Free thinkers are always first.........regardless of party affiliations............................

"In every revolution, there is one man with a vision"......James Kirk 1967

Dean is first.  That's what I'm talking about.

Mike's first is first.  That is breathtaking speed.

Out of curiosity or whatever, I wonder why John and Mike are not just behind the Kucinich campaign.  What’s the difference?  Are you drawing some substantive distinction between Kucinich’s policy agenda and a third party platform like the Green’s?

I think that Dennis would be a superb president. He would get us out of Iraq, then cut the Military-Industrial Complex down to a much smaller and manageable size.

To say nothing of a single-payer health care system.

Dennis' agenda is not substantially different from that of the Greens.

I've already donated to Dennis' campaign, which is more than I've done for the Democratic Party, or any of the Corporate-Democrat front runners.

If he shows any traction in the polls, the Corporate wing of the party will slime him, so I'm not overly optimistic.

Heck, you ALL are first.   But then I'm first at kissing-up.

http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3332/9116/SOURCE=RSS

BY NICHOLAS DESHAIS | ndeshais at wweek dot com

[June 20th, 2007] Arianna Huffington used to be her own enemy.

That is, she used to be a Republican. Now, she floats progressive ideas on her 2-year-old news and opinion blog, huffingtonpost.com, making herself a pariah among conservatives as she tries to sink policies and politicians she opposes.

And her Greek accent also has become familiar to political junkies, thanks to such high-profile gigs as commenting on recent presidential candidate debates, as well as from Seven Days in America, her radio show on Air America.

Last Friday, she was on a panel at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' annual convention in Portland about covering politics. In between calls on her BlackBerry, the 56-year-old Huffington gave an earful to WW afterward about everything from bloggers and journalists to Al Gore and the Iraq war.

WW : You used to be a Republican and now you affiliate yourself with Democrats. How important is party loyalty to you?

Arianna Huffington: I do affiliate myself with Democrats, but I also criticize them. I'm not partisan in that sense, because what I'm about is ideas and what I believe in. I don't have to support a candidate just because they have a D after their name. I do believe this country would have been infinitely better if we had Al Gore as president or John Kerry as president. But I criticized Gore when he was running and I criticized Kerry. I don't believe in blind loyalty. I'm not a party operative.

Who in this field of presidential candidates could make a difference?

I've been very impressed with the way [Illinois Democratic Sen.] Barack Obama has related with audiences. There's a kind of situational quality, an authenticity that is very much needed. It's a long way between now and when the nominating process is complete. But certainly what the country is hungry for is authenticity.

...

bbl

Time to put the latest Obama hype in perspective--from Glen Ford'd article in Black Agenda Report,

Barack Obama is the antithesis of Black Power, a man who promises with every word he speaks, with every nuance of phrase and body language, and through his voting record as a U.S. Senator, that he personifies the definitive end of black organized struggle in the United States--a unilateral surrender to white racism. This is his appeal to the white masses: that they will no longer be challenged to confront history, or to relinquish privilege in the present.

Obama has already cashed in on his "Race, but not really, Card"--to the tune of $25 million dollars in contributions in the first three months of this year, three-quarters of it from corporations. This does not happen by accident. Since setting foot in the U.S. Senate, Obama has directed his entire message machine to the task of convincing corporate America that he is a friend who can be counted on to leave the actual Power Game in their hands. One of his first votes was to transfer most class action suits to federal courts, where multi-billion-dollar companies found guilty of race, gender or general employee abuse are fined the equivalent of the millionaire CEO's latest weekend at the casinos in Monaco.

He stood down while only California Senator Barbara Boxer stood up to challenge the theft of black voting rights in the 2004 election. He coddled American Manifest Destiny queen Condoleezza Rice and Bush Supreme Court nominees, while doing nothing--absolutely nothing--to materially aid Katrina victims. He has stuck like Crazy Glue to positions on the Iraq war and health care that are practically indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's--and in no way threaten the military-industrial complex or health care-insurance industries.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him.

In his journey to personal identity--dishonestly but expertly packaged for white and corporate audiences in his two books--Obama learned a salient and elemental fact of black life: we want recognition by the nation as a whole, and some connection to the national narrative

Mike wrote "I have always respected DK, although what he and JE did to HD disappointed me a lot. Personally, the American voting electorate wont go for a short person.......a Dept. of Peace is great but unapplicable today sadly."

John wrote: "I think that Dennis would be a superb president. He would get us out of Iraq, then cut the Military-Industrial Complex down to a much smaller and manageable size.  To say nothing of a single-payer health care system. Dennis' agenda is not substantially different from that of the Greens."

So, from what I understand, both of you like Kucinich, a Democrat who is running, although he might be short or have other flaws, and you think he may not have a good shot, but you prefer slagging Democrats and boosting an anonymous candidate for a third party or parties whose agenda hardly differs from Kucinich’s and whose candidate would presumably be more of a dark horse than Kucinich, but who, unlike Kucinich, would help jeopardize the chances of a Democratic nominee against the Republican.

Thanks for your voice of reason on the Obama front, John.  I am dissappointed in Arrianna supporting him.  I thought she was able to see through the window dressing.  Or does she do that later in the article and someone didn't bother to put that part up? 

I really get tired of all the hype by EVERYONE about Obama. Empty words that don't say anything if you truly listen.

What do we owe to the Democratic Party?

Look, I've been a Democratic County Chairman and member of the State Committee, but my support of the party depends on what they provide me, I don't owe anything to them. Loyalty is earned, and right now, although some individuals who are Democrats have something in the bank with me, the party as a whole does not.

So, my support in 2008 depends on who is nominated and what they say, and whether I believe it, just as it did in 2004 and 2000.

That could be the Democrat, that could be a Green (although it would take a very strong candidate), that could be an independent/third party.  All it takes to be electable is to get more votes than the other guy...okay, more Electoral votes.  And as I've posted before, I see as many as three independents making runs in 2008.

But please, nobody tell me not to support the candidate of my choice because it would hurt the Democrats. 

Russ, there's still time. 

Public Funding of US Senate campaigns is being discussed today by the Senate Rules committee.  There's a thread over on Kos with the details.

Tom Bearse
Wed, 06/20/07
10:04 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Actually Tom, Im glad I left the Democrapic party because people like you have infested it to the point where people like me would much rather go Green or not go at all as again, I shall not simply step in line for the lesser of 2 evils anymore........but keep taunting, it reminds me how your party has really sunk in the last few years........................you do it no service as many Independents read this blog..hell for all we know you are  a republican plant...........thats what you sound like you know.

Fred brought up an interesting point about the Germans the other day....he failed to recognize the fact that they all simply got in line as well to support a terrible leader..................

9.

Soooooo, short people have no reason to live?

Now that's pretty inclusive.

* rdorgan
Wed, 06/20/07
9:25 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Again? Side note: I watched a bit of the NBA finals and broke my rule of boycoting them since 1994 because you persistentlly adveretised how great this Lebran James was...............they lose 0-4............unimpressive...............sorry.

13.

i'm with you Mike. Even tho i'm with the run Al crowd here, and they are planning to do things, and 'be there' to show potential volunteer support - i'm earnestly urging them not to be shackled to the Dem ticket or to encourage Al in that direction.

Call me completely ignorant... and short. LOL

Barb wrote "Thanks for your voice of reason on the Obama front, John. I am disappointed in Arianna supporting him."

I wrote in the past about what left wing critics like Joshua Frank, Keith Rosenthal, Anthony Gancarski, and self-styled progressive legislators in Vermont, had to say about Gov. Howard Dean, including their scathing indictment of what they regarded as the conservative tenor of his administration policies. They thought of him as an anti-war fraud, they derided the control exerted by corporate interests, and trashed his policies on taxation, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, education, and the environment. Rosenthal, a Vermont resident, said he governed Vermont "strictly within the framework of the conservative Democratic Leadership Council." Sherry Wolf wrote in Counterpunch that Dean gay-bashed Ralph Nader. I mean, depending on your sources, Dean is practically Mussolini from the perspective of doctrinaire liberals.

I don’t know that there’s any agreement with these sentiments here, although even BFA bloggers don’t spare their criticism of Dean. My point in all this is that from certain perspectives, mainly from the view of ideological purists, Obama’s voting record subjects him to charges of being an anti-war fraud, a corporate shill (or "corporatist liar" if you prefer), an environmental chameleon, and some other unflattering allegations. Of course political office holders compromise and make accommodations with colleagues and interest groups with whom they may disagree. Dean would be the first to acknowledge this.

However, none of the left wing attacks against Gov. Dean convinced me that I should support anyone else but him in 2004, nor diminished my view of him as a candidate. The reason is because I believed in his vision, his guiding principles, and his commitment to a liberal agenda, even if I differed with his votes or policies on discrete issues. This is bound to be the case with any candidate. As we have seen, Gov. Richardson has criticized Edwards and Feingold for supporting and sponsoring legislation that will allow American troops to remain in Iraq for training and protection.

I’m not supporting Obama, if I’m supporting him, because of his record or even some of his policy positions. Like Dean, it’s because I trust in his vision and leadership, the ideals he has stood for and espouses. The fact that he’s a compromised politician isn’t the determinative factor in my decision, nor is it with Levin, Durbin, Harkin, Feingold, or anyone else who falls short of appealing but unrealistic standards like those Dean was held to.

Dave wrote "Soooooo, short people have no reason to live?"

Being short is not of any consequence to me.  Read Mike's post, to which I was responding, for context.

Mike wrote "Actually Tom, Im glad I left the Democratic party because people like you have infested it to the point where people like me would much rather go Green or not go at all as again, I shall not simply step in line for the lesser of 2 evils anymore........but keep taunting, it reminds me how your party has really sunk in the last few years."

This is an inscrutable comment. Are you trying to point out something inaccurate in my summary above? I don’t get it.

I am astounded that the Live Earth concert Sunday, July 7 which is supposedly going to be televised all over the world, is relying on being covered here in America by only NBC and MSNBC!

I can picture it now, little bits and pieces of the concert, interrupted by unimportant news about missing women and of course countless advertisements.

I have emailed C-span to cover this important event. Please do so if you will at: events@c-span.org.

I also wrote to the Al Gore website where their Live Earth email comes from: AlGore@algore.com

I believe they are foolish to rely on NBC to do anything important for the world, much less anything that is opposed to big oil, big corporation polution, etc. Such a huge event should have as much coverage as possible. They are even organizing house parties to watch the event. Can you imagine the flops those would be would only NBC coverage?!

Bloomberg is in the race to deny Democrats the electoral votes of New York. If he does and Fred Thompson is the Rebublican, we lose the south and the moderates. Only a true progressive ticket preferably with a western or mid south combination picks up the correct pieces in a three way race. Gore/Schweitzer or even theoretically  Edwards/Clark; but Obama might have the juice to carry New York and Ohio.

Can Hillary carry any state that Kerry didn't with Bloomberg in?  

18.

At least i didn't call you a ReThug plant

... i'd never do that, unless true.

Dave wrote "At least i didn't call you a ReThug plant... i'd never do that, unless true."

What is this even about? 

Phil, i'm not voting for Bloomberg.

... nor am i precognitive like Tom. LOL

Bloomberg would steal moderate women that might vote for Hillary instead of Fred Thompson. Iowa allows cross over caucusing and Hillary needs those votes to win the caucus. Independents don't caucus.

Thompson would win in a race between those three. Bloomberg might still be a Republican at heart. Giuliani comes in third and any Democratic candidate wins, so he is most damaged by Bloomberg. 

21.

Better a real Republican than Republican-lite.

Hillary's got to dump the consultants and her consultant-like staff.

Her speeches as a  Senator are deadly.

Deaniac would you vote for Hillary/Obama against Bloomberg/Hagel and Thompson/Hunter?

Couple of things....

Our Demcrats need a sit-down talk from someone who wants to win next year...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1350

And is anyone covering Dean's speech at TBA today with pictures?  Is C-Span there at all?

I’d like to set the vitriol aside for a moment and also clear the air a little. So few things in life, even bedrock moral tenets or at least their application, are strictly black and white. What explains the phenomenon that occurs when I write a post which challenges the perceptions or conclusions reached by some people, all one-time supporters for Dean’s presidential campaign, using what passes for principles of logic and applying facts to the analysis? They’re basically requests for a reply that responds in kind. Do you see that in drawing my own conclusions, based on my perceptions and reasoning, the implication is that I’m asking those whose orthodoxy I’ve challenged to point out the error of my argument, or engage in an honest dialogue on the subject?

That happens and, at other times, people agree with something I said. The likelier result, however, is eerie silence, or more predictably, this sort of oblivious sloganeering, comments about being condescending or, to paraphrase, charges of Republicanism. It’s really awkward. People here are smart, devoted, and thoughtful. They can be funny, insightful, provocative, even reasonable.

I’m glad everyone’s passion here is politics, and everyone is surely entitled to their opinion, but when one gets presented here, let’s at least agree it is open for discussion and dissent. This place is starting to resemble a wall for political graffiti much more than Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. I find it baffling and a little depressing.

Virtual discussion & fundraiser tomorrow night (7:00 p.m. EDT) for Rep. Tom Allen (we're trying to get rid of complicit Susan Collins, BTW). She's hardly "moderate," folks. 

Come on over!

with the exception of Gore(and we have yet to hear his policies total) your statement does not apply to the current list of candidates and lets be honest with each other shall we.................do you REALLY truat any of em?

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

What makes you think human nature is any different if one wears a "green party" label?  Do you really believe such a party, or any party would be immune from corruption and distrustfulness?  I know you are not that naive, Mike, and power corrupts, regardless of political persuasion.

Not that I am against a multi-party system.  I was like you once, thinking of it as a panacea.  It would be an improvement, but don't expect miracles. 

Like I say, alternative parties will become a reality when they can court the party in power through cooperation and collaboration, not by threatening and confrontation - to change the system and process that would be more hospitable and workable for a multi-party system.  A runoff, or instant runoff, or a combination of both (in some cases) may be needed to thwart the deterioration of democracy by making sure the winner gets more than 50% of the vote.

It would be expensive, and inconvenient for some voters, but that is the price of true democracy.

I would definitely vote for a Bloomberg before a Hillary or Obama, the wrinkle is Hagel.

each and everyone of my posts have an implied IMHO attached Tom, and 27 word are quite a few to spray paint on a wall,

what you have been doing is challenging the right of other posters to directly question Democratic leadership direction, and leadership is always fair game in the cat herd

a Bloomberg quote @ Politico, simon

"How does a 5'7" divorced billionair jew running as an independent from NY have a chance?

I don't know Mike, but a billionair donating tons of money while endorsing the ME warmongering Lieberman doesn't have a chance in my book.

Linda

Bloomberg for sure would hurt Hillary. I'm not sure if any others.

Hotmail (MSN) requires one to grab one of their email accounts, in order to access the Live Earth portal, Joan.

I haven't checked the inbox in ages (although, it's a vast improvement from Hotmail's old crappy stuff).

I know..it's difficult to escape the grasp of Bill Gates & Co., Joan. It's too late now...they bundled the branding & sponsorship eons ago.

Phil wrote "what you have been doing is challenging the right of other posters to directly question Democratic leadership direction, . . ."

Do people here feel I have challenged their right to do anything?

but you prefer slagging Democrats and boosting an anonymous candidate for a third party or parties whose agenda hardly differs

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

Tom this was the point of your post belittling third party possibilities wasn't it

IMHO the Democratic Party would indeed be a Republican-lite party if the threat of an exodus from the left wasn't lurking

You seem genuinely fearful that the likes of Mike would abandon Hillary and give us Thompson.

If that is what happens the party will desreve what it gets.

34.

mainefem, I understand about the  Gates monopoly. I have a lot of ms programs I use but always have to  maintain a mailbox there to access any info about them. I never use it.

Phil, I just agree with Monica's comment.

I like Real choices.

If I have to choose between a Real Republican, or a Republican Lite wearing a (d) after their name, I choose the Real Republican...and that is to stop the Democrats from going in to extinction. Because if we put another DLC'er, Corporatist, as our front runners are, that will be all anyone know the Democrats to be and that will be their end.

Something of course the DLC'ers have been trying to do.

We thought maybe folks would have learned the lesson after 04 and the pandering that happened. We said, "maybe it just really has to get HORRBILE for everyone to wake up".

Apparently folks don't think things are so bad.

Apparently they are ok losing their rights-Patriot act

Apparently they are ok with being a Conqueror, permantely at warm with anyone who threatens...or just has something we want.

Appaarnetly we can end life as we know it, due to man made polution, becuase hey, our politicians are actually wanting to give our tax dollars to private companies to increase the pollution.

Don't you worry about that Single Payer Health Care system like Canada or other civilized countries, we won't let that happen here in the good 'ol US of A.

s/b Apparently they are ok being a Conqueror, PERMANENTLY at WAR with anyone who threatens...or just has something we want

27.

No.

That's why i'd prefer something like Gore/Dean, Feingold/Boxer, DK/Ravel, Edwards/Leahy...

anyone... anyone but Clinton, worse yet Obama

IMHO Bloomberg would only except to complicate the New York primary which could be a plus for Obama or Edwards, either of which would be preferable to Hillary.

As national candidates, Bloomberg and Hagel are almost unknown among the average voter. As Independents they would get nowhere.

Phil wrote  to say that my comment suggesting Mike and John, among others, prefer slagging Democrats and boosting an anonymous candidate for a third party or parties whose agenda hardly differs from Kucinich's, challenged the right of posters to question the direction of Democratic leadership direction, and belittled to third party possibilities.

This is intriguing.  Thank you for that amplification.  Mike and John definitely do slag Democrats and boost third parties, whose candidates are very clearly annonymous, because none are running or have yet been selected to run as nominees, so far as we know presently.  John said Kucinich's agenda hardly differs from that of the Green Party. In other words, my attempt was to present undisputed facts.  I believe I succeeded, but if there's disagreement about this, it really helps explain things. 

Whether that belittles the prospects of third party candidates is neither here nor there.  It's pretty common knowledge that such prospects are terrible, but I don't find any shame in the running.  The fact that it's a Sisyphean struggle hardly makes it ignoble, just doomed.  None of these observations are cracks or even snide remarks.  Things are what they are.  I can't change them by representing them differently.

29.

sooooo missunderinterpreticlassificationated.

It's otay.

I like Obama, he will remain within the top three on my list.

If Al runs, different story.

What do we owe to the Democratic Party?

The question should be, "What does the Democraric Party owe the ordinary people who have given it their time, money, and votes?

And the answer would be, "Seemingly little or nothing but....."

Could you read that?  I couldn't.  I meant to write "Phil wrote to say that my comment suggesting Mike and John, among others, prefer slagging Democrats and boosting an anonymous candidate for a third party or parties, whose agenda hardly differs from Kucinich's, challenged the right of posters to question the direction of the Democratic Party's leadership, and belittled third party possibilities."

opps
that should be misunderinterpreticlassificationated.

Too many ss's.

LOL

Gotta run... love ya'll, mean it!!

bbl -shopping

FRED from OR
Wed, 06/20/07
12:15 pm
___________________________________________________________________________

No panceasea Fred.........just an alternative......Ive read articles of discontent within the Green Party..yes, power corrupts..........which is why I dont care for politics in general..............cheerio

"I don't see any difference between the parties," he said. "They can't stop pork. They can't stand up to the NRA.They can't work together."

 .

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

. 

Michael Bloomberg

In the last 72 hours, Mike Bloomberg has been on the cover of TIME, the subject of the feature story in Business Week and a special guest on NBC's "Nightly News."

The three media outlets described the NYC mayor as "forthright," "prosaic," "self-confident," "tough," an "Eagle Scout," "an executive," "a CEO," "a cutthroat businessman," "a press mogul," "a Wall Street mogul," a "technocrat," someone who "isn't typical," "a risk-taker," "self-made," "a billionaire," "a self-made billionaire" a "pint-size billionaire" and, of course someone with "no political debts" who is "beholden to no one."

49. The Democratic party, and the Corporate-Democrat candidates deserve all the slagging they get from me and lots of others. In 5 months, they as the majority have not acco[pmlished anything except to make themselves look like a bunch of idiots. Rove says BOO!, and they dive for cover.

As an Indie, I'm excited about the prospect of a Bloomberg candidacy, even though I'm not sure of some of his positions. He would present a viable and credible choice between Clinton or Obama and any of the Repug pretenders.

With Mike and m,any others, I don't intend to be forced into voting for the "lesser of evils" again. I still mentally gargle every time I remember I voted for Kerry, even though it was an ABB vote.

Bloomberg: How can a (former) RINO be better than (current) DINOs?

DHS Acknowledges Own Computer Break-Ins

Jun 20, 6:34 AM (ET)

By TED BRIDIS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress.

In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.

In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins.

...
http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070620...

Sitka
Wed, 06/20/07
1:29 pm

- Integrity

- No IOU's

- Pragmatic

- Problem solver

- Very Dean like, not packaged to say the correct things, he says what he means

- Forget lables he is a very popular Mayor in New york who has brought together liberals/moderstes, black/white/hispanic, etc.....all groups respect his leadership

- Does not follow the party rule book

LGF NR

There's a new piece of political real estate on the market (Bloomberg) and his salespeople are already saturating the market with promos.

Between you and rdorgan we'll have to rename this the OBLOOMA BLOG.

OBLOOMA BLOG.

Good one, Sitka

Thank you, but I'm not in the market for a candidate at this time.

Sunni Mosques Attacked in Iraq

Jun 20, 1:04 PM (ET)

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

BAGHDAD (AP) - Militants blew up three Sunni mosques south of Baghdad on Wednesday - apparently revenge strikes for a suicide truck bombing a day before that killed at least 87 people and badly damaged an important Shiite mosque in the capital.

U.S. forces expanded their push against insurgent strongholds outside Baghdad, meanwhile, as Iraqi units joined the offensive and took control of several districts in the key city of Baqouba, the military said.

The commander of U.S. ground forces, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said the campaign seeks to uproot insurgents - including Sunni factions linked to al-Qaida - in areas north and east of Baghdad and allow Iraqi forces to take greater control over the four-month-old effort to restore control of the capital.

The offensive, launched Tuesday, "allows us to pressure" militants on the militant bases outside Baghdad, Odierno told CNN.


"More important, I'm hoping it will allow us to maintain it over a long period of time and continue to buy the time and space necessary for the Iraqi security forces to take over" in Baghdad, he said.


....

The U.S. military spokesman, Rear Adm. Mark Fox, acknowledged "an increasing pattern of attacks" against the Green Zone, a day after a mortar barrage against the heavily fortified area sent soldiers and contractors scrambling for cover.

Fox declined to provide details on the number of attacks against the Green Zone, which is also known as the International Zone, but said they were increasing.

"It's clear that there is an attempt to get lucky shots and there is unquestionably an increasing pattern of attacks here against the International Zone. There's no doubt about that," he said.

....

Four soldiers were killed and a Humvee was burned in nearly two hours of clashes in the Shiite town of Numaniyah, 75 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. The fighting erupted hours after five other Iraqi soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb in the mainly Sunni town of Madain, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad.

Farther south, the U.S. military said three militants had been killed, including a senior leader of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and 45 detained after two days of clashes in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospital officials put the casualty toll at 35 killed and 150 wounded.

A British soldier died Wednesday after an attack on a military facility in the southern city of Basra, the British defense ministry said in London.

In all, 142 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence Tuesday, a toll reflecting carnage associated with the months before the U.S. security crackdown in the capital began Feb. 14.

....

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070620...

Are we safer yet?

How's that surge feelin' right about now?

Sure glad the funding is still pouring in for all this 'security'.

35...are you saying Bloomberg funds Lieberputz?  He's also very connected to AIPAC. Not in my book would he get my vote.  Another ME warmonger.

Phil, did you say that repugs can caucus for dems they'd like to see lose the general?  What's with the crossover vote?  Why is it even allowed anywhere?  What's the point except to let the opposition help determine the nominee?

And why can't indies vote?  There's something all wrong with these goings on.  Many indies are going progressive this year IMO and they can't vote in the caucus?  Even if they're not progressives, why can't indies vote?

Jeez!

Putz just vetoed the stem cell bill.  I'll keep my thoughts about that to myself.

The offensive, launched Tuesday, "allows us to pressure" militants on the militant bases outside Baghdad, Odierno told CNN.


"More important, I'm hoping it will allow us to maintain it over a long period of time and continue to buy the time and space necessary for the Iraqi security forces to take over" in Baghdad, he said.

definition of stupidity: when we do things over and over again and expect the outcome to be different.

How many "offensives to root out insurgents" does this one make?

Attention Oregons:  We have to make sure we throw Smith OUT.

Jason Leopold | Rove Aide Details Broad Political Abuses
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062007J.shtml
In January 2002, at a retreat in West Virginia, Karl Rove gave a PowerPoint presentation to at least 50 managers at the Department of the Interior to discuss polling data, and emphasized the importance of getting Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican, reelected that year.
 

This compassionate conservatism is really too compassionate.  We need to crack down on compassion and the teaching of Jesus.

Wife of US Soldier Missing in Iraq Faces Deportation
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062007M.shtml
The wife of a soldier missing in Iraq could face deportation, her lawyer told a television station. Army Specialist Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife Yaderlin, whom he married in 2004, Boston's WBZ-TV reported on Tuesday.

2003-2004 

....While Dean vehemently criticizes Bush on a range of issues, when it comes to Israel, he told an audience at Iowa's Drake University in February, "The administration's guiding principles in the Middle East are the right ones. Terrorism against Israel must end. A two-state solution is the only path to eventual peace, but Palestinian territory cannot have the capability of being used as a platform for attacking Israel."

"His position on the Middle East is a right-of-center position," says Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. Yet Dean has been cast as the left-of-center candidate, and the self-propelling narrative of the current campaign ensures that nearly everything he says will be interpreted according to that conventional wisdom. And few issues in American politics are as sensitive as Israel, making a mere hint of dissent from the AIPAC line politically hazardous, even for a candidate whose campaign is being run by an AIPAC vet.

----------

In your lingo, I guess it is his Putz-ette wife that made him do it.   

Back from sulking for a few days due to ruffled feathers. My kneejerk reaction to Bloomberg is that he might in a sense be buying the presidency. It's bad enuf candidates have to gather money and be beholden to those who gave, but there is something even scarier about someone being able to just put in his own $ and win by dent of support only through himself.

Annilow
Wed, 06/20/07
2:15 pm

That is why that Lamont fellow was such a bad candidate.

LOL 

NR =near right 

70. Senator's one thing, the Presidency's another. Anyone would have been better than Leibermann. But you are right and I said it was a kneejerk reaction. Must say I'm glad I'm old - the US of A will not be recognizable to those of us who grew up in the 1950's when we get to 2050.

Looks like it may be academic anyway:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070620/pl_n...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Wednesday he was not a candidate for the 2008 U.S. presidential election despite having changed his political affiliation to independent from Republican.

Phil Specht
Wed, 06/20/07
2:35 pm

??????

LGF=????? 

74.

= oler

??

Deaniac in GA
Wed, 06/20/07
2:56 pm

Nope ........ but maybe another......... 

New picture of Tanner at baby. . . . .

http://eatapyzch.blogspot.com/

Annilow, I don't know 'bout that. I think if a Candidate feels he wants to give back, if he has the means, by paying for his campaign, instead of receving outside money, until he can fix our elections so there won't be that kind of money in it any more. I think that's cool. I don't think a wealthy person should be expected to by no means. I didn't expect Kerry to fund his own, etc. But if they choose to, I think that admirable. It's not like he's paying someone off. It's not like he's giving money for votes, it's to fund the campaign. imho

General Clark will be appearing tonight on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Countdown airs at 8pm ET/5pm PT and is rebroadcast at Midnight ET/9 pm PT. General Clark will join Keith at the top of the hour.

Make sure to tune in tonight, and thank you for your continued support of WesPAC!

I've been trying to look up just 'when' we became a "Judeo/Christian' country.   "Judeo" being the FIRST word, and that's not even 'alphabetical'.    Jewish people make up about 1.78% of our population.  From all my experience, the Jewish people themselves are great - it's just their government.  The same as ours at present.  

Five times as many Palestinians have been killed during this last several year siege - as Isreali's.   Thousands more Palestinians jailed in Israel as 'suspects' - than Isreali's in Palestine.   Israel was to leave Palestine after the Oslo Accords... they didn't.  As long as there is 'trouble' - they have an excuse to stay and take more land.   THEN,  Bush gave them the 'green light' to DESTROY Lebanon.  It's the arrogant factor again.  And bad advice, because - they got a few bombs back on them and had to high-tail it.   In other words - they lost.   Isreal must have as much 'bad intelligence' as WE do.   Anyone taking advice from Bush on 'war tactics' - has a problem.     As our long time 'lone' real ally in the whole area - with nukes pointed everywhere -- I'm sure it's important to our government to protect them.  The question will eventually be - at what cost.  The poor Isreali people live in daily fear, their economy suffers and their children grow up to 'hate' - just as the Palestinian children do.  

 We could fix this, but we don't.

Ouch...and if it's not the brand Trader Joe's that is growing all over....the other company name...SYSCO...sells to EVERYone. Restaurants, etc.


Company Recalls Onions Packaged Under Trader Joe's Brand


Associated Press
A California company has recalled diced yellow onions sold under the Trader Joe's brand in New Mexico and five other states.
Gills Onions LLC of Oxnard, Calif., issued the recall Tuesday after routine testing by the California Department of Agriculture found Listeria monocytogenes in one retail bag of onions.
The organism can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and those with weakened immune systems. It also can cause miscarriages and stillbirths. Healthy people may suffer short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea and diarrhea.
The recalled lot was 2017-R.
For the retail market, the onions were packaged in a 10-ounce Trader Joe's bag with the lot number and a sell by date of June 16. For food service purposes, packages were in cartons labeled under the Gills Onion Brand and the Sysco Natural brand, both with the lot 2017-R and the June 16 sell-by date.
People who have the onions should destroy them or return them to the place of purchase, Gills Onions said in a news release.
Nelia Alarno, vice president of marketing for Gills Onions, said no illnesses have been reported, but that the company wanted to make sure onions associated with the particular production are accounted for.

78. I don't know Linda, I guess I'm gunshy from the current one -- all we need is someone maybe a sheik from Saudi or something altho that's a little far fetched to just buy the best PR there is and somehow get elected, thus turning us into a kingdom, which under Bush it appears we almost are anyway (I'm being dramatic, sort of). I know that our fave may be doing some serious self funding if he gets in -- that's OK -- he's a known quantity -- heart in the right place and all.

PS to Tom Bearse - I get a kick out of your posts -- I laughed out loud when you did the 'it may be a mirage but I think it's a new thread' the other day.

OK - back to lurking - save space for the dial up folks.

LGF NR used to be Fact Checker

I hope this leads to good and I hope we don't take our anger out on each other.Critters better duck.  They be in beeeg trouble.

William Rivers Pitt | A Time to Reap
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062007A.shtml
William Rivers Pitt writes "There is something happening today in America. With the right kind of ears, you can hear it in the sound of millions of brows slowly furrowing in anger and disgust. It feels like those tense moments just before the eruption of a summer thunderstorm, those moments when the air is electric, the ozone reek of spent lightning fills the world, and you know something very loud is about to happen. What is happening, what can be heard and smelled and sensed all across the land, is the cresting wave of rage, betrayal and fury that is, finally, roaring across the shores of our collective American heart."

bbl 

83.

Annilow

LOL...this current one should give pause on-pretty much everything. But he was influenced by OTHERS money, he didn't use his own.

I really don't think in an election someone SHOULD use their own money. Hillary sure aint.


ok, me too. save space. :)

Senator Barack Obama scored a victory among progressive activists Wednesday, winning the Politico.com Straw Poll of attendees at the Take Back America Conference in Washington.

Obama received 29% of the 720 votes cast in the straw poll, narrowly beating out former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, and decisively knocking official front-runner Hillary Clinton into third place.

Edwards took 26% of the vote and Clinton 17%.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson received 9% of the vote, and 8% wrote in the name of former Vice President Al Gore, who was not listed as a candidate in the straw poll.

The poll results also indicated intense concern about the Iraq war.

"Obama clearly has strength and a base and enthusiasm here among a network of progressive groups and activists," said pollster Stan Greenberg, whose Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research adminstered the poll.

Linda*in*SFNM
Wed, 06/20/07
3:05 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Im begining to like Wesley Clarke...........is he running as an Independent by chance?  cheers

I disagree with Dean on I/P and have no idea why he changed his mind.

Sam, that was a very good post.

The two state solution isn't pursued becuz the neo-cons don't want peace in the ME.  They want failed states, civil wars, bombs flying all over and when the dust settles, Israel and the US will own and control the ME and all its resources.  This won't work of course.  Those wily clever freedom fighters will end up blowing up Israel and dropping something horrible over here as well.

It's unbelievable how Israel and the US continually underestimate the ME people...but then, they're only savages who have the wrong god and are inferior.  Olmert/putz arrogance is breathtaking...and what was Olmert doing here yesterday chumming it up with putz?  Gives me the shivers, those two.

Putzes!!! 

bbl 

Mike, Wesley, I dunno. I must admit, I'm not. I sucked it up and went to see him in Cinci and how he started back peddling on our occupation was not pleasing. And his position on outsourcing....too DLC.


_________-

BTW...in our little local paper...kinda' like community papers elsewhere :).

"Bloomberg bids farewell to GOP

Abrupt move stirs speculation N.Y. mayor could make move for the White House

WASHINGTON — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg abruptly left the Republican Party on Tuesday, declaring himself free of a “rigid adherence” to ideology and stoking speculation he will use his multibillion dollar fortune to mount an independent bid for the White House."


ha, ha, ha. Pretty funny.

84.
seashell
Wed, 06/20/07
3:24 pm
William Rivers Pitt | A Time to Reap

====

Wow - what gorgeous writing...

====

Genuinely back to lurking now...

In case no one saw the latest Mason Dixon polling in Iowa.

The winner there?

Undecided...LOL....

Undecided won 27 pct of the vote.

In the poll -- which was taken of 400 likely Democratic caucus-goers from June 13-16, and which has a margin of error of +/- 5% -- Clinton is at 22%, Edwards is at 21%, and Obama is at 18%. Richardson comes in fourth at 6%, and Biden gets 4%; no other Dem gets more than 2%. But a whopping 27% say they are undecided.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2...

___________________________

Oh and Phil, I found that Wisconsin Poll that showed Al Gore getting the highest favorable rating in their state.

"Poll finds Wisconsin voters give Giuliani, Gore highest marks

By SCOTT BAUER | The Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Republicans have a better impression of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani than they do of hometown political giant Tommy Thompson, a poll released Tuesday showed.

Instead of asking respondents who they support for president in 2008, the University of Wisconsin Survey Center’s Badger Poll asked for impressions of three front-runners in each party, as well as Thompson and Al Gore.

Speaking of unannounced candidates, Gore pulled the best numbers from Democrats even though he’s not in the race. He was viewed favorably by 62 percent of survey respondents, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 60 percent. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama came in third with 57 percent followed by John Edwards at 54 percent."

http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/...

Howard sighting (echoing "woulda, coulda, shouda" dichotomy).

MJ: If you could go back in time, would you consider making a video in response to the "Dean Scream"?

HD: Oh, absolutely. If YouTube existed at the time, we would have had something out the next day, saying, "This is what really happened."

mainefem...thank YOU.

...Still in Love with Howard Dean.


MJ: What convinced you, then, to embrace the Internet to such a large degree?

HD: The Internet embraced us. The truth is that we started out with no money, essentially, and what we had was a very powerful message, which was interestingly not just about the war; it was about empowering ordinary Americans. The first thing I learned was that the Internet is a community, not simply just a tool. It's a community, and they embraced us. They organized these things called "meet ups" all over the country, and they did it completely outside the campaign, and we eventually linked up with them. This was really a grassroots journey.

MJ: Do you think the use of technology has been exaggerated as a factor in your campaign?

HD: Absolutely not. The Internet is the most important tool for redemocratizing the world since Gutenberg invented the printing press. There's no way you could exaggerate the importance of the Internet, in terms of its ability to prevent the few people who seek to seize power and control everything from doing so.


Gore/Dean
2008

Ask yourself, if he’s not running, what are the chances that Al Gore would endorse a third party candidate over any Democratic nominee?

Been off for awhile...shout out to Lindab for TBA efforts. Would like to know how the table is going? Are you getting a lot of interested people coming by?

Not sure if I read all the posts, but the one on Webb was good. How was Edwards' talk. What was the response like compared to Obama and Clinton 2.0.

 Listening to the blog workshop now. Thanks for the link..Jim Dean was great. Excellent comments on the power of the blogosphere and what needs to be done next. Worth a listen.....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1361142536354646888

seashell
Wed, 06/20/07
3:35 pm

Look at history, the Arab world does not want peace.  Who would they (and you) blame for all the world's problems.  If little old Israel (no oil, with a limited population, and a small land mass) cannot be blamed for all the world's evil who can they (and you) blame?  

- Why did they (Egypt and Jordan) not create Palestine when they controlled this land?

- Why did they not accept the UN lines of 1948?..

Ask yourself, if he’s not running, what are the chances that Al Gore would endorse a third party candidate over any Democratic nominee?

___________________________________________________________________________

Well Tom, seeing that you appear to be the spokesperson for the entire democratic party and nobody should dare question your expertise i would venture a guess that if Gore was willing to endorse Dean in 2004 hed be willing to endorse ANY candidate from ANY party that had the guts to turn this placee around.............

Now, i know we shouldnt eve think about questioning your authority in such matters but there ya go.................are you the official spokesperson for Al Gore?  Your posts are wimming over alot of modrates and Independents I understand.............keep up the good work..........

Mike wrote "Now, i know we shouldnt even think about questioning your authority in such matters but there ya go."

That's right buddy boy.  What do you think you're doing?

Also, don't dare question my expertise. 

And another thing, if Gore was willing to endorse Dean in 2004, it proves my point that he endorses Democrats, not that he'd be willing to endorse any candidate from any party.  What are you, a sophist?

And one more thing, you're correct that I am the official spokesperson for Al Gore.  I also have his autograph on the Gore Report on Reinventing Government;  Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less.  A secret service agent took it from me to mail back from Washington, but returned it to me a few minutes later.

Starting  Roll Call for those that would be coming to the Burlington Bash on Friday. All in the vermont area are welcome. Welch will be there, and word on the street is Bernie will likely be there.

If Bloomberg runs lets hope Tancredo decides to splt parties and run on a White Power ticket.

Got A Second?
by Chris Dodd [Subscribe]
Wed Jun 20, 2007 at 01:27:53 PM PDT

Today I want to have a conversation with you about answering a new call to service. Thanks to the technologists at UStream.tv, I get to talk to you in real-time about something I care deeply about: national service.

I'll be coming live via UStream.tv at 5 P.M. Eastern time to give you a preview of my national service plan. Before I roll out the full plan in New Hampshire and Iowa this coming weekend, I want to take the time to talk to the DailyKos community about why service matters. More importantly, I want to hear your thoughts.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/20/...

Good discussion of globalization and trade at TBA. David Sirota is one of the panelists. Worth a listen....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7187019647004100647

Mike Cooper
Wed, 06/20/07
5:19 pm

Hey, Mike. Wish I could drive on over from Indiana! Great to have you here joining in the conversation. Hope you read our posts....we've got lots of ideas and look forward to yours.

Tom Bearse
Wed, 06/20/07
4:58 pm

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

i suspect a few Independents may very well write your name in Tom........therefore, you may cost the election.............buddy boy

The man has no soul.


Bush vetoes bill aimed at promoting stem cell research

Where is Howard?

Didn't he speak?

Touchy, touchy.  The present WH can also take much of the blame for the ME crisis.  And of course the corporations which is the same as the WH house VP office.

The fact is, we should not be stirring up the hornet's nest to feather our own oil/power nest. 

linda b, did you get a chance to ask about AIPAC?

Let's hope those IA undecided decide to go for Gore and really make this an interesting race.  Or do they HAVE to choose one of the lesser of 2 evils?  Or they could just refuse to commit.  Come on Iowans, show some midwest backbone.

Again, I'm not  going to comment on this veto since I at least try to be a lady at times.

Currently Waiting In A Freezer Until I Can Be Used For Research or Just Tossed In The Dumpster

Dear Mr. President,

I've written to you before, but once again you have a Stem Cell Bill in front of you so the guys in the freezer have asked me to speak for them - though, as you know, we have no mouths. Still, I didn't have the guts of turn them down, which is in itself is quite the trick, as I also have no guts.

Nevertheless, before you veto the legislation to loosen your six-year-old restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that you consider "immoral," please consider this.

TBA Howard. Hit Google video search fmi.

Does it matter to a dick ta ter if the party who considers itself one of him splits?  Won't he just continue as before, making all the rules, breaking them at will?  Congress doesn't get it yet that they are no longer needed or listened to.  They are obsolete according to the WH.  Altho on this imm issue, he may lose.

DUMMERSTON, Vt. — President Bush seems to think that by sheer force of will, he can single-handedly revive the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunities and Immigration Reform Act of 2007.

But the bill is all but dead in Congress, and there is little chance that even Bush can make it spring back to life.

As we have seen, the fight in Congress is bigger than the conservatives who want tougher border security and strict limits on immigration and liberals who want to create a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million unlawful immigrants already in the United States. Immigration has become the main wedge issue that splits the Republican Party.

What are Your Thoughts on a Likely Bloomberg Third-Party Candidacy? Comment at Bottom of Short BuzzFlash Analysis.

That google search only brings up 2005 Howard Dean at TBA.  I see other videos up, but not a word about him.   I thought he was speakng today?

11. I'm with Rich Kolker on this one 100%.

108. No soul indeed. Just wait until one of his beloved family members ends up with an illness that could one day possibly have a cure through stem cell research.

These people just don't think. My gawd - I'm so frustrated.

Perhaps the dems could borrow some repug ba!!s.

Republicans get ready to threaten Valerie Plame Wilson with subpoena Michael Roston
Published: Monday June 18, 2007 reddit_url=window.location.href reddit_title='Republicans get ready to threaten Valerie Plame Wilson with subpoena'

Print This  Email This  

As Democrats in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform plow ahead with their investigation of the intelligence used by the Bush administration to build the case for the Iraq War, their Republican colleagues are attempting to up the ante. Last week, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the ranking minority member of the committee, alleged that former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson had given false testimony and prepared to threaten her with a subpoena.

The Wilsons, who were not aware of the subpoena threat until contacted last week by RAW STORY, criticized the Republican effort in an exclusive statement.

"This is once again another frivolous attempt to go after Valerie Wilson, and distract from what's really at issue," said her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson through a spokesman.

During last week's hearing with Lurita A. Doan, the Administrator of the General Services Administration, who was found to have violated the Hatch Act by politicking in a federal workplace, Davis attempted to refocus the session on Plame's testimony.

"Valerie Plame Wilson's sworn statements to this committee are irreconcilably inconsistent with her statements to the CIA inspector general and the Senate Intelligence Committee," he said in last Wednesday's hearing. "I would move the committee direct the chairman to issue a subpoena to Valerie Plame Wilson....She should be summoned to appear before this committee and address the irregularities in her sworn testimony."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the committee's chairman, responded that it was not appropriate to issue a subpoena at that particular moment.

"I don't want to issue a subpoena before we invite a witness. She did come here voluntarily and if there are questions we want to ask of her and you feel you need an answer, I'll work with you to get the answers," the congressman said.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Republicans_ready_to_threaten_Valerie_Plame_0618.html 

103.

Mike Cooper

Have a fun party! Please post pictures.

The whole world needs years of therapy to get to the bottom of murderous and/or self destructive behaviors.

As Glaciers Melt and Rivers Dry Up, Coal-Fired Power Stations Multiply

So China is following in our footsteps when it comes to destroying the environment. 

Though Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq by more than two to one, they don’t seem to be expressing that disapproval to anyone but pollsters. A plan to establish a monthly Iraq Moratorium Day may provide a way for them to do so.

Refitting an idea from the Vietnam era to the age of the Internet, organizers of the Iraq Moratorium Day are inviting ordinary Americans to demand an end to the war in targeted activities in their local communities and viral activities online. The goal is a “monthly expression of determination to end the war.”

The initiators, a handful of individuals from different corners of the antiwar movement, are asking people to make a simple pledge:

“I hereby make a commitment that on Friday, September 21, 2007, and the third Friday of every subsequent month I will break my daily routine and take some action, by myself or with others, to end the War in Iraq.”

US Labor Against the War and Progressive Democrats of America have already signed on to the Moratorium effort. Individual supporters include some of the usual suspects in the antiwar movement–Susan Sarandon, Howard Zinn, Anne Wright, Tom Hayden and Eve Ensler, as well as Edwidge Danticat, Danny Glover and Gold Star dad Fernando Suarez de Solar. But the movement is also tapping unusual suspects like Adam Neiman, CEO of the fair-trade fashion house No Sweat, actress Mercedes Ruehl and the antiwar Freeway Blogger.

mary vb 119.

They're not capable of thinking ahead or of walking in anyone's elses shoes, plus they have no heart.

Nancy Reagan could be out in front on this, condemning the repugs who follow putz on this issue.  In fact, she could be behind any of the dems who espouse it.

Are there enuf votes to overide and if not, why not?  Effing repugs!!!  I'll call Smith and send a note.

President Bush endorses Lesbianism

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/20/...

My mistake, FLG--it'll be up later...Google video has a bunch of 'em (Howard was scheduled @1:00 p.m. today).

Billary was booed again (which pleases me to no end). 

Thanks, mainefem.  I will be watching for it.

Justice is served:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6221112.stm

Three men have been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone's decade-long war.

These were the first verdicts of Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes tribunal.

Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu were senior members of an armed faction that toppled the government in 1997.

They were found guilty of 11 of the 14 charges

... 

The men will be sentenced on 16 July.

The judges read out their verdicts before a packed courtroom. The three men face lengthy prison terms.

During the conflict tens of thousands were killed as the rebel forces raped and mutilated defenceless innocent civilians.

The US-based Human Rights Watch hailed the verdict as "the first time that an international court has issued a verdict on child recruitment".

Important step

The three had pleaded not guilty to the 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and the use of child soldiers.

The AFRC teamed up with the other rebels after 1997They belonged to the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which formed an alliance with the notorious Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.

As the rebel groups attempted to hold power they were allegedly backed by the former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, in return for Sierra Leone's diamonds.

Following the end of the conflict five years ago, a UN-backed court was set up to try those people who bore the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed.

Trying all those who committed crimes would have been an impossible task says the BBC's West Africa correspondent, Will Ross.

So many in Sierra Leone now live side-by-side with the very people they saw committing atrocities, he says.

Cases

The court has indicted 12 people, including Charles Taylor, although three of them have since died or are presumed to have died.

Mr Taylor is currently in The Hague, where his war crimes trial is due to resume next week. His case was moved there to avoid unrest in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The head of the AFRC rebels was never apprehended but is presumed dead.

The most notorious rebel leader, the RUF's Foday Sankoh, died in custody while awaiting trial.

Another high profile figure, former Interior Minister Sam Hinga Norman, died after surgery with his verdict pending.

It may be slow and expensive but many view the court's work as an important step to help end impunity, our correspondent says.

What's blipped up thus far via Google video.

68.

LGF NR
Wed, 06/20/07
2:15 pm

Reply to this

2003-2004

seashell
 

....While Dean vehemently criticizes Bush on a range of issues, when it comes to Israel, he told an audience at Iowa's Drake University in February, "The administration's guiding principles in the Middle East are the right ones. Terrorism against Israel must end. A two-state solution is the only path to eventual peace, but Palestinian territory cannot have the capability of being used as a platform for attacking Israel."

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

Ask him where this other state is going to be? Gaza? The West Bank is ruled by the settlers who abuse the Palestinians with impunity, and the Palestinians have no rights, and the settlers have all the rights.  They are slowly leaving for other countries which is part of the Sharon plan.

Israelis leader refer to the West Bank in private and small group speeches as "Judea and Samari" the biblical names for the Land of Israel.

Somebody ought to tell Dean he needs to do some unbiased reading, like The Iron Wall, Palistine Peace Not Apartheid, and I heard Blood and Religion is a good one too.

Senator Barack Obama scored a victory among progressive activists Wednesday, winning the Politico.com Straw Poll of attendees at the Take Back America Conference in Washington.

Obama received 29% of the 720 votes cast in the straw poll, narrowly beating out former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, and decisively knocking official front-runner Hillary Clinton into third place.

Edwards took 26% of the vote and Clinton 17%.

...

+++

LGF NR -

Thanks for the info.

    Wes Clark meets Keith Olberman in just a few minutes.   Should be informative and entertaining.   Wes needs to run as the voice of reason and experience.

120.

Perhaps the dems could borrow some repug ba!!s.

Dems don't need the kind of balls that Tom Davis has.  Intimidation is Davis' bag,not getting the truth from right wingnuts gone off the deep end.

If you have ever watched him in ANY hearing of a Repug, he turns cartwheels to turn a very obvious liar Linda Milazzo into a saint. He has no credibility and I would not be surprised to see if Virginia doesn't agree with this in 2008.

Karpinski is on Keith and Keith starts now.

Where is our linda b today? Sure was a live day at TBA according to the media. Hope all is well with her and hubby.

Don't Tell Obama You Blog
Submitted by Jerid on Wed, 06/20/2007 - 12:32pm.

At least that's the message his New Hampshire campaign sent me last night. I would've had a glowing post up today about all the neat approaches to faith the campaign is taking," or maybe how "the audience was really interested in what the Obama campaign had to say," or even maybe something I learned. Instead all I have is this:



A picture of the door to the meeting that I wasn't allowed into because, for better or worse, I blog.

Last night I headed out to Keene, NH to attend one of Obama's "Faith, Action, Change" forums at the small Keene State College student center. Billed as an opportunity for Progressives to discuss their faith in terms of social change, they're free and open to the public. Registration is recommended, but not required. I got to the event a little early and hung around the student center, speaking with an intern, until the event started to begin.

Walking into a small room, Nicole Derse from the political desk of the Obama NH campaign was busy meeting folks. As she turned to me she started to say hello, so I replied with a smile, "Hi, my names Jerid. I'm a blogger."

"Oooooooh, I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave," she shot back. "These events are closed to the press."

I was dumbfounded. Searching for words I spurt out, "But I'm a blogger," as she started to usher me out of the room.

Apparently that didn't matter.

full post here:
http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/dont_tel...

http://www.sobadesign.net/

I think what Karpinski just said on Keith is enuf to put several people away, starting with putzie poo poo. 

"They're just Iraqis."  And if this is how officers think of Iraqis, what do uneducated soldiers or mercenaries think of them?

I won't write what I'm thinking.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Impeach, even if it takes until January 2009! 

So Obama is insulating himself.  Figures.  What a putz.

Actually, Obama prolly isn't a putz, but to call bloggers members of the press sounds to me like an excuse to keep *troubling* questions from being asked.

The real putz has set an example that the world is copying....keeping Americans out of public speeches, pre-emptive war, grabbing natural resources ...oh the list goes on about this most awful WH. 

I wish our dem critters would have this man's guts and perception.

Jimmy Carter Calls Bush Policy on Palestine "Criminal"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062007V.shtml
Former President Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is slated to speak to as many 200 people tomorrow at Parrot Jungle in Miami. Sounds like an event you'd expect to be covered in your local newspaper, especially since the Legislature is on the verge of moving up Florida's presidential primary despite warnings from Dean that it will cost the state delegates to the national convention.

But a spokesman for the national committee, Luis Miranda, says the event is closed to the press. Hmmmm. Doesn't the party trust its own national spokesman to put the party's best foot forward? Doesn't the party want Dean want to crow about its presidential prospects? Doesn't closing events to the press lead to negative speculation?

Well, Tom, fundraisers are usually don't allow press, as was the event at Parrot Jungle.

Town Halls, Forums,Speeches, etc are public and expected to be open to the press, so that is their argument the blogger was making.

Linda wrote "fundraisers are usually don't allow press, as was the event at Parrot Jungle."

I guess Miami Herald political writer Beth Reinhard just needed something to complain about.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean caused some controversy when the Associated Press reported that he had told a group of mortgage bankers Wednesday that if they want to hear candidates talk in something other than sound bites, "I suggest you have candidates in to meetings like this and bar the press."

. . . .

A short time later, Dean himself was on CNN's The Situation Room. He told Wolf Blitzer that:

"A lot of times ... particularly in print, folks will say things and rearrange things so as to take out of context what people have said. ...

"What I advocate is once in a while -- obviously you need a First Amendment and you need a free press -- but once in a while (candidates) ought to go to town meetings and talk directly to the American people without having the print reporters and the columnists and the opinion makers make those opinions. ...

147. Tom, Mostly likely. Press don't like being closed much.

Hey Tom, I also seem to recall Gov Dean saying what he said was misrepresented, but you can look that up. Or do you just want to try to find some way of saying it's ok to lock press or bloggers out of public speaking engagements.

Heck, I'd rather they not cover speeches. Those are useless preplanned empty words. I want to hear the responses to questions, why is it those are the events he doesn't want reported on?

Linda wrote "do you just want to try to find some way of saying it's ok to lock press or bloggers out of public speaking engagements"?

Not really. In the aftermath of criticism of Obama from some quarters for excluding the press, I wanted to take a look at Dean's views on the same subject.  Here are quotes from the AP:

"I suggest you have candidates in to meetings like this and bar the press.

"The media has been reduced to info-tainment. Info-tainment sells, the problem is they reach the lowest common denominator instead of forcing a little education down our throats, which we are probably in need of from time to time.

Politicians are incredibly careful not to say anything if they can possibly help it, except if it is exactly scripted. And if you want to hear anybody's true views, you cannot do it in the same room as the press. If you want to hear the truth from them, you have to exclude the press."

Obama is a presidential candidate; Dean is not.  I do agree that the press rewrites history, but still....

One answer is to hold these public events live on TV so we get to hear the real time Q's and A's; but our controlled stations wouldn't approve, would they?

The debates could be a great forum except the questions a carefully selected and there's no time to discuss anything in depth.

What a mess we've become.  Election of the richest and prettiest. 

seashell wrote "Obama is a presidential candidate; Dean is not."

Okay, but Dean said "I suggest you have candidates in to meetings like this and bar the press."

seashell wrote "What a mess we've become.  Election of the richest and prettiest."

God, you are right.  Without publicly funded elections, people are forced to decide if candidates must kowtow to every greedy lobbyist and donor who will honor their plaintive request for a campaign handout, or if every aspirant for public office should be a zillionaire who personally finances his or her own campaign.  It's really hard to determine which of the two is worse.

Here is a message and link from just6dollars.org:

"Our democracy is broken. Financing elections with private money has led to corruption and wasteful spending on special interests that cost every US citizen  about $200 dollars every year.

"There is a solution to the problem of influence peddling in Washington and we've got a real shot at making it a reality. The time has come to implement voluntary public funding of all federal elections.

"Together we can regain control of our government and make our leaders accountable only to us. Please support the Just $6 movement to bring back democracy today."

http://www.just6dollars.org/

Politicians are incredibly careful not to say anything if they can possibly help it, except if it is exactly scripted. And if you want to hear anybody's true views, you cannot do it in the same room as the press. If you want to hear the truth from them, you have to exclude the press."

So, what you are saying is that politicians say only scripted things? Politicians only express their true opinions in secret meetings?

Does this mean that if the true opinion of a politician is known to the public
the public wouldn't vote for him/her?

Democracy for America is leading the fight for justice. On the air and on the ground, we are pressuring Congress to do the right thing. Sitting by and watching the Justice Department disintegrate is not a viable option.

And we are making progress!

• In the Senate, John Kennedy and Sheldon Whitehouse launched further investigations of 2004 voter suppression efforts in Florida. That scheme to disenfranchise African-American voters was led by Karl Rove's assistant Tim Griffin -- who was then named U.S. Attorney.
• The House Committee on the Judiciary, led by John Conyers, holds more hearings on the U.S. Attorney firings on Thursday.

If George Bush won't fire him, impeaching Alberto Gonzales is the only way to restore integrity and accountability to the Justice Department. Ten dollars to DFA today keeps the momentum going. Contribute now!

Contribute.democracyforamerica.com

sunlight wrote "So, what you are saying is that politicians say only scripted things? Politicians only express their true opinions in secret meetings? Does this mean that if the true opinion of a politician is known to the public the public wouldn't vote for him/her?"

Yes, but I didn't say it.  Howard Dean said it.

Tom Bearse

Yes, but I didn't say it.  Howard Dean said it.

Well, that's the problem with politicians they say what they think.
And then you have voters that don't think.
Reconcile that as a politician trying to get the most votes.!

Tom: "Yes",

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

I take it you are disavowing what you just affirmed

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

"but I didn't say it"

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

with these words and pretending that you aren't involved

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

so when you said "yes" did you mean "no"

and implying that Howard was involved with the Obama staffer who banned a blogger?

The answer is not to bar the press.  The answer is for the press to be more responsible and for their masters to do less editing according to idealogy.

I understand why Dean said what he did.  I don't agree with his solution.  The press helped bring him down ...

We need a press that isn't governed by defense contractors and money grubbers.

I just started reading Al's book and he's spot on about TV and how it's affecting the minds of citizens; how our thinking has changed and our reasoning abilities have shrunk.

Speaking of candidates, anyone working these days?

screw the press. they're shills for the corp powers.

let average citizens in and then let them tell their stories un-edited.

That is why God created golf courses..

There is no spinning that Obama is blocking Press from from his meetings, but calls them out for his free PR with photo ops. It just goes with his M O of not wanting to give substance and answers like in the debates. It wasn't acceptable for others and definitely not Bush, so why would he try to claim it is for Obama.

But hey, keep on keepin' on. He's getting press about it.

161 What seashell? Sorry, the TV caught my attention...Uh, ha, ha, ha...just kidding. :)

We have one confirmed Presidential candidate coming to our workshop July 14th, sign up and be part of the fun. A second is probable, and as soon as we get the third the fourth and fifth will follow. Live blogging will be encouraged. 

I found it interesting on Keith tonight, Craig Crawford mentioned how Congress was shocked at latest polls on them. That the real base, like at these functions are letting them know how they feel, so you can be sure they will be bringing an Iraq up again, soon.

You don't say?

You mean if we don't fight back, they continue doing what they want, wrong or not? Who would have thought? hmmm.

SOP is to play a round of golf with a confidant who will slip the request to the office holder, ask Tom DeLay.

167. Phil, is press/BLOGGER allowed? :)

Ok, seriouslly, what kind of Workshop you all having?

Oops, didn't see the live blogging encouraged.

i think that's right, linda. we have to constantly tell them right from wrong. otherwise, they're caught in the lobbyist, inside the belt way mentality. it must be a horrifying experience for a freshman congress-person to walk inside the chamber and realize the reality of the place.

No I didn't mean to infer that Obama was operating under Republican rules, but ban the press and that is what the public will infer.

Our District Central Committee is doing a training workshop and the morning sessions will include advice on running a caucus for the new precinct captains so all of the campaigns are sending their volunteers and staff.

we have room for about 250

my task as communications chair is press, and crowd building so I'll be nice to the bloggers and reporters, and for their convienience will have a press room set up so they can have one on one interviews on the balcony overlooking the main floor and the sound engineer can get the sound bite while the camera operator gets the adoring crowd

HEY GUYS!!!!!!!

Just got back home from the TBA conf. You can get a lot of the video at www.ourfuture.org and link to events.

This year was amazing and I did not have minute to spare.

But just want to tell you. The DFA table was  A HIT!!!!!!

I mean when I was there, there were people working it from Democracy for DC, the PA group and so many others . People were so interested in our  group.

I am so sorry that I could not report in time. I am a geek and I wanted to have a laptop available but we did not have the capacity to have that happen.

I want to thank DFA and Jim Dean and Sheri Divers for

with camera phones and you tube there are no closed doors

linda b

great effort  (can the training be far behind)

thanks from all of us

174.

Phil Specht

That's the way to do it. Thank you :) Gee, I was talking with a friend, so much stuff is going on. I wish I was made of money to be able to travel around to all this good stuff.

Demfest, TBA, DNC Meeting in LAS, Phil's Caucus training, Yearly Kos...

mprov

one session will be on how to get a resolution into the platform, I'll share the results on your link

nite all

wa happened?

for...being there.

Sheri is a dynamo and when she said Jim Dean was busy, well Jim was busy.

Sheri is a delight.

When I waited to talk to Jim, so many people came up to him and wanted to speak to him. I told Sheri I could wait.

She said , no, go ahead.

I went up to him and said, "umm, aren't you Jim Dean?" He said "yes"

I said " Well , I am Linda Brooks from NN, Va". He looked at me and said. "I am glad to meet you"

Then Jim looked at my husband and said "you must be the photographer". He remembered that Wayne did sports photos.

From then on it was so much fun. We went to Senator Webb's office and in the car, we just talked kids, politics, kids, politics.

When we got to the Senate office building, Jim paid for the taxi and Keshe. the DC for Dem. person said no, Jim said I am paying.

When we went into the building, Jim said to me "thanks for making this happen, Linda". I said, "no thank you for you being here."

Jim is a great guy. Really.

I am gonna take a rest tonite and will be back tomorrow and full you in.

But this a.m. as we waited to listen to Nance Pelosi. guess who introduced her?

Jack Murtha. I was awestruck.

Anyway. Later guys. Love you all.

Next year we will all be there.

linda b, welcome home!

So hapy things went so well there. And nice when it's covered on TV. See, they do like the sensationalism.

want an update from TBA here.

http://tba2007.confabb.com/conferences/tba2007/details

Linda in NM.

I was interviewed by McClatchey newspapers while I waited on my husband to take some items to our room

I told him Richardson would make a great Secretary of State. I thought of you on that.

And that is why I like this conference. You have access.

He said  no on prez. I said , that is my decision but  a great job on s of s.

THEY DO NOT KNOW ME.

I was just there. The reporter was great and I gave him my opinion.

I think the potential of a Bloomberg Spoiler Candidacy will flesh out a Counter Multi-billionaire conservative-leaning independent candidate.

Isaac Newton would bet on it.

Maybe we could distract Murdoch from his PRopoganda EMpire, by making him think that he should be prezi-dunce. 

moore was right

Bin Laden may have arranged family's US exit: FBI docs

Osama bin Laden may have chartered a plane that carried his family members and Saudi nationals out of the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks, said FBI documents released Wednesday.

The papers, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, were made public by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that investigates government corruption.

One FBI document referred to a Ryan Air 727 airplane that departed Los Angeles International Airport on September 19, 2001, and was said to have carried Saudi nationals out of the United States.

"The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama bin Laden," according to the document, which was among 224 pages posted online

183.

linda b

you are awesome. You really put yourself out there and we are all the better because of you. Thank you.

Now, go get some rest. ... and skip the straw tonight. :)

Maybe we could distract Murdoch from his PRopoganda EMpire, by making him think that he should be prezi-dunce.

Oh, yeah, Murdoch of Faux News isn't even a real "A"merican.

Real Americans vs. Corporate "America" Tm.

The Real Residents of Mayberry ( LIttleton) vs. the mayberr"ie" machiavellians.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/20/201846/225

Great going, lindab! I'll be looking for at least one thread devoted to TBA reports, but thanks for the links in the meantime.

**************
Looks like even our *tame* Iraqi leadership is getting frustrated and wants to quit ... why are WE staying there?

Oh, yeah, I forgot, OIL and power. And because AIPAC says so.

=======
Top Iraqi Officials Growing Restless
Vice President Has Tried to Quit; Shiite Leaders in Disarray
By Joshua Partlow and Robin Wright
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD, June 20 -- Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents. "The two minarets were as important to us as September 11, and we should be accountable to the people," Abdul Mahdi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "We should be doing more to move in a positive direction -- on corruption, accountability and defending the important sites."

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

How much MORE evidence is needed for *high crimes and misdemeanors*?

And this is just a very small tip of a very deep iceberg that reaches everywhere into the USG since putzCo first stole the election in 2000.

================
Political Hiring in Justice Division Probed
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A01

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans" in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

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

Mark Fiore's latest goes quite well with the cartoon at the top of this thread.

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/innov...

Robert Scheer points out the painfully obvious ... but putzCo continues blindly along a path to destruction, oblivious to its own hypocrisy.

=========================
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 by TruthDig.com
Hamas Holds the High Cards
by Robert Scheer

Forty years ago, I entered the Gaza Strip—soon after Israel had conquered that teeming cauldron of humanity after defeating Egypt in the Six-Day War—to report on the Israelis’ bubbling optimism about their young nation’s future. “Come back in 10 years,” I was told by an Israeli general, “and you won’t recognize the place,” he said, spelling out visions of economic development and a grateful Arab population. Similar predictions were made for the West Bank, which had been administered by Jordan in a somewhat more humane yet quite oppressive manner.

The optimism of the Israeli occupiers did not seem so far-fetched then, given the hardships the Palestinians had endured under their fellow Arab protectors and throughout the diaspora. The experience of the Palestinians was not unlike that of the Jews: they were needed but scorned for their talents.

[...]
While the American mass media tends to join the Bush administration in ignoring this unpleasant contradiction, the fact is that the people we brand as the enemy can make a strong claim to having won the election that our President Bush champions. What irony that the United States and the European Union, both of which cut off aid to the Palestinian government in 2006 when Hamas won the election, have now resumed aid to the PLO-dominated government that lost power through the vote.

This contradiction applies even more uncomfortably to Israel, which consistently demeaned the Palestinian movement when it was run by secularists. Israel only very reluctantly, and in the most limited of ways, was willing to risk the false security of occupied land for the possibility of peace. Israeli leaders of all parties drew the line at granting the Palestinians a real state with contiguous land and a significant presence in Jerusalem as it existed before the Six-Day War. Rarely mentioned is that some elements in the Israeli government initially supported the rise of Hamas as a desired alternative to the PLO and came too late to the recognition that Arafat, for all of his very serious failings, was their best alternative.

Now it is also too late for the remnants of the PLO to once again unilaterally assert a claim to lead the Palestinians. Sure, the United States, Israel and the EU can throw aid and tax dollars their way, but if the price is that the PLO assist in crushing Hamas, or even sit idly by while Israeli troops reoccupy Gaza, there will be chaos. The only hope is for the funders, including Israel (which has withheld the tax monies paid by the Palestinians from them), to recognize that the Palestinian people need to make their own history.

[...]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

This is definitely an idea whose time has come, but why is it immediately branded as *left-leaning* in an attempt to discredit it?

It's just common sense. But that is all too sadly lacking in public officials of either major political party in the US.
=================
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 by Inter Press Service
‘Just Security’: US as Global Partner, Not Global Boss
by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Insisting that U.S. foreign policy of the past six years has clearly failed, a left-leaning Washington think tank is calling for the adoption of a comprehensive new approach to international relations called “Just Security” in which the U.S. would act “as a global partner, not a global boss.”

Among other features, “Just Security” calls for reducing U.S. military spending by a third, or some 213 billion dollars; carrying out a “rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq; and seeking sharp cuts in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals as a first step toward realising the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s goal of banning nuclear weapons.

[...]
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

A glimmer of hope for the future perhaps? Let us indeed hope so.

===============
Renewable revolution is here, says UN report
· Report sees energy mix turning greener sooner
· 'Great news' but 'still peanuts', says Greenpeace
Terry Macalister
Thursday June 21, 2007
Guardian

A gold rush of new investment into renewable power over the past 18 months has led the United Nations to conclude that clean energy could provide almost a quarter of the world's electricity by 2030.

More than £35bn was injected into wind and solar power and biofuels in 2006, 43% more than the preceding year. Sustainable energy accounts for only 2% of the world's total but the UN says 18% of all power plants under construction are in this sector.

The findings, outlined in the Global Trends in Sustainable Development annual review, represent a challenge to the received wisdom among energy experts that green power is likely to play only a marginal part in the energy mix until at least the second half of the century.

The International Energy Agency in Paris, which recently argued that renewables could account for barely 9% of power production by 2030, said the figures needed further examination. Greenpeace described them as "great news - if true".

[...]
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/print/...

Ah yes, it's that time of year. I have enjoyed seeing the daylight hours last longer, but now we begin the shortening cycle as the year begins to turn.

Before a major cloudburst cut off my reception this am, I was enjoying an interesting report from Al Jazeera about Romania's most famous "Gypsy Witch."

===================
Summer Solstice Celebrated at Stonehenge
Thursday June 21, 2007 6:01 AM
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER
Associated Press Writer

STONEHENGE, England (AP) - Thousands of modern-day druids, pagans and partygoers converged on Stonehenge early Thursday to cheer the dawn of the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere - the summer solstice.

Clad in antlers, black cloaks and oak leaves, a group gathered at the Heel stone - a twisted, pockmarked pillar at the edge of the prehistoric monument - to welcome the rising sun as revelers danced and yelled.

Jeanette Montesano, a 23-year-old recently graduated religion student from New York and a self-described pagan, said she had been saving for a year to make it to Stonehenge, comparing the importance of the trip to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/st...

When every member of putzCO and Congress has family members actually serving in Iraq, perhaps this statement can go unchallenged. But right now, I say that it should be challenged and fiercely.

Send the twins, and Liz & Mary Cheney ... and Cheney's partner too ... and Levin's children and Lieberschmuck's ... [Levin, btw, has an op-ed in today's WaPo about why he favors funding the Iraqfollies.]

I imagine that then that putzCo would never dare issue such a finding because it could so clearly be shown for the travesty that it is.

======================
Mental stress of troops in Iraq no bar to longer duty, US says
Simon Tisdall in Washington
Thursday June 21, 2007
Guardian

The Pentagon could extend combat tours in Iraq despite an official report showing that hundreds of thousands of US troops who have been involved in at least one war zone in Iraq or Afghanistan are experiencing serious psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to the Pentagon's own mental health taskforce, US troops have been undertaking higher levels of sustained combat duty than that experienced by soldiers during the war in Vietnam and in the second world war.

It found that 38% of soldiers, 31% of marines, 49% of national guard members and 43% of marine reservists showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems within three months of returning from active duty. Its report also noted inadequate mental healthcare and facilities, and prejudice over mental health problems.

The US has about 155,000 troops in Iraq, most of whom typically spend 15 months in combat zones with a guaranteed 12 months at home. But that is a breach of the Pentagon's own rules saying equal time should be spent on and off duty.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33005...

Al Jazeera was also reporting this prospect this am. My thought: if poodle is indeed appointed to this post when he should actually be standing in the dock at The Hague for war crimes, then down is certainly up, night is day and north is south.

But then, we've been seeing that for some time now.

================
Blair in line for UN role as Middle East envoy
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 21 June 2007

The White House revealed yesterday that Tony Blair and George Bush have discussed the outgoing Prime Minister taking on a UN role as Middle East envoy.

A spokesman for the US President said the two leaders had considered the possibility of Mr Blair acting as a peace envoy role for the Middle East Quartet, comprising the US, the UN, Russia and the European Union.

The position has been vacant since the former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn quit the post in April last year. It would give Mr Blair a central role in efforts to secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

A Israeli government spokeswoman said: "Officials in the prime minister's office are aware of this idea and Prime Minister Olmert is very supportive of [Mr] Blair and of his continuing involvement in the Middle East and the peace process."

The prospect of Mr Blair playing a role in the Middle East after the debacle over the Iraq was greeted with disbelief by some anti-war Labour MPs. It may also dismay Gordon Brown, who is seeking to make progress in the Middle East after Mr Blair goes, and shift the emphasis in the campaign against terrorism to a battle for "hearts and minds".

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

In the *no sh**, Sherlock* category ...

====================
Iraq conflict 'will create a violent generation'
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 15 June 2007

An Iraqi doctor has addressed a direct appeal to the UN secretary general over the plight of children in his home country, warning that the violence there was causing widespread emotional and behavioural damage - and could lead to spiralling violence in the future.

Dr Abdul Kareem Al Obaidi, chair of the Iraqi Association for Child Mental Health, said that the situation was "desperate", with children suffering "unbearable traumas and heart-wrenching experiences".

He warned Ban Ki-moon that there could be long-term problems for Iraq and the rest of the world as the children became adults. Behaviour disorders, which never used to be a problem in Iraq, were now prominent, including delinquency, drug and substance abuse, and a 50 per cent rate of truancy from school.

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

I've been watching Sarko warily for the past few weeks, but so far have found much to praise about his *rainbow coalition* and am even more heartened that most of the recent grumbling seems to be coming from the right end of the spectrum.

==================
Backlash over Sarkozy 'rainbow government'
By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 21 June 2007

President Nicolas Sarkozy took a leaf from the Edith Piaf and Margaret Thatcher songbooks yesterday: Il ne regrette rien. There is no turning back.

Faced with the first signs of public resistance to his reforms, and quiet fury in his own camp at his "rainbow" government of different races, genders and ideologies, the French President told newly elected members of his centre-right party, the Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP): "The door to a change of direction is closed. Everything I have promised to change, I will change. Everything I have promised to reform, I will reform."

Only five weeks after taking office, President Sarkozy faces a serious outbreak of grumbling in his own ranks. The parliamentary elections last weekend were not the sweeping triumph that the centre-right had been promised. President Sark-ozy's reshuffled and expanded government has cast itself open more than ever to the left and to the centre, to women and to racial minorities.

One in three of all the posts in the government have gone to politicians associated with other parties. Three of the top five posts in government - finance, defence and interior - have gone to women. The economics minister is a woman for the first time, Christine Lagarde.

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

I'm getting a kick out of this, especially considering the widespread misuse of this tool by putzCo ideologues.

=================
France bans BlackBerrys over fears of US intelligence snooping
By Claire Soares
Published: 21 June 2007

Seven million people worldwide may be addicted to them but the French government has said "non" to Le BlackBerry, fearing US intelligence agents could be snooping on state secrets.

"The risks of interception are real. It is economic war," Alain Juillet, who is in charge of economic intelligence for the government, told Le Monde newspaper.

The concern is that information sent from a BlackBerry gets routed via servers in the United States and Britain, and that this poses "a problem with the protection of information".

Research In Motion, the company that makes the handheld devices, poured cold water on the French fears, saying there was no way that the US National Security Agency could see the content of messages that were transmitted .

But Paris is clearly not convinced. France's General Secretariat for National Defence first declared the ban on BlackBerrys 18 months ago but recently had to send out another reminder.

Civil servants say rebellious employees are still engaging in surreptitious BlackBerrying. And government officials are still moaning about the edict, because they object to being ordered to abandon technological advances.

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

Well, I'll stop adding to the misery of the dialer-uppers as this is the last for now.

Amen. And I'm off to mine some of that salt that donna talks about.

=====================
If Bush-Cheney Can’t Be Impeached, Nobody Can

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

The White House revealed yesterday that Tony Blair and George Bush have discussed the outgoing Prime Minister taking on a UN role as Middle East envoy.

Just like Hitler sent Hesse to Britain in the middle of WWII as a peace envoy. Bloody Tony has no successes or credibility as a peacemaker.

Iraq conflict 'will create a violent generation'

First Clinton killed them with sanctions. Now Bush teaches them to kill. 

This is definitely an idea whose time has come, but why is it immediately branded as *left-leaning* in an attempt to discredit it?

Regardless of the intent, I love it when good ideas are "rightly" attributed to the left. 

Renewable revolution is here, says UN report
· Report sees energy mix turning greener sooner
· 'Great news' but 'still peanuts', says Greenpeace

Peanuts are seeds. 

LGF NR -

Thanks for the info.

As an overbearing Obama propagandist speaking to a trollish Bloomberg propagandist, don't you mean, "Thanks for the infomercials."

"Behaviour disorders, which never used to be a problem in Iraq, were now prominent, including delinquency, drug and substance abuse, and a 50 per cent rate of truancy from school."

This applies to this country as well.   What's our excuse? 

I'll just post one more thing.  On AAR tonight, Malloy was talking about an upcoming tete a tete among, get this, Netanyahu (sp), Cheney, Fred Thompson and Hillary Clinton.

What in the He!! is going on here? 

OK, I found this from last April.  I think it's clear who's running our foreign policy.

"....Novak said there would be no prospect of progress on a peace deal without serious White House pressure on the Israeli government, which is clearly not in the cards under George W. Bush--and not likely under his successor, based on the last month's AIPAC conference in Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney and various administration officials attended, as did many prominent Democrats, including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

A well-placed source told me that Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line former prime minister and head of the Likud Party, had a private meeting with Cheney when he was in town for the conference. I ran that by Cheney's spokeswoman, Megan McGinn, who confirmed the meeting, and said it was held at the White House on March 12th. Several Israeli officials also were at the meeting, including the country's U.S. ambassador, McGinn added.

Of the meeting itself, my source said Cheney and Netanyahu discussed the need for heavy pressure on Iran over the next few months--the diplomatic equivalent of "overwhelming force" on the military front. They agreed that a military option should remain on the table, and Cheney left clear that the U.S. and Israel should continue to closely coordinate their policies on Iran.

I asked Augustus Richard Norton, an advisor to the Iraq Study Group and author of the new book Hezbollah: A Short History, for his opinion on the interplay between American and Israeli policy on Iran. His take:

The reason there is no light between the expressed U.S. position on the Iranian nuclear program and the Israeli position reflects:

a. a genuine concern about Iran's challenge to U.S. hegemony in the Middle East;

b. a fear that Iran, with a nuclear arsenal, might open the arsenal to non-state actors, including terrorists; and

c. the fact that Israel's politically influential supporters in the U.S. share deep Israeli concerns about the Iranian program.

C is certainly more important than B or A. Which is why the U.S. will not give the time day to any serious discussion of a nuclear free Middle East, which would put Israel's nuclear arsenal on the table. What serious presidential candidate, from either party, has done other than underline the "existential threat" posed by Iran to Israel? Is this the result of rigorous analytical thinking or is it because none of them dares to run the political risk of saying otherwise?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/sb-white-house-visit 

So the meeting already happened and is not up and coming.  I had just tuned into Malloy so didn't get the whole story correct.  Nevertheless, it's damn chilling and Clinton and Obama are definitely in on it.

Unless Israel disarms, a holocaust is inevitable IMO.  And of course, other states in the region would have to follow suit.  And we armed Israel.

Gore Gore Gore.  We need a prez and cabinet who have true high self esteem, not the self-destructive war-mongers presently in the WH  ...  and the many on Capitol Hill.

Clinton and Obama simply have to go down in flames.  We can't afford either one of them. 

Gore/Clark would also work for me. 

Good morning, everybody

So how come Putin is being lured to Kennebunkport?  You'd think he'd be smart enough to know that being friends with the Bushes is not healthy.  Poodle Putin. 

Turns out the Putins actually own a white poodle and the press has already referred to him as the (prior) French president's poodle.  Oh well.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=34

In accommodating white supremacy, Obama is playing to the perverse racial politics of the post-Civil Rights era, wherein the leading architects of policy and opinion have declared "race" over as a barrier to black advancement. It is a time when large number of Americans, including many blacks, claim "exhaustion" with race issues. Race- and racism-avoidance have become the orders of the day in an officially "color-blind" neoliberal age when conventional wisdom ascribes people's status and wealth to purely private and personal success or failure in adapting to the permanent, inherently human realities of inequality in a "free market" system of reactionary corporate rule to which "there is no alternative." In the dominant public discourse of this era, the nation's "pervasive racial hierarchies collapse," in the words of Henry A. Giroux, "into power-evasive strategies such as blaming minorities of class and color for not working hard enough, refusing to exercise individual initiative, or practicing reverse racism." Even as an enveloping, increasingly invisible racism "functions" as "one of the deep and abiding currents in everyday [American] life," this discourse works "to erase the social from the language of public life as to reduce all racial problems to private issues [of]...individual character and cultural depravity."

The technically biracial Obama's campaign and persona are perfectly calibrated for this era of victim-blaming neoliberal racism. He allows whites to assuage their racial guilt and feel non-racist by liking and perhaps even voting for him while signaling that he won't do anything to tackle and redress the steep racial disparities and systemic racial oppression that continue to deeply scar American life and institutions. "What... me and my country racist? You can't be serious: we're thinking seriously about voting for a black man as president. My wife and son just love Oprah and Jamie Fox."

THE WHEELS ARE COMING OFF

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06202007.html

The wheels are coming off the Democratic machine, with angry voters starting to lose patience with the Party's chronic inability to act decisively on any of the key issues of public concern.

In a Reuters dispatch on June 18, Democratic leaders in Congress concede that voters are angry with them for not doing enough to end the Iraq War. They might have added that voters are also angry at them for not impeaching the president or even for moving on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res. 333).

"I understand their disappointment. We raised the bar too high," bleats Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

No Harry. You didn't raise the bar too high. You ducked under the bar, when it came time to act to defund the war.

Last month, instead of cutting off funding for Bush's war in Iraq, Congress passed a measure providing him with over $100 billion to fund it, attaching no strings to the measure-not even any deadlines for starting to withdraw troops. This after running a 2006 campaign on ending the war.

No wonder Democrats and the independents and, yes, even Republicans who voted Democrats into control of Congress last November are furious.

"We can only do so much," whines House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

No, Nancy. The problem is that you have done so little. Next to nothing really.

 http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06202007.html

Listen, Nancy and Harry, we Americans want a little divisiveness. Americans thrive on political conflict.

Besides, we're sick of this war, and of the men who tricked us into it. We're sick of seeing our cherished rights trashed. We're sick of being told that we in this country are a bunch of whimpering wusses ready to surrender our rights in the fear that some third world bomb-thrower might attack the local Wendy's.

Americans expected, and still want, the Democrats in Congress to stand up to the White House, not to cave in to it, or to try and "work with" it.

Pelosi and Reid, and the idiots at the party's helm, think that by continuing to do nothing, all the while whining about their own impotence, they stand to gain mightily in November 2008.

They're in for a big surprise.

If they continue the way they're going, they'll lose not only the independents and Republicans who voted for Democratic candidates in 2006, they'll lose the Democrats too.

Repeat from previous post (with emphasis)

Pelosi and Reid, and the idiots at the party's helm, think that by continuing to do nothing, all the while whining about their own impotence, they stand to gain mightily in November 2008.

They're in for a big surprise.

Bush attacking Obama:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19338725/

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration came out strongly against a bipartisan effort by Sens. Charles Grassley and Barack Obama to make the immigration bill easier on employers.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told senators in a letter late Tuesday that the amendment, which makes a new program to stop businesses from hiring illegal workers less burdensome, "would be a serious step backwards in our enforcement effort."

The amendment sponsored by Grassley, R-Iowa, Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Obama, D-Ill. "eliminates needed tools and allows unscrupulous businesses to continue to freely hire illegal workers," Chertoff wrote in matching letters to Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., two architects of the bill.

In an angrily worded reply to Chertoff on Wednesday, the unlikely allies sponsoring the amendment dismissed his criticism as "erroneous and misleading," and defended their proposal as one that would improve a deeply flawed system.

...

The proposal by Grassley, Baucus and Obama addresses the worker verification program, which is despised by both labor and business groups. Businesses fear it would wreak havoc with their ability to hire workers and impose exorbitant costs. Labor organizations worry it could result in discrimination against workers.

The same interests are eagerly pushing for the broader immigration overhaul, which would legalize some 12 million unlawful immigrants and create a new temporary guest worker program.

Lessening burden on employers

The proposal would ease the measure's strict requirements for employers to verify that all their workers are legal, instead allowing businesses to check only the identities of new employees and those existing ones who the Department of Homeland Security has reason to believe are unlawful.

It would strip a requirement that employees present a federally standardized "REAL ID," instead allowing them to produce other driver's license or identity cards. Workers denied a job under the system could appeal to Department of Homeland Security for lost wages.

Chertoff called that proposal "a poorly concealed effort to make DHS avoid tough enforcement."

It's June 21, the longest daylight of the year in the northern hemisphere. 

I hope everyone here has a great day today to get out and enjoy the summer solistice.

Huron John
Thu, 06/21/07
6:43 am
__________________________________________________________________________

Judging by the way Hillary and Nancy were booed at the TBA conference, and MSNBC plus Kieth Olberman stating just how divided the Democrats are...........I wont be surprised should they lose in 2008...............

I've been to a number of United Church of Christ liturgies and feel very comfortable with that denomination (one in particular I go to when on Cape Cod is one in Brewster, MA).

Looks like I'm not the only one who attends UCC:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/437415,CST-NWS-obama21.article

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, one of the country's most racially diverse and liberal Protestant denominations -- the first to ordain an openly gay minister and to call for equal marriage rights for all people, regardless of gender.

The UCC prides itself as being "out front" on social justice issues, battling civil rights, women's rights and gay rights ahead of the mainstream. One Sunday hymnal equally celebrates male and female images of God.

And earlier this month, the UCC took a stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the Anti-Defamation League rebuked as "unfair and one-sided."

Obama's faith, church and pastor have all come under scrutiny since he announced his bid for president. This week the spotlight turns to the 1.2 million-member denomination, which has tapped the Illinois senator to speak at its five-day national convention in Hartford, Conn.

"Whether the issue is war, health care, poverty, abuse against women and children, the church is right there and sometimes that makes us a target," said the Rev. Edward Smith Davis, 53, of UCC's God Can Ministries in south suburban Ford Heights.

UCC officials said Obama's invitation isn't a political endorsement. They're expecting the highest turnout ever for a convention-- an estimated 11,000 people -- but they say that's because the denomination is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

"We are definitely proud the senator is a member," said the Rev. Jane Fisler Hoffman, head of the UCC's Illinois Conference. "It will be important for church folks to hear a politician speak about his faith and how that informs his work in politics."

The UCC was formed in 1957 by a merger of churches from Congregational, Christian, Evangelical and Reformed traditions. The denomination traces its roots to Christians who ordained the first African-American minister (1785) and the first woman minister (1853).

It's also home to the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, the world's largest gay and lesbian church.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, are members of Trinity United Church of Christ, a South Side church led by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who teaches members about their African heritage and preaches a theology of black liberation.

Conservative pundits say the church espouses white racism. But Obama and Wright say black empowerment doesn't mean white inferiority.

"For Trinity, being unashamedly black does not mean being anti-white," church historian Martin Marty said in a recent writing.

Because Wright is officiating at a wedding Saturday, he won't be on hand in Hartford to hear Obama. But at a recent church conference in Virginia, Obama singled Wright out in the audience for introducing him ''to someone incredible, Jesus Christ.''

213.

Elitism is a dish that appeals to whites and blacks and  browns and reds alike.  

It is a mistake to think that membership in a minority makes one more empathetic with that minority's interests.  If the members are competing with each other for advancement, it's likely that self-interest will trump group interests every time.

Anyway, Obama is an opportunist.  The only problem I have with that is he's likely to discover that what presents itself as an opportunity is actually a gigantic pain in the ass and, feeling resentful at having been "had," will take out his disappointment on everyone else.

Since we're discussion Obama's religion and its impact on his political thinking, you might find this little report on Bluehampshire of interest.

What it tells me is that either the Obama Campaign has little appreciation for the netroots and less for the press, or the candidate's message of openness and inclusiveness is not getting passed along to the operatives.

His management skills don't seem particularly strong and a lot of decisions are seemingly made for him, but not for his benefit.  I still think that sending Michelle to the Democratic Convention in the first primary state was rude--a perception that was not mitigated be the fact that her speech was overly long.

Community organizing does not develop managerial skills. 

BTW, "incredible" means something that is not able to be believed.  At the least, Obama would do well to believe the economic lessons Jesus taught.

Monica -

You're reporting on old news (Linda*in*SFNM already posted the same article upthread in comment 138).

As for you indicating that Michelle Obama's "speech was overly long", well that's your opinion (a fact that you forgot to use the moniker IMO).

I'll just sit back and watch the criticisms of Barack and now of Michelle that seem to be the mainstay of this blog for certain commenters here.

*rdorgan, leave it to Obama to want to "make it easier for businesses" hiring practices when it comes to checking illegal immigrants. Gee, why should they only do more work that may reveal what they are doing. How do they justify doing things half way?

btw *rdorgan, you seem to do the "attacking" here.

I find it funny you post an article that opposes a Bill that would left businesses off from checking employees, something businesses USED to have to do, 'til Bush weakened them years ago, and you Title it "Attacking". Aren't you projecting? Don't you find it odd that you use the work "Attacking" when ever someone disagrees or question with you, much like your candidate, that doesn't like to be questioned?

Monica wrote "What [bloggergate] tells me is that either the Obama Campaign has little appreciation for the netroots and less for the press, . . ."

If this subject is of interest to you, see the discussion above, beginning with #138.

JUST IN: 7 soldiers, 1 interpreter, 3 civilians killed in a road side bomb in Iraq.

This just so disgusting and every elected official who has voted and supported this disgusting occupation has blood on their hands.

7 soldiers, 1 interpreter, 3 civilians killed

Now think about the real trickle down of those losses. How many will be affected by each of those losses?

Explosions strike Baghdad's Green Zone By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 21, 3:35 AM ET

BAGHDAD - A series of mortars or rockets slammed into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone on Thursday, and an official said at least one round struck a parking lot used by the Iraqi prime minister and his security detail.

-----

One gets the impression that the minimal escalation in forces is failing in its attempt to pacify Baghdad. It would appear there are limits to the effectiveness of all this high tech weaponry that made such an impact during the blitzkrieg of just a few years ago. However, since then, we saw the dreadful results of the Second Lebanon War and the ongoing Afghanistan disaster to believe that high tech weaponry can make any substantial difference in guerrilla warfare. In fact, you can even go back 40 years to see the limits of air power in a guerrilla campaign. How many innocent civilians did we kill in South Vietnam in our futile attempts to pacify them? It has to be frustrating for our poor and middle class troops in uniform.

Moore power to Al Gore


Thursday, June 21st 2007, 4:00 AM
Print Email Suggest a Story


Michael Moore


Penelope Cruz


David Arquette and Courteney Cox
Most Recent Columns
Lindsay's birthday bash is toast
Irate nabes get set for Hilton check-in
Minnillo & knives a bit edgy for TV
Her debut coulda used some spice
Paris shaped by the pen
Eminem Careys on feud


Is Michael Moore waiting to throw his weight behind an Al Gore White House bid?

The director said Tuesday at a lunch for his new film, "Sicko," that the man he wanted to see as the next President of the United States had not entered the race yet.

And he followed it up, obliquely, with some warm words for the former veep.

"He's smart, funny and has humility," Moore said of his fellow liberal documentarian, who took home an Oscar this year for "An Inconvenient Truth."

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/bwiddi...

"Are you going to San Francisco ?":

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_6193488?source=rss

Even if you missed the film, which shares the same name with the group, you still might want to check out the Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars when they perform on Friday at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

All of the band members once lived in Sierra Leone's capital city, Freetown, before they were forced to flee during the country's decade-long civil war.

Although their story is quite harrowing, their music is uplifting. The joyous dance music, which draws from traditional West African sounds, roots reggae and folk styles, is all about delivering messages of peace and love. The band's debut, "Living Like a Refugee," addresses such issues as the plight of refugee life and the terrors of wartime.

Showtime is 9 p.m. Tickets are $21. The Great American is at 859 O'Farrell St. Call (415) 885-0750 or visit

fyi - new thread