Today on DenverPost.com, Vincent Carroll wrote: "Shouldn't this country's experience after 9/11 reassure those who fear a backlash against Muslims?... The most recent data, from 2007...: Of 1,477 offenses motivated by religious bias, only 9 percent were directed at Muslims."

Peter Boyles was echoing the "there has been no Anti-Muslim backlash" mantra.  They seems to be ignoring the rest of the FBI Religious Hate Crimes data:

Year - % of Religious Hate Crimes that were Anti-Islamic

1995 - 2.3%

1996 - 1.9% (page 11)

1997 - 2.0% (page 10)

1998 - 1.5% (page 10)

1999 - 2.3% (page 9)

2000 - 1.9% (page 11)

2001 - 26%  <-- I'd call this a "backlash"

2002 - 10.8% (page 13)

2003 - 11% (page 9)

2004 - 13%

2005 - 11.1%

2006 - 12%

2007 - 9.0% (last year available)

Muslims in America were 0.5% of total U.S. population in 2001 (Jewish was 1.4%).  In 2007, Muslims made up 0.6% of total U.S. population (Jewish was 1.7%).

There is a new non-profit in Colorado called Project Sanctuary - A Sanctuary for Military Families Inc. The website: www.ProjectSanctuary.us.

The Project is just now getting off the ground and has this as it "mission": "Project Sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to provide therapeutic, curative, supportive and recreational activities to veterans, active military personnel, their spouses and children in a leisure environment. We are dedicated to providing an environment by where individuals and their families who have been affected by their service in the military may spend both leisure and structured time with their families and fellow service personnel in an effort to diminish the wearisome impact of returning home after a considerable period away while serving the interests of the country. Combining medical and psychological services with group dynamics, team building, personal care, and coping practices, Project Sanctuary strives to offer  fun, enjoyable, constructive opportunities for service personnel to reacquaint themselves with their loved ones, while providing supportive avenues for positive reintegration into civilian society. Though the structured opportunities at the sanctuary are available to all personnel and their families, only a very select number of activities will be mandated by their visit agreement. Project Sanctuary will be more focused on providing an accessible method for visitors to spend quality leisure time with the family members that have been affected by a loved one’s service work. Additionally, at prescribed times, the Project Sanctuary organization will attempt to provide support services to the surviving family members of those individuals who have lost a family member in the line of service duty and will attempt to offer adaptive programs for those persons who have suffered a disability while serving the interests of the country."

Another group attempted the same kind of thing in the Seattle, WA area, but cound not get things going and had to suspend operations.  Let's hope we can get this Project going here in Colorado.  I happen to know that the President & Vice President of Project Sanctuary are great people and I know one of the Directors fairly well and he is also a great guy.

Go Project!

The House oversight committee voted 21-10 to issue a suboena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to compel her to explain the now discredited Bush administration claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

It's about time that oversight and accountability were brought back to life in Washington.

When the 'Bushies' start crying "Foul", here is some food for thought:

October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate: "....the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's (The Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research) assesment, highly dubious."

December 2002:  REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ:  "On December 17, 2002, WINPAC [The DCI Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control] analysts produced a paper, U.S. Analysis of Iraq's Declaration, 7 December 2002. The paper reviewed Iraq's "Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Disclosure" to the UN of its WMD programs and made only two points regarding the nuclear program - one noted Iraq's failure to explain its procurement of aluminum tubes the IC assessed could be used in a nuclear program, and the other noted that the declaration "does not acknowledge efforts to procure uranium from Niger, one of the points addressed in the U.K. Dossier." An e-mail from the INR Iraq nuclear analyst to a DOE analyst on December 23, 2002 indicated that the analyst was surprised that INR's well known alternative views on both the aluminum tubes and the uranium information [“claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious”] were not included in the points before they were transmitted to the NSC."

January 28, 2003 - State of the Union Address by President Bush:  "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

January 29, 2003 - DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld:  "His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The regime plays host to terrorists, including al Qaeda, as the President indicated."

I can hear it now:

Rep. Waxman:  "Secretary Rice, when did you first learn that some of your own intelligence agencies thought that the uranium claim was, in their words, 'dubious'?"

Sec. Rice:  "Ahhh...I don't recall."

www.NoWMDs.com

In June of 2005, President Bush said, "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."  The Bush Administration is giving up on this policy.

According to an April 19, 2007 story from McClatchy Newspapers, Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy, "Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon..."

According to General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "the U.S. is trying to buy 'time for the Iraqi government to provide the good governance and the economic activity that's required.'"   But the Iraq governments appears to be nearing collapse because "cabinet ministers loyal to the militant Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resigned April 16th to protest the prime minister's refusal to set a timetable for an American withdrawal."

It appears that President Bush no longer has a plan for victory.  We're waiting for the Iraqis to "stand up", but helping them stand up is no longer a top priority in his Iraq policy.  President Bush appears to be actually trying to keep U.S. soldiers there indefinitely.

"One State Department official...expressed the same sentiment in blunter terms. "Our strategy now is to basically hold on and wait for the Iraqis to do something,' he said."

[Guess who]..said the miniseries might have omissions, distortions and exaggerations that could cause Americans to "come away with a misunderstanding of the [historical event].

The Republican National Committee Friday asked CBS to allow a team of historians and friends of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife to review a miniseries about the couple before it airs.

In a conference call with reporters, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said he sent the request to CBS Television President Leslie Moonves.

Gillespie said that if CBS denies the request, he will ask the network to run a note across the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes during the program's presentation informing viewers that the miniseries is not accurate.

Gillespie said that if CBS rejects both requests, the RNC would to sell tapes and DVDs on its Web site that would present "the real Reagan record."

Gillespie added that print and TV ads are being prepared to rebut the miniseries and that Republicans may try to buy time to run the ads during the miniseries.

Gillespie...acknowledged that he has not seen "The Reagans" and has formed his opinion of it based solely on news reports.

Ted Koppel explores the tension between the need to provide security and the need to protect individual liberties in a 90-minute documentary entitled "The Price of Security."

To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

In the last session you tried to use a procedural move to stop a vote on a crimes bill (eventually allowed to become law by Governor Owens), and you attempted to introduce an amendment to allow school districts to ban employees from dressing as a member of the opposite sex.

There are those who would argue that gay rights are a civil rights and anti-discrimination issue, and thus should not be something that falls under governmental restrictions. How do you argue against this position that the government should not be restricting the rights of certain individuals over the rights of others? Is this counterintuitive to the smaller government argument, and if not, how do you make an argument for both smaller government and anti-gay rights?

Lamborn: I just think that everyone should be treated alike -- special rights for none and equal rights for all.

Sen. McCain: General Pace, you said there's a possibility of the situation in Iraq evolving into civil war. That correct?
Gen. Pace: I did say that, yes sir.
Sen. McCain: Did you anticipate this situation a year ago?
Gen. Pace: …(4 second pause)…No, sir.
Sen. McCain: Did you General Abizaid?
Gen. Abizaid: I believe that a year ago it was clear to see that sectarian tensions were increasing. That they would be this high…
Sen. McCain: …sorry…
Gen. Abizaid: …no.

Asked, "You're not against Hezbollah?" Dingell answers, "No…"

Q: You're not against Hezbollah?

DINGELL: No, I happen to be -- I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence.

We ARE out here talking about a REAL Democratic message, Randy. Lots of us. But the "leadership" of the Democratic Party continues to throw us under the bus in favor of candidates who "can win" according to the calculus and logic of the folks in Washington.

We are going to start by reclaiming the high ground in every debate and on every issue. We're not going to curl up in a corner anymore and say "Please don't hurt me". We're going to fight back.

When they try to say we are godless, we are going to go right to the source and quote the Bible back at them.

When they try to say we are not patriotic, we will fight back and we will say that true patriotism means loyalty to America, not loyalty to a President or a policy or a political party.

If they say "cut and run" then I say "What will you sacrifice? Will you send YOUR children to the war? Will you go yourself? Will you pay higher taxes to pay for it?"

And when the answer is no or stony silence, then I will say "How dare you offer up the lives of others for a slogan, when you won't pay any price yourself!"

We stand for America. We stand for America's children and her future. We DO have a plan to restore greatness, and right the wrongs that we see so clearly today.

But we don't have to go out and talk about what is wrong. Americans know what is wrong. They want to hear how we are going to fix it. They want to hear our solutions, so let's give it to them. We have solutions and we are the party that gets things done.