Self-serving Opportunists, Pathologically Gullible, or Deliberately Complicit in a coup? Unamerican either way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-soft-underbelly-of-th_b_59225.html 

No one in the Democratic Party is coming out and speaking to us, their constituents.  They need to tell us what is going on with our country.  

Anyway....don't forget to read the great article by Garrett Graff about the Dean campaign.  It will warm your heart...and mine needs some of that warming today.   He sure understood what the campaign was about. 

<a href=" http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1418"> We’ve discovered that our campaign is continuing without the candidate.</a>

Oops better link to Graff's article.  

 http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1418

 And Garrett's dad Christopher wrote a book, and that is Dean on the cover with him. 

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/882

... not necessarily a criticism here, well yes i guess it is.

This blog, IMHO, is THE place to be. For the life of me, now that certain foul smelling types are no longer a major factor, i don't understand why everyone doesn't come home.
Here where there is no rating, no group think {tho some would say so coz their veiws are contested, sometimes nicely - ;~)}, no marching orders, no heirarchy...

Sooo why come here trying to lure us away to other sites? If there is a valid point that you wish to make summarize it, and let's go to the discussion of same.

Yeah, i provide links to supposed reporting of the supposed news myself, usually the more reliable of the many i've used to verify as best i can what is going on
... but mostly to back up where my analysis information came from.

Not that my opinion means more than anyone elses, but that is what a blog is about... and that is how this country grew it's roots.

That's what the grassroots is about. Though somewhat astray, slightly, sometimes... this is our home.

just my .02, as we used to say

God help us if Evangelical republicans are so THIRST to win the Presidency that they, under the mantle of their own self-deluded ideas that it's about forgiveness, once again, nominates a repuglican candidate who is not only flawed, but could be a serial adulter with mafia connections, whose kids hate him, who's got an anger management problem, whose a right-wing nut job who thinks that Lesbianism is an "epedemic" in his rural conservative district, who likes teenage boys, who participates in election fraud, whose a closet racist, whose a closet fascist, who lied to the public, who made a lot of money through corruption, who has a lesbian daughter, who makes $250 million dollars a year off of scaring straight Americans about gay Americans, who spits on our soldiers over petty amounts of money, who scares Americans about trumped up "enemies," whose a cokehead, who thinks the government owns your vagina, who brought the country to a hault over a woman in a coma, so Tom Delay could buff his credentials, whose grandfather once conspired.....well never mind.

No offense meant to anyone there, but slapping up a bunch of links is really not very helpful to a person who has already been through news print, televised news, local and national radio both news and call-in.

I come here to be with my human progressive friends, not to lurch all over the web.

... is it just me? i kinda preferred just a nice picture or cartoon withthe label "open thread". Does anyone else miss that?
It's not like we didn't fill those threads up with the 'good stuff'.

... yep it's just me, or is it?

PA ... now THAT'S what i'm talkin' about!!

Stephanie Miller has to tickle her ass in order to pee in public, I have to have a couple of beers to post here.

Deaniac,

Phew, my cred was hangin' by a thread there for a minute...

I see there are transcripts up of other speeches at Daily Kos.   Renee at HEP transcribed Howard Dean's speech.  I have not seen it posted here....so I will post it.   All pulled together here into one link....all four parts of her great transcript.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3426518

 Weird we must have posted at the exact same instant.  The comments actually came in this real-time, chronological order:

 Deaniac:

PA ... now THAT'S what i'm talkin' about!!

Deaniac,

Charlie Rose has gurus from the Dem campaigns on this evening.

Tom Daschle for Obama ets

more in a few

9.

Of course Renee's hard work is always of interest to me, yours too... i just wish this were still the fortress for all it used to be, and the tools were topnotch... as promised(and paid for)

Daschle for Obama?

I never thought of this before, but now Daschle can say WHATEVER HE WANTS!

After speaking out on the Iraq war on it's eve, and being anthraxed, and losing his seat, he is finally free like Gore.

I was a volunteer for SD Public Radio my freshman year of college, and cuz I was aggressive enough, SD Public Radio scooped all other local media outlets on the night that Tom Daschle won his Senate seat.

This is my 15 mins of fame as a kid.

I did, as a young child shake McGovern's hand at the SD state fair. I didn't know what it meant back then.

BTW, yesterday I was flipping through C-span, and CC Goldwater was on C-span, I listen for a while, only because of Stephanie Miller always talking about CC Goldwater's Rack.  Unfortunately, she was wearing a black blazer. I couldn't tell squat about her Rack.

Also, on Charlie Rose...

A Col.Gary Anderson, Marine Ret., on war-gaming Iraq with the various groups 'at the table' and likely outcomes when we redeploy...

not too far from what i've been saying all along. (maybe i should have gone to Westpoint when i had the chance)

Definitely catch this if you can!!

Thanks floridaGal,

I love having transcripts of Howie's speech to Yearly.

I had to refresht that damn vid 4,000 times. It was worth it, but it will much easier to read the transcripts.

Thanks, Rene in OH. Smooch.

Dude or Gal,

Once again, I hit send, and my post, which should come up next, was second cuz me and Deanic GA (love the B-52s) are on the same wave-lenth, so to speak.

G-nite Good Patriots

6.

Wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall for either.
Doahh! i apologize... no not really. lol

I swear Dorothy on Golden girls just said to her mother that, "of course you hate communism, you were raised a Fascist."

No politcal commentary intended. Just as a human, hahahahhahaha. 

g'nite again.

nite nite

There was more about the Town Hall meeting, a positive that i proposed that the entire place AND the R Congressman agreed to.
... made him promise to work with Congressman Waxman on it, we'll see if his word is good.

Like i said his congressional aides were none too happy.

Love ya'll, mean it

P.S. Howard Dean still works my universe!!

P.S. Howard Dean still rocks my universe!!

ROFLMAO, sheez i'm wore out!!

Daschle for Obama?

After a  Senate career as a corporate whore where he never did the right thing when it counted, did you really expect him to now?

I was dancing with one of my favorite guys tonight and remarked that politics was getting me down.  I asked,  "Do you think we're now a fascist country?"  His reply:  "Absolutely."  Most tango dancers are progressives and carefully follow the news.  We dance to have a few hours of peace.  Who knows?  If the fundis ever grab complete control of the reins, they will prolly make dancing, especially sexy tango, illegal and punishable by stoning.

Write in Gore and leave the country. ...that's my thought tonight.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8QRS60G0&show_article=1

Israelis anywhere in the world should also be alert to the danger of being kidnapped by operatives from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, according to the announcement from Israel's National Security Council.

Israeli tourists are allowed to visit Egypt and Jordan, which have peace agreements with Israel. But the council said any Israeli citizens in those countries should cut their trips short.

The council also warned against travel to Morocco, where Israelis can visit with special permission from that country's government, and to Tunisia. But those warnings were less urgent than the "severe" warning for other Muslim states.

The announcement on the council's Web site, a renewal of a travel advisory issued twice a year, also warned Israelis not to travel to Mideastern countries like Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, as well as African nations like Somalia, Djibouti and Chad.

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

I wonder when our country will issue the same advisories to us which would include most of the world I would think.  People didn't much like Hitler.  I'm beginning to think someone or other is gonna take us down the way we took Germany down.

Getting out sounds better every day.

Gore, if you run,  I'll stay and work for you.  If you win, I'll stay in the country.  Deal? 

House Hearing Finds Manipulation of Scientific Process Behind Klamath River

by Dan Bacher
Thursday Aug 2nd, 2007 6:25 PM
This is Representative Mike Thompson's report on Tuesday's hearing regarding Cheney's interference with scientific decisions that led to the Klamath fish kill of 2002. Cheney, as expected, declined to testify as to the allegations unearthed by reporters from the Washington Post. However, the hearing did reveal "startling new evidence" that Bush administration officials bypassed key oversight mechanisms when creating a biological opinion would affect endangered fish on the Klamath. The result was the big juvenile and adult fish kills of 2002 - and massive mortality among juvenile salmon every year since then. full article: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08...

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07...

Hoopa Valley Tribe Fights for Water Funding for Trinity River Restoration

by Dan Bacher
Sunday Jul 22nd, 2007 3:21 PM

Danny Jordan, the chief negotiator for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, issued this public statement today charging that H.R. 24, a bill to restore the San Joaquin River, will drain funds from the Trinity River restoration project.


July 22, 2007
For Immediate Release

Media Contact: Danny Jordan
Hoopa Valley Tribe
(530) 625-4548
(707) 499-8366

HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE CAUTIONS CONGRESS ON CONFLICT BETWEEN SAN JOAQUIN AND TRINITY RIVERS' RESTORATION BILLS


Hoopa, Calif. – The chief water negotiator for the Hoopa Valley Tribe has cautioned Congress that a bill to restore the San Joaquin River will drain funds from the Trinity River restoration project. In a public statement on behalf of the tribe, Tribal representative Danny Jordan said the following:

“As early as next week, the House Natural Resources Committee could move a measure (H.R. 24) to settle water rights claims on the San Joaquin River a step closer to enactment. The Senate has a similar measure (S. 27) waiting in the wings. The Hoopa Valley Tribe opposes the bill in its present form because of its negative effect on the Trinity River and other restoration efforts.

The San Joaquin and Trinity Rivers are bound together by a series of dams and canals that make up the Central Valley Project as well as the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) enacted in 1992. The CVPIA was enacted to correct 70 years of environmental damage caused by the development and operation of the Central Valley Project.

The San Joaquin settlement proposal was first publicly unveiled in November, 2006. It became immediately apparent that the proposal included provisions to tap the already over-subscribed Restoration Fund of the CVPIA as one of its funding sources. In February, 2007, Department of the Interior officials agreed with the Tribe that the San Joaquin funding proposals would divert monies away from other CVP restoration activities.

In March, the Tribe submitted written testimony before the House Resource Subcommittee that demonstrated how the San Joaquin legislation would negatively impact the Trinity River Restoration Program. Chairwoman Grace Napolitano promised that all third party interests would be addressed by her subcommittee. In June, we learned that, despite the Tribe’s legal property rights in our water and fishery resources and the United States’ trust obligations to protect them, we were not included on a list of third party interests whose rights were to be protected before the legislation could pass.

We are deeply disappointed by Congress’ apparent disregard for the San Joaquin bill’s negative impacts on the CVPIA, Trinity River fishery restoration, and the United States’ legal trust obligations to our Tribe. We are also disappointed that the House and Senate Democratic leaderships’ unwavering support for the “blood oath” that no amendments be allowed to the San Joaquin settlement, even in light of its effect of undermining the CVPIA, which they so heroically and successfully championed in 1992.

Maybe the negotiators originally had the best of intentions with the San Joaquin settlement, but they appear to have lost their perspective by isolating themselves and focusing only on the San Joaquin while neglecting the broader public interest in California water. Most notably, even the Federal agencies broke faith with the restoration of the Trinity River fishery and the trust obligations to our Tribe by promising to defend the “blood oath” even when doing so is in conflict with their environmental responsibilities and trust obligations to our Tribe.

Passing the existing form of the San Joaquin legislation will mark the first step in march to reduce or eliminate the landmark provisions for environmental restoration embraced in the CVPIA. California is fortunate to have six of 10 members on the Water and Power Subcommittee: Chair, Grace Napolitano (D-38th), Jim Costa D-20th), George Miller (D-7th), Joe Baca (D-43d), Hilda Solis (D-32d) and Ken Calvert (R-44th). We ask all who read this to urge them to amend the San Joaquin bill to protect the Trinity River and all other environmental restoration programs in the CVPIA.”

"Lions for Lambs" .... new movie coming out with Cruise, Redford and Streep about the Iraq war.  Here's the trailer.  Warning:  The apathetic American public is being highly critized...and rightly so.  We have to stop calling it a war on terror!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vdfNbp8a14s

s/b criticized

 Mines collapsing and now this.  OMG, we are crumbling and decaying minute by minute.

Three floors of the Fontainebleau construction project collapsed around 10:30 Monday morning near the Las Vegas Strip.

Slideshow: Structure Collapse at Fontainebleau

Are we headed toward a great depression?

MARKET MELTDOWN: CNBC CRAMER: 'THEY'RE NUTS, THEY KNOW NOTHING... THIS IS ARMAGEDDON!'

Cramer Responds...

“Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a Muslim muezzin. Millions of Europeans already do. And liberals will still tell you that 'diversity is our strength' – while Talibanic enforcers cruise our cities burning books and barber shops... the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the 'separation of church and state' ... and the Hollywood Left gives up gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy.”
- Promotional text for Mark Steyn's America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It.

9/11 really changed everything. Before, the press covered some events of genuine importance. Now, Americans are subjected to a constant deluge of "holy crap"-style terrorism coverage. Our heightened anxiety over 9/11 has been cultivated and stretched out over the past six years, to the point now that any event which even superficially resembles a terrorist attack, no matter how briefly, gets week-long national coverage. A steam pipe blows in New York? It's “especially frightening, considering what happened on 9/11.” Some rich douchebag crashes his helicopter into an apartment building? “A chilling reminder of the events that took place on 9/11.” We're so pathetically traumatized that an entire city can now be brought to its knees by an ad for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It hardly speaks of America as the proud, tough nation it imagines itself to be.

The repugs are indeed stupid if they don't help strip putz and prick of their powers.  What if a dem wins the presidency and has both houses packed with dems? 

What are they all thinking?   

s/b both house and senate....

The children, the children.  How can we do this to the children?

A suicide bomber slammed his truck into a densely populated residential area in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Monday, killing at least 28 people, including 19 children, local authorities said. Meanwhile, after firing all the generals who were sane enough to see how the Iraq War is ruining our military preparedness and morale, the farce of awaiting a Bushevik propaganda report from General P., the one toady Bush could find, continues. 8/6 

This is what I want someone to ask our candidates.  And Iowans won't do it.  I would, dammit!

What country is the only one in the world that has used the A-bomb on another country?   Ask them that question and watch them squirm.
Anybody see this in the news today?  Didn't think so.

Hiroshima marks 62nd anniversary of atomic bombing 8/7

In a solemn ceremony Japan has marked the 62nd anniversary of Hiroshima's atomic bombing. Thousands of elderly survivors, as well as children and dignitaries, attended the ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park where the bomb was dropped. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized to the survivors for comments made by former Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma, who said "the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be helped because they brought an end to the second World War".

Abe pledged that he would abide by Japan's non-nuclear policy banning the possession, production and import of nuclear arms. He said as Japan is the only country in history to have suffered an atomic bomb attack the Japanese government has a duty to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. By the end of 1945 the atomic bomb had killed 140,000 people out of Hiroshima's population of 350,000.

Thousands more later succumbed to related illnesses and injuries.

http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=436727&lng=1 

It isn't just the BH that can't admit mistakes. Most people won't or can't and a call in to AAR - a therapist - said that this whole country is sick.  How many people are truly reasonable and able to take responsibility.  She recommends turning off the TV like that is really gonna happen, right?  Good idea tho.

Perhaps we could have an Iraq reality show........ 

And that salmon kill was/is directly related to the campaign to get Gordon Smith, R, elected.  His office isn't taking calls anymore.  We get thrown into voice mail.

It's late and I'm tired and disgusted.  So I'm gonna watch the Stewart show I taped...

It's 11:56 PM....Can we save ourselves in the 11th hour?  Will the lazy electorate wake up and actually make an effing call to a critter or do something, anything? 

This is a horror show. 

Impeach! 

Those who keep advocating a three-state solution for Iraq (and wishing for the US to impose it) are missing the obvious. Iraq has not only become sectarian (as deliberately as the US could make it so) but also factionalized. The sectarianism will heal itself if we allow it to, but the factions are another matter altogether.

The only real solution in Iraq is for ALL foreign nationals to get out as soon as they can. Let us stop patronizing the Iraqis ... yes, there will be violence. Thanks a lot, putzCo, for not listening to what those of us who knew anything about the area (and anyone who could read and had an IQ above single digits could also deduce) were saying. Please listen now. (Hah ... as if!)

There will be violence either way, but at least if we leave, we will not be contributing to it. Nothing imposed from outside will work ... and that's the truth.

=======================
As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates
Violence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story
By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A01

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.

After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq "where things are going pretty well."

But "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.

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

*Balance* ... as in Faux Noise *balance?* It's about as true.

Something there is that doesn't like a wall ... and count me in with that *something.*

======================
Touring Israel's Barrier With Its Main Designer
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A01

KFAR ADUMIM, West Bank -- From his stone balcony, Dan Tirza looks out over a rippling expanse of Judean desert, the biblical landscape of the Jewish people. A student of that history, the retired army colonel is a leading actor in Israel's modern story of statehood, conquest and the volatile task of erecting a boundary that divides Arab from Jew.

Soon Israel's $2.5 billion separation barrier will rise around Tirza's settlement, where 350 Jewish families live among palms, playgrounds and a synagogue 10 miles inside the West Bank.

The Israeli government says it is building the 456-mile barrier to protect its citizens from Palestinian attacks and not to establish a border. But the route does not follow the boundary defined when Israel emerged as a modern state in the late 1940s, drawing complaints from Palestinians that the barrier's path is designed to seize land and dictate the terms of a future peace deal.

Tirza's settlement is among dozens of hilltop redoubts that Israel has built over the past generation, creating a mosaic of Jewish communities in the Palestinian territories. When the barrier is complete here, it will place on Israel's side nearly 25 square miles of the West Bank, the proposed heartland of a future Palestinian state.

Tirza supports the route in no small part because he, more than anyone else, drew it.

"The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside," Tirza said in an interview. "The idea was to do it with balance."

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

Yet, according to putzCo, all is for the best in the best of all possible Iraqs!

Going right over the cliff ...

===================
Iraqi Crisis Deepens as 5 More Ministers Quit Cabinet Meetings
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A10

BAGHDAD, Aug. 6 -- Iraq's political crisis deepened Monday as five more ministers withdrew from cabinet meetings, delivering a major blow to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's fractured unity government and efforts to reconcile Iraq's warring parties.

Hours earlier, a truck bomb in a Shiite village near the northern city of Tall Afar killed 31 people and wounded scores more, striking an area that was once hailed by President Bush and U.S. military commanders as an oasis of stability, following U.S. operations against insurgents there. Six children were among the dead, police said.

The U.S. military also announced the deaths of six American soldiers, including four killed in an explosion Monday in volatile Diyala province, where U.S. forces are engaged in a major offensive against Sunni insurgents. The blast injured 12 other U.S. soldiers, the military said in a statement. One soldier was killed by a sophisticated roadside bomb in west Baghdad on Monday, and another was killed during combat in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, the military said.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iranian diplomats met in Baghdad to launch a new security committee in an attempt to bring stability to Iraq. The committee is a product of face-to-face talks the two sides have had in recent months, following nearly 30 years of diplomatic freeze.

"It is an established channel of communication, and we will see in the future as to whether or not it is a useful channel of communication," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

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

Martin O'Malley ... SHAME on you!

Ask yourself WHY FDR won ... it wasn't because he moved to the center.

For God's sake!

====================
Our Chance to Capture the Center
By Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A13

With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.

The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.

But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven't voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

A majority comes hard for Democrats. In the past 150 years, only three Democrats, one of whom was Franklin Roosevelt, have won the White House with a majority of the popular vote.

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

E.J. Dionne's thoughts on Mittless.

Just as I would support (albeit with some qualms in some cases) any one of the Dems now running for Prez, it would be a cold day in Hell before I would not do everything in my power to ensure than not one of the Rethugs would win.

If Mittless is the *best* and a Rethug wins (by hook or by crook) ... God help us all.

============
For Romney, Traction in Iowa
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A13

Watch out, Fred Thompson: By the time you get into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney may have run away with your constituency.

And while Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have decided not to compete in next Saturday's Republican straw poll in Iowa, they now have a powerful interest in preventing Romney from turning what they had hoped would be a nonevent into a meaningful victory. Look for maneuvering from Romney's top rivals to strengthen former governor Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback so they can dilute Romney's share of the vote -- and of the news.

Sunday's Republican debate on ABC's "This Week" suggested what has been obvious to many of the party's professionals: Of all the candidates, Romney has the most comprehensive strategy not only to win the Republican presidential nomination but also to position himself for next year's election.

Romney has managed to become a favorite of the Republican establishment, including members of the Bush family -- Doro Bush Koch, the president's sister, has raised money for him, while both Jeb Bush and former president Bush are favorably disposed. At the same time, Romney has distanced himself from the unpopular incumbent.

"I can tell you I'm not a carbon copy of President Bush," Romney declared in the ABC debate. Yet he went out of his way to defend the administration when the candidates were asked their view of Dick Cheney's role as vice president. "I know they make mistakes," Romney said of Bush and Cheney, "but they have kept us safe these last six years. Let's not forget that." The two answers taken together were a form of triangulation worthy of Bill Clinton.

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

Deaniac, loved you reports on the meeting with your Rep. Thanks.

you s/b your .... ack!

Good morning, everybody

Looks like some people are into scaring themselves.  Fear, like guilt, is an emotion that's useless to him who has it, but serves the purposes of other nasties well.

Fearing fear, btw, isn't much good either.  Much better to just will it away. 

The last for now ... the Oil Games have alreay begun!

Thanks again, putzCo!

================
The struggle for Iraq's oil flares up as Kurds open doors to foreign investors
Baghdad is trying to reassert central control of reserves run by Kurdish authorities
Michael Howard in Taq Taq
Tuesday August 7, 2007
Guardian

At the end of a rough dirt track, on a sun-baked hillock once the domain of scorpions and snakes, squats an odd settlement of caravans, generators and drilling rigs that is at the heart of the battle for Iraq's oil.

"Welcome to Texas, Kurdistan," said Karim Ali, as his taxi bounced to the gates of the Taq Taq oilfields, on the undulating plains of Koi Sanjaq, some 80 miles south-east of Irbil. "Soon we'll all have big hats and cigars like them," he said, nodding at a group of oil workers passing by on a pickup truck.

Like many Iraqis, Karim appeared convinced that the country's vast reserves of crude, the bedrock of its economy, were about to be siphoned off by major US oil corporations. The presence of "foreigners" here at Taq Taq merely cemented his certainty.

With the Bush administration pressing the Iraqi government to pass a new hydrocarbons law, there are widely voiced assumptions that it will bulldoze the oil industry into privatisation, and that foreign firms - meaning US ones - will unfairly reap the rewards. A survey published yesterday by a group of British and American NGOs suggested most Iraqis oppose plans to open the oilfields to foreign investment.

Unlike his compatriots, however, Karim, a Kurd from Sulaimaniya, was not perturbed at the thought. "They [the Americans] are our friends and they deserve it for getting rid of Saddam," he said. "Besides, when oil was in the hands of Baghdad, it never meant anything other than bombs and bullets for us."

In fact there are no Americans at Taq Taq. The operation is being managed by TTopco (the Taq Taq Operating Company), a joint venture between Genel Energie, a Turkish company, and Addax Petroleum, an independent exploration and development company quoted on the London and Toronto stock exchanges.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33034...

Those who keep advocating a three-state solution for Iraq (and wishing for the US to impose it) are missing the obvious. Iraq has not only become sectarian (as deliberately as the US could make it so) but also factionalized. The sectarianism will heal itself if we allow it to, but the factions are another matter altogether.
============================

The only one imposing anything is you and your apprehension.

We are imposing a single state at present.  The country wants to be factionalized.  Our imposition of a strong central government of Sunni thugs is what we have now.  Killing itself is not healing itself - what planet are you living on?

Easy to potificate with platiitudes while we sit in our comfry rooms, while people are getting blown up, kidnapped, raped, murdered and threatens.  And you say leave well enough alone.  Why don't you go live there for a day?  As a Sunni.  The majority central government is nothing more than a mafioso.  That's why there is no political solution.  They don't want one.  They are like you.. ."leave well enough alone."

Mitt Romeny and the Seven Dwarfs

Having it both ways is not triangulation.  E.J. Dionne should be ashamed.  Instead of observing that hundreds of thousands have died prematurely in the last six years, he makes a false comparison to Bill Clinton.

The Church Committee noted in 1976 (The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence)

This Committee has examined a realm of governmental information collection which has not been governed by restraints comparable to those in criminal proceedings. We have examined the collection of intelligence about the political advocacy and actions and the private lives of American citizens. That information has been used covertly to discredit the ideas advocated and to "neutralize" the actions of their proponents. As Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone warned in 1924, when he sought to keep federal agencies from investigating "political or other opinions" as opposed to "conduct . . . forbidden by the laws":

When a police system passes beyond these limits, it is dangerous to the proper administration of justice and to human liberty, which it should be our first concern to cherish.

... There is always a possibility that a secret police may become a menace to free government and free institutions because it carries with it the possibility of abuses of power which are not always quickly apprehended or understood.

Our investigation has confirmed that warning. We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes. We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as "vacuum cleaners"," sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens.

The tendency of intelligence activities to expand beyond their initial scope is a theme which runs through every aspect of our investigative findings. Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. And once intelligence has been collected, there are strong pressures to use it against the target.

The  Repuglidilian Party successfully took control of K Street

The same is true of TV "news" 

Neither is is eroding, from I can tell.

WE are toast, and it is the multi-national corporations applying the flame and fanning it.   The doltish American society is the fuel.

Just so you know

Here in the state where Mitt Romney has one of his five homes

and the local FOX TV has a powerfully influential propaganda machine in-place

the frame is taking form

which impresses the viewer (potential dolt)

 to follow the bouncing ball

* *  *

Mitt has answered all in reference to religion

Mitt doesn't have to address religion anymore, so move on to another issue.

Of course, let the buyer beware:  the abortion issue was a free ride (with the help of local/state media) until Mitt ran for potus.

E.J. Dionne's thoughts on Mittless.

Just as I would support (albeit with some qualms in some cases) any one of the Dems now running for Prez, it would be a cold day in Hell before I would not do everything in my power to ensure than not one of the Rethugs would win.

If Mittless is the *best* and a Rethug wins (by hook or by crook) ... God help us all.

...

+++

JudyforDean -

Thanks for posting that piece about Romney and that your efforts are being concentrated on ensuring that a repub doesn't become our next president.

From the support thrown here by some for Ron Paul and the attacks against the front-runner dem candidates, it would appear that the prospect of a repub presidency doesn't seem to matter that much to them.

When the miners in Utah are found dead

I WANT TO KNOW

why the media in this country

took what the owners of the mining concern said ...

"they are safe, we know where they are...they have ample water, food, and oxygen"

...wrote it down...

...put it through spell check...

...and went back to vacationing on the beach.

Obama's speech at the Woodrow Wilson Institute

framed the way Barack will talk about the issue.

Good move.  Ain'a like he pulled the trigger.

thunderstorms last night and again this morning prevent me from giving my thoughts on today Deaniac but not to worry

bbl

... not necessarily a criticism here, well yes i guess it is.

This blog, IMHO, is THE place to be. For the life of me, now that certain foul smelling types are no longer a major factor, i don't understand why everyone doesn't come home.
Here where there is no rating, no group think

...

++++

For BFA expatriates (you want back):  Did you send out invitations ?  Did you help advertize ?

For BFA expatriates (you don't want back):  And who might those "certain foul smelling types" be anyways ?

true enough about Obama, but Kerry framed it same as Bush only more competent, and if Obama frames it same as Bush only tougher the results will be the same

59.

Imn2paine -

Thanks for that comment.

BTW, did you here that Deval Patrick quickly and decisively had the 28 truss bridges in MA checked since the Minneapolis truss bridge disaster and found none of the 28 to be in danger of collapse ?

Well, I heard on Channel 5 today that that is the case and Deval said the main difference in the 28 here is that the joints are bolted, whereas the bridge in Minneapolis was welded joints.

Look, Fred, you can have your point of view ... which I ... and those who are now in and know most about Iraq (not generally among putzCo advisors or among our current crop of politicians) ... do not share.

I have been *on the ground* in more ways than one for the past 43 years. I don't need someone who never has been to tell me that I am wrong simply because they do not agree with the results of my long-term observations, which do not come from my admittedly comfy current personal situation, but from my own experiences, studies, and profession.

Please do NOT use my name or respond to me in any way ever again.

all are welcome here who follow the rules:

You understand that all postings and communications you make through the Service are your sole responsibility. This means that you, and not DFA, are entirely responsible for all content you post. You agree to not use the Service to:

1. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

Indy wrote "Not sure why you continue to hang around here."

Because Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Ralph Nader,  Al Gore and Howard Dean are my all time political heroes.  Believe me, it's not for your edification.

+++

Tom -

Good push back.

Nobody IMO has a right to question why anyone hangs around here.  This isn't some exclusive club.

Thanks, rd, I certainly agree with you about Mittless.

Bad news, he.

58.
rdorgan,
This is the primary, you know...where you vote your heart. I believe it sets the tone for the general election and if some here wish to steer the middle of the road drivers off the road to fascism, I believe that to be a positive thing.
Will we fall in line behind our Dem. candidate in the general, well that might depend whether or not they took the exit.

I'm so proud of Howard and all the work he is doing as the Democratic National Chairman to help ensure that a dem becomes our next President.

This blog and the greater DFA is his legacy and ongoing work in progress.

bye

lightning: I'm out of here

play nice and share lol

hey it's just us being us, enjoy

as Pam used to say; spead the love

Who was it who said that they would not want to belong to a club that would accept him/her as a member?

Or some such? LOL

July 26, 2007
I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain'a? So listen, no essay for you's this week 'cause right now I'm due to meet with my campaign brain-trust to figure out the final arrangements for a retreat Up North north of Hayward there at my buddy Ernie's brother-in-law's ramshackle cabin/coldwater coop—seven days of caviar and champagne dreams of how to get my sorry ass on the radar, not to mention ballot, for president of the US-focking-A.

So I got to go over by the Uptowner tavern, courageously crammed at the corner of hysteric Center & Humboldt. Come along if you'd like, but you buy the first round.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Any you's guys know where the expression "dog days of summer" come from?

[...]

JudyforDean -

You're welcome.

Bloggie acting up again, I see. My comments, which are sprinkled about hither and yon were all posted after everyone else's.

Very intersting ... the NSA spyware must be acting up again.

REALLY wish that the blog clock would be fixed.

*************
And this brief interlude is over.

Best to all, JfD

* rdorgan

<

I heard (LOL). *R.

Good move, yet he is taking hits for borrowing money to pay for the decision.  

...and so it goes. 

No one in the Democratic Party is coming out and speaking to us, their constituents.  They need to tell us what is going on with our country

___________________________________________________________________________

Florida,

Which makes me wonder Howards logic to try and reform this pathetic bunch of perennial losers..........theyll kick him out soon enough, and he would have better served by going Independent and leading a REAL political reform movement IMO..........

rdorgan, for you

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

"When the farm bill comes up in the Senate, I will be fighting to tell all those agribusiness lobbyists that they won't be able to count on the multi-million-dollar subsidies they always get because we're going to put family farmers first," said Obama.  "Under Tom Harkin's leadership, we're going to put conservation of our land and our water first.  We're going to put biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and ethanol that represent the future of energy in this country first.  And we're going to put economic development for rural America first.  Those lobbyists -- they can wait at the back of the line for a change."

Obama said his record of passing ethics reform initiatives in Illinois and Washington and his rejection of campaign contributions from PACs and federal lobbyists are evidence that, as President, he’ll stand up to Washington lobbyists and put family farmers first.

"While you're working in the fields, lobbyists are working in Congress to block the rural reforms America needs," Obama said.  "This farm bill gives us an opportunity to turn the conventional Washington wisdom on its head."

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

rather than out tough Hillary I like this new direction of trying to out anti-lobbyists her

I'm so proud of Howard and all the work he is doing as the Democratic National Chairman to help ensure that a dem becomes our next President

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

rd,

Well judging from what these bombos are saying lately, I dont see a real change whatsoever in the long run..............so stagnation and decline will continue, just in a differant form.......if youre content with that so be it...............

JudyforDean

>

Woa!  I missed it.  Well, whatever it was is water under the bridge.  Let it go.

And, on this I must do some final preparations for work.

All the best, folks.

69.

This isn't some exclusive club.

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

If it were it'd be the first I've ever been in unless you count housing projects...LOL

Gotta run...I'm home today because I've been researching for a personal problem which will most likely require a lawyer. Goes back to a few months ago when I mentioned changing Vermont's meal and break laws because they're so lax and the other abuses that can result from employers because of it. Well not much could be done because it was so late in the legislative session when I brought it up so I have to wait 'till the next session but a snowball was started in motion at me wife's workplace. Let's just say the snowball hit the wall at the foot of the hill yesterday but we were prepared and we have truth on our side. She has thirty one years with no black marks on her nursing license but the administrator/owner was trying to load her file with med. errors. No one has ever stood up to this woman as she is so mean and nasty, they usually just quit. Me wife is the first and said this woman looked like an animal possessed when she did. While trying on us personally, a lot will be dug up which should help others in similar situations down the road.

81.

wife's workplace. Let's just say the snowball hit the wall at the foot of the hill yesterday but we were prepared and we have truth on our side. She has thirty one years with no black marks on her nursing license but the administrator/owner was trying to load her file with med. errors.

...

+++

Best of luck to you and your wife's efforts.

My wife is a nurse too but due to knee injuries is no longer doing floor nursing but rather has set up her own mastectomy supply, foundation garments retail business operating out of our home.

To be truthful, she doesn't miss at all the head games employed by superiors in the healthcare field.

I just find it amazing that a nurse, who is tasked with taking care of others, is often not well taken care of (ie, encouraged, supported) by supporting staff and superiors (be they doctors, adminstrators, patient's relatives, insurance reps, other nurses, etc.)

Thanks rdorgan
Should be interesting to say the least. Never did like the term superior...someone may be my boss but I'll be damned if they're my superior.

83. 

No problem.

rdorgan "Nobody IMO has a right to question why anyone hangs around here.  This isn't some exclusive club."

Thanks rdorgan.  Indy knows I'm fond of him.  He just enjoys the political to and fro, that's all.

Giuliani child draws attention as Obama supporter

Reuters
Monday, August 6, 2007; 9:16 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's teen-age daughter found herself under the harsh media spotlight of national politics on Monday after word circulated that she might support Democrat Barack Obama.

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

another dem debate tonight, this one hosted by labor's AFL-CIO (well, once again I'm laboring at my second job tonight and won't see the debate [I wish they'd pick a Wed, cause that's the only weeknight evening I have off], so will come here for reactions to the debate):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601249.html

Tuesday, August 7, 2007; Page C06

Highlights

Keith Olbermann moderates a 90-minute Democratic presidential debate (MSNBC at 7 p.m.), sponsored by the AFL-CIO, live from Chicago's Soldier Field. Olbermann and Chris Matthews anchor post-debate coverage at 8:30.

...

85.

"All's well that ends well".

"He ain't heavy, he's my brother".

Amen.

new thread

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/21783...