A Fresh Face for the White House
Today John McCain officially announces his presidential campaign. And this is the AP picture that appeared in The Washington Post (and probably elsewhere) to illustrate the story on his pending declaration:
It's just the photo McCain wants today. One war, two tired old guys.
Posted by David Corn at April 25, 2007 12:27 PM
25 comments:
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
capt
"Hi Capt. I'm very busy today so I'd appreciate if you'd remind the folks that Bill Moyers' documentary on selling/buying the war will air tonight on PBS.
Check local listings.
Bill was featured on Democracy Now today. I'll watch the rerun if I'm back."
Thanks Pat!
capt
One picture and two sick looking creatures! Thugs of human flesh flock together!
EST (Detroit on PBS 9:00 PM 90 minutes)
I will be watching, BUYING THE WAR.
For people who bought this war hook, line and sinker I have a bridge to sell you at a reasonable price.
On Journalism And Democracy
Bill Moyers is chairman of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and an independent journalist with his own production company. He is launching a new weekly series on PBS in April, and his documentary "Buying the War," about the press and the buildup to the war in Iraq, airs tonight on PBS.This interview first appeared in The Christian Century.
You were part of the Johnson administration during its escalation of the Vietnam War. What perspective does that experience give you on the current administration and the war in Iraq?
Both Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush made the mistake of embracing a totalistic policy for a concrete reality that requires instead a more pragmatic response. You shouldn't go to war for a Grand Theory on a hunch, yet both men plunged into complex local quarrels only to discover that they were treading on quicksand. And they learned too late that American exceptionalism doesn't mean we can work our will anywhere we please. While freedom may be a universal yearning, democracy is not, alas, a universal solution—there are too many extenuating circumstances.
Both presidents rushed to judgment on premature and flawed intelligence—LBJ after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Bush in conflating the terrorists attacks of 9/11 with the activities of Saddam Hussein. Each thought anything less than all-out victory would stigmatize his presidency. And in both wars, as the American people watched
the casualties mount and the horrors unfold—Abu Ghraib had its precedents in Vietnam—they saw the abstractions invoked by each president to justify the conflict confounded by the coarseness of human nature laid bare by war.
Vietnam cost far more in lives—American and Vietnamese—than Iraq has so far. What came out of it was not democracy but capitalism with a communist face—something that was likely to happen anyway, as it did in China. Iraq, on the other hand, has destabilized world affairs more than the Vietnam War ever did. Long after I am gone my grandchildren will be living with the consequences of this unilateral and preemptive war in the Middle East.
If the Bush administration were to ask you for your advice, what would you say to them?
Well, I did give President Bush advice once: on a broadcast I urged him to make Al Gore head of homeland security—in other words, turn our response to the terrorist attacks into a bipartisan effort, make the fight against terrorism an American cause, not a partisan battle cry.
What would I say now? Fire the ideologues and assign them to scrub the floors at Guantánamo for penitence. Stop confusing neocon pundits with Old Testament prophets. Read the Bible for humility's sake, but for policy's sake commit to memory the report of the Iraq Study Group. Don't sacrifice any more soldiers to prove you're in charge; get the soldiers out of the line of fire between Sunnis and Shi'ites. And remind your hirelings of Winston Churchill's definition of democracy as the occasional necessity of deferring to the opinions of other people.
More HERE
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More on the above from Pat.
capt
Oregon Governor starts week on food stamps
SALEM, Ore. --If Gov. Ted Kulongoski seems a little sluggish this week, he's got an excuse: he couldn't afford coffee.
In fact, the Democratic governor couldn't afford much of anything during a trip to a Salem-area grocery store on Tuesday, where he had exactly $21 to buy a week's worth of food -- the same amount that the state's average food stamp recipient spends weekly on groceries.
Kulongoski is taking the weeklong challenge to raise awareness about the difficulty of feeding a family on a food stamp budget.
Accompanied by reporters and food stamp recipient Christina Sigman-Davenport, Kulongoski headed straight for a display of organic bananas, only to have Sigman-Davenport steer him toward the cheaper non-organic variety.
The governor pined wistfully for canned Progresso soups, but at $1.53 apiece, they would have blown the budget. He settled instead for three packages of Cup O'Noodles for 33 cents apiece. Kulongoski also gave up his usual Adams natural, no-stir peanut butter for a generic store brand, but drew the line at saving money by buying peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.
"I don't much like the looks of that," said Kulongoski, 66, staring at the concoction.
Other shoppers in the store were bemused by Kulongoski's quest.
"Obviously, he doesn't shop often," Barb Sours of Salem said, as Kulongoski bounced around the aisles in search of granola. "He's all over the place."
Kulongoski did pause to chat with shoppers John and Bonnie White of Salem, telling them all about his $21 limit.
"Don't spend it all in one place," John White warned.
Along the way, Sigman-Davenport, a mother of three who works for the state Department of Human Services and went on food stamps in the fall after her husband lost his job, dispensed tips for shopping on a budget. Scan the highest and lowest shelves, she told the governor. Look for off-brand products, clip coupons religiously, get used to filling, low-cost staples like macaroni and cheese and beans, and, when possible, buy in bulk.
At the check-out counter, Kulongoski's purchases totaled $21.97, forcing him to give back one of the Cup O'Noodles and two bananas, for a final cost of $20.97 for 19 items.
After the hourlong shopping trip, Kulongoski said he was mindful that his week on food stamps will be finite and that thousands of others aren't so lucky.
"I don't care what they call it, if this is what it takes to get the word out," Kulongoski said, in response to questions about whether the food stamp challenge was no more than a publicity stunt. "This is an issue every citizen in this state should be aware of."
More HERE
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" Sigman-Davenport, a mother of three who works for the state Department of Human Services and went on food stamps in the fall after her husband lost his job"
State DHS employee has to be on food stamps?
capt
Matthews repeated false claim that Clinton called for "permanent" U.S. presence in Iraq
On the April 23 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews acknowledged that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "doesn't use the term 'permanent bases' " to describe her support for a continuing U.S. military presence in Iraq, but nevertheless repeated his false claim that Clinton has called for keeping troops in Iraq "permanently." Matthews asked: "Why is she so sensitive every time I say she wants to keep a permanent base there? What's the difference between keeping forces there permanently ... and having a permanent base? Is there a distinction without a difference here?" Matthews also falsely claimed that a March 15 New York Times article supported his account of Clinton's position.
As noted in the March 15 article, Clinton explained in a lengthy March 13 interview with the Times that she would "keep a reduced military force there [in Iraq] to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military" as part of her troop-withdrawal plan. Clinton did not, in the Times interview or elsewhere, say she wanted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq "permanently."
Moreover, Clinton's proposal for a limited number of troops to remain in Iraq after a substantial withdrawal is similar to the provision included in the Democratic conference report on the Iraq war spending bill expected to be voted on in the House and Senate this week. On April 23, CQ.com reported: "The conference report would allow some U.S. troops to remain in Iraq to protect U.S. personnel and infrastructure, train and equip Iraqi troops, and engage in targeted counterterrorism operations -- exemptions that were included in both the House and Senate versions of the bill."
More HERE
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Media Matters has been very dependable with their facts.
capt
Capt, the Federal Reserve is slacking. Time to print more money!
Nobody has mentioned the fact that as we are in deficit spending the whole $124 billion for Iraq is to the dollar a future tax burden.
Spending of any type is a form of tax as every dollar spent has to come from somewhere.
"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."
~ P. J. O'Rourke (1947 - )
capt
"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man." -Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227
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"Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating." : Leo Tolstoy
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"Blind patriotism has been kept intact by rewriting history to provide people with moral consolation and a psychological basis for denial." -William H. Boyer
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"Patriotism is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a web of lies and falsehoods, robbing us of our dignity and increasing our arrogance and conceit." : Emma Goldman
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Thanks ICH Newsletter!
About the new-planet story on the previous thread: Hmmm...Earthlike planet, but bigger, so it has heavier gravity, and it orbits a red sun...did somebody say "Krypton"? :)
From the Glass Forest, Ivory Bill Flamebird
Southern Poverty Law Center
Petition to Stop Guestworker Abuse
To: President Bush and Members of Congress
For too long, our country has reaped economic benefits from the labor of foreign guestworkers — but has ignored the incredible abuses they endure. Guestworkers are routinely cheated out of wages; charged exorbitant fees to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs; virtually enslaved by employers; forced to live in squalid conditions; and denied medical benefits for injuries.
You now have the opportunity to right this terrible wrong. We must reform our broken immigration system. But this overhaul must not rely on perpetuating the exploitation of guestworkers. As part of immigration reform, please take action now to stop the shameful abuse of temporary foreign guestworkers and ensure that strong labor protections are enacted and vigorously enforced.
Let your voice be heard.
More HERE
Bush Blames the Troops
Blame it on the military but make it look like you're supporting the troops. That's been the convenient gambit of failed emperors throughout history as they witnessed their empires decline. Not surprisingly then, it's become the standard rhetorical trick employed by President Bush in shirking responsibility for the Iraq debacle of his making.
Ignoring the fact that we have a system of civilian control over the military, which is why he, the elected president, is designated the commander in chief, Bush hides behind the fiction that the officers in the field are calling the shots when in fact he has put them in an unwinnable situation and refuses to even consider a timetable for getting them out.
He did it again Monday, responding to the prospect that both houses of Congress seem in agreement on setting guidelines for the "progress" that the president continually proclaims is at hand. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable [for] withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job."
This is disingenuous in the extreme, because Bush is the Washington politician who plotted this unnecessary war from the moment the 9/11 attack provided him with an excuse for regime change in a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.
It was Bush who sent the troops to invade Iraq with the mission of ridding it of weapons of mass destruction, which he should have known Iraq did not have, and to end ties with al-Qaida that, the record shows, he knew never existed. And it was the Bush administration that micro-managed every aspect of the occupation to disastrous consequences ranging from the de-Baathification that isolated the Sunnis to premature elections that put Shiite theocrats in power.
More HERE
Here's a soldier's opinion from Craig's list:
Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT
I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.
I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse shit? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box.
You fuckers and that god-damn lying sack of shit they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.
And you know what the most fucked up thing about this Iraq shit is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We fucked up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for.
Oh while I'm good and worked up, the government doesn't even have the decency to help out the soldiers whos lives they ruined. If you really believe the military and the government had no idea the veterans' hospitals were so fucked up, you are a god-damn retard. They don't care about us. We're disposable. We're numbers on a page and they'd rather forget we exist so they don't have to be reminded about the families and lives they ruined while they're sipping their cocktails at another fund raiser dinner. If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they'd bring them home so their families wouldn't have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn't coming home. Because you can't explain it. We're not fighting for our country, we're not fighting for the good of Iraq's people, we're fighting for Bush's personal agenda. Patriotism my ass. You know what? My dad served in Vietnam and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
So I'm pissed. I'm beyond pissed. And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.
Fuck you, war supporters, George W. Bush, and all the god damn mother fuckers who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.
"The fact that certain planets are uninhabited may very well derive from the fact that their nuclear scientist are more advanced than ours."
~ Salon Gahlin, Swedish author
Close to Slavery
Guestworker Programs in the United States
Downloadcomplete report (PDF, 900k)
Sections online
A Brief History of Guestworkers in America
How Guestworker Programs Operate
Recruitment: Exploitation Begins at Home
Recruiting Bonanza
Post-Katrina Jobs
Holding the "Deportation Card"
Wage and Hour Abuses
Wages Set Too Low
Contract Violations
Injuries Without Effective Recourse
Lack of Government Enforcement
Tobacco Workers
Labor Brokers
Systematic Discrimination
Housing
Recommendations
In his 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush called for legislation creating a "legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis." Doing so, the president said, would mean "they won't have to try to sneak in." Such a program has been central to Bush's past immigration reform proposals. Similarly, recent congressional proposals have included provisions that would bring potentially millions of new "guest" workers to the United States.
What Bush did not say was that the United States already has a guestworker program for unskilled laborers — one that is largely hidden from view because the workers are typically socially and geographically isolated. Before we expand this system in the name of immigration reform, we should carefully examine how it operates.
Under the current system, called the H-2 program, employers brought about 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005 — approximately 32,000 for agricultural work and another 89,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.
More HERE
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As Americans we are better than this. Bush and his neocon pals bring out the very worst.
capt
Capt, preparing for the NAU, goal, bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Soon, we'll all be guest workers in a foreign country, because we won't recognize the United States of America anymore. Fascism, it ALWAYS gets resurrected.
Ray Bethell, the master Multiple-Kite flyer
This is fantastic!
Saladin...
Wow!
-t
Saladin,
I don't remember any kites I have flown that were controllable, maybe I was not such a good kite flier.
I know I never heard that music so I must have been doing something wrong.
capt
Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.
(satire)
MIDDLE EAST—With the Iraq war in its fifth year, the war in Afghanistan in its sixth, and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.
"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who added the same old same old while answering reporters' questions. "We're disappointed by the events of the last few months, but we're confident that we're about to [yakety yakety yak]."
The U.N. has issued a strongly worded whatever denouncing someone or something presumably having to do with the vicious explosive things that raged across this, or shattered the predawn calm of that, or ripped suddenly through the other, killing umpteen innocent civilians in a Jerusalem bus or Beirut discotheque or Fallujah mosque or whatever it was this time.
More HERE
Bush '03 v. Bush '07 [VIDEO]
The Daily Show unleashes "first term president Bush" against "second term president Bush" to reveal the evolving humorous vacuity of the Bush Administration's policies.
Ok, ok, much is taken out of context and rearranged for comedy's sake, but the whole thing is worth it for the Saddam portion...
More HERE
Giuliani Bin Laden [VIDEO]
Keith Olbermann's latest special comment leaves Rudy Giuliani in ribbons for his comments that, in essence, voting for a Democrat in 2008 would be suicide.
Obama tore him a new one in a Dem politician running for president kind of way, too.
Partial transcript:
Since some indeterminable hour between the final dousing of the pyre at The World Trade Center, and the breaking of what Sen. Barack Obama has aptly termed "9/11 fever," it has been profoundly and disturbingly evident that we are at the center of one of history’s great ironies.
Only in this America of the early 21st century could it be true that the man who was president during the worst attack on our nation and the man who was the mayor of the city in which that attack principally unfolded would not only be absolved of any and all blame for the unreadiness of their own governments, but, moreover, would thereafter be branded heroes of those attacks.
And now, that mayor — whose most profound municipal act in the wake of that nightmare was to suggest the postponement of the election to select his own successor — has gone even a step beyond these M.C. Escher constructions of history.
"If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it."
Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back ... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued: "But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."
He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.
And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn’t hear the none-too-subtle subtext of "vote Democratic and die," Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of politico.com:
"America will be safer with a Republican president."
At least that Republican president under which we have not been safer has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president — or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani’s flights of grandeur in New Hampshire — even if they elect a different Republican.
How ... dare ... you, sir?
More HERE
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Keith Olbermann for president?
capt
Leaked speech reveals Tory environment blueprint
An accidentally leaked Conservative speech revealed on Tuesday night key details of the government's long-awaited national environmental initiative.
Details of the plan became public after a speech that Environment Minister John Baird was to deliver this week was faxed by mistake to the opposition Liberals on Tuesday.
"This was a prepositioning speech I was to give either today or tomorrow before the announcement," Baird told CTV's Canada AM.
"We're going to be coming forward with a real package to regulate Canadian industry -- the 700 biggest industrial emitters in Canada for both pollution and for greenhouse gases."
More HERE
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