Whither The Ponderosa?

We know ... a dearth of new info since the election ... but we're here and intend to keep you informed in 2005!

New posts will be scarce until the Inauguration which we will be attending and reporting from ... next year promises to be an exciting one with Social Security, IRS and tort reform tops on the agenda and we will certainly have much to say, most, if not all of it, contrary to the conventional wisdom ... meanwhile, the War on Jihadistan rages on ... which side are you on?

Libs and their NEA/AFT grubstakers keeping minorities down (ABC headline doesn't tell real story) ...

U.S. Students Behind in Math, Tests Show

Fifteen-year-olds in the United States don't have the math skills to match up to peers in many other industrialized nations, test scores released Monday show.

The latest international comparison also underscores an achievement gap in America: White U.S. students scored above average, while blacks and Hispanics scored below it. [Emphasis ours]
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Congrats to all those who have constantly stood in the way of real school choice! Gotta keep those minorities down so they'll vote Dem every election!

At least the kids know how to affix a condom to a banana, a skill which will serve them well should they ever find themselves alone with Jesse Jackson or Bill Clinton!

The enemy within ...

Kucinich, 20 Members of Congress, Send Letter Of Support For UN Secretary-General Annan

Twenty-one Member of Congress, led by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell today in support of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The letter states:

We are writing to express our support of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has recently been under attack by some American lawmakers for the U.N’s Oil-for-Food program scandal occurring under his watch. Such an attack on the second-term Secretary-General and Nobel Peace laureate is disgraceful and premature. There has been no hint of impropriety on the part of the Secretary-General, who on numerous occasions has proven his honesty and integrity. Furthermore, we specifically reject all calls for his resignation.

In order to address the allegations of mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program, Secretary-General Annan appropriately appointed an independent panel led by Chairman Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, to investigate the allegations. The panel is comprised of members independent to the U.N. and has unrestricted access to all relevant U.N. records and information, including interviews with all relevant U.N. officials and personnel, regardless of seniority.

Secretary-General Annan made his intentions for complete transparency unmistakably clear on April 15, 2004 when he said, "Transparency is the only way to deal with allegations [like those surrounding the Oil-for-Food Program], and by far the best way to prevent corruption from happening in the first place. That, I believe, will be one of the main lessons we have to learn from this affair, whatever the outcome of the inquiry."

We support the investigation called for by the Secretary-General and headed up by Chairman Volcker and encourage the Administration to support this independent investigation as well.

In the wake of heavy criticism against Secretary General Annan, we want to highlight the shared responsibility by the United States for the alleged fraud and abuse that occurred in the Oil-for-Food Program. The responsibility and enforcement capacity for checking unauthorized oil sales was provided to all UN Member States, of which the United States is one, and in the Gulf area, to the multinational Maritime Interception Force (MIF). The role of oversight for all contracts awarded under the Oil-for-Food Program belonged to the Security Council’s 661 Committee, of which the U.S. had a representative for the entire duration of the Program. The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight undertook regular program audits and the program’s escrow account was audited every six months by external auditors.

...

Joining Kucinich on the letter were Reps. Watson (D-CA), Lee (D-CA), Davis (D-IL), Hinchey (D-NY), Woolsey (D-CA), Solis (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), McDermott (D-WA), Clay (D-MO), Filner (D-CA), Stark (D-CA), Serrano (D-NY), Baldwin (D-WI), Farr (D-CA), Olver (D-MA), Sanders (I-VT), Miller (D-CA), Rodriguez (D-TX), Kleczka (D-WI), and Jackson-Lee (D-TX).}

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Ladies and gentlemen, 21 Reps elected by the "smart" people!

Anyone who follows Congress closely (that would exclude us Bush voters inasmuch as we're IDIOTS) recognizes AT LEAST a few MAJOR LOONS on the above list ... led by Kucinich ... followed closely by Ms. Jackson-Lee with Pete Stark closing fast! Puts us in the mind of the therapy group on the old "Bob Newhart Show"!

Wojo, call Bellvue!

Remember when the NY Times gave aid and comfort to the failing Kerry campaign ...

... with that bogus unsubstantiated, unresearched story, proffered by a bitter UN hack, about missing explosives in Iraq?
Saddam 'raided UN arms sites for suicide attacks'

As American forces closed in on Baghdad last year, senior members of Saddam Hussein's government devised a plan to send suicide bombers in vehicles packed with devastating high-energy explosives that were under UN safeguards.

The disappearance of the explosive, known as HMX (high melting explosives), in mysterious circumstances at the end of the war caused a few nasty moments for President George Bush's presidential election campaign last month.

A letter to Saddam from Dr Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, five days before the fall of Baghdad, suggests taking the HMX from underground bunkers, where it had been kept under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and giving it to suicide bombers.

He wrote: "It is possible to increase the explosive power of the suicide-driven cars by using the highly explosive material [HMX] which is sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and stored in the warehouses of the Military Industry Departments."

The Iraqi regime took credit for several suicide bombs towards the end of the war. After the fall of Saddam, one of the worst attacks - which killed 22 UN workers and the special envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in August 2003 - had an explosive force that could only have come from military grade explosives.

The disappearance of 350 tons of explosives, including 191 tons of HMX, at the time of the war in April last year became a crucial issue in the last weeks of the US presidential election campaign. John Kerry portrayed the failure to secure the explosives, which could have been used to kill US soldiers, as a symbol of Mr Bush's incompetence in Iraq.

It now appears that senior officials in the Iraqi government were discussing the removal of the HMX before the fall of Saddam. The letter from Dr Sabri, obtained by The Independent, was sent on 4 April 2003 as US tanks were advancing on Baghdad. It said that the world was getting the impression that Iraqi civilians were co-operating with American soldiers.[Emphasis ours]

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Kerry-Heinz should publicly thank the Times for keeping the election close.

"Paper of record" our asses! In fact, any paper that hosts Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich is best used to WIPE our asses, though Rich would likely find nothing offensive in that!

Sleazeball Friend of Bill tied to UN Oil-for-France scam

Americans' Role Eyed in U.N. Oil Scandal

Dec. 1, 2004 - Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.

And a U.S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts.

...

Rich is still living in Switzerland and unavailable for comment.


The roles of several American oil companies, including ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, are also under investigation. ChevronTexaco received subpoenas requesting information for two separate grand jury proceedings, and said they were cooperating fully with both investigations.

The U.N. oil-for-food corruption scandal only continues to grow in scope. Today, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who is leading the congressional investigation into the program, said that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan should resign because the scandal occurred on his watch.

"I think there's a terrible stain on the credibility and the reputation of the United Nations, there's no doubt about that," said Coleman. "If we're ever to get to the bottom, how can you get there if the guy who was in charge during the course of this fraud and corruption is the guy now who is supposed to be ferreting it out?"

Top officials of the United Nations, including Annan, are accused of looking the other way as some $21 billion meant for humanitarian aid was stolen by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Uncovered in the federal criminal investigation were previously undisclosed payments to Annan's son, Kojo, from his employer Cotecna. The Swiss company had been specifically hired to monitor the oil-for-food program.

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Marc Rich?! There's a blast from the past! Rich is the Clinton pal who, in 1983, "was indicted in federal court of evading more than $48 million in taxes. He was also charged with 51 counts of tax fraud and with running illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis." (What the hell happened to the evil rich paying their "fair share"?)

At that point the rat fink fled to Switzerland where he remains.

In 2001, on Inauguration Eve, as we Freepers stood outside the White House heckling the outgoing Sexual Harasser in Chief, America's first teenage president was signing Rich's pardon. Even the lefty hacks in the media became suspicious when it was learned that Rich's silicon breasted ex-wife Denise had ponied up $450K toward Clinton's Presidential Libary and Adult Novelty Shoppe. The busty Mrs. Rich also plunked down a cool 70 G's toward Shrillary's NY Senate campaign. All Bill could muster up by way of a contribution was the 1999 pardon of 16 terrorists from the FALN.


Boy Clinton shows Denise Rich his horn

Ick ... just typing a few lines about the Clintons and their skeevey "friends" sends us running to the shower in hopes of scrubbing the moral plaque off our skin ... blech ... we feel all itchy and filthy ...