"It bothers me a great deal that they (Iran) might have a nuclear weapon or a missile, but it bothers me also to have a nuclear weapon knowing their relationship with various terrorist organizations, that they would give it to a terrorist organization."
-- "The Disgrace" (i.e. John McCain), yesterday
VERSUS
"Iran's launch of uranium enrichment in an underground bunker, defying the United Nations, is a test-scale operation not producing nuclear fuel in meaningful amounts, diplomats said on Thursday. They said Iran remains well short of the "industrial-scale" capacity to refine uranium it announced on April 9…diplomats familiar with the IAEA's findings in Natanz characterized Iran's activity as test-scale. "The current feeding is at a very, very low level, only to condition the new centrifuges. No enriched product is being made now," said a Vienna-based diplomat close to the IAEA.Another diplomat accredited to the agency said: "It's not productive activity. We understand that they are just doing stress tests on the cascades to see if they will run smoothly."
-- Reuters News, yesterday
Laura Bush, Feb. 26, 2007: "[M]any parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day - this discourages everybody."
Fact: In actuality there are hundreds of bombs a day...
Fact: On Wednesday, suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago.
And at Virginia Tech 32 were killed.
So I guess under Laura's logic "it was just one little shooting" so it shouldn't be discouraging to the students of V-Tech, just as one little bombing shouldn't discourage us about Iraq (even though there are hundreds a day). So not only is she a bald faced liar and war crime denier, but even if you accept her logic, and apply it to Americans, it becomes clear, on its face, just what a sick and warped statement and worldview she has...but then, she married George W. Bush, so what else could you possibly need to know about her?
END
As I often say, and a quote I often use from the Hopi: "We are the ones who we have been waiting for." Mr. Zinn agrees:
“To omit or to minimize these voices of resistance is to create the idea that power only rests with those who have the guns…I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color or women—once they organize and protest and create movements—have a voice no government can suppress.”
-- Howard Zinn
“Don't tell me WE are fighting in this air-conditioned office! WE are not fighting this war! Our TROOPS are fighting this war!'
== Jack Murtha to another GOP coward congressman talking tough about “fighting this war”
VIDEO SECTION (See my post from yesterday for a lot more videos...a video only post in fact, with some commentary on gun control)
Oh yes...my man Feingold gets his shot to grill the soon to be "former Attorney General"
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/19/gonzales-hearing-feingolds-turn-with-gonzo/
And not to be outdone, Sen. Chuck Schumer (who I'm not a big fan of) tears the torturer a new one too:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/19/gonzo-the-burdens-not-with-me/
One of the better, serious interviews Jon Stewart has ever done. Sad, insightful, informative, and powerful. Compare this to mainstream news interviews and consider. This with former senior minister in the Iraqi government Ali Allawi on his new book:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/19/former-iraq-minister-ali-allawi-on-the-daily-show/
And Stephen Colbert analyzes the Orwellian term "War on Terror"...I just love how he exposes the Cro Magnon's that pretend to be reporters in this country:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/19/colbert-explains-the-war-on-terror%e2%84%a2/
And not to be outdone, Jon Stewart dissects Bush's latest rhetorical "dumps":
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/19/jon-stewart-calls-out-bushs-rhetorical-bullt/
END
OBAMA STANDS TALL ON DAY OF V-TECH SHOOTING
I am still mixed on some of the things about Obama, things I won't go into here and now. But I know this, the potential is there, the mind is there, and so is the heart. I don't know if the toughness and courage to take on the status quo is yet (and with Edwards I do). But, when he shoots from the hip I find him at his best. Here are some excerpts of what he said, just as he found out about what happened at V-Tech before a big rally in Wisconsin...notice the insights and perspective....not the norm these days. This from Ruth Conniff of the Progressive:
He explained his reasons for changing the tone of the event. Then he quoted Bobby Kennedy’s famous speech after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, about how, with one act of violence, “the whole nation is degraded.” America, Kennedy said, seems to tolerate violence, whether it is “civilian slaughter in far-off lands,” our increasingly coarse entertainment culture, or the ready access to guns. “That was written in 1968–almost 40 years ago,” Obama said of Kennedy’s remarks. “We haven’t made much progress.”
...the biggest mass shooting in American history, will prompt “all kinds of discussion,” Obama said–about crime, violence, gun control, and campus security, among other topics. “But I hope there will be some discussion of violence in all its forms. . . . [In American culture] we glorify it, encourage it, ignore it . . . . It’s heartbreaking. And it has to stop.”
Violence, and the callousness Americans have for the suffering of victims of violence, poverty, and oppression, is ultimately “rooted in our incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other–not understanding that we’re all connected fundamentally as people,” Obama said. “Those who may not look like me, talk like me, worship the same God I do, are nonetheless worthy of respect and dignity. . . . [But] at some fundamental level, we’re still trapped in this insane belief that we can impose our wills on each other.”
Part of the reason things are still as bad as they were 40 years ago, Obama said, in terms of poverty, lack of opportunity, broken health care and education systems, and “a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been fought” (his biggest applause line) is that “we haven’t been as engaged as we should be.”
“We’ve given up. We look inward. . . . This same disengagement makes us tolerate violence.” He made a pitch for overcoming cynicism and restoring ” a sense that we have a mutual responsibility to care for each other.”
-- Barak Obama at a campaign event just as the news of the killings broke
On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House.
He basically went into hiding for the day and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq˜a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.
-- Lee Iacocca, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”, 2007
ARTICLE SECTION: Scheer, Goodman interview of Chomsky/Zinn!
I just couldn't end the week without giving just a little more details on the outrageous, continued actions of the war criminal Paul Wolfowitz. I sometimes wonder, were these people born thinking "how can I do the most damage to the world in the least amount of time?" Or maybe it was, "I hope I can become so rich and powerful off the backs of others that I can get to a point I can say and do anything, no matter how outrageous and deceitful, and no one can do anything about it? That would be sweet!" Well, here's Robert Scheer breaking open Mr. Wolfowitz's latest escapades as a walking abomination of a "human being".
Let's begin with this kiss of death:
"(Wolfowitz) has done a very good job at the World Bank." -- George W. Bush, last week
Take it Robert...a few clips first:
At the core of the current complaint is a charge that has followed Wolfowitz since his days at the Pentagon-that he distorts the evidence to suit his whims. In this case, he first claimed that he had nothing to do with feathering his lover's nest over at the State Department, insisting that the deal was worked out with the approval of the World Bank's ethics committee and directors. But he now concedes that is false.
SNIP
Documents released by the bank show that Wolfowitz personally negotiated the gift to his lover of a tax-free salary of $193,590, including a whopping $60,000 raise, making her more highly paid after taxes than her boss, Condoleezza Rice, before taxes. Still, that's peanuts compared with the well more than $400,000 that Wolfowitz earns at the World Bank. Not too shabby for a guy who succeeds by failing, to the woe of U.S. taxpayers, not to mention dead U.S. soldiers and many more Iraqis.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041807F.shtml
Chomsky/Zinn Interviewed by Amy Goodman
This for me is kind of like the all star game of interviews...one of my favorite interviewers in the world (Amy Goodman), and two of my favorite interviewees, Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. Kind of like watching Magic and Jordan play in a pickup game in their primes. In fact, I would be hard pressed to name two human beings that have had a greater impact on me than Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. These two are virtual "Red Pill Machines", totally free from the American Matrix, and about as good as there is in dismantling it. Without going on, let's just get to the good stuff...and the straight dope.
To set up the interview, here are my two favorite passages, one from each of them. Check out the whole article if you can:
Howard Zinn on the meaning of "Patriotism":
Patriotism to me means doing what you think your country should be doing. Patriotism means supporting your government when you think it's doing right, opposing your government when you think it's doing wrong. Patriotism to me means really what the Declaration of Independence suggests. And that is that government is an artificial entity.
Government is set up - and here's what a Declaration of Independence is about - government is set up by the people in order to fulfill certain responsibilities: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. And according to the Declaration of Independence, when the government violates those responsibilities, then, and these are the words of the Declaration of Independence, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government.
In other words, the government is not holy; the government is not to be obeyed when the government is wrong. So to me patriotism in its best sense means thinking about the people in the country, the principles for which the country stands for, and it requires opposing the government when the government violates those principles
So today, for instance, the highest act of patriotism, I suggest, would be opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Simply because everything about the war violates the fundamental principles of equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, not just for Americans, but for people in another part of the world. So, yes, patriotism today requires citizens to be active on many, many different fronts to oppose government policies on the war, government policies that have taken trillions of dollars from this country's treasury and used it for war and militarism. That's what patriotism would require today.
SNIP
Noam Chomsky on US/Israel Historical Revisionism and Propaganda:
It's a contentious issue because the U.S. government and the Israeli government are blocking a very broad international consensus, which has almost universal support, even the majority of Americans and which has been on the table for about 30 years, blocked by the U.S. and Israel. And everyone knows who's involved in this, what the general framework for a settlement is.
It was put on the - it was brought to the Security Council in 1976…the first major resolution, recognition of the right of each state in the region to exist in peace and security within secure and recognized boundaries, that would include Israel and a Palestinian state. It was vetoed by the United States, and a similar resolution vetoed in 1980…the U.S. has simply blocked the settlement and still does, and Israel rejects it. Sometimes it's dramatic. In 1988, the Palestinian National Council, their governing body, formally accepted a two-state settlement. They tacitly accepted it before. There was a reaction from Israel immediately; it was a coalition government, Shimon Perez, Yitzhak Shamir. Their reaction was, quoting, that "there cannot be an additional Palestinian state between Jordan and Israel…
And so it continues with rare exceptions, just moving to today, the Arab league proposal has been reintroduced. It's 2002, but they brought it up again a couple of weeks ago…the basic framework, supported by the Arab world, by Europe, by the nonaligned countries, Latin America and others. It is supported by Iran, it doesn't get reported here. One loves Ahmadinejad's crazed statements, but do not report the statements of his superior, Ayatollah Khameni who's in charge of international affairs - Ahmadinejad doesn't have anything to do with it - who has declared a couple of times that Iran supports the Arab league position.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has made it clear that they don't like it; they don't believe in recognizing Israel, but if the Palestinians accept it, they will not disrupt it. They are a Lebanese organization. And Hamas has said, they would accept the Arab League consensus. That leaves the United States and Israel in splendid isolation, even more so than in the past 30 years in rejecting a political settlement. So it's contentious in a sense, but not in that there's no way to resolve it. We know how to resolve it.
http://alternet.org/story/50654/
The larger truth behind the Attorney Firings:
A policy to limit voting -- For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates. Greg Gordon in the Sacramento Bee -- 4/19/07
New Court Begins Chipping Away at Women and Choice
In a 5-4 decision yesterday, the Supreme Court dealt a damaging blow to women's rights, upholding a 2003 law that banned all mid-term abortions as early as 12 to15 weeks, without providing an exception for the health of the pregnant mother. The Court's decision, which marked the "first time the justices agreed that a specific abortion procedure could be banned," blatantly defied its own recent ruling in 2000, which said a mid-term abortion ban without exceptions for the health of the woman was an unconstitutional restriction. The ruling "clears the way for states to pass new laws" designed to discourage women from having abortions. "For the first time in 30 years, the Supreme Court has sanctioned a law that does not protect women's health and prohibits doctors from exercising their best medical judgment," said Jessica Arons, the director of women's health and rights program at the Center for American Progress. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, dismissed the medical community's opinion and instead adopted political rhetoric intended to appeal to the right-wing base. Noting the deep hostility to women's rights contained in the majority opinion's language, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing in dissent, said, "Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label abortion doctor. A fetus is described as an 'unborn child,' and as a 'baby,'...and the reasoned medical judgments of highly trained doctors are dismissed as 'preferences' motivated by 'mere convenience.'" Reading her dissent aloud in a stone-silent courtroom, Ginsburg said the decision "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away" at a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
NO MORE HEALTH EXCEPTION: In 2003, Congress passed, and Bush signed, the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act." In its passage, Congress refused to adopt an amendment proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that would have banned such abortions except in cases where "the medical judgment of the attending physician" determined the abortion was necessary to preserve the life of the woman or avert serious adverse health consequences. Rather than crafting appropriate law, conservatives appeared more interested in setting up a judicial showdown over ways to restrict the right to abortion itself. The Court's decision now imperils the requirement for a woman's "health exception," which until yesterday, had survived long legal scrutiny. The American College Obstetricians and Gynecologists had informed the Court that upholding the Ban would "chill doctors from providing a wide range of procedures used to perform induced abortions or to treat cases of miscarriage and will gravely endanger the health of women in this country." Yesterday, the women's health physicians group said, "This decision discounts and disregards the medical consensus [and] diminishes the doctor-patient relationship by preventing physicians from using their clinical experience and judgment."
END
World needs to axe greenhouse gases by 80 pct: report
The world will have to axe greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, more deeply than planned, to have an even chance of curbing global warming in line with European Union goals, researchers said on Thursday. Even tough long-term curbs foreseen by the EU or California fall short of reductions needed to avert a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise over pre-industrial times, seen by the EU as a threshold for "dangerous change," they said.
"If we are to have a 50 percent chance of meeting a 2 Celsius target we would have to cut global emissions by 80 percent by 2050," Nathan Rive of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo told Reuters.
CALIFORNIA
"Even the most ambitious proposals for emissions cuts in 2050, such as the UK draft climate bill which sets a cut of 60 percent, or the California target to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050, fall short," they said.
A draft report by the U.N. climate panel due for release on May 4 in Bangkok also concludes that a maximum 2 C rise would be hard to achieve. Restraints on emissions consistent with the goal could cost up to 3 percent of world gross domestic product. And Kalbekken and Rive said that global emissions would have to peak in 2025, with cuts in place by 2010, to achieve an 80 percent cut by mid-century. Any delays would sharply raise costs.
END
GOP "GOES DOWN ON THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY AGAIN"
Republicans block Democrat effort to negotiate drug prices for seniors (in my mind, this is criminal). Put another way, the Veterans Administration, which can negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma, purchases them for as much as 30% to 60% cheaper than one can on the private market.
See here:
Senate conservatives "blocked legislation yesterday that would have allowed the federal government to negotiate Medicare drug prices." Eighty-five percent of Americans support such negotiations. '
More...
A bill that would let the U.S. government negotiate prices for Medicare prescription drugs stalled in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday when Republican opponents blocked a vote on the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fell five votes short of the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster and move to a vote on the bill. A filibuster is a tactic for delaying or obstructing legislation by making long speeches. Democrats said they were not giving up on the bill and would try again.
A report by consumer group Families USA on Wednesday showed prices of the 15 most-prescribed drugs for Medicare patients rose by median 9.2 percent in the past year. For example, a year's supply of Lexapro, an anti-depressant, climbed 15 percent to $812.16 while Fosamax, an osteoporosis treatment, increased 10.7 percent to $806.16.
END
GOOD NEWS SECTION
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST…
ETHICS -- FBI RAIDS ABRAMOFF-LINKED CONGRESSMAN'S HOME: FBI agents searched the home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) yesterday, who is "under scrutiny over his ties to convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff." Doolittle's ties to the disgraced lobbyist are quite extensive, as he "received $64,500 from Abramoff, his partners, and clients between 2001 and 2004. Abramoff let Doolittle hold fundraisers in his sky box for free, and paid to send Doolittle's top aide to Puerto Rico. He hired Doolittle's then-chief of staff, Kevin Ring, who in turn helped hire Doolittle's wife. Julie Doolittle, who owned a consulting firm, was brought on by Abramoff and his firm, Greenberg Traurig, to do fundraising for Abramoff's charity." Despite these other clear connections, Dolittle maintains that Abramoff's ties to Doolittle's wife's business are the only reason for the FBI's raid. "My wife has been cooperating with the FBI and the Justice Department for almost three years and that cooperation is going to continue in the future. I support my wife 100 percent and fully expect that the truth will prevail," he said in a statement yesterday. As Roll Call notes, Doolittle is seemingly quite embarrassed about the allegations, as he has not "made any attempt to personally inform House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) of the event. Doolittle has been on the Hill all week and voted on the floor Wednesday."
And now this...
Embattled lawmaker gives up panel seat
Rep. John Doolittle whose house was searched by the FBI in an influence-peddling investigation, said Thursday he will step down temporarily from the House Appropriations Committee. The announcement by the nine-term California Republican came one day after the disclosure that agents had raided his home in Oakton, Va. In the search last Friday, the FBI had a warrant for information connected with a fundraising business run by Doolittle's wife, Julie, that had done work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
END
ENVIRONMENT -- NEW POLL SHOWS AMERICANS WANT ACTION NOW ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: The majority of Americans "feel new urgency" for "immediate action to tackle global warming and achieve energy independence," according to a new poll for the Center for American Progress conducted by GreenbergQuinlanRosner Research. On the heels of Al Gore's Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" and a series of reports by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, over three-quarters of Americans now believe that global warming is real and apparent. Sixty percent of those surveyed not only believe that "the increasing pollution of the past few decades has set global warming into motion," but also that "we must take action now or it will be too late to stop it." This sense of urgency crosses party lines, as "huge majorities of Independents (59 percent) and Democrats (76 percent) support action now along with a significant bloc of Republicans (41 percent)." The poll also found that the vast majority of Americans are ready and willing to move from oil and coal as fuel sources to alternative fuels. Even when presented with the point of view of critics, the survey shows "strong public support for a series of proposals to move to clean, alternative energy, institute higher mileage standards for automobiles, and cap carbon emissions from industry to tackle our dependence on oil and stop global warming."
78: Percentage of Americans who believe undocumented immigrants now in the United States should be given a chance at citizenship, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll, showing "the American public appears to have reached a consensus on the question."
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) said "no, nope, no way, hell no" Tuesday to helping create the first national identification cards, signing into law a bill that blocks the state from complying with the REAL ID Act
Kucinich to File Articles of Impeachment Against Cheney
It is no secret that Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has been toying with the idea of moving articles of impeachment against a member of the Bush administration. And he appears to be focusing more and more of his attention on the man that many activists around the country see as the ripest target for sanctioning: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to convince Democrats to keep presidential accountability “off the table,” Kucinich is just one of many House Democrats who have acknowledged in recent days that they are hearing the call for action loud and clear from their constituents and from grassroots activists across the country.
SNIP
Americans of who are not on the vice president’s payroll are inclined to recognize Cheney’s manipulation of intelligence prior to the Iraq War, his active role in going after administration critic Joe Wilson and Wilson’s wife Valarie Plame, and his ongoing links to the Halliburton war-profiteering cartel as arguments against giving the vice president any prizes for “honorable” government service. Impeachment activists have in recent months pushed an “Impeach Cheney First” message, in part to counter the complaint that impeaching Bush would put an even darker figure in charge. Of course, going after the most powerful vice president in history has consequences, as well. In the unlikely event that Cheney were removed from office, one line of reasoning goes, Bush would for the first time find himself in charge.
-- John Nichols’, The Nation Magazine
