HAPPY NEW YEAR * PEACE ON EARTH and in GAZA

May you have a year filled with LOVE, joy, peace, health, wealth, happiness and success!

'Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.'

There's a lot of news to report. Hope you are tuning in to the Basham and Cornell show. This week we are replaying some of our best broadcasts - with MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, PBS Emmy Award Winner, Christopher Cerf and CNN's Paul Begala.

Obama Should Engage Now for Middle East Peace
Please read this article below by John Nichols at The Nation

An Israeli air assault on Palestinian targets in Gaza has taken an estimated 300 lives over the course of the past several days, and the death toll is mounting rapidly. Dozens of children have been killed, confirming that there is nothing "surgical" about these strikes.

Most U.S. media coverage portrays a simple struggle between Israelis on the one side and Gaza's Hamas militants on the other. This is the line that is being advanced aggressively by the Bush administration and that has effectively been accepted by President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, which is maintaining its "Bush speaks for the U.S. until January 20" line even as the crisis mounts. Following Bush's lead, Obama has refused to call for a more nuanced and effective U.S. response to an escalation of the Middle East conflict that Palestinian parliamentarian Mustafa Barghouti on Sunday described as the worst since the 1967 war in the region.

Obama and his aides should be openly counseling the Bush administration to use every diplomatic avenue to promote a ceasefire and, above all, to urge against an Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza.
Read more at TheNation.com