Those who genuinely want to stop the Iraq occupation are first

The TBA Conference has rolled out the welcome mat for the Bush appeasers of the Congressional Democrats.

Destroys its credibility IMO

Scooter’s Sopranos Go to the Mattresses

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/opinion/17rich.html

As the Iraq war careens toward a denouement as black, unresolved and terrifying as David Chase's inspired "Sopranos" finale, the mob in the capital deserves at least equal attention. John Gotti, the last don, is dead. Mr. Chase's series is over. But the deaths on the nightly news are coming as fast as ever.

True, the Washington mob isn't as sexy as the Gotti or Soprano clans, but there is now a gripping nonfiction dramatization of its machinations available gratis on the Internet, no HBO subscription required. For this we can thank U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who presided over the Scooter Libby trial. Judge Walton's greatest move was not the 30-month sentence he gave Mr. Libby, a fall guy for higher-ups (and certain to be pardoned to protect their secrets). It was instead the judge's decision to make public the testimonials written to the court by members of the Washington establishment pleading that a criminal convicted on four felony counts be set free.

Like the scripts for "The Sopranos," the letters are not without mordant laughs. Henry Kissinger writes a perfunctory two paragraphs, of which the one about Mr. Libby rather than himself seems an afterthought. James Carville co-signs a letter by Mary Matalin tediously detailing Mr. Libby's devotion to organizing trick-or-treat festivities for administration children spending a post-9/11 Halloween at an "undisclosed location." One correspondent writes in astonishment that Mr. Libby once helped "a neighbor who is a staunch Democrat" dig his car out of the snow, and another is in awe that Mr. Libby would "personally buy his son a gift rather than passing the task on to his wife." Many praise Mr. Libby's novel, "The Apprentice," apparently on the principle that an overwritten slab of published fiction might legitimize the short stories he fabricated freelance for a grand jury.

Much has been said about the hypocrisy of those on the right, champions both of Bill Clinton's impeachment and of unflinching immigration enforcement, who call for legal amnesty in Mr. Libby's case. To thicken their exquisite bind, these selective sticklers for strict justice have been foiled in their usual drill of attacking the judge in the case as "liberal." Judge Walton was initially appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan and was elevated to his present job by the current President Bush; he was assigned as well to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by the Bush-appointed chief justice, John Roberts. Such credentials notwithstanding, Judge Walton told the court on Thursday that he was alarmed by new correspondence and phone calls from the Libby mob since the sentencing "wishing bad things" on him and his family.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/morning-in-postkatrina-a_b_52474.html

Morning in Post-Katrina America

Poverty. It is the centerpiece of John Edwards' presidential campaign, the cover story for Sunday's New York Times Magazine and on the front pages of newspapers nationwide after Monday's announcement by U2 lead singer Bono and two former Senate Majority Leaders of the $30 billion ONE Campaign to make poverty a central issue in a presidential campaign for the first time since Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968. With 49 million Americans now living at or just above the poverty line -- more than the population of California and New York combined - this debate is long overdue.

After Katrina, President Bush declared that the nation had a duty "to confront this poverty with bold action." While Bush delivered nothing, the duty remains and Senator Edwards and Bono deserve credit for bringing this issue back in the spotlight. It is time that the world's most prosperous nation remove the stain of Katrina and decades of neglect with bold action to build a true "morning in America" where the rays of hope shine on all Americans.

Sen. Reid is Right to Start Questioning Deification of Gen. Petraeus

Republicans have been portraying Gen. David Petraeus as an almost God-like figure, the man who will carry finally lead an American victory in Iraq and, come September, will report back on the progress brought by the "surge" he advocated and is in charge of. Congressional Republicans constantly repeat that Gen. Petraeus's report in September will be the key to their decision on whether to continue to support unlimited funding of the Iraq War or to join Democrats in calling for a phased withdrawal.

Gen. Petraeus may be a respected military leader. He may also be less than objective in evaluating the success of his own mission. In a USA Today interview last week under the headline "Petraus Says Security Crackdown Working," Petraeus reported that when he drives through the streets of Iraq, he sees "astonishing signs of normalcy" in half, perhaps two-thirds of Baghdad.

Petreaeus's upbeat assessment was immediately contradicted by one of his own generals and by the Pentagon. The same day that Petreaus was touting the progress of his "surge", the Pentagon released its quarterly assessment of security conditions in Iraq which reported that in the February to May period in which the "surge" was taking effect, "the aggregate level of violence in Iraq remained relatively unchanged". "Violence has decreased" in Baghdad and Anbar Province "but has increased in most provinces, particularly in areas around Baghdad and in Nineva and Diyala Provinces," according to the Report.

*************************************************

Shades of "Westy" Westmoreland.

Reid is talking the talk. If only he and other Democratic "Leaders" would start walking the walk!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We need to support a third party, untainted by corporate donors and dedicated to carrying out the wishes of the people. The fact that the Democratic Congress' approval ratings are now down in the toilet with Bush's is ample evidence of their abject failure to carry out November's mandate.

They have the power. They're just to chicken-sh*t to use it, and they'll pay the price, as will we.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Agreed Huron..........the 2 party system never made sense to me, supposedly living ina  country that is as diversified as this one........seems like you are corralled into one party early in life and thats it.......go along to get along..I applaud the people endeavouring to change the democratic party and will always support them............but we need at least one or two more Indpendent parties to finally rid oursleves of the stranglehold of this system...............

In 2008 my vote will go for Al Gore should he run, or an Independent........

Watching PolShowsOnSundayMornings...

Patti Smith

http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/#smith

From Judy's post:

JudyforDean
Sun, 06/17/07
6:01 am

· PM committed troops despite chaos fears
· Bush 'offered to fight without UK'

~In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.~

>

Seems to me Blair is getting the word out - albeit belatedly - on a number of things that dumbya-down dubya would have us ignorant about.

? 

decipher

1. To read or interpret (ambiguous, obscure, or illegible matter). See synonyms at solve.
2. To convert from a code or cipher to plain text; decode.

There's a new DemFest post at HEP.

Thank you HEP:

Howard Dean: Well, as you know, right wing radio is, as I call it, "hate radio", and it takes advantage of the very worst that people have to offer. They're always appealing to people's bigotries and people's prejudices and racism and all that other stuff. So, what I like to think of Air America as, is a place for optimism and idears. And I think that's really by and large, what it's been. We need a place where Americans can tune in and listen to things that are going to be good about America. Different ways of doing things, and not the kind of fearmongering and hatemongering that goes on on the right.

Ring of Fire: Speaking of which, last week we saw the passing of Jerry Falwell, and Republicans were jumping all over themselves to eulogize him. What do you think his legacy is to the political process.

Howard Dean: I think he has been an incredibly divisive person in terms of American history. He did appeal to sometimes the very worst in people--the anti-gay stuff, the racism that was going on at Liberty University with White folks not being able to date Black folks and stuff like that. So, you know, it's a mixed bag. He certainly was a potent political force in the Republican party, but in some ways he represented the worst of the Republican party.

Ring of Fire: And we saw, what was so interesting, in the debate a few weeks ago, three Republican candidates raising their hands saying they didn't believe in the theory of evolution. Isn't this part and parcel of appealing to the Falwells and the Pat Robertsons of the Republican party?

Howard Dean: Those folks are a passing generation. The Democrats are actually starting to reach out to Evangelicals. Young Evangelicals would rather hear what we're going to do about Darfur, poverty and global warming than they would beat up on their gay neighbor. And you know, in some ways, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts and these people are dinosaurs. They're people who represent the anger part of Christianity, and there really is no justifiable anger part of Christianity--they're showmen, they make money off it. But the new generation are people that are emphasizing what was really in Jesus' message, which had to do with reaching out to people, taking care of the least among us. It's a much more American message, and the young, smart Evangelical preachers are creating *huge* congregations with that kind of a message of hope. And that's something the Democrats can work with, and I'm looking forward to that.

Ring of Fire: Well, you have been reaching out to them. We've talked about that in the past. And that's a perfect opportunity to talk about the fact that you have not written off any state in the union. I want us to tick this off...in two years as chairman, the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, took control of the Senate, won a majority of the nation's governorships, and added ten new chambers in state legislatures. And then, James Carville said you should step down the next day, because, of course, that makes sense...

Howard Dean: The generations are passing in every institution, including ours. (Laughter). Look, I didn't do all that stuff by myself, without Chuck Schumer we don't win the Senate, and without Rahm Emanuel we don't win the House. It was a team effort. But, what we did do is go into new territory. Territory like Kansas and Minnesota and upstate New York--territories that hadn't been aggressively attacked. And of course we're delighted that we won the majority in the House and the Senate, but the really exciting thing is that we forced the president and the vice president to be campaigning in Idaho and Nebraska the last two weekends of that campaign.

Ring of Fire: You put them on defense.

Howard Dean: You gotta be playing offense all the time. When you start playing defense, which we've been doing for thirty years, then you're not winning. And now we're winning, and we're winning because we're asking everybody for their vote. There's not a vote that I'm afraid to ask for, and we do not have to give up our principles to ask people that don't agree with us for their votes. People will respect you if you respect them, and that's something we've learned by watching the terrible mistakes of the president. The president has not just been incompetent because of his policy mistakes. He's been incompetent because he set out from the beginning of his presidency to only be the president of half the people. And we want to be the president of ALL the people, including those that don't vote for us.

TTFN  

Yes, check out the HEP post.  Really good.

Happy Fathers Day to all you fathers and father-like people.  Thank you for all you do.

Nick Drake

CD: Family Tree
Song: "Blues Run the Game"
Label: Bryter Music

http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/archives/20070605/

TTFR 

Thoughts about what our party needs to be standing for, and maybe a dig or two at the DLC.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1348

 And Dean on Tavis Smiley's show gave the very best description ever of the fired judges...good for him for just saying it clearly.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1347

Of course the news hasn't covered it,  not a mention.  No video of the show though it was one of his best interviews ever. 

7.

Michael Ellis
Sun, 06/17/07
9:49 am

Reply to this

We need to support a third party
===============================

Morning fathers-all, and wannabee fathers, who love children.

There's two ways for a "third party" or multi-party system to work. To start at the local level at that affiliation and build a network.

The greens have done that but don't seem to be going anywhere. I live in a very liberal, very progressive town, and the green party is transparent in local politics.

The other way is to go straight to the national level, but to do that we need a national runoff election in order to not harm, what is usually the next best choice, to most third party voters.

You cannot put the horse before the carriage. Threatening to vote third party is like masturbating. It gives some relief and satisfaction but will never make you a proverbial daddy.

Am off to the TBA conference.

Thank you DFA for being there. YOU can make a difference.

And let's see how Code Pink handles Hillary. HMM.

Will try to blog from there but I am no Monica who did so well at Deanfest.

Peace to all you fathers out there.

New diary on Hannah

5.

Do you mean General BetrayUs? 

Lee Hamilton said a mouthful...."We call these people Iraqi leaders, but they are really sectarian leaders..."

I think this dog is on the trail, but hasn't caught the rabbit yet.

You cannot put the horse before the carriage. Threatening to vote third party is like masturbating. It gives some relief and satisfaction but will never make you a proverbial daddy

As I've said before, I'm sure there were some smug Whigs making similar statements in the 1840s

20.

5.

Do you mean General BetrayUs?

=========
LOL

"I have come to bury Bush, not praise him, but BetrayUs is a very honorable man" -Mark Antony, at the funeral of Orange Julius Ceasar

22.

Huron John

As I've said before, I'm sure there were some smug Whigs making similar statements in the 1840s

==============

It is not a smug slap at third parties. It is a call for legislative reform. The laws governing parties was different in those days. Since then the two parties have collaborated to make third parties politically unviable in the system. We need to reverse those laws if you want third parties to exist in the real world of politics.

You cannot put the horse before the carriage. Threatening to vote third party is like masturbating. It gives some relief and satisfaction but will never make you a proverbial daddy.

___________________________________________________________________________

Fred,

I guess Ill settle for masturbating then (crikey)..........falling in line for the dems or repubs  reminds me of back in the high school days when the only girl left to take to the dance looked like  a reject from the witch factory............might as well have stayed home, made some popcorn, watched a good movie......then went to bed.

There are lots of illegitimate and unwanted children today you realize...created from at the time happy Repubs and Dems.............

A profile of Fred Thompson in USA Today this week highlighted his long, long career as a K Street lobbyist:

Although the folksy-sounding Tennessean recently told USA TODAY that he would run as an outsider, just as he did while campaigning as a "country lawyer" in a red pickup during his 1994 U.S. Senate race, his resume is that of a longtime Washington operative who has crossed ideological lines to represent corporate and foreign clients.

In his most recent stint in Washington, Thompson worked for Equitas, a London company lobbying Congress to limit liability for asbestos-related illnesses. Thompson opponents accused him of being a "Gucci-wearing, Lincoln-driving, Perrier-drinking, Grey Poupon-spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist," but a Thompson spokesperson said that this was "not an issue at all." From the Washington Post:

He said that Thompson is proud to have been a lobbyist and believed in Equitas's cause. "It's an honorable endeavor," Carallo added. "He was retained to do a job, and he did it to the best of his abilities."

Of course, he is also an actor--gifted at pretending to be someone he's not.

>

I rest our case. 

Heard actor Fred (my new name for the potential candidate) say

~I'd run for POTUS because of the things only a POTUS can do!

<  Not my bag, folks.  Maybe yours~ 

! s/b ~

< s/b >

~ s/b ? 

i should have added

hahaha 

Governor Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, delivered the Democratic radio address this week. Chairman Dean outlined the stark differences between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the Iraq War. He noted that all the Democratic contenders are dedicated to responsibly ending the war while the Republican field continues to embrace President Bush's ineffective escalation of the war.

Dean also re-framed the debate about the war in Iraq and the War on Terror by drawing a contrast between the ineffective policies pursued by Republican leaders that have bogged us down in Iraq and Democrats who offer the American people an effective offensive strategy that puts America on the offensive against al Qaeda, by responsibly re-deploying our troops from the civil war in Iraq and into the fight with global terrorists.

To listen to his remarks, click
here.

Text of Radio Address:

Good Morning. I'm Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Last week, President Bush compared the Iraq War to our ongoing commitment in South Korea, suggesting a plan for a 50-year presence in Iraq. By saying this, President Bush and the Republicans showed once again that they simply do not get it.

It's time to end the war, not escalate it. A 50-year plan for Iraq is a continuation of an ineffective strategy and it is not acceptable.
Our brave men and women in uniform deserve better. They have served with honor and distinction, but its time for the mission to change. It's time for the mission in Iraq to focus on a political solution, not a military one. It's time for a responsible end to this war.

This week the American people had the chance to see for themselves the crystal clear difference between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the number one issue our nation and our next President will face.

Iraq.

Right down the line, we saw Republican contender after Republican contender embrace President Bush's escalation of the war and now defend the 50-year plan for Iraq. The Republican field of presidential candidates only offer more of the same ongoing support for the President's failed, ineffective strategies.

The Democratic candidates for president all stood united and firmly committed to responsibly ending the war in Iraq. This week, they each spoke passionately against any misguided stay-the-course plan that keeps our men and women in uniform policing a civil war.

The Democratic candidates have made it clear that they will not ignore the will of the American people and our military experts.

Democrats in Congress have stood up to this President and fought hard to keep him accountable. They passed a bill that established benchmarks with consequences and set deadlines to bring our troops home.

But the President vetoed it.

The American people hired Democrats last November to ensure that we end this war. So let me be clear, we know that if we don't keep our promise, we may find ourselves the minority again.

But we have to face the reality that Republicans in Congress are standing with President Bush as he stubbornly wields his veto pen in the face of overwhelming opposition to this war from the American people.

Democrats in Congress will continue to work hard to hold the President accountable and to pressure him to responsibly end this war. We want to ensure that we refocus our military efforts on fighting terrorist networks which are resurging in Afghanistan and that our brave troops have the resources they need both on the battlefield and when they come home.

But there is one way to truly ensure we end this war.

Elect a Democratic president in 2008.

There is one way to ensure that we have a commander in chief who understands that America needs a defense policy that is tough and smart, and ensures an effective strategy to keep America safe at home and around the world.

Elect a Democratic president in 2008.

Republican leaders have pursued ineffective policies that have bogged us down in Iraq for years and led to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Democrats offer the American people an effective offensive strategy that takes the fight to our real enemies abroad.

Democrats understand that the Iraq war has kept us from devoting the resources we need to hunt down and capture the terrorists who are plotting to attack America. We no longer can afford to be pinned down in a war that has created more terrorists and made America less safe, as recent intelligence reports have shown. That is why we favor shifting more forces back to Afghanistan to win the fight there against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

We also want to make sure our military has the resources they need. And equally importantly, we want to restore our alliances around the world and regain America's moral leadership.

Our men and women in uniform on the frontlines in Iraq have done their job with extraordinary courage and determination. They deserve an effective offensive strategy, one worthy of their dedication and skill, and one that can be executed successfully.

The best way to do that is to get them out of the middle of a civil war in Iraq.

And the best way to do that is to elect a Democratic president in 2008.

I'm Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Thanks for listening.

25.

Michael Ellis
Sun, 06/17/07
1:10 pm

Fred,

I guess Ill settle for masturbating then (crikey)..........

==================

Why not settle for the real thing.

Biden seems to be the only candidate that has anything meaningful and intelligent to say about this issue (Iraq)and other issues as well. He seems to have the most thought-out ideas, as well. I cannot understand why he is not a more popular candidate at this point. Our Party doesn’t seem to want a real president. Democrats seem to obsessed with bumper stickers and mottos for president, than a serious intelligent experienced person running in 2008.

Biden

Biden is good Fred.  I have no idea who will win the Democrat's nomination, but Biden is top tier in quality.

I hope we don't end up with one who the primary voters THINK could win. 

Biden seems to be the only candidate that has anything meaningful and intelligent to say about this issue (Iraq)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edwards was both calling Bush's "War on Terror" a bumper sticker policy.

Chalk him up as a deep thinker on the issue now, as he has figured out the basic lie.

Hillary has a major hurdle the other way paine as the "electability" of someone with such high negatives is almost impossible, and party regulars know it. She has a solid base and a well run campaign yet is in third here because she is "unelectable". Biden doesn't differ greatly with Clinton in the basic view of Iraq.

A way forward in Iraq - Friday, June 15, 2007 - SFGate.com

Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer

...Under our plan, which is supported by Republican Sens. Sam Brownback, Gordon Smith and Kay Bailey Hutchison as well as Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, the central government would remain responsible for common interests, such as border security and a fair distribution of oil revenues among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds....

We would also initiate a major diplomatic surge. It's time to convene an international conference on Iraq that includes the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and all of Iraq's neighbors, to help support a settlement based on federalism.

And perhaps most critical, this plan would allow for the responsible withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq by 2008...

...In 1995, when Bosnia was being torn apart by ethnic cleansing, the United States helped negotiate the Dayton Accords, a plan to keep the nation together by allowing the Serbs, Croats and Muslims autonomy with power-sharing. With the help of an international peacekeeping force, Bosnia has remained relatively stable for the past decade.

That is a model that makes sense for Iraq today.  Each day that we fail to pursue a viable political solution to end the carnage in Iraq is another day of heartbreak and sorrow for both Americans and Iraqis. It's time to change course. Federalism has worked before. It's time to give this plan a chance to work in Iraq.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/15/EDGKOP3GAP1.DTL

Imn2Paine

========

Thanks, Paine.  We don't have much money, and haven't contributed to anyone for a while, but today I decided to send $25 to Biden.  Love African Americans and Women, but Biden is the only candidate that will bring this country back and he can, and will, win, because his common sense and intelligence is something everyone can understand.

The other candidates seem to have little more to offer than ideological posturing.

Biden doesn't differ greatly with Clinton in the basic view of Iraq.

===========

The difference is like day and night  ...Please read this, before responding.

A way forward in Iraq - Friday, June 15, 2007 - SFGate.com

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/15/EDGKOP3GAP1.DTL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/waiting-on-petraeus-how-_b_52257.html

Emanuel and other DINOs subverting those dems who  want to get us out of Iraq

Be afraid. The ghosts of campaigns past are once again haunting the Democratic Party.

Remember 2004, and how the Kerry camp couldn't decide whether to highlight the war and national security or to push domestic issues? Well, those chains are rattling again.

Even as a steady stream of bad news pours out of Iraq, Democrats are once more divided over how much of their focus to put on Iraq.

"You can't become a one trick pony," warned Rahm Emanuel, arguing that Democrats need to pay equal attention to domestic issues. And Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor yesterday called on Democrats to abandon efforts to set a public troop withdrawal date .

I guess Emanuel, Pryor, and those in their camp missed the reports of plummeting approval ratings for Congressional Democrats after the no-timeline Iraq funding vote.

Thankfully, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid seem to have learned the lesson of 2004 -- it's not the extended family leave, stupid. Or, at least, they've learned the lesson of 2007: there is nothing wrong with being a one trick pony, if it's the right trick. And at this point, getting us out of Iraq is the feat voters most want to see.

"In terms of the issue that the American people want to see resolved," said Pelosi, "the war is three or four times higher than any other issue."

And Reid has vowed "to hold the president's feet to the fire" on Iraq. He is planning to reintroduce three or four Iraq proposals as part of the debate on a Pentagon authorization bill slated for later this month, two of which include timetables for withdrawal.

The Democrats don't expect any of these amendments to pass, but are hoping to soften what support remains for the war -- eventually winning the battle in September, when Gen. Petraeus offers his report on the progress of the surge.

"We want them to vote and vote and vote again," a senior Democratic senator told Politico, in explaining the Party's plan to force Republicans to repeatedly go on the record in support of the war. "They are going to have to vote on Iraq until they are sick of it."

The Pentagon's first comprehensive overview of the surge, released yesterday, found that violence in Iraq has actually increased since the escalation. The report also found that the Iraqi government has made "little progress" on achieving the political goals the latest security push was supposed to facilitate. Indeed, the Pentagon admitted "some analysts see a growing fragmentation of Iraq."

As for the administration's hoped for Patraeus ex machina, the general has reached the point where he is grasping for silver linings. He told USA Today the surge is working, citing as proof of "normalcy" "professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks -- big ones, markets that are very vibrant."

Is that what we are waiting until September to hear? Anecdotes about big amusement parks and grass-covered soccer fields and "some hope" that "perhaps" we might possibly have allowed the insurgents to become overconfident?

We have now reached the Iraq war equivalent of April 23, 1971, when disaffected vet John Kerry sat in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and asked: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

The Democrats need to stick with Reid's plan to ratchet up the pressure on the president -- and especially on Congressional Republicans who will have to face the wrath of voters in 2008. It is the right thing to do -- both on moral grounds and on political grounds.

The Democrats should ride their one-trick pony until it drops.

16.

floridagall

I will keep watching for a repeat of Travis' show with Howard. My satellite scout is clued in.

Biden does suffer a bit from Dukakis disease (which is not to listen, because he has the answers) and you can get into real trouble as a candidate that way. Is it for him or the country that he is putting himself forward? the hurdle his campaign has to overcome is Joe's ego

I'm much more comfortable personally with a candidate that says "you have the power" rather than "I". (but of course none of them run without a fairly big ego)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL DADS

AND TO YOU SINGLE MOMS WHO HAVE TO SOMETIMES BE A DAD AS WELL.

I hope we don't end up with one who the primary voters THINK could win.

===========

I am supporting Biden at this point primarily because he has what it takes to take this country back, ideas and action, not slogans and mottos, but this is exactly why I think he is the most likely to win.  His ideas and plans are based on common sense and not ideology, and these are things that moderate republicans and independents can understand and appreciate, even if they don't agree with him on everything.

Edwards will be glad he is free of those Congressional approval ratings if Democrats don't stand up to Bush on the war as Americans demanded in the last election.

Richardson is playing that card well here right now and is in double digits.

A FEW OF TODAY'S HEADLINES, COMPLIMENTS OF THE WHITE HOUSE:

Bus Bombing Kills at Least 24 in Afghan Capital

Foreclosure Rate Hits Historic High

May Consumer Prices Rise

June 17: Petraeus hints Iraq "surge" may be needed longer

Bombs destroy 2nd Sunni mosque in 2 days in Iraq

35 killed in Kabul suicide bomb attack

Edwards will be glad he is free of those Congressional approval ratings if Democrats don't stand up to Bush on the war as Americans demanded in the last election.

==============

"Standing up to Bush on the War"  will not end the occupation, and certainly not end the civil war between Iraqis, unless you have a comprehensive exit plan, and 2/3 majority in both houses.

The funding debate was a nice statement, but practical people should see this for what it is, in light of the veto, just a statement, not a referendum on whether one wants to end the occupation. 

Leaving the troops in Limbo is not ending the war, and Carl Rove would have loved it.  Democrats would have gotten the blame, not the president. 

Joan* In*Florida

==========

Good point, and also to working moms and stay-at-home dads that have to (or chose to) switch traditional roles, and single dads that have to be both, and uncles, friends, grandpa, etc, that fultill the role of "father" in one way or another, when the biological father cannot, or will not, fulfill that role.

50% plus one writes budget policy and if Bush vetoes the whole budget, the voters will know who to blame

it was in not forcing Bush that Congress has just lost the confidence and approval of the people

Biden does suffer a bit from Dukakis disease (which is not to listen, because he has the answers) and you can get into real trouble as a candidate that way. Is it for him or the country that he is putting himself forward? the hurdle his campaign has to overcome is Joe's ego

I'm much more comfortable personally with a candidate that says "you have the power" rather than "I". (but of course none of them run without a fairly big ego)

=================

Biden is no Dukakis.  I think most would agree.  The Biden "slur" of Obama is analogous to the Dean Scream, completely fantabulously fabricated by the press.  Since you are choosing to find his personality to be his biggest negative, I can assume you are incapable of criticizing him for serious reasons, relating to real issues.

I don't think it's fair to presume ignorance on the part of the electorate. 

If this had happened, would you have blamed the Democratic members of Congress ?

I suspect not.

Just for the record, it's presumptuous for an American senator to be recommending the division of another nation into three parts.  They're all still pretending that Iraq was invaded and half a million people were killed by our bombing for their own good.

Disbanding the military and then arguing that the U.S. has to stay until the military is reconstituted it hard to swallow. 

                                                                   Jessse Jackson was in Sears.
He was there to protest the fact that most of the washing machines were white!. 


So the clerk called the store manager, who asked,
'What's the problem here, Reverend?'

Jesse pointed at the machines and loudly bemoaned the fact
that most of them were white.
The manager replied, 'Well, Reverend, it's true that most of the
washing machines are white, but if you'll open the lids,
you'll see that all the Agitators are black .'

And we are going to believe General BetrayUs why?

Given what they did to General Taguba, the top brass have lost all credibility.

Everybody's got a Napoleon complex. 

51.

Well, Sears needs all the help it can get cause white, black or almond, they ain't sellin'. 

39.

I've referred to Kucinich as a one-trick pony 'cause he keeps talkin' about not sellin' the electric company way back when.

Why he doesn't go beyond that to the general negatives of privatization is beyond me. 

31.

'Cause he has hair plugs and bleached teeth?

I know that's superficial, but it demonstrates a lack of self-confidence.  We  do not need any more insecure leaders in the White House.

Why are both George the first and George the Second betrayed by their speech? 

Anne Richards was very perceptive when she said "Poor George, he can't help it.

He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

The Georges are basically insecure in public and don't know what they are talking

about.  In George the Second it may be a defective brain. 

Need to change browser or stop postin'.

you are choosing to find his personality to be his biggest negative,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

no Fred, the notion that only he has the answer, (that you keep propogating), and that answer is us telling the Iraqis what their country should look like

Phil Specht

===========

I guess it is a matter of opinion about the public perception.  I wouldn't bet the farm (2008) on it though.  As far as writing policy goes:

"50% plus one writes budget policy and if Bush vetoes the whole budget, the voters will know who to blame....it was in not forcing Bush that Congress has just lost the confidence and approval of the people"

Be that as it may, Budget policy is NOT foreign policy, nor occupation policy, nor etc. It is just  the budget, and the president was asking for funding.  That's how it would be framed.

  Biden has expressed desire for an exit as well as an exit plan, but he also had put in the funding bill, money for an accelerated manufacture of explosion-resistant vehicles, hundreds made in one month, that would save lives and limbs, even as we exited the country, which will not happen overnight by any scenario.

Any candidate can win our primary with an "out now" bumper-sticker, but come November 2008, IMO any candidate that professes something that can be labeled, as a no-exit-plan-cut-and-run, can lose against a moderate Republican,  like Fred Thompson, or Romney, especially if the voters sense an even stronger Democratic Congress emerging, since there would be a more balance-of-power vote for the Republican candidate.  Voters have demonstrated this in the past.

57.

Not propagating, just facts.  Telling it like it is, ain't telling "Iraqis" what to do, especially when they see themselves more as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds than "Iraqis" a fading identity - that's a fact, not propaganda

I've chosen Kucinich as my candidate more for his health care stance than anything else - even more than for his Iraq stance.

 Here in Connecticut - the land of the insurance giants - we hear talk about multi-step solutions to the health care problems we face. Kucinich speaks plainly about how a single-payer plan is the only viable solution. As much as I respect limited capitalism, the outlandish greed of the HMO's and Pharma leaves little middle ground in the debate. jmho.

57.

He never said he has all  the answers, but he has answers, the other candidates seem to have all the slogans, motto, bumper-stickers,  and no ideas or plans.

61. Health Care is Numero Uno for me too, but that is something Congress will (and should) do, we just need a democratic president that won't veto it.

THE BIDEN-GELB PLAN   ----  A Five Point Plan for Iraq

1. Establish One Iraq, with Three Regions

Federalize Iraq in accordance with its constitution by establishing three largely autonomous regions - Shiite, Sunni and Kurd -- with a strong but limited central government in Baghdad
Put the central government in charge of truly common interests: border defense, foreign policy, oil production and revenues
Form regional governments -- Kurd, Sunni and Shiite -- responsible for administering their own regions

2. Share Oil Revenues

Gain agreement for the federal solution from the Sunni Arabs by guaranteeing them 20 percent of all present and future oil revenues -- an amount roughly proportional to their size -- which would make their region economically viable
Empower the central government to set national oil policy and distribute the revenues, which would attract needed foreign investment and reinforce each community's interest in keeping Iraq intact and protecting the oil infrastructure

3. Convene International Conference, Enforce Regional Non-Aggression Pact

Convene with the U.N. a regional security conference where Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, pledge to support Iraq's power sharing agreement and respect Iraq's borders
Engage Iraq's neighbors directly to overcome their suspicions and focus their efforts on stabilizing Iraq, not undermining it
Create a standing Contact Group, to include the major powers, that would engage Iraq's neighbors and enforce their commitments

4. Responsibly Drawdown US Troops

Direct U.S. military commanders to develop a plan to withdraw and re-deploy almost all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2007
Maintain in or near Iraq a small residual force -- perhaps 20,000 troops -- to strike any concentration of terrorists, help keep Iraq's neighbors honest and train its security forces

5. Increase Reconstruction Assistance and Create a Jobs Program

Provide more reconstruction assistance, conditioned on the protection of minority and women's rights and the establishment of a jobs program to give Iraqi youth an alternative to the militia and criminal gangs
Insist that other countries take the lead in funding reconstruction by making good on old commitments and providing new ones -- especially the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries

--------------------------------------------------------- 

Plan for Iraq: What It Is - and What It Is Not

Some commentators have either misunderstood the Plan, or mischaracterized it. Here is what the plan is - and what it is not:

1. The Plan is not partition.

2. The Plan is not a foreign imposition.

3. The Plan is not an invitation to sectarian cleansing.

4. The Plan is the only idea on the table for dealing with the sectarian militia.

5. The Plan is an answer to the problem of mixed cities.

6. The Plan is in the self-interest of Iran.

7. The Plan is in the self-interest of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

FOR WHAT ELSE IT IT NOT - SEE THE LINK BELOW and scroll down

http://www.joebiden.com/issues/?id=0009

A friend sent me this...still LOL!!!

Scorn us now all gay apparel
by Ed Naha Jun 16 2007

At the last Republican debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked the slices of white bread assembled on stage for a show of hands: Who would be in favor of openly gay soldiers serving in the U.S. military? Not one hand went up.

So much for compassionate conservatives.

What is it with conservative Republicans and gays? I suppose you could say their reaction is based on fear, ignorance, dat ol' time religion and their desperate attempts to keep their political careers intact. Whatever their reasoning, these gung-ho support the troops guys are actually hurting the military.

Since the somewhat addled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" mandate was passed in '93, more than 58 Arabic linguists have been given the old heave-ho by the government. 11,000 more of our military, many in high-skill, critical jobs have also been told "don't let the beaded curtains hit you on the way out."

Is it any wonder that our Armed Services are lowering admittance standards just to get boots on the ground? I mean, we're deep-sixing a lot of really smart people because of their sexual orientation. Who needs a soldier who can speak one of the Arabic tongues when we can scoop up a couple of hundred new recruits who speak Pig Latin or are good at gang signals?

How absurd is all this? Professional homophobe Paul Cameron, on The Daily Show, told Jason Jones: "Guys don't want to think about other guys, other fellas, ogling them in the shower or whatever."

Pushing that train of logic further, Jones replied: "I know I'd rather die in a terrorist attack than suffer through an uncomfortable shower with a gay."

Not quite getting the sarcasm, Cameron replied: "Yes."

Excuse me while I allow my head to explode.

This somewhat skewered view of the gay population actually made it into the Pentagon, which, back in '94 and, again, in 2001, wanted to develop a "gay bomb." Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, that the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio asked for $7.5 million dollars to develop this non-lethal but too-sexy-for-its-shell weapon. Said a report: "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

Said Hammond: "The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay."

And, so, the battlefield would collapse into chaos, with manly man love and hot girl on girl action stretching for miles. (Or, as Rick Santorum has worried, it might even sink to "man on dog" action. "Lassie? Where's Timmy? Oh, never mind. Sorry, girl. It's that danged Air Force gas.")

Clearly, our government's best minds are still reading Bazooka Joe comics and laughing out loud at the word "pee-pee."

Just as clearly, they just KNOW that gays are horny 24/7 and will even go after glazed doughnuts if desperate enough while we heteros prefer watching re-runs of "Saved By the Bell."

Among the other mind-numbing non-lethal weapons proposed by the shallow end of our governmental talent pool?

Attack bees! After the U.S. hides numerous beehives in the combat area, enemy troops would be sprayed with bee pheromones. The bees would be attracted to the smell and envelope the enemy. Talk about a sting operation.

Yet another similar plan would attract voracious rats. I'm assuming the enemy troops would be covered with garbage shipped in from Staten Island.

Another bomb would cause "severe and lasting halitosis." While that wouldn't exactly stop the enemy troops in their tracks, it would curtail their dating.

Probably the best from these brightest was the "Who? Me?" bomb developed, on and off, since 1945. Based on the old adage "He who smelt it, dealt it," it would simulate mass flatulence in the enemy ranks. (Operation: Whoopee Cushion.) The government put the kibosh on this one because "people in many areas of the world do not find fecal odor offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis." In short, this bomb wouldn't work in D.C.

To my gay bretheren out there, it's obvious that there's no way you're going to sway these bigots morally, spiritually or intellectually. All you can do is make them seem more primitive than they already do themselves.

I have a suggestion. It's risky, though. From this day forward may all gay people, organizations and newspapers banish the word "gay" from their lexicon. Done. Finito. After nearly forty years, it's clear that the adjective just isn't working. Replace "gay" with "happy" and watch 'em all squirm.

What stalwart, thrice-divorced Republican politician is going to come out against a bill allowing "happy marriages?"

What warmonger will deny "openly happy" soldiers the right to serve our country?

Plus, think of the fun at birthday time when all the right-wingers are forced to sing "Happy Birthday" to their kids or grandkids? Sure, they could change the words to something along the lines of "A very splendid birthday to you." But, that would sound so...gay.

Same deal with the word "queer." One of its synonyms is "remarkable." Use it instead. See the pained expressions of the pick-up truck laden as they yell: "Hey, you guys look remarkable!" Or "I'm not going into that remarkable bar."

Very soon, the very small minds of the very large mouthed will wither to chick pea status, their owners never quite understanding why their words no longer pack any punch.

In the meantime?

Be happy.

Be remarkable.

And keep up the good fight.

"Standing up to Bush on the War"  will not end the occupation, and certainly not end the civil war between Iraqis, unless you have a comprehensive exit plan, and 2/3 majority in both houses.

41 senators can stop our participation simply by filibustering the next funding bill--what they should have done on the last one.

And hey Davis Stevenson. I agree with you on Kucinich. He and Gravel are the only representatives of the "Democratic Wing".

The others are DINOs to some degree.

THE BIDEN-GELB PLAN

>

Allo, vas ist das?  Eine Nazi plaan?  >Just taking about the name (HARDI HAR HAR)..

Phil's right about Biden's ego being a hindrance to many.   Good to hear Richardson's keeping pace with the early leaders (I like a gal/guy who has endurance,  can build speed, and finish the race with their technique still intact at the finish).

David, I love a little agitation now and then;) 

65.  I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, but bear in mind, stonewalling, grandstanding will not stop the killing over there, both of our troops and the civil war.

66.  Right or not, nobody's perfect and if that is his biggest negative - well that's a positive

Republicans abandoning Bush
NBC/WSJ poll: President's, Congress' ratings drop to lowest levels ever

NBC News | June 13, 2007
Mark Murray

WASHINGTON - As President Bush attempts to revive the controversial immigration reform bill he supports, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Republicans are abandoning the president, which has dropped his job-approval rating below 30 percent -- his lowest mark ever in the survey.

But he isn't the only one whose support is on the decline in the poll. Congress' approval rating has plummeted eight points, bringing it below even Bush's. And just one in five believe the country is on the right track, which is the lowest number on this question in nearly 15 years. the dems are lookin good. not

Thanks for posting that Reed. Repugs of today will never "get it." Let's hope the next generation of them do get it.  I suspect they will become and that abortion, homophobia and love of guns and war will all be seen as nothing more than deliberate divisive issues.

Gravel could pick up some speed if he could reassure the "people" about his CIC credentials.

I don't think anyone who runs on a "dept of peace" platform is gonna make it. 

46.

Fred

Absolutely! Every Mother's Day I wish one of my sons a Happy Mother's Day since he has successfully raised his two children alone with very little help, financially or otherwise, from his divorced wife.

64.

Said Hammond: "The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another.

============

Jay Leno's been using that one all week - probably a combination of LSD vapor and "Tropical Fruit" laundry scent

FRED from OR

hey, I am ok with Biden's plan, although I could do without #5.  Im bad for that, right? 

Joan,
I have a lot of faith in the next generation (both sides) doing what's right...I have little faith in the CM telling the truth...the next generation must rely on the internet and they are I believe. Nightly news along with the all news channels are shooting themselves in the foot by not reporting the "news". Most people are not stupid and can only be led by lies until things don't add up...we got some real fuzzy math going on now-a-days!

LSD vapor

> woa, that'd be a trip if it be delivered thata way! 

74. 

==================== 

That's cool, don't forget nothing is "cast in stone" but what is it you don't like about it:

5. Increase Reconstruction Assistance and Create a Jobs Program

Provide more reconstruction assistance, conditioned on the protection of minority and women's rights and the establishment of a jobs program to give Iraqi youth an alternative to the militia and criminal gangs
Insist that other countries take the lead in funding reconstruction by making good on old commitments and providing new ones -- especially the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries

76.
Paine...far out man!

Gotta cook tacos for supper...me night you know ; )
bbl if I don't nap in the chair...lol

As President Bush attempts to revive the controversial immigration reform bill he supports

>

Out this ways, Sen Kennedy is taking the hits on immigration reform.  I think the reason why is framing.  The Dems gots ta be careful on this issue.   The Dems gotta pin the tail on the elephant. 

5. Increase Reconstruction Assistance and Create a Jobs Program

Just like Urban Renewal.

People don't turn to crime because they don't have jobs.  If they did, what would be George's excuse?  Or Poppy's, for that matter. 

77

Iz just hads it with draining the treasury.  Spend it here.  It is my money.  Although the Iraqis deserve rebuilding, our money there will end up in our enemies hands (doubt me on this at our peril).  

cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another.

LSD vapor and "Tropical Fruit" laundry scent

Why would it take a drug to induce unrestrained , multiple partner sodomy? 

80.

We should force  the Republican  to defend the increase in HB-1 visa.  That is,  stealing the most precious human resources from poor countries (their geniuses,) to increase Oracle's bottom line, while simultaneously stealing away the best jobs this country has to offer from  its university graduates.

LSD vapor and "Tropical Fruit" laundry scent.
Why would it take a drug to induce unrestrained , multiple partner sodomy?...ROTFLMAO!!!!

Yes, we be getting screwed by all.

83.

Why would it take a drug to induce unrestrained , multiple partner sodomy?

==========

No, but I believe some of the military hawks are dumb enough to waste a gazzillion dollars on a boondoggle project like that, because they think they can, or that they think gay soldiers would not fight. 

Gone now...need stuff from the store...Molson?

State Awards Unemployment Benefits to Fired Driver

June 15, 2007

In yet another blow to FedEx’s scheme to classify employees as independent contractors, Massachusetts has awarded a former FedEx Home Delivery driver unemployment benefits retroactive to his firing this past March.

“FedEx’s illegal misclassification of its employees as independent contractors continues to unravel,” said Sean M. O’Brien, President of Local 25 in Boston, which represents FedEx Home Delivery drivers at two locations in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Former driver Joe Pasquale was fired in March after the company asserted that he abandoned his route. Pasquale was a supporter of Local 25’s successful organizing campaign, voting along with his coworkers to join the Teamsters.

During the campaign, Pasquale found out he had cancer. In fact, Pasquale showed up to vote right after leaving a chemotherapy treatment, inspiring his coworkers. When he became too ill, the company hired someone to take over his route, and Pasquale had no input into that decision. The replacement worker failed to perform the job, but Pasquale was held responsible by the company and fired.

At Local 25’s urging, Pasquale filed for unemployment benefits. This week, the state agreed that Pasquale is eligible for the benefits because he was an employee.

“This case sets a precedent in Massachusetts that if FedEx fires a driver from its Home Delivery or Ground divisions, they must pay his or her insurance,” O’Brien said. “These workers deserve that benefit because they are employees and not independent contracts as the company alleges. This is a major victory for FedEx workers in Massachusetts.”

This is the latest ruling in Massachusetts where a FedEx worker was found to be an employee. In March, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination rejected FedEx Ground Package System’s argument that four of its Arab-American drivers are independent contractors and ineligible for protection under the state’s anti-discrimination law.  

In a similar unemployment case in, a former Home Delivery worker in Northboro, Massachusetts who was fired for supporting a Teamster campaign was awarded unemployment benefits in August 2006.

86

because they think they can, or that they think gay soldiers would not fight.

>

Oh, I think the "tops" would fight.  You may be on target with a confirmed "bottom" (not that I know) 

Gone now...need stuff from the store...Molson?

> Reed, take the back-roads; 

89.

 You may be on target with a confirmed "bottom" (not that I know) 

=============

"confirmed bottom" What's that???? - not that  there's anything wrong with it  -LOL

61.

It's my position that we assign to government responsibility for dealing with those things and events we don't want, but almost inevitably encounter.  Among those would be

flood

fire

windstorm

aggression/assault

injury/disease

waste products

ignorance

One characteristic that all of these share is that, if they are dealt with effectively, they become increasingly rare (well, not ignorance).  Consequently, the rules of the free market cannot apply and the profit motive (because it is intimately connected to more frequent use) is totally inappropriate.  It's illogical to expect increasing rewards from decreasing events.   Also, although a decreasing incidents of unwanted events is expected, it would be foolish to anticipate getting to zero.  So, regardless of the actual occurance, those skilled to deal with the disaster/disease/civil disturbance need to be in a stand-by mode.

In the Bible it says, "they also serve who only stand and wait."  Service deserves to be compensated.

I have other problems with the free market theory as applied to things people actually want, but that's another matter.

Oh, yes, one other characteristic the things we don't want have in common is that the direct beneficiary of an appropriate good or service that deals with them often benefits less that the community as a whole.  For example, when someone contracts an infectuous disease is properly treated, then there are many people who DON'T get sick.  Of course, it's hard to quantify the benefit, but it's there.  Ditto for a well trained mechanic.  It the cars he maintains well don't crash and burn lots of other people benefit from his education.

It took a long time for economists to even consider externalities which represent costs that someone outside of a particular transaction bears.  I'm not sure the concept of beneficial externalities has been recognized and studied. 

• Top


• Bottom

Joan* In*Florida

==========

Yea, unfortunately, abandonment  works for some women, as it does for men, but sometimes women with children die, or go off the deep end mentally, too

Monica Smith
Sun, 06/17/07
5:02 pm

Reply to this
==============

This is a very significant point to a person with a MCS, such as myself.  Most of my symptoms and worst symptoms are caused by vapors and gases of marketed chemicals that are ubiquitous in consumer products and industry.   That is why it has been so hard for MCS activists to get Congress to define it, which is necessary for Government research. 

Corporation and the insurance will never try to figure it out.  It would cutting their own throats.  Universities or private organizations get nasty letters from corporate lawyers if the causes involve the products of those corporations.  Impeccable research studies are very expensive.

Since its discovery, corporation and the insurance industry has been waging an underground war on MCS sufferers and the doctors and lawyers that try to help them, by perpetrating ideas that MCS sufferers are all wacky or malingerers, or both.

5. Increase Reconstruction Assistance and Create a Jobs Program

Just like Urban Renewal.

People don't turn to crime because they don't have jobs.

=============

There is no comparison  a place like this with anemic but existing safety nets, and place like Iraq,  with the frustration of how people are living, lacking food, clean water, fundamental health care, life-saving drugs, (all of which have a price) and the majority of people are unemployed.

95.

I don't think it's intentional.  As long as humans used and threw away mostly organic substances, like every other creature, there was usually and eventually some organism for whom that waste was a treasure.

It's the invention of material conversion which has produced substances for which most of nature has no use and which, indeed, are actually toxic in particular concentrations.

The transformation of matter is an exciting process and permits man to be much more creative than he can otherwise be.  But, it has dangers and we really don't know enough about them yet.  It's possible, if we're not careful, that we'll extinguish ourselves. 

96.

Didn't use to be.  I don't trust the people who made the mess to clean it up. 

98.   I don't trust the people who made the mess to clean it up. 

=======

I could agree or disagree, depending on the nature of your  implication.  It is not Al Qaeda that supposedly gets "signals" from our politics here in the States.   The common people know what's going on as well, in this information age.  And I firmly believe they don't see all Americans through the same lens.  (i.e.: They know the difference between hawks and doves, Democrats and Republicans, Biden and Bush.)

97.

The transformation of matter is an exciting process and permits man to be much more creative than he can otherwise be.  But, it has dangers and we really don't know enough about them yet.  It's possible, if we're not careful, that we'll extinguish ourselves. 

===========

Now you are getting to the heart of the matter.  Probably 85% or more of the substances to which MCS people react are fossil fuel (mostly petroleum) by-products, and the public has little knowledge how much of everyday items and personal products are made of, or contain these, as well as heavy metals.

The fear of corporate America is not only one of liability.  It is also a fear of awareness of the harm they can be causing and all the "unknown" causes of the great increase in chronic degerative disease of the last 50-60 years.  

Up to now they have very successful in convincing the public that the increase is probably mostly "genetic"  factors and/or, statistically defining them, and/or people living older, that is, old enough to get them.

This ain'a your founders America...

WASHINGTON - A push from Congress and the White House for huge increases in biofuels, such as ethanol, is prompting the oil industry to scale back its plans for refinery expansions. That could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20070617/4674b1c0_3ca6_1552620070617-1531812560

~~~~~~~~

My Left Nut

 June 14, 2007
I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain'a? So listen, I've been called away this week by my duties as a candidate for the presidency of your United States. I am not at liberty to divulge my whereabouts, destination nor state of mind. All I can say is that if a bunch of former Commies in a foreign country somewheres think they can push us around, they've got another thing coming. Call me the delivery boy.

And I would like to remind one and all that the Cold War coincided with the golden age of the television variety show—and that's something plenty worth fighting for, in a war that's cold, where no one gets killed.

So I ask, where have you gone, John Davidson, 'cause I'm Art Kumbalek and I told you so.

une 07, 2007
I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz, what a world, ain'a? So listen, here's a headline from the news that caught my eye the other day: "Condemned killer wants to go out with a joke." Seems Patrick Knight, who shot his neighbors dead 16 years ago in Texas and is to be executed June 26, would like to leave us with his last words, the gift of laughter—always the best medicine with which to heal a sick world, I kid you not. Sure as heck beats the now-executed nitwit couple weeks ago who left us with, "Go Raiders!" what the fock.

Anyways, Mr. Knight is currently collecting pants-wetting knee-slappers on a Web site a buddy set up for him. He will choose one for the entertainment of those gathered at the grim ceremony, right before they shoot him full of the "death do us part" drugs—and hopefully will be quoted by all variety of media around the world.

So here, I've rounded up a few gags for his joke bag that I'll be sending his way so's to help him out in his time of need, 'cause that's the kind of guy I am.

So this guy's in Vegas and goes to see a magic show. After one especially amazing feat, a man from the back of the theater yells, "Hey, how'd you do that?" Magician says, "I could tell you, sir, but then I'd have to kill you." And the guy yells back, "OK then; just tell my wife!"

>  'ey you like that'a one, then go further to da following for more:

101.

Big oil must love OPEC for being the scapegoat.

Only George Bush would attack a country for oil and not find any.

102.  I hope he has a few "what would Jesus say" jokes, for the big riverboat ride

Did anybody report on this?

FOCUS | The New York Times: Presidential Stone Walls
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061707Y.shtml
An editorial in the New York Times this morning takes the Bush administration to task over it's "mania for secrecy," specifically an executive order signed by President Bush six years ago "reversing the presumption of right of public access to presidential papers."

We are leaving our own behind.

FOCUS | The War Inside
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061707Z.shtml
As many as one-quarter of all soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq are psychologically wounded, according to a recent American Psychological Association report. By this spring, the number of vets from Afghanistan and Iraq who had sought help for post-traumatic stress would fill four Army divisions, some 45,000 in all, an Army study found.

man, this place is dead.

White House denies prior knowledge of Abu Ghraib abuse 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP)

....."From what I knew, troops just don't take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups," Taguba told the New Yorker, adding that his orders were to investigate the military police only and not their superiors.

-----

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in SE Asia, it is worth remembering that these governnment-sanctioned (cover-up?) attrocities do nothing to advance the ideals with which this country trumpets.

3525

What do you call a dead Magician?

Abra Cadaver. 

New Thread at The End of Civilization

Good morning, BFA!

Some semi-good news ... Sarko did sweep yesterday's elections in France but he didn't get the unrestrained mandate that he thought he would. And I, for one, will not regret Juppé's departure from the new cabinet.

It also looks as though Ségo had more on her mind than winning an election and is perhaps an explanation for some of her political gaffes at odd moments.

=================
'Blue tidal wave' held back as Royal splits from Hollande
By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 18 June 2007

France was reeling last night from a double political shock. The defeated presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal announced that she had ended her 27-year relationship with the Socialist party leader, François Hollande.

The announcement came just after the French people rebuffed President Nicolas Sarkozy, denying him the landslide victory that he had confidently expected in the French parliamentary elections.

Mme Royal, 53, chose the end of the long French electoral season to confirm dramatically the persistent rumours of a rift in her long, unmarried relationship with M. Hollande. She said that she had "asked him to leave the home" and that she would be a candidate to replace him as the Socialist Party first secretary next year. The couple have four children, aged 15 to 24.

In a book to appear on Wednesday, Mme Royal will, in effect, confirm rumours that M. Hollande has been in a relationship with another woman. "I have asked François Hollande to leave the family home and to continue alone the romantic life, which will now be plastered all over the books and newspapers. I have wished him every happiness," Mme Royal says in the book, Corridors of a defeat, by Christine Courcol and Thierry Masure.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/art...

Casualties of war ... perhaps it would help to bring home the enormity of their crimes to putzCo, if they were all assigned to fulfill their actual and future criminal sentences by performing as orderlies at Walter Reed.

It might also teach them to have a bit more empathy for those on minimum wage salaries ... and who are also uninsured.

==================
Little Relief on Ward 53
At Walter Reed, Care for Soldiers Struggling With War's Mental Trauma Is Undermined by Doctor Shortages and Unfocused Methods
Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 18, 2007; A01

On the military plane that crossed the ocean at night, the wounded lay in stretchers stacked three high. The drone of engines was broken by the occasional sound of moaning. Sedated and sleeping, Pfc. Joshua Calloway was at the top of one stack last September. Unlike the others around him, Calloway was handcuffed to his stretcher.

When the 20-year-old infantry soldier woke up, he was on the locked-down psychiatric ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A nurse handed him pajamas and a robe, but they reminded him of the flowing clothes worn by Iraqi men. He told the nurse, "I don't want to look like a freakin' Haj." He wanted his uniform. Request denied. Shoelaces and belts were prohibited.

Calloway felt naked without his M-4, his constant companion during his tour south of Baghdad with the 101st Airborne Division. The year-long deployment claimed the lives of 50 soldiers in his brigade. Two committed suicide. Calloway, blue-eyed and lantern-jawed, lasted nine months -- until the afternoon he watched his sergeant step on a pressure-plate bomb in the road. The young soldier's knees buckled and he vomited in the reeds before he was ordered to help collect body parts. A few days later he was sent to the combat-stress trailers, where he was given antidepressants and rest, but after a week he was still twitching and sleepless. The Army decided that his war was over.

Every month, 20 to 40 soldiers are evacuated from Iraq because of mental problems, according to the Army. Most are sent to Walter Reed along with other war-wounded.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

And speaking of the uninsured, this is clearly a national tragedy.

===============
Discount Dentistry, South of The Border
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 18, 2007; A01

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Judy Salvador, a retired American Airlines ticket agent, recently typed two words into Google's search engine: "cheap dentists."

Salvador loves cheap -- she prepped for her nuptials by typing "cheap wedding" into Google not long ago -- and her quest for cut-rate dentistry didn't disappoint.

At her computer in suburban Miami, Salvador found herself in an international cyber-bazaar of dentistry come-ons targeting patients in the United States, where 45 percent of the population has no dental insurance. The Internet offers crowns in Costa Rica, where "a few miles buys beautiful smiles," root canals in Bangkok and Caracas, and implants in Budapest, where the "Hungarian medical level of training compares to UK or Irish practitioners," according to one Web site.

Tempted as she was to head for Bangkok, Salvador, 58, chose Mexico, which is quickly transforming its border cities into catch basins for millions of bargain-hunting and uninsured Americans. Arizona retirement communities now organize regular bus tours for Mexican dental work and inexpensive drugs. New hospitals have opened in Tijuana, because some U.S. health plans have begun covering services in Mexico. And tiny border communities, some about an hour from Ciudad Juarez, are becoming dentistry boomtowns to handle an ever-growing flow of American patients flying in from as far away as Alaska.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

There indeed has been unprecedented abuse of this privilege by putzCo.

==================
Abusing The Secrets Shield
By David Kay and Michael German
Monday, June 18, 2007; A17

In 1953 the widows of three civilian contractors killed when the military aircraft on which they were testing equipment crashed sought government documents to support their claim of negligence. The Air Force refused to produce the accident report, even for private review by the judge, asserting the "state secrets privilege" to withhold evidence that would jeopardize national security. The trial court ruled in favor of the widows, but the Supreme Court sided with the government and blocked review of the documents.

The Reynolds decision, as that case came to be known, set a precedent establishing the executive branch's ability to restrict, in the name of national security, what evidence can be considered at trial.

[...]
Congress should establish that the executive branch's ability to restrict disclosure of evidence is qualified, not absolute. Federal agencies should not be allowed to dodge even a judge's scrutiny by crying "state secret." And Congress should instruct judges to privately review all the evidence that the executive claims is privileged and independently determine if releasing it would harm national security.

In the 1990s, the privileged documents of the Reynolds case were declassified. The only "sensitive" information in the accident report was that the aircraft carrying those contractors was in miserable condition before it took off.

[...]
Liberty and security are mutually reinforcing. We can -- and, to remain true to our American values, must -- demand both from our government. An independent judge should determine what information would be harmful if released and what would demonstrate wrongdoing or simply be embarrassing. History has shown that those who have something to lose are remarkably poor judges of the difference.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

One prescription for Iraq, which has a lot more sense to it for those who know the situation. A situation imposed by the occupier only demonstrates the naivete and misguided thinking of those who keep proposing it.

=================
We've Lost. Here's How To Handle It.
By Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh
Sunday, June 17, 2007; B01

Last week's bloodshed in Iraq and the bombing of what remained of the historic Shiite shrine in Samarra and of two Sunni mosques in Basra were more reminders of a terrible truth: The war in Iraq is lost. The only question that remains -- for our gallant troops and our blinkered policymakers -- is how to manage the inevitable. What the United States needs now is a guide to how to lose -- how to start thinking about minimizing the damage done to American interests, saving lives and ultimately wresting some good from this fiasco.

No longer can we avoid this bitter conclusion. Iraq's winner-take-all politics are increasingly vicious; there will be no open, pluralistic Iraqi state to take over from the United States. Iraq has no credible central government that U.S. forces can assist and no national army for them to fight alongside. U.S. troops can't beat the insurgency on their own; our forces are too few and too isolated to compete with the insurgents for the public's support. Meanwhile, the country's militias have become a law unto themselves, and ethnic cleansing gallops forward.

[...]
In fact, history suggests that the consequences of a U.S. defeat will not be that dire. First, the risk of a regional Shiite-Sunni war is modest. The region has endured many civil wars: Algeria, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Yemen. While some have drawn in outsiders, none has led to war among those outsiders. Such meddlers tend to seek advantage in their neighbors' civil wars, not to spread them, which is why they rely on proxies to do their fighting. You can already see that pattern at work in Iraq today: All of Iraq's neighbors, especially Iran, are trying to protect their interests there, but all are also carefully calibrating their involvement.

The risk of a longer, bloodier Iraqi civil war is considerably higher. Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish killing and score-settling will probably intensify after U.S. forces leave. So fears of genocidal violence shouldn't be dismissed, especially if the United States goes ahead with its current plans to arm Iraq's largely Shiite army. But at this point, the three essential ingredients for genocide -- heavy weapons, organization and broad communal consent -- don't exist. The present rough military balance between Sunnis and Shiites, both of whom have built formidable militias, reduces the likelihood of nationwide genocide; so does the fact that Sunnis have a haven available in western Iraq.

[...]
So, how to manage the United States' first military defeat since Vietnam? Somewhat improbably, the keys to preserving U.S. power and position in a post-Iraq Middle East are the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Progress on those fronts would make it far easier for the United States to leave Iraq and remind Arab rulers and publics that Washington can be engaged, effectual and constructive.

[...]
Contain Iran. [...] The shrewd strategy would be to hold out carrots and sticks that steer Iran toward recognizing that more responsible behavior is in its self-interest. (And remember, Iran's interest in chaos in Iraq will subside dramatically once the United States leaves.)

[...]
Tamp down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We cannot restore U.S. stature and credibility without easing Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Those tensions also help Osama bin Laden's admirers recruit new acolytes and give Iran a pretext for expanding its influence westward.

To be sure, the conditions are dismal, with the Islamic radicals of Hamas raining rockets on Israeli border towns and driving their secular Fatah rivals out of the Gaza Strip. But meaningful U.S. diplomacy needn't wait for an unlikely eruption of statesmanship and moderation. We can't end the conflict now, but we can make serious, sustained efforts to improve daily life for the Palestinians and demonstrate our willingness to nudge the Israelis, as well as the Palestinians, to take risks for peace.

[...]
Return to realism. The U.S. defeat in Iraq should finally squelch the appealing but naive belief that promoting democracy is a panacea for the Middle East's ills. Washington faces a bleak choice: It can push its values or realize its interests. It cannot do both.

[...]
A rapid recovery from the U.S. defeat in Iraq depends on Washington's ability to act creatively, decisively and diplomatically. But no recovery can begin until Washington offers a clear, convincing timetable for military disengagement. If this administration is not prepared to lose this war right, its successor will be saddled with the burden.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

For the bikers among us, the Tour de France will begin in the UK this year ... a Canterbury tale.

==================
Taking on Le Tour
The Tour de France kicks off next month with a 126-mile dash from London to Canterbury. Fuelled on dolly mixtures and beer, Tom Robbins gets ahead of the pack
The Observer Sunday June 17 2007

Thirty miles from Canterbury, I started to bonk. It may sound like the punchline to a Ben Elton joke circa 1987, but there's nothing funny about bonking. It happens after extended periods of exercise when your blood sugar level plummets and you can't convert fat reserves quickly enough - the body basically runs out of fuel, splutters, misfires, then grinds to an agonising halt.

We'd been in the saddle for seven hours when my mind started to drift. Soon I couldn't think straight, and started to shiver. Every turn of the pedals felt like a monumental effort, yet stopping and getting off seemed even harder. Were we on the right road? I couldn't remember its name, even though I had looked at the map a minute earlier. How long would 30 miles take at 15mph? I couldn't do the sum. And why, exactly, were we here?

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/ju...

Well, I believe that the rest of the article doesn't quite live up to the inflammatory headline, but there are some interesting comments here, even though any three-way federal structure is doomed from the outset, unless it is specifically chosen by the Iraqis after we leave.

Why haven't people like Garner and the others spoken out much earlier? "Criminal irresponsibility" indeed!

==================
Iraq on verge of genocidal war, warns ex-US official
Patrick Wintour
Monday June 18, 2007
Guardian

The man who led the initial American effort to reconstruct Iraq after the war believes the country is on the brink of a genocidal civil war and its government will fall apart unless the US changes course and allows a three-way federal structure.

He has also urged talks with Iran and other regional players.
Jay Garner, the former US general appointed two months before the invasion to head reconstruction in Iraq, admitted that before the 2003 war coordination between the various US departments and military had been disjointed.

He also disclosed that the US state department official in charge of postwar planning, Thomas Warrick, was prevented from joining his team by Donald Rumsfeld, who was defence secretary. He said he was shocked by the Pentagon's decision to reduce troop levels and disband the Iraqi army.

[...]
The Guardian disclosed, in an interview on Saturday, that Andrew Bearpark, the British director of operations for the body that took over from Mr Garner, the Coalition Provisional Authority, discovered the plan to boost Iraq's postwar electricity production ran to one page. He said those who failed to plan for the postwar period were guilty of "criminal irresponsibility".

[...]
Mr Garner also admitted he did not see several of the plans prepared by the Bush administration and does not know why. He also revealed that he rang Mr Rumsfeld to tell him to stop reducing the US troop deployment and warned him that the consequent power vacuums were filling up with " fundamentalists". He also admits he was stunned by the decision in mid-May 2003 to disband the Iraqi army, saying at one stroke, it created a 200,000- strong armed opposition.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33004...

None of this bodes well right now ... unless both the US and the EU start paying attention to the government that was elected ... as well as the government they selected.

Faint hopes indeed for that from men primarily of little vision.

================
Hamas says it will oppose emergency government
By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Published: 18 June 2007

The deadly poker game of Palestinian politics entered a new phase yesterday when President Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, swore in an emergency government in the West Bank town of Ramallah, while Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister for the past 18 months, denied its legitimacy and consolidated his hold on the Gaza Strip.

Salam Fayyad, a 55-year-old former World Bank economist, was installed at the head of a cabinet of 13 technocrats, which includes two women, two Christians and a Muslim cleric. The only member of Fatah is Abdur-Razzaq al-Yahya, in the post of Interior Minister. Mr Fayyad, who enjoys the trust of the US, Europe and Israel, will serve as his own Foreign Minister and retain his previous portfolio as Finance Minister.

Once the new team shows it can function, the international community is expected to ease the crippling economic siege it imposed after Hamas won last year's parliamentary election and refused to recognise Israel or renounce violence. Jacob Walles, the US consul-general, predicted after meeting Mr Abbas that the embargo would soon be lifted.

Israel is still struggling to come to terms with the bloody Hamas takeover of Gaza, which cost up to 120 lives. Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, said the split between the West Bank and Gaza could be seen as a setback, but might also prove a new opportunity to revive peace negotiations. "A situation that hasn't existed for a long time has been created in the changing landscape of the Palestinian Authority," he told reporters on a flight to Washington. "We intend to work hard to use this opportunity."

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/midd...

One of my favorite antidotes to the insanity of the Rethugs: EarlG''s consistently wonderful Top Ten.

And I'm off. Have good ones!

==================
The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 295
June 18, 2007
Snow Business Like Show Business Edition

This week Tony Snow (1) tries to reclaim some of George W. Bush's aircraft carrier codpiece magic, the Bush Administration (2) is doing great work in New Orleans, and Joe Lieberman (4) has a hard-on for war. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani (5,6) is running a campaign based on truthiness, and Chris Matthews (10) can't resist the smell of Fred Thompson. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

[...]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...

There's a wonderful saying, "You have to give up to win..." something putzfollies obviously have never heard of. 

I talked to some friends today who are also thinking of  leaving the U.S.  We were talking about the unsafe food, water and drug supplies that are now coming in from China and parts unknown...not to mention the sorry state of our air traffic controllers and the outsourcing of airplane maintenance and long delays at airports.

Some of the ancient philosophies teach that the only way to attain something is to give up all hope of ever attaining it. You must let go before you can embrace, but you must also hornswoggle your mind that you really don't care about embracing that "something" to begin with. Then you can, and will, even though you don't care to, but of course you do, which is why you're letting go in the first place.

It's all a bit of a mind trick, but it does seem to be the only path to sanity these days when it comes to contemplating America's future.

It doesn't have one.

Well, of course it has one -- whether good or ill -- but perhaps we must first forego all hope of it ever regaining any virtue before it can, or will. Put another way -- in the way of the most commonplace vernacular -- perhaps we must hit rock bottom before achieving any ascent.

The line between lobbying the federal government and running it just got blurrier. A new high-ranking adviser to President Bush will enter the White House with lobbying ties to dozens of companies seeking the federal government's help on everything from proposed acquisitions to patent disputes.

So much for any possible talk of peace.  Bombs away, Israel, and this will end in failure and more hatred of Israel and the US.

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.

According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.

The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.

Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

The Israeli forces would expect to be confronted by about 12,000 Hamas fighters with arms confiscated from the Fatah faction that they defeated in last week’s three-day civil war in Gaza.

Details of the plan emerged as Fatah forces in the West Bank stormed Hamas-run buildings, including the parliament in Ramallah, where they tried to seize the deputy speaker.

Israeli officials believe their forces would face even tougher resistance in Gaza than they encountered during last summer’s war against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

A source close to Barak said that Israel could not tolerate an aggressive “Hamastan” on its border and an attack seemed unavoidable.

“The question is not if but how and when,” he said.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/17/1939/ 

The crazies are running the insane asylum so I don't see how bombing Iran can be stopped short of arresting cheney.  Ånd here we are again, protecting our "special friend."

When Gordon Brown returned from his fact-finding tour of Iraq on Monday, he proclaimed the importance of learning from our mistakes but also of looking forward instead of backward. Did this admission hint at a shift in Britain’s foreign policy when Mr Brown takes over in ten days’ time? To judge by the announcement he made in the next sentence - a restructuring of the British security apparatus to guard against future intelligence failures such as the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction - the answer is “no”. Mr Brown’s foreign policy will remain as backward-looking and self-deluding as Tony Blair’s.

I say this with growing despair, because I too have returned from a fact-finding tour, to America. Viewed from across the Atlantic it is clear that the parochial British obsession with WMD and “sexed-up dossiers” bears no relationship to the catastrophes now unfolding in the Middle East and beyond - not only in Iraq, but also in Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and soon maybe Syria, Iran and Pakistan. What people are talking about in America is not whether the invasion of Iraq was legally or morally justified but why it went so disastrously wrong and whether the same blundering fanatics will launch another catastrophic military adventure, most likely a bombing campaign against Iran, to distract attention from failure in Iraq. After all, the neoconservative ideologues who still run the Bush Administration have nothing left to lose politically - and in their fevered imaginations they still think they could inflict military defeat on the “Islamofascists” in what they now see as an even greater historical confrontation than the Cold War.

While Mr Brown and the British media are still fretting about who said what to whom about WMD intelligence, the talk in American policy circles is about an article, The Case for Bombing Iran, published two weeks ago in Commentary and The Wall Street Journal and cited approvingly to anyone who cares to listen by officials close to Dick Cheney. Its author, Norman Podhoretz, is an intellectual mentor to the people who took America into Iraq. His self-explanatory message is that Iran today is more dangerous than Hitler’s Germany, since it could soon have nuclear weapons - and that Israel’s very existence is menaced now as never before.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/17/1938/ 

from above article:

It is significant that Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, travelled to Washington at about the same time as the article was published to plead with congressmen “not to tie President Bush’s hands over Iran”.

Water seeks its own level.  So does political stupidity. 

The tragedy of Washington’s narrow to the point of dysfunctional “debate” about the Middle East is that few American political players are willing to comment in a serious manner about the fact that George Bush’s mishandling of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has done more than money or guns could have to advance the cause of the Islamic fundamentalists who now control of the Gaza Strip.

Disengaged when engagement was called for, meddling when a hands-off approach would have been wiser, and always staggeringly ignorant — remember Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s shock when Hamas won the Palestinian elections early in 2006 — the Bush administration’s approach has been so disastrous that the International Crisis Group’s Robert Malley is actually being generous when he says: “Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged.”

“Almost”? Let’s be realistic here. Bush and Rice responded to the electoral victory of Hamas — as a political party that had expanded far beyond its fundamentalist base to draw significant support from Palestinians who simply wanted an end to the corruption of the rival and more secular Fatah group’s administration — by throwing U.S. support fully behind Fatah.

The point of the U.S. maneuvering was to isolate and destroy Hamas. According to a recent report in London’s Guardian newspaper, the United Nations Middle East envoy, Alvaro de Soto confirmed that the US pressured Mahmoud Abbas to refuse Hamas’ initial invitation to form a “national unity government.”

The strategy was a miserable failure. The Bush administration only strengthened the hand of militant factions within Hamas, which had argued that it would be necessary to flex military rather than electoral muscles.

This should not surprise anyone. In February, 2006, former President Jimmy Carter, who expertise with regard to the Middle East is respected almost everywhere but the United States, warned that, “My concern is that in order to try, on behalf of the United States and Israel, to punish Hamas, we’ll actually going to be punishing the Palestinian people who are already living in deprivation. And it’s going to turn the Palestinian people even more against the West and against Israel, against us and make Hamas seem to be, you know, their only friend. So this will strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian people. I think it’s a counterproductive ploy to try to punish Hamas.”

Carter’s taken brutal hits for being right. A friend of Israel who — like prominent Israelis such as veteran Knesset member Haim Oron and — found himself disagreeing with Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, the former president was accused of anti-Semitism and charged with failing to understand the intricacies of a region with which he has remained deeply connected for more than three decades.

The fact that his warnings hproved to be prescient will not earn Carter any forgiveness from his critics. Even the urgency of the moment is unlikely to bring much improvement in the quality of the debate within the U.S. about the Bush administration’s failed Middle East policies. Carter tried, and he was ridiculed, smeared and dismissed for doing so — not merely by sincere if misguided supporters of the Israeli right but by a media that polices rather than encourages meaningful dialogue regarding complex foreign-policy issues.

It is this reality that has led most prominent political players in the U.S. — especially those who are seeking the presidency — to avoid saying much of consequence about the monumental blunders of the Bush administration in a region where Washington’s mistakes invariably invite blowback.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. One presidential candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is wading into the thick of the debate. “The chaos and factional violence in Gaza that ultimately led to the Hamas military takeover of the Presidential Compound and the National Security Guard building demonstrates a failure of President Bush’s strategy in matters relating to Hamas,” says Kucinich

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/17/1941/ 

snapshots:

more snapshots

Telesur: Building a TV Station and a Platform for Leftists

Cheney vs Rice? Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House

'Yes Men' Protesters Spring Big Hoax on Oil Expo Audience

Capitalize on Disasters to Make Peace, Say Researchers

And now we're pissing off even Canada and rightly so.  Why would Canada want to be part of the North American Alliance?

The United States is losing its closest and best ally. While hostility to the U.S. is rampant throughout the world, this largely related to the Iraq war, surprisingly the reaction of most Canadians, next-door neighbors, is hardly less critical.

Canadians view the current U.S. debacle with both sadness and in some instances, outrage. Once widely admired in this big country, the U.S. is now seen as a leading threat to world peace.

In a recent Time magazine poll asking whether the U.S. was either a “good,” or “bad” force, 26 of the 28 countries polled responded negatively. Canada was among them with more than 70 percent of Canadians questioned saying they thought their American neighbors acted illegally and immorally in its invasion of Iraq..

Much of the Canadian resentment is directed at President Bush and his circle of advisers. Canadians share the opinion of many Americans that the invasion was initiated on false premises. Canadians also feel The U.S. pays little attention to Canada and that the U.S. expects its support for American actions to be forthcoming without debate.

It is little known in the U.S. that Canada was one of the first NATO allies to respond to the U.S.-led incursion into Afghanistan and is one of a handful of allies who have played a major role in the containment of the Taliban. 57 Canadians have been killed in the conflict and the Canadian forces operate out of Khandahar, one of the most dangerous areas in that country. Canada’s participation followed a UN Security vote which authorized the Afghanistan exercise.

Another, and this an early complaint against Bush, was that the President shortly after 9/11 paid tribute to countries who offered support and sympathy. More than a dozen countries came in for tribute. There was no mention of Canada, and yet Canada to its own peril accepted the arrival of hundreds of overseas air flights as U.S. airports were closed . Towns and cities such as Gander, Newfoundland, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Moncton, New Brunswick housed and fed thousands over a period of four or five days. Further shocked by the tragedy and in sympathy with its neighbors, religious services were carried out in hundreds of Canadian towns and cities. More than 100,000 are estimated to have attended the tribute on Parliament Hill in the capital city of Ottawa.

Yet there was no acknowledgement of Canada’s role.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/16/1920/ 

Goodnite, Bloggie.  Let's hope the speakers are put on the spot with hard questions at the TBA conf.

Good morning, everybody

My theme for the day?  Displaced, disfunctional and disgusting.

It's sometimes said that Americans are too self-critical.  There are good reasons for criticism, but it doesn't seem to have been enough.

I'm presuming that the real reasons for invading and destroying Iraq were kept from the American people because it was assumed they wouldn't approve.  But what if they would?

After all, it's Americans who are building the bombs and missiles and American sons and daughters who are doing the killing. And a thousand a week are killed on our highways with nary a shrug.

Are Americans just good at doing what they're told?  Have the good Germans been replaced by good Americans? 

One more thing.  We perform medical experiments on people everyday.  Are they OK because the patients are free to choose not to participate?  When does the freedom to choose become an excuse for someone doing to someone else what they ought not to do?

I'm thinking of the six eggs that were implanted in an impatient would-be-mom and then taken at 22 weeks to incubate.  Three have died, so far.

Has the pretense that children are consumer items turned them into such? 

133
"Are Americans just good at doing what they're told? Have the good Germans been replaced by good Americans"?


Ward Churchill said something similar to that just a few years ago
and he's still getting heat for it. Doesn't mean there might not be some
truth to it...

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/iraq-the-battle-of-septe_b_52516.html

Iraq: The Battle of September Has Already Begun

According to the White House -- and to the dwindling number of Congressional dead-enders still backing the war in Iraq -- we have to wait until September to be able to judge whether President Bush's escalation strategy has been a success.

Well, I've just returned from September and I can tell you two things:

1) I've seen the future and it doesn't work.

2) The administration will lie and claim that it does.

How did I accomplish this time-traveling feat? Very simple -- I just watched Meet the Press, and there was Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, who together with General Petraeus will testify to Congress. He demonstrated that along with the surge in troops, there's also been a surge in BS.

Crocker served up his crock in a bizarre, robotic manner that made him look like he had been put together by Disney imaginers -- not surprising since the administration is running out of actual human beings willing to defend the war. So instead they rolled out the Crockerbot2000.

Today's show was required viewing for anyone who cares about ending this war, because it's clear that Crocker's talking points are a preview of the spin the administration will use come September. They were trial balloons, and Democrats should start shooting them down now.

The Bushies are nothing if not consistent, so it's all but guaranteed they are going to obfuscate, spin, cherry-pick, and deceive. So Democrats -- and everyone who really cares about the troops -- need to immediately and preemptively start taking on the administration's table-setting spin. That way, the public will be inoculated against the full-blown BS campaign sure to come this fall.

Bush and Cheney are never going to leave Iraq willingly. If they were the kind of men who could be trusted to judge the facts honestly in September and act accordingly, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now.

The battle of September has already begun.

*********************************************

And my prediction is that the Democrats will seize yet another opportunity to look stupid, gutless and feckless.

And my prediction is that the Democrats will seize yet another opportunity to look stupid, gutless and feckless.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well Huron, over the years they have certainly made an art form out of.......CNN played up to Romney this AM.....warch this guy and the media as they love cosmetics.........

I still see a Republican victory..somehow..in 2008.....hope Im wrong......

chilimac
Mon, 06/18/07
6:00 am
___________________________________________________________________________

The parallels since 1945 are undeniable.......save one or two areas, but give it time......

Kunstler on Iraq

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary21.html

 It seems to me you can call the situation in Iraq a lot of things, but it's not a war. Not at this point, anyway. Call it an unsuccessful nation-building project, a failed occupation, a botched policing job, a monkey-in-the-middle clusterfuck. All the US political factions, from left to right, do the public a disservice by calling it a war, because it misrepresents what we're doing there.

We're involved in Iraq because we don't want to begin thinking about modifying our behavior at home. We are desperate to preserve our access to Middle East oil because that is the only way we can keep running our society the way we're used to running it. Mostly, we don't want to face the tragic misinvestments we've made in the infrastructure of happy motoring, and we don't want to face the inconvenient truth that there really isn't any combination of alt.fuels that will permit us to keep running all the cars the way we like to run them. Either we keep getting the oil or say goodbye to the American Dream Version 2.K.

new thread

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/21221...