDA, we have all heard this before, two or three years ago.

Expect more of this lack of oversight to endanger us in every area the Bush Administration has appointed idiots and Republican operatives instead of experts.

Bush cannot protect you from anything. Not Terrorism. Not Hurricanes. Not even bacteria.

Whoops, here come Rod Serling…nope…even he would be too embarrassed to get this far out.

Bush can’t protect you from Hurricanes? Are you serious?  You know he’s not King Canute.  Heck even King Canute couldn’t stop the ocean’s tide from rising.  This is hysterical; Bush cannot protect you from a hurricane.  Uhhh Maccabee, a hurricane is a natural phenomenon, as far as I can know, only God could do much about that.  Bill Clinton didn’t protect the Atlantic Coast from Hurricane Floyd, heck I bet even Dennis “Spinach” Kucinich couldn’t do that.

Oh yeah, “Not Terrorism?”  Hmmm…5 years without an attack…sounds like we’ve been protected pretty well; far better than Bill Clinton did (of course he was too busy with his “affairs of state” to do much else).

Wait…Wait…this just in.  Karl Rove was just named as a co-conspirator along with ABC Republican Crop Dusting for spraying E. coli bacteria on the domestic spinach supply so that America can now lay claim to the famously abundant spinach crops in Afghanistan and Iraq.  It is a plot executed by the Big Multi-national Spinach Corporations.  Rumor has it that Dick Cheney was President of Haliburton’s Spinach Division.

Haliburton has just been granted a no-bid contract to supply America with spinach.

Popeye vote in jeopardy.

Mens News Daily ~ Vox Populi, Will Malven ** E. Coli Outbreak Bush’s Fault: dailyKos Tin Hat Alert

And to think, those Evangelical kids are getting accused of worshipping Bush when it's the loony left that thinks he has the power to steer hurricanes and spread e coli.

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 4:27 AM EDT

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To the Dishonorable Senators Warner, McCain, Graham & Collins
(AND ALL DEMOCRATS):

I wish to bring to your attention the following events:

World Trade Center Bombing - February 26, 1993
6 persons were killed, and more than 1,000 injured

Khobar Towers Bombing - June 25, 1996
19 servicemen lost their lives with hundreds of others wounded

US Embassy Bombings - August 7, 1998
The attack on the Tanzanian embassy resulted in 11 deaths and 86 injuries, though none of the victims were Americans. The embassy bombing in Kenya resulted in the deaths of 213 people with over 5,000 injuries. In the Kenyan bombing 12 of the people killed were Americans.

USS Cole - October 12, 2000
Murdered 17 sailors and wounded an additional 39 sailors

World Trade Center Attack - September 11, 2001
Approximately 2,749 men, women and children from nations around the world murdered!

Pentagon Attack - September 11, 2001
184 civilians and military personel lost their lives!

Heroes of Flight 93 - September 11, 2001
40 passengers and crew murdered!

APPROXIMATELY 3,239 DEAD & OVER 6,125 INJURED!!!

Please tell me how many more must die or be injured before you will stop acting like madmen without a lick of common sense or compassion for the victims?

If you could have personally prevented any of these events from occuring by interrogation techniques that are not in line with the Geneva Conventions, would you have done so? Would it make a difference if any of those who died were your loved ones?

We are all Americans. It doesn't matter if we agree or disagree about politics. When it comes to the lives of every American, if any are lost because of you putting the rights of Terrorists ahead of the lives of our fellow Americans, their blood will be on your hands.

And before you think, you are going to be left off the hook, I also address this to the Senate Democrats who are also blocking President Bush's plan to establish specific definitions for Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Party shouldn't matter after what we all saw on September 11th, 2001. The Terrorists don't stop to ask who you voted for before decapitating you or before flying airplanes into buildings.

In addition, you say that you support the troops. Who do you think is going to be the first to die because of your personal agendas? Are you with us or against us?

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:52 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 September 2006 4:08 AM EDT

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Mood:  cheeky

Democrats' Spending Gives Edge to GOP

WASHINGTON -- The national Democratic Party has spent millions on raising money, consultants and building state parties, entering the weeks before Election Day with only about one-fifth as much as the Republicans for races that could decide control of Congress.

The Republican National Committee is prepared to spend $60 million over the next seven weeks on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts to protect the GOP's narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

The Democratic National Committee plans to use about $12 million, all devoted to getting voters to the polls. Even in that effort, though, it has set aside only an average of $60,000 in each of the 40 most competitive congressional races in the country.

Under Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, the DNC has delivered more resources than any other toward building the party at the state level. In doing so, the DNC as of July 31 had transferred nearly $17 million to state and local party committees across the country, with significantly more going to states with competitive races, according to party officials.

Between Jan. 1, 2005 and July 31 of this year, the party spent about $90.2 million, about a third of that on fundraising expenses, ranging from more than $8 million in direct mail to $10,500 for an event for donors at the five-star Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

The party has reported spending $2.9 million on political consulting and nearly $1 million on legal consulting fees, according to data compiled by Political Money Line, a data base for political spending. The political consulting figure includes money spent on summer interns, party officials said.

Both parties will rely heavily on their congressional campaign committees for advertising and voter outreach. But while the GOP is operating at a political disadvantage this election, its financial edge could be crucial for Republicans to retain political power.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman has developed a highly touted voter outreach operation that party operatives say he will blend with targeted television advertising. It is an operation that helped with a Republican victory in a special congressional election in California and with securing Sen. Lincoln Chafee's Republican primary win in Rhode Island.

"Republicans have unlimited resources," said Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic strategist and expert on voter mobilization. He predicted Republicans will "bloody the waters enough with negative ads and come in below that with a campaign that is mailings, phone calls, personal contact with voters they know they need to get out to win."

To be sure, Republicans have long been able to raise more money than Democrats. Dean, a prolific fundraiser, has been successful at bringing in more money by Democratic standards. But his decision to spend more on states has angered Washington-based party operatives who want to place the party's focus on winning control of Congress and set the stage to regain the White House in 2008.

One Democratic strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to inflame tensions with Dean, pointed out that the chairman has raised and spent a significant amount of money, arguing that winning this year is crucial to the party winning in 2008.

But Dean's strategy has vast support from state party officials who have been pleading for years for help from the Democratic national committee. State party officials say the money, in turn, will help Democrats in races up and down the ballot, from gubernatorial to congressional to state legislative contests.

"The investment in the state parties has made them stronger," said Mark Brewer, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party and president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs. "There are more door-to-door canvassers and they're working for the whole ticket. It's a different way of spending the same resources."

Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern said field operatives hired by the state party with help from the DNC will work together with staffers from the House and Senate campaign committees in mobilizing voters to help all candidates on the Ohio ballot. Ohio is one of the mot competitive states in the country, with close races for governor, Senate, and several House races.

Dean defenders said the party's two campaign committees -- the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- are focused exclusively on the upcoming race, while Dean needs to have a longer view that builds the party for the future.

"If you want to win the presidency you have to win Ohio," Redfern said.

But the DNC's money has been directed to all states, many of them solidly Republican where Democratic candidates for national office stand little or no chance. Still, DNC officials said the $12 million devoted to a national get-out-the-vote effort is greater than the DNC's commitment in past elections.

The party's campaign committees have taken the lead in supporting Democratic House and Senate candidates in competitive races. The congressional campaign committee is running its own voter mobilization effort with the help of Michael Whouley, a highly regarded party strategist.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill, the DCCC chairman who has quarreled with Dean over DNC spending, last week obtained a $2.4 million pledge from the DNC's get-out-the-vote money to specifically mobilize voters in 40 competitive House seats. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and chairman of the senatorial campaign committee, is still negotiating with the DNC for a sum to help Senate candidates.

Meanwhile, the RNC has already spent more than $300,000 in advertising against Rep. Harold Ford, the Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, and more than $1 million against Rep. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio. The DNC plans to spend no money advertising, leaving that task to the party's campaign committees.

Still, some Democratic strategists say their candidates have indeed benefited from Dean's decision to send much of the party's money to the states. Others say the party's decision to overhaul outdated voters files has provided an invaluable service.

"Our campaign would have had to spent our manpower and our resources if we had to build it from scratch," said Michael Malaise, the campaign manager for Nick Lampson, the Democrat seeking to fill the seat formerly held by House Republican Leader Tom DeLay.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** Democrats' Spending Gives Edge to GOP

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 12:15 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 September 2006 12:25 AM EDT

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Mood:  silly

N.J. Pays Democratic State Senator to Do Nothing

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. -- A powerful southern New Jersey politician was paid for a no-work job at a scandal-ridden state university while helping the school garner millions of dollars in new state funding, according to a report released Monday.

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey paid state Sen. Wayne Bryant, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, $35,000 a year "to lobby himself in his capacity of state senator," according to the report of a federal monitor who had investigated the school's finances.

The report said all Bryant appeared to do at the university's School of Osteopathic Medicine was show up for three hours most Tuesdays to read newspapers.

Bryant, a Democrat, was the sole subject of the report released Monday. He did not return calls seeking comment, and did not show up to an event he was expected to attend on Monday at a college near Newark.

Herbert J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor and judge, was appointed to investigate the university in December after the school admitted overbilling Medicaid by more than $5 million. A previous report he issued suggested losses from fraud and abuse there could exceed $243 million.

The report said Bryant was employed at the university's School of Osteopathic Medicine from March 2003 until February 2006 and that during that time, the school's state allocation skyrocketed.

According to the report, Bryant helped deliver a total of $12.8 million over the three years - up from $2.8 million per year before the school created a job for him.

In 2003, the osteopathic school created a position for Bryant and did not advertise it publicly, the report found.

John Crosbie, an official at the school, told investigators that Bryant was hired only for his "political juice."

The report said Bryant did not grant an interview to investigators.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** N.J. Pays Democratic State Senator to Do Nothing

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 12:01 AM EDT

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Mood:  d'oh

Protests target Hungary state TV

Protesters have tried to storm Hungary's state TV station after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted his party had lied to win an election.

They used stones to attack the TV HQ in the capital Budapest, demanding to be allowed to broadcast their grievances.

Police used tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators.

Mr Gyurcsany's comments were heard in a tape of a meeting he had with his MPs a few weeks after the election in April.

Protests have been held outside parliament since Sunday, calling for Mr Gyurcsany to resign.

The BBC's Nick Thorpe, outside the state TV building, said at least one car was set alight and crowds of largely young people threw projectiles, breaking lower windows.

Reports say demonstrators shouted "'56" in memory of Hungary's failed uprising against Soviet rule in October 1956.

'Moral crisis'
It is not clear how the tapes of the meeting which sparked the protests were leaked.

In excerpts broadcast on state radio, Mr Gyurcsany says harsh economic reforms are needed.

He thanks "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" for keeping the economy above board.

In a speech sprinkled with obscenities, Mr Gyurcsany says: "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening."

The prime minister has received the backing of Socialist MPs who on Monday voted unanimously to support him.

However, Hungary's President, Laszlo Solyom, said Mr Gyurcsany had created a "moral crisis", and opposition parties have called for his resignation.

The main opposition party, Fidesz, has said it will boycott parliament for a day on Tuesday to protest against the "lies" of the Socialist-led government.

These are the first clashes to take place between police and demonstrators in Hungary since the fall of communism and the establishment of democracy in the late 1980s.

BBC News ** Protests target Hungary state TV

'We Screwed Up - A Lot'

Protesters have clashed with police in Hungary over the prime minister's admission in a leaked recording that the government had lied about the economy.

Demonstrators in the capital Budapest have called for Socialist PM Ferenc Gyurcsany to resign over the revelations.

Police used tear gas and water cannon on dozens of mostly young men - many with shaved heads. Some stormed the main entrance of the state television's HQ.

But reports said the officers ejected them from the building. The activists were demanding to be allowed to put their demands forward in a live broadcast.

Mr Gyurcsany's remarks were recorded on a tape at a closed meeting in late May, weeks after the government became the first in post-communist Hungary to win re-election.

He was heard saying the economy had been kept afloat only through "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks."

He added: "We screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have."

He reportedly added: "I almost died when for a year and a half we had to pretend we were governing. Instead, we lied morning, evening and night."

UK Sky News ** 'We Screwed Up - A Lot'

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 11:15 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 18 September 2006 11:28 PM EDT

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Couple Accused of Kidnapping Daughter  

SALEM, N.H. -- A Maine couple upset that their 19-year-old daughter was pregnant tied her up, loaded her in their car and began driving to New York to force her to get an abortion, police said.

The daughter, Katelyn Kampf, escaped Friday at a shopping center and called police, who arrested her parents, Nicholas Kampf, 54, and Lola, 53, of North Yarmouth, Maine. They were jailed on a kidnapping charge and were being held on $100,000 bail each.

The parents were scheduled to be arraigned in Salem District Court. A call to attorney Mark Sisti was not immediately returned.

"Her parents chased her out into the yard, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together," Salem Police Officer Sean Marino wrote in a court affidavit. "Katelyn states that her father then carried her to their car and they headed toward New Hampshire."

Investigators said rope, duct tape, scissors and a .22-caliber rifle were found in the Kampfs' Lexus and Nicholas Kampf had a loaded .22- caliber magazine clip in his pants pocket.

The Kampfs were upset that their daughter was pregnant by a man who is now in jail, police said, and before leaving Maine on Friday they had an argument at the parents' home.

"Katelyn stated to me that upon her parents finding out that she was pregnant, they told her she had no choice but to get an abortion," Marino wrote in his court affidavit.

Katelyn Kampf escaped from her parents in Salem after persuading them to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom. After her father went into the men's room, she used a cell phone to call for help, then ran to a nearby Staples store, where police found "a hysterical female hiding in the back of the store," according to the affidavit.

She got into Marino's cruiser while Sgt. Kristin Fili pulled over her parents.

"They told us initially they did take her here against her will, but they denied tying her up initially," Fili said. "Obviously what happened was a crime. She was taken against her will."

Authorities in Maine said the parents apparently thought that, in light of their daughter's stage of pregnancy and the different abortion laws in each state, the abortion should be performed in New York. Fili said she did not know how many weeks pregnant she was.

Maine law prohibits abortions once a fetus is able to live outside the uterus unless the mother's life or health is at stake. The law does not specify when that is, but it generally is 20 to 27 weeks, said Dr. Dora Ann Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. New York law prohibits abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy unless the woman's life is at stake.

Breitbart.com ~ Associated Press - Katharine Webster ** Couple Accused of Kidnapping Daughter

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 10:39 PM EDT

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Iraqi Tribes to Join Forces to Fight Insurgents

By Paul von Zielbauer, Khalid Al-Ansary and Ali Adeeb

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- More than two-dozen tribes from Iraq’s volatile Sunni Arab-dominated province west of Baghdad have agreed to join forces and fight Al Qaeda insurgents and other foreign-backed “terrorists,” an influential tribal leader said today.

Twenty-five of about 31 tribes in Anbar Province, a vast, mostly desert region that stretches westward from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have agreed to fight together against insurgents and gangs that are “killing people for no reason,” said the tribal leader, Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh Al-Rishawi.

“We held a meeting earlier and agreed to fight those who call themselves mujahedeen,” Mr. Rishawi said in an interview today. “We believe that there is a conspiracy against our Iraqi people. Those terrorists claimed that they are fighters working on liberating Iraq, but they turned out to be killers. Now all the people are fed up and have turned against them.”

The agreement came on a day when a series of coordinated suicide bombings rocked two of Iraq’s most volatile cities outside the capital.

In Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in the north bordering an autonomous Kurdish region, suicide bombers detonated four cars and one truck laden with explosives throughout the day, killing more than two dozen people and injuring more than 100, Iraqi and American officials said. In Falluja, a Sunni Arab-controlled city in Anbar Province, 30 miles west of Baghdad, five other suicide car bombs exploded within 15 minutes, an American military official said, killing an unknown number of people.

Violence also continued today in Baghdad, where the Iraqi police reported finding 24 bodies in several neighborhoods, an Interior Ministry official said. Eight of the bodies were discovered in one area with gunshot wounds to the head and bearing marks of torture. But an American military spokeswoman said her office knew of only 11 bodies being found.

Also today, the American military said a sailor with the First Marine Logistics Group died on Saturday from wounds in fighting in Anbar Province.

Mr. Rishawi said the 25 tribes counted 30,000 young men armed with assault rifles who were willing to confront and kill the insurgents and criminal gangs that have torn at the fabric of tribal life in Anbar, dividing members by religious sect and driving a wave of violent crime.

“We are in battle with the terrorists who kill Sunnis and Shiites, and we do not respect anyone between us who talks in a sectarian sense,” said Mr. Rishawi, the leader of the Rishawi tribe, a subset of the Dulaimi tribe, the largest in Anbar Province. Half of the Rishawi are Shiite and half are Sunni Arabs, he said.

Mr. Rishawi said the insurgents counted about 1,300 fighters, many of them foreigners and backed by other nations’ foreign intelligence services, though he declined to say which ones.

Today, he said, the coalition of 25 tribes sent letters to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other top Iraqi government officials asking for their support. In addition to the government’s blessing, Mr. Rishawi said, the tribes also wanted weapons and equipment to confront the Qaeda-backed insurgents.

“We are determined to go ahead with this plan and eliminate the gangs that claim jihad,” he said.

An American military official said tribes had fought Sunni Arab insurgents in Anbar in the past, but previously had not agreed to come together and fight them together. “Tribes just get fed up have fought them in the past,” an American military official said today. “This would be the first we’ve seen of tribes banding together.”

An Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said Mr. Maliki supported “any operations that try to resist terrorism and aims to maintain security in this dear and important part from the country.”

Mr. Dabbagh said that government officials were considering an official response to the tribes, but that there was no agreement to supply the tribes with weapons or tactical military support.

“We are grateful to them for their desire to protect their cities,” Mr. Dabbagh said, “and we are encouraging them.”

How quickly or violently the tribal fighters will confront Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other insurgents near Ramadi in unclear. But both sides have long despised and blamed one another for not being true Muslims and for the lack of security in the province.

Reuters quoted a man who identified himself as a senior leader of Al Qaeda in northern Ramadi asserting that his fighters wanted an Islamic caliphate in Anbar. Tribal leaders like Mr. Rishawi are their enemy.

“We have the right to kill all infidels, like the police and army and all those who support them,” said the man, who called himself Abu Farouk, Reuters reported. “This tribal system is un-Islamic. We are proud to kill tribal leaders who are helping the Americans.”

In Kirkuk, Iraqi and American military officials said they could not immediately tell which groups were behind the five vehicle suicide bomb attacks. Kirkuk, important because of the amount of oil in the region, has become a violent battleground between Iraqi Arabs -- Shiites and Sunnis -- and the Kurds who control Kirkuk’s police and government.

The deadliest attack, by an explosives-laden truck that blew up between the offices of two Kurdish political parties, killed at least 18 people and injured 55 others, said Lt. Col. Urhan Abdullah of the Kirkuk Police.

Two minutes later, a car bomb apparently targeting a private security firm killed two people and injured three others, said Maj. Farhad Mahmoud of the Kirkuk Police.

A third suicide car bomber detonated near an Iraqi police checkpoint about 15 miles south of Kirkuk, the police said. A fourth car bomb exploded in front of the house of Sheik Wasfi Al-Asi, who had recently publicly called on the Iraqi government to release Saddam Hussein, who is currently being tried on genocide charges. The house was empty, the police said, but the bomb killed two people and injured five others.

Firefighters battled flames at collapsed buildings and charred corpses lay in streets littered with twisted car parts, Reuters reported.

In Falluja, a Sunni Arab stronghold west of Baghdad, five car bombs in different parts of the city, killing five people -- including two Iraqi Army soldiers and two policemen -- and injuring 23 others, an American military spokeswoman said.

While violence ripped through Kirkuk and Falluja, Baghdad remained by comparison relatively calm today, though not without several gun battles and deadly attacks. At 9 a.m. local time, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi Army patrol as it drove by the Shaab sports stadium, in eastern Baghdad, injuring two soldiers and one civilian, an Interior Ministry official said.

At 9:30 a.m., American soldiers arrested four security guards on the campus of Nahrain University and confiscated 11 AK-47 assault rifles, the Interior Ministry official said. At 4 p.m., a roadside bomb near a market in the Shurja area of central Baghdad injured 10 people, the Interior Ministry official said.

In Tajii, north of Baghdad, gunmen killed two policemen this morning, the official said.

Omar al-Neami and Khalid W. Hassan contributed reporting for this article. NY Times (Jihad Journal) ~
Paul von Zielbauer, Khalid Al-Ansary, Ali Adeeb ** Iraqi Tribes to Join Forces to Fight Insurgents

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:02 AM EDT

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