Molly is first along with our wonderful honest DEANS.

Keith was connecting the dots between the AEI and the money scam over global warming.

We will all miss Molly.  I bet she's up there raising hell with Ann Richards!!

Wonderful post, Fran.  I was in Austin and I will never forget having the opportunity to meet and to hear Molly Ivins.  I won't forget her speech at Stubbs, and yes it was R rated.  Nor will I forget her wonderful stories in the tent at lunch with Jim Hightower, Glen Smith and several hundred pizza chomping, sweating, laughing, adoring Deaniacs.  What a wonderful time we all had!

I cried when I heard that Molly died, and I hardly ever cry.  And yet I feel blessed.  I am one of the lucky ones who actually got to see her in action.

Thank you Democracy for Texas.  Thank you Molly Ivins.  Thank you Howard Dean.

Good to know our blood war is helping Exxon Mobile reach record high profits.

Molly Ivins will be missed for years to come.

Thank you Fran for this wonderful tribute.

Really slow around here this evening.

Voting Against Pay Raises: Russ does not accept pay raises during each term in office. When Congress votes to raise its pay or when it is scheduled to receive a cost of living increase, Russ sends his share back to the U.S. Treasury. As part of his efforts to reform government, Russ has introduced legislation that would end these automatic cost-of-living increases, so that Congress would be accountable to the public in deciding when to raise its pay.

Washington - Russ Feingold, in essence, took an $18,000 pay cut last year, despite the fact that his net worth is one of the smallest in the U.S. Senate.

He could have taken home what other senators make - $154,700 - but accepts only the salary in effect during the first year of every six-year term, according to his spokesman, Trevor Miller. That meant that last year Feingold was paid at the 1999 annual rate of $136,700.

This year he is running for re-election, seeking a third term in the Senate.

His pay cut - his wealthy colleague Herb Kohl takes an even sharper one - comes despite Feingold's relatively slim wallet.

While Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks, a horse ranch near high-end Jackson, Wyo., and a trove of other real estate, Feingold's financial picture is mixed.

His salary, even at the reduced rate, is one many Americans would envy. Still, Feingold is saddled with two mortgages on his home in Middleton, has $7,100 in credit card and other bills, and drives an $8,000 1998 Buick.

If the Senate is, as it's sometimes called, a millionaires' club, Kohl has a cushy seat at the table. His adjusted gross income in 2003 was $5 million, substantially higher than what Feingold and his wife reported, $149,192.

 MORE

The Good and the Bad 

Things some people won't want to know about AIPAC - from 2002

What, then, is one to make of our representatives and senators in Congress assembled?

A perusal of the May 6, 2002 Jerusalem Post reveals the following headline: "Visiting Congressmen Advise Israel to Resist US Administration Pressure." The Israeli newspaper chronicles the pilgrimage of a group of Congressional wardheelers to the Promised Land, carrying with them a copy of the resolution of support for the Israeli government which passed Congress by a vote of 352-21 with 29 abstentions. The delegation's leader, Rep. James Saxton of New Jersey, displayed a copy of the resolution to reporters, which he said they wanted to "hand deliver" to the Israeli people. Saxton's enthusiasm for Israel is a matter of long standing, and extends to providing Congressional employment to Israeli citizen--and rumored Mossad asset--Yosef Bodansky.

An ironic aspect to this Congressional junket is that these are precisely the public officials who routinely suggest that dissent against the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Afghanistan is tantamount to treason.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's tepid criticism of Bush's policies in March elicited a firestorm of self-righteous indignation from Republicans, and Daschle, duly chastised, slunk offstage.
http://www.counterpunch.org/sunderland0510.html

to be cont 

 

"...cont

"A further example of Vichyite subservience is provided by John McCain, adored pet of newspaper editorial boards and in relentless competition with Joseph Lieberman as Conscience of the Senate pro tempore. Addressing the closing plenary session of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at the Jefferson Memorial on April 23, McCain plighted his troth with Sharon's Israel in a manner that would have been denounced as fellow-travelership or useful idiocy had it been Henry Wallace praising the Soviet Union.

Invoking Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (the founder, as it were, of Congressional Vichyism: a truly odious pork-barreling errand boy of the military industrial complex whose chief contribution to American statecraft was launching the careers of the smoothly sinister Richard Perle and howling militarist Frank Gaffney) McCain described the indissoluble moral bond between the American Republic and the Middle Eastern apartheid state run by an ex-general currently under indictment by a Belgian court for war crimes. Indeed, "To be proudly pro-American and pro-Israeli is not to hold conflicting loyalties. As Scoop understood, it is about defending the principles that both countries hold dear. And I stand before you today, proudly pro-American and pro-Israel." It is notable that McCain produced this effusion at an American national memorial, surrounded by Israeli flags. The Senator apparently thinks that this scene would be so impressive to his Arizona constituents that he put a picture of it on his web site.

cont

"Command performances before AIPAC have become standard features in the life of a Washington elected official, like filing FEC reports and hitting on interns. The stylized panegyrics delivered at the annual AIPAC meeting have all the probative value of the Dniepropetrovsk Soviet's birthday greeting to Stalin, because the actual content is unimportant; what is crucial is that the politician in question be seen to be genuflecting before the AIPAC board. In fact, to make things easier, the speeches are sometimes written by an AIPAC employee, with cosmetic changes inserted by a member of the Senator's or Congressman's own staff.

cont'

"Of course, there are innumerable lobbies in Washington, from environmental to telecommunications to chiropractic; why is AIPAC different? For one thing, it is a political action committee that lobbies expressly on behalf of a foreign power; the fact that it is exempt from the Foreign Agents' Registration Act is yet another mysterious "Israel exception." For another, it is not just the amount of money it gives, it is the political punishment it can exact: just ask Chuck Percy or Pete McClosky. Since the mid-1980s, no Member of Congress has even tried to take on the lobby directly. As a Senate staffer told this writer, it is the "cold fear" of AIPAC's disfavor that keeps the politicians in line.

This scam has been going on for decades.

The main purpose, other than to maintain the flow of weapons and loot to Israel, is to keep Congress's investigatory apparatus turned off. AIPAC appears to be batting a thousand.

more

"

Lyndon Johnson's decision to cover up the deliberate and protracted Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in June 1967 (and which resulted in 34 deaths: almost double the deaths suffered by the crew of the U.S.S. Cole) was pointedly not investigated by Congress. Instead, the surviving crew were shamefully bullied into silence by the gargoyle Johnson and his functionaries; those who did break their silence later were reviled by the lobby as delusional anti-Semites.

Likewise, the Congressional investigation into the Beirut barracks bombing stuck to the narrow issue of the incompetent U.S. military chain of command, and avoided the wider issue of the Marines' presence as sitting ducks in the middle of Sharon's first war of conquest. A retired officer has asserted that the Mossad had intelligence from informers that the frame of a truck was being reinforced to carry a heavy load of explosives, but chose to keep the intelligence secret. Despite the lobby's claim that the U.S.-Israel relationship is one of mutual intelligence sharing, the real relationship is a starker one: according to old intelligence hands, Israel takes all and gives nothing, even if U.S. lives are at stake.

cont

"

The way for then-National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane's "opening to Iran" was paved by the fact that Israel was already providing F-4 Phantom spare parts (manufactured in the United States and transported to Israel at American taxpayer expense) to Iran on the sly as a way of counterbalancing Iraq's military power.

The extent to which President Reagan's privatized foreign policy used these pre-existing links to pursue the Iranian opening is uncertain. What is certain is that the joint House-Senate investigating committee, chaired by long-time AIPAC favorite Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, took some pains to steer the investigation away from Israel, so that those links would not be made public in a way that would embarrass our Major non-NATO Ally.

Finally, for a country that loves a good spy mystery--whether it is Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, or Robert Hansen, each one eliciting from Capitol Hill cries for an investigation, more polygraphs, increased use of the death penalty, etc., etc.--Congress's deafening silence over the Israeli "art students" saga, particularly after 9/11, is astonishing for those unfamiliar with Congress's reticence about embarrassing Israel.

cont

All the more amazing that only two years before, the Hill was in an uproar over the Chinese spy hysteria (the fact that Wen Ho Lee, the apparently falsely accused Los Alamos employee, had been fingered in the columns of manic Zionist and Sharon confidant William Safire supplies an almost O. Henry quality of irony to the tale). The full story of how hundreds of Mossad agents-in-training were literally inundating Federal facilities in the year and a half prior to 9/11 may never be known, thanks to a total smothering by the Justice Department, Congress, and the major media, but a good summary may be read in the following here.

cont

Israel's strategy of using its influence on the American political system to turn the U.S. national security apparatus into its own personal attack dog--or Golem--has alienated the United States from much of the Third World, has worsened U.S. ties to Europe amid rancorous insinuations of anti-Semitism, and makes the United States a hated bully. And by cutting off all diplomatic lines of retreat--as Sharon did when he publicly made President Bush, the leader of the Free World, look like an impotent fool--Israel paradoxically forces the United States to draw closer to Israel because there is no thinkable alternative for American politicians than continuing to invest political capital in Israel.

We have now reached the point where there may be no turning back as nuclear Armageddon beckons from the Middle East. Writing recently in The Washington Post, Chris Patten, the European commissioner for external relations, says "a senior Democratic senator [alas, Patten does not name him] told a visiting European the other day: 'All of us here are members of Likud now.'"

So it has come to this: members of the world's greatest deliberative body, the heirs of Clay, La Follette, and Taft, now identify themselves with a radical political movement that grew out of the terrorism of Judeo-Fascist and Mussolini admirer Vladimir Jabotinsky; Menachim Begin, co-conspirator in the bombing of the King David Hotel; and Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

the end (bet you're all happy)  Please don't shoot the messenger, for that's what I am.

So it has come to this: members of the world's greatest deliberative body, the heirs of Clay, La Follette, and Taft, now identify themselves with a radical political movement that grew out of the terrorism of Judeo-Fascist and Mussolini admirer Vladimir Jabotinsky; Menachim Begin, co-conspirator in the bombing of the King David Hotel; and Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

Whether they identify with Sharon's Israel because of crass political advantage, or because, like those of Senator Inhofe's, their views are indistinguishable from the delusions of a certifiable lunatic, our Vichy Congress is driving us down the path of a final, fatal clash of civilizations. All Americans, be they old-line conservatives who hate seeing their country hopelessly embroiled in the Old World's perpetual quarrels, or liberals in the honorable anti-imperilialist and antimilitarist tradition of William Jennings Bryan, or the apolitical who resent the prospect of becoming an irradiated corpse, must put aside their differences and start loudly and persistently identifying these Congressional Likudniki for what they are: Quislings.

George Sunderland is the pen name of a Congressional staff member. Comments to Sunderland can be sent to counterpunch@counterpunch.org

 

I love you, Molly.

Now I'm going dancing!

#10 - Oh my goodness. Now I love Russ more than ever. LOL. A 1998 Buick with two mortgages? He's a man of the people.

I got my Russ coffee mug in the mail today too! ;-)

I should also add that I'm not making any internet purchases or donations any longer. Someone hijacked my credit card - thank goodness my bank was on to it!

Get up Stand up! Beat the pots and pans! Speak out and be heard for Molly! Thanks for your post, Fran, and thanks for your tribute to Molly at Democracy for Texas!

If even half of the article is true, it now makes sense why our spineless dems and repugs are spineless and refuse to get outta the ME, preferring to ratchet up the war.

So...who's really running our foreign policy?  We keep asking why they don't do something and dare not answer....for fear of being criticized.  Our critters have been bought and paid for for years ..... and now intimidated beyond belief.  MO

Ok, really now dancing to get the stench of our foreign policy outta my life for awhile.

Mary, did they steal it over the internet? Man, that's scary. From what site?

I should be getting my Russ shirts tomorrow. Tuesday at the latest. :) 

Cheryl - I don't know yet. Closed it and are sending another one. But that's it for me. This is the second time in nine years that it happened. I'm beyond ticked.

When I come back in the next life, I want to look like this. Wow, what a beauty.

Found her pic on Russ's MySpace and she is supporting Edwards. 

30. Thanks!!! I just bookmarked the site.

The only reason I can think of that he isn't running in '08 is he thinks Gore may run. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with being twice divorce. Take a look at the Republican nominees. They have all been married and divorced countless times and all are/were philanders! Ah, the family-values party. LOL.

s/b twice divorced. Also, post above is a grammatical nightmare. I'm tired.

Mary, mine was stolen at a gas station once a few years ago and they charge up a few tanks and I didn't even know it until the CC company called. Then around 2002 someone committed fraud against me with a fake website and I lost about $10 which is no big deal...my bigger worry was they were going to sell my CC info which did not happen.

Sorry to hear that happened to you. I always worry no matter where I use it whether online or in stores here in town. 

Russ and Morgan Fairchild:

32. What a riot! Is that a political site or a match.com site. LOL

Mary, I think it would have more to do with his ability to fundraise and that he is so much more progressive than the other candidates. In this day and age, I would hardly think divorce would be a big issue but I guess you never know with people.

Hillary and Bill should have divorced. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship. 

Firefox - It's amazing how many people have had similar experiences. How I found out was when I was making a $32 purchase (picking up some foodies for the kids after the swim meet). The kid at the register said *your card isn't working*. I thought maybe the magnet was de-magnetized. Well, I came home and called the bank. Someone had just tried using my number in another place so the bank too quick action since I was in yet another location! It's just a pain in the neck.

37

Lol

It's a personal networking site that people use professionally too, and nearly all the politicians use it to network. I think most of the people on there are freaks in what they post. DFA is up there too. 

This is fun. If you explore the site, you will see Obama, Edwards, Hillary and others listed too with their charts:

April 10, 2006

Russell Feingold

Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin is a likely candidate for president in 2008. He has called on the Senate to pass a resolution censuring President Bush for, according to Feingold’s website, “authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of the program.” Feingold’s resolution attempt seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the Senate, but it has energized the liberal Democratic base.

My husband asked the other day if I thought Bill Clinton was still catting around on Hillary since he spends so much time away from her. What a weird relationship. Not a great example for their daughter. I betcha Chelsea ends up with a philanderer as well.

I have a friend who lives in the Pac NW and her husband lives in Italy. It's strange but it seems to work. He comes over to the states every six weeks or so. I like my independence but I can't imagine living apart from my husband.

Nite all. I'm beat.

 Meet the Next President: (I wish) Russ Feingold knows what he wants

WASHINGTON - As the only senator to have voted against the Patriot Act and the only presidential hopeful to have voted against the Iraq war, Russ Feingold is sometimes tempted to say “I told you so.”

“Yeah, but I was taught it’s impolite to do that,” the Wisconsin liberal tells The Examiner in an interview. “And it also doesn’t help you get where you want to go.”

The White House is where Feingold wants to go. He is counting on his consistent opposition to the Iraq war to get him there.

“He is, I think, the one Democrat who can say he’s 100 percent pure,” says columnist David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register.

“People are prepared to live with a good candidate who says ‘I was wrong’ after the fact,” Feingold says. “But I think people would strongly prefer a candidate who had the judgment that’s right in the first place.

“They want somebody who stood up to the mistake of the Iraq war from the beginning. And I’m the only one — even on the long list — who actually voted against the Iraq war.”

“I was the first member of the Senate to get on the floor and say, wait a minute, I don’t buy this connection to al Qaida,” Feingold recalls. “I don’t find the case on WMD, in terms of being an imminent threat, to be persuasive.

“I just had this sick feeling that people were buying into this out of fear, rather than rationality,” he adds. “I was so extremely opposed to the Iraq war — I was certain it was the wrong call.”

In August 2005, Feingold called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq by Dec. 31, becoming the first senator to advocate a specific timetable for withdrawal. Since then, many other Democrats — including Kerry and Edwards — have embraced withdrawal timetables.

“I mean, this is about being elected president,” he says. “And in the end, being president involves judgment.”

Feingold says Clinton, the early favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination, is “absolutely” too timid on the Iraq war issue. Unlike Feingold, the New Yorker voted for the war in 2002 and now opposes a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Feingold calls this “the wrong approach” and says it will make it harder for Clinton to win the Democratic primaries, which are dominated by liberal voters.

“Given some of the feelings among the grass roots of the Democratic Party, it’s certainly not a sure thing,” he says of a Clinton nomination.

“And I don’t know if I’m going to run, but I guarantee you, I wouldn’t choose not to run because I don’t think I can defeat her. If it was one-on-one, given the issues that I’ve taken, I think I’d have a shot. It would be an upset, but I’ve been out there in many, many states and people are looking for an alternative,” he adds. “There are a lot of people out there that want to have some choices here and I think they’re willing to vote accordingly.”

Full Article

CSPAN.org has the DNC meeting video up on its site now. 

THanks, JC. I will have to wait until tomorrow when I can use my WiFi since dial-up will take hours just to load, lol.

Did you watch it? What did you think? I keep hearing Obama and Edwards did the best. 

Pentagon alters how wounded are calculated

By Denise Grady
The New York Times

Published: Friday, February 2, 2007

On Monday, the bottom line of the Defense Department's Web page on casualties in Iraq listed a total of 47,657 ``nonmortal casualties.''

By Tuesday, the same page no longer showed a total for nonmortal casualties. The bottom line is now ``total - medical air transported,'' and the figure is 31,493.

----------

These real lives don't matter to the Pentagon.

These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans. They’re real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder. We better be as sure as you can be.

- Senator Chuck Hagel

So, Clark appears to be included among the 10 (yep, 10!) Democratic candidates on the DNC website about the Winter Meeting.

 http://www.democrats.org/wintermeetingvideo.html

45. Firefox!

I'm downloading it now and will watch it after it finishes.  I don't have the patience for the stops and starts of watching it while it's streaming, so I download it, then I can watch at my leisure and fast forward through stuff.

I am very upset that we're committing 21,500 to 42,000 additional troops to Iraq after learning that another helicopter has crashed while conducting operations in Iraq. My belief is that the military is increasing offensive operations in Iraq and these operations are involving the use of helicopters. Now, this concerns me. For one thing, we really have no realatively safe way of transporting troops around. It definitely isn't safe to go by convoy due to IEDs and ambushes. Secondly, Bush has us bogged down there to the point where the guerrilla have now developed tactics to successfully take down our aircraft or have acquired advanced weaponry to evade our defenses.

This is also troubling because this kind of strategy seems to ignore major componenets of the plan put forward by the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group. It would seem to suggest that the Bush administration's plan is cherry-picking bits and pieces out of it. For one thing, it sure seems that the emphasis is more on combat operations rather than advising/training the ISF. Secondly, there appears to be no diplomatic push accompanying the military offensive. The members were adamant that some form of dialog had to be attempted with Iraq and Syria. After all, the U.S. would not have been able to successfully end the Cold War without engaging our adversaries.

All Things Considered, February 2, 2007

NIE Report: Iraq Not Likely to Be Stable by 2008

....At a White House briefing, National Security Adviser Steven Hadley said that while this NIE is a new document, the intelligence behind it has been consistent for months. And Hadley insisted the intelligence has been informing the president's recent decisions.

Hadley pointed to the bit of the estimate that deals with a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The report judges that a rapid withdrawal could lead to horrific consequences, from massive civilian casualties to a stronger al-Qaida presence in Anbar province.

------

I wonder if the report mentions anything about what impact sending an additional 21,500-42,000 troops into that grinder will have on nudging the ISF into taking over defense of their own land. Just plain human nature and history in other conflicts suggests it will do nothing. It doesn't make any sense to send forces to Iraq in an open-ended fashion where there are no concrete timelines that have to be met by the host country....its absurd that the Bush administration would subject our men and women in uniform to such folly.

GROW YOUR OWN GOJI BERRIES!   mmmmmm....!

just rec'd this link from Nat Gardening Assoc and wanted to share with 'the girls'.

http://www.timpanogosnursery.com/

 hope y'all see it - this thread's pretty dead but did not find a newer one at the front page.

 well good morning anyway!  as Dave would say - love you all, mean it!

Great thread post, Fran!   What a wonderful person Molly was and how bereft we are ... why is it almost always the good ones who leave us earlier ... and the criminals and thugs like putz and prick who remain to wreak havoc?

I probably answered my own question: if you were a god, which one(s) would you choose to be with you?  Easy answers.

There are some great tributes to and remembrances of Molly over at NPR.  You can either read them or listen to them.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7113087

Should we really be surprised by this?

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

Brazilians' Arrest Focuses Scrutiny on Evangelical Groups
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 3, 2007; A01

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Before a service at Reborn in Christ Church this week, a man hawked gospel CDs outside the front door. In the cavernous nave, volunteers placed envelopes soliciting cash donations on each of about 1,000 chairs, while cameramen working for the church's television network focused on the altar.

Everything was ready, except the church's founders and spiritual leaders.

Estevam Hernandes-Filho and his wife, Sonia -- who oversee more than 1,000 churches in Brazil and several in Florida -- were under house arrest in Miami, accused of carrying more than $56,000 in undeclared cash. Some of the money had been stuffed between the pages of their Bible, according to U.S. customs agents who detained the couple last month at the Miami airport.

The arrests and the accusations back home of systematic embezzlement have resonated loudly in Brazil, where tens of millions of people have joined evangelical Christian churches in recent years to create powerful new cultural and political movements. Some of those movements are now under increasing scrutiny from investigators, who say they are receiving testimony alleging similar scandals among other faith-based empires.

Arthur Pinto de Lemos, a state prosecutor who is heading the case against Reborn in Christ Church, pointed to several stacks of folders cluttering his desk this week.

"There are now a lot of other accusations coming in, all of which have started to surface after this case," he said, slapping a palm atop the files.

[...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020201964_pf.html

Hillary is probably gnashing her teeth at this prospect.

My question to Barack: where's the beef?  Lots of nice rhetoric, but actions speak louder than words.

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

Mobilized Online, Thousands Gather to Hear Obama
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, February 3, 2007; A05

At his first rally since announcing his presidential exploratory committee, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) appealed yesterday for support from the young people who had mobilized for the event online.

The gathering of several thousand students at George Mason University in Fairfax underscored the potential power of online communities in the 2008 campaign. Its genesis was a group created last summer on Facebook.com, a Web site frequented by college students who post profiles and assemble virtually.

Barack Obama for President in 2008 now has more than 50,000 members, and its founders have created an offline presidential draft committee, Students for Barack Obama.

"This is a remarkable achievement, a remarkable event that speaks to what young people can do when they put their minds together," said Obama, who is scheduled to officially announce his candidacy next Saturday in Springfield, Ill.

"No one is more cynical about politics than young people," he said, adding that they would not tolerate "a politics that's all about slash and burn, nastiness and negative ads, and name-calling and gridlock."

"One thing that's been incredibly clear throughout this whole process is his commitment and dedication to students and all the young people of America. He sees our generation as a critical part of his campaign," said Meredith Seagal, a junior at Bowdoin College in Maine and executive director of the draft committee.

[...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020201233_pf.html

Still no Howard and still no Gore ... and more's the pity for us all.

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

DNC Turns Focus to White House
At Party Forum, the Leading Candidates Jockey for Position
By Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 3, 2007; A03

With Congress in their control and their eyes now on the White House, Democratic Party leaders took their first look at the party's field of presidential candidates yesterday at a forum in which the three front-runners presented their positions on Iraq and jockeyed over who can defeat the Republicans in 2008.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York presented herself as a tough, experienced pragmatist. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois offered himself as an inspirational critic of politics as usual. And former senator John Edwards of North Carolina made himself the keeper of the Democratic flame, delivering a call for Democrats to reclaim their heritage.

Addressing the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, Clinton put further distance between herself and President Bush on Iraq. "I want to be very clear about this," she said. "If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war. . . . If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will."

For Clinton, who supported the 2002 resolution authorizing the U.S. invasion and then defended the mission long after the initial combat phase ended, the pledge to stop the war represented another break with Bush's Iraq policies.

Edwards drew a rousing reception with a sharp attack on Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq and a populist appeal for Democrats to return to their roots as defenders of the union workers, the poor and struggling middle-class families. "Brothers and sisters, in times like these, we don't need to redefine the Democratic Party," he said. "We need to reclaim the Democratic Party."

Obama stated that he had repeatedly spoken out against the war before the invasion in 2003, but he pitched most of his message in a different direction. Warning that campaigns should be about more than skeletons in the candidates' closets and gaffes along the way, he urged Democrats to fight against the cynicism that he said has turned politics into a blood sport and has blocked consensus and cooperation on solving the country's problems.

[...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020201638_pf.html

Thanks again, putz, for your intimidation and outright muzzling of anyone who wouldn't toe the putzco line.  Just another thing that you will be remembered for ... and the memory will not be a good one.

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

· Report warns of 4C rise by 2100
· Floods and food and water shortages likely

The world's scientists yesterday gave their starkest warning yet that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades.

Average temperatures could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, with a rise of 4C most likely, according to the final report of an expert panel set up by the UN to study the problem. The forecast is higher than previous estimates, because scientists have discovered that Earth's land and oceans are becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide.

An average global temperature rise of 4C would wipe out hundreds of species, bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause catastrophic floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people. Warming would be much more severe towards the poles, which could accelerate melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets.

The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is written by hundreds of scientists across the world and has been approved by every government. It leaves little room for doubt that human activity is to blame. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said: "February 2 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether people are to blame for climate change."

The report itself said human activity was "very likely" to be responsible for most of the observed warming in recent decades, which means the scientists are 90% sure.

[...]

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329705036-121568,00.html

A true profile in courage ... Lt Ehren Watada.

Another barometer of my kind of Prez candidate: whether or not they support this courageous man, who was willing to sacrifice his life for our country until he realized that he was doing so for a war based on lies and is now speaking out so that others need not sacrifice for those lies.  He is still putting his life on the line.

OK, Hill, Barack, John et al.: where do you stand on this?

Three guesses and the first two don't count.

What if they gave a war and no one came?

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

Eager recruit turned critic faces military prison after refusing to fight

On the eve of America's invasion of Iraq, he was heartsick at the prospect that he might not be military material. He even shelled out $800 for medical tests to convince the recruiters that he was fit for duty despite childhood asthma that would ordinarily render him ineligible for service.

On Monday, that same eager recruit, now Lieutenant Ehren Watada, faces a court martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq and for making public statements against the war. He is the first officer to be prosecuted for publicly criticising the war - indeed the first since the Vietnam era when an army captain was court martialled for addressing an anti-war demonstration outside the US embassy in London. If he is convicted on all charges, Lt Watada could spend four years in a military prison.

In that trajectory from eager recruit through disillusion to dissent is a transformation that mirrors and resonates with an American public at a point when it too has turned against the country's involvement in Iraq, making Lt Watada a hero of the anti-war movement.

His prosecution was also seen as an issue of free speech after two journalists were subpoenaed to testify against Lt Watada on two additional charges. Those charges were dropped this week. Lt Watada, 28, argues that to serve in Iraq would betray his conscience and his duties as an officer. "It would be a violation of my oath because this war to me is illegal in the sense that it was waged in deception, and it was also in violation of international law," he told the Guardian. "Officers and leaders have that responsibility to speak out for the enlisted and certainly when we do so it comes with more consequences, which is what a leader should do. A leader can't just go with the crowd."

Lt Watada decided a year ago that he would not serve in Iraq. Since then he has spoken out at press conferences and to veterans' groups. These actions infuriated military officials, who have charged him with conduct unbecoming an officer for publicly saying that service in Iraq would make him party to a war crime, and for suggesting that soldiers could bring the war to an end by throwing down their weapons.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329705019-110878,00.html

Did I break the blog ... or just scare everyone off ... or you've all gone to one of those infamous disappearing threads?  LOL

The irrepressible Hugo is at it again ... but it is putz who has actually made a monkey of himself.  Hugo just called a spade a spade.

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

Duncan Campbell
Saturday February 3, 2007
Guardian

In the lexicon of political insults it will take some beating. Already known for his somewhat colourful use of language Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has probably written himself into the history books for a new sidewipe at his US counterpart George Bush.

In the latest salvo in the war of words between the two countries Mr Chávez described Mr Bush as "evil," a "criminal" but then added that he was "more dangerous than a monkey with a razor blade".

The comment came during a news conference in Caracas in which Mr Chávez responded to accusations made earlier this week by Mr Bush that he was "undermining ... democratic institutions" by the recent passage of a controversial enabling law to allow for government by decree.

Referring to the war in Iraq, Mr Chávez said that both Mr Bush and John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, should be tried for "war crimes ... the two of them are criminals. They should be tried and thrown in prison for the rest of their days." He added: "I pray to God for the people of the United States. I hope they're capable of liberating themselves from the tyranny they have. Who would be the greater fascist - Hitler or Bush? They might end up in a draw."

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329704998-110878,00.html

  Home from dancing.

I was talking with a friend who thinks Gore may announce right after he wins an Academy Award or  the Nobel Prize or both.  He would skyrocket to fame with only one of those altho she agreed he'd could prolly beat everybody now.  

Dancers were buzzing about our disastrous Israel/US co-dependency.

We need Gore.

Lordy, Fire, you had me going.  I thought Feingold had changed his mind.

Betcha he and Gore have been chatting.  We can only hope.

Well, I haven't really seen "tough" so far ... it's so far been more like "pussycat" ...

===========

Bush to Face Tough Crowd of Democrats

Saturday February 3, 2007 8:16 AM

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) - President Bush accepted an invitation to speak Saturday to about 200 House Democrats - the same bunch that in November wrestled control of the chamber away from Republicans for the first time in a dozen years.

What do the Democrats want to hear from him?

``I think one signal the president could give ... is to acknowledge the work that the House has already done on these issues and to tell us he looks forward to many of these bills getting to his desk,'' said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

It's possible. Following the thumping Democrats gave the president's party in the November midterm elections, Bush has granted several of the new majority's demands, providing some weight to his claim of seeking bipartisan consensus on some public policy issues.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6390844,00.html

We have to wait till mid-Oct to hear if Gore won the Nobel Prize?  It's too late to announce, so he'll just have to win an Academy Award.  YES.  Then announce, and then win the Nobel Prize as well.

He's got to run......

Imagine a literate  president who cares about the earth and its people.

OMG, imagine that!!!!! 

Hi, Judy.  How be you?

Hey, sea ... so I didn't break the blog!

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

It's all in the semantics ... and the presentation.   And in the US, we are rarely presented with the ME facts ... just the stereotypes so that we can never humanize the "other" ... it makes it easier to kill them.

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

So it was back to terror, terror, terror this week. The "terrorist" Hizbollah was trying to destroy the "democratically elected government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. The "terrorist" Hamas government cannot rule Palestine. Iranian "terrorists" in Iraq are going to be gunned down by US troops.

My favourite line of the week came from the "security source" - just how one becomes a "security source" remains a mystery to me -- who announced: "Terrorists are always looking for new ways to strike terror... There is no end of the possibilities where terrorists can try to cause terror to the public." Well, you could have fooled me.

Lebanon is as good a place as any to find out what a load of old tosh the "terror" merchants talk. For here it is that the hydra-headed monster of Iran is supposedly stalking the streets of Beirut, staging a coup against Mr Siniora and his ministers.

Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, is the man Israel spent all last summer trying - vainly, of course - to kill, his black-bearded, turbaned appearance on Hizbollah's own TV station a source of fury to both Ehud Olmert and - nowadays - to Siniora's men in government.

Now it's true that Nasrallah - an intelligent, former military commander of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon - is developing a rather odd cult of personality. His massive features tower over the Beirut airport highway, a giant hand waving at motorists in both directions. And these days, you can buy Hizbollah T-shirts and Nasrallah key chains. But somehow "terror" is not quite the word that comes to mind.

This is partly because the tens of thousands of Shia Muslims whom Hizbollah represents are staging a social revolution rather than a coup, a mass uprising of the poor who have traditionally been ignored by the great and the good of Lebanese society.

The men in their tent city downtown are a powerful symbol in Lebanon. They are smoking their hooker pipes and playing cards and sleeping rough next to the shining new city which Rafiq Hariri rebuilt from the ruins of Beirut - a city to impress foreigners but one in which the south Lebanese poor could not afford to buy a cup of coffee.

Hariri's theory - or at least this is how he explained it to me before his murder - was that if the centre of Beirut was reconstructed, the money which it generated would trickle down to the rest of Lebanon.

But it didn't trickle. The bright lights of downtown Beirut were enjoyed by the rich and purchased by the Saudis and admired by the likes of Jacques Chirac but they were not for the Shia. For them, Hizbollah provided the social services and the economic foundation of its part of Lebanon as well as the military spearhead to strike at Israel and demand the return of Shebaa Farms.

[...]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2211576.ece

Watada is facing four years in the brig, and you wonder why everytime they ask the troops whether they support the mission you get a "yes sir"?

the blog was down for hours last night for me, glad to see you posting some stories for me to read with my morning coffee Judy

I have to do as barn check as we have 35 below wind chills tonight and I need to make sure some water runs so I don't have any broken pipes

if those weenies in the Senate can't even get a nonbinding resolution through they will face the wrath of the voters

say goodbye to "Senator" Coleman (and "Presidential Candidate" Clinton

I'm for Gore ... all the way! 

A Gore-Feingold ticket would be just the thing ... except that we also need Russ in the Senate.

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

One for fun ... and now must be off for Saturday chores!

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

There was crowd trouble in the City. Around 2,000 French ex-pats were there to witness the flying visit of Nicolas Sarkozy, the smooth-talking presidential candidate, to the Old Billingsgate Market. And, even with security men in black shades controlling the mob, this week's event was proving a crush. "Could everybody please move back 20 feet," asked apoliceman. Cue baffled faces. "Could we 'ave that in metres?" shouted one Gallic wag.

By anyone's yardstick, there are more French people in London than there have ever been - 300,000 at the last count, although some statisticians estimate there may be as many as 350,000. Driven to London by a more dynamic job market, the opportunity to learn English, and by the demands of their French employers, our streets are now clogged with a horde (a shrug?) of baguette-wielding Gauls.

Indeed, go anywhere in west London - particularly the haute middle-class boroughs of South Kensington, Chiswick, Ealing and Clapham, where the émigrés send their children to French schools - and one will see, or, more likely hear, a French person. Their bustling presence in London, though, is nothing new.

[...]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2211623.ece

well we have the whole middle of the night crew

seashell, thanks for passing my "rescind the tax cut to paygo the supplemental "along to Wyden, he seems like the closest guy in the Senate to Paul Wellstone right now

Just had to say *Hi* to my favorite rural philosopher, Phil!

It's nice to *see* you in real time.

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

Have good ones!

Judy, I thought I broke the blog with all my postings on AEI and AIPAC.  Maybe the CM isn't talking much about it, but tango dancers are very aware of the pressure put on Congress to conform.  And not just tango dancers.  People are talking ... a lot.

Hi, Phil.  Oh, I remember the days of wind chill factors.  Brrrrr.  Keep those pipes trickling water... :-) 

Phil, I'm passing it onto everyone I call, write, including Keith and tonight to several tango dancers who are activists. 

Have you written Feingold and Kennedy about it?  Actually, Phil, why don't you write up a form letter and mail it individually to every member of Congress. And to the CM.  If you haven't time for all that, send me the form letter and I'll send it out.  We really need to get the right people interested in this.  Bush would have to put his signing pen in a place where the sun don't shine.  LOL  I think all war spending should be tied to the tax cuts, not just the surge, which isn't a surge after all.  I think some of those men and women will be going into Iran, if not already there.

The lid is coming off fast now. 

seashell if Gore has 50 million at actblue and a Nobel Prize he can wait til New Years Eve to announce

Edwards continues to lead here in Iowa but if Gore makes rumblings Vilsack will be a placeholder and get into the 50-60% range 

Obama will be viable, and as I have said Hillary is the only woman so you can do the math

Gore in and the field narrows in a hurry.

Thanks seashell. I've been working at reducing the number of words to a soundbite that strikes terror into Republican hearts. I'll expand it back out.

bbl

Well, that limerick form sure didn't work.  I wonder why.

If Gore waited till after Xmas, won't the big money already be promised or are we going to be his big money?  Can we raise more than HC?  I can't remember what her projected sums are.  50 Million, eh? OK, how do we get the word out?  Send the actblue website out on our mailing lists?  How long has Draft Gore part of the site been up?

Note to self - Actblue - money for Gore.   We'll buy back our country, one dollar at a time.

the big money goes with looking like a winner

they just want access after the election

sadly write a check for 100,000 and you would get a chance to talk to someone even in a Gore administration possibly even Feingolds

bbl

All alone, so I'll say g'nite.

We were joking tonight about enjoying every dance while we still have a planet to dance on...and gas to get to the dance.  The horror is so real now that we have to laugh at times.

"Senators, your terms are NON-BINDING."  Bumper sticker?

Phil, does that mean you'll write up a letter and let me help you get it out?  At least post it on the blog.  I'll send it to Keith.  LOL  I write that man several times a week!!

Blessings all around.

Molly, Darlin', you take good care of Barbaro. 

Phil, I thought you went to the barn.  That was fast!

Oh well, I let myself get sucked into posting a bit more.

Iran has refused to halt enrichment of uranium A group of ambassadors from non-aligned countries is due to arrive in Iran for what is being billed as a transparency visit to Iran's nuclear facilities.

It is the first such trip since the UN imposed limited sanctions on Iran in December for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

The UN's chief nuclear inspector is to report on Iran's compliance with the Security Council's demands this month.

Some countries suspect Iran of secretly trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran insists on its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium on its own soil for what it says is a peaceful nuclear programme.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6326531.stm 

Good morning, everybody

Nice to see the blog is back. For some reason it's really disconcerting when it tells me it doesn't know me. LOL

BTW, Sea, stealth candidates don't need hardly any money to get the word out. I think spreading the word in person has a certain momentum of its own because it makes people feel they are part of something special. The process of a shared experience becomes satisfying in itself the longer it continues.
The only thing we have to worry about is the let-down of success. LOL

Hey, Monica, I'm up really late and you early.  Real time together is a treat!

I like your mention of Gore being a "stealth" candidate.  LOL

BTW, people also tonight were singing the praises of Gore.  Of course, we're a blue state, but still.....it sounded so good.   

Nodding off....zzzz, turning the night shift over to the day shift.

Good morning, Everyone!  :-) 

Not only is Gore nominated for an Academy award and the Nobel prize, but he also invented the internets!  LOL

28.

I was just reminded of something Sy Hersh said. He suggested that just as Americans are driven by a sense of guilt, the Pashtun are driven by a sense of honor which, in their case, calls for revenge, revenge that can be extracted several generations later.

The sense of guilt Hersh referred to as a given. But I think we need to discuss that more because the consequence of guilt is not a change in behavior, an effort to make amends or do better, as we might imagine, but, rather, it's inaction. Guilt is a stultifying sensation that keeps people from acting on their own. In other words, it's inhibitatory. And it's this characteristic which makes it useful to impose on those who are to be subjugated. When people are made to feel guilty, they imprison themselves in their own spirit.
Think of Bill Clinton. He was essentially made powerless by the guilt he was made to feel over behavior which, in the grand scheme of things, did no-one any harm. To the extent that Hillary let it be known that she felt somehow betrayed or deprived, she actually participated in the imposition of guilt and perhaps even contributed to driving Bill into the arms of Papa Bush who lavishes him with "love."

One has to wonder if what the shrub is struggling against is the acceptance of guilt. Is that why he rejects all responsibility? Because guilt threatens to make him impotent?

What's really strange is that guilt can be imposed by calling attention to inaction--charging people with not having done something they should have done, but didn't because they would have considered the action wrong. For example, a parent can be made to feel guilty about not having beaten a child sufficiently to keep that child from engaging in mischief. In other words, people can be made to feel guilty for failing to inhibit the behavior of other people. And the really strange thing is that they won't even realize that their own sense of guilt is the actual goal--that their parenting has been turned into a mechanism of social control. Nor do they realize that their natural resentment of having been made to feel guilty about the behavior of their children is having a negative effect on the relationship between them.

Let's take a really simple example--earings for boys. In certain social circles boys wearing earings used to be a big issue and parents whose sons wanted to sport them were subject to all kinds of criticisms for not putting their feet down and prohbiting such "disgraceful" behavior. Of course, if, in an effort to avoid such social condemnation, they actually imposed such a prohibition, thereby demonstrating a greater degree of interest in what people outside the family might think, they effectively communicated to their children that they were less valued--i.e. children were worth less than social connections.

Having taken several anthropology courses, I was fully aware that in some cultures males and females made huge incisions in their ears and lips in which they inserted egg-sized rings and other objects. So, a little hole through which a hook could be passed hardly seemed like something to be concerned about. When my sons wanted to have their ears pierced, I had only one condition--that they make sure to get solid gold posts until the holes were all healed to avoid infection. They did. They still have the holes, but neither wears ear-rings any longer. Too much bother, I think. Besides, parents of infants soon discover that sparkly things in the earlobes are an attractive nuissance. LOL

Quoting from the minutes of Goebbel's secret meetings, Willi A. Boelcke in "Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg?" relates the German motto:

FIRST YEAR OF WAR. We have won.

SECOND YEAR OF WAR. We will win.

THIRD YEAR OF WAR. We must win.

FOURTH YEAR OF WAR. We cannot be defeated.

"The German public must understand not only that we want to and must be victorious, but also that it is possible."


This information is collected in a book by Joerg Friedrich aboout the bombing of Germany 1940-1945, "The Fire."

The spouse wonders why the pattern is being repeated. My answer is simple. What people learn from others' bad experience is that they will do it better.
In a sense that's absolutely correct. America is "fighting them over there, so (unlike the Germans) we won't have to fight them here at home." And, we're using smart bombs, so our casualties are really low and the population will have nothing to be demoralized about. After all, we kill, on average, 900 people on our highways every week. Most of those are premature deaths and many are innocent. So, where's the beef? At least the families of dead troops have some glorious memories. The families left behind as a result of highway fatalities have no such consolation.

63.

Personally, I think we have a much better chance of electing Gore President again than of reversing the effects of atmospheric warming. In fact, I don't think the latter is possible. But, if people have to be against something, I'd prefer it to be against hot air, rather than people or other living things.

Hot air is really very dangerous to humans. Because of our internal furnace, we can protect ourselves against cold (think astronauts in spacesuits) but when our bodies heated to more than 104 degrees, our brains get fried. So, there may be six degrees of separation between any two humans on the planet, but six degrees are also a matter of life and death.
Definitely, hot air is to be avoided.

Maybe we could get Jc to devise a logo for "No Hot Air" and the phrase would be applicable in various situations.

56.

JudyforDean
Sat, 02/03/07
3:30 am

Well, though I missed Kucinich's speech, the rest were totally unsatisfying. Nobody's even willing to mention the hundred thousand troops sitting on the bases, monitoring their satellites and calibrating the missiles. And, as Sy Hersh pointed out, nobody's even willing to mention the daily bombardment that's been going on for four years. The rubble we see from time to time is the result of bombs being dropped to "soften the population up"
It doesn't work. People really resent being bombed from the air and will take their revenge later. In Germany they did it by lynching pilots who bailed out of their planes. In Iraq they do it by targeting troops with IEDs and sniper fire.

We could do a write-in campaign for Gore, but if there aren't any delegates pledged to him, he can't be elected under the present system. How do we get a majority in the electoral college to vote for Gore?

For the record, I just want to repeat that Molly Ivins will be with us as long as memory lasts.

http://blogforamerica.com/view/19606#mor...

for Dean's speech.

wow barack had his first rally at george mason u. in fairfax. my daughters alm mater.

and I get to see him on feb 17 at our jj dinner.

wish molly could have been there. she will be with me in spirit.

peace to all.

the putz is in williamsburg this a.m. need to hose the place down after he is there. dirty rotten scroundle.

There's word from Kimmy in the comments at HEP. I hear Phil has been pacing. He should probably rest a bit...

Where the hell's the new thread?

Everyone's hanging back.

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070203.wxobama03/BNStory/International/home

In case you haven't heard — and many apparently still haven't — Barack Obama smokes. Despite the crush of media attention enveloping him, few have spent much time discussing his nicotine habit, much less asking the obvious question: In an era of unprecedented hostility toward tobacco users, can a cigarette smoker win a presidential election?

 Pat Corrigan, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University who specializes in stigmas, said cigarette smoking is one of only three conditions that are now seen as socially sanctioned targets of ostracism (the other two are obesity and pedophilia).

“You figure it's not going to help [Mr. Obama's candidacy],” Prof. Corrigan said. “It's really okay to express your discrimination against smokers nowadays.”

This is ridiculous

BFA-RIP

Obama at DNC

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lane-hudson/08-hopefuls-stump-under-_b_40285.html

Barack Obama was greeted like a rock star. He gave a thoughtful, straight forward speech. He returned to campaign themes that he has used before: "it's not about hype", "our politics are too small", and about "the need for a genuine debate about concrete ideas." His speech contained many inspirational notions, but it seemed to contradict reality. Were it not for hype, he would never be considered a Presidential contender, after two years in the U.S. Senate. While his lofty notions and ideas appeal to the rank and file, they lack the concrete specifics he calls for at the same time. I understand that you can't talk detailed policy in a stump speech, but the main criticism coming from activists is that they're not sure what Obama wants to do for America besides raise the level of political discourse. I hope in the near future, Obama will begin to deliver his ideas on how to get us out of Iraq, how to keep jobs in America, how to provide Universal Healthcare, and on many more important issues.

The blog was broken for quite a while. it still is much more active than most

what was Bush's secret meeting with the Democratic candidates all about?

Morning all,

Thanks for all the great comments about Molly.  Have you checked out Governor Dean's comment at www.demoracyfortexas.org?

Fran 

Fran

we all have to kick it up a notch now that Molly is gone

nice tribute, and thanks for all you do

the Browse All feature makes for good reading

nice to see yours rated up

This is from Lane Hudson’s Huffington Post column, to which John linked:

“While [Barack Obama’s] lofty notions and ideas appeal to the rank and file, they lack the concrete specifics he calls for at the same time. I understand that you can't talk detailed policy in a stump speech, but the main criticism coming from activists is that they're not sure what Obama wants to do for America besides raise the level of political discourse.

“ . . . .

“Edwards was on fire. He spoke to the historical values of the Democratic Party to take care of children, carry the mantle on education, and help eradicate poverty. He talked about working people worrying about losing their pensions and having no safety net after thirty years of work. The unions were mentioned several times and cheered loudly in response. His words about the War in Iraq were by far the strongest in opposition, which was very well received. Edwards' message was populist, inspiring, and incredibly popular. And....he won the standing ovation competition.”

This condition here and in the press has become chronic. Obama has no specifics, while Edwards mentions children, poverty and unions to earn a standing ovation. Those were evidently the much needed specifics in question .

Actually we already witnessed Edwards’ specifics. In six years in the Senate he managed to vote to authorize the war resolution and run for President. What now? It occurs to me that eradicating poverty and joining the two Americas may require some concrete proposals. Maybe he intends to sift through returns over at the IRS after his election to send refunds to lower income taxpayers. It’s hard to say, apparently.

Vilsack now addressing the DNC. Didn't know birth parents. Born in Pittsburgh and raised by nuns. Born as outsider and knows what it feels like not to belong. Dedicated his life to people left outside.
Adopted mother was alcoholic and addicted to drugs. Taught him that each has capacity to overcome fear--have courage to change and create change. Courage before hope.
Longing to be United States, united in purpose. All current policies are motivated by fear.
Story of five year old. Boy said he's frightened every day. Vilsack is tired of a government that reminds us to be frightened every day.
Democrats can overcome fear. Never stand down to those who scare us.

Talking about bold change. Tweaking NCLB is not change. Ending it is. Can't be a nation of standardized test takers. He's running out of time.

Deficit is tax on our children--birth tax.

Getting applause. Reduce number of uninsured to address healthcare.

Iraq--real change is saying we want out troops out of harms way now. Tell Iraqis they must assume responsibility for their country. It is time to say the war must end and our troops be brought home now. End it now.
Those who voted for the war, etc can vote to stop the war.

Being an outsider makes change easier. Democrats are party of outsiders who win.

Red states to blue---done did it in Iowa.
America that respects rights and choices. Reclaim moral leadership. Create America that is no longer at war. Take back the white house in 2008.

College Dems are being recognized for New Business--thanking Governor Dean for youth involvement.
Young Dem Convention in south Carolina in July.

Motion proposed to advise candidates not to attack each other.
Proper to put before resolutions committee before summer meeting.

So Monica, like my Governor?

Boston's response to a cartoon advertising blitz is proof positive that the fear tactics of bushco worked.

Tom Vilsack is a good man, the nation could do worse.

Phil,
Yes, he made a good impression. I didn't see Biden today or Richardson, but have written both of them off anyway. Gravel made some good points but he's obviously in the running for the attention his issues will get.

So, what shall we do with Vilsack? Ve vill SACK ze bushes!!!
That would be a start. The guy is obviously of German parentage. You just have to look at him. Could be my own pa. LOL

I really hate that comment of yours "the nation could do worse"

We already have much worse.

Is that clear enough?

103.

Boston's response to the cartoon demonstrates that they still don't make litter a high priority. This is very disturbing when you consider that the iraqis routinely plant explosives in dead dogs and other detritus that's just been left lying around.

There was a story the other day about trash receptacles that could withstand explosives. No discussion of how we can get to a point where we don't have so much stuff to throw away?

I want someone who knows how to manage waste and that means reducing it before it ever gets to that point.

I guess I want a trash abortionist.

Ah yes, just remembered

Abort the bases
Save the babies.

Have you all seen?

http://therealmccain.com/

Monica I was making fun of that self-deprecating modestness that is so Iowan.

we don't tolerate folks who think they are better than others

very leveling, and maybe hard to overcome when you are in the business of self-promotion like a Presidential candidate

Vilsack would be a great contrast to the sneers and smirks of bushco. The speech does zero in on the difference between the Democratic Party of courage and hope, and the Republican meme of be very afraid.

BTW, I am a bit ambivalent about the so-called escallation. Given that there are only about 50,000 combat troops as it stands and 100,000 esconced on the many bases, I can imagine that it might be necessary to have more troops to secure the evacuation routes. Fact is that the access to the sea is very constricted and it's going to take quite a while to transport the heavy equipment, which we don't want to leave behind, to the port for transshipment. So, if the troops are needed for that, I could agree. But that doesn't cost another 50 billion or whatever.

The compromise resolution forcing the isolation of Feingold is proof that he is the voice of the opposition.

they are playing right into the "paygo rescind the tax cut to pay for it" idea though, going along with Gregg

107.

Hey, I'm all for modesty in the candidate. It is not, however, a becoming characteristic in supporters. My objection was to YOUR use of the phrase. It sounds like damning with faint praise.
Americans are used to self-promotion which is why they discount fifty percent of what anyone claims. I expect it didn't occur to most people that the reason Bush made few claims about his Texas experience was because there was nothing there. I think we missed that Republicans had hit on the tactic of talking about the other guy in order to deflect scrutiny of themselves.

Talking about the other guy has the additional advantage of leading people to think that "they're probably not telling the half of it." Because that's what good manners demand.

once they force funding the troops how can they deny actually paying for it

we have the President cornered right where we want him

if you think he has trouble sleeping now,  wait til he has to sign paygo for troop pay

Vilsack will do well in the caucus voting because he would make a good President, not particularly because he is a favorite son. and given that leveling trait of us Iowans if he wins it will because we think he would make the best candidate.

Tom Vill Sack Bush needs a lot more promotion. He's obviously not a favorite son, since he was born a bastard. I do like turning stereotypes upside down. The promise of equality is exactly that one's genetic heritage is not determinative. It's the elite who rely on family connections to overcome individual deficits.
One would think that America has had enough of family connections for several generations.

112.

Ditch the subjunctive, Phil. When you are talking about the future, uncertainty is a given. You don't want to emphasise it by using "would." "would" implies "won't" much as "could" implies "can't"

"will" is the word you want to use. If making too many promises is a problem, then use "have" as in "I have done such and such" or "did".

I say that knowing full well that I couldn't do it. It's not my style.

Who's paying for Bush's adventure in Iraq?

Vilsack will do well in the caucus voting because he would make a good President

Corporate America has had their share of good presidents. 

So, sitka, do you know that Vilsack would be a corporate president?

http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=T2T4D

Monica wrote "So, sitka, do you know that Vilsack would be a corporate president?"

Of course predicting the future should not be undertaken casually, but I would assume Sitka is influenced by Vilsack's tenure as immediate past chair of the DLC, preceding Harold Ford, Jr.

Based on your report, Monica, Vilsack said THE key thing that I want to hear: out of Iraq.  NOW.

I'll be keeping an eye on him.  

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

Billions for a black hole, illegal, immoral, unnecessary and failed war in Iraq and a failed war in Afghanistan ... but now cuts in Medicare and Social Security: some of the few progams that work in spite of putz and the Rethugs.

What ARE the Dems waiting for?  Jeez-uz!

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

Bush budget to seek cuts for Medicare, Medicaid

WASHINGTON — In a bid to balance the federal budget in five years, President Bush will seek cuts in several key programs. But the spending blueprint he sends to Congress on Monday leaves room for some sweeteners, according to administration officials.

Under the Bush plan, grants for college students would rise after remaining stagnant for three years, and some parts of the No Child Left Behind Act would receive additional funding.

There would be new money to spur the manufacture of hybrid cars and production of ethanol. And a new farm bill would give farmers $1 billion more a year than the current law.

At the same time, Bush will ask for substantial cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, the government's main healthcare programs.

The Pentagon budget, including a detailed request for war funding in 2008, will hit $623 billion, according to a senior Defense official. That total includes $481 billion for the military's normal annual budget, a 10% increase over this year's spending.

That increase is accounted for, in part, by Bush's proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps by a combined 92,000 troops over the next five years.

The budget request also includes, for the first time, funding details for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; in past years, these war costs have been approved as special emergency funding bills. The 2008 budget will include a $142-billion estimate for war costs, a clear indication that the administration anticipates a high troop level in Iraq through the end of next year.

The White House will also be asking for an additional $93 billion in war funding for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Combined, the two war requests would take total spending on Iraq and Afghanistan to about $737 billion.
[...]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-budget3feb03,1,5449023.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&track=crosspromo 

And true to form, they will continue taking us all to hell on earth ...

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

White House Rejects Mandatory CO2 Caps
By John Heilprin
The Associated Press

Friday 02 February 2007

    Washington - Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed continued opposition Friday to mandatory reductions in heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

    Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" - including job losses - that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

    "There is a concern within this administration, which I support, that the imposition of a carbon cap in this country would - may - lead to the transfer of jobs and industry abroad (to nations) that do not have such a carbon cap," Bodman said. "You would then have the U.S. economy damaged, on the one hand, and the same emissions, potentially even worse emissions."

    President Bush used the same economic reasoning when he rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, an international treaty requiring 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by 5 percent on average below 1990 levels by 2012. The White House has said the treaty would have cost 5 million U.S. jobs.

    "Even if we were successful in accomplishing some kind of debate and discussion about what caps might be here in the United States, we are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world. And so it's really got to be a global solution," Bodman said.

    The United States each year contributes about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, though the share from China, India and other developing countries also is growing.

[...]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020307Y.shtml

From today's Juan Cole ...

==========

[...]

The big briefing planned by the Bush administration on supposed Iranian weapons shipments to Iraq had to be postponed because the presentation was judged exaggerated and unsubstantiated by Secretary of State Condi Rice and by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. So that raises the question of who was spearheading this presentation inside the Bush administration? Getting Iran is an obsession of the Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute and their plants inside the administration, such as Iran-Contra felon Elliot Abrams in the National Security Council and David Wurmser and John Hannah on Cheney's rump Veep national security council. Many Neoconservatives and other sorts of wingnut have a secret alliance with the Marxist Islamist MEK terrorist organization, which feeds them allegations about Iran in Iraq just as Ahmad Chalabi used to with regard to the Baath regime in Iraq.

So have the Cheney Neoconservatives been at least somewhat reined in by a new Rice-Gates axis of Realists?

[...]

http://www.juancole.com/

Obviously, the warmongers would love to have Judith Miller on the job again ... for Iran ... but since she was also in the headlines this week on *another matter,* they've probably decided to wait a bit.

Hi all. I had a great time at the march in D.C. last weekend. On the Friday before the march, Sal and I spent the afternoon with Dennis Kucinich and his staff. We're coordinating a Saturday of events in Connecticut later this month.

Of course, the only concern with Dennis Kucinich is the age-old one of "electibility" - a faux issue in my mind. We know from experience how quickly a candidate can go from "unelectable" to "the presumed candidate" and then back to "unelectable".

 The question I ask others to ask themselves is "I would vote for Dennis Kucinich for President if . . . .  . . " and fill in the blank.

As for me - he's my candidate until he decides to not be a candidate. If necessary, I'll shift to another candidate at that point.

 And, as always, it is so very good to be here among friends.

An apology on DU ... and I have to say that I must follow suit.  Despite my gut instincts, I hesitated somewhat last November because I was still naive enough to believe that the defeat at the polls in November meant that he just might play nice ... legacy in mind and all that.

But that was stupid.  I should have known better.  And yes, I have indeed come to see the light, but even sooner than this poster did. 

We cannot get putz out of office fast enough.  Every minute he stays is another minute that kills.

But Congress should impeach the whole lot at the same time, IMHO!  Everyone in putz's administration is complicit ... EVERY ONE ... so every one should go down.   Dems: backbone is definitely needed ... NOW.

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

Paging H2O Man: You were right. I was wrong. Impeach him already.

Back in November, you began writing that Congress, with its new Democratic majority, had a constitutional obligation to begin impeachment proceedings. Your argument, as I understand it, was based primarily on the Constitutional obligation our legislators have to uphold the law, by holding this criminal administration accountable through its most draconian remedy -- impeachment. You were horrified by Speaker Pelosi's statement that impeachment was off the table.

After some reflection, I wrote a post agreeing with Madame Speaker, that impeachment should not be a priority.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

My main reasons were tactical. I felt that the spectacle of a powerless president being dragged through investigations that would reveal unspeakable crimes and unfathomable levels of corruption would be more damaging to the Republicans in the long run and offer less risk of backlash to the Democrats. I argued that the criminal law would be awaiting this junta as an alternative means of holding them accountable. Most of all, I worried that impeachment of Bush and Cheney would leave us with an incumbent President McCain or President Powell going into the 2008 election, because the mechanism that would invariably be pursued would be the mechanism that was used on the Nixon administration -- namely the removal of the vice president, his replacement by a clean Republican, and then the removal of the president. I argued there was no chance that impeachment would lead to a President Pelosi, as some incorrectly understand the order of succession.

But my reasoning depended on the notion -- now revealed to be incorrect -- that this administration was at least marginally like other administrations. But it isn't.

I thought that having been rejected at the polls, having suffered a crushing Congressional defeat, the administration would be powerless.

But this perverse administration has arrogated more power to itself in the face of increasingly universal rejection by the electorate, the press, the intelligencia, former administration officials (including those of Bush's own father's administration!), and former military general officers, a rejection of the administration, its policies and its war of choice.

In other words, the Bush administration is not just delusional but out of control of all the institutions of American society.

[...]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x112016

Hi David ...

Remeber Kucinich in Iowa ... and how he threw his support to Edwards and not to Dean?

Not trustworthy, IMHO.

He failed a very big test, so far as I am concerned.

But to each his own.

Yikes .. that would be "remember"  ... senior moment there!

**********

And David, thanks for marching last week!

Just another bloody day in Baghdad ...

===========

Bomber Kills As Many As 121 in Baghdad

Saturday February 3, 2007 6:46 PM

By KIM GAMEL

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad on Saturday, killing as many as 121 people among the crowd buying food for evening meals, one of the most devastating attacks in the capital since the war started.

The attacker was driving a truck carrying foodstuffs including oil and flour when he detonated a ton of explosives, destroying stores and stalls in the busy outdoor Sadriyah market, police said.

The late-afternoon explosion was the latest in a series of attacks against mainly Shiite commercial targets in the capital. No group claimed responsibility, but it appeared to be part of a bid by Sunni insurgents to provoke retaliatory violence and kill as many people as possible ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security sweep.

Hours later, mortars slammed into several predominantly Sunni areas in Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding nearly 20, police said.

Many of the injured from the market blast were driven to overwhelmed hospitals in pickup trucks and angry young men lifted bodies onto stretchers. The Kindi hospital, Baghdad's main emergency facility, quickly filled had to start refusing patients, asking ambulances to take them elsewhere.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6391617,00.html

JudyforDean
Sat, 02/03/07
2:14 pm

Reply to this

I remember that too. However, Howard and Dennis talk regularly now, and I see Dennis as the strongest voice for all the important issues that Howard fought for in '04 - and continues to fight for today.

Just my .02

This story is a couple days old, but it's worth a read.  I loved it!

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

Jan. 31, 2007 - On Tuesday, President Bush popped in for a surprise visit to the Sterling Family Restaurant, a homey diner in Peoria, Ill. It’s a scene that has been played out many times before by this White House and others: a president mingling among regular Americans, who, no matter what they might think of his policies, are usually humbled and shocked to see the leader of the free world standing 10 feet in front of them.

But on Tuesday, the surprise was on Bush. In town to deliver remarks on the economy, the president walked into the diner, where he was greeted with what can only be described as a sedate reception. No one rushed to shake his hand. There were no audible gasps or yelps of excitement that usually accompany visits like this. Last summer, a woman nearly fainted when Bush made an unscheduled visit for some donut holes at the legendary Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant in Chicago. In Peoria this week, many patrons found their pancakes more interesting. Except for the click of news cameras and the clang of a dish from the kitchen, the quiet was deafening.

“Sorry to interrupt you,” Bush said to a group of women, who were sitting in a booth with their young kids. “How’s the service?” As Bush signed a few autographs and shook hands, a man sitting at the counter lit a cigarette and asked for more coffee. Another woman, eyeing Bush and his entourage, sighed heavily and went back to her paper. She was reading the obituaries. “Sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” a White House aide told her. “No problem,” she huffed, in a not-so-friendly way. “Life goes on, I guess.”

It’s hard to predict if Tuesday is a preview of what is to come for Bush in his final two years in office.

[...]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16908975/site/newsweek/

Kucinich strikes me as a one-trick pony. He lucked out, from a moral perspective with his position on the municipal power plant, but I don't see that he's done anything since except promote himself.
And then, I don't approve of people holding one office looking to get another.
Will have to check if Vilsack is out of office now.

david, what about stem cells?

my friend is going to DC again this week to lobby congress on behalf of stem cell research. i recommended that he go to all of the members who are running for president to try to get them to get this issue into the discussion/debate. so far, i haven't heard any of them address stem cells. i do know that dennis is against this research for religious reasons. ???

Your .02 are always worth at least that, David!  :)

This may be a"flight of fancy", but I really see a lot of parallels between today and 1973-1974. People then were afraid to impeach Nixon while Agnew was still around - then when Nixon threw Spiro under the bus to keep the heat away from himself - even Repubs like my personal hero Lowell Weicker were more willing to dig deep into Nixon and CREEP's ( what were they thinking with with THAT acronym ? ) activities.

 The rest is - as they say - history.

Fitzgerald should be a strong candidate for the Presidential Medal of Freedom ... just not from putz.

The last for now ... must run!

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

A Failed Cover-Up
What the Libby Trial Is Revealing
By David Ignatius
Friday, February 2, 2007; A15

Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb? That's the big question that runs through the many little details that have emerged in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The trial record suggests a simple answer: The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the CIA.

The truth began to emerge on July 11, 2003, when CIA Director George Tenet issued a public statement disclosing that the agency had tried to warn the White House off the Niger allegations. In that sense, the Libby trial is about a cover-up that failed.

What helped start the whole brouhaha was a 2003 op-ed article by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, disclosing that his fact-finding trip to Niger the previous year had yielded no evidence of Iraqi uranium purchases. His piece opened with a devastating question: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?" A frantic White House tried to rebut Wilson's criticism by leaking the fact that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the CIA and had suggested sending him to Niger -- as if the CIA connection somehow contaminated Wilson's allegations and made the White House less culpable.

To understand the Libby case, it's important to look at the documentary evidence, which has been usefully compiled by washingtonpost.com.

[...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020101784_pf.html

So, sitka, do you know that Vilsack would be a corporate president?

Why does a DLCer (especially a former chair) run for president?

To serve Corporate America. 

Remeber Kucinich in Iowa ... and how he threw his support to Edwards and not to Dean? Not trustworthy, IMHO.

He was just playing games then and he still is now. 

david, what about stem cells?

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

Hi mprov. Is that your CD with the peas and carrots on it that I was listening to in the car yesterday ? I'm pretty sure it was you who I got it from in Austin in '05.

I think Dennis would be fairly compared to Senator Casey in Pennsylvania - who is personally opposed to abortion, but would never vote for a bill restricting the same. Could you live with a President who felt at odds personally withg stem cell research - but would not oppose it with a veto ?

♥ Phil! ♥

Could you pop over to HEP a minute?

We'd like to start a Candle Page for your grand little guy

but need a 5-letter "name" for it.

What's your pleasure?

XOXOXXX 

Remeber Kucinich in Iowa ... and how he threw his support to Edwards and not to Dean? Not trustworthy, IMHO.

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

I had the opportunity to discuss that matter briefly with Kucinich's assistant Marcos on Friday. I'll think back to his answer - which made some sense at the time - and pass that explanation along to you, Sitka.

I'd like to throw the explanation to the whole DFA group and see what everyone thinks.

Myself, I'm more of a forgiving sort than most people - perhaps.

132

I just love how candidates use "religion" to hide under a cloak of immorality. Not!

Kucinich is more hypocritical the more you find out about him. I don't trust him any more than I trust the DLC candidates.

Feingold at a house party. Will we ever get a new thread?

140

Political opportunism. That's what his Arizona staff told me. But in a "good way", which I think is bull. 

david, yep, my cd.

i'm not an issue voter even though this is part of how to weigh my decision to support, or not, any given candidate. what i'd like to see v. what i need to see is the question. for me, i have difficulty with the idea that decisions based on a religious philosophy can be at odds with scientific research that hurts none and may prove to be of benefit to all. in the political world, being against, but not opposing, is the same thing as opposing. it is not a benign position.

to answer your question: no. i could not "live" with such a person because i would question their thinking on various issues "stemming" from the logic used to to arrive at the issue in question.

Hi David ...

Remeber Kucinich in Iowa ... and how he threw his support to Edwards and not to Dean?

How can one forget. We went to Iowa and worked our butts off and D.K. stabbed us in the eye with a sharp stick. My vision of D.K. is still blurred.

Fair enough, all. It's a long time until the election - and I have hope that Kucinich can at the very least redirect the conversation back to Iraq when other candidates try to find a "more palatable subject". After all, every issue and every piece of the federal spending is adversely affected by Iraq - along with America's moral integrity.

Gore to Testify on Climate Change

Former Vice President Al Gore has accepted an invitation to testify next month in a congressional hearing on the highly controversial issue of climate change.

Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which focused on global warming, received two Oscar nominations this week, one for best documentary feature.  For people who make a parlor game of guessing Gore's intentions for 2008, the appearance will surely stoke speculation that he may yet be a late entrant into the Democratic presidential derby. 

Gore will appear at a joint hearing on Wednesday, March 21. He will be the only witness to appear before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality and the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Gore served on both committees during his House tenure representing a Tennessee district.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell, D-Mich., and Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., will jointly chair the hearing. Climate change has proved a politically thorny issue for newly empowered House Democrats. Dingell, whose district includes many auto industry workers, has been locked in a political battle with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., over panel jurisdiction on climate change issues.

david, i hope that the comments above help to define your candidate from different perspectives. firefox, and i, were talking the other day about setting up a system to examine all of the candidates and then compare them. perhaps, you'd like to lead the kusinich thread in this as i'm sure rdorgan would like to for obama?

gotta go. later.

I've been listening to the video of the DNC winter meeting from yesterday.  Lots of kudos for Dean.  I transcribed those from Harry Reid.  Maybe I'll do others as the urge strikes.

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

Howard Dean

"Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate.  The MAJORITY LEADER! Doesn't that sound great?"

Harry Reid

"Howard, Thank you very much.  I first want to express to everyone here my admiration, respect and friendship to Governor Howard Dean. Governor, there are a lot of people responsible for what's changed the Senate, and I'm a person who looks at numbers.  Last year those numbers were 55-45.  This year, because of your (gestures toward Howard) invigorating Democrats all over this country, the numbers are now 51-49 in our favor."

"I haven't had a chance to tell you this, but I received a phone call from someone I served in Congress with, Congressman Richard Stallings from Idaho, and he was asked...I ... I went out there last year to speak to a Jefferson-Jackson Day Banquet and I thought things were a little unusual. Idaho, it wasn't in Boise, not in one of the big cities, we were in some little place, I don't even know what it was called, (looks toward Dean again) we had 600 people there. The weather was awful, all over, and Congressman Stallings proceeded to tell me that he delayed his retirement for two years because you asked him to, to be the State Chair of the Idaho Democratic Party. And what happened? Well, they picked up six seats in the Legislature, they didn't lose a single race in any of the State legislative races, and Richard told me they're on the way... they think they're going to take over the state."

"But, you see, Chairman Dean decided to do something different, and he got a lot of flack. Everyone thought his main job should be out hustling money, but he thought his main job should be hustling Democrats in every state. So he raised money and hustled Democrats at the same time, and we have some great things going on.  In the State of North Dakota, there's a functioning Democratic Party.  In the State of Nebraska, where everyone told us that there was no way Ben Nelson could get more than fifty percent of the vote, he got over sixty percent of the vote, and we have a functioning Democratic Party in Nebraska, and all over the country.  (Turns toward Dean) Thank you very much."

So Rice and Gates are reining in the neo-cons.  Will they be successful?  My prediction remains the same.  If Cheney has too much trouble to get this  new war going, which I think possible, Israel will do it.  And then anything the dems might want to do to stop or impeach this cabal will end since we'd have to jump into the new war(s) to save Israel.  The hitch there is I think the American public will really object strongly to this and the truth about our abominable I/US policy and the names behind it will finally come to light.

The Juan Cole article above leaves our several big players.  Richard Perle, Steven Hadley, Feith etc.

Oh lookie here. Scroll down a bit.

The Bush administration is warning European oil and gas
companies against investing in Iran. One executive said in the past
two weeks, the Bush administration has told European oil company
executives that the situation with Iran was "hot and is going to get
hotter,".
An executive from another major European company said, "The
administration is going all out to impress upon them that it would be
a mistake to do anything with" Iran."
Despite the pressure, many of the world's biggest oil companies were
expected to attend a meeting in Vienna today and tomorrow held by
National Iranian Oil Co. to drum up interest in 12 onshore and five
offshore blocks. Executives from Royal Dutch Shell, Russia's Lukoil,
China's Sinopec and Austria's OMV will all give presentations. Last
week, Royal Dutch Shell and the Spanish company Repsol signed a
preliminary exploration agreement with Iran. Patricia Marie,
spokeswoman for the French oil company Total S.A., which invested
about $4 billion in Iran between 1995 and 2002 said, "We respect the
French law, the European laws; we are not obliged to respect American
law. **** 

http://www.innworldreport.net/archives/fromthestudio/index.html

There's so much crap being voiced on Iran, including ,alas, from some of our bloggers.

Iran poses Zero threat to us, and Zero threat to Israel. There is no solid evidence that they are developing nuclear weapons, and even if they are, they're 5-10 years from having one. In that time frame, chances are good they'll dump their nutsy president. even if they don't, they're not going to nuke us or the Israelis, unless of couirse, we're dumb enough to nuke them first.

There are good reasons for Iran to want nuclear weapons; primarily the US and Israel. We have been screwing over those poor people for 50+ years.

So any and all beating of war drums is just anothe "WMD" scam.

 Fool me once.........................

Hillary's praise of Dean at the DNC Winter Meeting was more faint, but if imitation is a form of flattery, she is using one of the Dean catch phrases...

Hillary

"Hello, Democrats! Well, I'm Hillary Clinton and I'm running for President. I'm in and I'm in to win because we have to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.  This campaign that we're going to wage is one of the most important that we've ever had in our country. We're gonna need everybody working together and getting the results that we want, not only adding to our numbers in the Congress but taking back the White House, and I want to thank my long-time friend, Governor Dean, for helping to lead the charge for the victories we had in November of 06."

seashell

The other thing that will really make Americans angry is the instant $5-6/gallon gas that will follow any military action against Iran.

Remember the $3 gas last summer while Israel was destroying Lebanon?

As Ronaldus the feeble-minded was wont to say, "you aint seen nothin yet"

Somehow, when Carville and Begala (on their book jacket) and Hillary talk about taking our country back, I assume they mean taking it back from Howard Dean.

more vicious spying...you have to scroll down on this particular site

*** The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance
technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than
previously disclosed. It raises concerns similar to the National
Security Agency 's widespread Internet monitoring. According to
documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit this new
technique may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.
Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents
conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of
thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases. That
database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or
keywords. The Justice Department responded with a statement taking
issue with this description of the FBI's surveillance practices.
Paul Ohm, the former Justice Department attorney who presented a paper
on the Fourth Amendment, said he has doubts about the
constitutionality of full-pipeline recording. Ohm added "The question
that's interesting, is not just whether this is illegal or whether
it's constitutional," but "Is Congress even aware they're doing
this?****

http://www.innworldreport.net/archives/fromthestudio/index.html 

Bushputz schmoozing Dems this afternoon, and they seemed to be lapping it up.

Cut off war funding, Investigate, Impeach!

141.

_ FiReFoX!
Sat, 02/03/07
2:46 pm


Kucinich is more hypocritical the more you find out about him. I don't trust him any more than I trust the DLC candidates.
-----------
FireFoX, I'd like to have some more concrete details regarding his hypocrisy, please.

156.

jc
Sat, 02/03/07
3:54 pm

Somehow, when Carville and Begala (on their book jacket) and Hillary talk about taking our country back, I assume they mean taking it back from Howard Dean.
---------
...lol, yeah, nice words..., meaning differs for different people...

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Aside from winning, there aren't that many ways of ending wars. Governments pay attention when the troops mutiny, when there are riots outside recruiting offices, when there's revolution on the home front, when the money runs out.

In Vietnam the troops mutinied. Units shot their officers in the back or threw grenades into their tents. Navy ratings pushed aircraft off the side of aircraft carriers. In 1971 the Pentagon counted 503,926 "incidents of desertion" over the previous five years and reckoned that more than half of US ground forces openly opposed the war. At Christmastime in 1971 Vietnam Vets Against the War seized the Statue of Liberty, draping it with a banner demanding Bring our Brothers Home.

On the home front people fought the draft or simply fled it. In 1967 Maj. Gen. William Yarborough, assistant chief of staff for Army intelligence, observed the great antiwar march from the roof of the Pentagon and concluded "the empire is coming apart at the seams." He reckoned there were too few reliable troops to fight the war in Vietnam and hold the line at home.

The elites, always prone to panic in such matters, thought revolution was around the corner. The left, in those days prone to optimism, thought the same thing. In the end, Congress cut off the money. Between 1970 and 1973, Congress enacted five restrictions on funding of U.S. military operations in Indochina.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ 

154

What I find hilarious is the dumb people who will actually fall for that.

This is a DNC event.

Dean is the head of the DNC.

The people in that room got him elected to the DNC Chair position, in a power coup against the establishment, namely the Clintonistas.

What else are the candidates going to do but praise him?

She did everything to distance herself from him for 4 years and now the faint praise to appease those "stupid progressive voters" who determine the nominee.

Someone said she said "my good friend" when talking about Howard.

I am wondering was she turning the knife as she was saying that or just thrusting it in deeper? 

Kucinich hypocrisy example...

Throwing his Iowa delegates to pro-war John Edwards (then, anyway) while claiming to be an anti-war candidate 

David Sirota gets it right again, wimpy and hypocritical Democratic leadership, stupid "progressive" protesters:

While on the Hill, I heard a number of Democratic staffers voicing anger at people like Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) for coming out and saying they will defy the Democratic leadership and vote against Warner's bill. Such complaints were also echoed to me by some of the outside anti-war groups. Their basic point was that those who vote against Warner are siding with the Republican leadership, who want to escalate the war. They, of course, have no similar criticism for the Ben Nelsons, who originally threatened to side with the Republican leadership had the Iraq resolution actually been strong (aka. not non-binding, or at least strongly worded), and whose pressure likely engineered Democratic efforts to defeat such strong legislation last week. It is this double standard that tells the real story of a critical imbalance.

More

On Kos the other day, I couldn't believe how many people were saying the Warner non-binding, do nothing resolution was a good solution and chastising Feingold who has more gonads than those who claim to be progressive combined. WTF?

Huron John, I think most of us here, including me, know that Iran poses no threat to us or Israel.  That's not the point.  You wrote: "they're not going to nuke us or the Israelis, unless of couirse, we're dumb enough to nuke them first."

I agree, but the plan to nuke them first is going forward becuz of the insanity of Putz and Olmertputz.  That's what's troubling me..the drumbeat, the exact drumbeat used to go into Iraq.  Yes, of course gas would go up and so might the ME.  We need to stop another pre-emptive attack and Phil's idea is the best I've heard yet.

When you go to INN, you have to click and then scroll to find the article.  It's not very user friendly but the news is spot on.

163

You know, I don't want to list names but some of the most prominent progressives leaders who were backing (and working for Kucinich in 2004) in AZ now tell me they absolutely will not support him. That is pretty eye opening to me. The people who know him best. I never meet people who say that about Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, etc. That they feel betrayed.

I have been hearing that more and more about Kucinich, and it's not about the Edwards thing.

I think he will get less traction in this election than the prior one. But by all means, I think people should vote for whomever they want.

In a field that looks like a bunch of losers to me, If Gore and Feingold (my dream ticket) don't step up to the plate, I will have to check out the independents.

I became a Democrat because of Howard Dean and have been hanging on by a thin thread ever since.

This is prime example of how our shameful press helped overthrow Aristide.

Diana Barahona
How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal: US Reporting on the Coup in Haiti

It's the same "fracaso" (mess, failure) that's happening here.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross02032007.html 

By JOHN ROSS

Amidst the din of hundreds of housewives beating on pots and pans with a variety of kitchen utensils--a massive "Casarolazo" reminiscent of similar manifestations of discontent in Argentina 2002 (the "Argentinazo")--the popular classes filled the streets of the Mexican capital January 31st to express outrage at the drastic jump in the cost of household staples (eggs 50%, milk 30%, and tortillas 40%) during the first 50 days of the presidency of Felipe Calderon, the right-winger who was awarded high office in fraud-marred elections last July 2nd.

The steep rise in the price of tortillas cuts right to the quick of the popular economy, dramatically impacting 70,000,000 Mexicans who live in and around the poverty line, 22,000,000 of who barely survive in extreme poverty (less than $2 a day.) Although working class Mexicans eat tortillas at most meals, for 13,000,000 children living in extreme poverty, tortillas are the whole meal according to studies done by Dr. Hector Borgez of the National Nutrition Institute.

Only last November, the month before Calderon took office, tortillas were selling for six pesos a kilo most everywhere in the country. But since Calderon's chaotic December 1st swearing-in, the price has tripled to 18 and even 20 pesos, well beyond the budgets of the Mexican underclass.

The assault on the poor and the extremely poor is compounded by the Calderon regime's miserly annual increase in the daily minimum wage by 1.9%, about 17 cents USD, an increment which doesn't come close to matching the hike in tortillas--let alone milk, eggs, meat, and gasoline which are squeezing working people to a pulp.

Weekend Edition
February 3 / 4, 2007

By MUHAMMAD IDREES AHMAD

In the years since the invasion of Iraq, many documentaries have attempted to record its consequences: the violence; the occupation; the plunder. The focus has ranged from the anthropological to geopolitical, just as the production has varied from the bland to the spectacular. With the urgency of the political reality taking preeminence, the myriad documentary renderings have hitherto failed to present a sustained portrait of life in occupied Iraq. Iraq in Fragments--the distilled product of more than two years and 300 hours of filming--is James Longley's splendid contribution towards filling this void.

The title, like the rest of the film, is open to interpretation: it could be a description of present day Iraq disintegrating into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish fragments; of the internal fragmentation of the Iraqi society; or the three fragments from which the film is constructed. What distinguishes the film from all others, is the hypnotic intimacy that puts the viewer into the heads of Longley's subjects. The stunning cinematography and the profound subjectivity add depth to this masterful work of art.

That certainly is enuf D&G for awhile. 

Phil, are you working your article?  I can't wait to read it. 

Oh and.....

GORE/FEINGOLD

I've been popping in and out because it is too f**king cold to stay outdoors and get my work done.

yes seashell I will get you something

I need to see where in conference or committee the paygo resolution plus the suplimental is with a little reseach at THOMAS

I'm waiting for the likely Levin compromise so I can zero in on it's vulnerabilities.

Hey, Phil. Stay warm, especially if you have those bad wind chills.

I went back to GF ND in 2004 and it was only November. I had forgotten how bad it was with the wind chill and nearly froze walking a block. I don't miss that. 

It's not a matter of forgiving Kucinich. It's a matter of recognizing why he ran for president in 04 and why he's doing it again -- to play political games in order to enhance his political status. Even he knew then and knows now that he will not be the nominee. 

164.

Firefox

" I am personally SO SICK of Harry Reid who has been a fricken wimp from the first time I heard him speak. Time to retire Mr. Rogers and get a real leader in there."

~~~~

Am I ever with you on this. Harry Reid is good for keeping the Senate schedule straight, but it ends there. Milk toast, spineless, wimp who is too much like a Republican to be leader of the Senate. 

But will the  Senate itself have the courage to throw him out and choose Feingold as their leader?!? I doubt it, so where do we peons go from here, helpless to help the helpless in Congress.

~~~~~

Another freak event on C-Span today -- the "Democratic Caucus Retreat" - whatever that is had GWB as a speaker, with Pelosi and Representative Steny Hoyer (majority leader) whooping it up with Bush. Disgusting. Maybe it's tradition, I don't know, but you can't do the Repugs any favors. They do none for us and never will.

Joan, I heard about that retreat. Bush never attended any the past years but now with Dems in power in Congress he decides to go.

They all pretty much make me sick with a few exceptions. 

Well, since there's not been a new thread, I guess mine from the march will be promoted next. At least, that's what it says in the browse all.

 MY MESSAGE TO MY SPINELESS SENATORS:

 The Warner-Levin Resolution is pro- Bush mush. Listen to Russ feingold: Congress is gearing up for a big Iraq debate next week. The Senate will take up the John Warner-Carl Levin resolution, which some are portraying as an important, symbolic rebuke of the president's Iraq policy. Symbols can be powerful, but only if they have substance behind them. Read the fine print of the resolution itself, and you will find that it is not a rebuke at all. In parts, it reads like a reauthorization of the war, rejecting troop redeployment and specifically authorizing "vigorous operations" in part of Iraq. This resolution isn't a symbolic rebuke of the president; instead it symbolizes a Congress that is too timid to challenge the president's failed Iraq policy. Under the guise of constructive criticism, this resolution signs off on the president's policy of maintaining military operations in Iraq indefinitely. While a resolution like this might have been all you could expect from a Republican Congress, it hardly seems like the product of a Congress under new Democratic leadership. After voters registered their opposition to the war last November, the new Congress was supposed to offer dramatic change. Instead, less than a month into this Congress, some members in both parties have rallied around a resolution that endorses the catastrophic status quo in Iraq. Beyond a tepid disagreement with the president's "surge" strategy, this resolution does nothing to stop the escalation. It even rejects "any immediate reduction in, or withdrawal of, the present level of forces." For Congress to reject bringing troops out of Iraq, after almost four years of a disastrous policy, makes no sense. It ignores public outrage over the war and the need to address other pressing national security priorities. The American people recognize that there is no U.S. military solution to Iraq's civil war. And as long as we focus disproportionate attention and resources on Iraq, we will not be able to counter the full range of threats that we face around the world. The resolution also fundamentally ignores the reality on the ground in Iraq. The resolution calls for continuing "vigorous operations in Anbar province, specifically for the purpose of combating an insurgency." This is a recipe for disaster. Al Anbar province is where a majority of U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The insurgency there, as well as general opposition to the U.S. presence and to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, is fueled by the Sunnis' political and economic grievances. Conducting targeted missions to take out terrorists makes sense; using U.S. troops to put down an insurgency doesn't. Maintaining a substantial U.S. presence in a primarily Sunni area, without a political solution, means a continuation of our unending, and self-defeating, policies in Iraq. Finally, the resolution tacitly rejects the idea of Congress using its power of the purse to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq.

I'll keep saying this over and over.

The dems are following orders from the neo-cons who are aligned with the  AEI and AIPAC.  It's all out there on the net and I've posted a lot of good info on this.  I realize some people don't want to believe this, but Carter and other brave souls are trying to get the message out.

"Command performances before AIPAC have become standard features in the life of a Washington elected official, like filing FEC reports and hitting on interns. The stylized panegyrics delivered at the annual AIPAC meeting have all the probative value of the Dniepropetrovsk Soviet's birthday greeting to Stalin, because the actual content is unimportant; what is crucial is that the politician in question be seen to be genuflecting before the AIPAC board. In fact, to make things easier, the speeches are sometimes written by an AIPAC employee, with cosmetic changes inserted by a member of the Senator's or Congressman's own staff.