“Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.”
Sources said that Dan Meyer, Bush’s liaison to the House, confronted LaHood while White House political strategist Karl Rove rebuked Kirk. It is unclear if LaHood or Kirk were the original sources for the stories, but LaHood was quoted in one of the articles.
Regardless, LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange. LaHood and five other GOP lawmakers met with Mrs. Bush in the Yellow Oval in the White House residence to chat about the No Child Left Behind law.
“The White House is not happy,” said a Republican lawmaker. […]
Several lawmakers who attended one or both meetings did not fault Bush, but blamed his aides for overreacting.
“They can have such thick skin,” said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who attended the meeting on Tuesday. “[President Bush] ought to embrace this and be seen as getting input from everyone.”
----------- "'We should not be compromising' on war"
Edwards implores Dems in speech here
--------------
Excerpt:
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards challenged his party's congressional members Wednesday to "stand strong and firm" and continue to send President Bush bills linking Iraq war funding to a timetable for withdrawal -- no matter the number of Bush vetoes.
Jeesh, a few hours at work and the shit hits the fan. You should see all the news since I left for work!!!
Gonzales: ‘I Haven’t Really Thought About’ Habeas Corpus » Under the Bush administration, U.S. citizens can be detained as enemy combatants and arrested without being charged of any crime.
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether any U.S. citizens are “being held today, for over a month, who have been denied habeas corpus or access to an attorney.” Instead of giving an answer, Gonzales replied, “[Y]ou’re asking me a question I hadn’t really thought about.”
Sherman then followed up and asked whether there any “U.S. citizens being held now by foreign governments or foreign organizations, without access to attorneys, as a result of rendition.” Gonzales again said, “It’s just — quite frankly, I hadn’t thought about this.” Watch it:
When Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, he claimed that there is “no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.” Today, Sherman asked Gonzales, “Wouldn’t it be your duty as Attorney General to make sure that their [U.S. citizens’] rights to habeas corpus were honored?” After some hedging, Gonzales finally agreed: “Yes.”
Matt Stoller and Glenn Greenwald have more on the habeas fight. Sign a petition telling Congress to restore habeas corpus HERE.
Recruiter who sent racist e-mail is ‘re-assigned.’ After learning that Jersey City resident Corey Andrew was gay, U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. Marcia Ramode responded in an e-mail, “GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED THERE.” The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network reports that Ramode has now “been suspended from recruiting duties,” and “has been reassigned from Army Recruiting Command to a duty position elsewhere in the Army.” Pam’s House Blend notes that it seems to be a “slap on the wrist.”
Posted on Thu, May. 10, 2007 U. S. ATTORNEYS White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor McClatchy Newspapers
----------- "On Poverty, Edwards Faces Old Hurdles"
Excerpts:
Edwards, on the other hand, calls poverty "morally wrong" and a "national shame," and he proposes paying for his plans by immediately repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich. His admirers say his emphasis on poverty is proof of political courage. But it also fits with his strategy to carve out a niche as a populist truth-teller to the left of Clinton and Obama, a shift from his 2004 campaign tone, which he now says was too cautious.
In his 2004 campaign, he talked about poverty, but mostly within his broader theme of "the two Americas." That December, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, met with friends and advisers to discuss how he could spend his time before his next campaign.
"We talked about a whole range of possibilities . . . for an hour, hour and a half, and Elizabeth said, 'Can I just say, I've been sitting listening to you talk about these various things and, John, the place that you light up and show greatest passion is this issue of poverty,'" he said. "That's when I decided I wanted to devote significant time to it."
VA exaggerated success of medical system. “The Department of Veterans Affairs has habitually exaggerated the record of its medical system, inflating its achievements in ways that make it appear more successful than it is,” reports McClatchy. Among the many distortions:
– The agency has touted how quickly veterans get in for appointments, but its own inspector general found that scheduling records have been manipulated repeatedly.
– The VA boasted that its customer service ratings are 10 points higher than those of private-sector hospitals, but the survey it cited shows a far smaller gap.
– Top officials repeatedly have said that a pivotal health-quality study ranked the agency’s health care “higher than any other health-care system in this country.” However, the study they cited wasn’t designed to do that.
Kondracke Advocates Ethnic Cleansing Policy In Iraq, ‘Also Known As Winning Dirty’ Roll Call executive editor and Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke writes today that if President Bush’s escalation policy doesn’t work, his Plan B should be “winning dirty,” which involves “accepting rule by Shiites and Kurds, allowing them to violently suppress Sunni resistance and making sure that Shiites friendly to the United States emerge victorious.”
Kondracke, the “left-leaning” counterpart to Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes on Fox News’ The Beltway Boys, acknowledges that his “winning dirty” policy will lead to ethnic cleansing:
Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.
He also reveals that at least one member of Congress agrees with his plan:
No one has publicly advocated this Plan B, and I know of only one Member of Congress who backs it — and he wants to stay anonymous. But he argues persuasively that it’s the best alternative available if Bush’s surge fails.
Kondracke says it’s understandable that Sunnis suffer because “so far they’ve refused to accept that they’re a minority. They will have to do so eventually, one way or another.” After all, he says, “Civil wars do end. The losers lose and have to knuckle under.”
House rejects nine-month Iraq withdrawal. The House of Representatives “defeated legislation Thursday to require the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within nine months, then pivoted to a fresh challenge of President Bush’s handling of the unpopular war. The vote on the nine-month withdrawal measure was 255-171.” The full roll call is HERE.
Lott: Republicans Should Have ‘Kept Their Mouths Shut’ About Bush Meeting » Desperate to cover-up the increasing conservative divisions over Iraq, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) today blasted the Republicans who spoke to the media about their meeting on Tuesday with President Bush.
During a CNN appearance today, Lott said that he was “concerned” that the Republicans “had this frank discussion with the president, which could have been very positive, and then they came out and started talking about it.”
“[T]hey broke one of the cardinal rules, in my opinion,” Lott said. “If they’d have kept their mouths shut, their value of speaking candidly would have been worth a lot more.” Watch it:
Conservatives Replace Scandal-Plagued Doolittle With Scandal-Plagued Calvert Yesterday, the House Republican Steering Committee voted to seat Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) on the Appropriations Committee, “filling the vacancy left by embattled Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA),” who is under investigation by the FBI for his longstanding ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
According to Roll Call, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “has sought to enforce a tougher ethical standard in the 110th Congress,” and thus called on Doolittle to immediately resign his committee seat in the wake of corruption charges.
But Boehner’s rhetoric is merely a PR stunt. Named one of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s “20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress,” Calvert has a history of abusing his power just as much as Doolittle:
Made huge personal profits off his own earmark. Calvert pushed through an earmark to secure over $9 miilion for freeway and commercial development near property he owned in California. After the development of the area, Calvert sold his property for a 79 percent profit.
Personal firm received commission from earmark. “In another deal, a group of investors bought property a few blocks from the site of a proposed interchange, for $975,000. Within six months, after the earmark for the interchange was appropriated, the parcel of land sold for $1.45 million. Rep. Calvert’s firm received a commission on the sale.”
Rewarded K Street firm under investigation with pork projects. The Copeland Lowery lobbying firm is currently “enmeshed in a federal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA).” “Rep. Calvert has helped pass through at least 13 earmarks sought by Copeland Lowery in 2005, adding up to over $91 million.” The lobbying firm has been Calvert’s largest campaign contributor.
Traveled to Saudi Arabia with convicted Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) in 2004. They were accompanied by Thomas Kontogiannis, an alleged co-conspirator in the Cunningham controversy.
Despite Calvert’s controversial past, Boehner maintained that a simple interview was enough to erase his past in the eyes of House conservatives. “Congressman Calvert answered every question asked of him by the Steering Committee,” Boehner said. “It was a candid and frank conversation, and the members of the committee were satisfied with his answers.”
House passes Iraq Accountability Act. The House of Representatives just voted 221-205 in favor of legislation “that would make continued funding of the war in Iraq dependent on a July progress report from the administration. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill.” Watch Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) floor speech:
The Gavel has more videos of Reps. John Murtha (D-PA), Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and David Obey (D-WI).
The Illinois senator's candidacy has helped spark a surge in campus activism that he has moved quickly to harness, establishing 300 college chapters and working with students to organize many of his largest rallies.
The ferment may be unparalleled since 1968, when young voters rallied behind Senator Eugene McCarthy and his anti- Vietnam War platform, said David Rosenfeld, campus program director for the Student Public Interest Research Group, which encourages campus activism.
------------ "Obama's Brain Trust Breaks With 'Status Quo' on Economic Policy"
Excerpts:
Obama's economic brain trust -- a blend of up-and-coming academics and former officials in President Bill Clinton's administration -- displays a fondness for backing innovative solutions to the nation's problems.
Among them: offering ailing U.S. automakers aid in return for increased investment in hybrid cars and rewarding doctors for the improvements they make in patients' health.
Obama made his most detailed economic proposal to date on May 7, in a speech in Detroit.
He proposed a novel remedy for helping automakers while also curbing America's energy consumption. Under the plan, the federal government would help the industry pay for some retiree health benefits if automakers invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Former LAT Baghdad chief: Iraqis are ‘humiliated.’ “Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the ’surge’ in Iraq will work, and describes Iraq citizens as ‘hostile’ and ‘humiliated’ after four years of war. Asked by Brian Lamb, in a forthcoming C-SPAN interview, about his personal views on the war, he replied: ‘I think at this point, it just — it seems like it’s become a disaster. I mean, I don’t think anyone could dispute that. It’s just going very, very, very, very badly.’”
Boehner: All House Members ‘Except One Voted To Send Our Troops Into Iraq’ » During a floor speech this afternoon, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed that only one member of the House of Representatives voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing the invasion in Iraq.
Decrying the “political games” being played, Boehner said, wagging his finger, “I’m going to remind all of my colleagues that all of our members in this chamber, except one — all of our members in this chamber, Democrat and Republican, except one — voted to send our troops to Iraq.” Watch it:
As Mcjoan noted, John Boehner is out to lunch. Fully 133 members of the House voted against the Iraq war authorization. Boehner’s current counterpart, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said in 2002, “If we resolve this issue diplomatically, we can show our strength as a great country. Let us show our greatness. Vote no on this resolution.”
(Boehner is having a bad day. During the same speech, he claimed, “The Senate leaders, Democrat and Republican, have made it clear that [Bush’s escalation] plan has no chance.” Actually, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports the escalation.)
The inner circle of foreign policy experts advising Sen. Barack Obama is small but influential.
The Obama foreign policy team deals with counterterrorism, democracy development and the inter-related matters of energy and the environment, global health, homeland security and nuclear nonproliferation, among other issues.
------------------
For Obama's presidential bid, Senate staffer Mark Lippert is the critical link between the campaign, the Senate staff and the senator.
When it comes to ideas and vision, Obama has on tap Samantha Power. Early on his tenure as senator, Obama reached out to a variety of people in the foreign policy community and one was Power, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide." She is a professor of foreign policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
After she met with Obama, she decided she wanted to work for him and spent part of 2005-2006 in his Senate office.
While Lippert is an expert at nailing down details, Power provides big-picture advice for Obama with her deep background in human rights, failing states and genocide prevention.
Moderate Republicans' revolt: End of Bush's imperial power nearing After years of relying on near-total Republican loyalty on the Iraq War, President Bush is suddenly confronting a major revolt inside his party's ranks in Congress, with a growing number of Republicans fearful of an electoral backlash if the president doesn't change course.
Huffington Post Hires Former 'Wash Post' Reporter Thomas Edsall
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"As we expand our coverage of national politics and the upcoming elections, Tom will bring his reporting experience, political acumen, and vision to our daily political coverage," HP Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington stated in a press release posted this afternoon on the Romenesko media-news blog."
Giuliani Firm Advised Oxycontin Makers For Five Years ABC News | Brian Ross, Richard Esposito & R. Schwartz | May 10, 2007 03:05 PM
Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.
Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.
I have a concern/question about Hillary: How can she be trusted when Bill (and supposedly her, too) have such a close relationship with the Bush family? How come Sam has to wait till the 20th to appear?
a must read - in case you missed it (second entry from the top)
All you need to know about the Beltway journalist mind
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
======= more from Greenwald about Beltway emperor Broder and his gang here: --
Answers for Joe Klein
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" In sum, Broder has propped up one of the most unpopular and corrupt presidencies in history, all after he spent years waxing hysteric over a deeply popular President and a sex scandal that Americans by and large thought was petty and inconsequential. Time and again, David Broder is on the wrong side of every critical political issue. His judgment proves again and again to be worthless and misguided. And his opinions could not be any more detached from the "ordinary Americans" he thinks he represents."
War Profiteering: Robert Greenwald vs. Rep. Jack Kingston By: SilentPatriot @ 3:30 PM - PDT Filmmaker Robert Greenwald and author Jeremy Scahill testified before the House Appropriations Committee today about their work dealing with war profiteering and had a very spirited back and forth with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA). In case you haven't seen it yet, you can watch Greenwald's superb film Iraq for Sale here.
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Robert writes in:
When I was invited to testify in front of the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about my film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers ( http://iraqforsale.org/ ) I was moved by the prospect of seeing the efforts of everyone involved in the film having an real impact on our lawmakers.
I was thrilled when I was told I could share stories from the film, by screening clips of Iraq for Sale before the committee. However, upon my arrival on Capital Hill yesterday, I was told the clips from the movie which we at Brave New Films ( http://www.bravenewfilms.org/ ) prepared would not be shown at the hearing.
Though I was not able to share clips from the movie with the Committee, I very much look forward to taking Rep. Kingston (Republican – Georgia) up on his offer to take a trip with me to speak with U.S. soldiers about the issue of private contractors.
I got the sense from the hearing that I am not his favorite person ….
Rove pushed voter fraud cases before ‘06 election. McClatchy reports, “Only weeks before last year’s pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.”
In two instances in October 2006, President Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove, or his deputies passed the allegations on to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.
Sampson tapped Gonzales aide Matthew Friedrich, who’d just left his post as chief of staff of the criminal division. In the first case, Friedrich agreed to find out whether Justice officials knew of “rampant” voter fraud or “lax” enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back.
But Friedrich declined to pursue a related matter from Wisconsin, he told congressional investigators, because an inquiry so close to an election could inappropriately sway voting results. Friedrich decided not to pass the matter on to the criminal division for investigation, even though Sampson gave him a 30-page report prepared by Republican activists that made claims of voting fraud.
While it was known that Rove and the White House had complained about prosecutors not aggressively investigating voter fraud, Friedrich’s testimony suggests that the Justice Department itself was under pressure to open voter fraud cases despite a department policy that discourages such action so close to an election.
"Libertarianism is something that informs people's politics. We believe in free minds. We believe in free thinking. We believe in free speech. And, we believe in free markets." - Nick Gillespie
This week on Bill Moyers Journal (check local listings)
Can the Rev. Pat Robertson make Biblical law the law of the land? Bill Moyers Journal takes a look at Regent University, Robertson's Christian leadership institution, which has seen some 150 students move into the Bush Administration since 2001.
Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of the libertarian magazine Reason, discusses the impact of the religious right in Washington today.
Historian Marilyn Young reacts to Charlie Rose's recent interview with Condeleeza Rice and offers perspective on the official view versus the reality on the ground. She is co-editor of the new book Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past.
------------- blah blah blah said... if you're 401K allows it, there should be other selections you can make like real estate or bonds such that you still get a decent return but your money isn't used for things you disagree with. May 10, 2007 6:58 PM ________________________
My Father was a AF WWII B-29 Navagator/Co-Pilot.He was a Republican.I loved him,but I thought he was crazy most of the time.But in a good way,most of the time.Now,my Mother Was a Navy WWII Nurse.I loved her too.She wasn't crazy though.And,she was A Democrat.But,one thing my Dad,the Republican said that I will never forget.Is that Everyone in Congress are Crooks! It's just been my experience that Republican names sure seem to pop up more often Dems.......We need to get the Money out of the Election system.CLEAN Elections!Because,if your not for having Clean Transparent Elections,your just talking outof yours ass! :)
you'll see eventually. labels are what we make them
--
I know what I know, Jim, and I am not born yesterday - please don't patronize me
I also studied Semantics and Symbolic Anthropology - and I am not at all bad at it.
Republicans are Republicans and Schnapps ist Schnapps - old German saying.
Voting Republican is voting Republican.
People hang around on the net for all kind of reasons. But what is the fascination of a liberal blog for you? Obviously, Sam et al don't have any impact on your thinking at all.
P.S. You must tell me immediately the SECRET Breed of Repubs you are representing, Jim. You Must!
I love ya SJ.I was just teasing ya. :) But ,A Republican!!!!Again,Just Kidding!! :)I don't care what you are really.Just as long as a person is honest,and dosen't hurt anybody.Their Cool with me....But,Holly shit A Republican?? Again,and not for the last time,I'm Kidding!! :)
I agree with Sunshine Jim, language matters - labels less so. It's ok if Jim is Republican, just as it's ok that I, and many of Sam's bloggers (I imagine) are Democrats, probably liberals. :) :). Com/passion matters, too, but it easily slides into offending language and turns off people, the people that need to hear our message - the people who would vote/follow our way. To call someone "retarded" is hurtful and shows a lack of respect toward another human being. It is better to ignore the individual (i.e. War Dog) than to belittle or demean him/her. Peace
It would be funny, if it wasn't so insulting. I'm speaking about Alberto Gonzales testimony today. Of course Brain Lamb, being the Republican ass kisser he is, kicked it to Cspan 3. If the world was watching, they certainly saw what a dangerous joke the United States has become. There he was, the so-called chief law enforcement officer of America lying, smirking, and laughing through his teeth. A virtual finger to the American People, is what he gave today.
It appeared that the House Republicans received a tongue lashing from from the pink pig himself, Karl Rove. He probably didn't like what those Senate Republicans did at the last hearing. Because today, they were licking the butt of Gonzales like it was a red candy apple. There were no challenges to Gonzales incompetence at all. It was just shameful.
Frankly, I think the American People need to hire some good lawyers. Oh don't laugh! After all, no one is representing us. The Republican Party should be sued until there is nothing left but bankruptcy.
Now for something completley diiferent.. Rudy Campaign Reportedly Snubs Farmer For Not Being Rich; Will Media Cover It? May 10, 2007 -- 04:47 PM EST // View Comments (150) // Post a Comment Did Rudy Giuliani's campaign snub an Iowa farmer couple because they weren't millionaires and hence wouldn't be a suitable prop for Rudy's anti-"death tax" campaigning? And will the haircut-obsessed political media cover it?
Check out this unbelievable story from the Anamosa Journal-Eureka in Jones County, Iowa, the accuracy of which I've just confirmed by phone with one of the people in it:
we're in this lealy lifeboat and we've got an insane captain that keeps shooting holes in the bottom of the boat and does'nt care cuz he thinks he can swim a thousand miles thru ice water with GAWDS help, and i'm patching holes and making people bail water when they'd rather sit and bitch about the cold.
my old vox 12 string, which is sitting in a box a few feet away from me.
been so long ago that we talked about it i forget what we were talking about. it was taken the day i gave everyone a ride in the river to watch the fireworks when they accidently lit off half of them at once.
this was at the BBQ we got going down at the docks. i had a beard then, and i still have the hat.
The fighting in Shindand, between April 27th and 29th, began with a failed American special forces operation to grab a local warlord and suspected Taliban ally, Mullah Akhtar. A former Taliban commander, he had previously received support from the Afghan government (and allegedly from American forces) against another warlord, Ismael Khan. In the attempt to capture him, according to an American army press release, 136 Taliban fighters and one American soldier were killed, but no civilians.
A team of UN and government investigators sent to Shindand last week found several hundred houses destroyed by air-strikes and heard reports of many civilians dead and injured. Some 1,600 families had fled the area. Among the dead were said to be many children, including some who had drowned after diving into a river to escape the onslaught.
dada said... "She plays a great Katherine"Wacko from Fla."Harris...."
Yup. Where else is she going to have a chance to do that bit?
In my opinion, Sam's show is a classic. Hard to beieve the "powers that be" wouldn't understand what they have there, what they are passing up.
Oh well. Their loss, right?
May 11, 2007 1:33 AM
I agree with you 100%
Did you see this one?Where she's debating a ass hole on the Faux morning show.It got me soooo pissed!This before the Iraq war.Everything she says is true!!
"Hard to beieve the "powers that be" wouldn't understand what they have there..."
c'mon, you still think they're on our side?
sheesh! they HAD to kill it off. Sam kept sneaking up the what's really happening, though i still think he's working his way past a fair amount of TV brainwashing and still letting them frame the issues.
no biggie, he's still one of the best researchers in the american media.
what does upset me is that we are'nt able to two-way with him on the bloggie.
i'm afraid that instead of getting some recognition and being part of the show we'll be relegated to relative obscurity.
sonds like the "bloggers" of his blog intensive program will be KOS, et al. i doubt will have a role in the show in any meaningful way.
hope i'm wrong but i remember getting aced out of even a mention in FUBAR.
She was bashed to bits by all the rightwingers, esp. Scarborough
Go Janeane!
May 11, 2007 12:57 AM
----------------------
You know Bridge, Scarborough is an idiot. Perhaps, those walled eyes of his affected his brain. The most annoying is that pep school prick, Tucker Carlson. Oh I could slap his snarky little mouth.
With the exception of Keith Obermann, MSNBC is pretty pathetic. But of course, that's most of mainstream media.
Perhaps some one on th blog could answer some questions for me? I really don't know the answer. So please I'm serious! Why did Tony Blair do it? Why did he get involved with Bush & Iraq? What did he hope to gain?
------------ Sunshine Jim said... i can't believe it! gimme a day to scan it and remind me tommorow or the next day and i'll have it posted. May 11, 2007 12:44 AM ----------------------
Sunshine Jim said... been so long ago that we talked about it i forget what we were talking about. it was taken the day i gave everyone a ride in the river to watch the fireworks when they accidently lit off half of them at once. May 11, 2007 12:56 AM _________________________
Sunshine Jim, Yes, I will remind you. You were talking about your sweet Vox and boat at the 4th of July celebration.
This means that Sunshine "Dreamboat" Jim with his Vox is no longer in a box! Good to know!
BP, and Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, has been involved in Iraq since the early 1900s. In 1920, CNN says, Anglo-Iranian became the largest shareholder in the Iraq Petroleum Company, a cartel of Western oil companies “that sought to carve up the energy resources of Iraq and those of other Middle East nations.”
BP is politically and socially intertwined with the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who made John Browne, the head of BP, a lord. A top adviser to Blair became BP’s communications director in 2001. When Blair’s Labor Party came into power, former BP chairman David Simon became Blair’s Minister of European Trade and Competitiveness, according to AngloCatholicSocialism.org,, and “numerous (BP) executives have served on governmental taskforces or been seconded to the Foreign Office or Department of Trade and Industry. Some commentators call BP “Blair Petroleum”.
BP is also involved with powerful functionaries in the U.S., which continues to work toward dominance in oil in the Caspian region, according to an article entitled “Revolution, geopolitics and pipelines” in the Asia Times of June 30, 2005.
The article reports that BP was the major backer of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline to bring oil from the Caspian region to the world market, and:
“Former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was a consultant to BP during the Bill Clinton era, urging Washington to back the project. In fact, it was Brzezinski who went to Baku in 1995, unofficially, on behalf of Clinton, to meet with then-Azeri(Azerbaijan) president Haidar Aliyev, to negotiate new independent Baku pipeline routes, including what became the BTC (Baku-Ceyhan) pipeline.”
CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad. Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed tonight by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Watch it:
7 Tips to Build a Blog Community By Pachacutec @ 1:34 pm There's been some healthy discussion lately about how to build up a blog community, mostly in the context of encouraging more diversity within the progressive online movement. Jenifer Fernandez-Arcona wrote a good diary here, and Matt Stoller identified some best practices for using an online platform to build power here.
I'd like to jump in with some things I think we've learned here at FDL about how to build a successful online community and platform, with the caveat that this is just my point of view, and I'm not saying everyone has to do it the way we have. I'm also not saying that our model would apply directly to all communities, for example, to communities who traditionally remain excluded from widespread Internet usage due to economic pressures and structural lack of access. So, grab your salt, and keep the grains handy as you read. Successful case studies are helpful, but they're not the end of the conversation.
Tip #1: Post Fresh Content Every Day, Multiple Times Per Day
If you want to generate a pretty highly trafficked blog community, the the "physics" of the online audience and medium demand fresh content all the time, multiple times per day. People will come when they feel they might be missing something good if they don't stop by. That doesn't really happen with just daily content, because people can scan and absorb in one quick sitting a few blog posts at once. That means, if you post content daily, they can surf through your blog once or twice a week.
That can become a vicious cycle. There is a lot of competition for eyeballs out there. With other sites doing more content than you do, you risk falling behind, and people may fall out of the habit of checking your site. Blogs can have a shopping mall effect: everyone goes there because everyone goes there, and your specialty shop may have great stuff, but if it's in an out of the way location, people may just miss it.
Tip #2: Enlist a Group of Writers
Because of the incredible demands involved on your time for Tip #1, you really should get help. Even Atrios, the Cal Ripken, Jr. of the blogosphere, has people with keys to the site like Attaturk or Thers who jump in when he's busy. If it takes you an hour or half an hour to write a post, expect to do two or three times as much time in reading before you write, because the only value you have to a reader is the ability to bring a fresh perspective. That means reading so you can connect some dots or do some digging and research. That might mean reporting, as TPM does through its network of sites, or it could mean higher level commentary and the provision of insight, the way Steve Gilliard, Digby or Taylor Marsh do, to name a very few.
Tip #3: Build a Brand and Exploit a Niche
In the busines world, more than one company can exploit a given niche. For example, both Borders and Barnes and Noble sell books in retail stores. There are many frozen food companies. But in the blogosphere, it seems to me that each successful blog does something unique, and once that territory is claimed, there's no real opportunity to grab that audience by doing more or less the same thing, unless the first mover retires from blogging.
For example, Jane Hamsher saw a niche for a strong woman's voice in politics whose point of view was rather broad in terms of progressive politics. Steve Gilliard has a niche that combines journalistic critique, great historical knowledge (especially military history) and an African American perspective.
May 10, 2007 -- WMR has received a third well-placed confirmation that Vice President Dick Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, was a client of the escort service of DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. In addition, one of Cheney's closest military advisers and friends was also a client of the DC Madam's Pamela Martin & Associates escort service. Cheney used the escort service while he was a part time resident of the posh Ballantrae section of McLean, Virginia.
After intense pressure from the White House and Disney executives, ABC News killed the DC Madam client story after having been given exclusive access to Palfrey's ten years' of phone call records.
Cheney made an unscheduled visit to Iraq during his tour of the Middle East.
Iraq officials to push for support Worried Congress' support for Iraq is deteriorating rapidly, Baghdad dispatched senior officials to Capitol Hill this week to warn members one-on-one that pulling out U.S. troops would have disastrous consequences.
USDA in talks to allow poultry from China to be sold in US by Chris in Paris · 5/11/2007 02:18:00 AM ET Discuss this post here: Comments (26) · digg it · reddit · FARK · · Link
From one bad idea to another. Who needs regulation anyway? In China, some farmers try to maximize the output from their small plots by flooding produce with unapproved pesticides, pumping livestock with antibiotics banned in the United States, and using human feces as fertilizer to boost soil productivity. But the questionable practices don't end there: Chicken pens are frequently suspended over ponds where seafood is raised, recycling chicken waste as a food source for seafood, according to a leading food safety expert who served as a federal adviser to the Food and Drug Administration. Mmmmm, dig in! The Bush team continues to cook up some excellent policy.
Europeans press Wolfowitz to quit as bank chief European leaders have told the Bush administration that Paul D. Wolfowitz must resign as president of the World Bank .
Push to oust Gonzales loses momentum Republican members of Congress on Thursday leapt to the defence of Alberto Gonzales, the embattled US attorney-general, as Democratic efforts to oust him appeared to lose momentum.
CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad.Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed tonight by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Watch it:
Former 'LA Times' Baghdad Chief Says Iraqis Are 'Humiliated'
By Joe Strupp
Published: May 10, 2007 3:40 PM ET
NEW YORK Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the "surge" in Iraq will work, and describes Iraq citizens as "hostile" and "humiliated" after four years of war.
Asked by Brian Lamb, in a forthcoming C-SPAN interview, about his personal views on the war, he replied: "I think at this point, it just – it seems like it’s become a disaster. I mean, I don’t think anyone could dispute that. It’s just going very, very, very, very badly." He said he had mixed feelings about the invasion but "As time wore on, though, as the bodies mounted, it just seems more and more like a really bad mistake."
The interview will be broadcast Sunday night.
Daragahi, a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, admits to deceiving his family, and editors, on some occasions about life in the war zone: "You know, there was no planning of, OK, I'm going to deceive my wife, I'm going to deceive my family. It was just, you know, you're in this crush of news and trying to get the story out....in addition to that, I had all these bureaucratic duties, because I became bureau chief. I had all these managerial duties - finances and safety issues and logistics, and so on. And so, the pressure, the amount of work was so intense that you end up perhaps sacrificing some facts when you're recounting your day to your family or your spouse, and even your editors."
Daragahi, an Iranian-born journalist who has also worked as a freelancer, plans to return to the Middle East soon as a Times' Beirut correspondent. In the interview with C-SPAN, scheduled to run Sunday night at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., he recounts life in the war-torn area, how he survived the mental and physical demand, and the difficulties of being a freelancer overseas.
--On why he believes the military surge won't work:
"Because there is not - even according to General Petraeus' own guidebook for fighting counterinsurgencies, they're not using soldiers, they're not using enough troops to accomplish their goals...But also, more fundamentally, I don't think that they can do this militarily. I don't think the fundamental problems in Iraq right now are military problems."
-- On why Iraqis feel humiliated:
"Iraqis are rather hostile and feel humiliated. And that's the key thing that maybe some of our policymakers don't understand. The presence of the U.S. soldiers is very humiliating to the Iraqis. Even those who, in their minds know that it's necessary to have the soldiers there, at least some kind of force there preventing an all-out civil war from getting even worse...I don't think they appreciate American culture."
-- On charges that the press is too negative on Iraq:
Well, I would just say, show me those goods.
For example, is infant mortality going down? Is the number of attacks on U.S. and coalition forces going down? Are the number of Iraqis who are fleeing the country declining? Is there an increase in employment? So, let’s see the facts.
Is there a decrease in the number of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed day to day? If there is, we’ve reported it. I mean, if there has been – and we put it prominently on page one.
Rove pushed voter fraud cases before ‘06 election.McClatchy reports, “Only weeks before last year’s pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.”
Mike Huckabee is Apparently Running for President (Or Something)
For an animator who likes to work with found audio, the 2008 presidential race is an embarrassment of riches. Candidates have multimedia material all over their web sites and MySpace pages, and there's always YouTube for the stuff the candidates don't want you to see or hear.
While most people who watch this material are either trying to make an informed choice or are really bored at work, I'm watching these short videos in search of comedy gold. And it's there, if you know where to look.
So here's a short animation of Republican contender Mike Huckabee, based on actual audio from his MySpace page.
Greenspan sees one-third chance of recession By Mia Shanley and Kevin Yao 1 hour, 28 minutes ago
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday he still believed there was a one-third chance that the U.S. economy would slip into recession this year, reiterating a statement made in March.
Greenspan shook markets in February when he said it was possible the U.S. economy might fall into recession by the end of the year. He later said he saw a one-third chance of a recession.
"My arithmetic says if there's a one-third probability of a recession, then there's a two-thirds probability there won't be a recession," Greenspan told a closed-door Merrill Lynch investor forum, according to an official at the U.S. investment bank.
The United States economy grew at a tepid 1.3 percent annualized rate in the first quarter -- the weakest pace in four years.
Greenspan said he had not changed his view on the health of the world's biggest economy but conceded that some might say he had changed his mind, the official quoted him as saying.
Greenspan spoke via a satellite link from Washington. His remarks contrast with those of Ben Bernanke, the Fed's chairman, who has played down the risk of a recession.
Commenting on the strength of the Chinese currency, the yuan or renminbi, Greenspan said China, the world's fourth-largest economy, would bear the brunt of its artificially weak currency and that money supply was growing too rapidly.
"It's in China's self-interest to allow the renminbi to move up faster," he was quoted as saying.
Soft US data raise new fears for Fed By Michael Mackenzie in New York, Chris Giles in London and Ralph Atkins in Dublin Thu May 10, 6:15 PM ET
US stocks suffered their worst one-day decline in two months after weak chain-store sales and a widening trade deficit raised concerns about the health of the US economy.
A run of data showing slowing economic growth could raise fresh challenges for the US Federal Reserve after it reiterated its concern over inflation at its policy meeting on Wednesday. US retail sales and inflation at the production level for April are due today.
The data followed hawkish stances from the two main European central banks, which signalled that they would move further to control inflationary pressures across the Continent. The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter point to 5.5 per cent, while the European Central Bank indicated that it would also move rates higher next month.
Some investors had expected an even more vigilant tone, and both the euro and the pound moved to their lowest levels against the dollar in more than a month.
European stocks closed lower on Thursday, and are expected to come under further pressure today after losses on Wall Street.
The US trade deficit prompted analysts to slash their forecasts for US first-quarter growth to below 1 per cent. The provisional government estimate put it at 1.3 per cent. US markets were also unnerved when it was revealed that 85 per cent of US retailers missed their shop sale targets in April. The S&P 500 decline of 1.4 per cent was its largest loss in a day since mid-March.
Giuliani campaign snubs Iowa farmer for being poor By: Steve Benen @ 5:15 AM - PDT
I wonder what would happen if a Democratic presidential campaign pulled a stunt like this with a low-income farmer in Iowa.
Deb and Jerry VonSprecken received a call last weekend from Rudy Giuliani's campaign, asking if they'd host a campaign rally on their Iowa farm. They were delighted to accept, and started making preparations. Then the campaign called back.
“They wanted to know our assets,” she revealed, and added that she and Jerry have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle.
Later she received a call from Tony Delgado at the Des Monies location.
“Tony said, ‘I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.’ then he said they weren’t going to be able to come,” Deb continued.
The Death Tax is a federal version of the Iowa Inheritance Tax.
The VonSpreckens then called Delgado back and told him how upset they were that the event had been cancelled, how much work they had done and that they had been expecting 75-100 people at their farm.
“I invited him into my home,” Deb said of Giuliani, fighting back tears.
Read the rest. It sounds like Giuliani's campaign has some explaining to do
I made a quick design proposal for Sam's new logo for the Sunday show. I'm sure others have sent their own suggestions as well. Its quite understated, just simple treatment. i'll try to work on another with an illustration of Sam http://www.the-nmc.com/nmc/APF/images/seder-APFdesign.gif
Fox New’s Bret Baier told Dick Cheney, “You are portrayed by your opponents and some in the media as this sinister figure, as this cold-blooded warmonger who doesn’t care about the number of body bags going back.” Cheney said that he regrets the casualties, but added, “Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden. He’s the man with the authority to commit the force.”
Yesterday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), “a loyal Republican who’s always voted with the president on Iraq issues,” said he will “draft a bill that implements the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report…which included benchmarks and a timeline for troop withdrawal.”
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick notes that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ role in the U.S. Attorneys scandal has shifted to that of a “decoy.” “He’s the guy who runs out in front of the hunters and draws their fire so nobody pays any attention to what’s happening at the White House.”
"My arithmetic says if there's a one-third probability of a recession, then there's a two-thirds probability there won't be a recession," Greenspan told a closed-door Merrill Lynch investor forum...
Senators who weakened drug bill received millions from industry
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — Senators who raised millions of dollars in campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests secured industry-friendly changes to a landmark drug-safety bill, according to public records and interviews. The bill, which passed 93-1, grants the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority to monitor the safety of drugs after they are approved. It addressed some shortcomings that allowed the painkiller Vioxx to stay on the market for years after initial signs that it could cause heart attacks.
However, the powers granted to the FDA in the bill's original version were pared back during private meetings. And efforts to curb conflicts of interest among FDA advisers and allow consumers to buy cheaper drugs from other countries were defeated in close votes.
• A measure that blocked an effort to allow drug importation passed, 49-40. The 49 senators who voted against drug importation received about $5 million from industry executives and political action committees since 2001 — nearly three quarters of the industry donations to current members of the Senate, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by two non-partisan groups, Center for Responsive Politics and PoliticalMoneyLine.
• Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he demanded removal of language that would have allowed the FDA to ban advertising of high-risk drugs for two years because it would restrict free speech. Roberts has raised $18,000 from drug interests so far this year, records show, and $66,000 since 2001. His spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said he "takes great pains to keep fundraising and official actions separate."
• Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., claimed authorship of a change that reduced the FDA's power to require post-market safety studies. He said he wanted to target drugs only if there was evidence of harm. Gregg has raised $168,500 from drug executives and PACs since 2001 and sided with them in four key votes.
• The bill's chief sponsors — Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., — agreed after consultations with industry officials and others to modify a proposal that all clinical drug studies be made public, said Craig Orfield, Enzi's spokesman. Under the change, only those studies submitted to the FDA would be available.
Enzi took in $174,000 from drug interests since 2001; Kennedy, $78,000. Their spokesmen said the money did not influence them.
Senators also voted down an amendment that would have made it harder for scientists who have accepted money from a drug company to advise the FDA on drug approval applications from that firm.
"It's not that money buys votes," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the lone vote against the bill. "But you have a culture in which big money has significant influence. Big money gains you access, access gives you the time to influence people."
"American inspectors who arrived in China last week to investigate the two companies that exported tainted pet food ingredients found that the suspect facilities had been hastily closed down and cleaned up, federal officials said yesterday.
"There is nothing to be found. They are essentially shut down and not operating," said Walter Batts, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's office of international programs.
Word of the American team's inability to conduct a firsthand inspection came as investigators in this country learned that as many as 198 U.S. fish farms and hatcheries may have received fish feed contaminated with the chemical melamine, which came from the same two Chinese companies."
Meleamine and CYANURIC ACID!
which combined form an even nastier kidney killer.
bad as they are without those hatcheries fish we're screwed.
The Senate voted 49-40 this week to require U.S. officials to certify the safety and effectiveness of prescription medicines imported from foreign countries. The vote effectively killed an effort to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad. A "yes" vote, supported by drugmakers, was a vote to adopt the certification requirement and a "no" vote was a vote to defeat it.
Here are the top recipients of contributions from pharmaceutical executives and political action committees from 2001 through March, and how they voted:
Lawmakers squabble over CIA's look at global warming Michael Roston Published: Friday May 11, 2007
The Chairman and Ranking Republican on a committee in the House of Representatives that oversees America's spy agencies continued a war of words over whether or not the Central Intelligence Agency should complete an assessment of the threat to the United States from global warming. The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee accused his counterparts of wasting intelligence resources on 'bugs and bunnies.'
"House Democrats want to return to the days when the CIA wasted valuable resources on 'bugs and bunnies.' My objection is not about the validity of global climate change. I am concerned about whether it is an intelligence issue," wrote Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-CA) in a Thursday Wall Street Journal op-ed. "While Democrats call for U.S. intelligence agencies to study global climate change, they continue to grossly underestimate the terrorist threat."
Hoekstra, who chaired the committee in the Republican Congress, was referring to an order in the Intelligence Authorization bill, passed Thursday, which called on the CIA to complete a 'national intelligence estimate' or NIE on the threat posed by global climate change. NIEs represent the highest level assessment of a particular security concern completed by America's intelligence community.
The ranking Republican pointed to the 1990s in the Clinton administration "when scarce resources were diverted to issues that clearly were not related to the businesses of intelligence. There was a mistaken belief then that serious threats to U.S. national security diminished or disappeared with the end of the Cold War."
Indeed, Hoekstra even accused former CIA head John Deutch of trying to 'curry favor' with then-Vice President Al Gore by directing CIA spy satellites to photograph ecologically sensitive sites and therefore ignoring "the first World Trade Center bombing...in 1993 and in August of 1996 Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa, 'Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.'"
House Democrats challenged Hoekstra's assessment of the decision to conclude the NIE on global warming and the threats it could pose.
"Our request for a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the national security impact of climate change does not divert resources from higher-priority items," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), committee chairman, in a statement released yesterday. "We heeded the advice of eleven former three- and four-star admirals and generals who have studied this issue and recommended an NIE. They believe that significant changes in global climate may act as a 'threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.'"
Reyes was referring to a report published by intelligence community contractor CNA Corporation on 'National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.' The retired military officers who signed off on the document warned of the geopolitical implications of climate change.
This climate change is scaring me more than any terrorist could! Look at what is happening right now! Fires on both coasts, floods in the lower plaines states. Drought in other areas. Horrid tornados, and now the start of hurricane season.
Will this spur more earth quakes and will this awaken the volcanoes.
c-span has a discussion of the glocal climate change on now.
Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes' Nick Juliano Published: Thursday May 10, 2007
A former top State Department aide to Colin Powell said today that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are more deserving of impeachment than was Bill Clinton.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on the public radio program On Point Thursday that "Bill Clinton's peccadilloes ... pale in significance" when compared to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Bush and Cheney.
Wilkerson did not directly call on Congress to begin impeachment hearings, and he brought up impeachment in response to a caller's question. Early in the show, however, he observed, "This administration doesn't know how to effect accountability, in my opinion."
Wilkerson's comments were first reported by pro-impeachment Web site AfterDowningStreet.org.
"The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and precise -– it's high crimes and misdemeanors," he said. "You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."
Taking a historical view of impeachment, Wilkerson said he believed the Founding Fathers would be surprised that more presidents had not been impeached.
"I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some bastard out.'"Wilkerson said. "That's a form of accountability too. It's ultimate accountability."
Petraeus condemns torture. In an open letter yesterday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, “admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.” From the letter:
I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Irasq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat. …
Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.
LONDON (AP) - Gordon Brown launched his campaign to become Britain's next prime minister on Friday, pledging to learn from the mistakes of the Iraq war while honoring "our obligations to the Iraqi people." Brown, who faces no serious opposition after waiting more than a decade for his chance to lead the country, said there needed to be a stronger emphasis on political reconciliation and economic development in Iraq.
"And obviously we've got to more to win the battle of hearts and minds against al-Qaida terrorism."
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who announced he would resign June 27, officially endorsed Brown on Friday. As Treasury chief, Brown is credited with much of Britain's recent economic boom.
"I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place," Brown said, pledging to win back voters disenchanted after a decade of Labour Party rule.
The question is whether Brown will shift Britain's role in the Iraq war, which has divided Britain.
President Bush has called Brown a thinker and easy to talk to. Brown has been more reserved in his comments about the American president, whose alliance with Blair lost the Labour Party votes.
"I accept that mistakes have been made," Brown said, adding that he will soon visit Iraq and other nations.
"We will keep our obligations to the Iraqi people. These are obligations that are part of U.N. resolution, they are in support of a democracy," he said. "I do think that over the next few months the emphasis will shift."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Brown was aware of the dangers surrounding failure in Iraq.
Glenn Greenwald -Salon Friday May 11, 2007 08:38 EST A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred Various prominent personages share their visceral contempt for blogs:
John Yoo at an April 18 Civil Liberties debate (via blogger Roger Ailes):
[Since 9/11] we have had outpourings of new political speech through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed -- bloggers.
This did not exist before 9/11. Are we really in such a civil liberties crisis if bloggers are able to use this new media to say I think quite incredible things?
As Ailes says: "Yoo wishes they never existed because, unlike illegally-detained prisoners, torture victims and law school students, bloggers talk back."
“We have had outpourings of new political speech [since 9/11] through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed — bloggers.” — Former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo
TIMELINE: The Secret Bush-Democratic Trade Deal & What It Means
By David Sirota
Today has been a whirlwind day on the political frontlines in the War on the Middle Class, as a handful of senior congressional Democrats and the White House - cheered on by K Street lobbyists - joined forces today to announce a "deal" on a package of trade agreements that potentially calls into question the entire election mandate of 2006 (I say potentially because the full details are still being concealed by both Democrats and the White House).
Because so much has transpired in the last 6 hours, I'm going to summarize it here chronologically in bullet points to make it easier to digest. I've been covering it live all day, but figured for brevity it would be best to put it in one place. For context, remember that, as Public Citizen has documented and as business publications like Forbes Magazine has confirmed, Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 thanks to scores of challenger candidates specifically running against lobbyist-written trade policy. This 2006 lesson is particularly important to Democrats who, in the early 1990s experienced their own President campaign for office opposing unfair trade deals, then ram NAFTA through Congress "over the dead bodies" of workers, then watch the Democratic majority get decimated in the following election. I want to stress, we still don't know the details of the deal, but we do have some critically important information to analyze.
Here's the timeline of the day (you can find links to all source material referenced at www.workingassetsblog.com):
On Sunday, May 13 at 8:00 pm and Monday, May 14 at 7:00 am --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 LA Times Festival of Books - Age of Spin Panel Description: From the LA Times Festival of Books, a panel on political spin featuring: Frank Luntz ("Words That Work"), Joe Conason ("It Can Happen Here"), David Goodman ("Static"), and Michael Isikoff ("Hubris"). The panel is moderated by John Powers.
Faith-Based Food Fumbles Rick Goldstein May 10, 2007
Don't eat pork: First it was supposed to be just 6,000 hogs who'd eaten melamine-contaminated salvaged pet food. Now 50,000 have been quarantined in Illinois. Don't eat chicken: First it was three million chicken contaminated with melamine - as the FDA's new food safety "czar" reassured reporters. Then that estimate was revised upward to 20 million.
Don't eat fish: Canadian fish meal manufactured from poisoned Chinese flour fed fish now in stores across the U.S.
The links above come from David Goldstein, one of our most heroic bloggers, who has pursued the story with the zeal of an old-school investigative reporter. (Remember when we used to have those?)
Check out the "faith-based" statements he's been collecting from the public relations agencies for U.S. agribusiness funded by your very own tax dollars, the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture:
FDA and USDA believe the likelihood of illness after eating such pork is extremely low.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We have no reason to believe that any of those are currently in the human food supply as a direct ingredient.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We have no reason to believe that anything other than the rice protein concentrate or the wheat gluten have been a problem in the United States recently.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“But overall, we believe the risk to be extremely low to humans.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We believe that the likelihood of illness from such exposure is extremely low.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“One of the reasons we believe that this is very low in humans is due to the dilution effect.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We believe the situation in the poultry is very much like that for the swine.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We do not believe that there is any significant threat of human illness from consuming poultry.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We believe the likelihood of illness to humans, including infants, is extremely small.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007
“We believe the likelihood of a human illness is very remote.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007
“We have no reason to believe those animals are any risk to the public.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007 Now note the statement he's collected that cancels out all of the above:
"There’s no tolerance for any of these compounds, either melamine or cyanuric acid. […] We just don’t know when we get these mixtures together. So there is no, really no acceptable level.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
GOP war brewing: Rove, Cheney furious at Republican House members who met with Bush, then blabbed about it by Joe Sudbay (DC) · 5/11/2007 10:21:00 AM ET
Seems Dick and Karl are livid. The hysterical thing is that the anger is being vented at their fellow Republicans. They are losing control.
Rove's anger popped up in today's Washington Post: White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting's organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House's chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration's unhappiness. Cheney's was broadcast on the GOP channel and picked up by the NY Times: Some White House officials privately expressed displeasure Thursday that the concerns the Republican moderates raised with the president became public. Vice President Dick Cheney did not mince words in an interview with the Fox News Channel. “We didn’t get elected to be popular,” Mr. Cheney said. “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party.” GOP civil wars. This is going to be fun to watch.
Calif. Web site outsources reporting By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writer Thu May 10, 5:51 PM ET
PASADENA, Calif. - The job posting was a head-scratcher: "We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA."
Well this Sucks!! Just when you thought that the MSM couldn't get any worst:
IN QUOTES: WMD HYSTERIA AN INVENTION OF CLINTON, NOT BUSH The Clinton administration, justifying small-scale bombings and the continuation of economic sanctions, engaged in fear mongering identical to that of its successor administration. http://electroniciraq.net/news/3073.shtml
Public diplomacy through fingerprinting. CBS News reports:
Promoters from 64 countries vied this week to lure big-spending Arab tourists to their countries at the Middle East’s largest tourism convention.
But not a single promoter from the United States turned up.
Instead, the U.S. government sent officials from the Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate its mandatory fingerprinting of Arab and other foreign visitors. The only other U.S. presence inside the Americas hall at the show came from a tiny boutique hotel in New York.
All 11 Republicans Who Berated Bush Voted Against Iraq Withdrawal, Accountability Bills The 11 Republicans who pleaded with President Bush about the Iraq war in a private meeting this week all voted against two critical bills yesterday that would have forced Bush to change his war policy.
In private, the members issued a “blunt warning” to Bush “that conditions needed to improve markedly.” In public, all 11 members aligned with Bush and opposed one bill that would have redeployed U.S. forces out of Iraq in nine months, and another that would make continued funding of the war in Iraq dependent on a July progress report from the administration. (Roll calls for those votes are HERE and HERE.)
The list of 11 members:
Fred Upton (MI) Mike Castle (DE) Charles Dent (PA) Jo Ann Davis (VA) Todd Russell Platts (PA) Jim Ramstad (MN) Jo Ann Emerson (MO) Mark Kirk (IL) Jim Gerlach (PA) Jim Walsh (NY) Ray Lahood (IL)
One of the fringe benefits of membership in the American Legion is a subscription to its monthly journal, The American Legion, billed as “the magazine for a strong America.” It quickly became apparent that The American Legion magazine was a sounding board for many holding quite militaristic and jingoistic opinions based on their rather limited personal experiences, many dating back to World War II. The war in Iraq, together with the overarching “global war on terror,” seems to be viewed by many in the American Legion as an extension of their own past service, and much effort is made to connect World War II and the Iraq conflict as part and parcel of the same ongoing American “liberation” of the world’s oppressed.
It’s a shame for these Legionnaires that the Iraqis couldn’t have turned out to be blond, blue-eyed Germans who looked like us, and whose women could be wooed with chocolate and nylon stockings by the noble American liberator and occupier. Or, short of that, passive Japanese, who freely submitted their women to the massage parlors and barracks of their American conquering heroes while their men rebuilt a shattered society. The simplistic approach of many of the American Legion’s most hawkish advocates for the ongoing disaster in Iraq seems to be drawn from a selective memory which seeks to impose a carefully crafted past experience dating back to the last “good war” (i.e., World War II), expunged of all warts and blemishes, onto the current situation in Iraq in a manner which strips away all reality.
It turns out that the Iraqis aren’t like German or Japanese people at all, but rather a fiercely independent (if overly complex) nation deeply resentful of a so-called liberation which has brought them nothing but pain and agony, primarily at the hands of those who have, unbidden, “freed” them from their past. The fact that the Iraqis resent the ongoing American occupation, and choose to express this resentment through violent resistance instead of submissive passivity, is in turn resented by many of the Legion’s membership. “War has been declared on the United States by those who are envious of our freedom, and they won’t stop until we are under their heel,” writes one Legionnaire in a letter published in the May 2007 issue of “the magazine for a strong America.” The juxtaposition of Iraq with those who perpetrated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, implied in this statement is reflective of a level of ignorance that boggles the mind.
CBS Fires Batiste For Anti-Bush Advocacy, Hires Bush Aide To Engage In Pro-Bush Advocacy In a recent VoteVets ad, Gen. John Batiste says, “I left the Army in protest in order to speak out.” Now, CBS has punished him for speaking out. Last night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported, “General John Batiste loses his CBS job after appearing in an advertisement critical of the president.”
CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius spoke to ThinkProgress this morning and confirmed that Batiste’s consulting contract has been canceled due to his participation in the VoteVets ad. Genelius said Batiste “inadvertently violated our standards” and therefore “we and the General mutually agreed to end his consultants’ arrangement with CBS News.”
When asked what standards Batiste violated, Genelius said he participated in “advocacy,” but noted that she had not seen the ad to verify the charge. Batiste’s only “advocacy” in the ad might be found in this statement: “Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.” Watch the ad:
While CBS claims it will not tolerate consultants engaging in outside advocacy, it apparently has no problem paying a former White House communications director to engage in the Bush administration’s advocacy on air. While being billed as CBS News’ “political consultant,” Nicolle Wallace has propagated talking points advanced by her old colleagues in the White House communications office. Some examples:
“The Democrats have to walk a fine line and be careful. People don’t want to turn on the TV and see every story being about the obstruction of people trying to do things.” [Washington Post, 3/7/07]
“Well, you know, people ask me all the time, ‘Do they [in the White House] get it? Do they get how bad things are?’ And the answer is yes.” [CBS Evening News, 12/12/06]
At the end of the day, no matter how discontent some voters are, they really don’t want to see Democrats in control of the Congress. [CBS Evening News, 10/23/06]
It’s apparently only advocacy when you’re opposing Bush. Americans United notes that it took two weeks for CBS to fire Don Imus for racial slurs, but two days to fire Batiste for speaking up on Iraq.
530 comments:
1 – 200 of 530 Newer› Newest»Marc Maron:
Next week! Giggles Comedy Club in Seattle, WA
Next week I'll be performing at the Giggles Comedy Club, Fri & Sat, May 18 & 19.
(Giggles is on NE 53rd/Roosevelt, in the U District. Across the street from the old Sane/Fleece office, for you early '90s era sheople.)
spoink!
I wish Rove would take off all his clothes and shimmy up the Whitehouse flagpole.
Literally, not figuratively like he's been doing.
Rove berates GOP lawmaker over Iraq meeting
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/10/rove-berates-gop-lawmaker-over-iraq-meeting/
“Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.”
Sources said that Dan Meyer, Bush’s liaison to the House, confronted LaHood while White House political strategist Karl Rove rebuked Kirk. It is unclear if LaHood or Kirk were the original sources for the stories, but LaHood was quoted in one of the articles.
Regardless, LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange. LaHood and five other GOP lawmakers met with Mrs. Bush in the Yellow Oval in the White House residence to chat about the No Child Left Behind law.
“The White House is not happy,” said a Republican lawmaker. […]
Several lawmakers who attended one or both meetings did not fault Bush, but blamed his aides for overreacting.
“They can have such thick skin,” said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who attended the meeting on Tuesday. “[President Bush] ought to embrace this and be seen as getting input from everyone.”
Evening all!!
Hi Kevin!
I would love to see Rove marched off to a regular prison and let them throw away the keys to his cell!!
5/10/2007 The Rude Pundit:
Iraqi Parliament and Cheney: What a Bunch of Dicks:
Link
-----------
"'We should not be compromising' on war"
Edwards implores Dems in speech here
--------------
Excerpt:
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards challenged his party's congressional members Wednesday to "stand strong and firm" and continue to send President Bush bills linking Iraq war funding to a timetable for withdrawal -- no matter the number of Bush vetoes.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/379301,CST-NWS-edwards10.article
Jeesh, a few hours at work and the shit hits the fan. You should see all the news since I left for work!!!
Gonzales: ‘I Haven’t Really Thought About’ Habeas Corpus »
Under the Bush administration, U.S. citizens can be detained as enemy combatants and arrested without being charged of any crime.
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether any U.S. citizens are “being held today, for over a month, who have been denied habeas corpus or access to an attorney.” Instead of giving an answer, Gonzales replied, “[Y]ou’re asking me a question I hadn’t really thought about.”
Sherman then followed up and asked whether there any “U.S. citizens being held now by foreign governments or foreign organizations, without access to attorneys, as a result of rendition.” Gonzales again said, “It’s just — quite frankly, I hadn’t thought about this.” Watch it:
When Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, he claimed that there is “no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.” Today, Sherman asked Gonzales, “Wouldn’t it be your duty as Attorney General to make sure that their [U.S. citizens’] rights to habeas corpus were honored?” After some hedging, Gonzales finally agreed: “Yes.”
Matt Stoller and Glenn Greenwald have more on the habeas fight. Sign a petition telling Congress to restore habeas corpus HERE.
Video here
Recruiter who sent racist e-mail is ‘re-assigned.’ After learning that Jersey City resident Corey Andrew was gay, U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. Marcia Ramode responded in an e-mail, “GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED THERE.” The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network reports that Ramode has now “been suspended from recruiting duties,” and “has been reassigned from Army Recruiting Command to a duty position elsewhere in the Army.” Pam’s House Blend notes that it seems to be a “slap on the wrist.”
LINK
Posted on Thu, May. 10, 2007
U. S. ATTORNEYS
White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
Link
-----------
"On Poverty, Edwards Faces Old Hurdles"
Excerpts:
Edwards, on the other hand, calls poverty "morally wrong" and a "national shame," and he proposes paying for his plans by immediately repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich. His admirers say his emphasis on poverty is proof of political courage. But it also fits with his strategy to carve out a niche as a populist truth-teller to the left of Clinton and Obama, a shift from his 2004 campaign tone, which he now says was too cautious.
In his 2004 campaign, he talked about poverty, but mostly within his broader theme of "the two Americas." That December, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, met with friends and advisers to discuss how he could spend his time before his next campaign.
"We talked about a whole range of possibilities . . . for an hour, hour and a half, and Elizabeth said, 'Can I just say, I've been sitting listening to you talk about these various things and, John, the place that you light up and show greatest passion is this issue of poverty,'" he said. "That's when I decided I wanted to devote significant time to it."
Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050601322.html
VA exaggerated success of medical system. “The Department of Veterans Affairs has habitually exaggerated the record of its medical system, inflating its achievements in ways that make it appear more successful than it is,” reports McClatchy. Among the many distortions:
– The agency has touted how quickly veterans get in for appointments, but its own inspector general found that scheduling records have been manipulated repeatedly.
– The VA boasted that its customer service ratings are 10 points higher than those of private-sector hospitals, but the survey it cited shows a far smaller gap.
– Top officials repeatedly have said that a pivotal health-quality study ranked the agency’s health care “higher than any other health-care system in this country.” However, the study they cited wasn’t designed to do that.
LINK
Kondracke Advocates Ethnic Cleansing Policy In Iraq, ‘Also Known As Winning Dirty’
Roll Call executive editor and Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke writes today that if President Bush’s escalation policy doesn’t work, his Plan B should be “winning dirty,” which involves “accepting rule by Shiites and Kurds, allowing them to violently suppress Sunni resistance and making sure that Shiites friendly to the United States emerge victorious.”
Kondracke, the “left-leaning” counterpart to Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes on Fox News’ The Beltway Boys, acknowledges that his “winning dirty” policy will lead to ethnic cleansing:
Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.
He also reveals that at least one member of Congress agrees with his plan:
No one has publicly advocated this Plan B, and I know of only one Member of Congress who backs it — and he wants to stay anonymous. But he argues persuasively that it’s the best alternative available if Bush’s surge fails.
Kondracke says it’s understandable that Sunnis suffer because “so far they’ve refused to accept that they’re a minority. They will have to do so eventually, one way or another.” After all, he says, “Civil wars do end. The losers lose and have to knuckle under.”
LINK
House rejects nine-month Iraq withdrawal. The House of Representatives “defeated legislation Thursday to require the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within nine months, then pivoted to a fresh challenge of President Bush’s handling of the unpopular war. The vote on the nine-month withdrawal measure was 255-171.” The full roll call is HERE.
UPDATE: Matt Stoller has more.
LINK
Lott: Republicans Should Have ‘Kept Their Mouths Shut’ About Bush Meeting »
Desperate to cover-up the increasing conservative divisions over Iraq, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) today blasted the Republicans who spoke to the media about their meeting on Tuesday with President Bush.
During a CNN appearance today, Lott said that he was “concerned” that the Republicans “had this frank discussion with the president, which could have been very positive, and then they came out and started talking about it.”
“[T]hey broke one of the cardinal rules, in my opinion,” Lott said. “If they’d have kept their mouths shut, their value of speaking candidly would have been worth a lot more.” Watch it:
LINK
Conservatives Replace Scandal-Plagued Doolittle With Scandal-Plagued Calvert
Yesterday, the House Republican Steering Committee voted to seat Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) on the Appropriations Committee, “filling the vacancy left by embattled Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA),” who is under investigation by the FBI for his longstanding ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
According to Roll Call, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “has sought to enforce a tougher ethical standard in the 110th Congress,” and thus called on Doolittle to immediately resign his committee seat in the wake of corruption charges.
But Boehner’s rhetoric is merely a PR stunt. Named one of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s “20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress,” Calvert has a history of abusing his power just as much as Doolittle:
Made huge personal profits off his own earmark. Calvert pushed through an earmark to secure over $9 miilion for freeway and commercial development near property he owned in California. After the development of the area, Calvert sold his property for a 79 percent profit.
Personal firm received commission from earmark. “In another deal, a group of investors bought property a few blocks from the site of a proposed interchange, for $975,000. Within six months, after the earmark for the interchange was appropriated, the parcel of land sold for $1.45 million. Rep. Calvert’s firm received a commission on the sale.”
Rewarded K Street firm under investigation with pork projects. The Copeland Lowery lobbying firm is currently “enmeshed in a federal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA).” “Rep. Calvert has helped pass through at least 13 earmarks sought by Copeland Lowery in 2005, adding up to over $91 million.” The lobbying firm has been Calvert’s largest campaign contributor.
Traveled to Saudi Arabia with convicted Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) in 2004. They were accompanied by Thomas Kontogiannis, an alleged co-conspirator in the Cunningham controversy.
Despite Calvert’s controversial past, Boehner maintained that a simple interview was enough to erase his past in the eyes of House conservatives. “Congressman Calvert answered every question asked of him by the Steering Committee,” Boehner said. “It was a candid and frank conversation, and the members of the committee were satisfied with his answers.”
UPDATE: CREW’s blog has more.
LINK
House passes Iraq Accountability Act. The House of Representatives just voted 221-205 in favor of legislation “that would make continued funding of the war in Iraq dependent on a July progress report from the administration. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill.” Watch Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) floor speech:
The Gavel has more videos of Reps. John Murtha (D-PA), Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and David Obey (D-WI).
LINK
------------
"Obama's 'Youth Mojo' Sparks Student Activism, Fueling Campaign"
Excerpt:
The Illinois senator's candidacy has helped spark a surge in campus activism that he has moved quickly to harness, establishing 300 college chapters and working with students to organize many of his largest rallies.
The ferment may be unparalleled since 1968, when young voters rallied behind Senator Eugene McCarthy and his anti- Vietnam War platform, said David Rosenfeld, campus program director for the Student Public Interest Research Group, which encourages campus activism.
Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aJ4wSyFVOGx8&refer=home
------------
"Obama's Brain Trust Breaks With 'Status Quo' on Economic Policy"
Excerpts:
Obama's economic brain trust -- a blend of up-and-coming academics and former officials in President Bill Clinton's administration -- displays a fondness for backing innovative solutions to the nation's problems.
Among them: offering ailing U.S. automakers aid in return for increased investment in hybrid cars and rewarding doctors for the improvements they make in patients' health.
Obama made his most detailed economic proposal to date on May 7, in a speech in Detroit.
He proposed a novel remedy for helping automakers while also curbing America's energy consumption. Under the plan, the federal government would help the industry pay for some retiree health benefits if automakers invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a7Zdp3HDltW4&refer=home
Former LAT Baghdad chief: Iraqis are ‘humiliated.’ “Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the ’surge’ in Iraq will work, and describes Iraq citizens as ‘hostile’ and ‘humiliated’ after four years of war. Asked by Brian Lamb, in a forthcoming C-SPAN interview, about his personal views on the war, he replied: ‘I think at this point, it just — it seems like it’s become a disaster. I mean, I don’t think anyone could dispute that. It’s just going very, very, very, very badly.’”
LINK
Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes' Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday May 10, 2007
Link
Boehner: All House Members ‘Except One Voted To Send Our Troops Into Iraq’ »
During a floor speech this afternoon, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed that only one member of the House of Representatives voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing the invasion in Iraq.
Decrying the “political games” being played, Boehner said, wagging his finger, “I’m going to remind all of my colleagues that all of our members in this chamber, except one — all of our members in this chamber, Democrat and Republican, except one — voted to send our troops to Iraq.” Watch it:
As Mcjoan noted, John Boehner is out to lunch. Fully 133 members of the House voted against the Iraq war authorization. Boehner’s current counterpart, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said in 2002, “If we resolve this issue diplomatically, we can show our strength as a great country. Let us show our greatness. Vote no on this resolution.”
(Boehner is having a bad day. During the same speech, he claimed, “The Senate leaders, Democrat and Republican, have made it clear that [Bush’s escalation] plan has no chance.” Actually, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports the escalation.)
LINK
------------
"Obama taps influential foreign policy experts"
Excerpts:
The inner circle of foreign policy experts advising Sen. Barack Obama is small but influential.
The Obama foreign policy team deals with counterterrorism, democracy development and the inter-related matters of energy and the environment, global health, homeland security and nuclear nonproliferation, among other issues.
------------------
For Obama's presidential bid, Senate staffer Mark Lippert is the critical link between the campaign, the Senate staff and the senator.
When it comes to ideas and vision, Obama has on tap Samantha Power. Early on his tenure as senator, Obama reached out to a variety of people in the foreign policy community and one was Power, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide." She is a professor of foreign policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
After she met with Obama, she decided she wanted to work for him and spent part of 2005-2006 in his Senate office.
While Lippert is an expert at nailing down details, Power provides big-picture advice for Obama with her deep background in human rights, failing states and genocide prevention.
Link:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/379187,CST-EDT-sweet10.article
Kucinich on Supplemental: It's About Oil
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-05-11 00:32.
Link
Administration Withheld Emails About Rove
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-05-10 23:43.
Link
US DJ takes heat over 'magic negro'
Rush Limbaugh under fire for playing 'Barack the Magic Negro' song.
LINK
Total Kaos Inc said...
Rove berates GOP lawmaker over Iraq meeting
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/10/rove-berates-gop-lawmaker-over-iraq-meeting/
!
So that wasn't a theatric?
huh
that is interesting
-conbo
Wal-Mart has worst sales in 28 years
Sales drop 3.5 percent in three week period; Troubled brand?
LINK
Moderate Republicans' revolt:
End of Bush's imperial power nearing
After years of relying on near-total Republican loyalty on the Iraq War, President Bush is suddenly confronting a major revolt inside his party's ranks in Congress, with a growing number of Republicans fearful of an electoral backlash if the president doesn't change course.
LINK
Huffington Post Hires Former 'Wash Post' Reporter Thomas Edsall
-clip
"As we expand our coverage of national politics and the upcoming elections, Tom will bring his reporting experience, political acumen, and vision to our daily political coverage," HP Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington stated in a press release posted this afternoon on the Romenesko media-news blog."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/online/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003579057
---
Glenn Greenwald wrote in an update to his piece that this is an odd choice.
Not if you know Big Dem basher and Clinton hater Arianna Huffington as well as I do ... it seems just right and fitting
//End of Bush's imperial power nearing//
! is that really true?
all it took was a few people to dissent against Bush from the Republican party one time in a closed door meeting?
Well, that was easy
Republicans are retarded
-conbo
Giuliani Firm Advised Oxycontin Makers For Five Years
ABC News | Brian Ross, Richard Esposito & R. Schwartz | May 10, 2007 03:05 PM
Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.
Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.
LINK
i am a republican and I am not retarded!
(point is, these labels are misleading and subject to abuse.
if yer average repub knew what was actually going on they'd be horrified.
the truth of the matter is we have to get better at getting the word out and stop alienating people that could help)
I have a concern/question about Hillary: How can she be trusted when Bill (and supposedly her, too) have such a close relationship with the Bush family?
How come Sam has to wait till the 20th to appear?
I don't alienate anyone
I meant actually Republicans as in the politicians
Not people who support them
I really think most Republicans politicians are retarded
As in slow...as in stupid, really stupid, possibly having mental problems
-conbo
a must read - in case you missed it
(second entry from the top)
All you need to know about the Beltway journalist mind
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
=======
more from Greenwald about Beltway emperor Broder and his gang here:
--
Answers for Joe Klein
clip
" In sum, Broder has propped up one of the most unpopular and corrupt presidencies in history, all after he spent years waxing hysteric over a deeply popular President and a sex scandal that Americans by and large thought was petty and inconsequential. Time and again, David Broder is on the wrong side of every critical political issue. His judgment proves again and again to be worthless and misguided. And his opinions could not be any more detached from the "ordinary Americans" he thinks he represents."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
I mean retard as in
Reeeee Tard
Very stupid
Dumb
-conbo
War Profiteering: Robert Greenwald vs. Rep. Jack Kingston
By: SilentPatriot @ 3:30 PM - PDT Filmmaker Robert Greenwald and author Jeremy Scahill testified before the House Appropriations Committee today about their work dealing with war profiteering and had a very spirited back and forth with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA). In case you haven't seen it yet, you can watch Greenwald's superb film Iraq for Sale here.
Download (1826) | Play (1954) Download (683) | Play (1132)
Robert writes in:
When I was invited to testify in front of the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about my film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers ( http://iraqforsale.org/ ) I was moved by the prospect of seeing the efforts of everyone involved in the film having an real impact on our lawmakers.
I was thrilled when I was told I could share stories from the film, by screening clips of Iraq for Sale before the committee. However, upon my arrival on Capital Hill yesterday, I was told the clips from the movie which we at Brave New Films ( http://www.bravenewfilms.org/ ) prepared would not be shown at the hearing.
Though I was not able to share clips from the movie with the Committee, I very much look forward to taking Rep. Kingston (Republican – Georgia) up on his offer to take a trip with me to speak with U.S. soldiers about the issue of private contractors.
I got the sense from the hearing that I am not his favorite person ….
LINK
either Obama does'nt know what's really going on and he's ignorant, which means he unsuitable for the presidency
or he's afraid to come out with it in the open.
we already have a chickenhawk in the position currently.
I really think most Republicans politicians are retarded
As in slow...as in stupid, really stupid, possibly having mental problems
-conbo
All Agree,Raise your hands Hand and say "I,"I's have it......Sorry SJ :)
Sunshine Jim said...
i am a republican and I am not retarded!
--
Sunny Jim,
Why are you still a Republican?
Why?
Why
Why?
Has Chubby completed his advanced training course yet?
ya i know.
its just that most of this media battle is about language.
theres a shitload of currupt dems as well right?
i said eeeee instead
i hope that is ok
-conbo
The pieces of my plan are falling perfectly into place.
theres a shitload of currupt dems as well right?
May 10, 2007 10:52 PM
Yes. But they aren't as stupid about it as the republicans
well...the freezer cash guy was interesting
Im not partisan-I actually just want the government to be accesible to the people again.
Right now Democrats are the closest thing we have...well, TWO
Democrats-Pelosi and Reid, sometimes Biden.
I would vote Republican if they decided to stop kissing ass and actually support the people again.
Why not?
-conbo
Rove pushed voter fraud cases before ‘06 election. McClatchy reports, “Only weeks before last year’s pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.”
In two instances in October 2006, President Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove, or his deputies passed the allegations on to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.
Sampson tapped Gonzales aide Matthew Friedrich, who’d just left his post as chief of staff of the criminal division. In the first case, Friedrich agreed to find out whether Justice officials knew of “rampant” voter fraud or “lax” enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back.
But Friedrich declined to pursue a related matter from Wisconsin, he told congressional investigators, because an inquiry so close to an election could inappropriately sway voting results. Friedrich decided not to pass the matter on to the criminal division for investigation, even though Sampson gave him a 30-page report prepared by Republican activists that made claims of voting fraud.
While it was known that Rove and the White House had complained about prosecutors not aggressively investigating voter fraud, Friedrich’s testimony suggests that the Justice Department itself was under pressure to open voter fraud cases despite a department policy that discourages such action so close to an election.
LINK
eya bridge.
i bet if you thought about it for a bit, you could come up with a bunch of reasons.
i represent a breed of repubs that no one is aware of here.
you'll see eventually. labels are what we make them.
mmmmmm
NEWSLETTER - Friday, May 11, 2007
"Libertarianism is something that informs people's politics. We believe in free minds.
We believe in free thinking. We believe in free speech. And, we believe in free markets."
- Nick Gillespie
This week on Bill Moyers Journal (check local listings)
Can the Rev. Pat Robertson make Biblical law the law of the land? Bill Moyers Journal takes a look at Regent University, Robertson's Christian leadership institution, which has seen some 150 students move into the Bush Administration since 2001.
Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of the libertarian magazine Reason, discusses the impact of the religious right in Washington today.
Historian Marilyn Young reacts to Charlie Rose's recent interview with Condeleeza Rice and offers perspective on the official view versus the reality on the ground. She is co-editor of the new book Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past.
Bill Moyers on the true human cost of war.
mmrules said...
Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes' Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday May 10, 2007
Link
May 10, 2007 10:15 PM
Re-posting incase ya missed it.
Link
Sunshine Jim said...
eya bridge.
i bet if you thought about it for a bit, you could come up with a bunch of reasons.
i represent a breed of repubs that no one is aware of here.
you'll see eventually. labels are what we make them.
Then why not go Independent??
As I said, I am mostly non partisan
I don't even like any of the Democratic candidates
well, perhaps Kucinich
-conbo
no its not
sorry, Sunny Jim
I am quite shocked that you come up with this lame argument
there is a HUGE diff. between liberals and conservative politics
HUGE
the first two debates were symbolic of that fact - and quite significant in both style and substance for any analyst
As a Republican you must be thrilled to see the Supreme Court turn blood red then -
But if you still don't know and accept the difference betw. the parties
who am I do tell you otherwise
-------------
blah blah blah said...
if you're 401K allows it, there should be other selections you can make like real estate or bonds such that you still get a decent return but your money isn't used for things you disagree with.
May 10, 2007 6:58 PM
________________________
Good resources for more information -
Social Investing:
http://www.coopamerica.org/socialinvesting/
http://www.socialinvest.org/
--------------------------
401(k) Plans:
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc424.html
http://www.401khelpcenter.com/
there is a HUGE diff. between liberals and conservative politics
HUGE
ummm we were dicussing repubs and dems right?
semantics: The study of language meaning.
we are pretty dam bad at it.
Sunny J is not a Republican like you or I know them
And thats good!
:)
-conbo
My Father was a AF WWII B-29 Navagator/Co-Pilot.He was a Republican.I loved him,but I thought he was crazy most of the time.But in a good way,most of the time.Now,my Mother Was a Navy WWII Nurse.I loved her too.She wasn't crazy though.And,she was A Democrat.But,one thing my Dad,the Republican said that I will never forget.Is that Everyone in Congress are Crooks! It's just been my experience that Republican names sure seem to pop up more often Dems.......We need to get the Money out of the Election system.CLEAN Elections!Because,if your not for having Clean Transparent Elections,your just talking outof yours ass! :)
you've all had a good look at what i do and my opinions.
if ya don't know by now who i am, well...
as far as me personally, ya either trust me or ya don't.
i love ya all, even when you drive me crazy. i think every one of you is worth helping.
what goes around comes around. i'm just wqaiting as patiently as i can.
repub and dems, liberal and conservative are all misused labels, almost meaningless currently.
there are those that serve themselves and there are those that serve others.
that's a pretty good foundation for evaluating individuals.
ignore what people say, examine carefully what they do.
Paging,Party of One
you'll see eventually. labels are what we make them
--
I know what I know, Jim, and I am not born yesterday -
please don't patronize me
I also studied Semantics and Symbolic Anthropology - and I am not at all bad at it.
Republicans are Republicans and Schnapps ist Schnapps - old German saying.
Voting Republican is voting Republican.
People hang around on the net for all kind of reasons.
But what is the fascination of a liberal blog for you? Obviously, Sam et al don't have any impact on your thinking at all.
P.S. You must tell me immediately the SECRET Breed of Repubs you are representing, Jim. You Must!
And This is an order!
;-)
i'm a repub that voted for "W"s opponent and urged other "kneejerk' repubs to do the same.
(and got a shitload of other repubs to do the same)
i use repub like a judo master.
thats the problem with erroneous labels, they're misleading.
they hide the truth.
if you don't trust me by now, what difference will my defense make?
I think Sunny J might be referring to the Goldwater type Republicans
-conbo
-----------------
Sunshine Jim said...
sigh, shit like this makes me want to go back to being selfish again.
May 10, 2007 11:03 PM
______________________
Sunshine Jim,
What's this about being selfish again?
Am I supposed to believe you were both selfish and a Republican?
I live for the irony!
I love ya SJ.I was just teasing ya. :) But ,A Republican!!!!Again,Just Kidding!! :)I don't care what you are really.Just as long as a person is honest,and dosen't hurt anybody.Their Cool with me....But,Holly shit A Republican?? Again,and not for the last time,I'm Kidding!! :)
Anonymous said...
Paging,Party of One
May 10, 2007 11:22 PM
Wow!Cool Picture!
look,
i'm an old fart, i been doing this since 1968.
i've been an active lobbyist and activist for longer than a few of you have been on the planet.
i've done more research and dug deeper than most and admit theres still lot's i need to learn.
either ya trust me or ya don't eh?
if ya don't i still love ya anyhow.
"i live for the irony."
yubb, me too.
I agree with Sunshine Jim, language matters - labels less so. It's ok if Jim is Republican, just as it's ok that I, and many of Sam's bloggers (I imagine) are Democrats, probably liberals. :) :). Com/passion matters, too, but it easily slides into offending language and turns off people, the people that need to hear our message - the people who would vote/follow our way. To call someone "retarded" is hurtful and shows a lack of respect toward another human being. It is better to ignore the individual (i.e. War Dog) than to belittle or demean him/her. Peace
It would be funny, if it wasn't so insulting. I'm speaking about Alberto Gonzales testimony today. Of course Brain Lamb, being the Republican ass kisser he is, kicked it to Cspan 3. If the world was watching, they certainly saw what a dangerous joke the United States has become. There he was, the so-called chief law enforcement officer of America lying, smirking, and laughing through his teeth. A virtual finger to the American People, is what he gave today.
It appeared that the House Republicans received a tongue lashing from from the pink pig himself, Karl Rove. He probably didn't like what those Senate Republicans did at the last hearing. Because today, they were licking the butt of Gonzales like it was a red candy apple. There were no challenges to Gonzales incompetence at all. It was just shameful.
Frankly, I think the American People need to hire some good lawyers. Oh don't laugh! After all, no one is representing us. The Republican Party should be sued until there is nothing left but bankruptcy.
You are a good friend on the blog, Jim
but we are not talking about trust and such
The discussion is about political orientation and to identify self as a Republican has meaning.
Look, We have been blogging together for over three years. Of course, we are friends and always remain so I hope. I was just really surprised.
A Republican, Jim? Really?
Ok. I wont mention it again ;-)
xoxoxo
Deborah from Kansas!
(tank's kiddoo, yer getting subtle in yer old age)
Ya,let's all get off Jim's back.He's cool.
Now for something completley diiferent..
Rudy Campaign Reportedly Snubs Farmer For Not Being Rich; Will Media Cover It?
May 10, 2007 -- 04:47 PM EST // View Comments (150) // Post a Comment
Did Rudy Giuliani's campaign snub an Iowa farmer couple because they weren't millionaires and hence wouldn't be a suitable prop for Rudy's anti-"death tax" campaigning? And will the haircut-obsessed political media cover it?
Check out this unbelievable story from the Anamosa Journal-Eureka in Jones County, Iowa, the accuracy of which I've just confirmed by phone with one of the people in it:
Link
Jim is a Republican.
So is my Brother.
But I love them both anyhoo.
I'm a Democrat who can't spell worth sh-t sometimes.So there! :)
"Ok. I wont mention it again ;-)"
no, ding dang it! figger it out, it ain't that complex!
the art of war? the prince?
the millions of links we've posted?
basic human nature? love/hate?
yin yang? service vs selfish?
on the other hand, you have my encouragement to do what you will including ignoring me.
love ya anyway.
thanks eep!
i'm trying to be the best repub you all will ever know.
love ya back dear, appreciate it too!
you all realise being a republican when the label is so mutable is an inside joke right?
on the other hand it makes a dam good prybar when yer dealing with folks that believe in corporate media BS.
this episode is brought to you by CRACK
Naughty
Freshman Dems who voted against the McGovern amendment, which would've led to withdrawal.
Giffords
McNerney
Mahoney
Donnelly
Ellsworth
Hill
Boyda
Shuler
Wilson
Space
Altmire
Carney
Lampson
Rodriguez
...missed one, Mitchell (thanks to hadenough).
I think I got them all. Someone correct me if I missed any.
What were they thinking??
Link
ya, love ya too bridge,
yer a classy lass and a good friend.
eya mmrules
they were thinking of themselves, and not to dam well considering what we're up against
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
10 Out Of 10 Democrats Hate Freedom .Assimilated Press.
Link
ok,
the main reason is i'm trying to
show you that some repubs are dam
good peeps and you need to get
them on your side instead of
dismissing them as evil idiots and
that you need to learn how to
work with em in order to survive
what's coming down the road at
all of us.
theres a lot more but that's the basic riff.
Sunshine Jim said...
eya mmrules
they were thinking of themselves, and not to dam well considering what we're up against
Oh,I know..Were having enough problems with those Damn Republicans!Op sorry.Just kidding again.I'll stop now :)
"What were they thinking??"
Lampson has DeLay's former seat.
I'm guessing there's something in the water in TX
Jim
I know that
All my friends are Republican (except 2)
I live in gdm Arizona
What I meant was Republican Politicians
sorry I forgot you were a republican supporter before Bush
If you want to get down to semantics NONE OF US ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRATIC
we are just citizens
-conbo
----------
Sunshine Jim said...
i use repub like a judo master.
if you don't trust me by now, what difference will my defense make?
May 10, 2007 11:32 PM
_______________________
Sunshine Jim -
Judo Master, Fisherman, Beekeeper, Blog Buddy, Crafty Dude, Dreamboat, and an Undercover Republican Operative!
p.s. By the way, is Sunshine "Dreamboat" Jim playing his Vox still in a box? You asked me to remind you.
eya V
"Oh,I know..Were having enough problems with those Damn Republicans!"
humor is absolutely the best weapon we have.
Ya #,
imagine sifting thru the rubble after a hurricane looking for someones kid. think being a repub or dem is gonna be on anyones mind?
nsh.
whether we like it or not we're all in this together and the sooner we realise that the better.
hee!
i also admit to being the most absentminded peep i know.
vox in the box, i'll start digging now.
Vox Amp?
//imagine sifting thru the rubble after a hurricane looking for someones kid. think being a repub or dem is gonna be on anyones mind?//
As long as a RETARDED PERSON is not manning the lifeboat I think I can get along
-conbo
Crank Bait said...
A compulsive old joke disorder prevents me from writing "innuendo" without following it with "and out the other."
May 10, 2007 11:35 AM
------------------
Hey! Whose line is it, anyway?
As long as a RETARDED PERSON is not manning the lifeboat I think I can get along
-conbo
Hahahahaha!
btw that means I probably should not be first mate
-conbo
Or Captain...
But, life jackets are cool and they don't argue with you
-conbo
i can't believe it!
out of three apple boxes full of photos in the basement the third pic i looked at was the one we were talking about!
gimme a day to scan it and remind me tommorow or the next day and i'll have it posted.
(gotta disconnect the printer and plug in the scanner to do it and i'm not gonna try THAT tonite)
ya #, tell what it reminds me of
we're in this lealy lifeboat and we've got an insane captain that keeps shooting holes in the bottom of the boat and does'nt care cuz he thinks he can swim a thousand miles thru ice water with GAWDS help, and i'm patching holes and making people bail water when they'd rather sit and bitch about the cold.
my old vox 12 string, which is sitting in a box a few feet away from me.
been so long ago that we talked about it i forget what we were talking about. it was taken the day i gave everyone a ride in the river to watch the fireworks when they accidently lit off half of them at once.
this was at the BBQ we got going down at the docks. i had a beard then, and i still have the hat.
I am beginning to miss Janeane
she was and is a fine liberal Dem - more progressive than most
She had a lot of courage - was one of the v. few celebs who dared to speak out ./. the R e p u b l i c a n s and the current Admin.
She was bashed to bits by all the rightwingers, esp. Scarborough
Go Janeane!
all in all i'd say Janeane kicked ass pretty good so far.
she's a great comedian, and the crowd loves her.
Did someone say Janeane??
Link
hee #
i'd be glad to have ya aboard.
i'm waiting for A. to report on the model plane care package.
hope it went well.
"Did someone say Janeane??"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0sWzO3Gjs0
hahahahahha!
*wipes a tear from eye*
Thanks for that!
RePeach!
Is Glenn Beck An Anti-Semite?
My two sense:
Link
Np dada..I just wish there was more Sam&Janeane on youTube.She plays a great Katherine"Wacko from Fla."Harris....
The fighting in Shindand, between April 27th and 29th, began with a failed American special forces operation to grab a local warlord and suspected Taliban ally, Mullah Akhtar. A former Taliban commander, he had previously received support from the Afghan government (and allegedly from American forces) against another warlord, Ismael Khan. In the attempt to capture him, according to an American army press release, 136 Taliban fighters and one American soldier were killed, but no civilians.
A team of UN and government investigators sent to Shindand last week found several hundred houses destroyed by air-strikes and heard reports of many civilians dead and injured. Some 1,600 families had fled the area. Among the dead were said to be many children, including some who had drowned after diving into a river to escape the onslaught.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9141410
"She plays a great Katherine"Wacko from Fla."Harris...."
Yup.
Where else is she going to have a chance to do that bit?
In my opinion, Sam's show is a classic. Hard to beieve the "powers that be" wouldn't understand what they have there, what they are passing up.
Oh well. Their loss, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0sWzO3Gjs0
thanks for that - lol
Go Janeane!
--
Sunny Jim,
I hope I didn't cause you to be upset now
are we ok?
Bridge, i love you in the best possible way, i enjoy being challenged, and i respect people that do so.
you have my respect, affection amd appreciation, and i enjoy your company immensely while we're figuring how to turn this all around.
He's fine!
-conbo
dada said...
"She plays a great Katherine"Wacko from Fla."Harris...."
Yup.
Where else is she going to have a chance to do that bit?
In my opinion, Sam's show is a classic. Hard to beieve the "powers that be" wouldn't understand what they have there, what they are passing up.
Oh well. Their loss, right?
May 11, 2007 1:33 AM
I agree with you 100%
Did you see this one?Where she's debating a ass hole on the Faux morning show.It got me soooo pissed!This before the Iraq war.Everything she says is true!!
Link
thank you so much, Jim
I'll sleep so much better now knowing everything is fine w. us
I have to go offline but had to make sure we are ok first -
sending big friendly Hug up north to you and the lovely dogs xo
night all :)
"Hard to beieve the "powers that be" wouldn't understand what they have there..."
c'mon, you still think they're on our side?
sheesh! they HAD to kill it off. Sam kept sneaking up the what's really happening, though i still think he's working his way past a fair amount of TV brainwashing and still letting them frame the issues.
no biggie, he's still one of the best researchers in the american media.
what does upset me is that we are'nt able to two-way with him on the bloggie.
i'm afraid that instead of getting some recognition and being part of the show we'll be relegated to relative obscurity.
sonds like the "bloggers" of his blog intensive program will be KOS, et al. i doubt will have a role in the show in any meaningful way.
hope i'm wrong but i remember getting aced out of even a mention in FUBAR.
night bridge!
no probs at all,
you gave me a good
oppotunity to make a
point and i appreciate it.
She was bashed to bits by all the rightwingers, esp. Scarborough
Go Janeane!
May 11, 2007 12:57 AM
----------------------
You know Bridge, Scarborough is an idiot. Perhaps, those walled eyes of his affected his brain. The most annoying is that pep school prick, Tucker Carlson. Oh I could slap his snarky little mouth.
With the exception of Keith Obermann, MSNBC is pretty pathetic.
But of course, that's most of mainstream media.
yupper eep
downright pathetic.
what i'm hoping is we'll
realise we have to do it ourselves.
i'm really liking firedoglake
and that incredible crew
over there, they've
definitely surpassed
our best efforts here
because they've been given
the opportunity to run the bloggie.
Perhaps some one on th blog could answer some questions for me? I really don't know the answer. So please I'm serious! Why did Tony Blair do it? Why did he get involved with Bush & Iraq? What did he hope to gain?
we figured Blair was cueing up for a slot in the carlyle group.
a lot of this crap comes from elites scrabbling for control since King George in the revolutionary period.
sometime give the beginning of banking a good study. a lot of this becomes understandable once you see what they did from that point.
Jim,
I'm ashamed to say that my visits to firedoglake have been rare. However, I will start to check it out more often.
in the absract it's all about greed, power and rationalising a particularly socially destructive form of insanity.
------------
Sunshine Jim said...
i can't believe it!
gimme a day to scan it and remind me tommorow or the next day and i'll have it posted.
May 11, 2007 12:44 AM
----------------------
Sunshine Jim said...
been so long ago that we talked about it i forget what we were talking about. it was taken the day i gave everyone a ride in the river to watch the fireworks when they accidently lit off half of them at once.
May 11, 2007 12:56 AM
_________________________
Sunshine Jim,
Yes, I will remind you. You were talking about your sweet Vox and boat at the 4th of July celebration.
This means that Sunshine "Dreamboat" Jim with his Vox is no longer in a box!
Good to know!
Well Jim,
I certainly didn't buy the spin that Blair thought Bush was going to solve the Palestinian tragedy. Thanks.
Nite All
Tony Blair has close ties to British Petroleum, akin to Dick Cheney and Halliburton.
It was profitable for him to go to war with Iraq, or would have been if the Brits were as maleable as the Retarded Republicans.
-conbo
BP WON’T BOYCOTT THE PENTAGON, CLAIMS INNOCENCE OF “GEOPOLITICS”; BUT DON’T DO A GOOGLE SEARCH
BP, and Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, has been involved in Iraq since the early 1900s. In 1920, CNN says, Anglo-Iranian became the largest shareholder in the Iraq Petroleum Company, a cartel of Western oil companies “that sought to carve up the energy resources of Iraq and those of other Middle East nations.”
BP is politically and socially intertwined with the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who made John Browne, the head of BP, a lord. A top adviser to Blair became BP’s communications director in 2001. When Blair’s Labor Party came into power, former BP chairman David Simon became Blair’s Minister of European Trade and Competitiveness, according to AngloCatholicSocialism.org,, and “numerous (BP) executives have served on governmental taskforces or been seconded to the Foreign Office or Department of Trade and Industry. Some commentators call BP “Blair Petroleum”.
BP is also involved with powerful functionaries in the U.S., which continues to work toward dominance in oil in the Caspian region, according to an article entitled “Revolution, geopolitics and pipelines” in the Asia Times of June 30, 2005.
The article reports that BP was the major backer of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline to bring oil from the Caspian region to the world market, and:
“Former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was a consultant to BP during the Bill Clinton era, urging Washington to back the project. In fact, it was Brzezinski who went to Baku in 1995, unofficially, on behalf of Clinton, to meet with then-Azeri(Azerbaijan) president Haidar Aliyev, to negotiate new independent Baku pipeline routes, including what became the BTC (Baku-Ceyhan) pipeline.”
CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad. Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed tonight by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Watch it:
LINK
7 Tips to Build a Blog Community
By Pachacutec @ 1:34 pm
There's been some healthy discussion lately about how to build up a blog community, mostly in the context of encouraging more diversity within the progressive online movement. Jenifer Fernandez-Arcona wrote a good diary here, and Matt Stoller identified some best practices for using an online platform to build power here.
I'd like to jump in with some things I think we've learned here at FDL about how to build a successful online community and platform, with the caveat that this is just my point of view, and I'm not saying everyone has to do it the way we have. I'm also not saying that our model would apply directly to all communities, for example, to communities who traditionally remain excluded from widespread Internet usage due to economic pressures and structural lack of access. So, grab your salt, and keep the grains handy as you read. Successful case studies are helpful, but they're not the end of the conversation.
Tip #1: Post Fresh Content Every Day, Multiple Times Per Day
If you want to generate a pretty highly trafficked blog community, the the "physics" of the online audience and medium demand fresh content all the time, multiple times per day. People will come when they feel they might be missing something good if they don't stop by. That doesn't really happen with just daily content, because people can scan and absorb in one quick sitting a few blog posts at once. That means, if you post content daily, they can surf through your blog once or twice a week.
That can become a vicious cycle. There is a lot of competition for eyeballs out there. With other sites doing more content than you do, you risk falling behind, and people may fall out of the habit of checking your site. Blogs can have a shopping mall effect: everyone goes there because everyone goes there, and your specialty shop may have great stuff, but if it's in an out of the way location, people may just miss it.
Tip #2: Enlist a Group of Writers
Because of the incredible demands involved on your time for Tip #1, you really should get help. Even Atrios, the Cal Ripken, Jr. of the blogosphere, has people with keys to the site like Attaturk or Thers who jump in when he's busy. If it takes you an hour or half an hour to write a post, expect to do two or three times as much time in reading before you write, because the only value you have to a reader is the ability to bring a fresh perspective. That means reading so you can connect some dots or do some digging and research. That might mean reporting, as TPM does through its network of sites, or it could mean higher level commentary and the provision of insight, the way Steve Gilliard, Digby or Taylor Marsh do, to name a very few.
Tip #3: Build a Brand and Exploit a Niche
In the busines world, more than one company can exploit a given niche. For example, both Borders and Barnes and Noble sell books in retail stores. There are many frozen food companies. But in the blogosphere, it seems to me that each successful blog does something unique, and once that territory is claimed, there's no real opportunity to grab that audience by doing more or less the same thing, unless the first mover retires from blogging.
For example, Jane Hamsher saw a niche for a strong woman's voice in politics whose point of view was rather broad in terms of progressive politics. Steve Gilliard has a niche that combines journalistic critique, great historical knowledge (especially military history) and an African American perspective.
Read the rest of this entry »
LINK
thats a good article ToniD!
:)
-conbo
First!
May 10, 2007 -- WMR has received a third well-placed confirmation that Vice President Dick Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, was a client of the escort service of DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. In addition, one of Cheney's closest military advisers and friends was also a client of the DC Madam's Pamela Martin & Associates escort service. Cheney used the escort service while he was a part time resident of the posh Ballantrae section of McLean, Virginia.
After intense pressure from the White House and Disney executives, ABC News killed the DC Madam client story after having been given exclusive access to Palfrey's ten years' of phone call records.
Cheney made an unscheduled visit to Iraq during his tour of the Middle East.
He thought he would be treated as a liberator!
Morning all!!
Hey Fish!! How're you doing?
Iraq officials to
push for support
Worried Congress' support for Iraq is deteriorating rapidly, Baghdad dispatched senior officials to Capitol Hill this week to warn members one-on-one that pulling out U.S. troops would have disastrous consequences.
LINK
USDA in talks to allow poultry from China to be sold in US
by Chris in Paris · 5/11/2007 02:18:00 AM ET
Discuss this post here: Comments (26) · digg it · reddit · FARK · · Link
From one bad idea to another. Who needs regulation anyway?
In China, some farmers try to maximize the output from their small plots by flooding produce with unapproved pesticides, pumping livestock with antibiotics banned in the United States, and using human feces as fertilizer to boost soil productivity. But the questionable practices don't end there: Chicken pens are frequently suspended over ponds where seafood is raised, recycling chicken waste as a food source for seafood, according to a leading food safety expert who served as a federal adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.
Mmmmm, dig in! The Bush team continues to cook up some excellent policy.
LINK
What's Happening...
Gates of the DOD has told the Iraqi Gov't not to take a 2 month vacation.
Cheney was sent to ask them not to take a 2 month vacation. He received no commitment from the Iraqis that they would not take the vacation.
Cheney will go to Saudi Arabia to talk to the Sheik who does not like Maliki and says that the surge isn't working.
Some Iraqi officials are here asking us not to leave.
Sadr Shiites want us to leave.
If it were me, the day the Iraqi gov't starts their two month vacation, I would order the troops to start leaving Iraq. Starting in Bagdad.
I don't like the Maliki gov't either! Something doesn't sit right with me about him.
Europeans press Wolfowitz to quit as bank chief
European leaders have told the Bush administration that Paul D. Wolfowitz must resign as president of the World Bank .
LINK
Push to oust Gonzales
loses momentum
Republican members of Congress on Thursday leapt to the defence of Alberto Gonzales, the embattled US attorney-general, as Democratic efforts to oust him appeared to lose momentum.
LINK
CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad.Iraq veteran Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war. He was interviewed tonight by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. Watch it:
Link
Good morning tonid! :)
Former 'LA Times' Baghdad Chief Says Iraqis Are 'Humiliated'
By Joe Strupp
Published: May 10, 2007 3:40 PM ET
NEW YORK Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the "surge" in Iraq will work, and describes Iraq citizens as "hostile" and "humiliated" after four years of war.
Asked by Brian Lamb, in a forthcoming C-SPAN interview, about his personal views on the war, he replied: "I think at this point, it just – it seems like it’s become a disaster. I mean, I don’t think anyone could dispute that. It’s just going very, very, very, very badly." He said he had mixed feelings about the invasion but "As time wore on, though, as the bodies mounted, it just seems more and more like a really bad mistake."
The interview will be broadcast Sunday night.
Daragahi, a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, admits to deceiving his family, and editors, on some occasions about life in the war zone: "You know, there was no planning of, OK, I'm going to deceive my wife, I'm going to deceive my family. It was just, you know, you're in this crush of news and trying to get the story out....in addition to that, I had all these bureaucratic duties, because I became bureau chief. I had all these managerial duties - finances and safety issues and logistics, and so on. And so, the pressure, the amount of work was so intense that you end up perhaps sacrificing some facts when you're recounting your day to your family or your spouse, and even your editors."
Daragahi, an Iranian-born journalist who has also worked as a freelancer, plans to return to the Middle East soon as a Times' Beirut correspondent. In the interview with C-SPAN, scheduled to run Sunday night at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., he recounts life in the war-torn area, how he survived the mental and physical demand, and the difficulties of being a freelancer overseas.
--On why he believes the military surge won't work:
"Because there is not - even according to General Petraeus' own guidebook for fighting counterinsurgencies, they're not using soldiers, they're not using enough troops to accomplish their goals...But also, more fundamentally, I don't think that they can do this militarily. I don't think the fundamental problems in Iraq right now are military problems."
-- On why Iraqis feel humiliated:
"Iraqis are rather hostile and feel humiliated. And that's the key thing that maybe some of our policymakers don't understand. The presence of the U.S. soldiers is very humiliating to the Iraqis. Even those who, in their minds know that it's necessary to have the soldiers there, at least some kind of force there preventing an all-out civil war from getting even worse...I don't think they appreciate American culture."
-- On charges that the press is too negative on Iraq:
Well, I would just say, show me those goods.
For example, is infant mortality going down? Is the number of attacks on U.S. and coalition forces going down?
Are the number of Iraqis who are fleeing the country declining? Is there an increase in employment? So, let’s see the facts.
Is there a decrease in the number of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed day to day? If there is, we’ve reported it. I mean, if there has been – and we put it prominently on page one.
LINK
Rove pushed voter fraud cases before ‘06 election.McClatchy reports, “Only weeks before last year’s pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.”
Link
Mike Huckabee is Apparently Running for President (Or Something)
For an animator who likes to work with found audio, the 2008 presidential race is an embarrassment of riches. Candidates have multimedia material all over their web sites and MySpace pages, and there's always YouTube for the stuff the candidates don't want you to see or hear.
While most people who watch this material are either trying to make an informed choice or are really bored at work, I'm watching these short videos in search of comedy gold. And it's there, if you know where to look.
So here's a short animation of Republican contender Mike Huckabee, based on actual audio from his MySpace page.
watch it
DeLay to headline ethics seminar RAW STORY
Published: Thursday May 10, 2007
Wtf?
Link
Greenspan sees one-third chance of recession By Mia Shanley and Kevin Yao
1 hour, 28 minutes ago
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday he still believed there was a one-third chance that the U.S. economy would slip into recession this year, reiterating a statement made in March.
Greenspan shook markets in February when he said it was possible the U.S. economy might fall into recession by the end of the year. He later said he saw a one-third chance of a recession.
"My arithmetic says if there's a one-third probability of a recession, then there's a two-thirds probability there won't be a recession," Greenspan told a closed-door Merrill Lynch investor forum, according to an official at the U.S. investment bank.
The United States economy grew at a tepid 1.3 percent annualized rate in the first quarter -- the weakest pace in four years.
Greenspan said he had not changed his view on the health of the world's biggest economy but conceded that some might say he had changed his mind, the official quoted him as saying.
Greenspan spoke via a satellite link from Washington. His remarks contrast with those of Ben Bernanke, the Fed's chairman, who has played down the risk of a recession.
Commenting on the strength of the Chinese currency, the yuan or renminbi, Greenspan said China, the world's fourth-largest economy, would bear the brunt of its artificially weak currency and that money supply was growing too rapidly.
"It's in China's self-interest to allow the renminbi to move up faster," he was quoted as saying.
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Soft US data raise new fears for Fed By Michael Mackenzie in New York, Chris Giles in London and Ralph Atkins in Dublin
Thu May 10, 6:15 PM ET
US stocks suffered their worst one-day decline in two months after weak chain-store sales and a widening trade deficit raised concerns about the health of the US economy.
A run of data showing slowing economic growth could raise fresh challenges for the US Federal Reserve after it reiterated its concern over inflation at its policy meeting on Wednesday. US retail sales and inflation at the production level for April are due today.
The data followed hawkish stances from the two main European central banks, which signalled that they would move further to control inflationary pressures across the Continent. The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter point to 5.5 per cent, while the European Central Bank indicated that it would also move rates higher next month.
Some investors had expected an even more vigilant tone, and both the euro and the pound moved to their lowest levels against the dollar in more than a month.
European stocks closed lower on Thursday, and are expected to come under further pressure today after losses on Wall Street.
The US trade deficit prompted analysts to slash their forecasts for US first-quarter growth to below 1 per cent. The provisional government estimate put it at 1.3 per cent. US markets were also unnerved when it was revealed that 85 per cent of US retailers missed their shop sale targets in April. The S&P 500 decline of 1.4 per cent was its largest loss in a day since mid-March.
If anyone thinks that if the stock market is up, our economy is good, They're wrong
Giuliani campaign snubs Iowa farmer for being poor
By: Steve Benen @ 5:15 AM - PDT
I wonder what would happen if a Democratic presidential campaign pulled a stunt like this with a low-income farmer in Iowa.
Deb and Jerry VonSprecken received a call last weekend from Rudy Giuliani's campaign, asking if they'd host a campaign rally on their Iowa farm. They were delighted to accept, and started making preparations. Then the campaign called back.
“They wanted to know our assets,” she revealed, and added that she and Jerry have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle.
Later she received a call from Tony Delgado at the Des Monies location.
“Tony said, ‘I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.’ then he said they weren’t going to be able to come,” Deb continued.
The Death Tax is a federal version of the Iowa Inheritance Tax.
The VonSpreckens then called Delgado back and told him how upset they were that the event had been cancelled, how much work they had done and that they had been expecting 75-100 people at their farm.
“I invited him into my home,” Deb said of Giuliani, fighting back tears.
Read the rest. It sounds like Giuliani's campaign has some explaining to do
LINK
I made a quick design proposal for Sam's new logo for the Sunday show. I'm sure others have sent their own suggestions as well.
Its quite understated, just simple treatment. i'll try to work on another with an illustration of Sam
http://www.the-nmc.com/nmc/APF/images/seder-APFdesign.gif
Fox New’s Bret Baier told Dick Cheney, “You are portrayed by your opponents and some in the media as this sinister figure, as this cold-blooded warmonger who doesn’t care about the number of body bags going back.” Cheney said that he regrets the casualties, but added, “Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden. He’s the man with the authority to commit the force.”
LINK
Yesterday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), “a loyal Republican who’s always voted with the president on Iraq issues,” said he will “draft a bill that implements the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report…which included benchmarks and a timeline for troop withdrawal.”
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Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick notes that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ role in the U.S. Attorneys scandal has shifted to that of a “decoy.” “He’s the guy who runs out in front of the hunters and draws their fire so nobody pays any attention to what’s happening at the White House.”
LINK
"My arithmetic says if there's a one-third probability of a recession, then there's a two-thirds probability there won't be a recession," Greenspan told a closed-door Merrill Lynch investor forum...
Mad Jethro Bodine ciphering skills!
G'morning Toni, PunditFight!
mornin gang!
eya punditfight
good stuff, either would work
i like serif typefaces ordinarily
but both would work with appropriate graphics.
Senators who weakened drug bill received millions from industry
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Senators who raised millions of dollars in campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests secured industry-friendly changes to a landmark drug-safety bill, according to public records and interviews.
The bill, which passed 93-1, grants the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority to monitor the safety of drugs after they are approved. It addressed some shortcomings that allowed the painkiller Vioxx to stay on the market for years after initial signs that it could cause heart attacks.
However, the powers granted to the FDA in the bill's original version were pared back during private meetings. And efforts to curb conflicts of interest among FDA advisers and allow consumers to buy cheaper drugs from other countries were defeated in close votes.
• A measure that blocked an effort to allow drug importation passed, 49-40. The 49 senators who voted against drug importation received about $5 million from industry executives and political action committees since 2001 — nearly three quarters of the industry donations to current members of the Senate, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by two non-partisan groups, Center for Responsive Politics and PoliticalMoneyLine.
• Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he demanded removal of language that would have allowed the FDA to ban advertising of high-risk drugs for two years because it would restrict free speech. Roberts has raised $18,000 from drug interests so far this year, records show, and $66,000 since 2001. His spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said he "takes great pains to keep fundraising and official actions separate."
• Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., claimed authorship of a change that reduced the FDA's power to require post-market safety studies. He said he wanted to target drugs only if there was evidence of harm. Gregg has raised $168,500 from drug executives and PACs since 2001 and sided with them in four key votes.
• The bill's chief sponsors — Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., — agreed after consultations with industry officials and others to modify a proposal that all clinical drug studies be made public, said Craig Orfield, Enzi's spokesman. Under the change, only those studies submitted to the FDA would be available.
Enzi took in $174,000 from drug interests since 2001; Kennedy, $78,000. Their spokesmen said the money did not influence them.
Senators also voted down an amendment that would have made it harder for scientists who have accepted money from a drug company to advise the FDA on drug approval applications from that firm.
"It's not that money buys votes," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the lone vote against the bill. "But you have a culture in which big money has significant influence. Big money gains you access, access gives you the time to influence people."
LINK
They let the American people down on this one. I would write my Senators on this and tell them how you feel.
The Changing Terms for Iraq “Success”
By Scarecrow @ 5:15 am
Link
greenspan is a corporate shill for one of the worst mistakes or scams ever commited, the "federal" "reserve" board.
notice how this press release cloaks him in legitimacy, while the reality is that the 'fed' is one of the major scams used to control us?
remember when they denied us acsess to information on how much money they were actually flooding the 'system' with?
we need to print and manage our own money and get rid of greenspan and his 'craps' shoot.
"one out of three", "two out of three". that's the most ridiculous thing he's said in years of misleading statements.
whoa baby!
they're trying to destroy us!
http://tinyurl.com/ypqdbg
"American inspectors who arrived in China last week to investigate the two companies that exported tainted pet food ingredients found that the suspect facilities had been hastily closed down and cleaned up, federal officials said yesterday.
"There is nothing to be found. They are essentially shut down and not operating," said Walter Batts, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's office of international programs.
Word of the American team's inability to conduct a firsthand inspection came as investigators in this country learned that as many as 198 U.S. fish farms and hatcheries may have received fish feed contaminated with the chemical melamine, which came from the same two Chinese companies."
Meleamine and CYANURIC ACID!
which combined form an even nastier kidney killer.
bad as they are without those hatcheries fish we're screwed.
My Response to the McCain Campaign's Attacks on Planned Parenthood
By Cecile Richards, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted May 11, 2007.
Link
HOW SENATORS VOTED
The Senate voted 49-40 this week to require U.S. officials to certify the safety and effectiveness of prescription medicines imported from foreign countries. The vote effectively killed an effort to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad. A "yes" vote, supported by drugmakers, was a vote to adopt the certification requirement and a "no" vote was a vote to defeat it.
Here are the top recipients of contributions from pharmaceutical executives and political action committees from 2001 through March, and how they voted:
Senator 2001-07 contributions Vote
Richard Burr, R-N.C. $520,694 Yes
John Kerry, D-Mass. $304,888 Yes
Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. $281,040 Yes
Arlen Specter, R-Pa. $259,699 Yes
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah $241,850 Yes
Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa $216,599 No
Max Baucus, D-Mont. $199,000 Yes
Chris Dodd, D-Conn. $192,025 Did not vote
Tom Carper, D-Del. $183,794 Yes
Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. $174,338 Yes
Eastern US summers to 'get much hotter'
NASA study says daily highs to be 10 degrees warmer within decades.
Hell on Earth!
effin A Toni.
truth is that that increase can ve exponential in increase.
gonna happen wayyyy faster and hotter than they're letting on.
Wonder how at what mega-tonnage some of you Seder-heads will detonate, if Lionel says something "pro-gun" next week?
LOL!
Lawmakers squabble over CIA's look at global warming Michael Roston
Published: Friday May 11, 2007
The Chairman and Ranking Republican on a committee in the House of Representatives that oversees America's spy agencies continued a war of words over whether or not the Central Intelligence Agency should complete an assessment of the threat to the United States from global warming. The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee accused his counterparts of wasting intelligence resources on 'bugs and bunnies.'
"House Democrats want to return to the days when the CIA wasted valuable resources on 'bugs and bunnies.' My objection is not about the validity of global climate change. I am concerned about whether it is an intelligence issue," wrote Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-CA) in a Thursday Wall Street Journal op-ed. "While Democrats call for U.S. intelligence agencies to study global climate change, they continue to grossly underestimate the terrorist threat."
Hoekstra, who chaired the committee in the Republican Congress, was referring to an order in the Intelligence Authorization bill, passed Thursday, which called on the CIA to complete a 'national intelligence estimate' or NIE on the threat posed by global climate change. NIEs represent the highest level assessment of a particular security concern completed by America's intelligence community.
The ranking Republican pointed to the 1990s in the Clinton administration "when scarce resources were diverted to issues that clearly were not related to the businesses of intelligence. There was a mistaken belief then that serious threats to U.S. national security diminished or disappeared with the end of the Cold War."
Indeed, Hoekstra even accused former CIA head John Deutch of trying to 'curry favor' with then-Vice President Al Gore by directing CIA spy satellites to photograph ecologically sensitive sites and therefore ignoring "the first World Trade Center bombing...in 1993 and in August of 1996 Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa, 'Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.'"
House Democrats challenged Hoekstra's assessment of the decision to conclude the NIE on global warming and the threats it could pose.
"Our request for a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the national security impact of climate change does not divert resources from higher-priority items," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), committee chairman, in a statement released yesterday. "We heeded the advice of eleven former three- and four-star admirals and generals who have studied this issue and recommended an NIE. They believe that significant changes in global climate may act as a 'threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.'"
Reyes was referring to a report published by intelligence community contractor CNA Corporation on 'National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.' The retired military officers who signed off on the document warned of the geopolitical implications of climate change.
LINK
This climate change is scaring me more than any terrorist could! Look at what is happening right now! Fires on both coasts, floods in the lower plaines states. Drought in other areas. Horrid tornados, and now the start of hurricane season.
Will this spur more earth quakes and will this awaken the volcanoes.
c-span has a discussion of the glocal climate change on now.
Oh, and I forgot the ocean changes from melting ice caps.
Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of 'high crimes' Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday May 10, 2007
A former top State Department aide to Colin Powell said today that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are more deserving of impeachment than was Bill Clinton.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on the public radio program On Point Thursday that "Bill Clinton's peccadilloes ... pale in significance" when compared to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Bush and Cheney.
Wilkerson did not directly call on Congress to begin impeachment hearings, and he brought up impeachment in response to a caller's question. Early in the show, however, he observed, "This administration doesn't know how to effect accountability, in my opinion."
Wilkerson's comments were first reported by pro-impeachment Web site AfterDowningStreet.org.
"The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and precise -– it's high crimes and misdemeanors," he said. "You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."
Taking a historical view of impeachment, Wilkerson said he believed the Founding Fathers would be surprised that more presidents had not been impeached.
"I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some bastard out.'"Wilkerson said. "That's a form of accountability too. It's ultimate accountability."
More here
Uruguay: Worst floods in decades
Petraeus condemns torture. In an open letter yesterday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, “admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.” From the letter:
I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Irasq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat. …
Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.
LINK
Cindy Sheehan May Run for US Congress in 2008
By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, Atlanta Progressive News (May 10, 2007)
Link
Cheney offers new warning to Iran: Keep sea lanes open RAW STORY
Published: Friday May 11, 2007
Link
Britain's Brown Vows to Learn From Iraq
LONDON (AP) - Gordon Brown launched his campaign to become Britain's next prime minister on Friday, pledging to learn from the mistakes of the Iraq war while honoring "our obligations to the Iraqi people." Brown, who faces no serious opposition after waiting more than a decade for his chance to lead the country, said there needed to be a stronger emphasis on political reconciliation and economic development in Iraq.
"And obviously we've got to more to win the battle of hearts and minds against al-Qaida terrorism."
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who announced he would resign June 27, officially endorsed Brown on Friday. As Treasury chief, Brown is credited with much of Britain's recent economic boom.
"I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place," Brown said, pledging to win back voters disenchanted after a decade of Labour Party rule.
The question is whether Brown will shift Britain's role in the Iraq war, which has divided Britain.
President Bush has called Brown a thinker and easy to talk to. Brown has been more reserved in his comments about the American president, whose alliance with Blair lost the Labour Party votes.
"I accept that mistakes have been made," Brown said, adding that he will soon visit Iraq and other nations.
"We will keep our obligations to the Iraqi people. These are obligations that are part of U.N. resolution, they are in support of a democracy," he said. "I do think that over the next few months the emphasis will shift."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Brown was aware of the dangers surrounding failure in Iraq.
LINK
Friday, May 11, 2007 .Eschaton.
Bloggity Blog Part The First - The Media
This will be my long rambling response to various things which have been floating around with respect to Chait's TNR article and other related things.
Link
Glenn Greenwald -Salon
Friday May 11, 2007 08:38 EST
A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred
Various prominent personages share their visceral contempt for blogs:
John Yoo at an April 18 Civil Liberties debate (via blogger Roger Ailes):
[Since 9/11] we have had outpourings of new political speech through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed -- bloggers.
This did not exist before 9/11. Are we really in such a civil liberties crisis if bloggers are able to use this new media to say I think quite incredible things?
As Ailes says: "Yoo wishes they never existed because, unlike illegally-detained prisoners, torture victims and law school students, bloggers talk back."
Link
Gare...please stop emailing me. I WILL NOT let you blow me, EVER AGAIN. We are finished.
Today's Must Read
By Paul Kiel - May 11, 2007, 9:51 AM .TRM.
If at first you don't succeed, investigate again.
That, at least, seems to be Karl Rove's philosophy.
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Amy and Greg are On C-SPAN2 (BookTV) Sunday, May 13 at 6:00 pm (CST) / 7:00 pm (EST)
Justice Is Not An Afterthought
By: Christy Hardin Smith .Firedoglake.
Link
“We have had outpourings of new political speech [since 9/11] through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed — bloggers.” — Former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo
LINK
http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/05/timeline_the_secret_bushdemocr.html
TIMELINE: The Secret Bush-Democratic Trade Deal & What It Means
By David Sirota
Today has been a whirlwind day on the political frontlines in the War on the Middle Class, as a handful of senior congressional Democrats and the White House - cheered on by K Street lobbyists - joined forces today to announce a "deal" on a package of trade agreements that potentially calls into question the entire election mandate of 2006 (I say potentially because the full details are still being concealed by both Democrats and the White House).
Because so much has transpired in the last 6 hours, I'm going to summarize it here chronologically in bullet points to make it easier to digest. I've been covering it live all day, but figured for brevity it would be best to put it in one place. For context, remember that, as Public Citizen has documented and as business publications like Forbes Magazine has confirmed, Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 thanks to scores of challenger candidates specifically running against lobbyist-written trade policy. This 2006 lesson is particularly important to Democrats who, in the early 1990s experienced their own President campaign for office opposing unfair trade deals, then ram NAFTA through Congress "over the dead bodies" of workers, then watch the Democratic majority get decimated in the following election. I want to stress, we still don't know the details of the deal, but we do have some critically important information to analyze.
Here's the timeline of the day (you can find links to all source material referenced at www.workingassetsblog.com):
On Sunday, May 13 at 8:00 pm and Monday, May 14 at 7:00 am
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 LA Times Festival of Books - Age of Spin Panel
Description: From the LA Times Festival of Books, a panel on political spin featuring: Frank Luntz ("Words That Work"), Joe Conason ("It Can Happen Here"), David Goodman ("Static"), and Michael Isikoff ("Hubris"). The panel is moderated by John Powers.
Faith-Based Food Fumbles
Rick Goldstein
May 10, 2007
Don't eat pork: First it was supposed to be just 6,000 hogs who'd eaten melamine-contaminated salvaged pet food. Now 50,000 have been quarantined in Illinois.
Don't eat chicken: First it was three million chicken contaminated with melamine - as the FDA's new food safety "czar" reassured reporters. Then that estimate was revised upward to 20 million.
Don't eat fish: Canadian fish meal manufactured from poisoned Chinese flour fed fish now in stores across the U.S.
The links above come from David Goldstein, one of our most heroic bloggers, who has pursued the story with the zeal of an old-school investigative reporter. (Remember when we used to have those?)
Check out the "faith-based" statements he's been collecting from the public relations agencies for U.S. agribusiness funded by your very own tax dollars, the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture:
FDA and USDA believe the likelihood of illness after eating such pork is extremely low.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We have no reason to believe that any of those are currently in the human food supply as a direct ingredient.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We have no reason to believe that anything other than the rice protein concentrate or the wheat gluten have been a problem in the United States recently.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“But overall, we believe the risk to be extremely low to humans.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
“We believe that the likelihood of illness from such exposure is extremely low.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“One of the reasons we believe that this is very low in humans is due to the dilution effect.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We believe the situation in the poultry is very much like that for the swine.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We do not believe that there is any significant threat of human illness from consuming poultry.” – USDA/FDA, 5/1/2007
“We believe the likelihood of illness to humans, including infants, is extremely small.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007
“We believe the likelihood of a human illness is very remote.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007
“We have no reason to believe those animals are any risk to the public.” – USDA/FDA, 5/3/2007
Now note the statement he's collected that cancels out all of the above:
"There’s no tolerance for any of these compounds, either melamine or cyanuric acid. […] We just don’t know when we get these mixtures together. So there is no, really no acceptable level.” – USDA/FDA, 4/26/2007
Maybe we just shouldn't eat.
LINK
GOP war brewing: Rove, Cheney furious at Republican House members who met with Bush, then blabbed about it
by Joe Sudbay (DC) · 5/11/2007 10:21:00 AM ET
Seems Dick and Karl are livid. The hysterical thing is that the anger is being vented at their fellow Republicans. They are losing control.
Rove's anger popped up in today's Washington Post:
White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting's organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House's chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration's unhappiness.
Cheney's was broadcast on the GOP channel and picked up by the NY Times:
Some White House officials privately expressed displeasure Thursday that the concerns the Republican moderates raised with the president became public. Vice President Dick Cheney did not mince words in an interview with the Fox News Channel. “We didn’t get elected to be popular,” Mr. Cheney said. “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party.”
GOP civil wars. This is going to be fun to watch.
LINK
The Secret Bush-Democratic Trade Deal & What It Means:
we are raped again!
effin assholes!
Calif. Web site outsources reporting By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 10, 5:51 PM ET
PASADENA, Calif. - The job posting was a head-scratcher: "We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA."
Well this Sucks!! Just when you thought that the MSM couldn't get any worst:
Link
“We didn’t get elected to be popular,” Mr. Cheney said.
~-~-
Oh, you've more then proved that to everyone.
Morning everyone. :)
I can't stop pooping!
News on CNN:
Threat to Americans US miltary facilities in Germany by an al Quada franchise. US increasing security.
can't really stay, but...
IN QUOTES: WMD HYSTERIA AN INVENTION OF CLINTON, NOT BUSH
The Clinton administration, justifying small-scale
bombings and the continuation of economic sanctions,
engaged in fear mongering identical to that of its
successor administration.
http://electroniciraq.net/news/3073.shtml
i know its not funny but still describing it as an al quada franchise made me chuckle. i wonder what other companies that franchise would think...
Public diplomacy through fingerprinting. CBS News reports:
Promoters from 64 countries vied this week to lure big-spending Arab tourists to their countries at the Middle East’s largest tourism convention.
But not a single promoter from the United States turned up.
Instead, the U.S. government sent officials from the Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate its mandatory fingerprinting of Arab and other foreign visitors. The only other U.S. presence inside the Americas hall at the show came from a tiny boutique hotel in New York.
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Welcome to Air America Radio, capital of Dullsville. Population: You.
*capit[o]l of Dullsilvania
when fishgrease said... First!
little did he realise that in bizzaro world...
2ND RULES!
btw, 1st to repost it
All 11 Republicans Who Berated Bush Voted Against Iraq Withdrawal, Accountability Bills
The 11 Republicans who pleaded with President Bush about the Iraq war in a private meeting this week all voted against two critical bills yesterday that would have forced Bush to change his war policy.
In private, the members issued a “blunt warning” to Bush “that conditions needed to improve markedly.” In public, all 11 members aligned with Bush and opposed one bill that would have redeployed U.S. forces out of Iraq in nine months, and another that would make continued funding of the war in Iraq dependent on a July progress report from the administration. (Roll calls for those votes are HERE and HERE.)
The list of 11 members:
Fred Upton (MI)
Mike Castle (DE)
Charles Dent (PA)
Jo Ann Davis (VA)
Todd Russell Platts (PA)
Jim Ramstad (MN)
Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Jim Gerlach (PA)
Jim Walsh (NY)
Ray Lahood (IL)
LINK
The Good American
One of the fringe benefits of membership in the American Legion is a subscription to its monthly journal, The American Legion, billed as “the magazine for a strong America.” It quickly became apparent that The American Legion magazine was a sounding board for many holding quite militaristic and jingoistic opinions based on their rather limited personal experiences, many dating back to World War II. The war in Iraq, together with the overarching “global war on terror,” seems to be viewed by many in the American Legion as an extension of their own past service, and much effort is made to connect World War II and the Iraq conflict as part and parcel of the same ongoing American “liberation” of the world’s oppressed.
It’s a shame for these Legionnaires that the Iraqis couldn’t have turned out to be blond, blue-eyed Germans who looked like us, and whose women could be wooed with chocolate and nylon stockings by the noble American liberator and occupier. Or, short of that, passive Japanese, who freely submitted their women to the massage parlors and barracks of their American conquering heroes while their men rebuilt a shattered society. The simplistic approach of many of the American Legion’s most hawkish advocates for the ongoing disaster in Iraq seems to be drawn from a selective memory which seeks to impose a carefully crafted past experience dating back to the last “good war” (i.e., World War II), expunged of all warts and blemishes, onto the current situation in Iraq in a manner which strips away all reality.
It turns out that the Iraqis aren’t like German or Japanese people at all, but rather a fiercely independent (if overly complex) nation deeply resentful of a so-called liberation which has brought them nothing but pain and agony, primarily at the hands of those who have, unbidden, “freed” them from their past. The fact that the Iraqis resent the ongoing American occupation, and choose to express this resentment through violent resistance instead of submissive passivity, is in turn resented by many of the Legion’s membership. “War has been declared on the United States by those who are envious of our freedom, and they won’t stop until we are under their heel,” writes one Legionnaire in a letter published in the May 2007 issue of “the magazine for a strong America.” The juxtaposition of Iraq with those who perpetrated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, implied in this statement is reflective of a level of ignorance that boggles the mind.
air-ono said...
^ never mind.... I know
Shamless blog plug time:
Ya Think?
CBS Fires Batiste For Anti-Bush Advocacy, Hires Bush Aide To Engage In Pro-Bush Advocacy
In a recent VoteVets ad, Gen. John Batiste says, “I left the Army in protest in order to speak out.” Now, CBS has punished him for speaking out. Last night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported, “General John Batiste loses his CBS job after appearing in an advertisement critical of the president.”
CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius spoke to ThinkProgress this morning and confirmed that Batiste’s consulting contract has been canceled due to his participation in the VoteVets ad. Genelius said Batiste “inadvertently violated our standards” and therefore “we and the General mutually agreed to end his consultants’ arrangement with CBS News.”
When asked what standards Batiste violated, Genelius said he participated in “advocacy,” but noted that she had not seen the ad to verify the charge. Batiste’s only “advocacy” in the ad might be found in this statement: “Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.” Watch the ad:
While CBS claims it will not tolerate consultants engaging in outside advocacy, it apparently has no problem paying a former White House communications director to engage in the Bush administration’s advocacy on air. While being billed as CBS News’ “political consultant,” Nicolle Wallace has propagated talking points advanced by her old colleagues in the White House communications office. Some examples:
“The Democrats have to walk a fine line and be careful. People don’t want to turn on the TV and see every story being about the obstruction of people trying to do things.” [Washington Post, 3/7/07]
“Well, you know, people ask me all the time, ‘Do they [in the White House] get it? Do they get how bad things are?’ And the answer is yes.” [CBS Evening News, 12/12/06]
At the end of the day, no matter how discontent some voters are, they really don’t want to see Democrats in control of the Congress. [CBS Evening News, 10/23/06]
It’s apparently only advocacy when you’re opposing Bush. Americans United notes that it took two weeks for CBS to fire Don Imus for racial slurs, but two days to fire Batiste for speaking up on Iraq.
You can send a message to CBS here.
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