TODAY'S TOPICS: Olbermann Special Comment!!, Bush Attacks, Torture, Edwards Endorses, Wexler, Gay Marriage Wins!
The U.S. government finances an illegal military occupation in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Since October 1973, total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. What does this aid buy? Illegal Jewish-only settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinian towns and villages encircled by walls more monstrous in most places than the Berlin wall. Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks between Palestinian towns that bring the normal movement of people and goods to a standstill and constitute daily humiliations. Gaza sealed and under siege, with food and fuel withheld. Since the second intifada started in September 2000, at least 4,719 Palestinians have been killed and 32,213 wounded.
Israel’s strategy seems to be to make life so unlivable for Palestinians that those with options will leave, and those without options are controlled by the Jewish state. Is this a strategy that Americans can support?
-- Ida Audeh is a Palestinian who grew up in the West Bank and now works as an editor in Boulder.
VIDEO SECTION
One of Olbermann’s best Special Comments ever! This kind of truth and courage is a site to behold:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/14/countdown-special-comment-to-president-bush-shut-the-hell-up/
Daily Show also chimes in on Bush’s “golfing sacrifice”:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/16/jon-stewart-blasts-bush-for-appeasement-remarks-and-golf-sacrifice/
Better late than never: Edwards endorses Obama…watch the speech by Edwards (the second half is great)…I like the whole "tear down the wall" frame. And remember too, while this does hasten Hillary’s fall, as superdelegates and unions are already flocking to Obama’s campaign, it also helps Obama frame his campaign for the general by taking some of Edwards populist appeal. This was a great way to knock Hillary out of the news cycle for her win in WV too.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/14/breaking-john-edwards-endorses-barack-obama/
This was classic. Chris Mathews absolutely dismantles (even though he's usually an idiot) one of those right wing radio hosts that don’t know what they’re talking about…esp. when it comes to history:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/15/matthews-rips-right-wing-talkie-kevin-james-because-he-doesnt-know-neville-chamberlain/
OBAMA RESPONDS TO BUSH SLANDER IN ISRAEL
This is great!! What better gift than to have Bush become your opponent??? A perfect way for Obama to highlight his knowledge of foreign affairs, and the fact that McCain and W. are cut from the same imperialist cloth.
“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally, Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all the elements of American power, including tough, principled and direct diplomacy to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.”
-- Obama
From C&L: President Bush’s foreign policy has been nothing short of a disaster and even MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan can’t help but call this what it is - an unprecedented smear of an American presidential candidate from outside the country. Buchanan and Harold Ford Jr. both agree that Bush has really stepped in it with these comments and the big question now, as it relates the presidential campaign, is how Senator John McCain reacts. McCain has already used the Hamas smear repeatedly against Senator Obama, but will he embrace these farcical statements of President Bush? Senator Obama immediately responds to the attacks:
According to Will Bunch, Bush just committed an act of political treason:
And you, Mr. Bush, are the leader of us all. To use a diplomatic setting on foreign soil to score a cheap political point at home is way beneath your office, way beneath your country, and way beneath the people you serve. You have been handed an office once uplifted to great heights by fellow countrymen from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Eisenhower, and have plunged it so deeply into the Karl-Rove-and-Rush-Limbaugh-fueled world of political destruction and survival of all costs that have lost all perspective — and all sense of decency. To travel to Israel and to associate a sitting American senator and your possible successor in the Oval Office with those who at one time gave comfort to an enemy of the United States is, in and of itself, an act of political treason. Read on…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/15/president-bush-compares-obamas-iran-diplomacy-statement-to-appeasement-of-nazis/
More good stuff. Congressman Wexler discusses putting Rove under oath in regards to the Siegelman case:
C&L: The problem with pursuing justice with the Bush administration is the utter lack of respect for the rule of law that they exhibit regularly. In the case of the prosecution and incarceration of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, Karl Rove initially told the House Judiciary Committee that he would only speak to them in private, not under oath and with no transcript. Then he changed his mind and said he’d only respond to their questions in writing.
Well, that’s just not good enough for HJC member Rep. Robert Wexler (and frankly, it shouldn’t be good enough for anyone. Can you imagine telling a judge that you’re not going to come in to testify in a case, but he can ask you questions in writing?) and he told host Dan Abrams and Don Siegelman that no matter what obstacle the White House throws in his way, he’ll keep pursuing justice for Siegelman.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/15/verdict-wexler-promises-to-keep-after-rove-in-siegelman-case/
ARTICLE SECTION
Jon Nichols of the Nation writes about the Edwards endorsement:
Echoing the themes of a campaign that did not win him the nomination but that secured him a credibility - especially with the blue-collar voters who may well define the fall race - that made his the most sought-after endorsement of a campaign that is now done in all but the formalities. Delivering that endorsement, and a dose of the populist appeal Obama still needs, Edwards came not to finish the primary race but to open the fall campaign. “There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two, and that man is Barack Obama,” shouted Edwards.
SNIP
The Edwards endorsement, delivered not in an upcoming primary state such as Kentucky or Oregon but in the contested former-primary state of Michigan, was not a primary endorsement. It was a positioning moment for a November race in which everyone - including the savvy senator from New York - knows that Barack Obama will be carrying the Democratic banner into competition with Republican John McCain.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/15/8985/
Yet another bombshell on the torture front…as another one of those whose lives we have destroyed through degradation and abuse, by claiming they are terrorists, has been set free…with nothing to show for any of it. This time its the one we've long time trumpeted as 9/11 20th hijacker...whoops...sorry for the years of torture, have a nice life.
Robert Sheer:
Ah, yes, those torture confessions have proved so useful. That, at least, was the claim of our president in justifying one of the most egregious assaults ever on this nation's commitment to the rule of law. But now comes news that charges have been dropped against the so-called Sept. 11 attacks' 20th hijacker, one of dozens so identified, because the "evidence" he supplied under torture and later recanted is not credible enough to go to trial. That fact, of course, will not compel President Bush to cut the tortured prisoner loose. After all, Saudi citizen Mohammed al-Qahtani has only been held in confinement for more than six years without being charged with a crime, and without being allowed to confront his accusers in a court of law.
SNIP
But this didn't trouble John Yoo, then the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the infamous Bybee memo on torture, named after Yoo's boss, Jay S. Bybee, who was rewarded for his leadership with a judgeship on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles. Yoo, the best recent example of what the great anti-Nazi writer Hannah Arendt once referred to as the "banality of evil," teaches law at UC Berkeley when not touring the country to argue that if an action does not produce death through organ failure it can't be torture. Audiences tend to clap politely and observe that while they don't agree with him, he is, as I was told by a UCLA professor after such an appearance, "a very bright fellow."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051508P.shtml
Ted Rall writes on yet another aspect of our democracy taken over by corporate power and greed. In this case, students and our country’s future are those being sacrificed.
A few clips:
Private schools, especially the elite, are getting an enviable return on their misbegotten windfall profits. Seventy-six colleges hold endowments over $1 billion. Harvard has $35 billion — more than the GDP of 100 of the world’s 179 nations. Nationally, colleges got a 17.2 percent return on their investments in 2007–while spending a mere 4.6 percent of that tsunami of cash on their students.
Public schools are nearly as greedy. Over the last five years, they’ve hiked tuition 31 percent faster than inflation. According to the AP, it’s “the worst record on college prices of any five-year period covered by the survey dating back 30 years.”
Since 1981, when President Reagan got rid of a financial aid system mostly based on grants (which don’t have to be repaid), easy credit on student loans has made it possible for any student to borrow as much as he or she needs — or, to put it another way, however much a college decides to charge. It’s simple supply and demand; with no downward pressure on tuition, the warlords of college have an overwhelming temptation to gouge. And gouge they do.
SNIP
The average college graduate comes out owing $24,200 in student loans. And that’s an average. Many owe more — much more — in a non-existent job market. Saddled with crushing monthly payments as high as a home mortgage in some areas, millions of young people are forced to move back home. According to a 2002 study for the student lender Nellie Mae, student loan debt forced 38 percent of college graduates to delay buying their first house, 14 percent to get married later, and 21 percent to wait until they’re older to have children. Bankruptcy rates among young adults in their 20s are soaring, but default rates on student loans remain relatively low, under five percent. (Laws have been changed so that bankruptcy doesn’t relieve your obligation to repay student loans).
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/14/8939/
We won. Gay marriage declared constitutional in California!!
The California Supreme Court just delivered an historic ruling overturning the state's ban on same-sex marriage and paving the way to allow all couples in California—gay and straight—to marry. This is a huge victory for all Californians. Join CREDO in thanking San Francisco Mayor Newsom for issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples... and then join a marriage celebration near you this evening.
Tell Mayor Newsom: Thanks for bringing equality to California. You'll remember that this all started back in early 2004, when Mayor Newsom took the courageous step of issuing marriage certificates to gay and lesbian couples at City Hall. Shortly thereafter, the California Supreme Court invalidated those marriage licenses, and almost immediately a lawsuit was filed challenging the state law that excludes same-gender couples from marriage. Now, the Court has ruled that marriage discrimination is fundamentally incompatible with our state's constitution.
The path that led to today's victory started right outside Mayor Newsom's door in San Francisco. So let's send a special "thank you" to Mayor Newsom for ending discrimination in marriage.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/thanks_mayor_newsom/?r=423&id=241-1577632-4qaNK8
GOOD NEWS
According to a new poll from the Portland Tribune and KPTV, the Illinois Democrat holds a 20 point lead over Clinton in Oregon, 55 percent to 35 percent. Ten percent of voters remain unsure.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
TODAY'S TOPICS: WV Racists, Moyers, Pentagon Scandal, Hedge Funds, McCain's Lobbyists, Daily Show, Colbert
Hillary's Win: 40% of her voters say race played a major factor (racism is alive and well)
What can I say, its a sad day when a candidate that can't win, has run one of the most disgraceful campaigns in modern history, lies every other sentence...about every issue, and seeks to divide her own party by playing to peoples fears actually beats a candidate with the charisma and talent of a Barack Obama.
Worse, it signals to me that racism is alive and well in this country, particularly in West Virginia. The evidence of this racism (and ignorance) jumped off the screen as I looked at the exit polls.
See here: One in four Clinton voters in WV said race was an important factor in their vote.
Saddest of all is that these are DEMOCRATS! Think about that, 40% of West Virginia dems that voted for Hillary are admitting they are racist...this is very, very disconcerting. In all my years as a consultant and number cruncher I have never seen figures like this. Clearly, Hillary's race baiting and scare tactics targeted at white voters about Obama are working.
QUOTES...
“I think it means for all of them that they won’t really get to the deep, profound structural problems that we face as a country. We’re not going to have a discourse in this campaign over the fact that the great American wealth machine is benefiting only those at the top. We’re not going to get to the fact that 10% of the people own 60% of the wealth and 70% of the people have no net worth. We’re not going to get to the issues of how do we rebuild the infrastructure, the sewer, the water, the highways, all that. We’re just going to be constantly in this battle of bumper stickers.”
- Bill Moyers on the media
“You removed the ability for the American public to make an informed decision. Once you have removed that, then you no longer have the authority. You told us what part of the argument is appropriate to know about.”
-- Jon Stewart in one of his most effective cross examinations of a war criminal to date (Douglas Feith)
We have a political system that is vulnerable to continual theft, to continual confusion for the voters, to continual failure to keep an accurate paper trail in order to double check.
Why don’t we simply adopt the Canadian system where in that vast country they have a paper ballot, they have small precincts with no more than 500 voters, and by 11pm that night they know who won and who lost. And if there are any questions, the paper ballots are the verifiable material.
Why are we into this huge electronic miasma with different kinds of machines? Why? Because it is big business. Because it is a procurement item that is growing by the billions every four years. And whenever you get a procurement item that interferes with election integrity you have politicians that are crooked and companies that seduce them into this kind of dishonesty. And it isn’t just taking money. It is dishonesty in not having the best available electoral technology or electoral ways of counting votes accurately.
-- Ralph Nader nails the election fraud crisis
A great montage of Limbaugh's racist greatest hits. It never ceases to amaze me how right wingers can literally say and do anything without fear of retribution from the media, yet if someone on the left says anything they are pilloried. Limbaugh, to this day, is still quoted and cited regularly in the corporate media as someone who's opinion is credible and important. Sick.
From Alternet: For far too long, FOX has devoted hours a day pondering why Barack Obama does not denounce comments made by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, even after Obama denounced them repeatedly, saying that he does not agree with some of Wright’s statements and that Wright does not speak for him. But FOX has continued to assert that Obama is responsible for everything done or said by anyone who has any association with him, no matter how weak, tangential, or inconsequential.
But if FOX believes Obama should answer for the comments and actions of everyone he knows (as well as anyone those people know), why won’t FOX denounce frequent guest Rush Limbaugh?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/85150/
Stephen Colbert does a hysterical mockery of the O’Reilly meltdown:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/14/stephen-colbert-reveals-his-own-on-air-profanity-laced-tirade-video/
Moyers and Olbermann…my two favs get together again to talk media and politics...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/countdown-bill-moyers-on-democracy-our-bumper-sticker-media/
Worst persons...more classic O'Reilly bashing from Olbermann:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/countdowns-worst-persons-wally-world-mccains-myanmar-lobbyist-billo/
The winning video ad for Obama...
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/oi30s_winner.html?rc=short&t=1&id=12647-1187820-.UCryV&t=1
And just when you think the scandal involving military analysts can't get any worse, the "Rumsfeld tapes" come out. Check it out...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/12/audio-military-analyst-to-rumsfeld-you-are-our-leader-had-oreilly-eating-out-of-his-hand/
MORE ON THE PENTAGON/MEDIA/ANALYST SCANDAL
Media Matters did massive research into the Military Analysts scandal since the networks won’t even have a conversation about it and found out that:
A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” media military analysts “into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.”
A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article — many identified as having ties to the defense industry — collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR….
read on
This was great, a CNN reporter who interviewed dozens of soldiers in Iraq, and found that ONLY ONE supported McCain, and they all called it a "Republican War", drops this bombshell right on the head of war monger and scumbag Joe Lieberman:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/12/living-a-republican-war-the-lieberman-version/
And yet ANOTHER Republican loss…this time in Mississippi! This is fantastic, and signals the beginning of the end of the Right wing’s reign of terror:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/r10-district-goes-blue-its-like-a-democrat-losing-in-brooklyn/
MCCAIN FUN FACTS…HIS DICTATOR LOBBYISTS
Two of John McCain's senior campaign staff were forced to resign this week after revelations that their lobbying firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent Burma's brutal military dictatorship.1
And it gets worse—turns out this goes all the way to the top. Charlie Black, McCain's campaign chairman, ran a lobbying firm that represented brutal dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire—along with terrorist rebel Jonas Savimbi in Angola. Together, these men have been responsible for massive human suffering.2
And for good measure, Charlie Black has represented war profiteer Blackwater Worldwide and Iraqi fraudster Ahmed Chalabi.3 plus all 112 lobbyists running your campaign,4 including campaign co-chair Tom Loeffler, who has represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a notorious human rights abuser.5
ARTICLE SECTION: HEDGE FUND CROOKS
Hedge fund managers kind of remind of a James Bond villain…behind the scenes, unknown to the public at large, but enormously powerful, super wealthy, and slowly destroying the world.
These mysterious men, and their companies, are starting to be exposed for the damage they reap. You know something is wrong when a few people are making billions of dollars a year off the economic crises...what's wrong with this picture??
A few clips:
Take John Paulson, for example, who took home $3.7 billion last year, which is stunning considering that, as of June 2007, his hedge fund Paulson and Co. had $12.5 billion in assets under management. By my crude math, Paulson walked away with about a third of that worth by himself. George Soros and Renaissance Technologies' James Simons were right behind Feinberg, with $2.9 billion and $2.8 billion respectively, while average compensation for hedge funds' top 25 managers cashed in at $892 million in 2007, an explosive increase of 68 percent over the previous year. In other words, one could say in all confidence that hedge funds, whose financial instruments range from conventional stockpicking to proprietary quantitative computer modeling, are getting paid megabucks during a panic-stricken time of economic collapse, endless war and repressive stagflation.
What one could argue, with an increasing degree of confidence, is that those things are all inextricable.
SNIP
...while hedge funds and private equity groups exploited the misfortunes of those caught beneath currency, housing or internet bubbles, the rest of us watched as the American Dream was being dismantled piece by piece. The $20 an hour wage that had allowed access into the American middle class is now devolving: As a recent article in the International Herald Tribune explained, since the 1970s "the percentage of people earning at least $20 an hour has eroded in every sector of the economy, falling last year to 18 percent of all hourly workers from 23 percent in 1979 -- a gradual unwinding of the post-World War II gains." In 2007, a hedge fund manager had to take home at least $360 million, more than 18 times what s/he had to pull down in 2002, to be considered a player. The American family, by contrast, had to earn more than the median $60,500. And as the former is going up like a rocket, the latter is sinking like a stone.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/84682/
California's Budget Crisis and Republican Priorities: Watch "Yacht Party 2"
If you ever wondered how California got into the mess we're in, look no further than the Republican refusal to raise any taxes, no matter how wealthy the individuals or corporations. Worse, California is one of only a couple of states that requires a 2/3's vote to pass any budget...meaning a minority of fascist Republicans can halt all efforts to do any good at all...
And there is no better example than the Yacht owner tax break. This from the Courage Campaign...and watch the new video:
"The most extreme high priests of the tax cut cult operate right here in California. Because Democrats do not hold a two-thirds majority in our state legislature, a small minority of Republicans is able to hold Californians hostage to a $20 billion state budget deficit, refusing to raise taxes on the super-rich.It gets worse. Much worse.
While California's future is being put in grave jeopardy, the tax cut cult is refusing to close a tax loophole for yacht and private jet owners. Schools closing. Social services slashed to the bone. And right-wing Republicans are letting the uber-wealthy off tax-free on yacht and private jet purchases. It's no wonder the California Republican Party has been re-branded as the "Yacht Party" by the netroots.
To increase the pressure on Republicans in Sacramento to close this yacht tax loophole, we need to make this "Yacht Party" brand stick. That's why the Courage Campaign and California Nurses Association have just teamed up to produce a new 60-second TV ad that strips naked the shocking nature of the California Republican Party's priorities.
https://secure.couragecampaign.org/page/contribute/yachtparty2
BOB BARR TO RUN AS LIBERTARIAN!! THE "REPUBLICAN" VERSION OF NADER
This is great...finally the right wing has to deal with their own third party critic...and he's got a lot of good arguments to make for true conservatives, particularly on the issue of privacy (which Barr is really good on). I could see him taking between 2-4 points...nearly all from McCain too:
From CYL:
Bob Barr is very popular with the Ron Paul crowd. Do you think this could make any difference in November?
McClatchy: Heaping scorn on both major political parties, former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia declared his candidacy Monday for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. Barr, 59, vowed to slash the federal government, restore civil liberties curbed since 2001 and pull back U.S. troops from abroad, both in Iraq and at bases around the world. His campaign could draw support from libertarian-minded or conservative Republicans who are unhappy with the expected nomination of Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Can you believe it? Some Dems are trying to forge a compromise with Bush (as in giving him everything he wants) on the issue of Telecom immunity/wiretapping. We must stop them.
Demand that the House Stand Firm on Wiretapping Legislation!
Our hard fought victories on the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program are in danger once again. Earlier this year the House of Representatives—thanks in large part to pressure from the grassroots and the netroots—stood strong and refused to pass the Senate version of "FISA reform."
That legislation, you'll recall, would have granted retroactive immunity to the Bush administration and the telecom companies that reportedly helped him eavesdrop on Americans without legally-required warrants. Now, however, our allies on the Hill are telling us that high-ranking members in the House are working behind closed doors with the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress to negotiate a compromise bill -- a bill that will give the administration practically everything they've asked for.
Click here to tell Speaker Pelosi: no compromises on illegal wiretapping.
There's simply no reason to rush into passing bad legislation now. Under the existing FISA law, our nation's intelligence agencies already have the tools they need to legitimately monitor terrorist communications. The only reason Bush is trying so hard to push this bill through Congress before he leaves office is to prevent legal discovery of prior violations of the law—disclosures which would be detrimental to the administration and any telecom companies that assisted in the lawbreaking.
END
CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST '20TH HIJACKER,' GUANTANAMO TORTURE VICTIM: The AP reports that the Pentagon has "dropped charges" against Mohammad al-Qahtani, "a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called '20th hijacker' in the Sept. 11 attacks." An attorney involved in the case "said he could not comment on the reasons for the dismissal." Al-Qahtani, also known as Detainee 063, was an important detainee for the Bush administration. He was the subject of a 2002 meeting at Guantanamo that included former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Cheney's lawyer David Addington, and former Pentagon counsel Jim Haynes. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the "First Special Interrogation Plan" for Qahtani, which included "forty-eight days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory overstimulation, and threats with military dogs," as the Center for Constitutional Rights observed. But renowned international lawyer Phillippe Sands noted that credible evidence gleaned from this torture was non-existent. Furthermore, the records of the interrogations were mysteriously lost, as cameras that "run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents."
Good News
"The Nissan Motor Company plans to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010," the first by a major automaker to "bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market."
"Since 2005, eight states -- including four last year -- have enacted laws to abolish stringent rules imposed by some homeowners associations and local agencies on residents who want to power their homes with the sun or wind."
END
ONLY TWO NEWS NETWORKS WILLING TO EXPLAIN ROLES IN PENTAGON PROPAGANDA PROGRAM: On April 20, the New York Times published a blockbuster exposé revealing a secret Pentagon program that used retired military analysts to "generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance." Though the analysts often had "ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies" they assessed on air, their potential conflicts of interest were "hardly ever disclosed to the viewers." Soon after the Times published its article, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) wrote letters to the heads of ABC News, CBS News, CNN News, Fox News Channel, and NBC News asking for "specifics about each outlet's policies surrounding the hiring and vetting of military analysts reporting on the Iraq War." Politico reported yesterday that only ABC's David Westin and CNN’s Jim Walton have responded to DeLauro’s questions. In his response, Westin asserted that ABC News had "acted responsibly and has served its audience well." Though the responses lacked genuine self-examination, it represented more than the other networks even attempted, proving that the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz was right when he said "the networks are ducking this one, big time." In the week after the story broke, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that "out of approximately 1,300 news stories, only two touched on the Pentagon analysts scoop -- both airing on PBS's 'NewsHour.'"
A House Judiciary Committee deadline passed yesterday "with former White House adviser Karl Rove standing by his refusal to testify about allegations that he pushed the Justice Department to prosecute former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman." Rove instead sent a letter offering to respond to questions in writing, rather than testify publicly under oath.
Hillary's Win: 40% of her voters say race played a major factor (racism is alive and well)
What can I say, its a sad day when a candidate that can't win, has run one of the most disgraceful campaigns in modern history, lies every other sentence...about every issue, and seeks to divide her own party by playing to peoples fears actually beats a candidate with the charisma and talent of a Barack Obama.
Worse, it signals to me that racism is alive and well in this country, particularly in West Virginia. The evidence of this racism (and ignorance) jumped off the screen as I looked at the exit polls.
See here: One in four Clinton voters in WV said race was an important factor in their vote.
Saddest of all is that these are DEMOCRATS! Think about that, 40% of West Virginia dems that voted for Hillary are admitting they are racist...this is very, very disconcerting. In all my years as a consultant and number cruncher I have never seen figures like this. Clearly, Hillary's race baiting and scare tactics targeted at white voters about Obama are working.
QUOTES...
“I think it means for all of them that they won’t really get to the deep, profound structural problems that we face as a country. We’re not going to have a discourse in this campaign over the fact that the great American wealth machine is benefiting only those at the top. We’re not going to get to the fact that 10% of the people own 60% of the wealth and 70% of the people have no net worth. We’re not going to get to the issues of how do we rebuild the infrastructure, the sewer, the water, the highways, all that. We’re just going to be constantly in this battle of bumper stickers.”
- Bill Moyers on the media
“You removed the ability for the American public to make an informed decision. Once you have removed that, then you no longer have the authority. You told us what part of the argument is appropriate to know about.”
-- Jon Stewart in one of his most effective cross examinations of a war criminal to date (Douglas Feith)
We have a political system that is vulnerable to continual theft, to continual confusion for the voters, to continual failure to keep an accurate paper trail in order to double check.
Why don’t we simply adopt the Canadian system where in that vast country they have a paper ballot, they have small precincts with no more than 500 voters, and by 11pm that night they know who won and who lost. And if there are any questions, the paper ballots are the verifiable material.
Why are we into this huge electronic miasma with different kinds of machines? Why? Because it is big business. Because it is a procurement item that is growing by the billions every four years. And whenever you get a procurement item that interferes with election integrity you have politicians that are crooked and companies that seduce them into this kind of dishonesty. And it isn’t just taking money. It is dishonesty in not having the best available electoral technology or electoral ways of counting votes accurately.
-- Ralph Nader nails the election fraud crisis
A great montage of Limbaugh's racist greatest hits. It never ceases to amaze me how right wingers can literally say and do anything without fear of retribution from the media, yet if someone on the left says anything they are pilloried. Limbaugh, to this day, is still quoted and cited regularly in the corporate media as someone who's opinion is credible and important. Sick.
From Alternet: For far too long, FOX has devoted hours a day pondering why Barack Obama does not denounce comments made by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, even after Obama denounced them repeatedly, saying that he does not agree with some of Wright’s statements and that Wright does not speak for him. But FOX has continued to assert that Obama is responsible for everything done or said by anyone who has any association with him, no matter how weak, tangential, or inconsequential.
But if FOX believes Obama should answer for the comments and actions of everyone he knows (as well as anyone those people know), why won’t FOX denounce frequent guest Rush Limbaugh?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/85150/
Stephen Colbert does a hysterical mockery of the O’Reilly meltdown:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/14/stephen-colbert-reveals-his-own-on-air-profanity-laced-tirade-video/
Moyers and Olbermann…my two favs get together again to talk media and politics...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/countdown-bill-moyers-on-democracy-our-bumper-sticker-media/
Worst persons...more classic O'Reilly bashing from Olbermann:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/countdowns-worst-persons-wally-world-mccains-myanmar-lobbyist-billo/
The winning video ad for Obama...
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/oi30s_winner.html?rc=short&t=1&id=12647-1187820-.UCryV&t=1
And just when you think the scandal involving military analysts can't get any worse, the "Rumsfeld tapes" come out. Check it out...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/12/audio-military-analyst-to-rumsfeld-you-are-our-leader-had-oreilly-eating-out-of-his-hand/
MORE ON THE PENTAGON/MEDIA/ANALYST SCANDAL
Media Matters did massive research into the Military Analysts scandal since the networks won’t even have a conversation about it and found out that:
A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” media military analysts “into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.”
A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article — many identified as having ties to the defense industry — collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR….
read on
This was great, a CNN reporter who interviewed dozens of soldiers in Iraq, and found that ONLY ONE supported McCain, and they all called it a "Republican War", drops this bombshell right on the head of war monger and scumbag Joe Lieberman:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/12/living-a-republican-war-the-lieberman-version/
And yet ANOTHER Republican loss…this time in Mississippi! This is fantastic, and signals the beginning of the end of the Right wing’s reign of terror:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/13/r10-district-goes-blue-its-like-a-democrat-losing-in-brooklyn/
MCCAIN FUN FACTS…HIS DICTATOR LOBBYISTS
Two of John McCain's senior campaign staff were forced to resign this week after revelations that their lobbying firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent Burma's brutal military dictatorship.1
And it gets worse—turns out this goes all the way to the top. Charlie Black, McCain's campaign chairman, ran a lobbying firm that represented brutal dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire—along with terrorist rebel Jonas Savimbi in Angola. Together, these men have been responsible for massive human suffering.2
And for good measure, Charlie Black has represented war profiteer Blackwater Worldwide and Iraqi fraudster Ahmed Chalabi.3 plus all 112 lobbyists running your campaign,4 including campaign co-chair Tom Loeffler, who has represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a notorious human rights abuser.5
ARTICLE SECTION: HEDGE FUND CROOKS
Hedge fund managers kind of remind of a James Bond villain…behind the scenes, unknown to the public at large, but enormously powerful, super wealthy, and slowly destroying the world.
These mysterious men, and their companies, are starting to be exposed for the damage they reap. You know something is wrong when a few people are making billions of dollars a year off the economic crises...what's wrong with this picture??
A few clips:
Take John Paulson, for example, who took home $3.7 billion last year, which is stunning considering that, as of June 2007, his hedge fund Paulson and Co. had $12.5 billion in assets under management. By my crude math, Paulson walked away with about a third of that worth by himself. George Soros and Renaissance Technologies' James Simons were right behind Feinberg, with $2.9 billion and $2.8 billion respectively, while average compensation for hedge funds' top 25 managers cashed in at $892 million in 2007, an explosive increase of 68 percent over the previous year. In other words, one could say in all confidence that hedge funds, whose financial instruments range from conventional stockpicking to proprietary quantitative computer modeling, are getting paid megabucks during a panic-stricken time of economic collapse, endless war and repressive stagflation.
What one could argue, with an increasing degree of confidence, is that those things are all inextricable.
SNIP
...while hedge funds and private equity groups exploited the misfortunes of those caught beneath currency, housing or internet bubbles, the rest of us watched as the American Dream was being dismantled piece by piece. The $20 an hour wage that had allowed access into the American middle class is now devolving: As a recent article in the International Herald Tribune explained, since the 1970s "the percentage of people earning at least $20 an hour has eroded in every sector of the economy, falling last year to 18 percent of all hourly workers from 23 percent in 1979 -- a gradual unwinding of the post-World War II gains." In 2007, a hedge fund manager had to take home at least $360 million, more than 18 times what s/he had to pull down in 2002, to be considered a player. The American family, by contrast, had to earn more than the median $60,500. And as the former is going up like a rocket, the latter is sinking like a stone.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/84682/
California's Budget Crisis and Republican Priorities: Watch "Yacht Party 2"
If you ever wondered how California got into the mess we're in, look no further than the Republican refusal to raise any taxes, no matter how wealthy the individuals or corporations. Worse, California is one of only a couple of states that requires a 2/3's vote to pass any budget...meaning a minority of fascist Republicans can halt all efforts to do any good at all...
And there is no better example than the Yacht owner tax break. This from the Courage Campaign...and watch the new video:
"The most extreme high priests of the tax cut cult operate right here in California. Because Democrats do not hold a two-thirds majority in our state legislature, a small minority of Republicans is able to hold Californians hostage to a $20 billion state budget deficit, refusing to raise taxes on the super-rich.It gets worse. Much worse.
While California's future is being put in grave jeopardy, the tax cut cult is refusing to close a tax loophole for yacht and private jet owners. Schools closing. Social services slashed to the bone. And right-wing Republicans are letting the uber-wealthy off tax-free on yacht and private jet purchases. It's no wonder the California Republican Party has been re-branded as the "Yacht Party" by the netroots.
To increase the pressure on Republicans in Sacramento to close this yacht tax loophole, we need to make this "Yacht Party" brand stick. That's why the Courage Campaign and California Nurses Association have just teamed up to produce a new 60-second TV ad that strips naked the shocking nature of the California Republican Party's priorities.
https://secure.couragecampaign.org/page/contribute/yachtparty2
BOB BARR TO RUN AS LIBERTARIAN!! THE "REPUBLICAN" VERSION OF NADER
This is great...finally the right wing has to deal with their own third party critic...and he's got a lot of good arguments to make for true conservatives, particularly on the issue of privacy (which Barr is really good on). I could see him taking between 2-4 points...nearly all from McCain too:
From CYL:
Bob Barr is very popular with the Ron Paul crowd. Do you think this could make any difference in November?
McClatchy: Heaping scorn on both major political parties, former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia declared his candidacy Monday for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. Barr, 59, vowed to slash the federal government, restore civil liberties curbed since 2001 and pull back U.S. troops from abroad, both in Iraq and at bases around the world. His campaign could draw support from libertarian-minded or conservative Republicans who are unhappy with the expected nomination of Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Can you believe it? Some Dems are trying to forge a compromise with Bush (as in giving him everything he wants) on the issue of Telecom immunity/wiretapping. We must stop them.
Demand that the House Stand Firm on Wiretapping Legislation!
Our hard fought victories on the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program are in danger once again. Earlier this year the House of Representatives—thanks in large part to pressure from the grassroots and the netroots—stood strong and refused to pass the Senate version of "FISA reform."
That legislation, you'll recall, would have granted retroactive immunity to the Bush administration and the telecom companies that reportedly helped him eavesdrop on Americans without legally-required warrants. Now, however, our allies on the Hill are telling us that high-ranking members in the House are working behind closed doors with the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress to negotiate a compromise bill -- a bill that will give the administration practically everything they've asked for.
Click here to tell Speaker Pelosi: no compromises on illegal wiretapping.
There's simply no reason to rush into passing bad legislation now. Under the existing FISA law, our nation's intelligence agencies already have the tools they need to legitimately monitor terrorist communications. The only reason Bush is trying so hard to push this bill through Congress before he leaves office is to prevent legal discovery of prior violations of the law—disclosures which would be detrimental to the administration and any telecom companies that assisted in the lawbreaking.
END
CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST '20TH HIJACKER,' GUANTANAMO TORTURE VICTIM: The AP reports that the Pentagon has "dropped charges" against Mohammad al-Qahtani, "a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called '20th hijacker' in the Sept. 11 attacks." An attorney involved in the case "said he could not comment on the reasons for the dismissal." Al-Qahtani, also known as Detainee 063, was an important detainee for the Bush administration. He was the subject of a 2002 meeting at Guantanamo that included former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Cheney's lawyer David Addington, and former Pentagon counsel Jim Haynes. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the "First Special Interrogation Plan" for Qahtani, which included "forty-eight days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory overstimulation, and threats with military dogs," as the Center for Constitutional Rights observed. But renowned international lawyer Phillippe Sands noted that credible evidence gleaned from this torture was non-existent. Furthermore, the records of the interrogations were mysteriously lost, as cameras that "run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents."
Good News
"The Nissan Motor Company plans to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010," the first by a major automaker to "bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market."
"Since 2005, eight states -- including four last year -- have enacted laws to abolish stringent rules imposed by some homeowners associations and local agencies on residents who want to power their homes with the sun or wind."
END
ONLY TWO NEWS NETWORKS WILLING TO EXPLAIN ROLES IN PENTAGON PROPAGANDA PROGRAM: On April 20, the New York Times published a blockbuster exposé revealing a secret Pentagon program that used retired military analysts to "generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance." Though the analysts often had "ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies" they assessed on air, their potential conflicts of interest were "hardly ever disclosed to the viewers." Soon after the Times published its article, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) wrote letters to the heads of ABC News, CBS News, CNN News, Fox News Channel, and NBC News asking for "specifics about each outlet's policies surrounding the hiring and vetting of military analysts reporting on the Iraq War." Politico reported yesterday that only ABC's David Westin and CNN’s Jim Walton have responded to DeLauro’s questions. In his response, Westin asserted that ABC News had "acted responsibly and has served its audience well." Though the responses lacked genuine self-examination, it represented more than the other networks even attempted, proving that the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz was right when he said "the networks are ducking this one, big time." In the week after the story broke, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that "out of approximately 1,300 news stories, only two touched on the Pentagon analysts scoop -- both airing on PBS's 'NewsHour.'"
A House Judiciary Committee deadline passed yesterday "with former White House adviser Karl Rove standing by his refusal to testify about allegations that he pushed the Justice Department to prosecute former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman." Rove instead sent a letter offering to respond to questions in writing, rather than testify publicly under oath.
Monday, May 12, 2008
TODAY'S TOPICS: Zinn, R's Falling, Carter, Goodman, Detention Centers, Clinton Shame, War Profiteers
"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean. 'Bring 'em on' is the classic example. ... I don’t know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say."
-- President Bush, 1/13/05
VERSUS
Q: What did the President say to you last 9/11 anniversary, and what does it tell us about his leadership?
REID: Well, I was complaining about what was going on and he basically said, "Bring 'em on. We're killing them. We're killing them."
-- MSNBC interview with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 5/9/08
REPUB ERA COMING TO AN END...
I have been predicting this for years...we are at the end of the Republican era of dominance, and a more progressive movement is on the rise. You can't do as much damage as they have, and been caught in as many lies and crimes, and continue to stay in power. Their old go to fear tactics and smoke and mirrors, while working on the press, isn't working on the people anymore.
Also remember, the Democrats have actually one the last TWO PRESIDENTIAL elections...be it by a hair. So what we are seeing now is what was already a slight advantage, turning into a real big one.
It will be VERY INTERESTING, and so much more fun as a citizen and an advocate, to be focused on getting a democratic congress and a democratic president to do great things than it has been trying to prevent the Republicans from doing truly horrific ones.
I think we, and certainly I, am finally going to get an opportunity to work "for things" rather than usually just trying to stop them....ahhhh...feels good already...:)
From the Washington Post:
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days. In case you've been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon's on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP - the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
ME: Of course, the great fear when such a major shift of power is underway like this, is how far will those in power go to hold on? Or how far will they go to implement and realize their agenda before they must leave? Yes, I am very concerned what the next 8 months has to offer....from war with Iran to detention centers to stolen elections to martial law.
Now more than ever is the time for the Democratic party, and the people, to not bend ONE INCH to the GOP Crime Family...they are a desperate rabid dog, and needs to be put down, not patted on the forehead.
END
VIDEO SECTION
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge. Just weeks ago in Iraq, the U.S. military released Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him without charge for two years. The military had once accused Hussein of being a "terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP."
The committee reports that 127 journalists and an additional 50 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, well more than twice the number killed in World War II. We need to remind the Bush administration: Don't shoot the messenger.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/84848/
I’ve been making this case against Bill and Hillary for quite some time now, but more and more people are starting to join the chorus. Watching them play to our lowest common denominator, praying on voters fears, just as their enemies did to them for so many years is like watching a Shakespearian tragedy. How could these two become what they so hated? How could two people as intelligent and gifted as they are, with a fairly decent life record of accomplishments, so totally sell out?
Watching the Clintons devolve over the years - from 1992 when they had some real potential - until now when they don't, has been a sad evolution for me. As each year goes by I have seen them lose a bit more of their soul and moral compass. Now, they have largely become just parodies of themselves: two people that will say anything to increase their power, with no sense of shame, and no respect for all of us that helped bring them to power.
The great Bob Herbert of the NY Times has had enough too.
A few clips:
There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way - any way - back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train. He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.
SNIP
So class is not a Clinton forte. But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee - and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years. The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/10/8865/
Jimmy Carter just keeps getting better with age. He alone has helped bring some semblance of balance and truth to the whole Matrix written and produced Israel/Palestine issue. I don’t know if there is a more warped representation of reality and justice than this one when it comes to our kowtowing politicians and our corporate media.
All American politicians understand, including Barack: don’t say ONE negative word about Israel, or question their brutal occupation and terrorist attacks on the Palestinians even for a second, because if you do, you will have your character assassinated, your patriotism questioned, and likely be called a racist and terrorist supporter to boot.
It is with this understanding then that I solute Jimmy Carter for bringing attention to this issue…with his usual dash of compassion and objectivity. If only Obama would do the same…
And let’s just be clear, when someone says you’re “anti-Israel” or anti-Jewish because you simply state the facts regarding their government’s foreign policy, remember that the VAST MAJORITY of Jewish Americans absolutely believe there must be a two state solution, Hamas should be negotiated with, and the occupation is brutal. Further, the SAME IS TRUE among Israeli Jews. In fact, a recent poll showed 64% of them believed their government SHOULD negotiate with Hamas!
This is one of those CLASSIC MATRIX created and communicated issues…totally separate from, and in direct opposition to, reality and the truth. It’s only a very small, very powerful, and very corrupt group that supports the policies and crimes of the current Israeli regime.
I still don’t fully grasp how their can be such blind and obedient support by our leaders for these policies, from Obama to McCain. Granted, AIPAC is powerful, but not THAT powerful. But this is a topic for another time.
A few clips from Carter's latest on the recent atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government.
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.
SNIP
All Arab nations have agreed to recognize Israel fully if it will comply with key United Nations resolutions. Hamas has agreed to accept any negotiated peace settlement between the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, provided it is approved in a referendum of the Palestinian people. This holds promise of progress, but despite the brief fanfare and positive statements at the peace conference last November in Annapolis, the process has gone backwards. Nine thousand new Israeli housing units have been announced in Palestine; the number of roadblocks within the West Bank has increased; and the stranglehold on Gaza has been tightened.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/84883/
NEWS CLIPS...
If you remember this “story” last week about Gore…in a negative light I might add…then you too got yet another right wing constructed “controversy” by splicing what Gore really said in regards to the recent cyclone…they are a devious evil movement aren’t they? Lying to the country to destroy the reputation of someone so that person in turn can’t help save our world from pending doom. Now THAT’S EVIL!
RIGHT WING DOCTORS AUDIO CLIPS TO DISTORT GORE'S COMMENTS ABOUT MYANMAR CYCLONE: Last week, the Business & Media Institute (BMI), a right-wing front group founded by Brent Bozell, spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something that he did not. The organization published a false headline claiming Gore called the recent Myanmar cyclone a "consequence" of global warming. But in the NPR interview, Gore asserted that melting polar ice caps (which are unequivocally due to global warming) -- not cyclones -- were a "consequence" of global warming. BMI inverted Gore's comments to make it seem like his remarks about the cyclones followed from his remarks about "the consequences of global warming." Last week, Fox News promoted the doctored clip to make the same false allegations about what Gore actually said. Host Steve Doocy had Dr. William Gray, who has claimed that manmade global warming is “a big scam," on to discuss the issue. CNN's Glenn Beck pushed the false story on his show on May 7.
While "the number of Americans being secretly wiretapped" or having their records reviewed by the government continues to increase, "the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court" has declined. Experts say that the trends are evidence that "the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it."
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "has reached a record high, according to new data published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scientists say the new figures confirm that CO2 "is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected."
The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S.'s evidence of Iranian weapons flowing into Iraq showed some cracks recently. "A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran."
"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean. 'Bring 'em on' is the classic example. ... I don’t know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say."
-- President Bush, 1/13/05
VERSUS
Q: What did the President say to you last 9/11 anniversary, and what does it tell us about his leadership?
REID: Well, I was complaining about what was going on and he basically said, "Bring 'em on. We're killing them. We're killing them."
-- MSNBC interview with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 5/9/08
REPUB ERA COMING TO AN END...
I have been predicting this for years...we are at the end of the Republican era of dominance, and a more progressive movement is on the rise. You can't do as much damage as they have, and been caught in as many lies and crimes, and continue to stay in power. Their old go to fear tactics and smoke and mirrors, while working on the press, isn't working on the people anymore.
Also remember, the Democrats have actually one the last TWO PRESIDENTIAL elections...be it by a hair. So what we are seeing now is what was already a slight advantage, turning into a real big one.
It will be VERY INTERESTING, and so much more fun as a citizen and an advocate, to be focused on getting a democratic congress and a democratic president to do great things than it has been trying to prevent the Republicans from doing truly horrific ones.
I think we, and certainly I, am finally going to get an opportunity to work "for things" rather than usually just trying to stop them....ahhhh...feels good already...:)
From the Washington Post:
John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days. In case you've been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.
At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.
In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon's on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP - the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
ME: Of course, the great fear when such a major shift of power is underway like this, is how far will those in power go to hold on? Or how far will they go to implement and realize their agenda before they must leave? Yes, I am very concerned what the next 8 months has to offer....from war with Iran to detention centers to stolen elections to martial law.
Now more than ever is the time for the Democratic party, and the people, to not bend ONE INCH to the GOP Crime Family...they are a desperate rabid dog, and needs to be put down, not patted on the forehead.
END
VIDEO SECTION
The great red pill dispenser Howard Zinn is at it again...but with Viggo Mortensen reading some of his latest writings. The inhumanity and immorality of our American Empire is exposed by Zinn over and over in the most truthful, articulate, and objective way one has even been able to do it. Watch and listen:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/84913/
Immigrant detention centers…and we don’t know the half of it I’m sure. I do know such places were being built by Halliburton, and would be manned by Blackwater…kind of a corporate evil empire imprisoning darker skinned people in our own country. Ah yes, nothing to see here people…nothing fascist about this at all. Just watch American Idol, where a flag lapel, and eat your McDonalds!
This is heartbreaking…just a warning:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/12/60-minutes-immigrant-detention-in-america/
Keith’s worst persons…love it when he fact checks Fox and the right wing:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/10/countdowns-worst-persons-in-the-world-dont-bother-me-with-facts-edition/
In case you had any doubts, yes, O'reilly is insane. Watch this absolute meltdown on the set…what a scumbag:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/85105/
WAR PROFITEER FACTS…
What's it going to take for us to hold the Iraq War profiteers accountable? The Bush administration's $3 trillion war in Iraq has been the direct cause of our current recession, and yet private defense contractors continue to reap billions in profits. I'm not even talking about KBR for the moment. That loathsome Cheney-backed Halliburton subsidiary has actually been the focus of a bit of media and Congressional attention recently (though not nearly enough) for contaminating our troops' water supplies, ignoring electrical safety standards that led to troop casualties, and dodging hundreds of millions in tax payments. No, I'm talking about L-3, the second largest employer in the Iraq occupation behind KBR.
L-3 makes about $1 billion a year off of the outsourcing of intelligence gathering in Iraq. The U.S. government hired L-3 to work with the military in interrogating and running background checks on Iraqi prisoners and civilians. L-3 now employs approximately 7,000 translators and 300 intelligence experts in Iraq, and has grown to become the ninth largest defense contractor in the U.S and the sixth largest Iraq War profiteer.
END
ARTICLE SECTION: Goodman, Herbert, Carter
This too will make your skin crawl. When our news corporations and politicians make claims about Al Jazeera, remember this, they are FAR MORE credible, honest and objective than any of our news media conglomerates. Amy Goodman breaks down the growing body of evidence proving our governments systematic and coordinated efforts to destroy, kill, intimidate and smear this up and coming, critically important news organization. What a signal to send to the Muslim world: "we only like a "free" press when it says what we want!" God we look like such silly hypocrites...
In November 2001, despite the fact that Al-Jazeera had given the U.S. military the coordinates of its office in Kabul, U.S. warplanes bombed Al-Jazeera's bureau there, destroying it. An Al-Jazeera reporter covering the George Bush-Vladimir Putin summit in Crawford, Texas, in the same month was detained by the FBI because his credit card was "linked to Afghanistan." In spring 2003, the U.S. dropped four bombs on the Sheraton hotel in Basra, Iraq, where Al-Jazeera correspondents -- the only journalists reporting from that city -- were the lone guests. Another Al-Jazeera staffer showed his ID to a U.S. Marine at a Baghdad checkpoint, only to have his car fired upon by the Marines. He was unhurt. That can't be said for Tareq Ayyoub, an Al-Jazeera correspondent who was on the roof of the network's bureau in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, when a U.S. warplane strafed it. He was killed. His widow, Dima Tahboub, told me: "Hate breeds hate. The United States said they were doing this to rout out terrorism. Who is engaged in terrorism now?"
SNIP
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge. Just weeks ago in Iraq, the U.S. military released Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him without charge for two years. The military had once accused Hussein of being a "terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP."
The committee reports that 127 journalists and an additional 50 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, well more than twice the number killed in World War II. We need to remind the Bush administration: Don't shoot the messenger.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/84848/
I’ve been making this case against Bill and Hillary for quite some time now, but more and more people are starting to join the chorus. Watching them play to our lowest common denominator, praying on voters fears, just as their enemies did to them for so many years is like watching a Shakespearian tragedy. How could these two become what they so hated? How could two people as intelligent and gifted as they are, with a fairly decent life record of accomplishments, so totally sell out?
Watching the Clintons devolve over the years - from 1992 when they had some real potential - until now when they don't, has been a sad evolution for me. As each year goes by I have seen them lose a bit more of their soul and moral compass. Now, they have largely become just parodies of themselves: two people that will say anything to increase their power, with no sense of shame, and no respect for all of us that helped bring them to power.
The great Bob Herbert of the NY Times has had enough too.
A few clips:
There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way - any way - back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train. He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.
SNIP
So class is not a Clinton forte. But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee - and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years. The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/10/8865/
Jimmy Carter just keeps getting better with age. He alone has helped bring some semblance of balance and truth to the whole Matrix written and produced Israel/Palestine issue. I don’t know if there is a more warped representation of reality and justice than this one when it comes to our kowtowing politicians and our corporate media.
All American politicians understand, including Barack: don’t say ONE negative word about Israel, or question their brutal occupation and terrorist attacks on the Palestinians even for a second, because if you do, you will have your character assassinated, your patriotism questioned, and likely be called a racist and terrorist supporter to boot.
It is with this understanding then that I solute Jimmy Carter for bringing attention to this issue…with his usual dash of compassion and objectivity. If only Obama would do the same…
And let’s just be clear, when someone says you’re “anti-Israel” or anti-Jewish because you simply state the facts regarding their government’s foreign policy, remember that the VAST MAJORITY of Jewish Americans absolutely believe there must be a two state solution, Hamas should be negotiated with, and the occupation is brutal. Further, the SAME IS TRUE among Israeli Jews. In fact, a recent poll showed 64% of them believed their government SHOULD negotiate with Hamas!
This is one of those CLASSIC MATRIX created and communicated issues…totally separate from, and in direct opposition to, reality and the truth. It’s only a very small, very powerful, and very corrupt group that supports the policies and crimes of the current Israeli regime.
I still don’t fully grasp how their can be such blind and obedient support by our leaders for these policies, from Obama to McCain. Granted, AIPAC is powerful, but not THAT powerful. But this is a topic for another time.
A few clips from Carter's latest on the recent atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government.
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.
SNIP
All Arab nations have agreed to recognize Israel fully if it will comply with key United Nations resolutions. Hamas has agreed to accept any negotiated peace settlement between the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, provided it is approved in a referendum of the Palestinian people. This holds promise of progress, but despite the brief fanfare and positive statements at the peace conference last November in Annapolis, the process has gone backwards. Nine thousand new Israeli housing units have been announced in Palestine; the number of roadblocks within the West Bank has increased; and the stranglehold on Gaza has been tightened.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/84883/
NEWS CLIPS...
If you remember this “story” last week about Gore…in a negative light I might add…then you too got yet another right wing constructed “controversy” by splicing what Gore really said in regards to the recent cyclone…they are a devious evil movement aren’t they? Lying to the country to destroy the reputation of someone so that person in turn can’t help save our world from pending doom. Now THAT’S EVIL!
RIGHT WING DOCTORS AUDIO CLIPS TO DISTORT GORE'S COMMENTS ABOUT MYANMAR CYCLONE: Last week, the Business & Media Institute (BMI), a right-wing front group founded by Brent Bozell, spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something that he did not. The organization published a false headline claiming Gore called the recent Myanmar cyclone a "consequence" of global warming. But in the NPR interview, Gore asserted that melting polar ice caps (which are unequivocally due to global warming) -- not cyclones -- were a "consequence" of global warming. BMI inverted Gore's comments to make it seem like his remarks about the cyclones followed from his remarks about "the consequences of global warming." Last week, Fox News promoted the doctored clip to make the same false allegations about what Gore actually said. Host Steve Doocy had Dr. William Gray, who has claimed that manmade global warming is “a big scam," on to discuss the issue. CNN's Glenn Beck pushed the false story on his show on May 7.
While "the number of Americans being secretly wiretapped" or having their records reviewed by the government continues to increase, "the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court" has declined. Experts say that the trends are evidence that "the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it."
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "has reached a record high, according to new data published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scientists say the new figures confirm that CO2 "is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected."
The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S.'s evidence of Iranian weapons flowing into Iraq showed some cracks recently. "A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran."
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